Letter 252: Theodore Studite, Letter 252; Greek heading: Βησσαρίωνι τέκνῳ.

Although I have not received replies to what I wrote to you, my beloved child (for what reason the letter-carrier knows), nevertheless it is no burden to me to write, even though I am securely shut up in confinement together with the brother Nicholas. Rejoice, then, witness of the truth; rejoice, confessor of Christ; rejoice, my boast and the boast of the Church. You see what kind of voices you are hearing, what your good submission has procured for you, your upright faith, your endurance of imprisonment, your fearless and undaunted firmness, your acceptance of the scourges, the tearing of your flesh, the spilling of your blood, the scars of your wounds. To what height have they raised you, what have they made of you? And you shall be exalted still more, and you shall be magnified still more, if only, my consecrated child, you endure to the very end whatever may come to befall you. For "he who endures to the end, this one shall be saved," the Lord has said. And if they beat you again, Christ is your helper; or do you not know that, as much as the sufferings of Christ abound, so much also do the glory and the consolation? Bear, my son, the solitude, the imprisonment, the constriction, the despondency; breathe Christ, cut down the reasonings of the adversaries. Take care to get through the day in which you are living, and have no anxiety about tomorrow; may he who has given endurance today give it also for the day to follow, if we should reach it. These things I send to you from myself; these things may you yourself not cease to pray concerning us sinners. Peace to you from Christ.