Letter 280: Theodore Studite, Letter 280; Greek heading: Νικήτᾳ ἡγουμένῳ.

When I first learned, on account of my own sins, what things had befallen your Holiness, I groaned not a little, but I also lamented greatly, distilling a tear of love and chanting funereal utterances, wretch that I am. For what is more grievous than the misfortune of a friend? But as for what followed by the good pleasure of God, who did not allow your former contests to be brought to nothing through the most excellent renewing of the struggle, when I heard of it again I became inspired, giving thanks to the Lord who turned the lamentation into joy for all the godly; for the grief was not even for a little while, from which I had been expecting a downfall on account of the inherent virtue, and that an offense had been found here. But well done, noble one, that you have wrought a victory more illustrious than the defeat, through which the Church of God has acknowledged you once more as her nursling, having enrolled you in the catalogue of her own confessors; for such is the love of God toward humankind, both bestowing gifts generously upon those who run well and giving firm support to those who turn back again. Alas for the evil company, or rather companionship; for from that source, I know, you were taken captive, most honored to me. And indeed I foretold the stumbling-block [skandalon], conjecturing from things that had happened before; for such is the one who is foremost of all. For he who of old set down the transgressions of the Gospel as matters of dispensation [oikonomia, the principle of prudent accommodation], and that too amid persecutions, this same man also reckoned the present communion with the heretics [the iconoclasts] - and that openly - from which proceeds the denial of Christ, of the Mother of God [Theotokos], and of any saint whatsoever through their proper icons [eikon, the venerated image of Christ or a saint], as nothing among things deadly, both having been seized and seizing others, through the example set by himself, ever those who are unshaken. And rightly so; for how was he who did not condemn himself for his first acts of impiety going to present himself in his later contests as unshakeable before God and as not having committed impiety? Therefore I ask you and I beseech you, my father, in confession of the renunciation of the things then done in manifold ways, accomplish now the divine confession, praying for me the sinner.