Letter 467: Theodore Studite, Letter 467; Greek heading: Θωμᾷ χαρτουλαρίῳ.

Having read the letter of your Honor and learned that the lady, your spouse, has departed this life, I grieved with you, my lord, knowing how painful the affliction is; for the same pain that a sword inflicts when it cuts the body, this too is the pain caused by the parting from one's spouse, since here also there is one flesh, according to the word of the Lord. But all the same it has come to pass, and we have undergone the penalty common to all, the separation. And a little later we too shall travel the same road, as you know; and such is life: to come to be from non-being, and, having come to be, to be dissolved. But we have praised your piety, in that upon this separation you have chosen to take up the monastic life and to be joined wholly to the Lord; for this is what your letter declared, and that a certain monk-brother is present to serve as guide for so great a way of life, whom in turn you rejected as unfit, through the report of George, that excellent man and your own notary, asking rather that another be given by us, one competent to govern souls and to keep a whole monastery safe. The praise, then, has fittingly been spoken by us at the outset; but you must first learn what the monastic profession is, and how great is the height of that way of life, lest, being introduced to it without experience, we run into danger as regards the voyage. Renunciation [the monastic vow, apotage] is established as nothing other than the profession of the cross and of death. What does this mean? According to the word of the Lord, that whoever wishes should renounce all his own possessions and, taking up the cross, follow after Him. And since every true abbot [hegoumenos] holds the place of Christ, to follow Christ through the mediation of that man is to follow truly, without falsehood, and thus the precept's admirable worth will be preserved. But whoever does not choose in this way, but rather to build a monastery on his own property and to summon a superior, so that he may both take up the monastic life and be guided and saved while remaining among his own things, is ignorant that he labors emptily and in vain, and that he will not find the things he seeks, but on the contrary things out of place, since such a renunciation is not according to the commandment of the Lord. Would that one were stripped bare of all material things, and got far away from one's own possessions, and obtained an excellent guide, and so crossed over the great sea of this present life without danger; not because none of the things aforementioned matter, but because from the mere act of building a monastery, and putting on the gray habit, and seeming to have an abbot while in fact one has a steward, both hampering and hampered, and neither saving nor being saved. "Go out," He says, "from your land and from your kindred"; take the cross upon your shoulders, be spat upon, be buffeted, drink vinegar, be scourged, go up onto the cross, pour out your blood, whether in a spiritual sense or in a literal one. But if you cannot bear these things, sit in your own house, constraining yourself to be saved through the humbler way of life; for not even here is salvation won without toil, but indeed through many tribulations. Do not now bring forward examples to me: everything that is not according to the commandment of the Lord is unfit, stale, a cause of scandal, the work of one who has renounced in that fashion, and not a thing of divine command. But if you long to found a new monastery, this is not outside what is fitting; yet once you have handed it over to a man who is its superior, you shall no longer lay your hand upon it, just as upon things that are not your own, and the matter will be pleasing to God and will meet you unto eternal hospitality. We, for the one who chooses in this way, do hand over that brother whom the inquirer may select, together with nine other brothers as well, willing to be subject to the one set over them. Behold, good friend, I have announced to you the rightful ordinance of the monk. The manner of the one who establishes a monastery is our gift of these men. For the rest, may the Lord be your consolation, instructing you in all things unto salvation.