Letters 1 part 22/55

Strengthen those who are with you, remind them to fear and tremble before God and to do nothing evil, as though we were always present before his eyes—which indeed is true.

I received your fish, the fruit of your blessed hands' labor.

May the Lord bless your catch.

Greet brother Theophylact, and any other faithful one.

Those who are with me greet you with longing love.

{To Neilos, his child} I greet you, O Neilos, my beloved child;

I received your blessing, the fish.

What shall I repay you, in that you have again remembered me out of the labor of your hands? Nothing else but my sinful prayer;

And may the Lord grant his fear more abundantly in your heart, so that whether on land or on sea you may breathe him and serve him.

For you know, child, that we are all mortal, soon to go forth from this little body of flesh, and to render account concerning our whole life, down to a word and a slight lapse, down to a mere thought;

And what am I saying? It has been declared that we shall give an account to the Lord even for involuntary sins and those done in ignorance.

What manner of people, then, ought we to be? Fearful and trembling, ready to give a good defense;

For fearsome is the tribunal of judgment.

On the one side, unquenchable fire, and on the other, the kingdom of heaven: the former for sinners who have transgressed the commandments of the Lord, the latter for those who keep the law.

For this reason I exhort you to live piously and purely, for you are before God;

Whether you clean the net, or cast the hook, or draw up the fish, let all be done to the glory of God, child.

Let us, the cross-adorned, act neither in fishing nor in selling as the laity do, but apostolically—for this too was the apostles' handiwork.

I have reminded you out of pain, out of fear;

For if I do not give this warning, woe is me.

Yes, my beloved son, remember God your benefactor—where you once were and how, and now who you are and in what glory;

Glorify God in your life, so that God may also glorify you forever.

These things, then, are from me to you; but toward your company, be yourself in my place, strengthening and admonishing them likewise, and may the peace of the Lord govern you all in concord.

Pray also yourself concerning my humble self;

Your brothers greet you.

{Untitled} I have learned, O my most blessed father, that you are imprisoned and, as it were, tested as in a furnace of fire by the impious.

And would that it were possible for me to reach the guardhouse that holds you, so that I might embrace that head so sacred and venerable to me, singing to you words of praise, because for Christ's sake you are tormented, you hunger, you thirst, you are afflicted, buffeted, wearied, perhaps not even free to breathe the air;

I say nothing of the reproaches, mockeries, threats, and all the other things that imprisonment brings and that evildoers are accustomed to do.

On account of all these things, I, humble as I am, am grieved over your holiness; I am in anguish, I writhe, I groan, praying for you—sinner that I am—for endurance, for refreshment, for the completion of the struggle;

And indeed I believe that he who began in you the martyrdom of his confession will also bring it to completion, to the glory of his power, to the praise of his Church, and to the boast of us who are least and feeble.

We all lean upon you, like those preparing to run the course for a second heat, who, by the victory—or the reverse—of those who ran before, either take courage or, on the contrary, are cast down and lack the vigor of manly courage.

We beg you, make us courageous;

Yes, yes, we entreat your fatherly compassion: give us a sign of victory in your unconquered race, and not the opposite—which may it never come even to mind.

So that you are for us a crown and joy and hope and testimony in the presence of Christ;

who will grant us, together with you who are worthy of God, to complete blamelessly the contest of his confession that lies before us.

{To Irene and Kale, two sisters} O, what a calamity!

For I begin this letter with a groan, sharing your sorrowful countenance over this suffering and weeping with you—if it is bold to say so—as the good Christ did with the two sisters of Martha at the death of Lazarus.

For the man was a friend, a friend close in blood, a good man of God, a laborer in the commandments of the Lord, being 'musk' both in name and in fact, on account of the fragrance of his righteous deeds.

