Letter 376: Theodore Studite, Letter 376; Greek heading: Ναυκρατίῳ τέκνῳ.

What could be more delightful than this, that I the sinner should hear that you, my beloved son, together with seven others of your brothers, whose names are in the book of life, were scourged for the sake of Christ, our good God? Glory to him who called you into the confession of his truth; glory to him who steadied your honored souls to run into danger before the rest, so that you did not cower nor withdraw from the face of the avenging fiend, but confessed your good confession and on account of it, together with Christ, gave your backs to the lashes. You were added as another choir of confession to the Church of God; you have increased the glory of the brotherhood that is in Christ. Truly blessed, my longed-for ones, and thrice-blessed; blessed too are the wombs that brought you forth into the light. And if anything concerns me too, then blessed am I as well, the unblessed and wretched one, because I am called the father of such great children, sons of God and heirs of Christ. What is this joy? Is it not more gladdening than every joy? What is this glory? Is it not more wondrous than the glory of those who wear diadems [royal crowns] - to bear the brand-marks [stigmata] of Christ, his life-giving sufferings, as crowns? Such, then, are the matters concerning you, which both heaven praised and earth heard. But our own affairs are paltry and sinful, except as the brother Adrian has reported; for he has surely been brought through to safety. And if anything ought to be added, this too we shall make known. After the flogging they shut the two of us up in an upper room, blocking up the door and removing the ladder. There are guards all around, lest anyone should touch or lay a hand upon the chamber; but the guards also go out to meet everyone who enters the fortress [kastron], and they do not allow him to turn aside anywhere except to his own house, until he goes out again. There is a strict order that nothing be supplied to us except water alone and firewood; thus they have simply laid us as in a tomb and with a view to killing us. But God, by the mercy of his loving-kindness [philanthropia], sustains us both through the provisions we brought in beforehand, and still through that by which what has been allotted us is handed over through a hole in the door, on a ladder that is raised at the appointed hour. We do not dare to say that thing which Daniel says, when he received the meal from Habakkuk - "For God has remembered me" - except that he has remembered us sinners too, and has mercy and watches over us and shelters us. So then, as long as it is possible for us to be fed from what is within, or in whatever way - one of the gatekeepers secretly handing it over from home, the one who is also the weekly attendant - he feeds us and we glorify God. But when the provisions fail, by the dispensation [oikonomia: divine ordering] of God we too shall together lay down our life; and in this we rejoice, and this also is part of the great bounty of God. And who am I, the wretched one, that, having been seized in such a manner for the sake of his name, and for what comes hereafter, as he ordains, I, the unrewarded one, should be deemed worthy of more abundant glory together with the brother? I beseech you therefore, brothers, contend together with me in your prayers on our behalf to God, that I may be delivered in every way and at all times from the evil one, and that he who began in us the work of his confession through bowels of compassion - not from any works of mine (for I have done nothing good upon the earth, but rather the opposite) - may himself also bring it to completion in us both. This too we, the lowly ones, do not cease to ask of you who suffer the same things, with tears. We greet in the Lord not only the eight, the chosen ones of the Lord, but also the abba Peter and the good Litoius, and any other as well.