書信集 第 1 章 第 25/55 段

May you obtain the crown of these martyrs, O thrice-blessed one, praying for peace for the Church, and also for me, the least, that I may not utterly fail to touch upon your footsteps, since I bear the greatest burden of sins.

{To Euthymios, son} Be well, my beloved child Euthymios;

a man of ready good will — in that you came and brought what was needed to the house of the magistrate who seized me, and in that you also sailed there and shared my zeal concerning the better hopes for the brotherhood, which is now guarded by a military hand at the Studios;

and indeed you have shown, by the zeal you displayed on your own, that you took good counsel, even if it was done recklessly;

What is this? To anathematize the accursed Antony, who tore down the venerable icons, together with the whole brotherhood;

for which cause you were beaten together with nine others, surpassing the rest in courage.

You have done the work, my child, of a martyr, of a soldier of Jesus Christ.

Oh, the firmness of your heart! You were the first to be scourged for Christ and with Christ, and though you emerged from so many blows drained of blood and with your flesh cut open, you neither uttered a mournful cry nor let your countenance fall, but burst forth with that saying which many sing: 'Fear not, brothers, this is nothing.'

This word put to shame even the tyrant, that all-subduer, who struck you all the more because of it, and it emboldened your brothers to contend equally with you, and, greatest of all, it gladdened God, who is preparing for you the crown of righteousness.

Only, my child, let us fight the good fight to its very completion;

and I am confident that he who began this contest in you will also bring it to completion.

Help, brother, even in exile, your fellow exiles, in word and in deed;

pray also for me, the humble one, that I may endure all things for the sake of Christ, who is now persecuted through his holy icon.

Your brothers who are with me greet you;

The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ be with your spirit.

{To Hyperechios, son} Well done, well done, Hyperechios my child, you have been deemed worthy to carry off a noble contest-prize for Christ's sake;

you were flayed, you were imprisoned, you were exiled, you were numbered among the confessors of Christ.

Whence comes to you this grace, this heavenly gift, that you should see your own blood flowing round about for Christ's sake, and your flesh scraped away by the scourges? You have washed away your sins; you have sanctified yourself.

Take heed, my brother, lest you ever forget this benefit, lest you ever grow drowsy and fall away from God.

Stay watchful, I beseech you, for your salvation, unto the endurance that brings completion;

for it is not only the beginning, but also the completing, that is blessed.

You have borne the pains of blows; bear also, my child, the labors of asceticism, purging from your heart the evil thoughts by which a man is led forth into the commission of sin.

God is fearsome, a fire consuming those who despise him;

let us flee undue familiarity, the door of lawlessness; let your dwelling be free of scandal, and holy.

You have the psalm, you have the hymn, you have the prayer;

have reading, have tears; consider always death, the day of judgment, when all things shall stand naked and laid bare.

what fear and trembling there for a sinner such as I, and what great joy and exultation for the righteous!

Yes, my child, let us keep watch over ourselves, that we may present our deposit, that is, our soul, to God safe and pure;

for even if it is defiled through crooked thoughts, yet it is cleansed again through tears shed in repentance.

Pray for me, a sinner, that I may be saved in all things.

The brothers who are with me greet you;

{To Aphrodisios, his child} Rejoice, Aphrodisios, my child—or rather, God's—for whose sake the contest now set before you is waged.

What has happened in you, that you so willingly surrendered your own flesh to the scourges for Christ's sake, bearing so many blows steadfastly, like adamant? Rejoice, soldier of Christ;

see to what height grace has called you, how you have leapt up to the summit of virtue, having remade yourself out of your former shortcomings.

You have glorified God, my child, in your members; you have honored me also, sinner that I am;

you have shone among your brotherhood together with your fellow-contestants like the morning star; you have become a pillar of the Church of God.

Blessed are you, and it shall be well with you—

yet it is not yet at its end;

you must endure to the end, so that you may thus be crowned.

