Suares' Dissertation on the Works of St. Nilus

^A be solicitous about words. I have taken care, however, as diligently as I could, to avoid what Saint Gregory the Great complains of in his letter to Narses (lib. VI, ep. 27), namely, that in his time in the city of Constantinople there were no men who could translate well from Greek into Latin and from Latin into Greek. I have taken care (I say) not to be like those who, while preserving the words and failing to attend to the sense, neither made the words understood nor conveyed the sense. And as Saint Hilary writes in his book *De Synodis*, a translation expressed word for word from Greek into Latin often brings obscurity, since a literal word-for-word collation cannot preserve the same sense with the simplicity required for understanding.

There are, indeed, five kinds of translation. The first, which is called *kata lexin* (that is, by the lawyers *kata podas*, or interpretation word for word, according to the expression and the letter), is the one which the Emperor Justinian sanctioned as the only one to be used for its greater security. But Saint Athanasius, in his letter to Marcellinus on the interpretation of the Psalms, from an epistle of Saint Paul to Timothy, states that he had received from an elder who was *philoponos*—that is, a lover of labor—who possessed the Psalter, this piece of evidence: "For all (O child) Scripture, both Old and New, is divinely inspired and profitable for instruction, as it is written," which means: "For every Scripture, whether new or ancient, was produced by the inspiration of the Divine, and is suitable for training under that form and appearance of words in which it was conceived and written." Whence it is evident that a literal translation is preferable in the Holy Scriptures, and therefore the Vulgate and the old Latin version are to be preferred to the others.

There is also *Ecphrasis*, namely, an elaboration which narrates so clearly that what is uttered seems to be painted or presented before the eyes; but this should not be used where brevity is intended to be lucid. *Periphrasis* is a circumlocution or roundabout way of speaking for the sake of adding light or necessity. *Paraphrasis* is a broader exposition that admits the embellishments of rhetoric, schemes or figures, tropes, and metaphors. *Metaphrasis* is an interpretation that is stricter than a paraphrase, just as it is freer and more diffuse than a literal translation.

These kinds of various translations are enumerated by Godefried Tilmann from the Carthusian order in his prefatory epistle, which he prefixed to the *Pandects* of Antiochus Lavrensis, and they are collected from Quintilian. ^B An interpreter (as I believe) ought to employ all these modes as the occasion requires, as the author’s intent and the propriety of the language demand. Therefore, I have taken particular care—lest I stray from the meaning—to translate Nilus’s words, phrases, and periods sometimes paraphrastically, sometimes metaphrastically, rarely periphrastically, more rarely ecphrastically, but always literally, though in a rough, yet candid and polished style of writing. I have pursued this translation with sincerity and truth; others may tire of my rusticity and think the waters of this Nilotic fountain, hitherto hidden and flowing, better offered to the thirsty in a silver vessel. For as Peter the Abbot of Celle says (lib. II, ep. 4), the suitability or congruence of the chalice often increases the pleasure of the drinker, and the goodness of the wine grows from it. But for the one Church to whom I labor to be pleasing—the Holy Roman Church, the leader and mistress of the rest, to whom I gladly offer constant service—she who received the Word made flesh, wrapped in swaddling clothes and not in elaborate and precious vestments, and honors Him because He was given by God in the highest simplicity—she herself, pure, whole, incorrupt, and shining entirely with her own splendor, illuminated by the rays of Christ, rejoices in truth without a mask, and rests in it. She will not disapprove, I think, of the purpose of my version. Her judgment alone would be more than enough for me, however perilous a game it may be today to bring one's nocturnal labors to light, and however ungratefully the labor of translators is generally cast about. Lucretius sang in his own age (lib. I *De rer. natur.*, vers. 137 sqq.):

Nor does it escape my mind how hard it is To clarify the obscure findings of the Greeks In Latin verse, especially when much is to be handled Due to the poverty of the language and the novelty of the subjects.

And that was a hoary age, and it was permitted to extend the boundaries of the Latin language and to bestow Roman citizenship upon Greek words. But it is especially difficult to translate into an alien tongue what had already been edited long ago by some ancient and eloquent doctor; since whatever you may say—however holily and truly—can be twisted into the worst sense. For every language has its own idioms, native charms, and peculiar *charakteres*, and, so to speak, certain peculiar spirits which you can scarcely, and indeed hardly at all, represent in another language without them smelling of the foreign and tasting of the exotic.

I have wished to preface these things, and to place them before you like a sevenfold shield to beat back the sarcasms of Zoiluses and Aristarchuses. I shall soon, with God's help, discuss more in the books of Annotations that will follow; now I pass to the order and series of the Opuscula.

I have certainly put the treatise on monastic exercise first because it occurred earlier in the manuscript of the Barberini library. In its index, which was also written by hand, the title was conceived in Greek: *Toû en hagioîs Patròs hēmōn Neílou Lógos askētikòs perì tês eìs Christòn Philosophias*, and as is written at the end of the treatise itself: *Kaì oíous eînai deî toùs taútē proserchoménous, kaì hóti prò tês teleías en tê aretê héxeōs epikíndunon tò hetérōn anadéchesthai prostasías*. That is: "Our Holy Father Nilus's Treatise on monastic exercise, or On that philosophy which pertains to Christ, and what manner of men those ought to be who approach it, and how dangerous it is, before the habit of perfect virtue, to undertake the supervision of others." Peter Francis Zinus, a canon ^C of Verona, had translated from the Greek this Tra-

-^Actatum istum, and had inscribed it "Ascetic Sermon." But I have interpreted the [grk]λόγον[/grk] as "treatise," that is, a dissertation, description, narration, or account, as the Scholiast ^A convincingly proves on l. 1, C. Theodos., *De his, qui super relig. contend.*, l. xvi. It is derived from *tractando* (handling), just as Cicero interprets it in Book 1 of his *Academica quaest.* and in Book 2 of *De legibus* in the preface, and Book 2; Quintilian, Book 5; Pliny, Chapter 4, Book 14; and Chapter 22, Book 12. Particularly, the holy Ambrose and the holy Augustine, as well as other Christian doctors, have accepted this word "treatise" in that sense; and they were called "tractatores" (tractators/interpreters), as Sirmond observes in his *Notes on the Epistles of Sidonius*; and the holy Augustine, in Book 2 of *Contra Julian.*, names them "tractators of divine eloquences," and in Book 4, "tractators of divine eloquence." The origin of these words is traced to the verb *traho* (to draw), because various things are drawn from every side to that which is being treated, and from this is deduced the frequentative verb *tracto* (to handle). Just as *sermo* is derived from the verb *sero* (to sow), because diverse things are sown and brought together, and from this proceeds *dissero* (to discuss) and *disserto* (to discourse), from which comes *dissertatio* (dissertation). I have explained the Greek word *ascetici* by resolving it into two Latin words by way of periphrasis, and that with regard to monastic exercise, for it cannot be explained by a single word; for the word *ascetici* is Greek, not Latin, but I have gathered more on this in my *Lexicographus Adnotationum* and under the word *Askesis*. Rosweydus, indeed, a man of great learning and once a very dear friend to me in Belgium, in his *Notes on the Paradise of Heraclides*, praises the *Onomasticon* under the words *Tractatus* and *Tractator*; consult it if you can find it in reality, and may you be luckier than I, and have a more favorable Mercury.

It follows: greek: Τοῦ ὁσίου Πατρὸς ἡμῶν Νείλου πρὸς Ἀγάθιον μονάζοντα. Ἡ ἀρχή· Ἔθος ἔχοντί μοι, which I have translated: "Of our holy Father Nilus to Agathius, leading a monastic life, Peristeria, a treatise on cultivating virtues and fleeing vices: by the example of Peristeria, a woman most renowned in that age." It begins, "Cum meo more," etc. But because the treatise was rather long, I divided it into 12 [grk]τμήματα[/grk], or sections, which I further subdivided into chapters, just as I had likewise distinguished the treatise *On Monastic Exercise* into chapters, so that the reader might not be too fatigued by reading the whole book in one breath, nor, no space being given, be unable to collect himself and rest, but rather be a little refreshed; for as Rutilius Numatianus sang in Book 2 of his *Itinerarium*: ^C "The stone inscribed shows that it offers Intervals of the road to the weary."

The holy Jerome, when about to expound the vision of Isaiah, prefaces in Book 4, Chapter 11, that he wished to explain it by parts, lest being presented and discussed all at once, it might confuse the reader's memory; the same he notes on Chapter 3 of Joel. On the river Nilus, or in its rivulets, the Egyptians were accustomed to have ships pulled by ropes, which they called *funiculi* (little ropes), so that fresh necks of those pulling might succeed the labor of the weary; Sidonius calls those who pull them *helciarios* (haulers/curvi). Hence the *funiculus* (rope), or [grk]σχοινίον[/grk], or [grk]σχοῖνος[/grk], according to the Egyptians, is a measure of travel, and Herodotus also mentions it in Book 2, who attributes sixty *stadia* to it, and Callimachus mentions it. The Hebrews, having spent a long time in Egypt and having been oppressed, henceforth called measures "funiculi"; the Prophet-King sings in Psalm 15: "The lines (funes) have fallen to me in pleasant places," and c. 32 of Deuteronomy, Moses, and 1 Reg. ch. 7; and it is no wonder if every nation calls certain spaces of land by its own names: Rasta by the Germans, *Milliaria* and *Jugera* by the Latins, *Leucas* by the Gauls, *Parasangas* by the Persians, *stathmous* or stations by the Greeks; then, as the Roman Empire declined, *mansiones* (lodgings), of which Herodian, Book 2, and Bergerius in his book *De imp. Rom. viis* speak, were the termini of military expeditions. It is the custom of men to learn those things more easily which are divided into parts, for they shine forth more evidently, as Cassiodorus speaks in Chapter 2 of *De Anima*. For from distinction the light shines forth; as Paul the jurisconsult testifies, l. 1, *D. De doli mali except.*, where the Gloss and the *Institutes*, § *sed non*, up to *de legat.*. Wherefore even jurisconsults are accustomed to open the law, which they publicly interpret, into parts, and the Code of Justinian into II volumes, the *Pandectae* indeed into three volumes, but the volumes into books, the books furthermore into titles, or rubrics, and these into chapters, or laws, and the chapters again into paragraphs. Even the Holy Scriptures are divided into chapters. ^D I have added *Peristeria*, and periphrastically whatever was contained in the treatise, so that I might indicate the matter and the cause, which the most renowned and highly commended woman provided, and according to her name "Dove," announcing peace to the lands, nor do I doubt that she was the very one of whom Ischyrion, deacon of the Church of Alexandria, wrote thus to Pope Leo and the Fathers of the Council of Chalcedon in the petition inserted in the third action, page 232 of the Roman Edition: "For no one was ignorant of the matter of the most glorious-memory Peristeria, and especially those who are known to dwell in this royal city of New Rome; for she, while making her will for the salvation of her own soul, gave orders that a great quantity of gold be provided to the monasteries, but also to the inns and poorhouses, and to other poor people of the Egyptian region; an action at which the most pious man (Dioscorus), Bishop or Patriarch of Alexandria, was vexed, in that he did not see the money given to him personally, and he caused that money to be given to himself, and instead of alms, to stage-dancers and other theatrical persons, so that no fragrance from that glorious sacrifice of the memory of Peristeria was offered to God, as far as he was concerned, but the intent of that woman was made manifest." That is: Moreover, no one was ignorant of the business of the most glorious-memory Peristeria, especially those who are known to dwell in this royal city of New Rome; for she, while drawing up her testament for the health of her soul, ordered that a large amount of money be given to the monasteries, and even to the xenodochia (that is, hospitals) and parishes (or rather, receptacles for beggars) and other poor of the Egyptian province, which the same most reverend man (Dioscorus), Bishop or Patriarch of Alexandria, took ill—on account of which

^A that these things were sent in his person is in no way dismissed, but that either they were receiving themselves, or were being pushed back by the public 597 sinners, as is clear from John Climacus and the collator Cassian; ^C of the cenobite monks (I mean), or synodites, who lived together and brought all their possessions into common. For besides these, there were hermits who lived in 598 desert places; and anchorites, who had retreated into vast, inaccessible, and more remote solitudes. Nilus writes to Silvanus the cenobite, Epist. 307, lib. I. From the cenobites, hermits came forth, and anchorites, as Cassian reveals, Conference 18, c. 1 and 2, from St. Paul, cap. xi to the Hebrews, and indeed stylites, among whom Simeon leads the procession, and about whom Rosweyd speaks in his Notes to the *Lives of the Fathers*. There are also letters of Nilus inscribed to Nicander the stylite, 114 and 115, who are also called *kionitai*, in Latin *columnarii* [column-dwellers]; and *egkleistoi*, or the recluses, about whom Miraeus, a very dear friend of mine in Belgium, treats in his *Fasti Belgici*. Gregory of Tours mentions a hospice in *Hist. Francor.* lib. VI, c. 6; and *De gloria confessorum*, c. 97, and many others, which Petrus Jofredus recounts in *Nicaea illustrata*, p. 105; he had shut himself voluntarily in a tower; concerning Probus, who was included in the monastery, see S. Greg. M. epist. 99, l. 9. The columnarii stood upon pillars; the recluses dwelt in cubicles or small cells. Philumenus the *egkleistos*, to whom Nilus writes, epist. 96, lib. II, is poorly translated by the Latin interpreter ^D as *enclistum*, as is clear from the words of the epistle: *κατὰ τὸν ἐγκλεισμόν, εἰ τῷ οἰκιδίῳ κατακλεισθείς.* For he was truly a recluse; the error of this man was observed and corrected by the most learned Possinus in his Glossary to Georgius Pachymeres’ *Andronicus*, and he notes also, from the anonymous author of the *Life of St. Mary the Younger* (Vatican Codex 800, p. 492), those confined in this way in small rooms and *oikiskois* [small houses], called *kouboukleisioi*. Those were called *hesychastai*, a species of anchorite, solitary; the never-sufficiently-praised Possinus, in his letter 192 of Nilus to Rufinus the *hesychast*, explains them as lovers of quiet and those studious of a tranquil life. I doubt whether this is the same person to whom he wrote 188, with no added epithet, but in both places he deals with perturbations or passions. Allatius inscribes this last one to Chariton, but another to that same Rufinus the hesychast, l. IV, epist. 54, and indeed another to Rufinus the Scholasticus 76, lib. I, to whom I judge 77 and 78, which follow, also pertain; perhaps it was the same Rufinus who, coming forth from the forum and public laws, which he professed, sought that Nilus would explain places of Holy Scripture to him, tasting of it, and if I am not mistaken, he could be that famous Origenist, nor does the era disagree. A scolion of "Gabriel a Monk and Hesychast of Mount Latrus" is read in the *Scala* of John Climacus, p. 365. These acquire their name *apo tes hesychias*, that is, from quiet and silence. Regarding this virtue, the aforementioned John writes at length in step 27, p. 403. Cassian, in Conference 18, c. 8, does not approve of these, concerning the fourth type of monk, as if they were tepid, because they sit (he writes), by no one la-

- id. ^A And if they are patient, and meek, and humble, they desire to be esteemed as monks or those leading a monastic life, or aspiring to it; thus was designated the *therapeutai*, that is, those serving God, or the servants and ministers of God, from an epithet found in Philo, Dionysius the Areopagite, and in our own Nilus, as Cardinal Bellarmine collects in *De monachis*, bk. II, c. 1. Consult, furthermore, the *Origines monasticas* by Matthaeus Galenus of Westcappel, published at Dillingen in 1563 in quarto; Hugo Menard, in his *Regula* of Saint Benedict 600, c. 111, where he speaks of the *laureotae*, from c. 5 of the *Pratum Spirituale*, ^B from the [λαῦραι], that is, from the cells in which their multitude was collected together after the manner of religious bees. In the preface of the Rule of Saint Ferreolus, they were also called *nonni*, and religious, and philosophers, with more on the gyrovagi and circumcelliones found there. Rutilius Namatianus notes this of a monk, intimating that he had left his wife, and the case of Therasia, who became a sister from the wife of Paulinus, is known; consult the Emperor Justinian, *Novellae* Monachis; and [l. xx Cod. Theodos. De episc. et cler.] is there woven in; and I judge this to have been the first degree of monks, or order, or rather the threshold for those dedicating themselves to God and tending toward the monastic life.