Then indeed, at the death of Lazarus, many of the Jews came to Bethany, to mourn together with his kinswomen because of the man's virtue;

For if he was a friend of Christ, how was he not beloved by all? But now—alas for what has befallen—there was not even death before the eyes, which is wont to bring much consolation, nor final words, nor whispered farewells;

For the one who departs is kissed, and murmured over by those standing by, and nods with his eye, and moves his hand, and utters some faint word—things which, even after death, bring no small comfort to the mourners.

Therefore I suppose your grief to be inconsolable, since you have been left alone, without protector, without helper.

Heavy is the affliction, deep is the wound, inconsolable is the separation;

For indeed the two of you lived something extraordinary in this life—a brother to two sisters, unwed among the unwed, virgin among virgins—bearing forth your nobility in splendor, your youth in its prime, your beauty in comeliness, your estate in abundance, your revenues in prosperity.

And yet nothing proved more prized than your mutual love for one another, so as to compel a separation among you through marriage;

Behold, what is good or what is pleasant, if not for brethren to dwell together in one place? And I have not yet mentioned the good work handed down from your mother—in almsgiving, in prayers, in psalmody, in self-control, in dignity, in reverence, in hospitality, and—last yet foremost—in orthodoxy.

How shall we pass over the rearing of orphans, and all that is seen therein—providing inheritance and dowry for every age, and whatever else? O the wonder of it!

He left forty orphans at his death, to be cared for by you two, who do the same things;

A strange thing to hear, a work of saints: these, together with many others, are the mourners of him who was truly a father to the orphans.

Such were his deeds and yours; such too was his burial, through which even after death he still nurtures orphans, shows mercy, and fills the souls of the poor with good things.

Let these things empty out the suffering of your grief, turning it into joy, in hope of the eternal rewards laid up for him;

May you also share well in these rewards, passing the life remaining to you in the same manner, in Christ Jesus, who keeps you as the two pupils of the eyes of true piety.

{To Eusebios, his child} I received your letter, child, and upon learning it I understood that you fear God, through the love and confidence which you hold, for his sake, toward my humble self;

For love toward one's abbot, and the longed-for sight of him, is a sign of an obedience that serves God.

Thanks, then, be to God, that the sparks of your faith have remained unquenched, and indeed will remain so forever;

Well received, too, is your willing intention to come here.

But nevertheless, you did well to restrain yourself;

For the arrival of just anyone is itself a temptation.

But I exhort you, my child, to guard yourself from every evil.

...the places of the fallen), together with, in any case, one or two of your brothers;

For it is written, 'Woe to him who is alone, for if he falls, there is no one to lift him up.'

The flesh lusts against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh; and these, it says, are opposed to one another.

Let us not give the deciding weight to the flesh's victory (for it will lead us down to the depths of Hades), but to the spirit;

for in this we shall live forever, rejoicing.

Therefore let us eat and drink and sleep with measure and moderation;

Do not, then, be put to shame, my child, but in everything present yourself blameless, as a servant of God,

being zealous with zeal for the Lord in orthodoxy, because his denial is now enacted, by the present persecutors, in his icon;

flee from all fellowship with them as from a serpent's venom.

May Christ be your helper in all things.

I have received your present blessings, just as I received those of old, and may the God of my father bless you in return.

Greet brother Eleutherius and tell him that he has greatly comforted me by the shoes which he made for your brothers, having obeyed the steward.

But may the Lord give you rest in return.

Let him also know the things which I have admonished you, my child;

for I rejoice especially if you are together with one another.

Pray for my humble self;

The grace of the Lord be with you.

Your brothers who are with me greet you.

{To Euthymius, my child} From your letters, my beloved child, I learned of your affliction, that you go about from place to place, fleeing the impious and hiding yourself.

How could you not be living in affliction and distress? But even so, be strengthened by hope and rejoice, for you suffer for Christ's sake, for him who chose death on your behalf.

You have arrived at the footsteps of the saints, who went about in many afflictions, destitute, distressed, becoming wanderers, sheltering in rocks, roaming the mountains, fugitives, stateless, exiles, together with blows and deaths, that they might gain Christ.

