Letter 107: Chrysostom compares the presbyters' trials to gold refined by fire and asks for joyful news.
John Chrysostom→Castus, Valerius, Diophantus, and Cyriacus, presbyters of Antioch|c. 405 AD|John Chrysostom|From Cucusus (modern Goksun), Armenia Secunda|To Antioch, Syria|AI-assisted
church affairstrialconsolationantioch
PG 52 Epistulae source-specific import; English is a new modern rendering from Greek.
What fire does for gold, repeated trials do for souls of gold. Flame makes the metal brighter and purer; the furnace of successive temptations makes those who are golden in mind brighter and more precious than gold. For this reason, though we are far away, we continually bless you.
You know how great the profit is from such plots against you. Present prosperity is only a name without substance, while the good things to come are solid, immovable, permanent, and immortal. Virtue is marvelous not only because it gives such prizes afterward, but because even its contests become prizes before the final reward is given. Paul rejoiced not only over the rewards of affliction but in the afflictions themselves, saying, "We glory in tribulations." He then shows the chain of their fruits: tribulation produces patience, and patience produces tested character and hope. Patience is a harbor without waves, a calm life, stronger than rock, harder than adamant, more secure than walls. It does not allow those it has trained to be overturned by painful events. Like a rock struck by waves, it is cleansed by the blows and breaks the water by being struck rather than by striking.
I do not write this because you need to learn it. Your deeds have already proclaimed what my words only describe. But because we have both kept a long silence, I wanted the letter to be long; and when writing to such noble athletes of patience, what else should I speak about except the things by which you have become so radiant?
Now give us the reward for this letter: not that you love us, for you already do that abundantly, nor merely that you write back, for I know you do not need reminding. Rather, show us that you rejoice, that you leap for joy, and that the dreadful things brought upon you have done you no harm. If we receive such news from you, it will be medicine for our desolation, famine, plague, Isaurian wars, and every illness that surrounds us.
What fire does for gold, repeated trials do for souls of gold. Flame makes the metal brighter and purer; the furnace of successive temptations makes those who are golden in mind brighter and more precious than gold. For this reason, though we are far away, we continually bless you.
You know how great the profit is from such plots against you. Present prosperity is only a name without substance, while the good things to come are solid, immovable, permanent, and immortal. Virtue is marvelous not only because it gives such prizes afterward, but because even its contests become prizes before the final reward is given. Paul rejoiced not only over the rewards of affliction but in the afflictions themselves, saying, "We glory in tribulations." He then shows the chain of their fruits: tribulation produces patience, and patience produces tested character and hope. Patience is a harbor without waves, a calm life, stronger than rock, harder than adamant, more secure than walls. It does not allow those it has trained to be overturned by painful events. Like a rock struck by waves, it is cleansed by the blows and breaks the water by being struck rather than by striking.
I do not write this because you need to learn it. Your deeds have already proclaimed what my words only describe. But because we have both kept a long silence, I wanted the letter to be long; and when writing to such noble athletes of patience, what else should I speak about except the things by which you have become so radiant?
Now give us the reward for this letter: not that you love us, for you already do that abundantly, nor merely that you write back, for I know you do not need reminding. Rather, show us that you rejoice, that you leap for joy, and that the dreadful things brought upon you have done you no harm. If we receive such news from you, it will be medicine for our desolation, famine, plague, Isaurian wars, and every illness that surrounds us.
AI-assisted translation - This translation was produced with AI assistance and has not been peer-reviewed. See the 19th-century translation or original Latin/Greek below for scholarly use.