The second was that of the ascetics, not taken broadly and generally, but specifically and properly, who at the beck of abbots or superiors exercised themselves in fasts, meditations, prayers, psalmody, and other offices of piety and penance; now the *Continentes*, of whom Peter Damian treats in his sermon on Saint Nicholas, ^C like the Sarabaites or Sarabarithae—perhaps from the *sarabara* garment, concerning which I have discoursed in my dissertation on the *fanone*—who abide and dwell in their own homes or in cells constructed by themselves according to their own will, and whom Cassian condemns, deeming the Egyptian word to signify an idle spirit, or those refusing an abbot (Conf. 18, c. 3), as Saint Benedict says in c. 3 of his [Rule], that it is the worst corruption of the best, because they did not observe *actemosyne*, or a stripping away of all things, and strict poverty, or (as Horace sings) "narrow poverty," nor had they renounced their possessions, nor did they observe obedience, nor were they yet perfect monks, if they did not hasten further. There exist letters of Nilus to various ascetics; namely, bk. I, to Vincentius 51, which is numbered 281 in Possinus; to Zosimus in the same book II, it is 73; finally to Thaumasius, or Thaumarus, 33, lib. III, which is the first in Possinus, named here in the index as a monk by Allatius. But go (kind reader) to the volume of my annotations, the *Lexicographum*, under the word [ἄσκησις], as I have previously advised.

The third degree, as my own opinion now holds, was that of the *monazontes*, who led a holier and monastic life, aspiring more closely to the monastic state, and were, as it were, its candidates: thus among the pagan Roman Vestals, they were called [*melierai*] (as Plutarch asserts), who were those closest to consecration. In the letters of Nilus, indeed, not ^D

^A idly, and without discrimination, are some termed monks (*monazontes*); others are so inscribed, as to Daburius, or Ardaburius. A certain Ardaburius was consul in the year of Christ 429 in the East, while in the West, Hierius served under Emperors Theodosius the Younger and Valentinian III. I have also found "Ardaburius the son of Aspar" under Emperor Leo. According to Suidas, this Aspar, when both, by the order of Emperor Leo, were being put to death… "Did I not tell you," he said, "Let us eat Leo, before he takes his meal off us." Billius reports this in his *Sacred Observations* from Nicephorus; the French say: *Le lyon enfin 601 mange son maistre*. Nilus's letter to a *monazon* (Possinus 13, which is 35 in Allatius, lib. II; there is another at 246): both Possinus and Allatius render *monazonta* there as "monk," yet the one inscribed to Eulalius the *monazon*—numbered 40 by Allatius, lib. III, where he explains *monazonta* as monk—is the same as 21 in Possinus, who writes *monachon* and translates it "monk." To Marianus the *monazonti* (ep. 110), Possinus translates it there as "solitary," but Allatius (lib. I, epist. 154) places it as: "To Marianus the *monazonti*" (epistle 216). Possinus, likewise explaining it as "solitary," has it at 41, lib. IV; while Allatius renders it "monk." The same Allatian 7, lib. IV, is addressed to the same, but to "monk" as in the Possinian 34, 35, 227, and 228. And perhaps Marianus had progressed to the monastic degree from the order of the *monazon*. Allatius calls Theodore the *monazonta* "monk" in the Letters of Nilus, lib. III, 157, 158, 159, 160. But Possinus (Epistles 113, 114, 115, 116) calls him *monachon* and in Latin "monk"; the epistle 160 indeed in Allatius is briefer than in Possinus 116. The same Theodore, Allatius calls *monazon* and translates as "monk" in lib. I, epistles 65, 76, but also 25 in lib. IV, which is taken from Possinus 116; to which again must be joined—or rather, the version 160 of Allatius should be deleted as a repetition of this 116—and Allatian 25, lib. IV. "To Eugenius the *monazonti*" is how epistle 102 of Possinus is inscribed; he rendered it "solitary," Allatius "monk" (lib. XII, epistle 147). He certainly calls him "monk" in the title of epistles 175, 176, and 182, and in that same 175 he records that he had not yet fulfilled fifteen years "dwelling in the solitary life" (*monerei bio enoikoumeno*), that is, committed to the monastic life. From ^D which I gather that both in *enkrateia*, or continence, as in *askesei*, or exercise, it was the custom to spend a period of time, just as years of probation or novitiate, and indeed in the *bio monazonti*, or in "Monazonia" (which word I think Alciatus uses in his version of a Greek epigram). We must add Theodosia the *monazousa*, to whom Nilus writes in lib. II, epist. 116, according to Allatius, who translates it "nun"; Nilus was exhorting her not to dare to deliver precepts to men in the church, and to cease teaching them. From the above, therefore, it is clearly evident that *monazontes* were those who were drawing near to the profession of monkhood; when, however, they were admitted to it, they were clothed in the *schema*, or novice's habit, which was diverse and distinct from that which they wore when they became perfect monks, as ^A Rosweidus, in his *Onomasticon to the Lives of the Saints*, lib. X, p. 105, observes, yet so that they were initially called *monachoi*, *neoteroi* (juniors), and meanwhile while they were making their valid profession: regarding these *neoterous*, see epistle 303, lib. I of Allatius, and those that subsequently follow, *anepigraphoi* up to 333. And I am surprised that in the Allatian Index that letter 303 lib. III was conceived *pros monazontas* (to the monks), unless the translator confused them. Finally, monks were consecrated and changed their names. For there was, according to St. Dionysius in his *Ecclesiastical Hierarchy*, the apex of the perfection of monachism, *kai he teleoumenon hypselotera taxis* (and the higher order of those being perfected), and as Suidas relates; regarding monks, who were also termed "individuals" (*singulares*), the Scholiast 602 treats at length in the Notes to l. XXIII, *C. Theodos. De decurionib.*, which is 26 in the Justinian Code, given at Berytus by Emperors Valentinian and Valens; also under Arcadius and Honorius, AA. Severus Sulpitius, *dialog.* I, c. 1, near Gratian in *Decretum* 16, q. I. Monks are described by Rutilius Numatianus twice in his *Itinerary*, but they are ironically criticized by St. John Chrysostom in *Homil. 8 in Matthæum*; by Eunapius in *Lives of the Philosophers* (in Aedesius); by Salvianus of Marseilles in *lib. De Providentia*; in the *Lives of the Fathers* by St. Jerome and others, whom the Rev. Father Rosweidus, already lauded by me, collected, edited, and illustrated with annotations. On the praises of the desert, there exists an Epistle of Eucherius, bishop of Lyons, to Hilary the monk of Lérins, in which he says that the solitary ones imitated those of whom the Apostle writes in the Epistle to the Hebrews mentioned above, c. 11: "wandering in deserts and in mountains, and in dens and caves of the earth," of whom the world was not worthy. See Tristan, *tom. II, Histor. Rom. ex Numismatis*, p. 135, regarding monks and their cells; and to the monastria of women, nuns, sanctimonials, handmaids of God, and virgins devoted to God they were called, passim in St. Gregory, who in lib. IV, epist. 13, writes of the island of Capraria, the island of Gorgonia, and the monks of the island of Monte Cristo (*lib. I Dialog. c. 49*). St. Gregory Nazianzen, having set out for Pontus while fleeing the episcopate, philosophized with Basil, and both authored the laws of the monastic life, as Billius recounts in his *Life*; this St. Gregory, *orat. 20 in laudem sancti Basilii*, commends the monastic life, p. 567; and in the 21st oration in praise of St. Athanasius, p. 589; in the first oration, p. 44; and in the *Carmina*, p. 1370; in the definition of *orat.* 12, p. 459; *Carm. ad fictos monachos*, p. 1302 and 1313; to the monks dwelling in monasteries, *ad Hellenium*. St. Augustine calls monks "servants of God," *epist.* 70 and passim; and he embraced monachism simultaneously with baptism, as Rivius proves, lib. I, cap. 1, § 32, *Vit. sancti Augustini*, and he cultivated his friendship with Eudoxius, abbot of the *Cellulani* of the island of Capraria, *epist.* 81, and he himself instituted monks, and wrote a book on their work. Rivius regarding him, § 2, c. 1, lib. III, notes that the same holy doctor calls the monks "holy ants" and "holy bees." The Greek words indeed with the paragoge, or

^A ending with -on, such as *chōmazō, heortazō, cheimazō, spoudazō, scholazō, lōbazō, peirazō*, seem to have an emphasis, and to indicate a certain passion and extension; thus, from of the *monazein* [living alone], the *monazontes* were those who for a long time had been desiring the monastic life with great affection, and were, as it were, reaching the point of being girded, and—to use the Greco-Latin term of the jurists—were "next-to-the-girded" [melloproximi], and were counted among those bound [cincti]; they were taken indiscriminately as monks, just as recruits who have completed many periods of service, or—having spent many years in the study of jurisprudence—had given a specimen of continence (that is, of chastity, or *enkrateia*), and of poverty and obedience, while they had acted as ascetics or trainers. Finally, while they were *monazontes*, they achieved, as it were, a maturity in these three virtues, ^B and perhaps he had deserved to be promoted to the diaconate. There exist also [letters] of Isidore of Pelusium, who seems to have lived at the same time and had the same master, Saint John Chrysostom, to the priest Agathus—Lib. I, epist. 270, and Lib. III, epist. 18, 27, 160, 296, 303—or Agathodaemon. At that time, indeed, deacons were more frequently chosen from the monks, and indeed even priests and bishops, as stated by Cardinal Baronius for the year 398 A.D., and it is clear from Lib. XXX, C. Theodos., *De episc. et cleric.* So great was the multitude of monks, so many the examinations of the servants of God—for this word, as I have already noted, signifies monks. Saint Gregory the Great, Lib. X, epist. 51, and Lib. II, epist. 24 and 91, Lib. VIII and XXXIX, Lib. XXI, c. 12. Saint Jerome, Psalm 133. *Therapeutai*, Saint Dionysius, *Eccles. Hierarch.*; Philo, lib. *De vit. contempl.*; Saint Augustine, epist. 56; Ennodius, lib. III, epist. 29; nay, even men ^B of God, men of God—thus the holy Alexius was called, and Porphyry in the *Life of Saint Agapitus* and in the *Roman Martyrology*, August 20. In the year 1658, an old inscription of this kind was unearthed in the Vatican area under the station of the Praetorian Swiss Guard, which the most learned Holstenius referred to the year of Christ 403, under the consuls Theodosius the Younger and Rumoridus: "Quintilianus, a man of God, confirming the Trinity, loving chastity, rejecting the world, shall rest together... who lived years ... M. X. ... Theodosius Augustus and R." Where you see a love of chastity and a despising of the world, or *askēsis* and *enkrateia*. These men—or servants of God—are defined as those who minister to the face of the Lord. For the more recent Greeks, a man [*anthrōpos*] is the same as a servant. Constantine, *De administr. imper.*; La Cerda, c. 146, n. 12, *Adversar. sacr.*, passim in the books of the feudal law. A man [*homo*] is a vassal, and "hominium" [homage] is derived from it, because it is drawn from others by a holy oath [*hōmō hagiō*], that is, by an inviolable oath.

In ecclesiastical history, various species of monks are enumerated; but I have observed through more diligent scrutiny that these three primary grades—little observed by others, and indeed usually confused—and I have explained the *monazonta* [the one] leading the monastic life. This Agathius, therefore, leading a monastic life, attacked the meditative Nilus as if from ambush, and, having approached him unexpectedly, began to persuade him to write some ethical or moral study. But Nilus, occupied with the Exposition of the Psalms (some fragments of which are found in the Barberini manuscript and in Besson in the *Chain of Procopius on the Canticle of Canticles*), was evasive, blaming the wickedness of the century, which he despaired of being corrected or amended, since "there is none that doeth good, no, not one*" and "[the demon of] vanity was encircling the earth with a net, and having spread out his meshes had ensnared all mortals, so that they could not free themselves," as another leader of monks, Saint Anthony, had once seen, c. 21, *Legenda Claud. de Rota*. Agathius therefore commended Peristeria, and set up this one [person] as a counter to the widely growing vices, and provided an example; and he praised her to such an extent that Nilus, struck by the admiration of such virtue, eagerly undertook and finished that treatise; whence I have borrowed the title from Peristeria, who seems to have been the cause of this treatise. And indeed the section which I establish as the tenth tastes of an epilogue or conclusion to the work; for the writer turns himself to his friend, namely Agathius. But when I found in the Vatican codex the title inscribed *On the conversation of the blessed, and on the malice of the devil*, I placed that as the ninth section, and, as I hinted in chapter 2 by Nilus himself, I noted therein Peristeria, whom he affirms to have been afflicted and exercised by various troubles and temptations. I suspect the letter 152 in Possinus was written to this Agathius by Nilus, and there Allatius calls Agathius a deacon, dividing that letter into two, lib. I, epist. 215 and 216, which is wrongly numbered in the Greek Index as 216, when it is really 162. And there, regarding the ^D of the vineyard, and of the hired laborers, I have added the eleventh to the aforementioned tenth section, titled: *On Joseph and Susanna, that the struggle of Joseph was greater than that according to the blessed Susanna.* Regarding Joseph and Susanna, and that the contest against the blessed Susanna was greater than the one undertaken [by Joseph]. Furthermore, I have appended the twelfth section: *On the parable of the vineyard, and the laborers hired for different hours*; for these two studies indeed followed the treatise of Peristeria, and seemed to be appendices. I have labeled the whole treatise with this title in Greek: *Of our holy Father Nilus to Agathius the monk*; but I have expanded it more broadly in Latin: *Of our holy Father Nilus to Agathius leading a monastic life: Peristeria, or a Treatise on cultivating virtues and fleeing vices by the example of Peristeria, a most illustrious woman of that century.* I have divided it into sections or *tmēmata* xxii. The first contains six chapters or...

^A Prefaces, the second on temperance or abstinence, five chapters; the third on vainglory, three chapters; the fourth on reading and prayer, seventeen chapters; the fifth, that souls who love riches and are desirous of life are torn away from here with difficulty at the hour of death, three chapters; the sixth, that those who leave their property indiscriminately to anyone are deservedly punished, two chapters; the seventh of those who at the time of death have no care for their own salvation, but while writing their testaments say they are ordering the destination of things over which they have no power, eleven chapters; the eighth on heirs, one chapter; the ninth, a censure of those who write testaments, ten chapters; the tenth on the conversation of the blessed, seven chapters; the eleventh, twenty-three chapters; to some of which headings are assigned; the twelfth, thirteen chapters.

I have placed following this the short work of Nilus, which is inscribed:

To the most reverend Magna, deaconess of Ancyra. A discourse on detachment.

