Letter 317: Theodore Studite, Letter 317; Greek heading: Βασιλείῳ ἡγουμένῳ.

Having learned in full all that for the Lord's sake Your Holiness has endured together with your sacred subordinate, I glorified our good God exceedingly, because you too have risen as a luminary in the world, along with other lamps, in the present night-battle of the heresy [the second iconoclast controversy, the rejection of icon-veneration] - a vessel of election, a pillar and bulwark of the truth. How wonderful is your pair, how beloved of Christ, having endured blows for his sake, deportations, imprisonments, and these things up to the present. But why is it that before the trial you came to me, the lowly one, as you taught, without obtaining from me any joint counsel? And rightly so; for since it was not as you supposed (for I am wretched and dark - why should you be harmed?), yet you have now joined yourself to us through your letter. And we already behold one another in the spirit, and we have come together into one and the same thing in spirit, having become one soul in the Lord - I the lowly one in you the holy ones, and you in me - because Christ is in the midst of us both, according to the promise that cannot lie. What then remains? That, just as we began in the testimonies on behalf of Christ [martyria - witnessings/martyrdoms], we may bring to completion the contest set before us, cringing at nothing - neither blows again, nor bonds, nor torturers, nor fire, nor sword, nor water nor blade. So the Word counsels us, so the Apostle cries out, so is the perfecting of the martyrs. We are no baser than they, even though I am wretched; from God they too were begotten, and we have obtained the same mother of adoption [the Church]. They won the prize as athletes - and shall we behave shamefully? Women and maidens were crowned - and shall we be lovers of the flesh? Old men and infants have conquered tyrants and reigning sovereigns - and shall we grow dizzy? By no means. Let us give our flesh to the lovers of flesh; the soul is unseizable. Let us not fear those who kill the body, but him who is able to destroy both soul and body in Gehenna. Now is exultation, gladness of heart; for if indeed we suffer together, we shall also be glorified together. Let the devil lament, and his ministers; for this is what they suffer at the undismayed steadfastness of those who bear witness. You say that you have never seen the emperor, nor stood before rulers, and that from this you are somewhat afraid. By no means, O father - despise both, you who have Christ clothed upon you. Let him cower before you, just as the demons also do. Open your mouth, when present before him; for a word shall be given you - Christ has promised it. Reprove him, if he speaks vain things. Did not Elijah reprove Ahab, did not John reprove Herod, did not others reprove others - that I may not speak at length by naming them? The God of that time is also the God of now; as he loved them, so also he loves us. You were eager to be a disciple of the apostles, the martyrs, the prophets, the fathers, the holy ones. Let the fruit be made like to the tree; and if we do not walk thus, we are perverse and not disciples, nor sons, nor fruits, but of the opposing portion - of the lovers of the world, I mean, and the slaves of the flesh. May we flee the imitation of these, and may we attain God, striving with a mind set on perfection in Christ Jesus our Lord, who said: "Take courage, I have overcome the world."