Letter 500: Theodore Studite, Letter 500; Greek heading: Ἡσυχίῳ πρωτονοταρίῳ.

Beautiful indeed was the letter of your all-excellent Honor, both as one uttered from a good treasury of the heart and as one made resplendent with the beauty of love; yet it does not become us, when it dignifies with words of praise people as unlettered as we are. For when did I ever become, as you say, a burning and shining lamp, in which my lord [the recipient] rejoiced as he was illumined, or a fountain flowing most translucently, from which your friendship drew a saving word, and not rather, on the contrary, did our appearance grow darker than soot, to speak in the prophet's manner [cf. Lamentations 4:8], through the uselessness of our life, and our word grew weak, having no power proceeding from deeds to establish the one who hears it? And I say these things not in disparagement of the imprisonment in Smyrna (by no means; for that is venerable, a guardian to me of a venerable confession), but rather accusing myself of not having conducted myself worthily in it. But, leaving these things aside, as being the tokens of love, I shall turn my discourse to the pressing matter. Your Goodness indicated to us that you have, to speak briefly, two God-given daughters, and that the first, before her birth, you pledged to God through consecration to the monastic life, while the second was being carried in the middle ground [i.e. her destiny left undecided]; but that now you have changed your counsel and resolved to make an exchange between them, owing to some pressing reverse of circumstance, so as to assign to the world the one who had been pledged, that is, to give her in marriage to a man excellent in all respects and a contemporary in age with the girl, and to dedicate to God the one in the middle ground, who is quite young and not matched to her in age, and that in this you waver and are troubled, lest somehow it might be contrary to the will of God. It would indeed have been fitting, O most honored lord, to inquire of others concerning this drama, and to receive the solution from them, as those who are superior in knowledge to our nothingness, and not to take us up for an answer, separated as we are by such a great expanse in the situation of place; nevertheless, since you have decided upon the means you have trusted, this, then, together with the most God-beloved archbishop and our brother, has been considered to be a thing beyond what is right, beyond correct judgment, and beyond the examples from of old. Of old, the celebrated Hannah, having pledged Samuel before his birth, did not exchange the one who had been pledged, even though she had other children as well, but presented this one to God [1 Samuel 1]; the blessed Nonna, having likewise pledged Gregory the Theologian [Gregory of Nazianzus], rendered to God her vow; and indeed Saint Euthymius was given to God by his parents before his birth and was not exchanged after his birth. These were also seen to be a wondrous treasure for the world, on whose account their parents too have been called blessed. How then, O most prudent one, should we, by acting contrary to these things, fall outside of reproach, and should not the blessed Peter rather lay hold of us, saying somewhere thus: "While it remained, did it not remain your own? And after it was sold, was it not in your own power? Why is it that you have contrived this deed in your heart?" [Acts 5:4] - and the rest, which is ill-omened, I pass over speaking, since I am conversing with one who knows it. For indeed, whenever anything has been set apart to God through a propitious vow, to transfer it to common use is not without danger. And common use is the marriage-bond of this life. And just as the one who has pledged to live as a monk and, while set upon this, has reneged and married, stands condemned, so also the one who has chosen to offer a son or a daughter to God, and then has changed the arrangement, would incur the same condemnation. Thus we understand the matter - forgive us - although we long that what is restful for you and what was vowed concerning yourself should issue in deed; but let not a commandment be transgressed for the sake of a commandment, nor let the harm of the one be procured for the sake of the salvation of the other, as the God-bearing fathers have declared. Now the third application of the discourse is this: that there are, you say, certain monks who, to all appearance, hold fast to the orthodox faith and have endured many persecutions for the truth, yet nevertheless associate and eat together with the heretics and the compromisers, and consider the matter a thing indifferent, on the ground that it has been laid down as law by some father to guard these three things: not to be blessed by those inclined to heresy, not to sing the psalms together with them when they begin the office, and to abstain from communion in their bread. What is said is contrary to what has been ordained by the holy fathers; for they admit neither associating, nor eating together, nor singing together, nor having any communion at all with them, but they even pronounce the "woe" upon those who commune with them as far as food and drink and fellowship. So that he who says those things is excommunicate and a teacher of alien doctrine, whoever he may be among men.