This treatise on poverty is followed by an *Ēthikos logos, kai polymerēs, en hō nouthesiai pneumatikai*, that is, a moral and multifarious treatise, in which are spiritual admonitions; and it is completed in four chapters. The beginning is *polymerēs, kai polytropos prokeitai* [it is set forth as multifarious and multiform]. This little work is as it were a sermon and admonition. There will be those who think that I have acted, because I wove the *Encheiridion*, or Manual book of Epictetus, as rehashed cabbage into the works of Nilus, nor am I ignorant that this lucubration is judged to not be Nilus's; but those who have expressed this opinion precipitously, lest they...

be led astray by the brief excerpt, if they had examined that work more attentively—I mean that work abridged and interpolated by Nilus as accurately as I have prescribed—they would certainly have vindicated it to Nilus by right. For since Epictetus's book was diffuse, copious, and overflowing, as all those who have perused the most illustrious and learned Stephanus Gradius's manuscript—written by hand, of very great antiquity, of the best (if any other is) quality, and priceless—and compared it with published books, have discovered: ^B that work of Epictetus, which Arrian, flourishing in the age of Hadrian Augustus, illustrated with his Commentaries, and wrote [πρός] [Ἀνδρέαν] (or perhaps [παράπλους]), and also the Life of Alexander the Great; but indeed that little book, which is rubbed by everyone's hands everywhere, as if it were the expressed succor of true Stoic philosophy, and as the alchemists say, the Elixir, the principle of which is [τῶν ὄντων τὰ μέν ἐστιν ἐφ’ ἡμῖν], that is, of existing things, some are in our power—that book Epictetus himself has woven together; that Epictetus, I say, who, born in Hierapolis of Phrygia, served Epaphroditus, the freedman of Nero Augustus, at Rome, and, offended by the tyranny of Domitian Augustus, or because of the S.C. (Senatus Consultum) by which philosophers were expelled to their homeland, returned to it, and lived in the town of Nicopolis in Epirus Nova, and remained until the times of M. Antoninus, as Suidas and Angelus Politianus affirm in the letter prefixed to it, drawing from A. Gellius and others. Epaphroditus, however, the freedman of Nero, and of the Petitions (a libellis), and of the [τῶν σωματοφυλάκων], that is, of the bodyguards, who assisted Nero in killing himself, ^C as Suetonius in *Nero*, and in *Domitian*, and Tacitus, book XV of the *Annals* recounts, was condemned for this reason by Domitian. There are 607 of the most numerous inscriptions concerning this and other Epaphroditi as a cognomen in Gruter. Saint Paul in his Epistle to the Philippians, ch. II, v. 25, mentions Epaphroditus, his brother, fellow-worker, and fellow-soldier, but their apostle, that is, as I think, bishop, whom he deemed necessary to send to them, and again ch. IV, v. 22, he confesses that he had received from him the things that they had sent him; and he greets them by name, especially those who are of Caesar's house, the saints; Theodoret is the author that this Epistle to the Philippians was written at Rome through Epaphroditus. Cardinal Baronius in his Notes to the *Roman Martyrology* for March 22nd judges Epaphroditus to be Bishop of Terracina; but Petrus de Natalibus, lib. VI, c. 100, prefers him to be of Hadria, or the Andriace Church, ^D automatically from Dorotheus the abbot in the *Synopsis of the 72 Disciples of the Lord*. I would think the inscription or epitaph which I read engraved on a marble sepulchral chest, [Θ. Κ. ΑΥΡΗΛΙΩ Ἐπαφροδίτῳ Συμβίῳ ΑΝΤΩΝIA Βαλέρια ἔθηκε], does not pertain to him. It was in the archbishopric of Lyons, and Ceres was observed sculpted on a chariot, which serpents were pulling, seeking her daughter Proserpina, snatched away by Pluto. But from the path onto the road. Simplicius the philosopher, an enemy of Christians, just as formerly a friend, contracted the vast work of Epictetus, as the man of manifold reading Theophilus Raynaudus notes in his book *De bono regimine*, so that only the *Enchiridion* was at hand, or the [Pugion] (dagger) from the things that Epictetus had left behind, and that they are more ample is proven both by the aforementioned codex and by the Commentaries of Arrian, and is clear from A. Gellius and Joannes Stobaeus; nor does that most celebrated statement, by which his whole philosophy is contained, [ἀνέχου καὶ ἀπέχου], exist in the *Enchiridion*. But hitherto it is desired. Nilus, however, took away the blemishes and stains of paganism, recalling and changing most things, plainly adapting the opusculum to a Christian, and even to a monk; he deleted what was shameful, what was superstitious, or savored of idolatry; nay, he even removed the name of Socrates, and substituted that of Paul the Apostle, and made it entirely his own. And so, as I had found it among the works of Nilus, so I have left it, and I will render the reason more copiously in the *Annotations*, where I will deal with Theosebius the philosopher, a lover of Plato's truth, who seems to be an interpolator or excerptor of the Antoninian lucubration about himself, or of his Life, in the [Ἐγχειριδίῳ δευτέρῳ Ἐπικτήτου] (Second Enchiridion of Epictetus), which he wrote, culling many things from the schools of Epictetus, or from a scholium. Auxilius, lib. I, *De ordinationibus a Formoso papa factis*, c. 11, and lib. II, c. 22, mentions Theosebius translated from the city of Apamea in Asia to Eudoxiapolis, which is formerly called Selymbria, and as bishop; and Selymbria was called Eudoxiapolis, a city of the province of Thrace, acts 1 of the Council of Chalcedon, p. 401. At the Constantinopolitan Council under Damasus in the year of Christ 381, Theosebius, Bishop of Philomelium in the province of Pisidia, subscribed among others through Bassus, a priest of Lycia, p. 240, num. 119 at the end of the Crabbiana Edition; whether he was translated from there to Eudoxiapolis 608 I do not think needs investigation; for he is explicitly declared to be translated from Apamea, nor whether he is the sector of the Antoninian little work, which graces a prince no less than a citizen should the Manual of Epictetus. Abbot Nilus writes to Theosebius, epist. 15, lib. II, *De duabus olivis aureis* (Concerning the two golden olives) in Zechariah c. IV, which he explains as Christians from Jews and Gentiles. For a long time, indeed, it has been my intention to publish my notes about that little work: Suidas mentions it in [Ἐπίκτητος], and Mericus Casaubonus tells of it in his notes to the books of Antoninus.

I have subjected the narrative of the monk Pachon, which was indeed translated into Latin by Gentianus Hervetus from Greek, and is referred to in c. 29 of the *Lausiac History* of Palladius by the R.P. Rosweydus, lib. V, *De Vit. Patrum*, who attributes it to Evagrius, whose other temptations he also reports from c. 86 of Palladius, and in the notes, num. 70 and 135, but it is also read in Greek in the same place, namely, c. 86 of the *Lausiaca*. Although the prince of demons, Lucifer, seems to contemn the crime of luxury so much, just as some other devils do, because, mindful of their ancient nobility, they disdain it—indeed not even the prince of demons deigned to tempt Christ the Lord about it in the desert, as Saint Thomas Aquinas, the most outstanding architect of scholastic theology, reported from the masters, lib. V, c. 21, *De eruditione principum*; nonetheless, conscious of treason...

^A of other evil spirits against the monks themselves, and the anchorites, nay, anyone who knows how to take up a pious mode of living; they try to deceive them and turn them away from their institute with no greater enticement than that of unchastity or fornication, waging war upon them with harlots; nor do they attack only those who flourish in the vigor of the body's prime, but they attack those worn out by old age repeatedly. Saint Augustine narrates, in lib. III *Adversus Julianum*, n. 361, of a man eighty-four years of age, who had lived religiously with a religious wife for twenty-four years, that he bought a lyre-player for his own lust. To such extent is no age immune from the snares of demons regarding lust, which they build with such great effort against men, and especially against the religious on all sides. Diadochus, bishop of Photice in Epirus Vetus, explains this more fully in chapter 99 of his *Sermones* concerning divine Providence, which seems to yield in the struggle against Venus and permits the spiritual man to be defiled by it, so that he may recognize his own vileness. Wherefore I did not hesitate to insert this narration of the monk Pachon once again, from which it is clearly evident that the demon is put to flight by a slap, as is handed down in Saint Gregory the Great, *Dialog.* lib. II, c. 30, concerning Saint Benedict; and hence, when the sacrament of confirmation is administered, the bishop is accustomed to inflict a slap on those signed, as if driving away the demon of infirmity in faith and of pusillanimity. And one must always beware of the temptation of unchastity, however much we may be affected by age, and though the blood may grow sluggish and the powers grow cold in a worn-out body.

Ursinus, a presbyter ordained in the Church of Nursia, when he had fulfilled a long age of life and lay dying, his wife, a Presbytera, whom he loved as a sister and who was remote from him, and who had never approached him ^B since then, came, and seeing his limbs relaxed, and having called him, she placed her ear to his nostrils to investigate if a vital breath still remained in him; then he, gathering his voice and as if recalling his fleeing soul, exclaimed: "Depart from me, woman, the spark still lives." Saint Gregory himself relates this in the eleventh chapter of the fourth book of his *Dialogues*. The old man, confined to his bed, recognized the traces of an old flame in his half-dead and buried flesh. Truly, bishops inflict a slap on the confirmed, both for the aforementioned reason and ^C so that those who receive this sacrament may become accustomed to the slaps and torments which tyrants were accustomed to inflict upon those confessing Christ, and so that they do not blush at the ignominy with which they were branded by the Gentiles, as the bishop of Mimate, Guillaume Durand, reports in *Rationalis divinor. officior.* lib. V, fol. 206, col. 1. Cardinal Bellarmine, tom. II *contra*, lib. II, c. 5, says that there is a fourth ceremony in the sacrament of confirmation, namely that the bishop should strike the confirmed lightly with his hand, so that he may understand that he is armed with patience above all else for the sake of bearing ignominy and blows for Christ. Durand added that it is done for the sake of memory, so that the person signed may remember, and so that forgetfulness does not creep in; which Viscomes, lib. II, c. 12 *De Antiq. Confirmationis Rituum*, notes must be recalled just as in new soldiers, and as it is revealed, it was the custom for those who were being struck to be struck among servants who are being manumitted. Hence: "The brow having been struck, he recedes." And: "The cheeks blushed for the citizen," sings Claudian in *De consulatu quarto Honorii*; for those who were being confirmed were seen to be asserted into liberty. Viscomes in the same place praises Saint Basil’s *Exhortat. ad Baptism.*: "Why do you not willingly endure even the slap, the extreme blow of servants for the liberation of all future infamy and disgrace?" Certainly Christ the Lord was struck with slaps; and Saint Paul writes 2 Cor. c. 11, v. 20: "You endure it if someone strikes you in the face." Regarding manumitted servants who were struck with slaps, see Isidore of Seville, lib. IX *Etymol.*, c. *De civibus*; Boethius in *Topic.*; Valerius Prob. *De notis*; Donatus in *Adelph.*; and Hermogenianus. Justinian calls "colaphos" (slaps) those rhythms with which it was the custom for free men to be struck when they were being emancipated, l. ult. c. *de emancipationibus*, and novella 82. I suppose that it seemed to be a certain kind of abdication. Cornutus in *Persium* relates that slaves, when they were being manumitted, were accustomed to be struck and beaten with a slap, and turned around, and thus they were confirmed as free. Hotoman in *Commentar. de verb. signific.*; Balduinus, in *Justinian*, thinks those "rhapismata" were blows of vindication or of the praetorian rod; for "ῥαπίζειν" also means "ῥαβδίζειν." Cujac. lib. V *Observat. Jur.* c. 13. Gothofredus, to the said Novella, which is in *Authentic*, collat. 6, tit. 9, and is titled *Constitutio, quæ dignitatibus, et episcopatu liberat a patria potestate* in v. *alapis*, where the Glossographer affirms that this custom of slaps in the betrothal of women is observed at Bologna. Tertullian, *De spectaculis*, called the slaps of insults those which they used in manumission, whence Claudian calls them "happy injuries." Vossius in *colapho Etymol. Glossar.*

I have inscribed ^D this narration of the monk Pachon:

The Narration of Saint Nilus concerning Pachon, who suffered the harlot's war and was the victor.

^A He then went to Palestine, having attempted in vain to corrupt Paula herself, despite the opposition of Saint Jerome, and then went to Bithynia, and insinuated himself with Saint John Chrysostom, by whom, in the year of Christ 400, he was ordained for the synod of 22 bishops in Constantinople, and thence to Rome to Pope Innocent I, to whom he seems to have returned for Pelagius in the year 417; he is said to have come before to Sicily with Melania the Elder and her companions in the year 408, who in the year 572 had gone to Egypt with Rufinus after he had professed as a monk: subsequently, at Jerusalem, with the same person, he had imbibed the errors of Origen from Didymus the Blind, which, while traveling to Rome in the year 397, he attempted to spread; whence Isidore of Pelusium, in his 284th epistle, book 1, calls Palladius a man of many women. This Palladius, however, is heard of everywhere among the holy Jerome and Epiphanius as an Origenist, and to him are addressed two epistles of Saint Nilus to a monk, namely 133, book II (of Allatius), in which he compares him to Jonathan tasting spiritual honey, and says he is [Greek: τελείως κεκαθαρμένον], that is, perfectly purified. In another, namely 134, he affirms that he [Greek: ἀναζητεῖν ὑψηλὰς θεωρίας], seeks high contemplations, perhaps while he was dwelling in the mountain of Nitria and in the wilderness: it is read also in book III, epistle 259, to Palladius the Presbyter—is it the same one? Concerning God, who being entreated scatters impious thoughts; Palladius (I say) in that *Lausiac History* praises with marvelous encomiums Evagrius Ponticus, born from the city of the Iberians, which is situated about the Euxine in Pontus, in Amasia or Helenopontus, not in Polemoniacus—hence Saint Jerome calls him a Hyperborean, the son of a presbyter, ordained reader by Saint Basil, Bishop of Caesarea, at Mount Argaeus, then promoted to deacon by Saint Gregory Nazianzen, who, approaching the Council of Constantinople held in the year 381 by 150 bishops, and confirmed therein as Bishop of Constantinople upon the deposition of Maximus the Cynic, and the decree concerning the divinity of the Holy Spirit, according to the volume of the Western Fathers, of which the fifth canon 611 speaks, left Evagrius and commended him to his successor Nectarius. But this Evagrius is considered a disciple of Saint Gregory Nazianzen, though he lapsed into the sect of Origen from the year 379, through the teaching of Didymus; but when he was serving the office of deacon at Constantinople, he was tempted there by the wife of one of the prefects, and terrified by the sight, he was compelled by divine impulse to depart. Therefore, he visited Melania the Elder, who was dwelling at Jerusalem, and he adhered to her; and when he had fallen into sickness, Melania clothed him (as Palladius asserts) in the monastic habit, and sent him to the mountain of Nitria, where he remained for two years; then he went into the wilderness, and there lived for fourteen years in the Cells, persisting in fasts and prayers, and completed a long life: he composed very many books. [Greek: Οὗτος ἔγραψε διάφορα, καὶ ὑπόμνημα εἰς τὰς Παροιμίας τοῦ Σολομῶντος.] This man wrote various things, and a *Commentary on the Proverbs of Solomon* (says Suidas), to virgins sacred to God, a little book appropriate to their sex and religion, translated into Latin by the presbyter Rufinus of Aquileia, as also the book of ^B Sentences, divided into ^C one hundred chapters, inscribed for anchorites; for Rufinus himself was also just like the monk Evagrius (as I hinted above), likewise a few very obscure Sentences, knowable only to the hearts of monks, which perhaps Socrates, *Hist. Eccles.* book IV, ch. 18, and Palladius and Climacus call the *Gnostic Commentary*; these were directed to the monks. I doubt whether they may be the [Greek: Κεφάλαια γνωστικὰ Εὐαγρίου μοναχοῦ], which are numbered 61, and which I myself have also translated from the Greek into Latin, and they begin: [Greek: ὁ Χριστός, ᾗ μέν ἐστι Χριστός, ἔχει τὴν γνῶσιν τὴν οὐσιώδη], etc.—"Christ, in the way in which he is Christ, has essential knowledge." To Evagrius they are certainly attributed in the Barberini Codex, and they end in the Vatican 653: [Greek: Τὰ δὲ τρία καθαρά, ἀνείδεα δὲ εἴκοσι ὀκτώ]—that is: "But the three are pure knowledges; the formless, however, or invisible, are twenty-eight." But there were perhaps those one hundred Sentences, which I shortly subjoin under the numbers 13, 14, and 15, and they prefer the title [Greek: κεφαλαίων λγ' κατὰ ἀκολουθίαν], that is, of 33 chapters, disposed by certain steps in the manner of a sequence, then [Greek: νουθεσιῶν πνευματικῶν κατ' ἀλφάβητον ἕτερον], another "Spiritual admonitions according to the alphabet"; and those are counted as 25. Finally, there follow others, namely Sentences or Admonitions, [Greek: ἕτεραι γνῶμαι ἢ νουθεσίαι], and they are numbered 26. The beginning of the Chapters is: [Greek: ικτερός ἐστιν ἕξις χειρίστη], that is, "Jaundice is the worst condition." The beginning of the other Alphabet of spiritual admonitions is thus conceived: [Greek: ἀτοπόν ἐστιν], that is, "It is absurd." Finally, other sentences begin: [Greek: ἀρχὴ ἀγάπης], that is, "The beginning of charity," and they contain an additional Abecedarian, and the collected number of chapters (33 and 25 and 26) rises to 84; to which if you add the 25 [Greek: νουθεσίας], or [Greek: γνώμας δογματικάς κατ' ἀλφάβητον], which are all defended by Holstenius as belonging to Evagrius, and which begin: [Greek: Ἀρχὴ σοφίας], or [Greek: σωτηρίας], for that learned man noted that these [Greek: γνώμας] (Sentences, or if you prefer, [Greek: νουθεσίας], and [Greek: κεφάλαια], that is, Admonitions and Chapters) are works of Evagrius, or [Greek: παραινέσεις], that is, 612 Adhortations, from the inscription of the most ancient codex BB. BB. And because they are cited everywhere under the name of the same Evagrius in the *Melissa* of Saint Maximus and Antony, although they are inscribed to Nilus in the *Bibliotheca Veterum Patrum Graeco-Latina* published at Paris in 1624—namely the twenty-three final ones together with others of 206, which I omitted myself because Zinus had translated them into Latin before, and published them at Venice in the year 1574, and they begin: [Greek: Φόβον ἔχε Θεοῦ], that is, "Have fear of God"; and in the Parisian edition they exist in Greek and Latin at the same time; however, I have donated in Latin 53 Chapters, the other Abecedarian admonitions in 25, and 26 sentences, which together with the twenty-three rise to 107; and those one hundred Sentences can be by Evagrius, which Rufinus translated into Latin, just as other things knowable to the hearts of monks seem to be the ^D [Greek: κεφάλαια γνωστικὰ] of Evagrius, however much there may be written on the margin of the manuscript Barberini codex, from which they were transcribed, that they are in the Vatican codex 1451 [Greek: ἀνεπίγραφα].

