Letters 1 part 30/55

from which the character of your sacred soul, even when not seen, has been beheld, adorned with the variety of the virtues.

But enough concerning this, since it is not even the time for encomiums;

the adornment of the Church has been taken away, the appearance of the sacred temples, the holy things have been given over to fire;

some other form is now recognized in Christianity — if indeed one should call it Christianity, and not Judaism.

It is timely now also to say: Lord, they have slain Your prophets and torn down Your altars.

Yes indeed, they have slain, and indeed they have torn down;

for to scrape off and gouge out their faces — is this not clearly a tearing down? Take away a man's face, and he is no longer a man, but some monstrosity, if indeed he can even be said to live.

They have burned Your sanctuary with fire.

And this indeed is true, since they have burned every divine image engraved in every material.

A blasphemous tongue has been opened, calling Christ an idol, the Theotokos an idol, every saint an idol.

For indeed the derivative image possesses the name of the archetype, since it also possesses the veneration;

for this reason we also call every figure of the cross a cross, and, venerating the life-giving cross, we embrace it.

But I, the humble one, have declaimed these things in tragic tones not as though your all-wise perfection were ignorant of the ruinous nature of this error (may I not suffer anything so foolish as to think that), but rather to console the afflicted passion of my own heart by means of these recitals, which by their very nature, when spoken, tend to relieve hidden griefs — and at the same time to stir you to draw near to God more fervently, that He may swiftly bring rebuke upon this wicked heresy, for the salvation of His people.

Pray also for me, your least child, my most holy father.

{To Timothy, my child} Such as your soul is, my beloved child, such also is your letter: courageous, cheerful, eager, loving toward God, loving toward the martyrs.

And indeed words are images of the soul, and out of the abundance of the heart each one brings forth his words;

so that we too, having heard your words, were strengthened and made more courageous and urged on toward the contest.

And brother Hadrian, in relating it, astonished me still more, announcing your good courage and steadfastness and boldness of speech, and indeed also your skill in argument against those who hold the heresy.

Whence come these things to you? Is it not from your preceding good disposition and divine care, through which you bore what went before and stand in the hope of the glory of God, prepared even unto death? Rejoice, be glad;

you will have strength, with God, to bear all things, having bound upon yourself the crown of the contest-winner.

But pray also for me, brother, that I may follow after you and after any other like you.

For we are sufficient by the grace of Christ;

for as the arena is bright and manifest, so also very many are the martyrs.

For do not suppose the present events to be anything other than a denial of Christ on the part of the persecutors, and a testimony to Christ on the part of those who bear the contests; and this is quite clear;

for just as in the image of the cross the life-giving cross is both confessed and denied, so also in the image of Christ the very same thing occurs without variation, even though the world has been blinded and, denying Christ, plays out its insolence because of the long-suffering of him who is insulted.

And what wonder is it, if he endures, seeking the conversion of those who behave insolently? Did not the soldiers place a crown of thorns upon his head? Did they not also throw a purple garment around him, and say, Hail, king of the Jews, and give him blows on the face? And he bore it all, being mocked, being scoffed at, and whatever else he suffered on the cross.

Such is what he now suffers through his image and in his image, since the archetype is manifested in the image, as has been said by the holy fathers.

But may there speedily be mercy upon his church, strengthening those who confess.

I hear that you are drawing out a fast, and I rejoice indeed; but I counsel you to eat every day after vespers;

for this is the royal way, and this is the praiseworthy self-control amid your witness.

{To Anna, hegoumene} That you wrote to me was fitting;

for by your letter I have come the more to know of the preservation of your honored person, and I gave thanks to God that you thus persevere in your good resolve and confession of Christ, and give no thought to your isolation, your imprisonment.

May you not grow faint at all, since you have Christ dwelling under your roof, for whom and because of whom you suffer;

keep in mind the contests of the blessed women, the arenas of the virgins, their endurance, their trials;

Contemplate the heavenly things, the rest prepared for the saints, the unsetting light, the unspeakable joy, the undefiled life; and then, in contrast, the punishments of sinners, the outer darkness, the fire of Gehenna, the venomous worm, the unbreakable chains, the chaos, the Tartarus.

