Letter 215
To Seleucius the Deacon.
Since there are four most general virtues — prudence, courage, temperance, justice — for this reason the devil too has made use of four most comprehensive vices, embracing many vices, for his counterattack. And hear what Zechariah the prophet says, when he beheld the four-horned power of Satan: "I lifted up my eyes, and I saw four horns, the ones that scattered Judah and Israel." [Zechariah 1:18-19, Septuagint numbering]
AI-assisted translation - This translation was produced with AI assistance and has not been peer-reviewed.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
Ἐπειδὴ τέσσαρες ὑπάρχουσιν ἀρεταὶ γενικώταται,
φρόνησις, ἀνδρεία, σώφροσυνη, δικαιοσύνη, τούτου
χάριν καὶ ὁ διάβολος τέσσαρσιν κακίαις περιεικτι-
τάταις πολλῶν κακιῶν πρὸς ἄμυναν κέχρηται. Καὶ
ἄκουσον, τί λέγει Ζαχαρίας ὁ προφήτης, τὴν τετρα-
κέρατον τοῦ Σατανᾶ θεασάμενος δύναμιν· Ἥρα τούς
ὀφθαλμούς μου, καὶ ἴδον τέσσαρα κέρατα, τὰ δια-
σκορπίσαντα τὸν Ἰούδαν, καὶ τὸν Ἰσραήλ.
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
Related Letters
I am troubled that in our time the names of virtues and vices have been systematically confused.
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