Bear nobly the hardships of exile; prepare also to die for Christ, for the sake of the holy icon;

keep yourself reserved, without taking liberties, and be watchful against the unseen enemies.

Rejoice in hope, endure in tribulation, be sober in prayers, beseeching also for me, a sinner, that I may be saved together with you.

Your brothers who are with me greet you;

{To Ammonas, his child} Brother Ammonas, rejoice in the Lord;

I greet you from the lips of my heart, crowning you with praises, since you have contended well, having been scourged for Christ's sake and having borne so many blows with good endurance.

Would that I had kissed your flesh, torn open for Christ's sake; would that I too, humble as I am, had been counted worthy to share in your sufferings;

yet in disposition I have shared with you, and I rejoice that I, a sinner, possess such a child, whose blood, together with your fellow-contestant brothers, serves the Church of God as a testimony of truth, and whose exile serves as a casting-out of impiety.

In a single moment you have been wounded, and see with what praises you are being extolled;

what, then, shall it be at the tribunal of all things, when those blessed of his Father shall be received by him into the kingdom of heaven? Therefore take courage, stand firm;

for the contest is still ongoing, the race is still being run;

do not lie down to rest as though you had already finished the course;

if need be, let us also be slain for the sake of the holy icon of Christ.

Yes, my child, I beseech you, let us not grow slack in our ascetic discipline, in our exile;

for it is not the one who merely begins who is praiseworthy, but the one who completes the work of God.

Daily we have the intelligible enemies wounding us with the arrows of thoughts;

watch out for these, and be armored with faith, with love, with hope.

I hear that you keep exact and careful watch over your little cell, without taking liberties, and I rejoice;

for taking liberties is the mother of all evils.

May God, my child, yet further make you manly, establish you, and equip you for every good work.

Pray also for me, a sinner, that I may be saved.

If your brother according to flesh and spirit, my child, is with you, I greet him.

Your brothers who are with me greet you;

{To Symeon, his child} Rejoice, my child Symeon, you who were called by grace to the confession of Christ;

see how Christ was not ashamed of you on account of your former manner of life, but was well pleased to let you be scourged for his sake, mocked, imprisoned, and then also exiled together with your like-minded brothers.

What shall you render to the Lord? What could you offer him that is worthy? What else but to keep the grace given you inalienable, through patience and perfect faith? Therefore be watchful, be sober against the devil's wiles, lest he somehow slip in, lest he somehow trip you up.

I say this because I have heard that, for the sake of practicing medicine, you have been leaving your cell;

this is not that kind of season, my child, but a season of testimony.

Do you wish to heal? Heal, through the word, those who are sick in soul;

and if you also wish to heal the body, do so only insofar as it is possible for you while seated, without moving from place to place, and this only in the case of pious men, not, however, of women.

but let your care and meditation always be in the law of the Most High, together with the labor of your hands;

for idleness is the mother of sin.

expect blows once more for Christ's sake, and perhaps also that renowned death, should he deem you worthy of so great a thing.

Pray also for me, a sinner, that I may be saved in all things.

The brothers who are with me greet you.

May the Lord keep you unharmed in all things;

{To Theophylact, presbyter} From what your Reverence has written, you have manifested your own virtue, both through the humble wording of the address, and through the force conveyed within the letter itself;

for indeed your being present with the martyrs, sharing their zeal and their anguish, and your burying the holy Thaddaeus with your own hands, is a proof possessing the very greatest testimony of your piety, O sacred man.

Yet I grieve for you because of the written pledge of impiety;

it is being smoothed away and torn apart by your groaning.

Bear, then, the grief and this season in which your priesthood is held back, until Christ shall shine forth the spring of orthodoxy, in which you shall boast in the things you now do for Christ's sake, together also, clearly, with the recovery of your rank.

{To Bessarion, his child} Even though I have not received replies to what I wrote you, my beloved child (the letter-bearer knows the reason why), nevertheless writing is not burdensome to me, though I am securely confined together with brother Nicholas.

Rejoice, then, martyr of the truth; rejoice, confessor of Christ; rejoice, my boast and the boast of the Church.