Meditating on these things, lighten your discouragements, be made firm in endurance, drive away the passions, be enlightened in soul, prepare yourself for a still greater contest;

for the sufferings of the present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory that is about to be revealed in us.

If, remaining so, you continue to persevere, you will serve God, gladden the angels, put the demons to shame, gaining for yourself even in the present age the greatest renown and an unquenchable name.

Pray for us sinners.

{To Basil, hegoumen} Having learned fully all that your holiness, together with your sacred subordinate, has undergone for the Lord's sake, I glorified our good God greatly, because you too have risen as a luminary in the world, together with other lamps, in the present night-battle of the heresy — a vessel of election, a pillar and foundation of the truth.

How wondrous is your pair, how beloved to Christ, having endured for his sake blows, deportations, imprisonments — and this even to the present.

But why is it that, before the trial, you came to me, lowly as I am — just as you had proposed — without obtaining my full agreement? Yet rightly so;

for since it was not as you supposed (for I am pitiable and obscure —

why should you too have been harmed?) — except that now you have joined yourself to us through this letter

and we now see one another in the spirit, and have come together into one in the spirit, having become one soul in the Lord — I, the lowly one, in you the holy ones, and you in me — since Christ is in the midst of us both, according to his unfailing promise.

What then remains? That, just as we began in the testimonies on behalf of Christ, we may complete the contest set before us, cowering before nothing — not blows again, not chains, not instruments of torture, not fire, not sword, not water, nor dagger.

Thus reason counsels us, thus the apostle cries out, thus is the consummation of the martyrs;

We are not lesser in birth than they, wretched though I am; we too were born of God, we possess the same mother of adoption.

They won the crown of the contest, and shall we behave shamefully? Women and girls were crowned, and shall we cling to the flesh? Old men and infants have conquered tyrants and rulers, and shall we grow dizzy? By no means.

Let us give our flesh to those who love the flesh; the soul is untouchable;

let us not fear those who kill the body, but him who is able to destroy both soul and body in Gehenna.

Now is exultation, gladness of heart;

for if indeed we suffer together with him, we shall also be glorified together with him.

Let the devil and his servants lament;

for this is what they suffer at the undaunted steadfastness of those who bear witness.

You say that you have never yet seen an emperor nor stood before rulers, and that on this account you are somewhat afraid;

by no means, O father; despise both, you who have Christ clothed upon you.

Let him alone strike fear into you, just as he does the demons as well;

open your mouth when you stand before him;

for it will be given to you what to say; Christ has promised it.

Refute him, if he speaks vain and idle words;

Did not Elijah rebuke Ahab? Did not John rebuke Herod? Did not others rebuke others — lest, naming them one by one, I speak at too great length? The God of that time is also the God of now;

as he loved them, so also us.

You were a disciple in aspiration to the apostles, martyrs, prophets, fathers, and holy monastics;

Let the fruit be made like the tree; and if we do not walk in this manner, we shall be awkward and not disciples, nor sons, nor fruits, but of the opposing party — I mean, of those who love the world and are slaves to the flesh;

May we flee the imitation of these, and may we attain to God, contending with perfect resolve in Christ Jesus our Lord, who has said, 'Be of good courage, I have conquered the world.'

{To John, hegoumen} If you yourself do not write, I know that it is not from reluctance, but from lack of place and means for the pen;

and besides, since longing compels me, not to write after so long a time, but, one might almost say, to address you every single day, my father and Christ's much-suffering confessor.

Still, then, O blessed one, be beaten and prevail, praying also for me, your child, that I may follow after you;

And if any of the fellow confessors are present, I embrace them too along with you, and ask for their holy prayers as provision for the journey unto salvation.

{To Niketas, hegoumen of Medikion} I love to receive replies from your honored self to what I write, yet even if I do not receive one I shall not be silent.

Therefore now too I address your holiness, fulfilling the debt of love, and making known my own wretchedness — that I am alive by your holy prayers, offending God greatly every day, yet desiring, together with you the holy ones, to serve Christ by faith working through love.

