Letter 69: Theodore Studite, Letter 69; Greek heading: Προκοπίῳ μονάζοντι.

Only now do I write to your Honor, since I have found the bearer of this letter to be mine as well as yours; and indeed he has urged me to this very thing, inasmuch as your Piety likewise seeks and loves it. So rejoice, O man of God, rejoice, best of friends and one of the truly old sort, rejoice, you who are renowned for reverence and celebrated for knowledge. Where, then, have you departed from us, hiding away your honored face for so many years? And what is the manner of this confinement of yours to your hearth, when you no longer come forth and appear in public? And, thirdly—that I may speak more frankly, or rather more lovingly (for it is the property of love not to draw back in giving profitable reminders to the one loved)—what is this activity of yours, you who fled the world through monastic perfection and have then turned back home again, who were loosed from the bonds of attachment (for this is what renunciation is) and have once more been bound to cohabitation with your lady, your spouse, and your God-guarded children? And—what is yet stranger—you who were tonsured into the proper character of the single [monastic] life and were perfected by the divine mystic rite, and have now once more let your hair grow in a manner befitting a worldly way of life? "Let each one," says the apostle, "remain in the calling in which he was called" [1 Corinthians 7:20]; and again elsewhere, "Give no offense to Jews or to Greeks or to the church of God" [1 Corinthians 10:32]; and elsewhere again he says concerning himself, "I will never eat meat, lest I cause my brother to stumble" [1 Corinthians 8:13]. And each man, from his own dress, makes himself recognizable: the soldier from carrying a sword, the townsman from wearing a cloak. And in short nearly everyone among those in offices or crafts or trades carries about with him the implements proper to him; for neither would a physician choose to carry a shepherd's staff, nor would a shepherd have a medical instrument in his hand. But if these things are so, then much more in spiritual and very great matters ought a man neither to live nor to transform himself contrary to what belongs to his estate, lest he incur the judgment hung over him by the Lord as one who causes the world to stumble. May we flee from this, O thrice-longed-for one, and especially we who differ from the many both in knowledge and in rank; since judgment is severe upon those who hold high place, while the least is pardonable, as it is written. And again the Lord says: "To him to whom much was entrusted, they will demand the more" [cf. Luke 12:48]. Let us not therefore, I beg—we who ought to be a light to those in darkness—be the opposite; nor let us who are appointed to salt according to the Gospel become foolish [savorless] through inattention [cf. Matthew 5:13-14]. "Let all things be done decently and according to order," cries the apostle [1 Corinthians 14:40], all things toward the benefit of one's neighbor and not toward his harm. And even if a stumbling block should arise out of the very things permitted to us—this again Great Basil [Basil of Caesarea] cries aloud, and quite simply the whole Old and New Testament enjoins each to remain within his own bounds and ways. And do not suppose, master, that I have borne myself toward you in a fault-finding manner, but rather very lovingly and with effort, taking up your affairs within myself according to the blending of love, and longing for the salvation of your honored soul as for my own. But if my words contain anything beyond what is fitting, let the word that comes from you instruct and persuade my lowliness that you are doing what is fitting in those things in which you have been charged with being out of place.