Ad Innocentium papam ii

To Innocentius, Bishop of Rome, John sends greetings in the Lord. Our body is fixed in one place, but the wing of love flies everywhere throughout the inhabited world. Although we are separated by such a great length of road, we are near to your reverence and associate with you every day, seeing with the eyes of that love your courage of soul, your genuine disposition, your steadfastness, your unshakable nature, your abundant consolation, enduring and constant. For the more the waves rise, the more reefs and rocks appear, and the more numerous the squalls, the more your vigilance increases; and neither such a length of road, nor the passage of time, nor the difficulty of affairs has made you become supine. But you remain, imitating the best of helmsmen, who are then most roused when they see the waves cresting, the sea swelling higher, the great roar of the waters, the deepest night in daytime. Therefore we are very grateful to you, and we desire to send you showers of letters, granting ourselves the greatest favor. But since we are deprived of this by the desolation of the place—for not only those who arrive there, but not even those who dwell in our part of the inhabited world could easily associate with us, both because the place in which we are confined lies far off and at the very extremities, and because the fear of brigands blocks the entire road—we ask that you rather pity us for our long silence than condemn us for negligence on that account.

land, the wing of love is not hindered. For we have not been silent through negligence, but after a long interval we now take hold of the most honorable and beloved John the presbyter and Paul the deacon, and we write, and we do not cease giving thanks to you, because you have concealed affectionate fathers by your goodwill and zeal toward us. And everything that pertained to your reverence has received the appropriate correction, and the rubbish of evils and the scandals have been removed, and the Churches have enjoyed peace and bright calm, and everything is borne along smoothly, and laws that were despised have been avenged, and the institutions of the fathers that were transgressed. But since in actual fact none of these things has happened, with those who dared the former deeds still contending for their earlier transgressions, I pass over recounting in detail everything that has been done by them subsequently; for the narrative exceeds the measure not only of a letter but of a history. But I entreat your vigilant soul, even if those who have filled everything with uproar are incurably and unrepentantly sick, not to lose heart or give up regarding those who have chosen to heal these things, considering the magnitude of the achievement. For the present struggle before you concerns almost the whole inhabited world, for Churches brought to their knees, for peoples scattered, for clergy under attack, for bishops driven into exile, for the institutions of the fathers transgressed. Therefore we entreat your diligence, once and twice and many times, that the greater the storm, the greater the zeal you show. For we expect that something more will come about for correction.

If this should not happen, but you have already received the perfect crown from the benevolent God, this will be no small consolation to the wronged—the steadfastness of your love. For we, now spending this third year in exile, beset by famine, plague, wars, constant sieges, indescribable desolation, daily death, and delivered to Isaurian swords, are not casually consoled and comforted by the enduring and constant nature of your disposition and your frankness, and by the fact that we so abundantly and genuinely revel in your love. This is our wall, this our security, this a harbor without waves, this a treasure of countless goods, this joy, and the foundation of great pleasure. And if we are carried off again to a place more desolate than this, we depart having this as no small consolation for our sufferings.