Letter 500

To Telesphorus the Encaustic Painter [a painter working in the encaustic (burnt-in wax) technique]. Why do you toil at many and endless things, and labor for the wind, as Solomon said? For your zeal will be shown to be profitless and unprofitable, since God holds the rudders of affairs and guides and carries everything in whatever way He wills. For you are storing up many things of injustice, and you do not know for whom you are gathering them, as David has said. Wherever there is a commandment of God, there assuredly is also temptation and the plotting of the enemy. And let Adam persuade you of this, who in paradise received a divine commandment and was straightway plotted against and tripped up. But where there is affliction, and where there is much grief, there too there will come much joy, at the fitting season. "My soul is exceedingly sorrowful, even unto death," says the Lord. And yet His grief became joy for the whole inhabited world. And we too grieve indeed, being afflicted amid countless temptations, both those from demons and those from human beings; but our God is able to transform all our afflictions into joy and unceasing delight. Do not, therefore, give way to great despondency and to immoderate grief; for those who have grieved "shall rejoice upon their beds," upon which they also grieved. And by "bed" understand for me now a certain state and condition of a soul afflicted for the sake of acquiring the virtues. Wherever, then, there is grief that is for God's sake, it is plain that there too there will be eternal joy. For indeed the women around Mary the Magdalene and the other Mary, having grieved beyond measure, heard Christ, the bestower of the gladness of us all, saying after the resurrection: "Rejoice."

Διὰ τί μοχθεῖς πολλὰ καὶ ἀπέραντα, καὶ εἰς ἄνεμον κοπιάζεις, καθὼς εἶπε Σολομών; Ἀνόνητος γάρ, καὶ ἀσύμφορος ἡ σπουδή σου δειχθήσεται, Θεοῦ τοὺς οἴακας τῶν πραγμάτων κρατοῦντος, καὶ πάντα καθ’ ἃ βούλεται τρόπον ἄγοντος καὶ φέροντος. Θησαυρίζεις γὰρ ἀδικίας πολλά, οὐ γινώσκεις δέ, τίνι συνάγεις αὐτά, ὡς εἴρηκεν ὁ Δαυΐδ. ὅπου ἐντολὴ Θεοῦ, ἐκεῖ πάντως καὶ πειρασμός, καὶ ἐπιβουλὴ τοῦ ἐχθροῦ. Καὶ πειθέτω σε Ἀδὰμ ἐν παραδείσῳ ἐντολὴν θείαν δεξάμενος, καὶ παραχρῆμα ἐπιβουλευθείς, καὶ ὑποσκελισμένος. Ὅπου δὲ θλίψις, καὶ ἔνθα λύπη πολλή, ἐκεῖ καὶ χαρὰ πολλὴ γενήσεται, καιρῷ τῷ προσήκοντι. «Περίλυπός ἐστιν ἡ ψυχή μου ἕως θανάτου», φησὶν ὁ Κύριος. Ἀλλ’ ὅμως ἡ λύπη αὐτοῦ εἰς χαρὰν γέγονεν ὅλῃ τῇ οἰκουμένῃ. Καὶ ἡμεῖς λυπούμεθα μὲν, θλιβόμενοι ἐν μυρίοις πειρασμοῖς, τοῖς τε ἐκ δαιμόνων, τοῖς τε ἐκ τῶν ἀνθρώπων, ἀλλὰ δυνατὸς ὁ Θεὸς ἡμῶν πάσας τὰς θλίψεις ἡμῶν εἰς χαρὰν καὶ τέρψιν διηνεκῆ μετενέγκαι. Μὴ τοίνυν ἐκλύου τῇ πολλῇ ἀθυμίᾳ, καὶ τῇ ἀμέτρῳ λύπῃ· οἱ γὰρ λυπηθέντες «ἀγαλλιάσονται ἐπὶ τῶν κοιτῶν αὐτῶν», ἐφ’ ὧν καὶ ἐλυπήθησαν. Κοίτην δὲ νόει μοι νῦν τινα ψυχῆς τεθλιμμένης ὑπὲρ τῆς κτήσεως τῶν ἀρετῶν, ἕξιν τε καὶ κατάστασιν. Ὅπου τοίνυν διὰ Θεοῦ λύπη, δῆλον ὅτι ἐκεῖ καὶ χαρὰ αἰώνιος ἔσται. Καὶ γὰρ αἱ περὶ Μαρίαν τὴν Μαγδαληνήν, καὶ τὴν ἄλλην Μαρίαν, λυπηθεῖσαι ὑπερβαλλόντως, ἤκουσαν τοῦ χορηγοῦ τῆς πάντων ἡμῶν ἀγαλλιάσεως Χριστοῦ μετὰ τὴν ἀνάστασιν λέγοντος· Χαίρετε.