Letters 1 part 50/55

...to persist in that disposition, both preserving the doctrine of orthodoxy sound and unimpaired, and not letting your life stand opposed to that doctrine.

But if you confess to have gained any benefit from us, the matter must be attributed to God, from whom comes the salvation of soul and body, both for us and for you.

And let this suffice concerning these matters, since I have no time to speak at length, being occupied with other affairs not easily resolved.

But as for the bishop of Chios, why have you written this and that? We neither brought the man into our presence when he came here, avoiding suspicion, nor did we leave him altogether without an answer, since it is not even lawful to send away just anyone unanswered, let alone one of the same habit who has also been allotted the name of bishop.

We were therefore glad that at last he withdrew from the episcopate, choosing to be cast aside here somewhere, while we also subjected him to the fitting penance, just as we have done in the case of others who acted in the same way as he.

And God belongs to those who repent.

And this — the withdrawal of the one who has fallen from the episcopate, and the cessation of his sacred ministry together with penance, until a time of peace — has been sought as a clear example of repentance, both by us and by others appointed to heal souls.

If, then, these things have been acknowledged by the man, who were we to repel one who approaches, and thereby make ourselves enemies of God in this? Do not you, O admirable one, take it hard against the man, even should what you say he has done be proven altogether true, since we have neither heard of it up to now, nor, even if we had heard, do we judge him in these matters.

'Does our law judge a man, unless it first hear from him and know what he does?'

And again the Apostle says:

'Against an elder, do not receive an accusation, except before two or three witnesses.'

Moreover, the question at hand is not about these things, nor about the authority to judge, but about receiving those who have fallen when they show repentance; while what has been said by your honor is reserved either here, at the fitting time, for those set over the Church, or, in the age to come, for the Judge of all.

Therefore I counsel your goodness, setting aside those words for the present, to give thanks to the Lord for the man's repentance, so that we may be fellow-workers with God, who desires that every man be saved, and in this may have peace with him through our Lord Jesus Christ.

And finally, when you find opportunity, if indeed you still seek it, then may you judge with uprightness.

But for now, pray concerning us, that we may be saved in soul and body, for we confess that we are more sinful than all men.

My lord the archbishop greets you most warmly, having himself been greeted by your voice; and so do all the brothers who are with us.

[To Auxentios the Hegoumenos] We have received the letter of your honor, and, as far as it was possible for us, we have gone through it, setting the praises concerning us far aside, as being worthy of no commendatory notice at all, but rather of reproachful rebuke.

For who are we, useless as we are, and not even worthy of the name by which we are called? As for the scriptural questions you sought answers to, we were greatly astonished, since the inquiry was addressed to us, unlearned as we are, and especially concerning such matters as belong only to the God-bearing fathers to clarify — matters concerning which the explanation has already been given, and most particularly, word for word, by the great and divine Basil.

Take, then, his commentary volume on Isaiah, and you will learn what you are seeking, especially since the resolution of such matters exceeds the measure of a letter, requiring an entire treatise.

But as to your proposing a verbal dispute with the Jews — leave the Christ-fighters, O best of fathers, to rage against themselves.

For those who have struck away the teachings of Christ himself, our true God, and have thrust aside the precepts of the apostles, and, in sum, have loathed the lofty sayings of all the God-bearing fathers, are hardly likely to be guided by us, nor is it fitting to engage them in discourse.

'Leave them,' the Lord said, 'they are blind.'

'It is not permitted to say, Rejoice, to the impious,' says the Lord.

since we would gain nothing from an exchange of words with them, and would rather do ourselves harm, being poisoned, like by a serpent, through their venomous words.

'God shall break their teeth in their mouth;'

'the Lord has broken the fangs of the lions.'

But as for what is necessarily required of us, that we may be well-pleasing to the Lord — how shall we escape the snares of the devil?

Clearly, by becoming winged in spirit, seeking the things above, minding the things above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God;

from whence he shall also come with the angels of his power, in flaming fire, rendering vengeance on those who know not God and who obey not his gospel — that is, on the Jews, and on any who are like-minded with the Jews, whether in the perversion of the faith or in the crookedness of their life.

'Practice these things, good sir; be absorbed in them, that your progress may be manifest to all' — so Paul, that great herald of truth, exhorts you.

'But foolish questionings, and genealogies, and strifes, and Jewish contentions, you should avoid.'