Do you see what words you are hearing, what your good submission has procured for you—the right faith, the endurance of imprisonment, the fearless and dauntless steadfastness, the receiving of the scourges, the tearing of your flesh, the shedding of your blood, the scars of the bruises? To what heights have they raised you, what have they made of you? And you shall be exalted still further, and magnified still further, if, my sacred child, you endure to the full whatever may yet come to pass.

for 'whoever endures to the end, this one will be saved,' said the Lord.

Even if they strike you again, Christ is your helper;

or do you not know that as the sufferings of Christ abound, so also do glory and consolation abound in equal measure? Bear, my son, the solitude, the imprisonment, the distress, the despondency;

breathe Christ, and cut down the thoughts of the adversaries.

take care to get through the day in which you are living, and do not be anxious about tomorrow;

may he who has given endurance today grant it also for the next day, should we live to see it.

These things from me to you; and do not cease, in turn, to pray these same things for us sinners.

{To John, his child} I have recognized the force of your letter, my child, and I have given thanks to my God that you are being kept unharmed, having been delivered from the hand of your persecutors.

See to it, then, how you conduct yourself, so that you may not be caught again;

but if it should somehow happen again, strengthen your soul, my child, to endure all things for the sake of the name of God, seeing especially your brothers who have contended, and are still contending.

The one who believes can do all things in Christ who strengthens him, who has also called you to a seat among the presbyters, to praise him.

Live in a priestly manner; be reverent, purifying yourself, so that being pure you may draw near to the Pure One.

Pray also for us, that we may be saved, that our deeds may seal our words, since I am a sinful man.

The Lord be with your spirit.

{To Euodius, my child} Since I received your explanation in writing, beloved child, the sorrow of my humble soul, which was grieving over what had happened, was turned aside.

For do not suppose, brother, that it is a small thing to fall in word.

What does the Lord say? 'If anyone confesses me before men, I too will confess him before my Father who is in heaven.'

But since it has happened, God is merciful, forgiving our lapses.

But having come this far, fear God and go no further, but spare your own soul and me, the humble one, seeing your brothers still contending in the struggle.

For those who have fallen are pitiable on both sides, unless they should repent worthily.

As for our affairs, learn of them as the letter-bearer will report, and pray that we may be saved.

{To Niketas, hegoumenos} Even before your letter, having long ago learned of the affairs of your holiness through the voice of the letter-bearer, I, wretched as I am, gave praise; and now, through reading it, I have sung greatly to the Lord, because you are a father among fathers and a lamp among lamps.

For it was necessary — it was necessary — that one who had been led in through tested obedience and had guided others through a lawful life should not remain, because of my sins, among those swept away into this present age, but should quickly break free by the sword of the Spirit, and make the recovery from his defeat all the more conspicuous, running back up to the watchtower of Christ's confession and, like a beacon-keeper, signaling to the world the light of truth.

For he who merely holds his ground does not vex the enemy so much as he who, after being taken captive, wrestles anew in the Lord.

But our own affairs are not as your friendship praises them, by which, as they say, truth is wont to be stolen away.

I, the humble one, am far from every good thing.

It would be through your prayer, inclined toward God, that I might be of some use, and that in the struggle in which we now stand I might not fall away from the portion of you the saints.

And the struggle is known to your godly reverence: that it is for Christ's sake to contend on behalf of his icon;

For each is inseparable from the other, both when confessed and when denied.

And the confessors of the present time have been deemed by the Lord all the more worthy than those of old to hear: 'Blessed are they who have not seen and yet have believed.'

He who is with me greets your holiness, as I also greet the truly manly Arsenius — manly in prudence and ardent in zeal — your true son, and my beloved brother.

{To Antiochus, silentiary} Your letter is worthy of your piety, in that at a time when most flee even from offering us a bare greeting, you yourself both write and call upon us to write, chiding our silence.

You show whose sapling you are — of the golden race, of the pious root;

For this reason you are dear to friends, and to me you are the most ardent of friends, cherished just as was your blessed father.

