Letter 23

23. A letter of commendation to a monk

The bearer, as he says, having condemned the vanity of this life and learned that the delights of this present life have their downfall here, providing only fuel for the eternal fire and having a swift passage, has come to me, wishing to depart from this wretched and much-groaning life, to leave behind the pleasures of the flesh, and henceforth to set out upon the road that leads to the mansions of the Lord. Since, then, it is necessary—if he is indeed by nature set in desire for the truly blessed manner of life, and has within his own soul the good and praiseworthy love, having loved the Lord our God with all his heart, with all his strength, and with all his mind—that there be shown to him by your godliness the things hard and difficult to meet in the narrow and afflicted way, and that he be established in the hope of the goods not now seen for the present, but laid up in the promises for those worthy of the Lord.

Therefore I write and exhort your incomparable perfection in Christ to give him his form, if it be possible, and to accomplish even without me both his renunciation in a manner pleasing to God, and his grounding according to what has seemed good to the holy fathers and has been set down by them in writing; and that there be set before him already all that seems good to ascetic exactness, and that thus he be brought to the life, having of his own free choice taken up the contests on behalf of godliness, and submitted himself to the kindly yoke of the Lord, and lived in imitation of Him who for our sake became poor and bore flesh, and having run, according to the goal, toward the prize of the upward calling, may obtain acceptance from the Lord. For when he was eager here to receive the crown of the love that is according to God, I deferred it, wishing, together with your godliness, to anoint him for such contests, and to set over him as trainer one of you whom he may himself ask for—one who trains him well and makes him a proven wrestler through diligent and blessed care, wounding and overthrowing the world-ruler of the darkness of this age and the spiritual hosts of wickedness, against which, according to the blessed apostle, is our struggle. What, then, I wished to do together with you, let your love in Christ do even without me.