But that we may answer in summary what you have proposed: the whole thrust of the prophecy concerns the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, in which the rejected people also are restored and saved from the four wings, that is, the ends of the earth;

and the fact that the walls of the new Jerusalem are depicted upon the hands signifies the passion of the cross, since, being pierced with nails in his holy hands, he draws humanity out from its passion-ridden condition under sin, and adorns it anew with the archetypal beauty of deification.

upon which, a little while after, through the resurrection on the third day: 'Lift up your eyes round about, and see all your sons;'

'behold, they are gathered together, and have come to you.'

What follows this, joined to the prophecy, is joyous, festive, and full of gladness.

And the fair-minded man will understand and will join in declaring what is fitting, but the unfair-minded Jew will twist his heart, and will heed neither the Old nor the New Testament in a sound manner.

From which may we be delivered by the prayers of the saints, O sanctified father, and may we be saved in the kingdom of heaven, in Christ Jesus our Lord.

[To Eudokimos the Spatharios] Even of ourselves we perceive how great is the suffering and the pain that has befallen your honor;

but now, since we have heard also your voice full of many groans, disclosing each of the grievous things that have befallen you, we have felt it all the more, and have grieved together with you, as is fitting.

But nevertheless, however you manage these affairs — which have come upon you by God's just dispensation — you do well even in this, in understanding that these afflictions have come as a trial exposing wickedness, rather than a trial testing a lack of virtue in you.

We, then, shall not cease still further to offer you in reply a word that is clear and easy to grasp.

You have, then, been deprived of your sight;

and it is grievous (for how could it not be?) to have lost the lamp of the body; but again it is a matter for thanksgiving, since we thereby do not see the vanities of the world, from which every mind is by nature apt to be carried away in a manner not wholesome.

You were shut out from processions and gatherings, both civic and palatial; but then again you have been ransomed from the church of evildoers and the company of transgressors (you know what I mean).

You were stripped of your possessions; and this is a most grievous thing to bear.

But you have the power to bear it lightly and to sail above the circumstances and dealings of this life.

Where, O admirable man, could you ever have found such a place as now, in which you may have leisure for God and know him so far as is possible? And where such a season for prayer, groaning, compunction, and the stretching out of hands, all of which you now have to enjoy because of the injury brought upon you? Do you not see that things have turned out well for you, the wickedness of men being overturned into your salvation? One thing above all must be recognized: that in your former manner of life it was hard to lay firm hold of the compact of salvation, since, as you know, many were working against the pious purpose.

This shall be reckoned to you among those who are being saved, a thing for which every zealous man is eager, and than the attaining of which nothing of all things is more worthy.

Would that there were some way to exchange, so that we might swap our senses with one another!

And it would be for me a matter of much prayer, that together with the loss of sight there should also be taken away the goads of sin that lie before the eyes.

But these things are said in the manner of friendship.

May our good God exhort you with much exhortation to bear all things thankfully in imitation of the blessed Job, and may he grant that we come at some time to converse face to face, so that whatever now escapes us in writing we may supply with living voice, and know one another the better then, having tasted for now only a small foretaste of your sweet love.

{To Niketas the spatharios} In the case of small sufferings it is easy for one who wishes to comfort the afflicted to find words of consolation;

but in the case of so great a suffering as that in which your God-loving reverence has been enclosed, what consoling word could ever be found? And who, undertaking to treat so great a pain, could do so with skill? O the dreaded report!

Your lady, your yokefellow, has been torn from you, as we have just heard; the only comfort amid life's shared circumstances has been taken away; the blessed hearth has been stripped of its adornment.

The branches hang their heads, now that the good root has been cut away; the manservants and maidservants wander this way and that, as no longer having the master's countenance shining upon the house.

Everything is full of gloom; perhaps even the very air seems altered to you through the alteration of your mind.

Where now is she who received you joyfully home from your palace duties? Where is she who graciously welcomed your kinsfolk, who arranged and reconciled this matter and that and all else, in a word, who managed and kept the household in every affair pertaining to the house, and to other relations and guests alike? All has vanished and perished, and we have become as though in a desert, deprived of all the good things we possessed.

Such and so great, O master, is the suffering of your honored soul, and there is no consolation from man able to soothe your inflamed heart, save from God alone, who comforts the humble in heart by lifting up good reflections within them.

That blessed woman then — for blessed indeed she is — since she had acquired a firm faith toward God, continued also to lead a dignified life;

of which there are many tokens, of which we too have had no small share; and the last token is this, that, tried like gold in the fire through her long and hard-to-bear illness, she flew away from the things here.

This then is sufficient for us as consolation: that you have sent so great a yokefellow ahead to God, she having left her own life to us as a model of the fairest conduct; and, moreover, because you yourself, being versed in divine things, ought not to be so greatly overwhelmed by what has happened.

For you know that, since we have come into being by God's good pleasure, departure surely accompanies our birth as well, and no man is immortal, and no marriage union is unsunderable.

Let us consider, if you will, those from Adam down to this day, and we shall find the succession descending, one after another, for as long as this world here continues to hold together.

Where, master, are those who begot you, and those who begot them? And however far back you trace, you will find nothing else than the flowing and ebbing of human affairs.

What then is now to be sought? That we come to ourselves, and perform for the ever-memorable one the fitting funeral rites — for whom we too, humble as we are, prayed no small prayer, though as sinners we were not heard, that she might remain in this life — and that we set the affairs of the children in good order, and make ready beforehand our own last rites, living out our life in a manner befitting God, so that, when we depart from here whenever providence allows, we may find there that good yokefellow, rejoicing there with us throughout unending ages in the sharing of ineffable blessings.

through your dedicating all things, in every respect, to God.

{To Leo the sakellarios} We are not permitted to be silent, enjoying as we do the benefits of your greatest and most longed-for eminence, yet we are not well supplied to respond as is fitting, for want of a suitable word.

And if your God-loving soul does not think so, this is no wonder — for love, it says, takes no account of evil — since from of old it has been your custom to regard us kindly in this same way and to honor us, worthless as we are, freely, and, as you say, not even to admit any comparison of superiority between one another.

But these things, as has been said, are but the tokens of sacred affection.

But you yourself, O most-praised one, seem to stand established like an acropolis in the queen of cities, or, to speak the truth more fittingly, a spacious harbor, a resting-place for the afflicted, an ample consolation for those thirsting for a harmonious word, receiving and healing, one might say, day after day, tending and caring for this man and that, greater and lesser, priests and archpriests, the accomplished and the lowly.

How magnificent is your divine office, and how God-loving your work!

It befits you also to take up the sayings of the ever-praised Job:

‘I became a father to orphans, a foot to the lame, and my door was opened to every man,’ and all that goes with these.

You are the remnant of piety, you yourself the treasure of orthodoxy.

Let my discourse pass over much, lest it seem to speak to please and to flatter, uttering things to your face.

Yet let it add one word more, and so cease speaking:

one consolation for a father is an only-begotten and father-loving son, and for the imperial city, your own great-natured and celebrated headship.

{To the spatharea, wife of Flavian} The dreaded report of the suffering concerning your ever-memorable son has reached even our lowliness;

and in the face of it, just as men whose hearing has been struck as if by thunder collapse utterly, so has this word left us at a total loss, unable even to utter anything worthy of the grief.

O, what has suddenly come to pass? How has so admirable a man perished, in the very prime of the age fit for living? What a truly great man he was!

As the only one left, a comfort to his blessed mother, a support to his father's house, an adornment to his line, and I would add, a rare sight even in the imperial courts.

This man, while administering the emperor's affairs in a foreign land, flew away, leaving behind his renowned mother, and abandoning along with her his celebrated wife with their well-born newborn children, their splendid hearth, their much-spoken-of lineage, their abundant estate, their loyal attendants, their master-loving retainers — all these together, that our discourse may not break each one apart — and then, returning home from abroad, he came as a pitiable burden, a grievous arrival for both the imperial city and that admirable household.

O the surpassing calamity!

Even the very walls of the city might well groan, not to mention its rulers and his peers; even the emperors themselves might groan, having lost so wondrous a scion; perhaps even the common crowd would weep, and fittingly the whole family would be plunged into grief.

But if this is so, who could adequately give tragic voice to the suffering that has befallen you, O mistress? Who could to that of his wife? Who to that of his sister? Who to that of the household servants? Not even if the streams of rivers were turned wholly into tears would they suffice to serve your lament.

And what of the air? Has it not seemed altered to your eyes? And has not the sun itself seemed not to have risen, now that you have lost the sun of your household? So many, and so many like them, are the things this suffering prompts one to lament.

But since our discourse is addressed to a woman long instructed in divine things and who displays her own life as an entire treatise on virtue, as almost every ear and eye can testify, there is no need of much reminder, since you already have at home the remedies of consolation.

From these come also your self-mastery and mortification of the body, your generosity toward the needy, your care for priests and monks, and all that for which you are praised and celebrated in your many other ways of piety.

From your own resources, then, and by yourself, you are well able to sing to your own soul what is fitting, and not to it alone, but also to your daughter-in-law and daughter and the whole household of Abraham, as a teacher common to all, as a model of virtue, as one who has long ago stored up the divine oracles and is able in due season to measure out the portion of grain to each.

Remember, O noble woman, admirable among women, that nothing that has happened, even among things beyond hope, is strange.

