Look at the God-bearing men, and you will see that they either guarded the word under a bushel of silence, when it was useless or even harmful to speak, or put it on a candlestick when the sowing promised good fruit and the field was not stony. Here is what I imagined regarding the proposed questions.

If you find by yourself or with the help of others that which has been more tried, then do not refuse to inform me, your father and brother, who is in need of advice. Be healthy and pray much for me.

Примечания

1. Гадира, или Гадес, нынешний Кадикс в Испании, - отдаленнейший из городов, известных древним.

Послание 8(67). К братиям, находящимся в ссылке и темницах

Феодор всем братствам или общинам, повсюду рассеянным за Христа, с находящимися в темницах и ссылке, желает о Господе радоваться.

Благодать вам и мир, скажу словами апостола, от Бога Отца нашего и Господа Иисуса Христа, Надежды нашей (Гал.1:3), за Которого и ради Которого вы терпите это гонение, скорбь и притеснение, удаление в пустыни и ссылку, заключения под стражу и мучения и все прочие ежедневные бедственные обстоятельства и события. Поэтому, возлюбленные братия мои, желая доставить вам какое-нибудь утешение в связи с отсутствием смиренного лица нашего, мы посылаем это послание, извещая, что мы непрестанно вспоминаем о вас в смиренных молитвах наших (Рим.1:9,10), вспоминая и представляя себе каждого из вас.

With tears and sighs, raising our hands to God, we pray that we may take upon ourselves the feats of truth and come out with one spirit and one soul, as it were from a nest, from our sacred places of asceticism, and that we may remain to the end, by the power of the Lord; have the same thoughts, have the same love, be of one accord and of one mind (Phil. 2:2). We hold the teaching of truth, preached and written before our eyes and for the hearing of all creation, namely: to worship the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit, the Most Glorious and Blessed Trinity, according to theological teaching.

Let us confess that one of the persons of the Trinity, the Son and Word of God, our Lord Jesus Christ, humbled Himself, taking the form of a servant, becoming like men (Phil. 2:7), is represented in our image and is depicted in bodily form. For He is a perfect God and at the same time a Man, as describable as we are, whose nature He has assumed, as He is alien to it in the indescribable nature of God. For it is not angels, says the Scriptures, that He receives, although it is characteristic of them to take on the form, as those who have beheld by the Spirit have seen, but receives the seed of Abraham. Therefore He had to be like the brethren in all things (Hebrews 2:16,17).

Let the Christ-fighters say, how is it possible for Abraham's seed not to be depicted on an icon? How will He, who is called our brother, be like us in all things, if it turns out that He has not received the property of describability inherent in us? Then He will be neither brother nor like us, therefore He is not a man.

This conclusion follows from their words that Christ cannot be depicted on an icon like us. Thus the Christ-fighters destroy the salvific economy, like the Manichaeans, Valentinians and Marcionites, with whom let us avoid, brethren, as the venom of a serpent, infecting not the body, as Gregory the Theologian says in one place, but the depths of the soul.

Reasoning in accordance with the Apostolic and Celestial Church – the real Byzantine part is a heretical part, which is often accustomed to separate from the others – we depict our Lord Jesus Christ in a bodily form. From ancient times this was continuously transmitted from the very appearance of Him to the apostles by copying the icon from the icon, as well as the image of the Life-Creating Cross.

Is it possible that the Cross, which is the weapon of Christ against the devil, should be depicted, and the One Who is the Armor-bearer and Conqueror of Satan should not be depicted? For how can a victorious and true weapon be depicted if it does not have a squire to be imagined before the eyes?

We worship His holy icon, worshipping as if Christ is depicted on it. For He was born from the womb of His Mother the Mother of God, having an image. And if this were not so, he would be some kind of degenerate and unimaged man, O God-fighters! But if He was born as an imaged child, which is true, as the prophet says: "Every male child that opens the couch was consecrated to the Lord" (Exodus 13:2; Luke 2:23), then it follows quite necessarily that He can be depicted on an icon. Hear, you who are deaf, and look, you who are blind, that you may see (Isaiah 42:18).