Synesius of Cyrene

Mosaic depicting an angel. Museum of Ptolemais

Synesius of Cyrene (c.370-c.413) was a Neo-Platonic philosopher who became bishop of Ptolemais in the Cyrenaica. He left behind a small corpus of texts that offer much information about daily life in Late Antiquity, and about the christianization of the Roman world.

Letter 45, written in 412, is offered here in the translation by A. Fitzgerald. It apears to be related to the Andronicus affair.

Letter 45: A Call for Assistance

To Olympius

Evil men from without are troubling our Church. Take steps against them. Only nails drive out nails.

Online 2007
Revision: 20 August 2007