Letter 178: Theodore Studite, Letter 178; Greek heading: Τιθοΐῳ τέκνῳ.

Your letter is short, my child, but it has the force of great affliction; and I know that I grieved you, my son, but not willingly, nor was I borne along without sympathy, but rather so that you might know that you have a father, sinful though he be, yet one who loves his child. For out of the great love which I have for you, with the aim that you should be perfect and lacking in nothing, I struck, I grieved, I reproached, I made my displeasure weigh heavily, so that I might fashion you into such a man as the truth requires. And indeed, by the grace of Christ, I found you tested as in fire by the affliction, and shown to me as more precious than gold by the things in which you made your defense, by the things in which you were pierced with contrition, by the things in which you spoke briefly; for to let fall only a few words of defense, when one is being rebuked, is a measure of great humility and virtue. Did you see how, with the mattock of the rebuke, I dug up in you the treasures of virtue, my child, and how I brought into open view, before your brothers, what had been unknown, revealing you the one after the other? So that you even owe me thanks to confess, for the raising up of your glory. You turned the affliction I caused, against my will, into great joy; you took my heart far more by your warm friendship, as God is my witness; so that I have not repented of having struck (for I opened a fountain of love), so that the apostolic law is not to be despised: 'Reprove,' it says, 'exhort, rebuke, in season and out of season.' [2 Timothy 4:2] Thus, my longed-for child, that letter has turned out for the good in all things; I know that you love me, since I too love you; I know that you live for my sake, since I too for yours; I know that even your eyes, if it were possible for them to be torn out, you would have given to me, since I too would for you. Thanks be to God who has so disposed it [literally 'who has so administered the dispensation,' oikonomia: the divine governing of affairs]. Hold fast, my longed-for child, to your service [diakonia: ministry/office] more perfectly; may every sin be forgiven you, as also to all. And that I may show you, even in a concrete example, the abundance of my love for you in the Lord, receive the encomium [a formal speech of praise] of our master the Theologian [Gregory of Nazianzus, called 'the Theologian'], which, moved the more on your account and through you, I, the unworthy one, dared to compose. Transcribe it, then, cleanly, and pray that there be sent down to me forgiveness of the sins in which, even in the encomium, I have erred and fallen short, wretched man that I am, and in everything, always, throughout my sinful life. And I exhort you the more earnestly to prepare yourselves each day, in the persecution that lies before us, for Christ's sake, so that none of you, by God's good pleasure, may be put to shame. See, brother, how you exhort and admonish one another in the contests on behalf of true religion. Greet my good Dometianus; greet Euprepianus, my fellow-prisoner and one soul with me and my fellow-sufferer; greet Theodulus, my faithful child; greet Metrophanes, my longed-for son; greet in a hidden manner Casianus and Nilus, who formerly grieved me, but now, through your defense, are my beloved children. Christ be with you; my love in the Lord be with you all; amen.