^A exist, and were Nilus’s own work—unless I am mistaken—as Holstenius himself thought, who nonetheless ultimately wishes for all these things to be Evagrius’s. Be that as it may, these two sets of studies of Evagrius, which pertain to anchorites and monks, were translated by Rufinus, just as was the *Little Book to Virgins devoted to God*, and also the *Doctrine apt for the life of common cœnobites*, and the *Synoditis to the Virgin Melania*, written by the same Evagrius, as St. Jerome testifies; in addition to the book *On the Lives of the Fathers*, if one may trust Gennadius, and the eight books which Evagrius composed against the suggestions of the eight principal vices, and which Gennadius was ordered to render into Latin; furthermore, the book or *Sentence* περὶ τῆς ἀπαθείας (on impassibility or imperturbability), which gave a handle to the Pelagians; Rufinus was the Latin interpreter of seven of these works, to whom Nilus wrote [ησυχαστὴν] (the hesychast—as I noted above), who also rendered Origen's books into Latin, though unhappily. For, of such a great man—of whom it could be said that where he thought well, no one thought better, and where he thought poorly, no one worse—he drank in his errors, and while he tried to defend them, he fell shamefully. And the glory that he had built up for himself from his translation of the *Ecclesiastical History* of Eusebius of Caesarea, to which he appended two books, and from so many volumes of the holy Basil, Gregory Nazianzen, and others, he destroyed by this fall, dying in Sicily—as St. Jerome indicates, who calls him a "Scorpion" and "Grunnius," and writes that he is pressed down by the soil of Trinacria between Enceladus and Porphyrion, in his first *Commentary on Ezekiel*, in the *Preface to Eustochium* (Vol. IV, p. 350), that is, at Mount Aetna. Cardinal Baronius thinks it probable that Rufinus fled there with Melania after the capture of Rome in the year of our Lord 410. St. Paulinus praises him in *Epistle 9 to Severus*, and writes to the same in *Epistle 47*, and St. Jerome was once his colleague and friend, whom he was finally forced to attack so bitterly with his pen. Truly, we ought to weep more bitterly over the falls of Didymus, Melania, Palladius, Evagrius, and Rufinus—these falling stars of the Church—did we not suspect that it was not so much with profligacy or obstinacy that the perverse opinions of Origen were defended by them, ^B although, acting under the influence of anger, the heat of debate, and the desire to contend, they may have served the stage. Eusebius wrote an *Apology* for him in the name of Pamphilus the Martyr, and Rufinus poured out two invectives against St. Jerome (*Sulpit. Sever. Dialog.* 1, c. 3). And although those Origenist sentiments, flowing from the philosophy of Plato, were absurd and insane, they were not entirely condemned before Pope Vigilius, as Cassiodorus asserts, and before the Fifth Synod at the end of Canon II, so expressly that Origen was considered a complete heretic—especially when it was said that his works had been falsified. Regarding this, Johannes Picus and Gilbertus Genebrardus should be consulted, and the more recent ones: Binet, Halloix, and Petrus Daniel Huetius, who three years ago at Rouen published and adorned with notes, in two volumes, all that could be found of Origen's writings, in Greek and Latin.

Evagrius's and Nilus's short works are indeed so mingled and inserted—not to say confused—in ancient manuscripts written by hand, that they can scarcely be distinguished, and it is a difficult task to judge to which of them these things belong, due to the error of scribes who incorrectly inscribed the titles. The compressed style itself, gathered into a small space in the chapters, sentences, and brief admonitions, is not a sufficiently certain and safe index; and the character of the diction, sometimes flowing forth rather freely, by no means proves the author, nor clearly reveals one who is discoursing on the same matter, in the same age, and in the same profession. Socrates himself, who lived in the century in which Nilus and Evagrius flourished, attributes to Evagrius the book *On the Ascetic Life* (or *Asceticum*), although no one would deny that Nilus is its author. There are also ascribed to Evagrius 150 sentences and eight chapters against the eight vices—all of which Gennadius (or was it Rufinus?) translated into Latin—but not the book *On the Lives of the Fathers*, in which Evagrius is only praised, as Rosweydus wishes in Palladius’s *Lausiac History* and in his *Prolegomena to the Lives of the Fathers*. However, it is confessed by all that of these 150 sentences, just as of the book against the eight vices, Nilus is the author. See Cardinal Baronius in his notes to the *Roman Martyrology*, that man who confuses him with the Antiochene. Be that as it may, whether one borrowed from the other, John Climacus condemns Evagrius and calls him "most foolish" and τὸν θεηλάτην—that is, agitated by an evil spirit of God (*Grad.* 14, p. 203). But I shall treat this more fully later, as well as the chapters against the eight vices.

^C For there occurs an *Epistola dogmatica de sancta Trinitate ad eos qui in patria monachicam vitam degunt* (Dogmatic Epistle on the Holy Trinity to those who live the monastic life in the homeland), written when he was in Constantinople with the blessed Gregory of Nazianzus—or "the Nazianzen"—in the *Narration of Pacho the Epigrapher*; it begins, *πολλάκις ἐθαύμασα, τί δήποτε πρὸς ὑμᾶς* (I have often wondered why, at last, to you). The title, however, has been published and translated into Latin with the words slightly transposed, and though the treatise should have been named a *Sermo*, it was called a *Dogmatic Epistle* to those who live the monastic life in the homeland while he was at Constantinople with the blessed Gregory, bishop of Nazianzus. It could have been called "dogmatic" or "didactic," but I have retained the reading "dogmatic." Four types of teaching (or interpreting Holy Scripture) are enumerated: the first is "dogmatic" (as if decreeing); the second is προστακτικόν (imperative); the third is ὁριστικόν (defining and determining); the fourth is "prophetic" (denouncing and predicting). *Διεξοδικόν* is also a style of teaching or writing by which things are narrated in a continuous flow of speech. "Dogma" is defined by Psellus in *Oration 42 of St. Gregory Nazianzen* (p. 939) as a sentence pronounced after accurate investigation regarding a doubtful and controversial matter. "Dogmata" are called "tenets of sects" by St. Augustine (*Lib. 1, c. 10, Quæst. Evangelic.*); thus, *Dogmata Medicorum* (Dogmas of the Physicians) is used by St. Jerome...

^A Paulinum, Aphorismi, et Opiniones, sive Sententiæ; just as *Dogmata philosophorum* (Dogmas of philosophers) is used by Cicero and others; just as *Regulæ juris* (Rules of law) is used by jurists. There is also the Erotematic style of writing, namely by questioning and answering, which Cicero also approves in his books *De oratore* to Q. Frater, and in his *Partitiones*, or *Dialogicum* (whence Antoninus was called "Dialogicus" by Cassius, as Vulcatius Gallicanus affirms); thus, the *Definitio orthodoxæ Fidei* (Definitions of the orthodox Faith), or Canons and Rules, and the *Ecclesiastica Dogmata* (Ecclesiastical Dogmas), about which the book of Gennadius of Massilia is written, falsely ascribed to St. Augustine, and the *Confessiones fidei* (Confessions of faith), or *Ἐκθέσεις*, that is, Expositions, of which kind is that of Justinian ^B which was inserted in the law *Inter claras 4, C. De summ. Trinit.*, and whatever symbols are in the ecumenical or particular councils, which have existed since the Nicene Council; I remember I once read in the Vatican Codex 1455, p. 53', or MS. this: "From the Ecclesiastical History of Theodore Lector of Constantinople. How many are the Expositions of the faith: these were then read at Constantinople, but we, having at length traversed the labyrinth of the expositions, have collected their number. For after the faith at Nicaea, later at Antioch at the Dedication-festival, they dictated two expositions; the third is that which was delivered by those around Narcissus in Gaul to the emperor Constantius. ^C Now, [the fourth] is that which was sent by Eudoxius to those in Italy. And at Sirmium three were dictated, of which one was read at Ariminum after the consulate of Eusebius and Hypatius. There is one God the Father, there is one God from God... (of Eusebius and Hypatius), it was read. The eighth is that which was at Seleucia, which those around Acacius read; and the last is that which was published at Constantinople with the addition. For it was added to it to speak neither of essence nor of hypostasis in God. To this, Ulphilas, the bishop of the Goths, first consented at that time; for in previous times he embraced the faith which was at Nicaea, following Theophilus, who, being bishop of the Goths, was present at the Nicene Council and signed. These things then have been said about this matter."

Since these things are not found in the *Collectanea* of Theodore himself, published in the Paris edition in folio, I have chosen to insert them here. Indeed, they will receive the clearest light from those things which Sulpicius Severus brings forward in his book of *Sacred History*, and which St. Athanasius recounts concerning the Synods of Ariminum and Seleucia, and which are also found throughout the ecclesiastical historians. The symbol of St. Athanasius himself, which is recited in the ecclesiastical Office, is extant, as is his *Exposition of faith*; long before, St. Gregory of Neocaesarea, called Thaumaturgus from the abundance of his miracles, had learned from the blessed evangelist John, with the intervention of the most holy Virgin Mother of God, a brief confession of faith, in which it is asserted, ^D one God is the Father, one God from God, one Wisdom, one Holy Spirit. He furthermore promulgated an *Exposition of faith* against Aelianus. Catholic bishops newly elected were accustomed to send a Chirograph, or Formula of faith, to other bishops to distinguish themselves from heretics; for afterwards heresies sprouted up like weeds in the field of the Gospel while the good seed was germinating more joyfully: at the beginning of their election, bishops sent letters to one another, both to the Roman pontiff and to the Roman Church, which were referred as if to the center of the line of all bishops from the circumference of the whole world; they called them Encyclicals, or communicatories (St. Aug., epist. 163), and "formatae" (according to Optatus), by whose fellowship they were in agreement; they contained a profession, or formula of faith, as a sign for ecclesiastical unanimity and communion: such is the letter of Pope Damasus I to Paulinus, Bishop of Antioch, in the *Tom. Concil.*, p. 10. See the "Honour of Honorius" vindicated by me; for even before their consecration they used to issue a formula of faith; and the Roman pontiff himself, as the prince of the others, provided this consent, or profession of faith, which is read in the Council of Constance, sess. of the Crabbian edition, and in the Basel edition, sess. 38. Pope Pelagius wrote to Childebert, King of the Franks, in c. *Satagendum*, 25, q. 1, and in like manner Boniface VIII to Philip, King of the Franks (from Bzovius and Rubeus), which he himself had recited when he entered upon his pontificate, and it exists in manuscript in the Vatican Codex 4905. Cardinal Baronius reports this profession in vol. X of his *Ecclesiastical Annals* at the year 869, from a handwritten codex of Antonio Agustin, who had transcribed it from the *Diurnus* Vatican codex 5302. Cardinal Cusanus, or de Cusa, praises it from there, and from the *Panormia* of Ivo of Chartres, in his book *De concordantia catholica*, p. 745. Regarding it, see Crespet in *V. Papae professio*. Pope Adrian also issued a profession of faith.

^A I believe the Epistle 251 in book 1 of Isidore of Pelusium addressed to him was written as an early work, where he calls him deacon; and perhaps Epistle 153 of the same holy Gregory Nazianzen is addressed to his father. There is also, among the works of Nazianzen, a treatise or Confession of faith on the Nicene faith in Oration 50, translated into Latin by Rufinus the Presbyter, p. 1006. And there are two orations, namely 51 and 52, to Cledonius the Presbyter concerning the Heads of the faith, which can be compared with this treatise or epistle of Evagrius; just as is Oration 49 on the faith, the translator of which was the same Rufinus, p. 997. Now, holy Gregory Nazianzen loved his deacons, as well as his fellow-deacons, as he calls Eugenius, and he recommends Euthalius in Epistles 158 and 159. But that two synods were held at Constantinople then in the year of Christ 381, Binius sagaciously surmised in his Notes on the Councils. The first, in which, after the intruder Maximus the Cynic was expelled from the see of Constantinople, Gregory Nazianzen—who had administered the see, which he had been governing for some time since the year 379 (as Gregory himself testifies in his *Iambi on his own Life*, p. 15)—was chosen: that same Maximus, I say, who walked about in the garb of an idol, that is to say, wearing a *pallium*, as Holstenius learnedly notes, p. 259, in his *Collectanea Romana* (which, by the most splendid bounty of the most eminent Cardinal Barberini, was happily brought to light for the good of the Church), citing Pope Celestine, Tertullian, and the *Acts of SS. Perpetua and Felicitas*, to which I would add Saint Augustine, tractate 7, chapter 1 in his *Exposition of the Gospel of John*, p. 21, where he writes that he knew at one time the priest of that *palliatus* (for so it must be read instead of *pileatus* in both places) was accustomed to say: "And the *palliatus* himself is a Christian"; that is, Serapis, whose idol was covered with a *pallium*: and this is what is stated in the letter of Adrian Augustus in Vopiscus: "Serapis is a Christian." There was a second synod in which, Saint Gregory Nazianzen resigning, and with the younger bishops who had drawn the other, older ones to their side, Nectarius was substituted in his place, to whom the same Saint Gregory also directs Oration 46, in which he deplores the state of the Church and urges him to restrain heresies and heretics. With this wise intention, Nectarius, with the 150 bishops (for that many had assembled, and were gathered at Constantinople), in the consulship of Eucherius and Syagrius, or in the year 381 since the birth of Christ, from the month of May to the 7th of the Ides of July, held an ecumenical council as regards the East (Chronicle, Historical, Theodosian Code), and principally condemning the Macedonians, who denied the divinity of the Holy Spirit, he attempted to mend the dissensions of the Church and restore peace. Indeed, in Holstenius’s chronotactic chart of the pontificate of Damasus, which was inserted among his papers and included in the *Roman Collection*, p. 301, the ecumenical council held at Constantinople in the month of May is placed at the year 381, and the temerity of Maximus is condemned. Gregory lays down his episcopacy because of the discord among the bishops; Meletius dies at Constantinople, and Flavian is substituted in the episcopacy.

^A His successor is chosen while Paulinus is still living; all these things are brought together as if they happened at the same time, and yet a great deal of time passed while Saint Gregory held the rudder of the Church, and attempted to join the East once more to the West, and to bring back the regions of the East, battered by schisms and heresies, to the citadel of the Roman Church, the guiding star; and yet it was in vain. And for that reason it is right to distinguish between the two synods: although in the notes on page 260, commenting on the Epistle of Damasus, he observes that this council assembled at Constantinople to substitute a bishop for Constantinople in the place of Maximus, who had been excluded, was a particular one. But as for the notion he puts forward that the Roman Church never considered it a general one, I would concede it for the first, but not for the second; because it seems to be named as general there, and in the profession of faith of the Roman pontiffs.

^B But enough of this, let us draw our hand from the tablet. In the meantime, I attribute this Profession to Evagrius, from whom Saint Nilus received it, and whom he seems to have made his own, when he approved it and sent it to be observed by his monks, as I believe, and therefore it is credited to Nilus. It had been drawn and derived from Saint Gregory of Nazianzus, from conversations held with him, as is read in the Preface to the monks who were in the solitude, which he calls their homeland: for the desert is the true homeland and native soil of the monks, where they, dead to the world and born to Christ, gave their names and live. But these monks recalled the author himself, who alleged as the cause of the delay the habit and teaching of Gregory of Nazianzus, and warns them to beware of the Philistines—that is, the Macedonians, who denied the divinity of the Holy Spirit; for the heretics were trying to infect the simple and mostly uneducated monks with their errors.

Hence, although long afterwards, Saint Fulgentius complains that the lands of the Thebaid region in Egypt had been separated from the communion of blessed Peter by a treacherous dissension, just as he had been informed by Eulalius, the bishop of Syracuse, when he desired to move and journey to the remote desert of that region: the deacon of the Carthaginian Church, Ferrandus, affirms this in the *Life of Saint Fulgentius*, ch. 12, p. 222, at no. 6 of the year 436 (Card. Baron. p. 650); these, namely, were the solitudes to which deported heresiarchs used to deceive the anchorites and mock the neighboring monks. Nestorius was condemned and sent into exile, being known to reside in the Oasis (says Liberatus in the *Breviary of the Nestorians* p. 53, vol. II of the Councils, and Socrates in Cassiodorus, book XI *Hist. Tripart.* ch. 5), just as the demon had been bound by the angel Raphael in the upper desert of Egypt, Tobit ch. 8, v. 4. Regarding the Scythian monks ^C in the North, where Nestorians still dwell, the same Cardinal Baronius recalls that the Eutychians also rioted against their father, the bishop of Tomis, and stirred up crowds even in Rome, at the year 519, p. 38 and 46. He deals at length with the Oases, both the greater and the lesser, in his *Notes to the Roman Martyrology*, June 12th. Furthermore, the most learned Nicolaus Antonius, in his book *De exsilio*, lib. I, ch. 14, no. 14 and following, where he also discusses Gypsus.

Concerning a report in the *Vitas Patrum*, where the beautiful places of the desert were becoming quiet, and the deserts and untraversed places were rejoicing, and the wilderness was exulting, according to the prophecy of Isaiah ch. xxxv, v. 1, with crowds of monks and companies of anchorites inhabiting it on all sides. The Scythian region, afterwards called Scetis or Scitis; there is that mountain of Scetis where Arsenius—of the Holy Roman Church, regarding whom see July 19th in the aforementioned Martyrology—philosophized, and which the locals call Nitria, because a certain village near it is where nitre is collected: in the same place are not fewer than 50 contiguous monasteries, whose monks dwell together or separately, and Nicephorus Callisti, ch. 38, lib. 11 *Hist. Eccles.* In the year of public salvation 750, through the response of Pope Zachary, Childeric (or Hilderic) the last king of the Franks of the Merovingian line, was deposed and ordered to depart from the kingdom of the Franks, and shorn in the monastic manner, was thrust into the monastery of Saint Bertin, or Saint Audomarus; and after dwelling in various hiding places of monasteries, he at length died in Sithiensis, in the year [754]. Sithia or Sithii; this name had been given to that monastery in which monks very similar to the Scythian Egyptians in their way of life were residing. According to Godefridus Henschenius of the Society of Jesus: Christian confessors were once deported to the Oasis under Julian the impious apostate, no. 362, p. 42 (Baron.). There, Calendion the Catholic bishop of Antioch had been relegated, accused of treason in the year 482 (Baron. p. 355); but afterwards the impious and the heretics, the Severians, the Acephali, and others already enumerated: thus the cells of the monks were turned into caves and dens of robbers.

Let us proceed to the present matter, if I mention that Evagrius the deacon, ordained by Saint Gregory the Theologian of Nazianzus, of whom he was a disciple, remained behind in the city of Constantinople after his departure, so that he might be of assistance to Nectarius, his successor in the see of that Church, in investigating dogmas; so at the year 381, Cardinal Baronius observes, p. 448 *Annal.*; for Nectarius was not sufficiently skilled in these things. This tract ends in the words, *καὶ ἡ παροιμία φησί*, and the Proverb testifies.

^D Nilus’ work follows, *ὅτι διαφέρουσιν τῶν ἐν πόλεσιν οἰκουμένων οἱ ἐν ἐρήμοις ἡσυχάζοντες*, "That those who lead a tranquil life in the solitudes of the desert excel those who dwell in the cities;" which title I have thus rendered: *On the excellence of the monastic life, or, that those who are quiet and silent in the deserts are more excellent than those who live in cities, although to many who are inexperienced it may seem otherwise.* This tract begins: *Τέχνης μὲν ἁπάσης τὰ τεχνητά*, that is, *Of every art, the products...*: it ends with *αἰώνιον*, that is, *eternal*. Certainly Theodosius the Great, that whoever should be found under the monastic profession, he had ordered to follow and inhabit desert places and vast solitudes, by a law given on the 3rd of the Nones of September at Verona, in the consulship of Valentinian Augustus IV and Neoterius, that is...

anno C. N. 390, according to Cardinal Baronius, n. 47, 48. It exists in the Theodosian Code under the name of the emperors Valentinian, Theodosius, and Arcadius Augustus, addressed to Tatianus, Prefect of the Praetorium of the East. But the same Theodosius revoked it twenty months later, and, having annulled the former law, granted monks free entry into the cities, by a law given on the 15th of the Kalends of May at Constantinople, in the consulship of Arcadius Augustus XI and Rufinus, that is the year 392 of the Christian era, according to Baronius, with whom the scholiast of the Theodosian Code contends somewhat unfairly. Moreover, Isidore of Pelusium, lib. I, epist. 367, reproves nuns ^A *εἰς πόλιν φοιτώσας* [frequenting the city]. From this, it is very easy to detect the beginnings of enclosure: indeed, not even cenobites were allowed to wander abroad, cf. c. 16, q. 1, and can. 25 of the Council of Chalcedon; can. 16 of the second Council of Tours; in the Synopsis of the Basilica, lib. IV, c. 46, tit. 1; Council of Meaux, can. 19; Agde, can. 38, or to leave the monastery, outside of which a monk is like a fish out of water and lacks life, as Pope Eugenius testifies, can. *Placuit* 16, q. 1. Add can. 6 of the Council of Toledo; the edict of Luitprand, King of the Lombards, tit. 22 and 75; and that of the Emperor Theophilus of Constantinople, in the book of Oriental Law, const. 2, *On the expulsion of monks*. Saint Benedict, c. 5 of the Rule, condemns the Gyrovague monks, whom Peter Damian confuses with the Sarabaites; and Synesius, epist. 67, to Theophilus, calls them Vacantivi, of whom we have spoken above: to whom can be added the Gallodromi and Spanodromi, mentioned in the *Lives of the Fathers*, the Circumcellions, and Agonastici among the Donatists, of whom Saint Augustine speaks in *Psalm* cxxxiv, p. 556. Just as of the Stylites, or Cionites, and Columnaries, and of the Recluses, from Gregory of Tours, lib. VI of the *History of the Franks*, c. 6 and 8; and *On the Glory of the Confessors*, c. 103, where he enumerates not only the *Hospitium*, but also the *Eparchium* and Julianum, as Palladius does in c. 141 of the *Lausiac History*, and Eustathius; and Nicephorus Callisti, lib. XIV, c. 51 of his *Ecclesiastical History*, Simeon, and Daniel: and Glycas, *Annals* tom. IV: but also Saint Gregory the Great mentions Secundinus the recluse; in whose stead now flourish the Camaldolese under the Rule of Saint Romuald, and the Carthusians from the Institute of Saint Bruno, of whom Lucas speaks in *Romualdina* lib. V, c. 6, and Peter the Venerable of Cluny, epist. 12, lib. VI, and St. Antoninus, part II of his *Chronicle*, tit. 15, c. 22, p. 82. Alanus de Rupe, in the *Prerogatives of the Carthusian Order*; Justinian, *Novel* 123 *De div. Eccl. Capitul.*, repeated in collat. 9, tit. *De sanctis episcop.*, commands most holy bishops to provide for the places, so that neither monks nor nuns may wander about the cities; and the same is decreed in the name of the Emperor Leo, as Gratian reports, c. *Generaliter* 16, q. 1.

But if the ancient poets ascribed the tortoise to Venus to indicate that women ought not to set foot outside the house, but like that animal, ^B be *οἰκοφύλακες* [house-guards]: this certainly applies to nuns, the maids of God, as the Fathers of the first Council of Toledo call them, c. 6, already cited, who have devoted themselves to God, but, first, it is fitting, according to the words of the Lord Christ, c. xix of Matthew, and following the counsel of the Apostle Paul, c. vii of the first to the Corinthians, since the sex is fragile, and so that they, wandering about everywhere, do not harm the reputation of the Church, can. 33 of the third Council of Carthage. Saint Jerome addresses Eustochium thus: "Let the secrets of your chamber always keep you, let the Bridegroom always be locked in with you within, etc. I do not want you to seek the Bridegroom through the streets, the foolish virgins wander outside," lib. II, epist. 17; and among the gifts customarily offered to virgins being veiled, he counts a stool, so that the virgin may not move her feet outside, lib. I, epist. 41 to Marcella. There were also some recluses, like Alexandra in a tomb, as Palladius testifies, and Maria, Thais, and Pelagia in small cells. Photius, lib. I of the *Nomocanon*, c. 4, where Balsamon, tit. 90, c. 1 and the last canon of the Council of Mainz. The Fathers in the age of the Emperor Arnulf do not allow any nun or ^C *Ascetria* to be drawn away from the monastery, nay rather they command them to be regularly confined by cloisters, and entrance is permitted only to men of proven life and advanced age for the sake of Masses, can. 38 of the Council of Epaone. Thus Saint Caesaria did not leave until the day of her passing, nor did her sisters, as the author of the *Life of Saint Caesarius of Arles* narrates. Innocent IV, Supreme Pontiff, epist. 139, in the 6th year of his pontificate, writes that nuns live in the monastery as if buried alive, dead to the world, living for Christ, and Boniface VIII decreed for them perpetual enclosure, cap. *Periculosae*, *ext. De stat. regul.*, lib. VI, where although Joannes Andreae notes that this chapter had not been received in the Kingdom of France, the kings of the Franks nevertheless admonish the bishops to take care that the enclosure of nuns be diligently observed, in the *Henrician Code*, lib. I, tit. 44 *De religios.*, art. 8 and 9, Brouchel in *Basilic. Jur. Francic.*, and in the *Conferences*. The German Emperors also in the *Diets of Augsburg*, § *De monialibus*, tit. *De monaster.*, and the Fathers of the sacred Council of Trent, sess. 25, c. 5 *De reformat.*, and the pontiffs Pius V and Gregories XIII and XV, part two of the *Bullarium*, bull 8, anno 1566, and bull 8, anno 1572, and bull 18, anno 1622. Saint Charles Borromeo, Cardinal of the S.R.E. and Archbishop of Milan, in the *Provincial councils*, lib. VI, tit. *De clausura monial.*, n. 59; Canegianus, Archbishop of Aix, in the provincial synod, anno 1585, tit. *De monialibus*; Cardinal Taurusius, Archbishop of Avignon, in the provincial synod also in the year 157, tit. *De sanctimonialib.*; regarding the various institutions of whom Peter Damian, Cardinal of Ostia, c. 9, *Opusc.* 50. But the most vigilant and most upright prelate of happy memory, Cardinal Antonius Barberinus, the ornament of the Capuchins, in the synod of Senigallia, enacted most accurate constitutions for nuns, which exist in print.

^D Following is the *Treatise of the same Nilus to the monk Eulogius*, in which there are Chapters, or diverse Sermons, divided by me into 54 chapters. 622 It begins, *Qui coelesti di-*

…are occupied with the passage; and it ends: “But do thou observe my words in thy heart,” etc. I would believe that this Eulogius is the same monk to whom Isidore of Pelusium writes, lib. I, ep. 257, *On the Morning Light*; 289, *On the Cross*; 312, *On the Law*, where the reader is inscribed, lib. I, ep. 77 and 85, and is called Presbyter; and 202; and finally lib. II, ep. 184 and 236. Now, I should think that the person to whom Nilus directs this book is the same individual who was a disciple and presbyter of the archbishop John, or Saint Chrysostom, patriarch of Constantinople, abstaining and fasting; and it is said that he visited the abbot Joseph in the place which is called Panepho, according to an uncertain author, lib. V, *On the Life of the Fathers*, whose Latin interpreter is Pelagius, ^A and lib. VI. And perhaps he is the same one who judged those worthy of communicating, and of whom Rufinus speaks, lib. II, c. 14, Sozomen, c. 1, and Nicephorus, lib. XI, c. 34. For the logic of the time does not allow that he should be that Alexandrian monk, the Scholastic, who went to Saint Anthony, of whom Palladius speaks, c. 26 of the *Lausiacs*, and an uncertain author, lib. V, *On the Life of the Fathers*, whose interpreter was Paschasius. Thus it is gathered from this inscription that Nilus flourished in the age in which Isidore, Eulogius, Agathius, Evagrius, and others lived. Saint Nilus certainly adorns this Eulogius with a distinguished eulogy, while he calls him

the impulse of the virtues

the forwarder of the works

There follows by the same (that is, by Nilus) a

discourse to the same Eulogius concerning those things which are the antagonists of the virtues, the vices.

Concerning the antagonists of the virtues and the vices, that is, of the vices which are opposed to the virtues.

I consider it necessary also to examine the antagonists.

…the journey of his will is easy.

abundance

arrogance

humility

By the same, concerning the eight spirits of wickedness.

Concerning gluttony, that is, indigestion, the principle of the fruit, the flower of bearing.

And the humility of a man is adorned with many virtues.

Item, you will find the aforementioned treatise *De octo vitiosis cogitationibus* (“On the eight vicious thoughts”), whose beginning is “de gula” (“concerning gluttony”), on page 973 in the same fifth volume; which I think is different from the eight books which Evagrius composed against the suggestions of the eight principal vices, and of which I have spoken above. Certainly, the beast of which Saint John writes in chapter 17 of the Apocalypse had seven heads, and the devil suggests seven vices, which are called criminal, as are the capital sins; and like a seven-headed hydra, he rises up with these against God. Peter Lombard also calls them principal, in lib. II *Sententiarum*, distinction 44, and enumerates them from Saint Gregory the Great in Exodus, or rather in Ezekiel, or indeed from book XIII of the *Moralia*; and he says that this was signified ^D by Chrysostom in the seven peoples who were holding the land of promise which God had promised to Israel: from these as if from seven fountains all the mortal corruptions of the soul flow; because from these all evils arise; and there is no evil that does not draw its origin from one of them. Fornication—or rather, cupidity—is indeed the root of all evils in execution, just as pride is the beginning of every sin as regards intention. Yet those seven are: vainglory, anger, envy, acedia or sadness, avarice, gastrimargia (or gluttony), and luxury. The most pious and learned Carolus Thomassius, a regular cleric, whom I venerate for these gifts, deals with this extensively in his *Arbor Doctrinæ sancti Thomæ*. Concerning acedia, Diadochus, bishop of Photice in Epirus in old Illyricum, who flourished in the year 390, says in c. 58 that moral theologians divide it into that which is sloth and weariness of good works, and into that which, by a certain weight of sadness, burdens the human soul, leading to pusillanimity and despair. Petrus Cardinalis Damiani writes extensively about the vices of monks, in *Opusculum 2, De sæculi contemptu* (“On the contempt of the world”), who omits gluttony among the capital sins in his *Lib. De horis canonicis*; yet Horace, a heathen and an Epicurean, enumerates seven in these verses, lib. I, epist. 1, to Mæcenas:

*Fervet avaritia, miseraque cupidine pectus,* *(Greed and wretched desire inflame the breast,)* then: *Invidus, iracundus, iners, vinosus, amator.* *(Envious, irascible, slothful, wine-bibbing, lustful.)*

But Gratian, in his *Decretum*, at dist. 25, c. *Unum orarium*, cites more from Saint Augustine’s homily on purgatorial, or transitory, fire, or in his 41st sermon on the saints, and the 4th on the souls of the faithful departed. The Greeks sometimes count eight, sometimes nine, as is evident in these treatises; whence I would gladly exclaim with the kingly Psalmist, “Who can understand his errors?” (Ps. XVIII, 12). In the Cologne edition, that treatise *De octo vitiosis cogitationibus* exists in Latin with a Preface, the beginning of which is: “Beginning to write on the eight vicious thoughts or affections,” etc. Then it begins: “As the flower is the beginning of the fruit,” etc. The periods are very different; but the writer goes through the eight vices in a very similar order. The following distich is prefixed:

*Arva rigat Nilus fluvius, sed pectora sermo* *(The Nile river waters the fields, but the discourse)* *Ex monachi Nili qui fluit ore, rigat.* *(Which flows from the mouth of the monk Nilus, waters the breasts.)*

Whoever wishes may consult that version, which is far from…

^A the Greek text of the Barberini codex. Perhaps he who translated it had obtained a different codex, or was fond of indulging himself and sailing with his own eloquence. I, for my part, have translated with the greatest fidelity, just as I did the same Nilus’s treatise *On Prayer*, or *τοῦ αὐτοῦ λόγον Περὶ τῆς προσευχῆς εἰς ρνγ' κεφάλαια διειλημμένον*, divided into 153 chapters. This treatise had been translated into Latin by Franciscus Turrianus, and published at Antwerp by Plantin in 12mo, then by Margarinus de la Bigne, and Zino at Venice in 1574; indeed, it is even in the *Bibliotheca Patrum* of Cologne, p. 950. But the Greek text is missing, as is the Greek and Latin preface which I have appended here, which begins *Πυρέττοντά με*, that is, *Febricitantem me* ("Me, feverish"). The beginning of the treatise, or chapters, is *Εἴ τις βούλοιο*, *Si quis voluerit* ("If anyone should wish"); and it closes with this end: *Εὕρηκας προσευχήν*, *Invenisti orationem* ("You have found prayer"); and in my version, perhaps the reader will recognize more faithful, if not wiser, secondary cares.

Omitting a few small works, which I spoke of just now, I have subjoined *τοῦ αὐτοῦ κεφάλαια κζ' Περὶ διαφόρων πονηρῶν λογισμῶν*, *Ejusdem capitula 27 De diversis malignis cogitationibus* ("The same—Nilus, to wit—27 chapters On divers malignant thoughts"). And this treatise ought to have been connected with the other two placed above, and perhaps the author, or the translator, collected his version from them, stitching it together like a patch-work, or weaving a medley—as the treatise *On the eight vicious thoughts* was inserted into the Cologne edition. Certainly, these three treatises revolve around the same subjects, although in the Barberini manuscript the treatise on prayer was interposed; it was against my conscience to invert the order of the codex written by hand. The beginning is: *Τῶν ἀντικειμένων δαιμόνων τῇ πρακτικῇ*, that is, *E dæmonibus oppositis activæ vitæ* ("Concerning the demons opposed to the active life"); and it ends: *Οὗ καὶ ῥυσθείημεν χάριτι τοῦ Χριστοῦ*, etc., *A quo liberemur gratia Christi*, etc. ("From whom may we be delivered by the grace of Christ," etc.).

^B *Τοῦ αὐτοῦ ἐν ἁγίοις Πατρὸς ἡμῶν Νείλου Παραινέσεις πρὸς Μοναχούς* (The exhortations of the same, our father among the saints, Nilus, to monks) is supposed, whose beginning is *Ἀκρασίαν*, that is, intemperance; the end is *μηδὲ συνεσθίειν καλὸν*, that is, *neque cum eo comedere bonum est* ("nor is it good to eat with him"). This treatise, or *Institution to Monks* of the same holy father of ours, Nilus, is cited in the *Vitae Patrum* of Heribert Rosweyde, p. 598, under the name of Evagrius; in the edition of Zino and in the *Bibliotheca sanctorum Patrum* printed at Cologne, it is found under the title *Sancti Nili abbatis*, p. 968. Holstenius claims it for Evagrius from the BB. manuscript, observing that many chapters were missing, to be supplied from Evagrius himself, which he found in another codex of the BB. library under the name of Evagrius. But I have not doubted in ascribing it to the holy Nilus, from whom I believe Evagrius had easily borrowed—just as *φίλων τὰ πάντα κοινά* (all things of friends are common), so S. Nilus took his *λόγον δογματικὸν* from Evagrius, or rather from S. Gregory Nazianzen. But I will show more fully in the ^C Life of S. Nilus himself that Nilus most skillfully condensed the doctrines of the spiritual life into chapters, in such a way that he deserved the epithet of "kephalaista" (chapter-maker) from this, and having lived in the desert for a long time with the monks, he learned them through long use. Indeed, he who had provided a specimen of his political prudence in the prefecture of Constantinople, his native city, to the emperor as well as to his own fellow citizens, also supplied most healthy counsel in the desert to both cœnobites and anchorites.

I added *τοῦ αὐτοῦ κεφάλαια λγ' κατ' ἀκολουθίαν*, that is, *Ejusdem capitula 53, per gradus quosdam disposita consequentiæ* ("The same, 53 chapters, arranged according to certain degrees of sequence"). They begin: *ἰκτερός ἐστιν*, that is, *Morbus arquatus, seu regius est* ("It is the jaundice, or royal disease"); they terminate: *καταβάλλειν πεπιστευμέναι*, *quæ præsunt ad repellendos* ("which are set over to repel"). These consequents are very similar to the *Expositionibus brevissimis sacræ Scripturæ* of Saint Eucherius, which are read in the Lirinensian Chronology related by Vincentius Barralis; for Nilus explains sacred matters allegorically, audaciously, and tropologically, and, assimilating the sicknesses of the soul to the diseases of the body, explains them as a spiritual physician, applying to them remedies drawn from the Holy Books. I have omitted *τοῦ αὐτοῦ νουθεσίας πνευματικὰς κατὰ ἀλφάβητον*, whose exordium is *ἀρχὴ σοφίας, καὶ σωτηρίας ἡ σεαυτοῦ κατάγνωσις*; that is, *Ejusdem Admonitiones spirituales ordine alphabetico* ("The same, Spiritual admonitions in alphabetical order"), whose beginning is, "The beginning of wisdom and safety is the accusation of oneself"; and the end is, *Ὤτων καὶ γλώσσης μέγας ὁ κίνδυνος*, *Aurium, et linguæ magnum est periculum* ("Great is the danger of the ears and tongue"); because they were published both in Greek and in Latin in the *Bibliotheca Græco-Latina sanctorum Patrum*, second volume of the Paris edition of 1624, fol. 1168, and ^D I have appended *Τοῦ αὐτοῦ ὁσίου Πατρὸς ἡμῶν Νείλου γνώμας ἀπαγούσας τῶν φθαρτῶν, καὶ κολλώσας τοῖς ἀφθάρτοις τὸν ἄνθρωπον*, *Ejusdem sancti Patris nostri Nili sententias abstrahentes a corruptibilibus, et hominem incorruptibilibus agglutinantes* ("The same, our holy father Nilus’s sentences drawing away from corruptible things, and gluing man to incorruptible things"). These Sentences bear the same title as those I omitted, because they were already standing published in Greek and Latin in the *Bibliotheca sanctorum Patrum* of Paris, year 1624, volume II, folio edition, page 1168, from the *Orthodoxographa* in Germany; but they differ greatly, for they begin: *Ὁδὸς εἰς ἀρετὴν ἀγαθή, καὶ σύντομος ἡ τοῦ βίου φυγή*, that is, *Via virtutis bona et concisa est sæcularis vitæ fuga* ("The way to virtue is good and short, [it] is the flight of the secular life"); but they end: *ἀπολλυμένων*, that is, *pereuntium* ("of those perishing"); these are numbered 134, those indeed 229, more or less; and these were collated with the Vatican codices 653 and 1434: and those also bore the title *Παραινέσεων, ἢ Κεφαλαίων διαφόρων*, that is, *Admonitionum, seu Capitulorum diversorum* ("Of Admonitions, or Divers Chapters") 627: and they have often seen the light, reprinted at Franeker in Greek likewise and in Latin, in 12mo, in the year 1608. Stephanus Schoning…

boasting that he had translated them, and illustrated them with testimonies both sacred and profane, he rather tainted them himself, scattering into them much of the Calvinist bran.

I have placed a seal upon these Nilian lucubrations with a discourse of blessed Nilus on that saying of the Gospel which says: Now he that hath a purse, let him take it, and likewise his scrip, and he that hath not, let him sell his garment, and buy a sword. And it stands thus in Greek: ^A *A discourse of blessed Nilus on the Gospel saying which states: Now he that hath a purse, let him take it, and likewise his scrip, and he that hath not, let him sell his garment, and buy a sword.* This discourse was transcribed from the Cassinese manuscript codex number 278, in the codex of Gregory Nazianzen in quarto near the end. It begins: *To prokeimenon rheton*, that is, The proposed saying; it terminates with these words, *Dia pantos phylassomene eulabeia*, that is, with piety guarded perpetually.

There are also other discourses of Nilus, namely, two abridged, or rather epitomes of them, for the feast of Easter, and three on the Ascension of the Lord, among Photius in his *Myriobiblos*, or *Library*, codex 206, page 855, which were translated into Latin by Andreas Schottus of the Society of Jesus, known to me also in Belgium, and most closely associated, to be commended no less for his humanity than for his skill in the humanities: these, when they were published in Greek by Hoeschel in the year 1601 at Augsburg in folio, and in Greek and Latin by the same Schottus, appeared with notes in the year 1653 at Rouen in folio; there are also collected there, or excerpted from the 153 chapters of the *Treatise on Prayer*, of which I treated above on page 624, but in the number 201 of Photius’ *Myriobiblos* I found only the title and the number of chapters, although Photius passes judgment, later comparing it with the definitions and chapters of Diadochus, bishop of Photice, and with the *Ascetics* of Marcus the monk; but at number 276 are the *Prooemia* of the Orations, or Discourses on Easter; as well as the first and third homilies on the Ascension of Christ, and compendia of others: nor can I hold myself back from recording here the observation of Nicolaus Antonius, a man who never can be sufficiently praised, in his book *On Exile*, regarding this third homily. Saint Nilus, dealing with Enoch and Elijah, writes: *Katochei gar toutous ho Plastis en somati psychagogon ten exisorton physin, hos kai meta ten hyperorion physen palin eis,* or *tes athanasias,* or *ten athanaton,* *epanagon politeian.* That is, *The Creator holds these in the body, consoling the nature in exile, who also after that exile is about to restore it again to immortality, or after the flight beyond the borders, is about to restore it to the state of immortality*; and he prefers the version of Schottus to the version of Desiderius Heraldus in his *Adversaria*, who had rendered the word *psychagogon* as "evoking," to whose sentiment, namely that of Nicolaus, I willingly subscribe.

Thus far I have indicated the Works of S. Nilus which I have gathered into this volume; now I have thought it worth the labor to review those which I passed over.

In the first place, ^B *Nili monachou eremitou Diegeseis eis Theodoulon ton huion autou*; *Narrationes of the monk and hermit Nilus, in which the slaughter of the monks of Sinai and Raithu, and the captivity of his son Theodulus are described*; for he conceives the Latin title thus from the Greek, which the Reverend Father Possinus—a man always to be praised by me—inscribes otherwise, and divided into seven *Narrationes*. Then, *Tou en hagiois Patros hemon Neilou tou presbyterou eis Albianon logos. Sancti Patris nostri Nili presbyteri, in Albianum Oratio*, describing and commending the life of a most holy man: which Works, indeed, having appeared in Paris in 1639 in 4to, translated into Greek and Latin, I deemed it a sacrilege to touch. For the same great man illustrated them with notes, and although something could be added, I leave the lucubration to him, as ^C a picture of Venus of Cos not yet finished by Apelles, to be completed and perfected in all its numbers—Pliny, book xxxv, c. 10 and 11, and the lighthouse of Etruscan eloquence Carolus Datus in *Vita Apellis* p. 97, and in the *Annotations*, p. 145, which most illustrious man is full of learning of every kind. It begins with these words: *Alomenos ego meta ten ephodon ton Barbaron*; that is, *A wanderer am I after the hostile arrival of the Barbarians*. It ends in these: *apolapsai, kai nyn, kai en to mellonti aioni*; that is, *which you may enjoy both now and in the future age*. Concerning that Barbarian incursion, and at what time it happened, see the *Life* of Nilus itself.

I did not insert the *Letters* of Nilus; for Possinus himself had published them in Greek and Latin at Paris in 1657, in quarto, with Notes, and indeed Leo Allatius, who was by me long ago called the natural, native, and genuine son of Greece, and its very apple of the eye, and seemed to be preferred to outsiders, promulgated the same letters at Rome with the Barberini press in 1668, in folio, but augmented and divided into three books to 1061; with various readings to the narrative of the slaughter of the monks, and a *Diatribe* on Nilus and their writings, and his own Latin version, and a single short note, and a double Index, namely of the names of those to whom the Letters are directed, and of the beginnings. Among those Allatian Letters there are 53 inscribed in various ways, ^D which are contained in one place in the Barberini codex, page 165, with this title, *Tou hagiou Neilou epistole echousa keph. ng'*, *Sancti Nili Epistola habens capita 53*. It begins: *Ean medeis se dioke tyrannos Hellen*, *Etsi nullus te persequatur tyrannus Gentilis*; which I find to be concise, and among the Possinian ones it is number 41, page 69, directed to Pharismanius, up to *stratiotes tou Christou*. Among Allatius, in book II, it is numbered epistle 71; it is inscribed to Pharismanius in December, or the first of December, as I correct it. Holstenius had compared this Letter comprising 53 chapters with the Vatican codex 653; and he had continued with others, from which the chapter that follows is a Letter that, in Allatius, book III, was placed at number 295. It begins, *Me katoknomen*, that is, *Do not let us be negligent*, inscribed to Didymus the reader, just as with Possinus, n. 4. It ends, *ex hon ho nous*

^A *katalampesthai exothen*, that is, *from which the mind is accustomed to be illuminated*; which words are missing in the Barberini manuscript 629 (to this Didymus is the fifth epistle of the same Nilus of Possinus, and 244 of Allatius’ book, but it is beside the point). The third chapter follows; it begins *Oudeis tapeinoteros*, that is, *no one is more humble*: in Allatius it is directed to Nilus the presbyter, book III, epistle 256; and it comprehends *euchen*, that is, *prayer*, just as in Possinus, epistle 168. Its beginning is *boethos*, which also constitutes the fourth chapter. But the fifth has the beginning *adunaton*, that is, *it is impossible*; the epistle is 280, book III of Allatius and Possinus 254. The sixth begins Nilus thus: *Ei holos hemas eklekthenai*, that is, *if we wish to choose ourselves wholly*. Allatius has the epistle in book II, number 246, *to Daborius the monk*, in the manuscript it is read *ekdexasthai*, that is, *to accept*. In the seventh chapter: *Hosoi me boulontai*, that is, *whosoever do not wish*; in Allatius it is epistle 304, without a title, book I. The eighth chapter, whose beginning is *Ei boulei*, that is, *if you wish*, is epistle 60, book III to Maurianus the monk, according to Allatius. The ninth chapter, which begins *Ean hesychasomen*, that is, *if we have rested*, is to the same in Allatius’ book III, epistle 58. Possinus inscribes it to Marianus, and epistles 34 and 35: from which two Allatius stitches together four, namely 58, 59, 60, 61, book III. There are other epistles of Nilus to this Maurianus, or Marianus, or Marinus in Possinus 216, 227, 228, 267, and in Allatius book I, number 185; where he is called a subdeacon, and elsewhere a monk, or even a presbyter. However, both confuse these names of Maurianus, Marianus, and Marinus. The tenth chapter corresponds to Allatius’ epistle without a title, book III, number 305, it begins: *To praos*. The eleventh chapter: *Hotan dikaioprayon artheis kata tou hamartesantos, ekeinos euthus hyper sou dedikaiotai*, that is, *When, acting justly, you are lifted up against him who has sinned, he was immediately justified over you*. That chapter I have found in no printed edition. The twelfth chapter begins: *Agoniso-metha*, that is, *let us struggle*; and it is epistle 297, book III, inscribed to Lesbius the deacon among the Allatian ones, but among the Possinian ones 236. The beginning of the thirteenth chapter: *Oi zen eusebos*, that is, *those living piously*: from it the epistle consists of 67, book III of Allatius, to Paul the archimandrite, and a part of Possinus’ 38, Allatius’ 68. There the epistle contains the fourteenth chapter, ^D beginning, *en te hypomone*, except that at the end of my manuscript it is written for *psyche te ekzetouse auton*, whereas in the printed edition it is *psyche he zettesei auton*. The fifteenth chapter begins: *Oiden ho hemeteros*, *our Lord knows*, just as epistle 306, book III of Allatius without a title. But the sixteenth, *Kan me tacheos*, that is, *although not quickly*, is epistle 307, also without an inscription in book III of Allatius. The seventeenth chapter, *Hemeis aitioi*, that is, *we are the cause*, is Possinus 238, to Theoctistus the deacon, in Allatius book III, without a title 308, as 409, beginning: *Ean me tis hoplistai*, that is, *unless one is armed*; but in Possinus 257 to Marcianus. In chapter 18, it is comprehended, and is Possinus epistle 249, to Nicon the presbyter; but at 19, 310, Allatius book III, *ei boulometha*, that is, *if we wish*; 20, 311, *ouk epilanthanetai*, *is not forgotten*, it is not forgotten. To chapter 21, which begins, *Nothros tis*, that is, *a certain sluggish one*, corresponds epistle 60, book IV of Allatius, which is directed to Paul the monk, and in which the sayings of Saint Anthony ^B are recounted by one reading in nature, and in the small book always the reasons for the works of the Lord, and where the word for ballast 630 is expressed in Greek and Latin, *saboura*, as if it were *sabulum vilius* (viler sand), with which ships are accustomed to be loaded so that they may be more stable; from Livy, book VII *On the Punic War*, which men learned from sea urchins and cranes; from Pliny, Solinus, and other witnesses. The bees themselves, about to fly in a more vehement wind, *pherousin lithon eph' heautais, herma pros to pneuma*, they carry a stone in themselves, a ballast or stabilizer against a sharper gust, from Aristotle *On Bees*; nor does Virgil pass this by, book IV Georgics. *et sæpe lapillos* *Ut cymbæ instabiles fluctu jactante saburram* *Tollunt:*

