Letter 157: Theodore Studite, Letter 157; Greek heading: Ἰωάννῃ ἐπισκόπῳ Σάρδησ.

Up to this point it has not yet been reported to me where your fatherly holiness might be confined; for this reason I have held back, restraining my hand and finding no way to fulfill my longing. But now, given wings by the hope of attaining what I desire, I have sent the present letter, and I know that I shall not be cheated of my hope in the Lord. Yet come now, tell me, O great father, what your exile is like, and where, and what sort of place it is that has received you, and what the natives are and those who dwell nearby. Are they kindly and of the elect portion, both of them, or are both the opposite and crooked? Except that for Christ's sake even hard things become easy and grievous things full of joy. Blessed are you, persecuted for the truth from your own church and banished far from the land that bore you; blessed are you, mocked for the Lord's sake and buffeted with fists by the impious men before the council of Caiaphas [that is, before a tribunal as unjust as the one that condemned Christ]. With Christ you were made a spectacle together with your fellow contestants, with Christ you were condemned; and though you did not ascend onto the cross, since it was not the time, yet you went forth bearing the cross, insulted and dragged about by the lawless men. From which the crown of righteousness is woven for you by angels from heaven. Come then, O crown of the fathers, set forth your divine struggles in our midst, and join to them also those that follow; for there is still a season of martyrdom in the world for the church of Christ. Be unswerving (with reverence I put you in mind of this, having long ago received from your utter humility the commission to speak) in the good confession, of which you have received as prizes the honorable dishonors, and which you confessed before God and before men. For Christ's sake it is to suffer, to contend on behalf of his holy icon [eikon, the image of Christ that is venerated]; for, as Basil the Great says, neither is the dominion divided between the two nor is the glory parted [the honor paid to the image passes to its prototype]. But those who fight against Christ not only divide it, but, dishonorably outraging the one through the other, they deny it, judaizing obliquely [reverting to a Jewish rejection of images] and dismantling the mystery of the dispensation [oikonomia, God's plan of salvation in the incarnation]. For if Christ is not depicted in an icon according to us, he is uncircumscribable as though outside a body; for everything embodied is circumscribed. And where then is it that the Word became flesh? Or how shall the word of the incarnation be discerned, if, as before he took a body, so also after taking a body Christ has remained uncircumscribable, that is, incapable of being depicted in an image by a character such as ours? For there must be a difference between two things of different nature, such as water and fire, matter and immateriality, composition and simplicity, and all things that stand opposed to one another; and so accordingly also between incorporeality and embodiment, which is differentiated with respect to the circumscribable and the uncircumscribable, according to which Christ is the mediator of God and of men, bearing the properties of the two in one hypostasis [person] incorruptibly. And the immaterial became material, the simple composite, the fleshless enfleshed, the unportrayable and unimaginable one became like us in all things. But if he is not depicted in an icon, then there is as yet no difference, as yet no union of the opposites from the divine good pleasure and power; and on this account there is no incarnation either, and he who says, "God was manifested in the flesh," lies, as does he who says that, in like manner to us, he too partook of flesh and blood. Thus by their doctrines it has been concluded that the iconoclasts judaize and have shown themselves to be forerunners of the Antichrist. From whose impiety, O father, may we flee as from judaism, not growing faint in the face of sufferings, nor again in the face of the long duration of the heresy, imitating the saints, those who through long-suffering and many afflictions inherited the divine promises. But you will surely pardon me, O sacred head, for the things I have discoursed upon, since I do but what has been enjoined upon me; and so too may you pray on my behalf, that I may pass through this present life in the remission of sins and without stumbling in word and in deed.