Letter 224

To the Monks Living in Cilicia. Not moderately, but indeed very greatly did we rejoice when the most God-fearing presbyter Marinus reported to us the things concerning you: how with all exactness you have imitated the apostles, having eagerly renounced the affairs of the world, and having despised family and harmful pleasures, you have transferred yourselves to the laborious life, giving yourselves over to every hardship and severe discipline for the sake of God, and with unceasing mouths honoring him who summoned you to the greatest dignity of the monks, the Savior and King Christ, so that you also, just as Antony [Antony the Great, founder of monasticism], the divine lamp of the Egyptians, may, after your death, leave to the coming generation an image of the most excellent manner of life.

Οὐ μετρίως, ἀλλὰ καὶ πάνυ μεγάλως ἐχάρημεν, ἀπαγγείλαντος ἡμῖν τὰ καθ᾽ ὑμᾶς τοῦ θεοσεβεστάτου πρεσβυτέρου Μαρίνου, ὡς πρὸς πᾶσαν ἀκρίβειαν τοὺς ἀποστόλους ἐμεμίμησθε, ἀποταξάμενοι τε προθύμως τοῖς τοῦ κόσμου πράγμασιν, γένος τε καὶ τέρψεις βλαβεράς ὑπεριδόντες, καὶ πρὸς τὴν ἐπίπονον μετετάξασθε βίον, πάσῃ κακοπαθείᾳ καὶ σκληραγωγίᾳ διὰ Θεὸν ἑαυτοὺς ἐπιδόντες, καὶ στόμασιν ἀπαύστοις γεραίροντες τὸν προσκαλεσάμενον ὑμᾶς εἰς τὰ τῶν μοναχῶν μέγιστον ἀξίωμα, Σωτῆρα καὶ βασιλέα Χριστὸν, ὅπως ἂν καὶ ὑμεῖς, ὥσπερ ὁ θεῖος λαμπτὴρ τῶν Αἰγυπτίων Ἀντώνιος, μετὰ τὴν τελευτὴν ὑμῶν, καταλείπετε τῇ μελλούσῃ γενεᾷ εἰκόνα πολιτείας ἀρίστης.