Chapter 22, beginning, *Ginoske hoti*, that is, *know that*, is to be referred to epistle 281 of book III of Allatius, directed to Alexander: 23, to which is affixed at the front, *Phaxeis thlibesthai*, that is, *you say you are afflicted*, to epistle 312, without a title, in book III of Allatius; but it is directed to Julius the deacon in Possinus epistle 241. Chapter 24 begins, *Me pteses pathos*, that is, *do not dread perturbation*, to reference epistle 282, book III, inscribed to Julius the deacon in Allatius, and in Possinus epistle 242, just as 25, *Ei thaumazeis*, that is, *if you admire*, to the epistle of Allatius 313, book III, without a title: 26, which has the beginning *Gnothi seauton*, that is, *know thyself*, in the same place to epistle 314, Possinus 243, to Evagrius: 27, beginning, *Kata panta chronon*, that is, *in all time*, to epistle 283, inscribed to Euthymius the bishop, book III of Allatius, and in Possinus 244: 28 begins, *Katageroi autoi*, that is, *the accusers themselves*, to the epistle of Possinus 245 and Allatius 284, book III, which refers it inscribed to Eleutherius the bishop: 29 begins: *Kyrios sophos*, that is, *properly wise*: but it corresponds to epistle 315 of Allatius book III, without a title: 30 puts forward the beginning: *Oi ponerai*, that is, *evil thoughts*, to epistle 259, inscribed to Palladius the presbyter, book III of Allatius, and 282 of Possinus. It is missing in the manuscript *to agatho theo*, that is, *to the good God*; but it abounds after *theo*, which is said from the Psalm to God: 31, which has the beginning, *Tous epiginoskontas*, that is, *those who know best*, ^C refers it to epistle 316, book III, of Allatius without a title; 32, which has the beginning, *Hosper kapnos*, that is, *as smoke*, to the epistle of Allatius 264, book III, directed to Chariton. The thirty-third begins, *To myrmekoleon*, that is, *myrmeco-leo*, or lion-ant, or ant-lion; refer to the epistle of Allatius 265, book III, inscribed to Jonah the monk, of Possinus... [He] wishes there to be a genus of beetle from the light on the animals of Sacred Scripture, from Pliny, among whom I did not find the ant-lion: for that reason Samuel Bochart in book VI, part two, chapter IV of the *Hierozoicon* work argues it is false,

who thinks it to be a species belonging to the lion, based on Agatharchides, ch. 16, and thinks it differs from others in nothing except that it has its genitals turned backward, and he strives to prove this either from the Vulgate version in Job ch. iv, v. 11, where "the roar of the lion" is read instead of "ant-lion," and also "tiger": then from Strabo, lib. xvi, that lions in the Troglodytica of Arabia have their genitals turned backward, which are called ^A *myrmekes*; but for ants, simply in Aelian, lib. xvii, ch. 42, having their genitals turned backward in Babylonia, as in lib. vi, ch. 47, where he does not agree with Casaubon, for whom the word "ants" is suspicious. Among the Arabs there is a species of lion, which is called 631 *hirmis*, whence the word *myrmex* is derived. There are also Indian ants digging for gold like dogs or wolves, in Herodotus, lib. iii, from Nearchus, Dalmachus, and Megasthenes, not with lion's feet, as Solinus thought, ch. 50, in Ethiopia. One should see Strabo, lib. ii and xv; Arrian, in *Indica*; Pliny, lib. xi, ch. 30; Aelian, lib. iii, *Histor.* ch. 4; and Heliodorus, lib. x, *Aethiopian History*. These are indeed of Indian origin, of canine stature, but they exhibit the appearance of ants: Thuanus, lib. xxiv, *Annal.* for the year 1559. Busbequius, epist. 4, *On the Turkish Embassy*, relates that one of these was among the gifts from the King of the Persians to Solyman. Perhaps the lions were named by the peoples of Ethiopia, the Marmacae, whose peoples Stephanus mentions in ^B *On Cities* from Hecataeus: as *hippomyrmex* in Lucian; but it is considered a fictitious animal, like the hircocervus, tragelaphus, or a chimaera, sphinx, or lamia. The Septuagint translators in ch. iv of Job, cited above, translate: "The ant-lion has perished because it had no food." Saint Gregory, in his work on that passage, lib. v, ch. 15, judges the ant-lion to be a small animal, hostile to ants, which hides itself in the dust and kills them as they carry grain, and having killed them, consumes them, as a lion devouring, and as an ant it is devoured by other minute creatures. Isidore, lib. xii, *Origin.* ch. 13, [calls it] *Formicalco*; and Vincent of Beauvais, lib. xvi, *Doctrinal.*, ch. 117, and in the Petavian library, the poet Barbarus, no. 1344; others opine the name is thus because it is born from an ant and a lion, namely a little animal that has a leonine ^C appearance. Eustathius in the *Hexaemeron* is twice mentioned, to Saint Jerome, or the author (if there is any other) of the epistle to Praesidius regarding the Paschal candle. Regarding the ant-lion, Damir the Arab, on the species of ants: "In front," he says, "a lion; behind, an ant." Regarding anteaters, which eat ants among the Western Indians, and which are called so among us, Scaliger in his *Exertitations on Cardan*, 216; Aelian, lib. vi, ch. 3. Let these excerpts thus far, as much from Aldrovandus as from Bochart, regarding the knowledge of the ant-lions, be sufficient. From this, however, I will add that Olympiodorus in *Job* thinks that it is not that animal according to history (and therefore Bochart listed it among fabulous animals), but that it is fashioned from the composition of words; and Eulogius Alexandrinus, lib. iv in ^D the *Novatian*, in Photius' *Bibliotheca*, interprets the devil allegorically, who roars as he approaches like a lion, [but] departs suffused with shame like an ant, and perishes, finding no food in men. Saint Augustine in his only book on *Job*: "Because he seizes, and secretly pursues grain, which, once the eye is removed, makes it so it does not germinate;" where the holy doctor accepts "eye" for that which is in the shoots of trees, from which they germinate: thus it is used in Cato, *De re rustica*. "Eye," whence "to inoculate," in Columella, lib. xi, ch. 2, is to apply the eye of one tree to another, or to open it, as in Pliny. Bede on Job: The lion, when he acts as a predator on greater matters among the saints, [and] the ant when on the smallest; Olympiodorus asserts the ant for the pious, the lion for the impious; but Nilus in the *Catena*, like Theophylact on Luke, [argues] because he drives us 632 into more serious matters from small beginnings, as is evident in the above-written epistle 265, book of Allatius, which is directed to the monk Jonas, and is numbered 189 in Possinus, and seems to be taken from ch. 49 of the *Treatise on Monastic Exercise*, page 56. Patricius Junius published the *Catena of Greek Fathers on Job* collected by Nicetas, and rendered it into Latin; it saw the light of day in London; there, p. 144, these things are brought forward from Nilus: *Forsitan vero et magnus Job ad seipsum philosophans hujuscemodi aliquem obscure designat*, etc. These are also added which were lacking in the Barberini manuscript Codex, and in my edition, p. 37, after *opllizousai kata tes psyches* [arming against the soul], but there they add: "Those things we did not perceive as Eliphas thinking so, but as the words being able to be turned toward allegory, whenever the need calls for it; for the ancients also used that contemplation, and conceived the ant-lion to be the devil, since, preparing to sin in small things, and entering in secretly, he ends in great things, accustoming [one] to contempt," which I strove to render correctly into Latin. But we did not examine these as Eliphas understood (or according to another reading, "the intelligent ones"), but according to how the words can be turned into an allegorical sense, whenever use has demanded it; for the ancients used speculation, and understood the ant-lion to be the devil; since after he has disposed [one] to sin in certain small things, secretly soon entering in, he devolves [one] into great things, accustoming [one] to contempt. According to Prov. ch. xviii, v. 3, "The impious man, when he comes into the depth of sins, he condemns." Therefore, it is appropriate to attach these: consult that *Catena*, if you still require an exposition of Polychronius, who thinks that Job himself is indicated by the name of the ant-lion. But lest we say too much. To ch. 54, the beginning of which is *Pleistakis detheis*, that is, praying often; epistle 266, book iii of Allatius is referred to, which is directed to Adrianus. To ch. 35, beginning *Katheudeis*, that is, you sleep; epistle 317, book of Allatius without an inscription. To ch. 36, which begins *Ou monon gastrimargein*, that is, not only to indulge gluttony; epistle 46, book ii of Allatius directed to Gelasius the monk. Possin. 26. To ch. 57, *O hemiochos nous*, that is, the mind as charioteer; epistle 268, book iii of Allatius. To ch. 38, *Ouk estin hamartia*, that is, there is no sin; epistle 99, book iii of Allatius. To Chariton.

^A To ch. 39, *Allōs gar ho technitēs*, that is, one way the craftsman, and another way the one who is ignorant; epistle 246, book iii of Allatius, without title. To ch. 40, *Ean glykē*, that is, if it be pleasant; epistle 286, book ii of Allatius, lacking an inscription. To ch. 41, *Megalēn tēn proseuchēn*, that is, the great prayer; epistle 319, book iii of Allatius. To ch. 42, *Ouk haplōs*, that is, not simply; epistle 320, book iii of the same Allatius. To ch. 43, *Mechris an sou*, that is, until you; epistle 272, book iii of the same Allatius, addressed to Paulinus the domestic, Possin. 204. To ch. 44, *Mē aponalgēs*, that is, do not shirk; epistle 321, without title, book iii of Allatius. To ch. 45, *Hōsper hoi eisporeuomenoi*, that is, as those entering; epistle 322, book iii of Allatius. To ch. 46, *Ouk estin eulogon*, that is, it is not reasonable; epistle 320, book iii of Allatius. To ch. 47, *Kamatou chrēseis*, the sickness anticipates you; epistle 324, book iii of Allatius.

^B To ch. 48, *Ei hoi echthroi*, that is, the enemies; epistle 273, which is inscribed to Aquilinus, book iii of Allatius; in Possin. it is 209. To ch. 49, *Prin ekeino to phrikōdes*, that is, before that fearsome thing; epistle 325, of Allatius, in that place. To ch. 50, *Mēden tōn phainomenōn*, that is, nothing of the things that appear at present; epistle 326, without inscription, book iii of Allatius; he who reads *en tō phainomenō*. To ch. 51, *Oudepote dei argein*, that is, it is never necessary to be idle; epistle 164, book iii of Allatius, addressed to Peter the monk, Possin. 118. To ch. 52, *Tolmēson*, that is, dare; Allatius, epistle 327, without title, book iii. Finally, that which is located in the Barberini codex in the fourth place, *Euchē*, that is, prayer, and it constitutes chapter 53. Its beginning is *Boēthos*, that is, helper; Allatius includes it in epistle 256, which is directed to Nilus the presbyter, book i. And at the same time, he patches together those two chapters, just as Possinus does ^C in the epistle to the same Nilus the presbyter, 168, which begins, *Oudeis tapeinoteros*, just as the Allatian one does, as I noted before. There will not be wanting men of sharp wit, and those who have a nose like a rhinoceros, who will condemn my inquisitiveness and reject my arduous labor as useless in comparing these Epistles; and of this Epistle, which contains fifty-three chapters, Possinus had obtained a codex in the Medicean library, of the Epistles which he brought to light in the year 1657, in Paris. Another, larger one, Leo Allatius, when he had gathered the wandering and dispersed ones into one bundle, having compared the Roman volumes as best he could, published it at Rome with the Barberini press in the year 1668. But when in epistle 60, book ii, of Allatius, which is inscribed to Hadrian the monk, I had found many things taken from chapter 17 of the *Tractatus de monastica exercitatione*, especially from the beginning period, *Ei gar anthrōpoi barbaroi*, etc., that is, For if men are Barbarians (for these are indeed the first words of the same chapter 17) up to these, *tis episeise*, who persuaded? Afterwards, when I had stumbled upon epistle 65, book iii, of Allatius, also directed to Theodore the monk, and in Possinus 285, inscribed to Theodosius the monk, ^D I recognized that it consists entirely of a part of chapter 42 of that same *Tractatus de monastica exercitatione*, where the Latin is: *Aliter quippe artifex, et aliter tiro artis nescius dijudicat ea, quae ad artem spectant.* Finally, the Allatian epistle 246, book ii, occurs to me, the beginning of which is, *Polloi tōn en thalassē cheimazomenōn*, etc., that is, Many of those who are agitated in the sea by a storm; and which is directed to Zenobius the legate: but it seems really to have been transcribed from chapter 64 of the lauded *Tractatus*, where at page 72 these things were written, *Ei gar en thalassē pleontes cheimazomenoi*, that is, For if they who are sailing on the sea are tossed by a storm, etc. Certainly, either some one of these papers or Epistles, which were suddenly poured out by our Nilus for various occasions, and flowed forth with impetus and heat, and fell to various people, without any regard for times or dignities, while the holy man was carried away by zeal, as in the Epistles given to the Emperor Arcadius both in the possession of Allatius 265, book ii, and book iii, epistle 279, as well as in Possinus, epistle 232 and 233; indeed to the Roman bishop 634, Allatius epistle 155, (if that was his proper name), someone (I say) from the students of Nilus compiled that continuous work divided into 153 chapters from these Epistles, omitting the names of those to whom they had been written; or someone for the sake of exercise distributed that dissected epistle into various parts for various recipients. I therefore wished to give some sample of this mixture, or dissection, and to provide a taste of my own thought to the reader, who might, according to the sharpness of his own wit, distinguish these things more skillfully. Isidore of Pelusium writes to the Emperor Theodosius, epistle 35, book i, about the distribution of wealth, and about abstinence, and gentleness; moreover, epistle 311, about the Council of Ephesus, furthermore to Cyril, Patriarch of Alexandria, or bishop, book i, epistles 323, 324, 370, 497 and book ii, epistle 127; and book iii, epistle 306. Nor does Isidore offer them titles or honorific prefaces. Such was the simplicity of the pious monks in that century, such was the moderation of the pontiffs and emperors, and the bare names were prefixed to the epistles in the manner of the ancients, according to Symmachus, book ii, epistle 35, where Juretus comments. Indeed, while the Roman republic flourished, enjoying full and entire liberty, the titles which are now used everywhere in conversation and letters were completely unknown, so that often the controversy over them hinders the course of affairs of the greatest moment; the custom of addressing one in the plural number was unknown: indeed, it used to be a question among the learned whether a solecism could even be committed in single words, as if someone beckoning a person to himself should say, "Come," as Quintilian observes, *Institut. orator.*, book ii. But now the flattery of adulation has proceeded so far that it is considered a sacrilege and a crime to omit the words by which we deceive masters while decorating a single person with the honor of a multitude, and a suit is brought on that matter; just as John of Salisbury complains in the *Polycraticus*, book i, chapter 10, or *De nugis curialium*, and a penalty is inflicted on those who do not address magistrates with their due titles; which R. P. Cr- also observed.

^A Becillus, a member of the Oratory, my friend and a learned man, in his Notes on the Life of Saint Pope Caius.

