Letters 14.1–19.1

With what eagerness and love I strove that we might live together in the desert, your heart, which knows our mutual love, recognizes. With what laments, what grief, what groans I accompanied you as you left, this letter too bears witness, which you see blotted with tears. But you, like a pampered little child, softened your refusal of my request with coaxing words, and I, off my guard, did not know what to do then. Should I keep silent? But what I passionately did not want, I could not calmly pretend to accept. Should I entreat you more urgently? But you did not wish to listen, because you did not love in the same way. Love, spurned, has done the one thing it could: the one it could not keep when present, it seeks when absent. Since, then, you yourself asked as you were leaving that, once I had moved into the desert, I should send you a letter of invitation, and I promised to do so, I invite you: hurry now. I do not want you to remember your former needs (the desert loves the naked); I do not want the difficulty of our former travels to frighten you. You who believe in Christ, believe his words too: "Seek first the kingdom of God, and all these things will be added to you." You need take no bag, no staff; he is rich enough who is poor with Christ.

But what am I doing? Am I, unwisely, entreating again? Away with prayers, away with coaxing; wounded love ought to be angry. You who scorned me when I asked will perhaps listen when I rebuke. What are you doing in your father's house, pampered soldier? Where is the rampart, where the ditch, where the winter spent under hides? See, the trumpet sounds from heaven; see, the armed Emperor comes forth with the clouds to subdue the world; see, the two-edged sword coming from the King's mouth mows down all in its way; and are you coming out from the bedroom to the battle line, from the shade into the sun? A body used to a tunic cannot bear the weight of a breastplate; a head covered with linen refuses a helmet; the hard sword hilt chafes a hand made soft by idleness. Hear the edict of your King: "Whoever is not with me is against me, and whoever does not gather with me scatters." Remember the day you enlisted, when, buried with Christ in baptism, you swore the words of the military oath: that for his name you would not spare your mother or your father. See, the enemy in your heart is trying to kill Christ; see, the enemy camp sighs for the bounty you received when you were about to serve. Though your little nephew hang on your neck, though your mother, with hair loose and garments torn, show you the breasts that nursed you, though your father lie on the threshold, go on, trampling over your father; fly dry-eyed to the standard of the cross! In this matter, to be cruel is a kind of piety.

A day will come later when you will return to your homeland as a victor, when you will walk into the heavenly Jerusalem, a brave man crowned. Then you will receive citizenship with Paul; then you will ask the rights of the same city for your parents too; then you will pray for me also, who urged you on to win. Nor am I unaware of the fetter by which you now say you are held back. My breast is not iron, nor my heart hard; I was not born of flint nor nursed by Hyrcanian tigers. I too have gone through these things. Now your widowed sister clings to you with coaxing arms; now the household slaves with whom you grew up say: "To whom are you leaving us to serve?" Now your old nurse, now aged, and your foster father, a second father in affection after your natural one, cry out: "Wait a little till we die, and bury us." Perhaps your mother, too, with slack breasts and wrinkled brow, may repeat the lullaby of old. The grammarians may say, if they like: "On you the whole house leans and rests." The love of Christ and the fear of hell easily break these chains. "But Scripture commands us to obey our parents." Yes, but whoever loves them above Christ loses his soul. The enemy holds a sword to kill me, and shall I think of my mother's tears? Shall I desert my military service for my father's sake, when for Christ's sake I do not owe him burial, which for Christ's sake I owe to all? Peter, timidly advising the Lord when he was about to suffer, was a stumbling block. Paul, when the brothers tried to keep him from going to Jerusalem, answered: "What are you doing, weeping and troubling my heart? For I am ready not only to be bound but also to die in Jerusalem for the name of our Lord Jesus Christ." This battering ram of family affection, by which faith is shaken, must be beaten back by the wall of the gospel: "My mother and my brothers are these: whoever do the will of my Father who is in heaven." If they believe in Christ, let them support me as I go to fight for his name; if they do not believe, "let the dead bury their dead."

