Letter 497: Theodore Studite, Letter 497; Greek heading: Θεοδώρῳ πατρικίῳ.

Slow has been this little letter to reach its occasion; yet slower still were we to hear the unwished-for report of the calamity that has come upon our lord. And, oh, the lamentable announcement! The beloved lady has departed from us; you have been cut off from your good consort, you have been torn away from the flesh that earned all praise -- if indeed the sacred word says, "The two shall be one flesh" [Genesis 2:24]. And if they are confessedly one flesh, it is plain that the separation inflicts upon those who are sundered as great a wound as a sword makes when it cuts the one human being into two. Grievous in truth is the cleaving, and the blood, as it were, runs down before your eyes, and there is no salve to lay on, nor any bandages, so far as human aid can reach -- the more so because she who has departed was no ordinary consort, but one greatly to be praised and admired: first of all, possessing the piety of an unbending faith, and a love for her husband such as few others have, which the sacred Apostle requires above all things in marriages [cf. Ephesians 5; Titus 2:4]; and out of this came, on behalf of her head [her husband], her supplications and prayers, her cries and her constant vigils before God, the blessed woman going barefoot on her night-journeys, that thereby too God might be bent toward mercy. And what shall I say of her care for the household? what of her rearing of the children? what of her tenderness toward the servants, the simplicity of her manner, her graciousness toward friends, her binding-together of the family, her ungrudging openness toward those of equal rank, and her dignity and decorum in all things? These adorned that woman of song -- in place of plaited gold and arrangements of pearls and costly garments [cf. 1 Timothy 2:9; 1 Peter 3:3] -- truly did they adorn her, both when she remained at home and when she went forth and was seen in the imperial halls. But nevertheless all these things are gone, and we have become, to speak with full feeling, half-dead and torn asunder; or rather, to speak in the words of the psalm, like a night-raven in a ruined dwelling, like a solitary sparrow upon a housetop [Psalm 102:6-7], beholding the house bereft of her who governed it, the children before your eyes circling about and being circled about, with no place to rest their hands, no source from which to receive a mother's cooing call, the living comfort of her nursing. Gloomy is the hearth, as though the sun itself had forsaken it; and no one warbles in your ears, nor in the ears of the children and of all the household, now that she is absent who was truly sweet-voiced and who delighted those who heard her with conversation and welcome that were genuinely melodious. Pitiable in truth are all these things, and full of groaning, whether figuratively interpreted or plainly considered. But what are we to do, O lord? It is the ordinance of God -- or rather, the decree -- chanted through the divine David: "There is no man who shall live and not see death" [Psalm 89:48]. So everyone, from Adam our forefather down to this present day, having entered the world through birth, departs again through dissolution into that world yonder, the higher and more godlike one; "for it is sown," he says, "in corruption, it is raised in incorruption; it is sown in dishonor, it is raised in glory; it is sown in weakness, it is raised in power; it is sown a natural body, it is raised a spiritual body" [1 Corinthians 15:42-44]. For we shall be equal to the angels and sons of the resurrection, when the mortal has been swallowed up by life [cf. Luke 20:36; 2 Corinthians 5:4]. You see, O lord, that even if the lady has departed from us, yet she has gone forth into light out of darkness, and out of a perishable life into an immortal abiding-place? There you yourself, passing over a little later, shall behold her. Therefore let us not grieve as do the rest, who have no hope [1 Thessalonians 4:13], but hoping to be bettered in the resurrection unto a life free from harm, let us rather come to ourselves -- this is my exhortation -- and hold fast to the household, and take thought for the children, and, above all things, for our own precious soul, adorning ourselves with virtues after the manner of that blessed woman, and rejoicing in this, that we have sent ahead a consort to be a suppliant before God and one who has left behind for us and for all who knew her an example of a good life.