It is surprising to wonder why Allatius posits three letters—namely 235, 236, and 237 in book iii—from the single epistle to Telemachus, which is one and numbered 159 in Possinus; and from one Possiniana letter to Julian the monk, numbered 261, we find two Allatian ones, 229 and 230, in book iii, while 231 of Allatius is certainly the complete 262 of Possinus; just as 232 of Allatius is the pure counterpart, specifically 263 of Possinus. But is 264 of Possinus divided into the two letters of Allatius, 233 and 234, and does 235 of Allatius complete 165 of Possinus? Why does Nilus repeat in epistle 198, book ii, in Allatius and 304 in Possinus that which he recorded in chapter 15 of the Treatise on Monastic Exercise regarding the Ammonite Naas threatening the Israelites that he would gouge out their right eye? Furthermore, will many other items transferred from the minor works of Nilus into the Epistles be found, or conversely, reduced from the Epistles into chapters and inserted into treatises? A fair reader will be able to investigate the reasons for these divisions, repetitions, and tautologies.

^B 635 Meanwhile, the epistle directed to Bishop Anastasius concerning Saint John Chrysostom, edited in Latin in the Bibliotheca Patrum of Cologne and by Zinus, was omitted by me because it exists in Greek and Latin in Allatius, book iii, epistle 291, and in Possinus, epistle 254—who names that Anastasius only as a presbyter; I also took care not to put into print the epistle *Pros neoterous monachous* (To the younger monks), or to the younger monk, about which I spoke above; or his institution and *didaskalia*, because it was printed in both Greek and Latin in Allatius, book iii, epistle 303; but in Latin in the aforementioned Bibliotheca Patrum of Cologne, volume V, part ii, page 972; and indeed in Zinus, Venice 1574, in the Collection of the Works of Nilus, book v, Allatius 61 to Olympiodorus the eparch, and 62 to Heliodorus the Silentiary, directed at the second Nicene Council, action 4, which I had indicated to the aforementioned Allatius when he had shown me the books of Epistles which he had committed to the press, and had already brought to the end: from which he placed them in the last position, yet provided me no *minysia*. Lastly, in the Bibliotheca Patrum of Cologne is read a fragment of Nilus on the overly long prefecture. Behold it: "Observers of natural things report that for thirty days the flock of birds leads on, then gives the same task to another crane: but he who now presides over your flock, being ambitious and desirous of commanding, as I hear, has already completed the year of his ministry by custom, and does not permit another to take up the task and care of ruling. And what shall we say to this?" It exists also in Zinus, page 110; but this fragment about the turns of the prefecture, or the annual office of the canonarch, is epistle 355 of Possinus and 241 in Allatius, who, when he had inscribed it as to Aphthonius *kathēgoumeni*, or abbot, translated it wrongly into Latin as the catechumen: just as in both places the fragment is from a certain parænetic treatise (as is likely) with these words: "Can you see the Angels, or the Powers, or Christ sensibly, ^A taking a wolf for a shepherd, and worshipping hostile demons? Vain glory is the beginning of the error of the mind, by which the mind, being incited, attempts to circumscribe that which is divine with forms and figures. But you must not be ignorant of even this fraud, that demons bestow themselves in time, and if you appear to seek help, they are subsequently in angelic forms, driving out the innocent ones, so that you may be deceived by them, as if they themselves were holy angels; demons sometimes suggest thoughts and incite you in turn to pray badly to them or to contradict them, and they yield of their own accord, so that you might be deceived, thinking that you have begun to overcome the thoughts and to terrify the demons. One ought not to judge priests, either justly or unjustly, or to examine them; but even if anyone falls in them, he will be judged by God and will be reproved in this and in the future age, or by a greater priest. A priest is not one who does not live in accordance with the dignity of the priesthood: one ought not to be offended because of the sacred things that are celebrated by an unworthy priest; but the oblation is the same, even if he who offers it has an impure life. 636 Priests and teachers are to be heard when they teach, provided it is from the divine Scriptures, as it is pleasing to God and not according to their own desires, as it is written; and one should not judge them, even if they have an evil life: and if they should stumble in the faith, then one ought not to believe them, but even to flee them and judge them. God does not indeed ordain everyone, but He works through all, so that the people may be saved. While they grow accustomed to despising priests, they also despise ^C God; and just as one who is involved in danger, to whom by the world neither an army nor regal dignity is committed, if he should do those things which pertain to regal dignity; so also he who approaches the duties of the priesthood, even if he may appear far wiser than them. Thus Pelagius, in the year 555 from the birth of Christ, translated the uncertain Greek author whom Rosweydus inserted in the fifth book of the Lives of the Fathers. He, in booklet 2, § 11, says this: "Abbot Nilus said: 'He who loves quiet remains unpierced by the arrows of the enemy; but he who mingles with the multitude receives frequent wounds.'" These fragments of Saint Nilus, scattered among these minor works, yet expressed in other words, and perhaps even from others which have perished through the injury of time or are still lying hidden, struggling as if they were the remaining planks of a shipwreck—if anyone wishes to examine and investigate them with the help of God, I do not doubt that he will find them, or at least the meaning. In chapter 33, to Eulogius, some similar things about the frauds of the demons who plot craftily and maliciously will certainly appear. Balthazar Corderius of the Society of Jesus, a chain of 65 Greek Fathers on the Gospel of Saint Luke, collected and rendered into Latin, brought to light: among these are fragments of Nilus, chapter 4, number 25, On Achab and Elisha, page 152; chapter 5, number 18, On vain glory and leprosy, page 160; chapter 7, number 10, On the voice in Rama and the widow's son, page 209; chapter 9, number 56, On the power of habit and going into and out of the temple, page 256; chapter 18,

^A again, On vainglory, page 439; On Bethany, chapter 19, number 48, page 492; finally, On the resurrection, chapter 20, number 22, page 509. Nicetas, metropolitan of Heraclea, wove a catena on Job, which Junius Patricius brought forth in print in London from the Bodleian Library in the year 1637. Is that the David who flourished around the year 858? The manuscript codex of Thecla, an illustrious and noble Egyptian woman, living around the time of the Council of Nicaea, as the pseudo-patriarch Cyril, dwelling in the Constantinopolitan see, used to boast, he had brought away with him from Alexandria and sent to the king of Great Britain. I would judge it to have been the one to whom Saint Gregory Nazianzen writes in letters 200, 201, and 202. Nicetas (I say) took from Nilus therein, on pages 53 and 54, those things which about Joseph, and about the shedding of garments in chapter 42, exist more briefly in the *Magnum*; the same person, from chapter 29, also borrowed, from *On Monastic Exercise*, those things which are read on pages 588 and 590, concerning the dragon Lucifer, and concerning asps or shields; and from chapter 62, those things concerning the wild ass, page 557; but from chapter 49, those things concerning the rush and the reed, pages 144 and 200; just as also concerning the seed of Babylon being exterminated, according to chapter 50, verse 16 of Jeremiah, page 476; just as also concerning the arm, and concerning the kissing of the hand, from Leviticus, where the passage is read a little differently, one may see chapter 14 of *On Monastic Exercise*, and chapters 65 and 66, which are *On the leader and the commander*, page 585. Anastasius Sinaita, bishop of Antioch, flourishing in the year 544, whose works Gretser edited in Greek and Latin, in his *Questions*, reports from Nilus the monk to Agathius the monk (Ingolstadt edition, page 25), *On prayer to be offered in every place*, and *Concerning Cornelius*, and on page 35, from the same author’s writings to Eucarpius the monk: nevertheless, nothing was written by Nilus, as far as I know, to Eucarpius; indeed, not even any letter to him is found, but [it was written] to the illustrious Pionius—thus the Greeks pronounced "illustrious"—a true friend and son of the most blessed Eucarpius, ^B book 3, Allatius.

Saint Nilus's *Commentaries on the Song of Songs*, as well as those of Gregory of Nyssa and Saint Maximus, or *Hermeneia*, that is, a paraphrastic interpretation, with Psellus' *Stichoi politikoi exegetikoi*. They exist, edited at Paris in Greek and Latin, in volume 2 of the *Bibliotheca Patrum Graeco-Latinorum*, in the year 1624, unearthed from the Vatican Library, translated by Francisco Zino; but it is impossible to distinguish what belongs to which of these three Fathers. Now, the *politici stichoi* of the Greeks, which consist in the number of syllables, not by the theory of prosody, are nothing other than rhythm, according to Joseph Scaliger in his *Eusebian Chronicle*, page 7. Joannes Meursius of Leiden published commentaries on that *Song* by Eusebius, Polychronius, and Psellus in the year 1617. Procopius of Gaza, a Christian sophist, whom the most eminent and most learned Cardinal Bellarmine argues to have lived in the year 560 after the birth of Christ; but Joannes Curterius, who in the year 1580 at Paris published his commentaries on Isaiah translated into Latin, opines that he lived in the reign of Theodosius I. Procopius, I say, whose commentaries on the Octateuch saw the light of day in Latin at Zurich, translated by Conrad Clauser, in the year 1555; and Joannes Meursius at Leiden in the year 1620 promulgated *Scholia* in Greek and Latin on the books of Kings and Chronicles. That Procopius also wrote on Proverbs and Canticles, and that those writings were shown to him at Venice, Curterius asserts. Indeed, Joannes Besson, of the Society of Jesus, composed in the Song of Songs ^C

I easily agree, therefore, with Gentianus Hervetus, who claims for Maximus those things in the ascetical works in which the discussion is about Solomon, and about Gehazi and Judas; yet these are subordinated to Maximus’s *Ascetical Excerpts*, even though before this Nilus is placed between Saint John Chrysostom and Nicephorus, Patriarch of Constantinople, on page 95. Again, from the book of Nilus to Agathius, or Agatho, where Hervetus reads Antiochus, *On goods which are given to those in need*. But these are found in chapter 2, section 6, to Agathius, or Peristeria, page 129, in that edition printed by the Barberini press: again, after Diadochus *On spiritual perfection*, under the head of Anastasius, some things are brought forth from Saint Nilus to Agathius *On the terrible mystery of death*, where the soul departing from the body is compared to one who drinks bitter potions. But the readings and phrases vary everywhere, whether because those who were transcribing them were less able to follow by memory, and to keep and preserve the same words, being intent on the sense more than the style, or because they used codices containing different words; and it has some... ^D ...lucubrations, which came forth from the Toulouse press in the year 1646; and in these he praises Nilus, Philo of Carpathos, Theodoret, and the *Eclogae* of Procopius on the Canticles and Proverbs: it is reported that Origen also wrote on them. Saint Thomas, that angelic doctor, while he was aspiring to heaven, to which he migrated, explaining the Song of Songs, poured forth swan-like songs and laid the foundation for an empyreal melody, and, tasting a foretaste of supernal delights, he failed upon the earth. So our Nilus, having meditated on the narratives of the Psalter of David, when he was panting for the heavenly fatherland, and his soul was already conversing there, seems to me to have interpreted the Song of the son of Solomon. Saint Thomas, in the monastery of Fossanova of the Cistercian order, held by illness at the Amasenus river in Campania...

when he had attempted to complete the exposition on the Canticles, could not finish it, being prevented by death which interrupted his pious attempt, and he expired at those words which are read in the seventh chapter, v. 11: "Come, my beloved, let us go forth into the field," or "into the garden"; as Sixtus Senensis is the author, lib. IV *Bibliothecæ sanctæ*. The most eminent Cardinal Francesco Barberini, an abbot and such a cultivator of the Father, when he brings forth the monuments of his piety everywhere, even if he presses and hides them anxiously, raised a magnificent altar with a marble statue excellently sculpted, and to the adorned side-chamber he added an inscription which I insert here, prepared by the Rev. Father Frigerio, a priest of the Congregation of the Oratory, in the *Life of Saint Thomas*, lib. IV, cap.: "That Saint Thomas might die while singing, and while dying sing, at the request of the monks of Fossanova, explaining the Song of Songs, he is rapt into heaven with a greater force of love than of disease."

Moreover, many explanations of the Canticles were written by various Doctors of the Church. The first is attributed to Cassiodorus, from whom others think it was transferred by Bede, and they claim it for Haymo, Bishop of Halberstadt, who lived as a disciple of Alcuin in the year 850. That one whose beginning is "Sonet vox tua" is said to be the work of Giles of Rome, called the Fundamental Doctor, although by some, and by Sixtus Senensis himself, it is ascribed to Saint Thomas, and therefore he calls the aforementioned other *Exposition* the second. ^C Very many mystical and anagogical Fathers, descending into this arena, have labored over these Canticles, especially Saint Bernard the mellifluous, who dictated and delivered Sermons on it. Saint Gregory the Great wrote on the Canticles: Aponius, Angelomus, Ambrose, Ausbert, Honorius of Autun, Anselm of Laon, Rupert of Deutz, and Robert Holkot, and others whom it would be long to enumerate, the more recent interpreters of the Holy Scriptures, have interwoven into it most of the Notes and Commentaries, just as profane authors did with poets, philosophers, orators, physicians, and lawyers: Scholia, huge Commentaries, Glosses, and wide and diffuse Explanations. Those who succeeded them extracted from these the little notes which the Greeks called Catenae, but the Latins called Postils and Glosses on the Bible, from which Strabus of Fulda, who in the year 840 continued the *Ordinary*; Anselm of Laon in the year 1077, the *Interlinear*; then Nicholas of Lyra, and others. Saint Thomas also linked together the *Golden Chain* on the four Gospels; truly Golden, which was printed in the year 1637. Œcumenius and Olympiodorus, who are thought by some to have lived after the thousandth year, but are drawn back by others to the year 900 and 800, are held to be authors of Catenae. Paul Comitolus, S.J., published at Lyons in the year 1586 a Catena on Job from twenty-four Greek doctors, translated from Greek into Latin; but among those doctors he names Nilus, and this is the one which Patrick Young published at London in both languages, which I have previously— ^D brought forward, namely that of Nicetas of Heraclea. Michael Gislerius, a Regular Clerk, compiled three volumes on Jeremiah, also printed at Lyons in 1623. In these, the Catena of the Greek Fathers, unearthed from the Vatican Library and rendered into Latin by Allatius and Caryophilus—which A. Agellius had previously brought to light at Rome in Greek and Latin—was interwoven with two other Catenae. Balthazar Corderius published at Antwerp in the year 1643 an exposition of twenty-four Greek Fathers on the Psalms, arranging it in three volumes into a Catena, a paraphrase, and a Commentary; by the same author, *Symbolae collatae* are seen in two volumes, of which the first exhibits the golden Catena of twenty-one Greek Fathers on Matthew, which the Rev. Father Possinus donated to Latium and committed to the press at Toulouse in both languages in 1646. The other volume, in which is a Catena of thirty Fathers, among whom is Nilus, whose *χρῆσις*, or authority, is referred to in cap. 9, p. 519, "Concerning the power of the apostles walking upon serpents and scorpions," obtained as its interpreter Corderius himself, who confesses that the collector was Nicetas, Bishop of Serrae: the testimonies of the Fathers are not cited word for word, but the collector uses a paraphrase, as Father Possinus observes for his own cleverness. However, I value a Catena as a precious necklace, or rather as gold, fashioned from twenty-nine Fathers, and most especially from Saint John Chrysostom, in a codex which was written by hand on parchment, and was made available from the Barberini Library, with the Greeks sufficiently neat in their characters, by the most reverend Abbot Carlo Morone, who has kindly supported my literary vigils with his strenuous help, and to whom I frankly profess that I owe much; he was most humane to me, just as I acknowledge that many other things were liberally communicated to me by him. The codex bears this title on the front page below: *Ερμηνείαι τῶν πράξεων τῶν ἁγίων ᾿Αποστόλων, καὶ τῶν Καθολικῶν Ἐπιστολῶν Ἰακώβου α', Πέτρου α' καὶ β', Ἰωάννου α', β' καὶ γ', Ἰούδα*, that is, *Interpretations of the Acts of the holy apostles, and of the Catholic Epistles of James I, Peter I and II, John I, II and III, Jude*. Therein are referenced the authorities of Saint Maximus, who flourished in the year 650, and his *Questions and Answers* are praised, as well as the book of John Damascene, who flourished in the year 731, *On the Tradition of the Old and New Testament*; and therefore I do not wonder if *υ* is used for *β* more often in the writing, according to the custom of the modern Greeks. But how has it happened that while I attempt to compile an index of the works of Saint Nilus, I go over the works and commentaries of others so verbosely? And I almost become an emulator of Gesner, Simler, Draudius, or rather of Possevin and other bibliographers. Let the candid reader excuse an old man who is wordy, whom the chains of the Catenae entangled, and whom the *ᾆσμα τῶν ᾀσμάτων*, namely the Song of Songs, detained; for he burns and languishes with a desire, it, with so many