[Ishoyahb of Hidyab, letter #26]
On the fourth day of the week, which was the beginning of the month Shebat, two letters from your Paternity came to me in the middle of the day: the one from Ukama, our boy, and the other from a man of the village of Bet-Magosh. Immediately I've dispatched this response in accordance with the dispatch required by your Fatherhood's letter. I am writing very briefly, because in the present affairs I see a great removal, which indicates to me a departure altogether necessary - not from the Lord, forbid! nor from the sight of those who are seen or are capable of good and evil, but from the very substance of those vexing affairs, with little by little many signs and many offending tumults succeed one another. We must now work together: either by a true removal to effect a free departure, or by the manner of a curator, to show a fair attack against depraved morals.
But let your Paternity know what he wanted to know, not to please me, and perhaps not even before the sight of God to change it, for which reason Your Paternity wrote, even though in fact that country was really not less than the riches reputed among our country, which calls for my vileness as a bishop. If the Lord would depart from this place altogether, it is fair, I think, not to prove myself again to others, but to keep me alone by the free habitation, as it pleases the Lord, and thus to spend a few days remaining, which will be given to me by our Lord in this world. Whatever it is, I firmly hope that I will come to the holy fast [Lent] before your Paternity; but let your Paternity make a worthy bishop for those who seek peace.
Don't be influenced by the violence perpetrated on you, I write to your Fatherhood: Take good care of the person who has been told, and above all take care and always be careful lest you, as if it were an incident, repent. Suffice it for us to feel the pain arising from Sahdona, of whose sad heresy we are still disgraced. But if, when we offend him as if with a small finger, he poured so much pus upon us, how much more, if we had voluntarily fixed our thorn in the eye of the very head of the body of the community, known and experienced, should we not at all be wretchedly tormented by incurable pain? And perhaps, with many accusers, even the angels of God will be angry with us, because, although he is an angel from heaven, so to speak {Gal. 1:8}, he who suggests this to your Paternity, the rebuke of your Paternity should bravely depart from the face of your Paternity.
To the people who loved you and whom you loved, who had already entrusted your faith to the choice of casting away from you, give the man of God a choice who is the most distinguished in our time. If the respected old man who is there does not wish to assent to the persuasive words, he will by coercive force, just as each of us willed that which he did not wish. And if it shall be established by your Paternity, for all of them with him, and for him with them all, that there will be none other than them but this one, I will order him even against his will, and he himself will consent even against his will; but until they will be drawn in with the hope of obscuring another, as now, neither will he consent nor will they give him consent. Remove them, therefore, from remote and inferior men; And if by every means and every necessity, and whatever it is, let the word pass from that precious old man, turn your mind to our Mar N... I know him, namely, in matters of faith, morals, stature, and habit, and of a moderated speech suited to time and sound.
Inspect your Lord's granaries well, and give what kind of food you may find; if not him himself, at least our brother N..., who has no requisite interest, although I again become poor and deprived of that little thing which I possessed the day before. And to speak briefly, bring your word beyond the obstacles which I have experienced, and replace it with the good, who have been tried in approved cases. Spare your soul, and the soul of my frailty, and the soul of all the orthodox, that stumbling block, to which some men in ignorance of this man directed your mind. Remember briefly also the disobedience which occurred to you lately in the West, even though you expected that you would have success. Although you have had success with the help of our Lord, for all grace is from the Lord, yet fear has been domestic to you and perhaps to some others. And if, on account of the man who is such, such things have happened to you, how much more will it happen to you and me and to us all who are not such because of the man who is such. Bring, therefore, a greater vigilance than the greatest business, the best flight to temptation, and a precious gift to the people.
Although the matter is urgent, the quality of the persons mentioned above must be written down and sent thither; and although a greater time is required for a business, a longer period of time should be given. For non-existence, which is evil, is more powerful than an evil existence. Expected poverty is more powerful than fulness of despair. Remember above all things and at all times the help of God who attends your holiness, who makes daily the work of your guidance sufficiently prosperous, and whose marvelous depth from the depth of your humiliation brilliantly shines to the glory of all of us. Let him now, even in the matter set before you, grant in his mercy outstanding perfection through your hands according to the counsel of his will, amen!
Let him also easily loose the episcopal fear that exists in that man by virtue of his providence in an eager encounter with your Fatherhood and in the glory and honor of his holy Church, amen!
May he also grant me his grace, that I may rejoice in all the labors of your Fatherhood, and glory in the works of the best wonders, which by your hands shall be served for the glory of God in his holy church all the days of your life, amen.
The brothers who are with me venerated your fatherhood. May my salvation be given to the dear brothers who minister to Your Holiness. Pray for me that I may be worthy of the mercy of God, and that I may hate you, even as a calf is prepared.
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