"But this," you say, "applies in martyrdom." You are wrong, brother, you are wrong if you think that a Christian is ever free from persecution; and you are being attacked most of all now if you do not know that you are being attacked. "Our adversary, like a roaring lion, goes about seeking someone to devour," and do you think it is peace? "He sits in ambush with the rich in secret places, to kill the innocent; his eyes watch for the poor; he lies in wait in secret like a lion in his den; he lies in wait to seize the poor"; and you, sheltered under the shade of a leafy tree, are enjoying soft sleep, a prey to be? On one side self-indulgence pursues me; on another greed tries to break in; on another my belly wants to be my god in place of Christ; lust drives me to put to flight the Holy Spirit who dwells in me, to violate his temple. I am pursued, I say, by an enemy who has a thousand names and a thousand arts of harming; and shall I, unhappy man, think myself the victor while I am being captured?

I do not want you, dearest brother, weighing the sins, to think that those I have mentioned are lesser offenses than idolatry. Rather, learn the judgment of the apostle, who says: "For know this, understanding that no sexually immoral person, or impure person, or defrauder, which is idolatry, has any inheritance in the kingdom of God and of Christ." And although in general whatever belongs to the devil is hostile to God, and what belongs to the devil is idolatry, to which all idols are bound as slaves, yet in another passage he defines it specifically and by name, saying: "Put to death your members which are on earth, laying aside sexual immorality, impurity, evil desire, and covetousness, which are the service of idols, on account of which the wrath of God comes." The service of an idol does not consist only in taking incense between two fingers and throwing it into the pyre of an altar, or pouring wine from a bowl. Let him deny that greed is idolatry who can call it righteousness that the Lord was sold for thirty pieces of silver. Let him deny that there is sacrilege in lust; but only he may, who has defiled the members of Christ, the living sacrifice pleasing to God, by an unspeakable mingling with the victims of public lust. Let him refuse to admit that defrauders are idolaters; but only one who is like those in the Acts of the Apostles who kept back part of the price of their own property and perished by immediate punishment. Notice, brother: you are not allowed to keep anything of your own possessions. "Everyone," says the Lord, "who does not renounce all that he possesses cannot be my disciple."

Why are you a Christian with a fearful heart? Look at the net left behind together with a father; look at the tax collector rising from his booth, at once an apostle. "The Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head"; and are you measuring out broad colonnades and huge spaces of roofed buildings? Do you, a joint heir with Christ, expect an inheritance from the world? Interpret the word "monk", which is your name: what are you doing in a crowd, you who are solitary? And I do not give this warning like an experienced sailor with his ship and cargo intact to those who do not know the waves; rather, like one just cast ashore by shipwreck, I warn those about to sail in a frightened voice. In that surge, the Charybdis of self-indulgence swallows up salvation; there lust, smiling with the virgin face of Scylla, entices to accomplish the shipwreck of chastity; here is a barbarous shore, here the devil, a pirate with his crew, carries chains for those to be captured. Do not believe it, do not be secure. Though the sea, spread out like a pool, smiles, though the back of the sleeping element is barely ruffled by a breath of wind, this great plain has mountains; the danger is shut within; the enemy is within. Loosen the ropes, hoist the sails; let the cross, the yardarm, be fixed on your foreheads: this calm is a storm. "What, then? Are all who live in the city not Christians?" Your case is not the same as the others'. Listen to the Lord saying: "If you wish to be perfect, go, sell all that you have and give to the poor, and come, follow me." But you promised to be perfect. For when you left the army and made yourself a eunuch for the kingdom of heaven, what else did you pursue but the perfect life? And a perfect servant of Christ has nothing except Christ; or if he has anything besides Christ, he is not perfect. And if he is not perfect, though he promised God that he would be perfect, he lied before. "But the mouth that lies kills the soul." So, to conclude: if you are perfect, why do you long for your father's goods? If you are not perfect, you have deceived the Lord. The gospel thunders with divine words: "You cannot serve two masters"; and does anyone dare to make Christ a liar by serving both mammon and the Lord? He often cries aloud: "If anyone wishes to come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me"; and do I, loaded with gold, think that I follow Christ? "He who says he abides in Christ ought himself to walk as he walked."

But if you have nothing, as I know you will answer, why, so well equipped for war, do you not serve as a soldier? Unless perhaps you think you are doing so in your homeland, although the Lord did no signs in his. And why so? Take the reason with its authority: "No prophet has honor in his own country." "I do not seek honor," you will say; "my conscience is enough for me." Neither did the Lord seek it; indeed he fled so as not to be made king by the crowds. But where there is no honor, there is contempt; where there is contempt, there is frequent injury; where there is injury, there is indignation; where there is indignation, there is no rest; where there is no rest, the mind is often drawn away from its purpose; and where something is taken away from zeal through restlessness, it becomes less by what is taken away; and where there is less, it cannot be called perfect. From this reckoning comes the sum: a monk cannot be perfect in his own homeland. And not to wish to be perfect is to sin.

But driven from this position you will appeal to the clergy: shall I dare to say anything about them, who certainly live in their own cities? Far be it from me to say anything unfavorable about those who, succeeding to the apostolic rank, make the body of Christ with their sacred lips; through whom we too are Christians; who, holding the keys of the kingdom of heaven, in a way judge before the day of judgment; who keep the Lord's bride in sober chastity. But, as I said before, the case of a monk is one thing, that of the clergy another. The clergy feed the sheep; I am fed. They live from the altar; for me, like an unfruitful tree, the axe is laid to the root if I do not bring my gift to the altar. Nor can I plead poverty, since in the gospel I see the old woman casting in the two coins that were all she had left. I may not sit in the presence of a presbyter; he, if I sin, may hand me over to Satan for the destruction of the flesh, that the spirit may be saved. In the old law, whoever did not obey the priests was either put outside the camp and stoned by the people, or, laying his neck under the sword, atoned for his contempt with his blood. Now the disobedient is cut down by the spiritual sword, or, cast out of the church, is torn to pieces by the ravenous mouth of demons. And if the affectionate coaxing of the brothers also urges you toward the same order, I shall rejoice at your rising and fear your falling. "He who desires the office of bishop desires a good work." We know that; but add what follows: "Such a man must be blameless, the husband of one wife, sober, chaste, prudent, well-behaved, hospitable, apt to teach, not given to wine, not violent, but gentle." And having set out the rest that follows about him, he applied no less care to the third rank, saying: "Deacons likewise must be chaste, not double-tongued, not given to much wine, not greedy for gain, holding the mystery of the faith in a pure conscience. And let these also first be proved, and so let them serve, having no charge against them." Woe to that man who comes in to the supper without a wedding garment! Nothing remains but that he should hear at once: "Friend, how did you come in here?" and, when he is speechless, that it should be said to the servants: "Take him by the feet and hands and throw him into the outer darkness; there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth." Woe to him who, binding in a napkin the talent he received, while others made profits, kept only what he had received! At once he will be struck by the cry of his angry master: "Wicked servant, why did you not put my money in the bank, so that when I came I might have collected it with interest?" That is, you should have laid at the altar what you could not carry. For while you, lazy trader, hold on to the coin, you have taken the place of another who could have doubled the money. Therefore, as "he who serves well gains a good standing for himself," so he who approaches the cup of the Lord unworthily "will be guilty of the body and blood of the Lord."

Not all bishops are bishops. You consider Peter; consider Judas too. You look up to Stephen; look also at Nicolas, whom the Lord hates in his Apocalypse, who devised things so shameful and wicked that the heresy of the Ophites sprang from that root. "Let each one examine himself, and so let him approach." Church rank does not make a Christian. Cornelius the centurion, still a pagan, is flooded with the gift of the Holy Spirit; the boy Daniel judges the elders; Amos, stripping mulberries from the brambles, suddenly is a prophet; David the shepherd is chosen as king; Jesus loves most the least of his disciples. Sit lower down, brother, so that when someone lesser comes you may be told to go up higher. On whom does the Lord rest, if not on the humble and quiet one who trembles at his words? From him to whom more is entrusted, more is required. "The mighty will be mightily tormented." Nor let anyone congratulate himself merely on the chastity of a clean body, since men will give account on the day of judgment for every idle word they have spoken, and since even abuse of a brother carries the guilt of murder. It is not easy to stand in the place of Paul, to hold the rank of those already reigning with Christ, lest perhaps an angel come to tear the veil of your temple, to move your lampstand from its place. If you are going to build a tower, count the cost of the work to come. Salt that has lost its savor is good for nothing but to be thrown out and trodden down by swine. If a monk falls, a priest will pray for him; who will pray for the fall of a priest?

