Letter 418: Theodore Studite, Letter 418; Greek heading: Μιχαὴλ αὐτοκράτορι βασιλεῖ.

It is right that, above all in the present season, a hymn of praise should be set in order from the mouths of all who have been persecuted: first of all to Christ the King of all, and then to your divinely-appointed power, through which we who were fettered have obtained our redemption, we who were imprisoned our release, we who were worn down our consolation, we who were wounded our healing, we who were hidden away our freedom of speech [parrhesia], we who were banished our return. And indeed I think it well to suppose that the suffering of your imperial majesty existed beforehand as a foreshadowing [hypotyposis] of Christ, so that, having done like for like, it too might say, together with Christ and after Christ, to those in bonds, "Come out," and to those in darkness, "Be uncovered." And blessed be the Lord, the God of Israel, because he has raised up a horn of salvation for us, the new David, the second Josiah, the king of peaceful rule, who in his doing shall do the things pleasing to God, who shall raise up the things that have fallen, who shall join together the things that have been cut asunder, dressing the wound and healing it, and, to speak prophetically, on the third day shall raise it up. For, O emperor who imitates Christ, those who managed to die already within the heresy [hairesis] have departed into the portion of perdition, having denied Christ by the denial of his icon [eikon, image], even if they be named Christians. For to believe in Christ is nothing other than this: that the Son of God and of the Father, having become a perfect man, is depicted in an image [exeikonizetai] according to our likeness, so that he might be no other thing than we are, while remaining the same uncircumscribed One together with the Father and the Spirit, in respect of which he is true God. In this way, then, he is to be understood as mediator of God and of men, as having both the properties of both natures and lacking in nothing whatever in either, just as the whole choir of the God-bearing Fathers proclaims. And just as, in the case of your majesty, the receiving of the imperial image when it is stamped is a confession that you reign, even as the contrary also holds, so too in the case of Christ, the King of all the earth, the same thing applies, and much more so, because of his kingdom there shall be no end. If, then, it has been demonstrated with all truth that in the denial of the icon of Christ he himself, Christ, is denied, it is plain that also in the setting aside of the veneration [proskynesis] of it, Christ himself is set aside as one to be venerated. And on this account the whole world under heaven, from the apostolic preaching itself, as both sight bears witness through pictorial representation and hearing through written record, has been bearing and venerating the holy icon of Christ, of the Theotokos [the God-bearer, the Virgin Mary], of the angels (since these too are depicted in bodily form by divine command, although they are bodiless), and of the saints of each age, both in the divine churches and on the sacred vessels, even though just now our own Church, torn away from the four patriarchs, has acted lawlessly to no purpose. But now is the acceptable season, most Christ-loving master, now is the day of salvation, that we be reconciled to Christ through the mediation and good pleasure of your peace-ruling reign, that we be united to Rome, the summit of the Churches of God, and through her to the three patriarchs, so that with one accord, with one mouth, we may glorify the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, together with the Son and the Holy Spirit, magnifying also your most pious and much-prayed-for reign.