But what is marvelous is that even in the winter storm of unbelief the flower of your virtue has not withered, remaining undefiled by communion with the heretics, as you write.

And that it should still remain so is a thing I must still pray for.

For in truth it is difficult to escape this, especially in a position of rank, since almost all have been captured by fear of human danger, and by contempt for God, who is set at naught;

By his providence may you be guarded and saved on both counts — you who are in every way most beloved by all.

{To Gregory} The sending of letters is meant to be paired, reciprocal.

But you, best of friends — and I would add, mightiest of the pious — with the one letter you gladdened me, especially with such numerous and weighty words, yet you begrudged me a share of the other, even though it could flow forth abundantly from the innermost treasuries of your heart.

So that we may not appear unevenly yoked, let us add second letters to the first.

Do you see what philosophy I expound to you at a season fit for philosophy? For philosophy is to flee the ruin of heresy — from which may God keep you untouched, rewarding you with incorruptible good things for having nourished us, the humble ones.

{To Lucian, my child} 'Adam, where are you?' is the voice of God, spoken not only to our first father, but also to every one who has fallen away from the divine commandment.

Where then are you, child and brother? From what glory have we slipped, clothing ourselves with a covering of shame? I grieve over you, I groan, I weep, seeing in your defeat my own fall.

Alas, what have you undergone, what have you suffered? But since God is a God of those who repent, arise, taking up this first and last remedy of repentance: to confess your transgression to all, so that the Lord may release you from your participation in impiety.

For I suppose you are crushed and greatly grieved; but take heart, child;

'The Lord is near to those who are broken in heart, and he will save the humble in spirit.'

{To Myron} I have been slow to write to your godly reverence, fearing the trials, and, as I suppose, not yet having had experience of it.

But since I have learned more precisely who and what sort of person my lord is — that he is good and pious — I have gladly penned this letter, in which I offer my thanks, and quite rightly so, because you remembered my humble self, even though you did not have so clear a token of it, and that too at such a time, when, from human fear, even those who seemed to be true friends turned away in aversion, caring least of all for God and his commandment, since some failed to bear the fruit of love, while others, worse still, made shipwreck concerning the faith, having their very reasonings submerged in the flood of heresy.

But well done, that you, my lord, guided from both sides, are preserving the ship of your soul, steering it by the breezes of the Spirit toward the harbor of salvation.

but confessing that he became man on account of his boundless love for mankind;

For those who cannot bear to behold an icon of his bodily character clearly deny that he took a form like ours, thereby judaizing, even though they pretend to confess that Christ came within our nature;

For he who cannot be depicted in an icon is not even a man, but some kind of monstrosity;

For how could anyone who has a face not be depicted in an icon? If, then, Christ had a face — into which the God-slayers spat — it is clear that he is circumscribable, that is, he can be depicted in an icon;

but if he had a face, yet cannot be depicted, as seems to the impious, then he was clearly a phantom;

for indeed the icon-fighters hold to the impiety of Valentinus, manichaeizing.

From whose error may you yourself be wholly delivered, and whoever is like you in virtue and piety.

May you receive small things as great, my friend, in return for what you sent to my humble self, who have nothing better with which to repay you.

{To George, the mitanes} O, how beautiful is the fashioning of your soul, good and faithful friend, genuine and God-loving friend, friend who shares in my afflictions and troubles;

Truly the Scripture has said that he who has found him has found a treasure — not one of gold, but one made rich through the Holy Spirit.

Such are you toward us, the humble: visiting one, receiving another who comes from the road, tending to one, comforting another, and even becoming a guarantor for one who is held in custody.

For what do you not do and say, of all that it is fitting for a God-loving man and a good-hearted person to do? And this in these very days, when even a bare greeting from a friend has come to count for us as the greatest of treasures.

Thus, then, do we sinners have these things from your honored self.

But may the Lord repay you with his eternal good things;

Therefore do not grow weary of accomplishing your godly work before God who saves you.

