Letter 282: Theodore Studite, Letter 282; Greek heading: Σεργίῳ ὑπάτῳ τοῦ ἀερικοῦ.

Long ago I would have written to your nobility, having been taught not to slacken in the duty of friendship; but the change in affairs benumbed my hand, lest somehow I should be unwelcome even to my closest friends, who have been altered with no good alteration, and one whose effect is not to be carried forward from behind, but the opposite, and to be brought down toward the contrary. But since one so great in virtue is not among such people, I have persuaded myself to come round to writing. And so, through this pen, I address you, my lord and beyond measure my dear one, whose knowledge is great, whose piety has its beginning from your father, and for whom the drawing of oneself back from the many and consorting rather with God is more lovely, while caring little for Caesar [the emperor] and the things around Caesar is most your own. How then, O dear friend (for my words will speak freely), have you, being so great, been drawn down into the things that are seen? For it is enough in such a matter to indicate what is at issue, out of reverence for the honored dignity that encompasses you. But alas for the slippery nature of human beings! These things belong to the present moment, to those who with the moment change their loyalties, and not to those who are steadfast and ever hold to the same things in the same way. Yet I, the humble one, pray for you, who are tumbled about amid the things in the midst, that you may be sprinkled only a little by the briny waves of life, and that you may keep at once spotless and unblemished the tunic of orthodoxy.