But since my speech has sailed out from rocky places, and my frail skiff has made its way into the deep between hollow crags and foaming waves, the sails must be spread to the winds, and, the rocks of questions having been passed, the closing chant must be sung like joyful sailors. O desert, blooming with the flowers of Christ! O solitude, in which are born those stones of which, in the Apocalypse, the city of the great King is built! O wilderness that rejoices in God's intimacy! What are you doing in the world, brother, you who are greater than the world? How long will the shadows of roofs oppress you? How long will the smoky prison of these cities shut you in? Believe me, I see something more of light. It is a joy to throw off the burden of the flesh and fly to the pure brightness of the sky. Do you fear poverty? But Christ calls the poor blessed. Are you frightened by labor? But no athlete is crowned without sweat. Are you thinking of food? But faith does not feel hunger. Do you fear to lay limbs worn away by fasting on the bare ground? But the Lord lies with you. Does the uncombed hair of a squalid head bristle? But your head is Christ. Does the boundless vastness of the desert hold you? But walk in paradise in your mind; every time you climb up there in thought, you will not be in the desert. Does your skin grow rough without baths? But he who has once been washed in Christ has no need to wash again. And, to be brief, hear the apostle's answer to everything: "The sufferings of this age are not worthy to be compared with the glory to come, which will be revealed in you." You are pampered, dearest, if you want both to rejoice here with the world and afterwards to reign with Christ.

It will come, that day will come, when this corruptible and mortal body will put on incorruption and immortality. Blessed is the servant whom the Lord finds watching. Then at the sound of the trumpet the earth with its peoples will tremble; you will rejoice. When the Lord comes to judge, the world will bellow in mourning; tribe after tribe will beat their breasts; kings once most mighty will quiver with their sides bare; Jupiter will then be shown with his offspring, truly on fire; foolish Plato will be led in with his disciples; Aristotle's arguments will be of no use. Then you, a rustic and poor, will exult; you will laugh and say: "See my crucified God, see the Judge who, wrapped in rags, wailed in a manger. This is the son of the workman and of the woman who worked for wages; this is he who, carried in his mother's bosom, God though he was, fled from man into Egypt; this is he who was clothed in scarlet, crowned with thorns; this is he who was called a magician with a demon, and a Samaritan. See the hands, Jew, which you nailed; see the side, Roman, which you pierced. Look at the body, whether it is the same one which you said the disciples stole secretly by night." That it may be given you, brother, to say these things and to be present at them, what labor is now hard?

Since the East, dashed against itself by the age-old frenzy of its peoples, is tearing into shreds, piece by piece, the Lord's seamless tunic woven from the top, and foxes are ravaging the vineyard of Christ, so that among broken cisterns that hold no water it is hard to understand where the sealed fountain and that enclosed garden are, I have therefore thought I should consult the chair of Peter and the faith praised by the apostle's mouth, seeking food for my soul now from the place where I once received the garments of Christ. Neither the great expanse of the watery element nor the long stretch of lands in between could keep me from seeking the precious pearl. "Wherever the body is, there the eagles will be gathered." The inheritance has been squandered by an evil offspring; among you alone the heritage of the fathers is kept uncorrupted. There the earth, with fertile soil, returns the purity of the Lord's seed a hundredfold; here the grain buried in the furrows degenerates into darnel and wild oats. Now in the west the sun of righteousness rises; but in the east that Lucifer who had fallen has set his throne above the stars. You are the light of the world, you the salt of the earth, you the vessels of gold and silver; here the vessels of clay or wood await the rod of iron and eternal fire.

Although, then, your greatness frightens me, your kindness invites me. From the priest I, the victim, ask for salvation; from the shepherd I, the sheep, ask for protection. Let envy depart, let the ambition of Roman eminence withdraw: I speak with the successor of the fisherman and the disciple of the cross. Following no one first but Christ, I am joined in communion with your blessedness, that is, with the chair of Peter. I know that the church is built on that rock. Whoever eats the lamb outside this house is profane. If anyone is not in the ark of Noah, he will perish when the flood prevails. And since, because of my crimes, I have moved to this solitude that marks the border of Syria where it joins the barbarians' territory, and cannot always seek from your holiness, across such great distances, the holy thing of the Lord, I therefore follow here your colleagues, the Egyptian confessors, and hide my small boat among the great merchant ships. I do not know Vitalis, I reject Meletius, I am ignorant of Paulinus. Whoever does not gather with you scatters; that is, whoever is not of Christ is of Antichrist.