{To Pardos, the mitanes} I write to your honored self out of obligation, because you are a man of God and a true and faithful friend;

For indeed such a friend is proven in trials, not turning aside from friendship, but preserving the proof of love toward God and neighbor;

But those who are not such are boorish and misanthropic, changing with the times and circumstances.

You know within yourself what good things you do;

And witnesses to this are our brothers who share in them, who burden you much, yet also give you abundant thanks, because you become a refuge for them and a most kind and resourceful nurturer, not cowering before the times as the rest do, but trembling before God alone, who is to be feared, whom you also serve through the brothers — he who will proclaim you, at the time of recompense, as his benefactor, as his host, as his provider of food.

Having, then, such hopes, man of God, rejoice and be glad, and consider that you are amassing great wealth in this most excellent business of yours — wealth that is not corruptible, but one that endures forever, unto the possession of the kingdom of heaven.

{To Gennadius, my child} What you wrote, beloved child, I have understood.

You are grieved that, in the persecution, you must move from place to place, being held fast by fear and anxiety;

For these things the condition of flight brings upon one, and besides, you write that you are also lacking in necessities.

But let the beatitude of the Lord gladden you and lighten your pains;

'Blessed are those who have been persecuted for righteousness' sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.'

Is not this promise sufficient to dissolve every affliction and distress? 'The Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head.'

Do you see that this force is making you an imitator of God? For the kingdom of heaven belongs to those who take it by force.

Bear it, child, as you have already borne, for Christ's sake, not only persecution but also imprisonment.

'He who increases knowledge increases sorrow,' as it is said.

And having grown old in knowledge and in years, will you not be all the more steadfast? Yes, child, I beseech you, guard yourself in every way, that you may be saved like a gazelle from snares and like a bird from traps.

Pray for me, the sinner.

...beloved child, to write back to you.

I rejoice, then, that you are in good health; but at your being left alone I am not pleased, even though it happened involuntarily, from the brother Neilos having been seized.

Be eager, therefore, I beg you, to be with one of the brothers, and with one who is, if possible, prudent.

For you know that the enemy is against everyone, and there is need of security for the soul.

But as for Abbot Leontios, what on earth came into your mind to go off to him? If indeed you had known him to be kept safe from the heresy, it would have been well;

for this too I myself was eager for, just as I had also previously charged the blessed Theodoulos.

But since he was carried away together with the heretics through signing and communion — on account of which that blessed man withdrew from him — your going to him is nothing other than becoming like him and losing everything, both your obedience and your confession of Christ.

Stand, my child, in the strength of the truth, not moving from place to place at random without necessity.

For assuredly God, who said, 'I will never let you go, nor will I ever forsake you,' will not overlook you as you walk with a true heart, but will shelter you and nourish you and provide for you in every way;

except that this is a time of affliction, and there is need of endurance.

Blessed are those who have been persecuted for the sake of Christ;

let this gladden you and lighten your sorrows.

But your brother according to the flesh, being flesh, wants you to become flesh as well.

Why do you write me such things? Behold your brothers according to the spirit contending in the struggle, and hasten to emulate them, that you may become a crown-bearer.

May God watch over you, my child, as you pray for me the sinner.

{To Eustratios, chief physician} I knew the honorable worth of your love even before, when I was deemed worthy of your reverent visit, but not yet how great and how vast it was;

but through our spiritual son Adrianos we have heard so many good things about you, and the report so disposed us toward love (especially that you remain above the heresy, kept unburned as in the midst of a flame from heretical communion), that we greatly gave thanks to our good God and seemed to come before your honored countenance and to embrace you from the heart.

Thanks then be to the Lord, who has elect ones even in Byzantium in this present harsh time, in which Christ is persecuted together with his Mother and his servants through the assault upon and dishonoring of their holy images;

for indeed the outrage done to the image is manifestly a dishonoring of the one depicted, even if the persecutors of Christ do not understand this.

