Letter 267

267. To Barses, Bishop of Edessa, in Exile

For the sake of the disposition I have toward your godliness, I longed to come myself and in my own person to embrace your true love, and to glorify the Lord who has been magnified in you, and has made your honoured old age conspicuous to all who throughout the world fear Him. But since a grievous weakness of the body wears me down, and an unspeakable care of the Churches lies upon me, and I am not my own master to travel where I wish and to meet with those I desire, I give rest by this letter to the longing I have for the enjoyment of the good things in you, and I beseech your unsurpassed reverence to pray for me and for the Church, that the Lord may grant us to pass without stumbling the sorrowful days, or hours, of our sojourning here; and may He grant us also to see the peace of His Churches, and to hear concerning the rest of your fellow-ministers and fellow-combatants the things we pray for, and concerning you yourself the things which the peoples under you seek night and day from the Lord of righteousness.

Know that often we did not write — not as often as we ought — yet we did write to your godliness. And perhaps the brethren entrusted with the ministry of the letters were unable to preserve our greetings. But now, since we have come upon some of our own people travelling to your honour, we have eagerly put the letters into their hands, and we have sent certain things, which deign to receive from our lowliness without disdain, and to bless us, in imitation of the patriarch Isaac. And if in anything, as men preoccupied and having our mind plunged beneath a multitude of cares, we have overlooked what was fitting, do not reckon it to us, nor be grieved; but imitate your own perfection in all things, that we too may enjoy your virtue as do all the rest. Strong and of good cheer in the Lord, and praying earnestly for me, may you be granted to me and to the Church of God.