Letter 422: Theodore Studite, Letter 422; Greek heading: Νικήτᾳ ἡγουμένῳ.

Your Holiness wrote, as I have learned, to my lowliness, but I did not receive it on account of some misadventure; yet I, as though I had received it, am inscribing for you this worthless little note of mine, conveying a greeting and uttering the word "Rejoice." Why? Because he who strikes us has been crushed, or rather cut to pieces, since the Lord has shown in the eyes of all that the one who rejects His holy icon [eikon, the sacred image whose veneration was at the heart of the iconoclast controversy] is a denier of Him. For just as a ray is not separated from the sun, so neither is the image separated from the prototype, except only in respect of the difference of essence -- I speak, that is, with regard to artificial images. But nevertheless, even though the truth has thus flashed forth like lightning, there is no perceiving it, nowhere any coming to one's senses. And who would not groan? And who would not weep -- not for those who win the prize of the contest (let no one suppose this; for how should the blessed of God be objects of lamentation?), but for those who are blind and who lean upon the very same darkness of impiety? I therefore, wretch that I am, so do I think, and so do I weep. But you, O sacred head and friend of my nothingness, do not cease praying that reconciliation may come from on high upon the people of God, and then that we too, the unworthy, who come behind you holy ones, may be preserved. The brother who is with me sends greeting. I salute my brothers who are with Your Holiness, and most especially the holy Arsenius.