Letter 173: They stood firm against the passions — the very passions they had previously acknowledged defeat against.
The Prophet called those who are unstable and resemble you, O fickle one, dust thrown off from the face of the earth. For though you were planted by the blessed Ammon and watered in a manner pleasing to God and firmly established and, as we supposed, bore fruit, you wander through many houses not for the sake of instruction but of restlessness. The monk who changes his place constantly will never change himself.
AI-assisted translation - This translation was produced with AI assistance and has not been peer-reviewed. See the 19th-century translation or original Latin/Greek below for scholarly use.
Latin / Greek Original
ΡΟΓ. – ΜΑΡΚΟ ΜΟΝΑΧΩ.
Πρὸς μοναχὸν τόπον ἐκ τόπου ἀμείβοντα.
Τοὺς ἀστηρίκτους καὶ σοὶ προσεοικότας, ἀβέβαιε,
χοῦν ἐκριπτούμενον ἀπὸ προσώπου τῆς γῆς ὁ Προ-
φήτης ἐκάλεσεν. Εἰ γὰρ φυτευθεὶς παρὰ τοῦ μακα-
ρίου (67) ῎Αμμωνός, καὶ ποτισθεὶς θεοφιλῶς, καὶ
ἀσφαλῶς ἑδρασθεὶς, καὶ καρπὸν ἐνηνοχὼς, ὡς
ᾠόμεθα, πολλοὺς οἴκους περινοστεῖς οὐ χάριν παι-
δεύσεως, ἀλλ᾿ ἀβροτέρας σιτήσεως, τις σε κατ'
ἀξίαν ὀδύραιτο, καὶ σαυτὸν ἀπολλύντα, καὶ πολλοὺς
ἀχρειοῦντα, οἷς ἡ νεότης τὴν εὐκολίαν εἰσποιεῖται
συμφέρουσαν;
Revision history
- 2026-03-20v2.1.0-import
Initial corpus import from Patrologia Graeca 78 OCR.
Fields: letter text, metadata, source links. Source: https://archive.org/details/PatrologiaGraeca (PG vol.78)
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