Letter 22: Chrysostom reflects on love as an inexhaustible debt and sends a letter for Romanus.
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
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PG 52 Epistulae source-specific import; English is a new modern rendering from Greek.
I am not surprised that you called our long letter short. That is how people who love behave: they know no satiety, accept no fullness, and whatever they receive from those they love, they ask for more. Even if a letter ten times longer than the last one had reached you, it would still have been called brief, and more than called brief: it would have seemed brief to you.
In the same way, because you love us, we are never satisfied either. We always seek additions to your affection. We claim from you every day that debt of love which is always being paid and always still owed, as Scripture says, "Owe no one anything, except to love one another." We receive it from you in great abundance, yet never think we have received it all.
Do not stop depositing this good debt with us, a debt that gives pleasure twice over. The one who pays and the one who receives both rejoice, and both are made richer by the payment. Money is not like this: the one who hands it over is poorer, and the one who receives it is richer. Love works differently. It does not strip the giver, as silver does when it passes to another; it enriches the giver precisely in the act of payment.
Knowing this, my most honored and reverend lords, keep showing us a disposition that is always in bloom. Even if you do not need our exhortation, because we love your love so much we remind you, who do not need reminding, to write continually and tell us about your health. We know this is difficult now, both because of the season and because the roads are hard, with few travelers available to serve you in this. Still, as far as it is possible in so great a difficulty, we urge you to write constantly and ask this favor from your love.
As you instructed, we have written also to my lord, the most reverend presbyter Romanus, and for this we are very grateful to you. This too is a sign of people who love us intensely: you try, even through letters, to connect us with such great men and bind us more closely to them. When you receive our letter to him, please give it to him, and besides the letter greet him again from us. We have loved him deeply from old times and from the beginning. Let him learn from your tongue that we preserve the same love, doing the greatest favor to ourselves by doing so, and that our silence in the meantime came not from laziness but from waiting to receive a letter from his Reverence. Since he asked us to write first, here we are doing that too, and we urge him to do the same continually toward us.
I am not surprised that you called our long letter short. That is how people who love behave: they know no satiety, accept no fullness, and whatever they receive from those they love, they ask for more. Even if a letter ten times longer than the last one had reached you, it would still have been called brief, and more than called brief: it would have seemed brief to you.
In the same way, because you love us, we are never satisfied either. We always seek additions to your affection. We claim from you every day that debt of love which is always being paid and always still owed, as Scripture says, "Owe no one anything, except to love one another." We receive it from you in great abundance, yet never think we have received it all.
Do not stop depositing this good debt with us, a debt that gives pleasure twice over. The one who pays and the one who receives both rejoice, and both are made richer by the payment. Money is not like this: the one who hands it over is poorer, and the one who receives it is richer. Love works differently. It does not strip the giver, as silver does when it passes to another; it enriches the giver precisely in the act of payment.
Knowing this, my most honored and reverend lords, keep showing us a disposition that is always in bloom. Even if you do not need our exhortation, because we love your love so much we remind you, who do not need reminding, to write continually and tell us about your health. We know this is difficult now, both because of the season and because the roads are hard, with few travelers available to serve you in this. Still, as far as it is possible in so great a difficulty, we urge you to write constantly and ask this favor from your love.
As you instructed, we have written also to my lord, the most reverend presbyter Romanus, and for this we are very grateful to you. This too is a sign of people who love us intensely: you try, even through letters, to connect us with such great men and bind us more closely to them. When you receive our letter to him, please give it to him, and besides the letter greet him again from us. We have loved him deeply from old times and from the beginning. Let him learn from your tongue that we preserve the same love, doing the greatest favor to ourselves by doing so, and that our silence in the meantime came not from laziness but from waiting to receive a letter from his Reverence. Since he asked us to write first, here we are doing that too, and we urge him to do the same continually toward 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.