Nilus of Ancyra→Elpidius (correspondent of Nilus of Ancyra)|c. 415 AD|nilus ancyra|From Ancyra|AI-assisted
To Elpidius the Goldsmith.
From inert gold you eagerly fashion abundant ornaments for other people, yet you are unwilling to render to yourself an ornament of virtues. For having received from God a soul golden by nature, you have through your negligence rendered it stony, indeed leaden, by casting it into the crucible of worthlessness and wretchedness. Hence of necessity it will fall to you to be sunk in the sea of error, and to be made to vanish in the deep of sin by your own choosing. For your improprieties have not escaped our notice. But now at least fear the Song of Moses, by which he pillories the Egyptians who resemble you, drowned together by their own wickedness because of the incorrigibility of the depravity of their ways: "For the wicked Egyptians sank like lead," he says, "in the mighty water, and they went down into the depth like a stone." [Exodus 15:10]
From inert gold you eagerly fashion abundant ornaments for other people, yet you are unwilling to render to yourself an ornament of virtues. For having received from God a soul golden by nature, you have through your negligence rendered it stony, indeed leaden, by casting it into the crucible of worthlessness and wretchedness. Hence of necessity it will fall to you to be sunk in the sea of error, and to be made to vanish in the deep of sin by your own choosing. For your improprieties have not escaped our notice. But now at least fear the Song of Moses, by which he pillories the Egyptians who resemble you, drowned together by their own wickedness because of the incorrigibility of the depravity of their ways: "For the wicked Egyptians sank like lead," he says, "in the mighty water, and they went down into the depth like a stone." [Exodus 15:10]
AI-assisted translation - This translation was produced with AI assistance and has not been peer-reviewed.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.