Letter 179: Theodore Studite, Letter 179; Greek heading: Τῷ αὐτῷ.

I have no need of much speech in this letter, beloved child, since the matters now disclosed to me through your letter were both received and answered in the one previously sent; nevertheless your second writing too is altogether welcome to me. I pray, therefore, sinner that I am, that you may complete your course [your race, the Christian struggle] - not only the one that runs through your whole life, but now most especially the one that is presently set before you. For see what your brothers have suffered: some of them crowned through their endurance of the pains, others put to shame through their faintheartedness. Be strong yet, be strong, my child, together with those under the hand of your service [those in your charge]; and be ready, I beg you, each and every day to suffer the same things. But if anyone, out of unbelief, gives way on account of my sins, let him withdraw, lest in addition to his own destruction he become to others also a cause of defeat; for how much better would it have been for Lucian's company [Loukianos and those with him] to have done this, rather than to seem to be enduring of hardship and then to be carried into a fall. Oh, my sins! For through me come all these evils. I have now received your blessings [gifts, eulogiai], and they are many, and I burden you - forgive me; only may you be filled with every good thing. Greet the steward [oikonomos] and the under-steward [paroikonomos] and the rest, saying to the steward that I have very gladly received your letter. Those with me salute you.