Now then (alas!), after the faith of Nicaea, after the decree of Alexandria with which the West likewise agreed, a new term, "three hypostases," is demanded of me, a Roman, by the offspring of the Arians, the Campenses. Which apostles, I ask, handed this down? What new Paul, teacher of the Gentiles, taught it? We ask what they think "three hypostases" can be understood to mean: "three subsisting persons," they say. We answer that this is what we believe: the meaning is not enough; they demand the word itself, because some poison lurks in its syllables. We cry out: "If anyone does not confess three hypostases as three enhypostata, that is, as three subsisting persons, let him be anathema"; and because we do not pronounce the words, we are judged heretics. But if anyone, understanding hypostasis as ousia, does not say one hypostasis in three persons, he is a stranger to Christ; and under this confession we are branded together with you with the iron of union.

Decide, I beg you: if you approve, I will not be afraid to say three hypostases; if you command it, let a new creed be composed after Nicaea, and let us, the orthodox, confess in words like the Arians'. The whole school of secular learning knows hypostasis as nothing other than ousia. And will anyone, I ask, preach three substances with sacrilegious mouth? There is one sole nature of God, which truly is; for what it has in order to subsist, it has not from elsewhere, but it is its own. All else, which is created, even though it seems to be, is not, because at one time it was not, and what was not can again not be. God alone, who is eternal, that is, who has no beginning, truly holds the name of being. That is why he says to Moses from the bush: "I am who am"; and again: "He who is has sent me." Surely there were angels then, heaven, earth, and seas; how then does God claim for himself as his own the common name of being? But because that alone is the uncreated nature, and in three persons one deity subsists, which truly is, and is one nature, whoever says there are three, that is, three hypostases, is trying under the name of piety to assert three natures. And if that is so, why are we separated from Arius by walls, when we are joined with him in unbelief? Let Ursinus be joined with your blessedness, let Auxentius be associated with Ambrose. Far be this from the Roman faith: may the devout hearts of the peoples not drink in so great a sacrilege. Let it be enough for us to say one substance, three subsisting persons, perfect, equal, coeternal; let three hypostases be passed over in silence, if you please, and one be held. It is not a good sign when words disagree while the meaning is the same. Let the belief I have described be enough for us; or, if you think it right, write that we ought to say three hypostases, with their explanations. We do not refuse; but, believe me, poison lurks under the honey. "The angel of Satan has transformed himself into an angel of light." They explain hypostasis well, and yet when I say that I hold what they themselves set out, I am judged a heretic. Why do they cling so anxiously to one word? Why do they hide under ambiguous language? If they believe as they explain, I do not condemn what they hold; if I believe as they pretend to think, let them allow me to express their meaning in my own words.

Therefore I adjure your blessedness by the Crucified, the salvation of the world, and by the consubstantial Trinity, to give me by your letter authority either to keep silent about the hypostases or to speak of them. And lest the obscurity of the place where I live mislead the carriers of the letter, please send what you write to the presbyter Evagrius, whom you know very well. Tell me also with whom I ought to be in communion at Antioch, because the Campenses, joined with the heretics of Tarsus, seek nothing else than to preach three hypostases in the old sense, supported by the authority of communion with you.

The persistent woman in the gospel at last deserved to be heard, and when the door had been shut with the servants inside, though it was midnight, a friend received loaves from a friend. God himself, who cannot be overcome by any powers set against him, is conquered by the prayers of a tax collector. The city of Nineveh, which perished by sin, stood by its tears. To what end this long preamble? So that you, great as you are, may look upon me, small as I am; so that, a rich shepherd, you may not despise a sick sheep. Christ carried the robber from the cross into paradise, and, so that no one might ever think conversion too late, he turned the punishment for murder into martyrdom. Christ, I say, joyfully embraces the prodigal son when he returns, and, leaving the ninety-nine healthy sheep, the one little sheep that had been left behind is carried home on the shoulders of the good shepherd. Paul from a persecutor becomes a preacher; he is blinded in his bodily eyes so that he may see more with his mind; and he who led Christ's servants bound to the council of the Jews afterwards himself glories in the chains of Christ.

