Nilus of Ancyra→Probatius|c. 415 AD|nilus ancyra|From Ancyra|AI-assisted
To Probatius the Monk.
"New wine, a new friend," as a certain wise man says [Sirach 9:10]. But one ought not, apart from much time and testing, to entrust oneself from the very outset, simply and at random, to a love that has the mere appearance of friendship. "But if the wine be aged," he says, "then indeed, then, we drink it for gladness." For when we have found in such a man the fullest signs of goodwill, and the marks of an unfeigned affection, then at last we will both make him our own completely and praise him, no longer hesitating. But "whoever," he says, "blesses and applauds his own friend in the morning" [Proverbs 27:14] -- that is, one newly come and recently drawn near to him, before he has yet taken any trial of that man's friendship -- differs in no way, by his estimation, from one who curses him; for through his untimely praise and his unexamined blessing he provokes the devil to come upon the new friend and to strip bare the dissimulation that, as is likely, is in him, and through the testing to convict him, that he is not a genuine and unalloyed friend.
"New wine, a new friend," as a certain wise man says [Sirach 9:10]. But one ought not, apart from much time and testing, to entrust oneself from the very outset, simply and at random, to a love that has the mere appearance of friendship. "But if the wine be aged," he says, "then indeed, then, we drink it for gladness." For when we have found in such a man the fullest signs of goodwill, and the marks of an unfeigned affection, then at last we will both make him our own completely and praise him, no longer hesitating. But "whoever," he says, "blesses and applauds his own friend in the morning" [Proverbs 27:14] -- that is, one newly come and recently drawn near to him, before he has yet taken any trial of that man's friendship -- differs in no way, by his estimation, from one who curses him; for through his untimely praise and his unexamined blessing he provokes the devil to come upon the new friend and to strip bare the dissimulation that, as is likely, is in him, and through the testing to convict him, that he is not a genuine and unalloyed friend.
AI-assisted translation - This translation was produced with AI assistance and has not been peer-reviewed.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.