Letter 130: Chrysostom describes letters as a debt of love and reports recovery from stomach illness.
John Chrysostom→Castus, Valerius, Diophantus, and Cyriacus, presbyters of Antioch|c. 405 AD|John Chrysostom|From Cucusus (modern Goksun), Armenia Secunda|To Antioch, Syria|AI-assisted
antiochfriendshiphealthexile
PG 52 Epistulae 130 begins with source heading 'ΡΛʹ. Κάστῳ, Οὐαλερίῳ, ∆ιοφάντῳ, Κυριακῷ, πρεσβυτέροις Ἀντιοχείας.'. First-time modern English translation prepared from the Greek source for Roman Letters.
Love is a rushing, forceful thing, more forceful than any severe creditor. Creditors do not press those who owe them money as strongly as you, having thrown the chain of love around us, press us to pay the debt of letters, even though we have often paid it already.
But this debt is of such a kind that it is always paid and always still owed. That is why, although you have often received letters, you are never satisfied. Love has this advantage too: it imitates the sea, which is not filled though countless rivers flow into it. So the more letters we pour into the breadth of your hearing, the more we kindle the flame of your affection.
Do not think we kept this brief silence because we suspected your friendship. If we had suspected it, we would have written all the more often, just as the sick, not the strong, need the physician. Because we trust you so completely and know that, whether or not you receive letters, you keep your love fixed, unmoved, flourishing, and in bloom, we did not think our letters necessary to preserve it, but only to pay friendship's debt.
Even now we write not from need but from friendship, rejoicing that from such a distance we enjoy such love from your good order. Since I know it will gladden you to hear how we are: we have been freed from the stomach illness, we are well, and neither sieges nor bandit attacks nor the desolation of the place nor the crowd of difficulties now makes us shrink or tremble.
Love is a rushing, forceful thing, more forceful than any severe creditor. Creditors do not press those who owe them money as strongly as you, having thrown the chain of love around us, press us to pay the debt of letters, even though we have often paid it already.
But this debt is of such a kind that it is always paid and always still owed. That is why, although you have often received letters, you are never satisfied. Love has this advantage too: it imitates the sea, which is not filled though countless rivers flow into it. So the more letters we pour into the breadth of your hearing, the more we kindle the flame of your affection.
Do not think we kept this brief silence because we suspected your friendship. If we had suspected it, we would have written all the more often, just as the sick, not the strong, need the physician. Because we trust you so completely and know that, whether or not you receive letters, you keep your love fixed, unmoved, flourishing, and in bloom, we did not think our letters necessary to preserve it, but only to pay friendship's debt.
Even now we write not from need but from friendship, rejoicing that from such a distance we enjoy such love from your good order. Since I know it will gladden you to hear how we are: we have been freed from the stomach illness, we are well, and neither sieges nor bandit attacks nor the desolation of the place nor the crowd of difficulties now makes us shrink or tremble.
AI-assisted translation - This translation was produced with AI assistance and has not been peer-reviewed. See the 19th-century translation or original Latin/Greek below for scholarly use.