Nilus of Ancyra→Nikotychos|c. 415 AD|nilus ancyra|From Ancyra|AI-assisted
To Nikotychos the Scholasticus [a lawyer or advocate].
Whatever a man longs for and loves without yielding, this too he is compelled to speak of continually, with a mind that is never sated. So it is with your vanity and self-conceit. Having lately, to all appearances, withdrawn from the madness of the Greeks [i.e. the pagans] by being baptized in water, but not also in the Holy Spirit, you have rekindled your former impiety: you keep silent about the achievements of Christ and of His disciples, but you are forever bringing the foolish philosophers of the Greeks into the midst of your gatherings, and you applaud those men with a tongue that will not be silent, and you crown them with ill-fitting praises; while the priests of the Christians you mock, and find fault with, and slander unceasingly, even though they are brilliant and conspicuous in their manner of life, and you treat them as nobodies. And whenever someone is eager to recite some Greek [pagan] drama at table or even in the marketplace, you praise it and welcome it. But whenever someone utters some Christian doctrine, either you at once jeer, or, turning your face away, you muzzle him and look sullen. Yet, by some divine ordering of things, nearly everyone turns away from you and abhors your Greek [pagan] arguments, while they listen gladly and with great delight to the words of the Church. For they consider it profitable for themselves to be occupied in the sayings of the venerable teachers, even if those sayings be unadorned, and so to keep their mind blameless, rather than, busying themselves in the teachings of the Greeks, to be driven mad into uncleanness and profligacy. For it would surpass every baseness and ill-will that the fables of Philistion [a writer of low comic mimes] should be spoken both at home at table and publicly in the theaters, to the ruin of those who hear them, which you yourself are not ashamed to pursue, while the words of Scripture, by which we are led up to heaven, are buried in silence. But you have not escaped notice, you sorcerer! For you are charmed by the nonsense babbled by senseless people, who suppose that the moon is stolen away by certain magic spells, whenever it turns blood-red or is eclipsed, and that it is dislodged from the order of its house, and who cry out all together with one mouth, men and women alike: "You have not escaped notice, sorcerer!" For you have not escaped us, Nikotychos, even though you seemed to escape notice through your hypocrisy and through your abuse of the holy and most-honored name of Christ. You have not escaped us, you who are a complete Greek [pagan], and who, without restraint, have been molded by the vain teachings of the Greeks.
To Nikotychos the Scholasticus [a lawyer or advocate].
Whatever a man longs for and loves without yielding, this too he is compelled to speak of continually, with a mind that is never sated. So it is with your vanity and self-conceit. Having lately, to all appearances, withdrawn from the madness of the Greeks [i.e. the pagans] by being baptized in water, but not also in the Holy Spirit, you have rekindled your former impiety: you keep silent about the achievements of Christ and of His disciples, but you are forever bringing the foolish philosophers of the Greeks into the midst of your gatherings, and you applaud those men with a tongue that will not be silent, and you crown them with ill-fitting praises; while the priests of the Christians you mock, and find fault with, and slander unceasingly, even though they are brilliant and conspicuous in their manner of life, and you treat them as nobodies. And whenever someone is eager to recite some Greek [pagan] drama at table or even in the marketplace, you praise it and welcome it. But whenever someone utters some Christian doctrine, either you at once jeer, or, turning your face away, you muzzle him and look sullen. Yet, by some divine ordering of things, nearly everyone turns away from you and abhors your Greek [pagan] arguments, while they listen gladly and with great delight to the words of the Church. For they consider it profitable for themselves to be occupied in the sayings of the venerable teachers, even if those sayings be unadorned, and so to keep their mind blameless, rather than, busying themselves in the teachings of the Greeks, to be driven mad into uncleanness and profligacy. For it would surpass every baseness and ill-will that the fables of Philistion [a writer of low comic mimes] should be spoken both at home at table and publicly in the theaters, to the ruin of those who hear them, which you yourself are not ashamed to pursue, while the words of Scripture, by which we are led up to heaven, are buried in silence. But you have not escaped notice, you sorcerer! For you are charmed by the nonsense babbled by senseless people, who suppose that the moon is stolen away by certain magic spells, whenever it turns blood-red or is eclipsed, and that it is dislodged from the order of its house, and who cry out all together with one mouth, men and women alike: "You have not escaped notice, sorcerer!" For you have not escaped us, Nikotychos, even though you seemed to escape notice through your hypocrisy and through your abuse of the holy and most-honored name of Christ. You have not escaped us, you who are a complete Greek [pagan], and who, without restraint, have been molded by the vain teachings of the Greeks.
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.