Consider those from Adam down to this present day, and enter into the deep judgments of God, and see that man is like grass;

his days pass away like shadows.

Since, then, the forefather was mortal because of sin, his offspring too is mortal, one following another in succession all the way to the present.

But nevertheless, since Christ, death is no longer death, but the beginning of an immortal regeneration.

A pious and orthodox child, a lover of monks and a lover of the good — such a one you both bore and sent forth.

Let this be for you sufficient consolation and matter for thanksgiving.

Yes, we beg you, we beg you, O God-consoled and all-wise lady, to become, as you have in everything else, so also here, a model of magnanimity — a fitting funeral offering for your all-beautiful son as well — since in soul too you yearn to render him what is due, bringing an offering to God;

for perhaps it was for this reason that God reserved you as the last of those who went before, so that, having arranged everything in a manner befitting God, you might in due time depart from here together with them and inherit eternal life with them.

These are the very things our brother, the most God-loving archbishop, likewise affirms, my most honored lady.

{To Pantoleon the logothete} We know that outspokenness too is liable to provoke resentment, and we understand also that the times bid us exercise restraint;

but nevertheless the surpassing and well-disposed nature of your ineffable good will toward us, the humble, has compelled us to venture even this letter as well;

for it is truly a bold thing not only to bring forward one's own affairs, but also to make entreaty on behalf of others.

Nevertheless, as has been said, your great good will and twofold piety have emboldened us to be bold.

What, then, is being said? It concerns Theodotos the protospatharios, who — how he is in dire straits on account of the steward of the church in the West who departed together with him — your unsurpassed eminence surely knows very well.

Who else, then, could be found to come to this man's aid? And who more prudent than your greatness of mind to discern what is needed? And who has readier access to those in power than your own genuine intercession? Give, O most beloved master, to him who is in need, the mercy that you yourself have received from God.

We prostrate ourselves before your honored footsteps.

Your counsel is like the counsel of an angel, your voice like a flashing dart, both in the brightness of your frankness and in the splendor of your love.

Should your suppliant be found worthy to share in this, he would surely be placed altogether beyond the accusing darts of his adversary, as your lofty mind knows in its many ways; and we, the humble, will offer you many thanksgivings and prayers for the health of you both, that truly excellent and admirable couple.

And perhaps, compared with those who offer gifts of gold, the God-given gift and the favor granted from the Lord will be no less honorable for you, unto the salvation of both soul and body for you, most beloved and all-celebrated pair.

{To Theophanes the monk} If a letter from us, humble as we are, is welcome to you, receive it once again, O thrice-beloved one — having nothing elegant or eloquent about it, as you say out of graciousness, yet being, all the same, truly and admittedly a token of love;

and to whatever degree the exchange of letters continues, to that same degree may the disposition of love increase;

than which what could be more important? But let this rest here for now, and let our discourse proceed to what follows.

...swallowing down like Charybdis souls that are not established in the word of truth? Now you yourself did not name him, but even before your letter made it plain, we had already groaned deeply, especially over one heretical man -- or rather, one who is truly blasphemous toward God -- who has been allotted by the state the office of chartulary in that region, saying just this: that ruin has come upon renowned Sicily.

This calamity was not contrived out of doctrinal expertise;

for the wretched little figure is unskilled in doctrine, but is filled with impious opinion, and, to speak more truly, was led into impiety from his father, together also with two other kinsmen of his.

But these men, I know, the Trinity will strike with blows through the God-inspired mouths both of you and of those here who are champions of the truth.

But let not the heresy that still rages madly astonish you or anyone like you;

for the evil has not yet been wiped out, nor has the faithful's love of God been sufficiently tested; and third, we are not able to enter into the abyss of God's judgments, by which ways he still allows his people to be tossed by the surge of unbelief -- yet the conclusion of the matter is that the approved may become manifest, as Paul, the steward of wisdom, has said.

Therefore we also exhort and entreat you not to grow weary in thoroughly refuting your adversaries, bringing forth the divine teachings from the innermost treasuries of your heart, and thereby showing clearly that Christ is not Christ unless he is circumscribed in a form like our own;

for if he indeed became flesh, then he is certainly also circumscribed as flesh; and that which cannot be circumscribed is clearly not within humanity but outside both place and time as well -- it is spoken of and conceived as God bare, in incomprehensibility and indefiniteness;

and this -- being firmly compelled by natural consequences to an unquestionable demonstration of the truth -- namely, that Christ is circumscribed, is also worshiped in the icon, since in it the archetype is made manifest, as the God-revealing Dionysius somewhere says:

'Each is in the other, except for the difference of essence.'

