Letter 134
Nilus of Ancyra→Amphilochius|c. 415 AD|nilus ancyra|From Ancyra|AI-assisted
To the Same Person.
Virtue in old age could not be called virtue, but incapacity. Therefore virtue must rather be achieved by us in youth, and in a young body we must display a gray-haired [i.e., mature and seasoned] disposition.
Ἡ ἐν τῷ γήρᾳ ἀρετὴ οὐκ ἂν κληθείη ἀρετή, ἀλλ’ ἀδυναμία. Οὐκοῦν ἐν τῇ νεότητι μᾶλλον τὴν ἀρετὴν κατεργαστέον ἡμῖν, καὶ ἐν σώματι νέῳ πολιδὸν ἐνδεικνυσθαι φρόνημα.
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To the Same Person.
Virtue in old age could not be called virtue, but incapacity. Therefore virtue must rather be achieved by us in youth, and in a young body we must display a gray-haired [i.e., mature and seasoned] disposition.
AI-assisted translation - This translation was produced with AI assistance and has not been peer-reviewed.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
Ἡ ἐν τῷ γήρᾳ ἀρετὴ οὐκ ἂν κληθείη ἀρετή, ἀλλ’ ἀδυναμία. Οὐκοῦν ἐν τῇ νεότητι μᾶλλον τὴν ἀρετὴν κατεργαστέον ἡμῖν, καὶ ἐν σώματι νέῳ πολιδὸν ἐνδεικνυσθαι φρόνημα.
Revision history
- 2026-05-27v2.2.34-import
Initial corpus import from modern nilus ancyra workflow v1.
Fields: letter text, metadata, source links. Source: project source import