ΕΠΙΣΤΟΛΗ ΙΒʹ

ΕΠΙΣΤΟΛΗ ΙΒʹ

I am writing these things to your Dignity after coming back from the very gates of death; and so I was extremely glad that the servants have now met us and are finally bringing us into harbor. For if they had met me while I was still tossing on the open sea and still facing the harsh waves of illness, it wouldn't even have been easy for me to deceive Your Piety by reporting good news instead of hardships. For the winter, having grown more severe than usual, also brought upon us a still harsher winter for the stomach; and I spent these two months no better off than the dead—indeed, even worse.¹ For I lived only enough to feel the horrors surrounding me on every side, and everything was night to me—day and dawn and high noon alike—and I spent my days nailed to the bed. And though I tried a thousand devices, I could not shake off the harm from the cold; but even while lighting a fire and enduring the most oppressive smoke, shut up in a single room, piled with countless coverings, and not daring even to step over the threshold, I suffered the worst things, with continuous vomiting, headaches, loss of appetite, and unbroken sleeplessness. So I kept lying awake through those vast seas of night, so long as they were. But so that I don't strain your mind further by dwelling on the hardships, we've now been freed from all of this. For as soon as spring arrived and there was a slight change in the air, everything dissolved on its own. But even so, even now I still need great strictness in my diet; and that is why I keep the load light for my stomach, so that it can handle it easily. It was no small matter that caused us such anxiety when we heard that your dignity was nearing the end of her life.² Still, because I love you so deeply and am so concerned about everything that touches your life, I was relieved of that worry even before your letter arrived, as many people coming from there had already reported on your health. I rejoice greatly now—not only that you have recovered from your illness, but above all that you bear whatever happens to you so nobly, calling it all a mere myth. Even greater is the fact that you apply this same perspective to your physical suffering, which is the mark of a youthful soul overflowing with the rich fruit of courage.³ For not only to bear hardships nobly, but not even to notice them when they are present—to look past them and, with great untroubled ease, to put on the crown of endurance, not growing weary, not sweating, not being troubled yourself or giving trouble to others, but as if leaping and dancing—this is the proof of the most exact philosophy.^✦4 For these reasons I rejoice and leap for joy; I fly with delight; I don't feel the present isolation or the rest of my circumstances, glad and delighted and taking great pride in your greatness of soul and your successive victories—not for your sake alone, but also for that great and populous city for which you have become a tower and a harbor and a wall, sending forth a brilliant voice through your deeds and training both sexes, by your sufferings, to strip readily for such contests, to go down into the arena with complete courage, and to bear easily the sweat that comes from such contests.⁵ The truly wonderful thing is this: without rushing into the marketplace or taking center stage in the city, but sitting in a small house and private room, you strengthen and prepare those who stand ready. While the sea rages wildly, waves crest high, and reefs, shallows, rocks, and wild beasts appear on every side—with the deepest night covering everything—you act as if it were midday and calm, with the wind at your back. You have spread the sails of endurance and sail with great ease, not only unbothered by this harsh storm but not even getting splashed. And that is only right, for such are the rudders of virtue.⁶ Merchants and pilots, sailors and seafarers, when they see a mass of clouds gathering, or wild winds driving in, or the surge of the wave boiling with fiercest foam, keep their ships inside the harbor; and if they happen to be tossed on the open sea, they do and devise everything to moor the vessel at a harbor or island or shore. But you—with countless winds and so many wild waves crashing from every side, the depth of the sea overturned by the storm's severity, some people gone under water, others floating dead on the waters, still others carried naked on a plank—leap into the middle of the sea of evils and call all these things a myth, sailing with a fair wind in the storm. And that is only right. For helmsmen, even if they are a thousand times as skilled in that science, still don't have enough skill to stand against every storm; and so they often flee the fight against the waves.⁷ But you have a science higher than every storm: the power of a philosophical soul, which is stronger than countless armies, more powerful than weapons, and safer than towers and walls.⁸ For weapons and walls and towers are useful to soldiers only for the body's safety—and not even that always or for good; there are times when all these things fail and leave those who take refuge in them stripped of their protection. But your weapons don't take on barbarian arrows, or the siege engines of hostile men, or assaults and ambushes of that kind; no—they have trampled nature's necessities, overthrown its tyranny, and torn down its citadel.⁹ And boxing with demons without pause, you have won countless victories and taken not a single wound; instead you stand unhurt in such a blizzard of arrows, and the javelins thrown against you turn back again on those who cast them.¹⁰ Such is the wisdom of your craft: through the wrongs you suffer, you strike back at those who inflict them; through the plots laid against you, you wound those who make war on you—having their malice as the strongest ground for still greater renown. And knowing this well yourself, and knowing it from experience, you rightly call all these things a fable.¹¹ For how could you not call it a fable, tell me—you who have been given a mortal body, and yet despise death the way people do who are eager to leave a foreign land and return to their own homeland; living with the harshest illness and yet more cheerful than those who are healthy and vigorous; not crushed by insults, not puffed up by honors and glory—and this is what has caused countless evils for many, who even after shining in the priesthood and reaching extreme old age and the deepest gray hair fell from that state and became a common spectacle for anyone who wants to mock them? But you, a woman, clothed in a body thin as a spider's web and having borne so many assaults, not only suffered nothing of the kind yourself, but even kept many others from suffering it.^✦12 Those others never even got far into the contests. From the very opening moves—from the starting line itself, so to speak—they leaped and fell. But you have rounded the far turning post countless times, and in every race you've seized the prize, showing every kind of wrestling hold and form of contest. And it's only right that you have. For the wrestling matches of virtue don't depend on age or on the body, but only on the soul and the will.¹³ That's how women have been crowned and men have been tripped up; that's how children have been proclaimed winners and the aged have been put to shame. So we should always admire those who pursue virtue—and most of all when many are abandoning it, and a few are still found holding fast to it. That's exactly why your careful steadfastness deserves more than ordinary admiration: so many have turned aside—men, women, the aged, people who seemed to hold the highest reputation—all of them lying there before your eyes. They didn't fall under a great rush of war or a fierce enemy formation; they went down before the engagement even began, beaten before the grapple. But you yourself, after so many battles and battle lines, have not only not gone soft, and not been wasted away by the mass of evils; you even grow more boldly youthful, and every new contest only adds strength to your strength.¹⁴¹⁵ For the memory of what you've already accomplished becomes the ground of gladness and joy for you, and of still greater eagerness. That's why we rejoice, leap for joy, and are glad. I won't stop saying this over and over, and carrying the reason for my joy everywhere with me. So even if our separation grieves you, this consolation from your achievements is still very great for you. After all, we ourselves, settled so far away after such a long journey, harvest no small gladness from this—I mean from your courage.