Letter 963

To Eusignius. It is no calamity, when one is able to do battle with the divine will. For the good Master has only to nod, and at once He dissolves the charge against you and makes the wound that is hard to heal vanish away. Only do not you grow weary of supplicating, with tears, the most loving Savior Christ, and of sowing good hopes within yourself. For if you become faint-hearted, you fail of a great salvation. Therefore be a man, and be strong; do not shatter the good hope of your mind, nor forget that splendid and all-wealthy homeland above [heaven], lest, by longing for the foreign and most beggarly dwelling, you be shaken out of a great salvation.

Οὐκ ἔστι συμφορὰ μαχήσασθαι δυναμένῃ τῷ θείῳ βουλήματι. Νεύει γὰρ μόνον ὁ ἀγαθὸς Δεσπότης, καὶ παραυτίκα λύει τὸ ἔγκλημα, καὶ ἀφανίζει τὸ δυσίατον ἕλκος. Μόνον σὺ μὴ ἀποκάμῃς ἱκετεύων σὺν δάκρυσι τὸν φιλανθρωπότατον Σωτῆρα Χριστόν, καὶ χρηστὰς ἐλπίδας ἑαυτῷ ὑποσπείρων. Ἂν γὰρ μικροψυχήσῃς, ἀποτυγχάνεις μεγάλης σωτηρίας. Ἀνδρίζου τοίνυν, καὶ ἴσχυε, μὴ θραύων τῆς διανοίας τὸ εὔελπι, μηδὲ ἐπιλάθου τῆς ἄνω περιφανοῦς καὶ παμπλούτου πατρίδος, ἵνα μὴ τὴν ξένην καὶ πτωχοτάτην ποθήσας οἴκησιν ἐκτιναχθῇς σωτηρίας μεγάλης.