I, then, as I wrote before, having received the garment of Christ in the city of Rome, am now held on the barbarous frontier of Syria. And lest you think this sentence was passed on me by someone else, I myself decided what I deserved. But, as the pagan poet says, "he changes his sky, not his mind, who runs across the sea"; so the unceasing enemy has followed close behind me, so that I now suffer greater wars in solitude. For on one side the Arian madness rages, supported by the protection of the world; on another the church, split into three parts, hastens to seize me for itself. The long-standing authority of the monks living around me rises against me. Meanwhile I keep crying out: "If anyone is joined to the chair of Peter, he is mine." Meletius, Vitalis, and Paulinus all say that they cleave to you. I could believe it if only one of them claimed it; as it is, either two are lying or all three. Therefore I adjure your blessedness by the cross of the Lord, by the necessary glory of our faith, the Passion: so may you, who follow the apostles in honor, follow them also in merit; so may you sit on a throne with the Twelve who will judge; so may another gird you in old age with Peter; so may you obtain citizenship of heaven with Paul: tell me by letter with whom I ought to be in communion in Syria. Do not despise a soul for which Christ died.

I had indeed decided to use the words of the psalmist, who says: "When the sinner stood against me, I was dumb and humbled, and kept silent even from good things"; and again: "But I, like a deaf man, did not hear, and like a mute who does not open his mouth; I became like a man who does not hear." But since love overcomes all things and affection conquers resolve, I am not so much paying back those who wrong me as answering you at your request. For among Christians, as someone has said, it is not the one who suffers an insult who is wretched, but the one who inflicts it.

And first, before I speak with you about my faith, which you know very well, I am compelled to cry out against the barbarism of this place in a familiar verse: "What race of men is this? What land so barbarous allows this custom? We are denied the welcome of the sand; they stir up war and forbid us to set foot on the edge of the land," and so on. I have taken these lines from a pagan poet so that he who does not keep the peace of Christ may at least learn peace from a heathen. I am called a heretic for preaching the consubstantial Trinity; I am accused of Sabellian impiety while proclaiming with untiring voice three subsisting, true, whole, and perfect persons. If this is from Arians, it is deserved; if from the orthodox, those who accuse such a faith have ceased to be orthodox; or, if they please, let them condemn me as a heretic together with the West, a heretic together with Egypt, that is, together with Damasus and Peter. Why do they accuse one man and leave out his companions? If the stream flows thin, the fault is not in the channel but in the spring. I am ashamed to say it: from the caves of our cells we condemn the world; rolling in sackcloth and ashes, we pass sentence on bishops. What is a kingly spirit doing under a penitent's tunic? Chains, filth, and long hair are signs not of a diadem but of weeping. Let them allow me, I beg, to say nothing. Why do they tear to pieces one who does not deserve their envy? "I am a heretic": what is that to you? Be quiet; enough has been said. You are clearly afraid that I, a most eloquent man in Syriac or Greek, will go round the churches, lead peoples astray, and cause a schism. I have taken nothing from anyone; I receive nothing in idleness. We seek our food daily with our hands and our own sweat, knowing that it is written by the apostle: "He who does not work, let him not eat."

With what groaning, with what grief I have written this, venerable and holy father, Jesus is witness. "I have kept silent; shall I always keep silent?" says the Lord. Not one corner of the desert is granted me. Every day I am asked for my faith, as if I had been reborn without faith. I confess it as they wish: it does not satisfy them. I sign: they do not believe. One thing only pleases them: that I leave here. Now, now I am leaving. They have torn from me part of my soul, my dearest brothers. See, they want to leave, or rather they are leaving, saying it is better to live among wild beasts than with such Christians. And I myself would flee at once, if weakness of body and the harshness of winter did not hold me back. Yet, until spring comes, I beg that the hospitality of the desert be granted me for a few months; or, if even this seems too long, I am leaving. "The earth is the Lord's and its fullness." Let them alone ascend to heaven; let Christ have died for them alone; let them have, possess, and glory. "But far be it from me to glory except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom the world has been crucified to me and I to the world."

As for the faith about which you kindly wrote, I have given a written statement of faith to holy Cyril. Whoever does not believe thus is a stranger to Christ. For the rest, I have as witnesses of my faith your ears and those of blessed brother Zenobius, whom all of us here greet warmly together with you.

When I read the commentaries written, in Greek and in Latin, by our own men, that is, orthodox men, long ago and recently, in interpreting the Gospels, on the passage that reads "Hosanna to the Son of David", they set out opinions not only different but even contradictory. May your love, with that ardent and energetic mind of yours, cut away the opinions and clap down the ambiguities, and write with living sense what it means among the Hebrews, so that, for this as for many other things, our cares in Christ Jesus may render you thanks.