So too, my child, whatever you suffer, look there, take your consolation from there, and stand nobly as an athlete of Christ;

for this is the time of martyrdom, and blessed is he who endures these few and evil days, in which lies an eternal crown, an inexpressible glory.

But woe to him who denies and betrays the icon of Christ, for his portion is with Judas.

You, then, my child, still fight the good fight in patient endurance of what befalls you;

See, others are in prisons, just as some of your brothers too have been scourged together with Christ.

Do not be cowardly, do not be terrified of him who has power over the flesh;

Christ is with you, who bears all things by the nod of his will.

Pray also for my humble self, that I may be saved in the Lord.

Your brothers who are with me greet you.

{To Theophanes, abbot of Agros} Late in the season, yet I have learned that you were seized by those of Jewish mind and falsely-named Christians, O much-longed-for and much-celebrated father;

And, oh, how did they not feel shame to lay a hand upon a man of God, upon a holy man, upon a frame worn out both by many years of asceticism and by a most grievous illness? But those who have stretched out hands of outrage and persecution against Christ himself — what will they spare, what impious deed will they not do? But thanks be to God for his indescribable gift, that you, though sick unto death in body, he strengthened in spirit beyond the many who are healthy, to become a herald of the truth, fearlessly refuting the heretical tongue and remaining wholly unshaken in the confession of Christ.

This is the crowning point of your ascetic struggles, this is the pinnacle of your God-given wisdom;

You have gladdened God, your lover; you have delighted the angels, the overseers of your praiseworthy life; you have crowned your own head with the diadem of confession; you have become, together with the church of Christ, a support of salvation to me also, your pitiable and least child.

Therefore rejoice and be glad in your hopes of mutual recompense that extend to an eternity that never unravels, praying that I too, your least son, may go on after you.

{To a presbyter who had signed} What your honor has suffered in the shipwreck of your signing, and how greatly you wept over the fall (for it truly is a fall, even the mere stretching out of the hand against the holy icon of Christ), I learned from your note, O man of God, and I have suffered with you, and lamented with you, and grieved together with you, uttering grievous words, such as befit one who has brotherly love;

For indeed we are members of one another, and if one member suffers, all the members ought to suffer with it (this is the apostolic word), and if one member is glorified, the joy is upon all.

We have been plundered, we have been terrified, we have been afraid in matters in which we ought neither to fear nor to be terrified, if indeed we read, 'Do not fear those who kill the body, but are not able to lay hold of the soul.'

Why then, O friend, have you brought this matter to me, a useless man? Who am I, in regard to healing, I who am sick in sins and not among those entrusted to heal such breaches? For God is not a God of disorder — he has assigned to bishops the correcting and healing of the affairs of presbyters, that is, priests.

How could you seek from me things that are beyond me? It is not possible.

But this I suggest and say by way of counsel and love, so that I may not leave you altogether without an answer:

God is good, not desiring the death of the sinner so much as that he should turn and live.

If, then, your repentance is in truth, cease from the priestly ministry altogether.

I do not know whether, except under the present necessity, you should administer the holy things to anyone;

for it is possible, out of necessity and lack of alternative, for anyone even to receive communion from himself, on account of the heresy that must be shunned.

For whatever you have done, whether of your own accord or permitted by another, is good and commendable in bending God toward mercy, yet it is nothing whatever that could release you from the priestly ministry, even should it seem to come from whatever high priest — and this until the peace of the Church of God, in which, at that time, by synodical judgment, everything of this kind shall be canonically regulated as is fitting, and shall receive a God-ratified judgment.

But if you say that, in signing, you cried out that you venerate the holy icons, forgive me, brother, but Pilate too, while acquitting himself with his mouth of the slaying of Christ, ratified his death with the pen.

These things I say to you from myself, the humble one, as before God.

But, I beseech you, make mention of my salvation in the repentance of your affliction, and be so kind as to greet, on my behalf, wretched as I am, the holy fathers of mine among the bishops whom you said you see.

