Letter 498: Theodore Studite, Letter 498; Greek heading: Τῇ τουρμαρχίσσῃ τῆς Ἑλλάδοσ.

So far as a mere word of unfamiliarity is concerned, we were not going to write to your Honor, since we are unknown to one another and unacquainted. But since the encouragement came from a God-loving person who is known to us, I mean the most praiseworthy patrician lady who is your near kinswoman, and from her own blessed daughter, and then also from the letter-carrier himself, Ignatius, our spiritual son, your greeting to us, the lowly, came about, we were necessarily brought to write a word of consolation to your worn-out soul over the suffering that has befallen it on account of your blessed son who died in the war. But what remedy of comfort could be found for the healing of so hard-to-heal a wound? Oh, the calamity that is grievous even merely to hear told! He is gone, an honored offspring, a mother's eye, an inmost heart, a flourishing branch, wholly through and through the light of her who bore him, bearing in himself his father's features, cutting short, so far as was possible, the desolation of widowhood, and being the consolation of your whole life, both for your own household and for those of your blood. And what has happened? He has flown away from his mother's eyes; he has been cut off from the good root; and the death did not even occur before your eyes, for which those who escort their own kin gather some consolation through the funeral words and the holy burial. But now, along with the other things, we have been deprived also of this consolation, the good young shoot having been cut down by the sword of war. Oh, the pitiable tragedy! Oh, the inconsolable collapse! Just now the mind cannot stand still, contemplating again the suffering, where and how it came about, against which limb the murderous hand was stretched out, in what place he fell and breathed his last. Was it swiftly? Was it from a single blow? Did he say anything as he went? Alas for the tale! Would that that hour had never been! We sent forth the treasure with good hope, and we have reaped an inconsolable lamentation. And what could anyone say worthy of mourning, bewailing the suffering in piteous words? Perhaps to you even the sun is gloomy, and the air downcast, and the sea not sweet, and the earth not desirable, and the heaven burdensome, since it does not hold your spiritual star. So many things, and still more than these, are what shake your soul and constrict your heart and pour forth the warm tears and send up the wailings and bring you to despair even of living itself. But come now, lady, come, take heart again (for it is the time for recall), open your ears and listen attentively to the divine words. "Man, his days are like grass; like the flower of the field, so he will blossom" [Psalm 102 (103):15]. "There is no man who shall live and not see death" [Psalm 88 (89):48]. "If we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so God will bring with him those who have fallen asleep through Jesus" [1 Thessalonians 4:14]. Therefore we have not, after all, lost our son, but a little while hence, when the last trumpet shall sound, he will rise to meet the Lord in the air, and there we shall behold him [cf. 1 Thessalonians 4:16-17]. He was struck here with a mortal blow, but there he will not experience eternal grief, having put on Christ through baptism, having held the orthodox faith, and not yet having had his fill of the pleasures here, having tasted them only with his fingertip, as it were, on account of his youth. For which reason we believe that, on account of such an untimely and unjust death, he will receive forgiveness even of the things that, as a man, he overlooked and in which he transgressed. For how many evils, O lady, was he likely to be glutted with, had he remained in the flesh? Or does it not seem to you that this life here has been established as a place of trial for man: the taking of a spouse, the acquiring of children, the abundance of slaves and of the other things useful for life, and I would add also the advancement of earthly glory? Being released from all these, he will have great freedom of soul, being made close to God, and his soul sprinkled with but a little of the briny tempest of life. From this point, therefore, let go, lady, release the inconsolable grief; set a sufficient limit upon the suffering; offer to God a sacrifice of praise and of thanksgiving; say with the blessed Job: "The Lord gave, the Lord has taken away; as it seemed good to the Lord, so also has it come to pass" [Job 1:21]. Utter the words of David: "Return, O my soul, to your rest" [Psalm 114 (116):7], for your son's departure from life is your very soul. And looking toward your widowhood, cry aloud: "The Lord is my helper, and I will not fear what man shall do to me" [Psalm 117 (118):6; Hebrews 13:6]. For by disposing yourself in this way, first you will gladden God, as one who of her own free will offers her son as a sacrifice after the manner of Abraham [cf. Genesis 22]; then you will also bestow upon your dearest child himself the greatest gifts, as he sees you bearing it thankfully; and to all the rest you will establish yourself as an example of good endurance in Christ Jesus our Lord. Him we pray that, touching your heart with mercy and compassion, he may work in you a well-comforted light, and may grant you to complete your life in peace, and, having here taken up a God-fulfilled manner of life, may count you worthy of being reunited with your son and of eternal rejoicing together with him.