Nilus of Ancyra→Timothy (correspondent of Nilus of Ancyra)|c. 415 AD|nilus ancyra|From Ancyra|AI-assisted
To Timothy the subdeacon.
You have written to me, saying: I should like to learn what benefit there is in the vigils that people keep, since I see many being zealous and alert toward this practice; but I consider keeping vigil to be superfluous, since God laid sleep upon Adam [Genesis 2:21], and one must by all means sleep. For God has no need of my good deed. Now, what came to pass for Adam in a perceptible manner at the beginning hinted darkly at an intelligible mystery; for it signified that the second Adam, that is, our Lord Jesus Christ, was going to put human death to sleep upon the cross, so that from his holy side, pierced with a lance and flowing with blood and water [John 19:34], his spiritual bride might be built up, that is, the catholic Church. But your saying that one must sleep, on the ground that God laid sleep upon you as though it were a law for your admonition and for relaxation, is exceedingly brutish, and not befitting a man who has been entrusted with a rational soul. And what then remains for you, who hold a brutish and irrational purpose, but to bleat as you lie upon your bed, or to bellow, or to bray, while other men, as you yourself have said, are alert and zealous for the hymnody of God throughout the vigils, and overpower and shake off the tyranny of sleep? For it is high time for you, who have acquired a senseless mind, to spend the whole time of your life in drowsiness, and no longer to be called a living man, but a tomb of the dead, having buried within your living body a soul dead with utter destruction, and no longer to behold the light of men, but, after the manner of a miscarriage [an aborted fetus], to go from darkness into darkness; and truly, according to what is written, a man honored with the image of God, "he did not understand; he was compared with the senseless beasts, and was made like to them" [Psalm 49(48):20].
But if you wish to know the benefit of the vigil, inquire carefully what he said who each night watered his couch with his tears: "I came before the dawn and cried out, confessing and praising you; I rose at midnight" [Psalm 119(118):147-148, 62], not pricked on by another, and dragged by force to shake off sleep, but myself rousing myself eagerly to the glorification of the Creator. For this has been reckoned by me sweeter than sleep, since great is the benefit that comes from it, and it becomes the procurer of many eternal good things for those who keep vigil. For first, when we uncover to God the faults that have befallen us through deeds or words during the preceding day, we are lightened of the burden of them, as of a heavy load lying upon the shoulders of the soul, and with the fire of the vigil we reduce to ashes, as though we were burning up thorns, the wealth of the devil. For that one grows rich each day by our transgressions. Therefore the devil is henceforth distressed, and roars against us, when he sees us giving ourselves to the vigil, and attending to it with longing and with love of toil; for we cast him into great loss and confusion, showing him stripped and bereft of the gain that accrues to him each day through our sins. And secondly, that many-headed and altogether wicked beast, who springs upon us invisibly and wishes to tear us apart or to swallow us up, the vigil bridles and trips up and dwells against, and loosens the sinews of his wickedness, while it procures for us the attainment of the heavenly bounty, since grace gushes up for us beyond the springs, and is poured out beyond the sea for our benefit. And then we too become more sluggish henceforth concerning sin, since the vigil exchanges into us thoughts of the love of God, and works in us an aversion from the vanity of the world, and teaches us to thrust away the things that harm us. For the vigil that is according to God, taking us up by night when we are solitary and deprived of the confusion of crowds, and of the busyness of transactions, and of the company of friends, having found its opportunity, like a tender-loving mother, in some unobserved place, filled with stillness and watchfulness and calm and full peace, and setting us beside herself, opens her own treasures of wisdom, and of venerable exhortations, and of divine illuminations. And secretly she fills the bosoms of our soul; and if we keep watchfully all the things given to us, blessed are we, and thrice-blessed.
And ten thousand times over they know what I say, the initiates and nurslings of the noble vigil, who long to strike the harp of David [the psalms] with the plectrum of their own tongue, and in their own throat, as the Prophet says, to sing aloud the exaltations of God. "Does not my throat meditate on understanding?" [cf. Job 6:30; Psalm 19(18)]. And just as the darkness, so also do I show forth the light, illuminating with the psalms and shining upon the gloom of the night, and "my eyes come before the dawn, to meditate upon the words of the Lord" [Psalm 119(118):148]; and being adorned with the scarlet grain of fiery understandings, I urge the wisdom from above to come upon me; for the grace of the Lord visits us who keep vigil ineffably, and appears beyond reason, and lifts up the sacred minds toward the contemplation of it that is attainable, and toward likeness to it, namely those who, as is lawful and in a manner befitting sacred things, apply themselves to it.
You have written to me, saying: I should like to learn what benefit there is in the vigils that people keep, since I see many being zealous and alert toward this practice; but I consider keeping vigil to be superfluous, since God laid sleep upon Adam [Genesis 2:21], and one must by all means sleep. For God has no need of my good deed. Now, what came to pass for Adam in a perceptible manner at the beginning hinted darkly at an intelligible mystery; for it signified that the second Adam, that is, our Lord Jesus Christ, was going to put human death to sleep upon the cross, so that from his holy side, pierced with a lance and flowing with blood and water [John 19:34], his spiritual bride might be built up, that is, the catholic Church. But your saying that one must sleep, on the ground that God laid sleep upon you as though it were a law for your admonition and for relaxation, is exceedingly brutish, and not befitting a man who has been entrusted with a rational soul. And what then remains for you, who hold a brutish and irrational purpose, but to bleat as you lie upon your bed, or to bellow, or to bray, while other men, as you yourself have said, are alert and zealous for the hymnody of God throughout the vigils, and overpower and shake off the tyranny of sleep? For it is high time for you, who have acquired a senseless mind, to spend the whole time of your life in drowsiness, and no longer to be called a living man, but a tomb of the dead, having buried within your living body a soul dead with utter destruction, and no longer to behold the light of men, but, after the manner of a miscarriage [an aborted fetus], to go from darkness into darkness; and truly, according to what is written, a man honored with the image of God, "he did not understand; he was compared with the senseless beasts, and was made like to them" [Psalm 49(48):20].
But if you wish to know the benefit of the vigil, inquire carefully what he said who each night watered his couch with his tears: "I came before the dawn and cried out, confessing and praising you; I rose at midnight" [Psalm 119(118):147-148, 62], not pricked on by another, and dragged by force to shake off sleep, but myself rousing myself eagerly to the glorification of the Creator. For this has been reckoned by me sweeter than sleep, since great is the benefit that comes from it, and it becomes the procurer of many eternal good things for those who keep vigil. For first, when we uncover to God the faults that have befallen us through deeds or words during the preceding day, we are lightened of the burden of them, as of a heavy load lying upon the shoulders of the soul, and with the fire of the vigil we reduce to ashes, as though we were burning up thorns, the wealth of the devil. For that one grows rich each day by our transgressions. Therefore the devil is henceforth distressed, and roars against us, when he sees us giving ourselves to the vigil, and attending to it with longing and with love of toil; for we cast him into great loss and confusion, showing him stripped and bereft of the gain that accrues to him each day through our sins. And secondly, that many-headed and altogether wicked beast, who springs upon us invisibly and wishes to tear us apart or to swallow us up, the vigil bridles and trips up and dwells against, and loosens the sinews of his wickedness, while it procures for us the attainment of the heavenly bounty, since grace gushes up for us beyond the springs, and is poured out beyond the sea for our benefit. And then we too become more sluggish henceforth concerning sin, since the vigil exchanges into us thoughts of the love of God, and works in us an aversion from the vanity of the world, and teaches us to thrust away the things that harm us. For the vigil that is according to God, taking us up by night when we are solitary and deprived of the confusion of crowds, and of the busyness of transactions, and of the company of friends, having found its opportunity, like a tender-loving mother, in some unobserved place, filled with stillness and watchfulness and calm and full peace, and setting us beside herself, opens her own treasures of wisdom, and of venerable exhortations, and of divine illuminations. And secretly she fills the bosoms of our soul; and if we keep watchfully all the things given to us, blessed are we, and thrice-blessed.
And ten thousand times over they know what I say, the initiates and nurslings of the noble vigil, who long to strike the harp of David [the psalms] with the plectrum of their own tongue, and in their own throat, as the Prophet says, to sing aloud the exaltations of God. "Does not my throat meditate on understanding?" [cf. Job 6:30; Psalm 19(18)]. And just as the darkness, so also do I show forth the light, illuminating with the psalms and shining upon the gloom of the night, and "my eyes come before the dawn, to meditate upon the words of the Lord" [Psalm 119(118):148]; and being adorned with the scarlet grain of fiery understandings, I urge the wisdom from above to come upon me; for the grace of the Lord visits us who keep vigil ineffably, and appears beyond reason, and lifts up the sacred minds toward the contemplation of it that is attainable, and toward likeness to it, namely those who, as is lawful and in a manner befitting sacred things, apply themselves to it.
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.