Letter 237: Theodore Studite, Letter 237; Greek heading: Βασσιανῷ τέκνῳ.

I visit you once again through my letter, my child Bassianos, and I greet you in the Lord. Live, rejoice, be glad, for you have been counted worthy for Christ's sake to be in prison, in solitude, in affliction, in distress; a little while later there will dawn upon you a joy that cannot be uttered, at the end of the contests. Therefore, child, be steadfast, endure in the Lord, reckoning up the eternal recompenses, when you shall leap for joy forever. See that the devil lies in wait against everyone, seeking our destruction, that he may trip us up, that he may darken the mind. Give him no foothold; keep watch even in prison, for here all the more he sets himself against us more savagely, since we are alone and have no one by whom we may be drawn about hither and thither. You, then, occupy yourself with handiwork, with reading, with the recitation of psalms [stichologia, the verse-by-verse chanting of the Psalter], with prayer, with heavenly thoughts, so that he may not find you idle and unoccupied and so strike you down; but as often as he wounds, so often let him be repelled by the fear of God, and let him in no way hold us down below. It is a great thing to be saved, and there is need of great contests too. May the things up to the present be forgiven you; now I have made a beginning [an allusion to Psalm 76(77):11, on the change wrought by the right hand of the Most High]-say you also this: 'This is the change of the right hand of the Most High.' Remember my lowliness. Your brothers who are with me greet you. The Lord be with you.