Послание святого Иоанна, игумена Раифского, к досточудному Иоанну, игумену Синайской горы

The sinful Raifa abbot wishes to rejoice in the Lord to the supreme and equal-angelic father of fathers and the most excellent teacher. Knowing first of all your unquestioning obedience to the Lord, adorned, however, with all the virtues and especially where it is necessary to increase the talent given to you by God, we, the poor, use a truly wretched and insufficient word, recalling what is said in Scripture: “Ask your father, and your elders will tell you, and they will tell you” (Deut. 32:7). And therefore, falling to you, as to the common father of all and the eldest in asceticism, the strongest in quick-wittedness and the most excellent teacher, with this scripture we pray to you, oh, head of virtues, teach us the ignorant what you saw in the vision of God, like ancient Moses, and on the same mountain; and set it out in a book, as on God-written tablets, for the edification of the new Israelites, that is, people who have newly emerged from mental Egypt and from the sea of ​​life. And just as you, in that sea, instead of a rod with your God-speaking tongue, with the assistance of God, worked miracles: even now, without despising our petition, deign in the Lord, for our salvation, to judiciously and unlaxly inscribe the laws characteristic and proper to monastic life, being truly a great mentor to all who have begun such an angelic life. Do not think that our words come from flattery or caressing: you, consecrated head, know that we are alien to such actions, but what everyone is sure of, what is beyond any doubt, is visible to everyone and what everyone testifies to, which we repeat. So we hope in the Lord that we will soon receive and kiss the precious inscriptions we have been waiting for, on the tablets thereof, which can serve as an infallible instruction for the true followers of Christ and, like a ladder established even to the gates of heaven (Gen. 28:12), raises those who will, so that they can pass through the hordes of spirits of evil, the rulers of darkness, harmlessly, safely and without restraint. and princes of the air. For if Jacob, the shepherd of dumb sheep, saw such a terrible vision on the ladder, then how much more the leader of the verbal lambs, not only by vision, but also by deed and truth 9 can show everyone the infallible ascent to God. Hello in the Lord, most honest father! That is, not only by representing a figurative ladder in a vision, but also by the virtues themselves, the degrees of which are depicted, by an experienced and true description. You might be interested in: