A Letter of St Theodore the Studite
Translated by Pastor Thomas Pietsch
The following letter was written in the early ninth century by St Theodore the Studite and appears here in English for the first time. St Theodore was a prominent Constantinopolitan monk, anti-iconoclast, and man of letters. While he was a correspondent of popes, patriarchs, and emperors, in this letter the saint takes the time to write to a friend, a sword-bearer, whose toddler had just died. From this letter of consolation, it seems that he was unable to make it to the funeral. St Theodore first attends to the emotions, then to the intellect, with a final exhortation to be strong in Christ and to console in turn his wife and family.
Letter 18. To Staurakios the Spatharios (sword-bearer).
We have already spoken of the cause of our humble absence [from the funeral], and it is not necessary to say anything further. But how can we begin, or what kind of strength can I discover in the suffering that is joined to your honest souls? For just as the physician, coming upon a difficult-to-heal sickness, stands perplexed next to someone as to how he might proceed with the undertaking, in the same way I have become dizzy thinking of how to offer a consoling word in your heavy-to-bear suffering. O the calamity, O the misfortune; your beautiful and timely child is lost, he that dispelled the first maternal pangs of childbirth, through whom you earn the name of parents, the beginning of your family line, the root of your child bearing, the first shoot of your rational offspring, as if the firstborn rose of paternal fruitfulness. And what if, sounding forth, I was to speak of the beauty of the child? Or that the child increased and progressed in age and in understanding and the grace of God was upon him, as much as I have experienced from when he was small? How, therefore, such a great child from your own loins, cut out by the mortal sword, how could such a thing not cause an inconsolable grief in our hearts? Or who could not lament aloud and be filled with compassion on the occasion of one of your members being cut by a sword as it is for you? He should bemoan like fathers, observing the loss of so beautiful a child, and wail also as mothers, having looked upon the cutting off of a beautiful child so young. For truly a limb of yours has been cut off, your flesh has been cut off; the pain is very great, the healing medicine is difficult to find. Sorrow is in the house, emotional torment on the householders, sorrow on the relatives, but above all on the father Mastor Patrician and the mother Mistress Protospatharea. From every side there is suffering and deep grief.
But come with me, good man, one deep in knowledge, and wise in understanding, who has gathered great knowledge for many years, heal yourself, heal yourself. Turn, I beseech thee, the eye of the intellect towards the contemplation of creation, consider the ancient lineage from the time of our forefather Adam, and see and learn, who has remained in the aeon having gone to the light, not in the fashion of a flower coming forth quickly and withering in death, but more as in a stream of a river, because one generation exited, whereas another one enters, and the succession of generations didn’t stop, but flows day after day, and in this way it was for our ancestors and our predecessors. And the principle going back, would arrive to the very beginning, and then coming back will be to the end of the universe. And there is no one who will live, as it is written, who will not experience death. At present is it measured out in work and daily occupation, and soon there will be a return to home. I’m referring to a transition from this world to the other. Patriarchs, and fathers and mothers died, brothers and friends and relatives, passed away. And what about the emperor? And the Satraps? And the rulers? And all people and all the human race? Are not all born under the earth, and do we not live our lives working towards the will of God, the Creator? This is what we seek, transformation, having trusted in the will of God, in whose terrible judgement we will be found without condemnation. And this is exactly what your child, raised by your own hands, steadfastly and firmly found and achieved. For blessed, it is said, are the ones who are short lived and the Lord chose and took in early youth, not having been tempted by the bitter sinfulness of life.
The Master Sotericho has left and departed in accordance with his name, to salvation, having been deemed worthy of the voices of the ones keeping the feasts, of ineffable joy, being numbered among those holy babes finding rest in the bosom of Abraham, no longer in decay and the flesh, being in eternity. And we entreat you to take the occasions of this consolation and comfort. Become the creator of a joyful lineage, and a healer not only of yourself but also of the mistress of the suffering, who is in greater need of healing, thus compassionately offer her our needy cure and great consolation on account of her little emotional endurance; and also all the relatives. Thus you may prove your own education in the divine matters, ruled by the law of God and knowing where goes the departed one, and especially in the case of your dead child, namely that one does not depart to death, nor to that which does not exist, but to eternal life and to the God who created all things. So that you could represent yourself as a good exemplar for the fathers and all acquaintances and all the people gathered in the funeral, to endure the loss of the children with wisdom and gratitude, and not to object to the commands of God.
This original translation first appeared in Volume II of Agony.