Letter 133

133. To Peter, Bishop of Alexandria

Of bodily friendship the eyes are the agents, and intimacy formed over a long time confirms it; but true love is established by the gift of the Spirit, which joins together what is widely separated in place, and makes those who love one another known to each other, not through bodily features but through the distinctive marks of the soul. This indeed the grace of the Lord has wrought in our case too, granting us to see you with the eyes of the soul, and to embrace you with true love, and, as it were, to grow together with you and come into one union out of fellowship in the faith. For we are persuaded that you, being the nursling of so great a man, and having had your portion of long association with him, walk by the same Spirit and follow the same doctrines of piety.

Therefore we greet your Honour, and beg you, along with all else, to take up after him the great man's affection towards us; to write to us regularly of your own affairs, and to care for the brotherhood everywhere with the same tenderness and the same eagerness which that most blessed man also showed towards all who love God in truth.