{To Callistus, my child} I have not forgotten you, my beloved child Callistus, but I remember you and hold you in my heart in the love of Christ;

Greatly approving of you in your association and service with the steward (and I do not lie in what I say), I myself seem to be served and to find rest.

May my Lord, then, show you to be useful in all things, you who first served well our blessed father, then also my ever-memorable Arsenius, and after this now the steward — and in both, as has been said, having served and been enslaved to me, the humble one; besides that you have also served through the ministry of the cellarer.

I rejoice that in everything you are approved, capable, refined, faithful, well-disposed, patient, devoted to your father, quick-witted, prudent in management, steadfast, a guardian of the rule, unswerving in the faith and confession of Christ.

In these things, then, abide; in these be confirmed; in these rejoice, for your reward is great with God.

I too would have wished to have you now for myself, but from now on (thanks be to God) even more, in your absence, you give me rest, refreshing my eye, my soul, the steward, not only in the affairs at home, but also in the comings and goings toward the brothers.

May the grace from God abound to you.

Pray for my humble self;

Your brothers greet you.

{To Cassia, the candidatissa} I have received the things which you sent me for the Lord's sake;

And who am I, humble as I am, to be remembered by your piety? Yet, since you are a shoot sprung from a good root, you know how to do good.

for in this you share in his contest of struggle;

and consider that you are nourishing us sinners ourselves, in the person of our son.

What repayment, then, can we give you but prayer and a word of exhortation? You have chosen a good life for God's sake, as I am informed, from childhood.

You have become a bride of Christ; seek no longer another, nor love another;

For who is more beautiful than he? May his beauty flash forth still more in your heart, so as to extinguish in you every fleeting and perishable desire.

Flee, indeed flee, the sight of males, even of the modest, if it is lawful to say so, lest you be wounded or wound.

The heavenly bridal chamber awaits you;

There you will see him to whom you have been betrothed, with whom you will rejoice forever.

The word is small, but sufficient as a reminder for your honored self.

{To Meletius, my child} Both earlier from the letters of brother John, and now from your own letter, child Meletius, I have praised my good God for your return and confession.

And thanks be to the Lord, that your good submission in the beginning, and up to a certain point, has not been in vain;

For I confess and bear witness to you that this happened out of zeal, but not according to knowledge, just as with the others also.

For this reason, leaning upon your own righteousness and prudence, you have broken away from divine and saving obedience, wandering and stepping into the void, toward things unattainable.

Both time and events have shown this, and may show it yet again.

But bidding these matters farewell, I will once more bring my discourse to a close with thanksgiving.

I rejoiced, my beloved child, to receive you again through your letter, and I rejoice over you more than over those who were never led astray.

I am your father, sinful though I am, and I will lay down my humble soul for you.

From now on, let us stand firm, let us serve the Lord in submission, fleeing the self-willed and deceitful demon.

For thus may we be saved in the Lord.

It makes no difference to me that you remain there until the peace of the Church of God comes.

Only may you be kept safe and unharmed, praying always for my humble self.

{To John, his child} I take delight, child and brother, in your letters, because they proceed in due order and shun the nausea of verbosity.

For indeed the virtue of a letter is to come straight to the matter at hand and to say only what is necessary, and not to circle around things that need not be said.

As for the things you asked about, this is not the time to inquire so curiously into such matters, nor is it for us to initiate you into them, O good child.

since, among other things, I myself am uninitiated in matters that are hard to grasp.

But so as not to pain you further with silence, I will say this much about the first question: none of the other God-bearing fathers has made the matter so clear as Gregory of Nyssa.

Let us therefore be content with the contemplation of the father, seeing it is contemplation carried to a very lofty height.

For, as the saying goes, what lies beyond Gadeira cannot be passed.

But concerning the second question ('the prudent man will keep silence in that time, for it is an evil time'), it does not seem to me to be crooked or perverse.

For the God-inspired Scripture has set a time for us to speak and a time for silence, as we take heed of the need that presses upon us and dispense the word of truth accordingly.