But you surely know that our common father of many, and my own sacred sponsor, has gone home to the Lord — he who was truly Theophanes.

Blessed is he, who contended nobly in ascetic labor, and bore off as the finest crown at the end of his life the confession of Christ, amid such a most grievous illness and distress and bodily old age;

but nonetheless, as though young in body, he won the crown of the contest, so that he might become a support and assurance for those standing firm, and a reproof for those who make excuses in their sins;

by whose prayers, together with yours, my fathers, may I too, sinner that I am, be saved.

I greet most warmly my venerable brother Arsenios.

{To John, hegoumen} Gladly did I receive your holy letter, and read it with even greater delight, sent as it was from a father of mine who is at once beloved and a confessor.

Grace, mercy, peace be to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ, O man of God, manly in mind, firm in heart.

What then have you contended for? First, torn away by imprisonment from your deceived brother, as a son of light; again arrest, again confinement;

and where? From that very place whence you ought to be strengthened, so that from there you might be set free.

God has appointed you a reproof to those who go before and those who follow.

I beg you therefore, my father, do not share with them in anything, but as one truly blameless and a confessor of Christ, keep yourself unharmed, so that you may shine forth still more in virtue, having both become and being called a luminary in the world.

But pray for me, that I may be saved — utterly useless as I am, having nothing worthy of praise, even though you yourself, out of love, have praised this and that in me.

{To Athanasius the Abbot} Why have I delayed so long in writing to your holiness? There are many reasons;

first, the strict confinement I am under, as the letter-bearer will also relate to you; then the arrest of the steward, and other things which are wearisome to set down in writing;

but now, since I have been granted to break forth in speech, I give thanks to my God;

for it is always dear to me both to address you and to hear your voice, because you are a good man, an athlete of Christ, one in soul, one in mind with me, blended with me in a manner peculiar beyond others in the love that is in the Lord.

But come now, lament with me, O father, over the present state of things;

you see how we have become as we were of old, when the Lord did not rule over us;

all have turned aside, together they have become corrupt, every temple has grown dim, every sanctuary has been profaned, every assembly blasphemes, and Christ sleeps;

and there is no one who prays worthily that he might arise and rebuke the winds and this wicked sea of heresy;

even if such a one is worthy, yet the time is not yet opportune;

for he alone knows the beneficial time, both for the healing and for the cutting away.

Therefore we must wait, and be patient toward the best and all-knowing Physician, who in the end will not allow his Church to be tossed by the waves.

But tell us what your imprisonment is like, and how you live in it: whether there is yet any remnant of piety among those nearest to you, whether newly consecrated by you or orthodox of its own accord; whether there are books in your hands; whether anyone feeds an Elijah; whether there is a grateful disciple; whether, as Peter and John followed the Lord, someone has followed you as you were led away — not to Annas and Caiaphas, but to men of the like Jewish mind.

May Christ be awakened, may the Church be granted peace, and may I be saved — I who am utterly wretched, yet who love you exceedingly.

{To Basil the Monk} When I learned that you too had been seized by the lawless and had contended for Christ, holy Basil, descendant of Basil the Great, I rejoiced, I glorified, I praised, I gave thanks to the Lord, who called you into fellowship with his sufferings through the stripes you bore on your back and through your present imprisonment.

It was fitting, indeed it was fitting, that you, being so fond of learning and so devoted to God, should not appear without a share in the reward of those who glorify God by their confession, but should partake with the others, and become renowned, and be set as a light to those in darkness.

Stand firm, then, O noble one, also in the face of what is to come, fearing nothing;

for Christ is with you, who conquers in us, and who has conquered the strong one, and has given him to us as a footstool.

