NILO THE ASCETIC (of ANCYRA), saint. — Writer on ascetical subjects from the beginning of the 5th century. Leo Allatius lists 21 writers of this name; it is therefore natural that copyists should have confused them and that it is now difficult to distinguish them. Moreover, many works bear this name whose true authors cannot be revealed, such as Evagrius of Pontus or the Stoic Epictetus. Thus the “question of N.” has arisen.
The best-known of all these Nilos appears to be an ancient official of the court of Theodosius, who became a hermit on Mount Sinai together with his son Theodoulos, according to the Narrationes (PG 79, 589-693). But contrary to the opinion of ancient patrologists, it is impossible to attribute to him most of the writings published under the name of Nilo. Their author is not a hermit, but a cenobite, superior of a monastery in the vicinity of Ancyra in Galatia, who lived at the end of the 4th and beginning of the 5th century, and a disciple of St. JOHN CHRYSOSTOM.
Works: This abbot of Galatia left a copious correspondence (1061 letters, according to PG 79, 81-582, though these contain many duplicates and passages improperly excerpted; e.g., letters 106-113 of the II. form a single letter). The Narrationes (ibid., 589-694) belong to a different writer, but seem to narrate a story told in the last letter of the aforementioned collection. As for the other writings contained in PG 79, some of the most important may perhaps be by Evagrius of Pontus, e.g., the Tractatus ad Eulogium (ibid., 1093-1140); more probably the De diversis malignis cogitationibus (ibid., 1200-34) and almost certainly the De ratione (ibid., 1166-99), one of the most celebrated little treatises written on prayer. To clarify all these problems one must await the results of the studies undertaken by J. Muyldermans. The De octo vitiosis cogitationibus (ibid., 1435-72) is instead a summary of Cassian, Inst., X-XII, as S. Marsili has demonstrated.