Have we not indeed been commanded not to cast holy things to dogs, nor to throw pearls before swine? Observe the God-bearing fathers, and you will find them at one time placing the word under the bushel of silence, when speaking is unprofitable, or rather even harmful, and at another time raising it up on the lampstand, when the sowing bears good fruit and the ground is not rocky.

This much I have been able to discern concerning the question proposed.

But if you find better answers, whether from yourself or from others, do not begrudge sharing them with me, your father and brother, who am lacking in insight.

Farewell, and pray much for me.

{To Hypatius, his child} Now I have taken note of what you have written, beloved child, and in every respect I accept your resolve, which springs from a heart fervent with faith, and which chooses to be with me even in the body.

But it is not fitting for the present time.

For what you have contrived is indeed a sign of your confidence, but it is altogether unprofitable.

May you not dare to do any such thing.

For we must accept what the Lord has ordained.

Or do you not know that God cares for our salvation more than we ourselves? And the like-heartedness of a disciple is known not so much by being bodily present together, as by the inseparable disposition and affection of spiritual communion.

What then? Do we love one another in a fleshly way, so that we employ the flesh as our helper? If so, we are more pitiable than all men.

Our love is free from passion, that we may thereby be known as belonging to the passionless God.

Therefore bodily union is not, after all, always necessary.

So, child, be content with this, becoming, as far as you are able, a helper to your brothers in humility, and pray also for me, your humble father.

Greet brother Lucian, and brother Evodius.

May the Trinity keep the three of you safe, together with him whom you serve.

Your brothers send you their warmest greetings.

Greet the man of God.

{Theodore, to all the brotherhoods, that is, the communities scattered everywhere for Christ's sake, together with those held in prisons and places of exile: greeting in the Lord} Grace to you and peace, to speak in the apostle's manner, from God our Father and the Lord Jesus

Christ, our hope.

for whose sake, and on whose account, come persecution, affliction and distress, desolation and flight, imprisonments and punishments, and all the other daily encounters and occurrences that bring hardship.

For this reason, my beloved brothers, having devised some consolation for the absence of our humble person, we send you this letter, letting you know that we unceasingly make mention of you in our humble prayers, calling each one to mind and pondering upon him, lifting up our hands to God with tears and groans, that, just as we undertook the contests for the sake of truth and went forth in one spirit and one soul, as from a nest, out of our sacred ascetic dwellings, so we may remain steadfast to the end by the power of the Lord, holding the same faith, the same love, being of one soul, thinking the same thing and holding fast the doctrine of truth — the doctrine that has been proclaimed and inscribed, for both sight and hearing, in all creation under heaven — namely: to worship the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, the much-hymned and blessed Trinity, according to the teaching of theology; and to confess the One of the Trinity, the Son and Word of God and our Lord Jesus Christ, that he emptied himself, taking the form of a servant and becoming in the likeness of men, being depicted, in the outward form proper to us, with the features of a body, since this same one was constituted both perfect God and man, becoming, to that extent, subject to circumscription in accordance with us — whose nature he also assumed — to the same extent that this nature is removed from the uncircumscribed divine nature.

For surely he does not, as the sayings have it, take hold of angels — since they too can be depicted, as they have been seen by those who beheld them, by the Spirit's enabling — but he takes hold of the seed of Abraham; wherefore he had to be made like his brothers in all things.

Let the Christ-fighters then say, how is it possible that the seed of Abraham should not be depicted, and how will he have that likeness to us in all things, of whom he has been called brother, if he is not shown to have received the property of circumscription like us his brothers? Then he is neither brother, nor indeed like us — and for this reason, not even man.

Thus it follows from their refusal to say that Christ can be depicted as we are.

And thus they discard the saving dispensation, on a par with the Manichaeans, the Valentinians, and the Marcionites.

May we flee fellowship with them, brothers, as we would the venom of a serpent, which blackens not the body, as the Theologian says somewhere, but the depths of the soul.