{To Megalo and Maria, Nuns} Your letter is precious, and its manner of address is prudent;

but the tidings — what shall I call them, painful or joyous? My father has departed this life — the confessor of Christ, the second Job, the ornament of monks, the artisan of love, the man beloved by all, the man of God, the eye ever filled with tears, the mind fond of learning, the one enriched with divine knowledge, the one great in humility and most abundant in understanding, the one who was distinguished even before he took the habit and who became yet more exalted after monastic perfection; the one bound by the love of God, and who thereby came to hate the world, giving all — his abundant wealth — as a dowry to Christ, and then was parted from his glorious spouse, from his family, and from his friends and companions;

he who left behind earthly rank, house, city, and homeland — and this in the prime of his life, in comeliness of face and stature of body, in bodily vigor and in dexterity of manner, both of mind and of outward bearing;

and whoever should say more than this would still fall short of that man's virtue.

This man has departed, he has gone up to the Lord.

Where, and how? Carried like a burden from his flock because of an unbearable illness, imprisoned in the city for another two years and more, then exiled to a certain island, and there completing his confessor's race for the sake of Christ.

This calamity, then, is not grievous to me, but rather exceedingly joyful;

he has not died, but has passed over into eternal life; earth has not covered him, but heaven has received him;

the company of confessors has received him, the fellowship of ascetics, where the true light is, where the blessed rests are — in return for the labors and toils he chose to bear in the flesh, both ascetically and in the manner of a confessor.

Now for me there is festival, feast, and gladness of heart — and indeed for all the orthodox as well, who have sent him forth to God as an advocate, now a companion of the martyrs who ran the course before him.

Let the Church exult, that she still gains pillars; let the sacred assembly rejoice, that luminaries are again rising in the world, kindling beacon-fires for those in the darkness of heresy.

O, O father, father, how good was your course, how holy is your memorial, how blessed is your remembrance;

all of you was radiant, all of you was full of grace;

Who has seen you and not loved you? Who has met you and not been made sweet? Your company was desirable, your virtue made you known.

What remains, then? Remember your flock, and me your son, though I am the least and the outcast.

You know your longing for me, even as I know mine for you.

Cry out to the Lord on behalf of the whole Church, and intercede also for me, the pitiable one, that I may swiftly come to you, in the manner in which you have been made perfect.

These, then, are my words to our common father.

But you I exhort not to betray the faith, but to live piously, as belonging to him, each in her own manner — the one as his spouse, the other as the spouse's own kinswoman — so that together with him you may enjoy everlasting glory.

{To Gennadius, My Child} I have understood what you have written, child, and what you have written are tokens both of trust and of deep longing;

but we are not as you suppose and say — rather, we are sinners, lacking in light.

Nevertheless, may your faith save you wherever you may be — both from the murderous heresy, and from every sinful deed.

He who lives thus fears nothing, is terrified by no one.

Thus I pray that you continue to live, and likewise pray for me, my beloved son; hold fast to this prayer.

{To Callistus, My Child} Your letter, child, is brief in its lines.

For it is enough to indicate that you are well, since you write to us frequently, and the letters between us are many.

Hence my letter to you is likewise brief.

Know that I am in good health, and I pray for you.

{To Kledonios, My Child} Why do you praise me, child, who deserve no praise? And why do you seek the swift removal of these afflictions? The latter, indeed, is understandable, yet still we must be patient, until the Lord looks upon and heals the affliction of his people;

For just as it is not possible for a sick person to be restored to health until the matter lodged in the stomach is consumed by the fever, so too it is impossible for peace to dawn upon the Church of God, unless the affliction arising from our sins is justly worn away by the heresy that now scourges us;

for it is a scourge of God, chastising a little those who love him, and then, at the fitting time, healing them.

And thus, from above and from the beginning, our affairs have been ordered.

But if the scourge is so great for those who are merely being schooled by it, what will be the judgment of those who disobey and persecute? Clearly it will be without end in its punishment.

Therefore let us stand firm, brother, and wait for the Lord, that we may be glorified together with him.

But what about Leontius and the two brothers? You have seen the wickedness of both, as you said — of the one who has become utterly impious and rules in a Judaizing manner, and of the others who seek how, together with them, to destroy you; but you, O beloved child, remain as a son of light, do not become like the lawless, those who have departed from God and sold themselves to Satan.

Flee from the city, lest you be captured;

you have Christ as your helper — may he himself preserve you.

