Letter 184: Theodore Studite, Letter 184; Greek heading: Ἰγνατίῳ τέκνῳ.

I have come to recognize you once again, now through your letter, that you are my child and my own heart [literally, my own bowels - a biblical idiom for deepest affection]. But may you be kept safe, wherever you may be; for it is not even to be blamed that you withdrew, especially since you were not even given safe-conduct by the emperor at Sakkoudion [the monastery near Mount Olympos in Bithynia]. Only put away from your soul, my child, the cowardice and the panic, hearing and believing him who says: Do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul; rather fear him who is able to cast both soul and body into the gehenna of fire. So then, where there is the fear of God, the fear of man is banished; for the two cannot be in the same place together, just as light and darkness cannot be together. For who, it says, is able to serve two masters? For either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will hold to the one and despise the other. What, then, is being said? That the one who has the fear of men does not have the fear of God. If, then, you are assailed by the enemy, as also happens with the other passions and as is altogether bound to happen, nevertheless let him who has conquered the world be victorious. We must therefore be diligent to prepare beforehand the provisions for the journey toward freedom from human fear, which are faith, hope, love. Love, it says, is kind, is patient; love does not envy, love is not puffed up, is not boastful, does not behave indecently, does not seek its own, is not provoked, does not reckon up evil, does not rejoice over wrongdoing, but rejoices together with the truth; it bears all things, believes all things, endures all things, hopes all things. Love never fails. May you be preserved in these things, together with me and with all the brethren.