Is it not so that he who insults the figure of the life-giving Cross insults the life-giving Cross itself? Indeed, very much so.

So it is also in the case of the figure, that is, the image of Christ.

But may there be for them a conversion and a cessation from impiety;

may the Lord still preserve you, together with your lady wife who, as report has it, is also of our own blood, unharmed and unhurt in all things, granting you many rewards also for the kindness and hospitality shown from the beginning until now to our brother and letter-bearer — as he proclaims your many good deeds — and indeed also for the revenues of which you were deprived by fleeing the table-fellowship of the impious chief.

May there be for you a heavenly treasure of spiritual graces.

{To Joseph, brother and archbishop} I have now again been deemed worthy to learn of your health and holiness, not only from your honored letter, but also from the living voice of the good Dionysios, who has nourished my humble soul, recounting each thing he had taken in with his own eyes there — the hospitality, the sojourn, the quiet, the mountain, the water — or rather, setting these aside, let me speak of what is better known: the God whom you serve, and whom you worship, and for whose sake you endure this desolation and hardship, orphaned in face but not in heart, both from us the humble ones and indeed also from the great Church of God under your hand.

These things then are indeed pitiable (for how could they not be?), being loved with love by both, and as it were divided by the cutting of a sword;

yet you yourself, most longed-for and most holy one, have great hopes in God, and your church, together with us, has many boasts concerning you, who for the sake of truth both formerly suffered such things and now suffer together with Christ;

of righteousness, on the day of the Lord's just recompense.

You fear, O father, the enemies from within, the unseen ones, more than those that are seen — and not unreasonably, but as a sensible man, as one experienced in war, as one who is cautious;

These too I, wretched one, dread and fear, for together with my very breathing comes the fiery dart, never idle even while I sleep, through phantasms, let alone while I am awake.

But there is one helper: the fear of God;

for where this keeps watch, there the passions fall asleep.

I beg therefore your holiness to aid me with unceasing prayers, that I may be kept safe above the snare of the enemy;

for as to our being drawn, unworthy as we are, to remembrance of you in every particular, what more need be said, than that even before our own salvation we ask, with a contrite heart in the Lord, for your good standing and preservation in all things?

The brothers who are with me greet with reverence your sacred eminence.

I greet the brothers most warmly, especially the good Athanasios, who fervently chooses to suffer with you in the Lord, in deed and in word.

{To Anthos, my child} Your little letter, beloved child, was of the greatest worth to me, welcome indeed;

for it is enough for me that you indicate that you are alive and well, serving the most holy archbishop and father.

So then, farewell still, dearest child, in both body and spirit, that I, the humble one, may rejoice on hearing of you.

Pray unforgetfully for my salvation, as a beloved son, as a flower of virtues, as one who has loved purity from the beginning.

{To Ignatios, bishop of Miletus} Because I did not know exactly the place of exile of your paternal holiness, I have not until the present been able to write, although I had the desire and was grieved in spirit precisely over this;

but now that our brother Dionysios has just somehow come from that place, and has reported to us that he saw your holiness and conversed with it in our own nothingness, telling us what sort of place, and where, holds you — we the humble ones rejoiced with joy, and we composed this letter with good cheer.

For we, O most honored one, have long been possessors of your love, and we revere you not only as an acquaintance and one of the same monastic habit, but indeed also as a confessor of Christ, for whom and on account of whom is your persecution and banishment; but thanks be to the Lord who has made you known in this present time as a pillar and foundation of the truth, not shaken by the assaults of the adversaries, but preserving the mystery of piety unadulterated in the might of the Holy Spirit;

For surely you have learned how many, and how great, are those who, because of my sins, have stumbled;

over whom who would not groan a tear? Indeed also over the monk of Medikion, who was plundered by those around Joseph into having committed impiety against Christ for the sake of their so-called economy.

But this, O man wise in God, is altogether discordant and out of place;

for if anyone does evil under the pretext of good, he commits a double sin, because he both does what is not good, and also uses the name of the good as a kind of veil — this is the voice of the divine Basil.