Letter 14: To Henana the teacher on disease and poverty

Letter 14: To Henana the teacher on disease and poverty — Ishoʿyahb III of Adiabene To the head of labors and excellent works, the true Ishoʿyahb: The ascetic and lover of God, Mar Henana, presbyter and teacher: Ishoʿyahb, by the Lord, greets. Your letter to me, O lover of God, which was a great demonstration of the smallness of the love of the venerable one, I received and read. And for your health I gave thanks to the Lord. For this is the smallness of love: that in the abundance of praises, the glory of the voice of praise is diminished, and it sends to your friends the demonstration of your pastor. For others, on account of sincere love, if one were to write or say such things, it would be fitting for a small idleness. For him, however, when it is for the person himself, if such things are found, it is not possible to extend much with the fragments of beauty that are being saved. For this reason, this demonstration is sufficient for you, O lover of God, for the sincerity of your love, the guidance of your pastor. Moreover, your hopes are that it will not be shaken, but will endure for your world, while God helps. I have heard, O lover of God, that a hand of coins of severe poverty has been prepared for you. And I have also heard further: that a disease that has occurred, much weakness of the body, has been prepared for you. And that on account of both of these, you are in the dust of the pastor. Therefore, it is not fitting for your years, a thought such as this, O ascetic. For by what means does it seem to you that you are weak now, you who for seventy years have been a demonstration of idleness before me? For disease is to the soul of one who hopes in God a fragment of one of these. Fill, then, the teacher of truth. By the smallness of the self, therefore, as you think, I have been holding the venerable one of both of these. And by hopes of poverty, the trust concerning the health of the body, and concerning those things that are outside the body, was with you.

And because of this, the spirit of the Lord is in both of them, by the hope that is upon both of them towards the Lord, the sign. Hope, therefore, in the Lord as is fitting for your thought. And truly bear the comfort that is from afflictions and diseases. In that one, up to Lazarus; in the other, up to Job. In both, however, up to the glory that is from God. For He, by His grace, has fittingly completed the honor of your old age with the good desire of your intention, for His own glory and for your heart. For you have indeed set out on that path which you know to be straight for the sake of discipline. Pray, therefore, that according to the will of the Lord you may be perfected, and that I may see you in peace, in the joy that is from God.