{To Meletius, My Child} From the time I learned that the pitiable Gregory had been deceived through the impious signature, I was anxious, child, as to how things stood with you;

and when I received your letter announcing your separation from him, I grieved indeed over him, at how he perished, and how both of them seemed to have been feigning piety (for surely Basil too holds the same views), but I gave thanks to my God for your deliverance, that the dragon did not swallow you, but that you were drawn up, as from a sea-monster, out of that destructive heresy.

Remain, then, my beloved child, in the state in which you have been delivered, drawing to yourself also other of the brothers who have been led astray in ignorance (or rather disobedience) — away from me, the humble one, or rather, to speak truly, away from God.

For he who is unreasonably torn away from his own shepherd — how is he not being torn away from the truth as well? And the truth is God, who may both guard and strengthen you.

And if it should please him that you be seized by the enemies of Christ, may he grant you power and strength to bear all things, even unto blood, of the sufferings endured on his behalf.

{To James, My Child} You have written to me this and that, praising me with many words, but I am conscious of no good in myself.

But for you, I pray that, having begun, you may also bring to completion the work of God — the martyrdom of the confession of Christ.

Therefore endure, my beloved child, the hardships of imprisonment, purifying your inner man through the captivity of hostile thoughts;

for in this way you will always be well prepared for death on Christ's behalf.

Blessed is not the one who has simply made a good beginning, but the one who has brought the work of Christ to completion.

I too mourn for brother Lucian, but nevertheless he has been defeated on account of my sins, and to undo a defeat is a difficult thing.

Pray unceasingly both for him and for me, the sinner.

{To Euprepianos, My Child} I, O child, when you came to me in the Anatolic provinces and reminded me of your love for me — at that time I dissuaded you from being shut in during the persecution; but when you parted from the brothers, I supposed, for the most part, that you had done this out of love for me, seeking quiet, and I did not consider it much of a fault on your part;

I thought that you were dwelling among the mountains and serving God, and I rejoiced;

but now that I have heard nothing of the sort — rather, that you have been living in revelry, ostensibly under the pretext of not being caught up in the heresy, dressed in white, living alone, and serving the abbess in the capacity of a majordomo or steward, buying up cattle, carrying loads from inside to outside, going out and coming in — I was beside myself, I was undone, I became as one dead.

Brother, what have you done? How did you dare to do all this? You who were formerly a confessor, both in the time of the Moechians and now in the time of the iconoclasts, have suddenly become a merchant of Christ, treating divine things as merchandise;

He who was once scrupulously exact even in his glance is now enslaved to a woman — lest I say something worse —

He who was once utterly a fugitive from his own kin has now turned back, living with brothers as mere flesh and blood —

He who fled his homeland has now become a stripper of cloaks.

As the divine Basil says somewhere: 'You have both ruined the senator and failed to make a monk' — and this because he did not live exactly, but held back some of his own money.

But you — forgive me for saying so — have not ruined the monk, but have denied him.

What shall we call you? A monk? But you are a reveler.

But, he says, you claim to wear black within, and not to have denied it in your heart.

This is exactly what all who now commune with the heresy also say.

It would have been better for you, man, to commune with the heresy and repent, than, having cast off the holy habit, to remain unrepentant —

for by casting it off you have trampled the Son of God underfoot, counted the blood of the covenant a common thing, and outraged the Spirit of grace.

Therefore you are not even worthy to partake of the holy mysteries.

O, O, what have you done — and this while you lay upon my very breast? You have brought me down into the storehouses of Hades; you have mixed for me a cup of death —

The devil has taken hold of you by whatever means he wished.

But come to your senses, my good child, Euprepianos —

You were mocked by Satan, thinking that you were mocking him — supposing that for a few days, under the circumstances, out of filial obedience and service, it was permissible to wear white garments underneath and cover your head, just as you did when you came to me in prison by night, through the roof tiles.

Yes, that is permissible — and then to go home again, cast off the head-covering and the outer garment, and take up once more the divine labor.

But as you have done it, it is an outright casting off of the habit.

Have mercy on yourself, brother, and on me, your unworthy father; and as soon as you receive this letter, cut your hair, cast off the white garment, join yourself again to a brother, and settle down like your other brothers — write back to me at once, so that I may answer you again.

I know that you did this thinking you were doing something good.

But reconsider: it is a drama staged by the evil one.

{To Spatharia, wife of Flavius} In time of trial true friends are put to the test, just as harbors are — appearing as a refuge to those tossed by the storm —

for you are truly the noblest and most pious of women, from of old and from the beginning both a harbor and a shelter for many souls without home or sustenance.

And there is scarcely a monk who does not extol your name and recount your hospitality — even one who has not experienced it himself, but has heard it from those who have, as I myself have, not only while I was still there, but even now, being far away.

And who were those who reported it? Those whom you received and bore with patiently amid the present engulfing flood of the impious heresy —

over which I pray to my God that you may sail safely, steered by the prudent counsel of piety — with which you have lived your life, and which you have possessed from on high as a companion surpassing even a husband, and which will present you to God at his revelation from heaven, graciously to inherit eternal life.

This I, a sinner, pray for you, most honored lady, for the sake of our brothers around Ignatios.

{To Maria the nun} A good report of your honored name has reached my ears, together with your right conduct and virtuous life, from the brothers of ours whom your God-loving self chose to receive as guests and care for, rescuing them from the hunt of their pursuers.

And thanks be to God, who has many who, hidden in worldly obscurity, possess a divine renown —

for Christ himself, having set aside the glorious things of this world in his sojourn in the flesh, chose what is weak and despised, that he might put to shame what is rich and haughty according to the flesh.

The reception of these brothers is the pledge of this way of life of yours —

believe that in sheltering them you are sheltering Christ (for it is on his account that they are in exile), while also possessing your own household virtue unto the glory of salvation.

In this may you be kept, still increasing in what is good, guarded in a manner befitting God, offering to the Lord the virtue of old age, like the celebrated Anna, and any other of those praiseworthy women who served God in a fruitful old age.

{To Symeon the monk} Having received into my hands the letter of your holiness, and having read it and learned of each of the things that befell you and the holy fathers of ours who were with you — whose names are in the book of life on account of the sacred flight of them all and their migration to a foreign land, and the trying and afflicting experience of being led about here and there and held under guard by the godless — I, in my lowliness, groaned as I considered into what trials this age has brought the churches of God, and at the same time I called blessed the contests of those persecuted for Christ's sake; and then I blessed you also, who became for us a messenger of all that had taken place, not shrinking from stretching out your hand to write to me, who am worthy of nothing, and to trace out the whole account of the affliction.

In return for which may the Lord bless you, strengthen you all the more, and confirm you in the unyielding steadfastness of the testimony of Christ.

For indeed I learned that, when you met with the impiety-monger John after your steadfast stand, you did not shrink back, nor did you come off second-best in the exchange of words, but stood firm against him, stripped away his arguments, and vigorously silenced him with the word of truth given you by the working of the Holy Spirit.

For indeed there is no power of reason at all in those who have been deceived, since there is neither light in them, nor proof of truth, nor anything upright or holy, walking as they do in darkness with an unintelligent heart and a wisdom turned to folly — or, to speak the plain truth, with unwisdom, ignorance, and blindness.

There is but one thing, both first and last, for them: the dominion of darkness —

This is for them at once reason, rule, faith, glory, and weapon.

'By their fruits you shall know them,' said the Lord.

For what impious and Jewish deed have they not done? They have outraged Christ, the Mother of God, and the saints —

for those whose bodily images are dishonored — the insult is referred back to those very prototypes; and for this reason the icon-fighters may fittingly be called Antichrists, since the Theologian and Evangelist says, 'and now there are many antichrists.'

These words are small indeed compared to your understanding, but they are tokens of the love given us by God in one mind and one soul.

But pray for me, good brother, that I may contend equally with you, and do me the favor of letting me know again how you are faring, and how the affairs of your sacred brotherhood stand now and will stand hereafter.

{To Joseph, brother and archbishop} So far as letters are concerned, I have learned nothing of your health.

But alas for my sins, that it has come to this —

for I was informed by the brothers of the loss of these letters, along with others.

And behold, this is the working of the devil.