Letter 405: Theodore Studite, Letter 405; Greek heading: Ναυκρατίῳ τέκνῳ.

You have come upon so trustworthy a letter-carrier that I, even I, the lowly one, judged it to be a dispensation [oikonomia, the providential ordering] of our good God to write to you, sacred child. The very fact that we have learned that you are in good health, together with all the confessors [homologetai, those who suffered for confessing the faith] and your brethren, of how much joy could it not be to us sinners, especially since you, the most preeminent one, are standing firm and conducting yourself, in a manner befitting God, with the word of love and care toward all? Next, since the brother Hadrian too has been brought safely as far as those parts, we have been released from our anxiety, having given thanks to the Lord, even though for the sake of the brother Epiphanios, as you indicated beforehand, we are perpetually full of care and prepared for trial, suspecting, as is likely, the things that lie in wait. But however these things are pleasing to God, so let them be and so let them be carried out; to those who love God all things work together for good, as the sacred word says [Romans 8:28]. Pray, brother, that we may become such as that, even though we are far from God by reason of our sins; and we shall not fear what man may do to us [cf. Psalm 117:6]. We have therefore undergone nothing such as that which you sang of to us, crowning us with praises; but if there has even been something successful, this too has come about for your sake and by you, we having been strengthened and deemed worthy through your prayers. May the mercy of the Lord be upon us, the unworthy, for what lies ahead as well. I was gladdened that you have borne with the patrician lady in the Lord, and this too for our sake; for indeed she too has made this very thing clear to me, and she has been moved still more to do good. For our sake you live, brother, but we also for your sake. Do not be amazed that the persecutors of Christ are raving like Corybants [frenzied, like the wild attendants of Cybele], nor that Christ endures it; all things must be brought to completion, so that both the approved may shine forth more manifestly and the lawless may pay in full the recompense of the things they have done. I have sent you a little book and fourteen quires, on which there are discourses and lives of the brethren in metrical verses; when you yourself and certain of the faithful brethren have read these, conceal them securely. I do nothing, then, brother, worthy of mention; but since I have the opportunity, and since I am goaded as if by my holy father, hearing again the divine Paul saying to the holy Timothy, "Do not neglect the gift that is in you" [1 Timothy 4:14], as one unworthy I do, with fear and trembling, the things I do. Greet the brother Athanasios together with the deputy-steward [paroikonomos]. Even if I wrote that the brother Hadrian had arrived, I said it in ignorance, having learned afterward that he had not yet reached you at the time when you wrote. The brother Nikolaos greets you most heartily, holding your words in reverence. The Lord be with your spirit, brother-father.