So that whoever refuses to allow Christ to be depicted has denied that he became man, and whoever does not worship his icon does not worship him at all, even if he thinks he does worship him -- since the sacred word says, the unfaithful confess that they know God, but by their works they deny him.

I have set these things forth not as though your honor were ignorant of them, but as one who shares this same conviction, and having drawn up, as it were, a single drop from the sea of doctrines -- besides which there is also a boundless swarm of patristic testimonies, together with ancient history, from the very starting-line of the proclamation, in support of our blameless Christian faith.

{To Philotheos, the Founder} Your honor considers it a great gain, as you say, to receive letters from us and likewise to be remembered by us ourselves; but this is a commendation of your God-minded intellect, which employs great humility -- not a commendation of us, who are lowly and worth no account.

Nevertheless, according to its own confidence it will receive its reward from the righteous judgment of our good God, who repays each person's faith with heavenly recompenses, and who, in a Christ-like manner, attributes to himself what is done to one's neighbor.

But we truly rejoice, having come to know friendship with such a great and eminent man, whose virtue is far-resounding, whose praise is most just, and whose manner of life is a pattern for many who wish to live piously in this present generation, set forth as upon a lookout-point on a mountain of virtues.

And truly, in accordance with your name, you have shone forth as a lover of God, having chosen, out of love for God, a life free from worldly business and quiet, for the keeping of the divine commandments and the attainment of eternal blessings.

And yet, though you were by your very form worthy of dominion, and by lineage most illustrious in blood, divine longing extinguished all these things and showed them to be worthless -- which is indeed true -- and lifted the eyes of your mind toward the surpassing splendor of divine beauty, that you might see there, behold there in vision, and transfer your citizenship there, where there is joy unspeakable, where there is life without end, where shines the radiance of the blessed and sovereign Trinity.

O wondrous man, longed for by us: may there be increase of virtue yet more and more, and a treasuring-up of good works, so that, as a great merchant, you may depart from this world into participation in the things eternal.

Let this suffice, then, for the matter of greeting.

And since you asked again also concerning the presbyter, pointing out the undisclosed offense, we say this: the canon does not even permit a presbyter to be a guest at the wedding feast of one who is marrying a second time, how much less to crown such a person? For the crown is placed upon one who has conquered incontinence and preserved intact the glory of virginity.

But the man who marries a second time, besides not being worthy to be crowned, has also been subjected to canonical penances.

How then was he not afraid to crown those who lie under the canons concerning second marriage? Forgive us, then -- even if there were no other charge -- it is not permitted to him to perform sacred rites at all; I do not know whether it might be permitted, by way of economy, for the holy things to be given to you, when consecrated by an unimpeachable presbyter.

Concerning the reader: since he returned having been placed under penance, it is right that until the time of a synod he not be permitted to read the Epistle;

for the presbyter, when placed under penance, is barred from the liturgy, the deacon from his ministry, and the reader from his reading.

This is our judgment and ruling; but let your piety act as it thinks best.

{To Irene the Patrikia} It is a token of your good confidence that you greeted us, the lowly ones, my most honored lady, through our beloved brother, the lord Peter, your kinsman;

through whom we also, as is fitting, return your greeting, praising your piety and your zeal, well-emulated in good things -- for this we know both from ourselves and are often taught by your brother -- and indeed, that out of love for God you may hold him too in honor, worthy of the virtue that dwells in you and of your husband's way of life.

But since you asked concerning the monastery called 'the Lions,' whether it ought to be made into a monastery for men -- having in mind such a choice regarding the transformation of what was formerly named and functioned as a women's convent -- we have this to answer: if you have only recently begun to consecrate the place, it is permitted to do whichever you choose;

but since it has already been consecrated by your daughter, of blessed memory, who died there as its abbess, and who maintained it for a sufficient number of years together also with a community of virgins -- even though a relocation took place on account of the earlier civil strife among the sisterhood there -- and since the abbess herself now lies here in holy tombs, together with other kindred souls who preceded her, it is not lawful, as I think, my lady, for you to make a change, especially since the sisters who were left behind, and the daughters of her who went before, choose to serve God here, where their abbess also lies.

This is an apostolic saying:

'Let each one remain in that state in which he was called.'

What reason is there for the change, that it should become named after men, especially when no men are actually to be seen there, and those who have been cast out cannot bear not to go on living there? But if it is objected that a change has often occurred in certain monasteries, this happened on account of persecution, and by unholy seizure and unlawful authority.

But for those who have both right faith and a life that offers no resistance, it would be fitting for them to speak and act lawfully and according to the canons.