The Great Letter

V.1 If we have been moved to continue our discourse concerning the goal of piety as the Lord, the apostles, and all the divinely inspired Scriptures hand it down to us, setting that goal before us by many testimonies, this seems both fitting and profitable. For thus we may be incontrovertibly and firmly assured what is "the hope of our calling" [Eph. 1:18], what its goal is, and what contest lies before us. This concerns especially those who have embraced the monastic life, withdrawn from worldly bonds and bodily intercourse, and chosen virginity in the Lord.

V.2 Let each man and woman among them consider carefully why they were called and what measure they ought to attain, so that they may restrain themselves from every pride arising from any success in spiritual progress. Because of the exceeding greatness of the perfect measure of the calling and the unsearchable riches of the love of Christ [Eph. 3:8], they ought to count themselves as nothing and, with every power and diligence, continually give themselves zealously to the good. According to the Lord's saying, they must renounce all that belongs to this age and even their own soul, taking up their cross each day with joy and gladness and following him. [Luke 9:23; 14:26] For they have the Lord himself as pattern and exemplar, since he has become for us both the Way and the Goal, according to the words: "Become imitators of me, as I am of Christ" [1 Cor. 11:1], and again: "Let us run with endurance the race set before us, looking to Jesus, the author and perfecter of faith, who for the joy set before him endured the cross, despising shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God." [Heb. 12:1-2]

V.3 We must not be satisfied and grow complacent because of certain gifts of the Spirit, or because we have advanced in some spiritual understanding, and, imagining ourselves to have reached perfection, be deceived by the craftiness of evil, cast into self-conceit by our supposed righteousness, and remain far from the great advances of the Spirit. Rather, as true lovers of righteousness, let us daily increase until the end our labor, affliction, struggle, and contest, always "forgetting what lies behind and reaching forward to what lies ahead" [Phil. 3:13], "hungering and thirsting for righteousness" [Matt. 5:6] at the Lord's exhortation, and possessing "a broken heart" [Ps. 50:19 LXX], as those who have not yet reached the calling to which we were called, have not attained the perfect measure of Christianity, and have not yet acquired maturity in the perfect love of Christ.

V.4 Those who truly thirst to reach the goal set before them, known beforehand and highest of all, are continually wounded by love for this ineffable calling of perfection. Until their final breath they are never satisfied with any lesser good or any lesser righteousness; they are not filled by fasts, vigils, almsgiving, or participation in the gifts of the Spirit. Rather, giving themselves wholly to every good, every excellence, and every virtue, and always regarding themselves as still in need with respect to virtue, they never suppose that they are filled with the law of Wisdom. Honored by God, they count themselves unworthy; having attained spiritual progress, they regard themselves as beginners; being great, they despise themselves and count themselves as nothing.

V.5 Because they have believed and loved God in this way, they will receive the recompense of the ineffable promises of the Kingdom. Such souls will be able to please God and become heirs of the Kingdom. Possessing a broken heart and being "poor in spirit" [Matt. 5:3], they always "hunger and thirst for righteousness" [Matt. 5:6], and, pressing on toward the perfect honors of the heavenly calling [Phil. 3:14], they will, because of their lofty love for God, be rewarded with the higher gifts.