184. К Студию, префекту города 135

I know that with your prudence and wisdom, even without our letter, you will meekly endure the separation from the blessed brother of your magnificence - I say this because I cannot call his departure death. But just as we have a duty to say a word on our part, I earnestly ask your honor, most magnificent ruler, to show yourself in this case, not by not grieving - this is impossible for a person, a being covered with flesh, and, moreover, with the loss of such a brother - but by putting a measure of grief. You know that everything human is temporary, that our life is a river stream, and that only those who can be called ultimately blessed are those who left this life with good hope. They depart not to death, but from exploits to rewards, from struggle to crowns, from the troubled sea to a storm-proof pier. Comfort yourself with this thought, just as we, also deeply grieving, find the greatest relief from our grief in the virtues of this man, in which, of course, the greatest consolation lies for you yourself. If, in fact, the one who passed away was a bad and evil person, then one should lament and cry over his death; but when he was like that and lived as the whole city knows, duly, honestly, always honoring the truth, acting in everything openly, independently, nobly, not valuing the present and shunning worldly concerns, then you should rejoice and be glad, both for him and for your honor, that you now have such a brother there and that he placed all the benefits he collected during his life in an already inviolable treasury. Do not give yourself up, my most venerable master, to thoughts unworthy of you and do not overwhelm yourself with sadness; show yourself now and please write to us that our letter did not remain completely useless for you. Living in such a distance, we will then consider it a special honor for ourselves that we were able to moderate your real grief a lot with a simple letter. The paragraphs in the text were arranged by us. – Editorial staff of “ABC of Faith” That is, Constantinople. In the biography of St. John Chrysostom Palladius tells the Studio about this that he, among other persons, took an active part in removing the slander leveled against him from Bishop John. Pediment Duke quite rightly notes that this is not the same Studius who, in 459, during the reign of Emperor Leo, built a church in the name of St. John the Baptist for the monks of the so-called sleepless charter and thus helped the founding of the Studite monastery, which gained enormous fame during the time of the Venerable Abba Theodore the Studite. You might be interested in: