Isho'yahb to Moses (again)

[Ishoyahb of Nineveh to priest Moses of Nisibin, Ep. 41]

Moreover, when by the motion of memory you were returning to your usual intensity, you used the material for my name; and after not many years you again brought forward a multitude of strange gifts in the letter which you sent to me. Of these [references], indeed, Zaphnath-Paaneah son of Rachel [Joseph] got one. Of them a son of Jesse [David] got one, and further a son of Amram [Moses] got one. And more, one for the son of ... Mattai.

When indeed these things were not enough for you, like a poetic geomant you were again inclined to the phantasms of the future, and you formed an imaginary Catholicos, such that you would have led the sick conscience of a weak man [like me] into error if it occurred to such to err in things like that. But after this, you barely sent the reason for your letter, at the end where you clothed this too with the multitude of your passions, under the pretext of deep scarcity. Thus you struck a quiet man to the point of trembling in your work by force of persuasion.

It occurs to you to suffer all these pains once more in a letter for me, I think, because hitherto you did not use the care of convenience in reading what I wrote in response to your [earlier] letter. At the start I had given you some small advice with a timeless demonstration, by which passions it behooves a noble man to be influenced by the beauty of order, who takes the spiritual law as a spiritual law, that is, a necessary reason for the content of his letter. Because, therefore, you have not read what was written before for this reason, for this reason the same thing is done now, and for this reason I also refrain from writing the same things.

But I have gathered from that which you have written and which I have heard from others, that to you too has come the aura of scarcity, by which a rich people has undergone a calamity full of vicissitudes; so much so that the demand for the sated from ancient times to the hungry of every generation. On the other hand when I heard it, I felt bad as appropriate. I could not sufficiently succor the necessity of pain, as the law requires. For, as you know, to us has come the whole reason which has led you into an atypical dearth. When it touches us a little, and stays with us for a long time - and we lay still beneath it - it turns us to the usual dearth by a multitude of demands which are rarely or in any way found. But a little obedience to the spiritual law, a little from the persuasion of the brethren, and a little even to the oppression of those who solicit from the deepest penury; according to the time, so according to the person, so according to the urgent causes. To you, too, it arrives in portion; bread for free for about ten days, and bread sold for about twenty days; but for the amount of the measure, three asses; according to the weight, the burden of all your beasts; by the common name of use, thirty gribhae [DUVAL: a grain-measure], according to the species distinction, ten wheat and twenty barley. I would gladly and contentedly assist all your need, if I could.

Accept, then, that the act is such as it is, and do not despise it as nothing that is desired. If it happens that we, compelled by the same pain, turn our attention to you, be as it should be for us. But if you do so, thanks to the mercy of our Lord. Praise your kindness toward us everyday! But you pray for my worthlessness, and farewell!