It is a weapon of Christ against the devil — yet they refuse to depict him who is the warrior and destroyer of Satan.

For how could a true and victorious weapon be depicted without the warrior himself being shown before our eyes? And so we venerate his holy icon, venerating in it the Christ who is depicted.

For he came forth in visible, depictable form from the womb of his holy mother, the Theotokos.

But if not, then he would have been some sort of miscarried thing, not a man with human form, O you who fight against God!

But if the infant comes forth in visible, depicted form — as is indeed true, concerning whom the prophet says, 'Every male that opens the womb shall be called holy to the Lord' — then it necessarily follows by nature that he is also depictable.

Hear, you deaf, and look, you blind!

In one respect alone is there, with regard to Christ, an innovation as concerns us: that he was conceived without seed in the womb of a virgin and was born without corruption, since, as the Scripture says, he committed no sin, nor was deceit found in his mouth.

But in all else he was like us: he ate, drank, breathed, grew, walked, sweated, grew weary, was crucified, died (albeit as God), and was raised on the third day, possessing even after the resurrection our depicted form, deified and made incorruptible in himself; in that form he was also seen by the apostles, and, being risen, ate and drank with them, and was touched by Thomas, saying to all who supposed him to be a spirit, 'Handle me and see, for a spirit does not have flesh and bones, as you see that I have.'

Thus he was also taken up in glory, and in the same way he will come again in the very same form, in our appearance, whom all flesh shall see from heaven, with the angels of his power, in a flame of fire, rendering vengeance on those who do not know God and who did not obey his gospel, as it is written.

Among these will mourn the Jews who crucified him, and the iconoclasts who could not endure that he be depicted.

These, brothers, are the proclamations of the Gospel; these are the teachings of the apostles.

But those who hold the opposite view attempt to turn the people of God to a different gospel (which is not another), putting forward spurious writings that speak, as it were, from the belly, and not from the mouth of the Lord.

For it has always been the custom for tares to be sown among the wheat, and for falsehood to be set alongside truth.

For how indeed would truth be made manifest if it had no opposition? But, as the apostle says, 'even if we, or an angel from heaven, preach to you a gospel other than what we preached to you, let him be accursed.'

'As we have said before, so now I say again: if anyone preaches to you a gospel contrary to what you received, let him be accursed.'

As for the fact that the Theotokos and any of the saints are depicted, it is superfluous for me to write to you about it.

For it is foolish to say that any human being whatsoever cannot be depicted.

But those who deny that Christ, who is the head of the body, the Church, can be circumscribed, have thereby seen fit also to exclude the members of Christ from being depicted, seeing that we are all the body of Christ, and members individually.

For it is a refutation of them: they allow the mother of God to be depicted, but not him who was born of her and seen at her breast, and all that pertained to his bodily presence; or again, that the eyewitnesses and ministers are portrayed on panels, but he who was ministered to and who dwelt among them is not depicted.

And they show themselves worse than the Jews, in that they do not even accept an icon of Moses, or of any other of the prophets, though those who lived before grace, as adherents of the Law and not Christians, did accept them.

But they are so foolish as to contradict both themselves and the Jews, being neither keepers of the Law, as the Jews are, nor Christians, since they refuse to depict Christ, whom they themselves acknowledge to have become man.

This is the voice of the apostle Peter, in the narrative of the martyrdom of Saint Pancratius:

'Child Joseph, bring out the icon of our Lord Jesus Christ and impress it on the little tower, so that the peoples may see what form the Son of God assumed, that, seeing it, they may believe the more, beholding the likeness of that form, and may be put in remembrance of what has been preached to them by us.'

'O foolish Galatians, who has bewitched you that you should not obey the truth, before whose eyes Jesus Christ was openly portrayed, crucified among you?' This is the voice of Basil the Great.

Let Christ, the judge of the contests, also be inscribed upon the panel;

The honor paid to the image passes on to the prototype.

This is the voice of Athanasius, who endured many contests: