Letter 201: Theodore Studite, Letter 201; Greek heading: Ἀντωνίῳ ἡγουμένῳ τῶν Αὐλητοῦ.

Once again I write to Your Godliness, sharing in your zeal and rejoicing together with you over your toils and labors on behalf of Christ, your persecutions and excommunications. The present time has brought it about that there are wearers of the crown, athletes, confessors, and likewise persecutors, fighters against Christ; for those who fight against the icon [image; eikon] of Christ, what else could they be but persecutors of the truth and rebels against Christ? For the honor and the dishonor done to the icon passes over to the prototype [the one whom the image depicts]. Let us then bear, honored father, the ill-treatment that comes from our enemies, the recompense of which is eternal life and the exultation among the martyrs. You are worthy of praise, man of God, because, out of nearly all those who hold the office of superior in the city and outside the city, you alone came forth, hazarding yourself in advance for the sake of piety, becoming a light to those in darkness, a reproof to your impious fellows of the same rank. What is the gain in clinging for a few short days to a monastery, to glory, to the comfort of the moment, and being carried off with the heretics into eternal shame? But how great a good and how blessed it is to labor for a brief while and to stand apart from all that is one's own, or perhaps even to give up the body, and to find God favorable and the kingdom of the heavens. Thus, as the least of men, I have been led to discourse, asking you, most holy father, to make remembrance of me the sinner, that I may be delivered from the passions of dishonor and be made ready to endure still further whatever God may command on behalf of his name.