Letter 173

173. To Theodora the canoness

What makes me reluctant to write is that I am not persuaded that my letters are delivered to your Love at all, but that, through the negligence of the carriers, countless others encounter them first — and especially now, when the affairs throughout the world are so troubled. For this reason I am, in a way, waiting to be blamed and to have my letters demanded of me by force, that I may use this very thing as proof of my having sent them. Whether writing, then, or keeping silence, we have one work in our hearts: to keep the memory of your Decorum, and to pray to the Lord to grant you to finish the course of the good life that you have chosen. For in truth it is no small contest, for one who has professed it, to carry through to the end the consequences of the profession. For to choose the way of life according to the Gospel is open to everyone; but to carry one's observance even to the smallest things, and to overlook nothing of what is there written, this has been rightly achieved by very few of those who have come to our knowledge: so as to use a tongue that is bridled and an eye that is schooled according to the will of the Gospel, and to work with the hands according to the aim of pleasing God, and to move the feet, and to use each of one's members as our Maker ordered from the beginning; decorum in dress, reserve in meetings with men, contentment in food, and freedom from superfluity in the possession of necessities. All these things, though they seem small when stated thus simply, yet need a great contest for their accomplishment, as we have found in truth itself. And further, perfection in lowliness of mind — so as neither to remember the distinction of one's ancestors, nor, if some advantage belongs to us by nature, whether in body or in soul, to be lifted up by it, nor to make the opinions others hold of us an occasion of being lifted up and puffed up — these things belong to the evangelical life: vigour in self-control, diligence in prayers, sympathy in love of the brethren, fellowship toward the needy, a humbled spirit, contrition of heart, soundness of faith, evenness in dejection, our thought never failing to keep the memory of that fearful and inexorable tribunal, toward which we all are hastening, but of which very few are mindful and dread the issue that comes from it.