Letter 303: Theodore Studite, Letter 303; Greek heading: Προτερίῳ τέκνῳ.
Theodore Studite→Recipient in Theodore Studite Letter 303: Προτερίῳ τέκνῳ|c. 817 AD|Theodore Studite|From Studios Monastery, Constantinople|AI-assisted
monasticismcorrespondenceexile
I was thrown into alarm, my beloved child, at your arrival; but when I had read your letter (I do not know whether it was in your own hand, for you learned to write quickly, and thanks be to the Lord), I was freed from that alarm, having given thanks to God, and I was set at rest over the good counsels you took together, the one to set out for the city, the other having arrived before Pascha [Easter] and indeed with the provisions for the feast. In return for which, may the Lord nourish you with spiritual graces, you who labor so on behalf of our lowliness. We are well, then, in body, and, if you pray, in spirit also, so that, letting go of your anxiety over us, you may be more fervent in prayer with hope and joy; for by the grace of God and by the prayers of my blessed father [Plato, Theodore's spiritual father], together with your supplication as well, we are accomplishing the contest set before us thankfully and with long-suffering and with endurance, having become other men out of our former selves beyond hope, and so much so as we should never have become, from the time we knew good and evil. It is the gift of God, not from our own works, only provided that for the future too you do not grow weary of beseeching God on our behalf, just as we also do on yours.
As for the problem, since the father [the abbot John Klimakos, author of the Ladder] left it unresolved, how can we, the unlearned, settle it? Nevertheless, the present heresy [iconoclasm] is assuredly a denial of Christ; and this is plain both from other grounds, and plain too from what is said in the patristic [collection of the Fathers' sayings] to one assailed by fornication: it is more profitable for you not to abstain from any prostitute than not to venerate [proskynesis] the icon [eikon, image] of Christ. So that it is no ordinary heresy, but a denial of Christ; and as for those who put forward Klimakos's unresolved question concerning whether to fall into fornication or to be caught in heresy, as though the one were the more choiceworthy than the other, let the verdict in the patristic make them afraid, and let them fall neither into fornication nor into the heresy that fights against Christ; for in either case it is adultery. And I had still more to say, but the letter does not hold it. Return in good health, greeting the brethren, and come again when the Lord shall be well pleased that you reach the brethren.
I was thrown into alarm, my beloved child, at your arrival; but when I had read your letter (I do not know whether it was in your own hand, for you learned to write quickly, and thanks be to the Lord), I was freed from that alarm, having given thanks to God, and I was set at rest over the good counsels you took together, the one to set out for the city, the other having arrived before Pascha [Easter] and indeed with the provisions for the feast. In return for which, may the Lord nourish you with spiritual graces, you who labor so on behalf of our lowliness. We are well, then, in body, and, if you pray, in spirit also, so that, letting go of your anxiety over us, you may be more fervent in prayer with hope and joy; for by the grace of God and by the prayers of my blessed father [Plato, Theodore's spiritual father], together with your supplication as well, we are accomplishing the contest set before us thankfully and with long-suffering and with endurance, having become other men out of our former selves beyond hope, and so much so as we should never have become, from the time we knew good and evil. It is the gift of God, not from our own works, only provided that for the future too you do not grow weary of beseeching God on our behalf, just as we also do on yours.
As for the problem, since the father [the abbot John Klimakos, author of the Ladder] left it unresolved, how can we, the unlearned, settle it? Nevertheless, the present heresy [iconoclasm] is assuredly a denial of Christ; and this is plain both from other grounds, and plain too from what is said in the patristic [collection of the Fathers' sayings] to one assailed by fornication: it is more profitable for you not to abstain from any prostitute than not to venerate [proskynesis] the icon [eikon, image] of Christ. So that it is no ordinary heresy, but a denial of Christ; and as for those who put forward Klimakos's unresolved question concerning whether to fall into fornication or to be caught in heresy, as though the one were the more choiceworthy than the other, let the verdict in the patristic make them afraid, and let them fall neither into fornication nor into the heresy that fights against Christ; for in either case it is adultery. And I had still more to say, but the letter does not hold it. Return in good health, greeting the brethren, and come again when the Lord shall be well pleased that you reach the brethren.
AI-assisted translation - This translation was produced with AI assistance and has not been peer-reviewed. See the 19th-century translation or original Latin/Greek below for scholarly use.