Letter 402: Theodore Studite, Letter 402; Greek heading: Τοῖς εἰς τὰ Στουδίου ἀδελφοῖσ.

Rejoice in the Lord, brothers and fathers; rejoice, soldiers of Christ; rejoice, fraternal triad, who have grown rich in the grace of the Holy Trinity, truly worthy of such greetings, because for Christ's sake you nobly endure the most terrible imprisonment, being punished by Leontios the accursed wretch. Oh, the apostasy of that man with the mind of a Jew [i.e. one who, like the iconoclasts, rejects images]! If he were a wild beast, after so long a time emptying you out with ill-treatment and drinking your blood, he would have had his fill. But he remains an insatiable blood-drinker, growing more savage, possessed by a demon, taking in no sense of mercy, no compassion of loving-kindness toward you, the lambs of Christ; rather he crushes you and by every means contrives, together with Satan, to swallow you down, so that the dragon may boast, so that through you he may terrify us all as well. But it shall by no means be so; for God is faithful, who will not allow you to be tested beyond what you are able to bear, but with the testing will also provide the way out, so that you can endure it. Call to mind the saints from the beginning of the ages, that no one without trials and many afflictions has been pleasing to God: one was sawn in two, another was stoned, another was burned in fire, another was beaten to death. And where is there time to enumerate the cloud of martyrs that surrounds us? Being yourselves their partners and fellow-contestants, rejoice, my brothers, with joy unspeakable, reigning over the heresy [the iconoclast heresy, which rejects the veneration of holy images], over the passions. You, my Karterios, stout-souled in keeping with your very name; you, Aphthonios, most ungrudgingly lavished with endurance; you, Agapios, most truly made strong in divine love [each name is glossed by its meaning: Karterios = steadfast, Aphthonios = ungrudging, Agapios = beloved]. The gloom of the prison is for you the procurer of the eternal and unapproachable light; the starvation is the procurer of the delight of paradise; the nakedness, of the garment of immortality; the solitude, of the way of life with God; the shearing of the hair, of the comely image-of-God [the divine form], so that with unveiled face you may behold as in a mirror the glory of the Lord. Are these things not joy? Are they not exultation, surpassing all exultation? Perhaps we ought even to be grieved, that the foot is not also in the stocks and a chain set about you; for the more the sufferings abound, so much the more does the consolation of the glory of God abound also. These few things I have written to exhort you, dearest ones, knowing that you possess endurance of your own; and may you in return render to me, together with Nikolaos who is present with you, our brother, who also sends you his greeting, your holy prayers for our salvation.