To Eugraphia, on the Death of Her Husband

If I had not been unavoidably prevented, I would have hurried to your side the moment I heard that your great and glorious husband had fallen asleep. I have received many kinds of honor at your hands, and I owe you a great many thanks. When I was kept, much against my will, from paying my debt, I thought it unwise to send you a letter at the very moment when your grief was at its height, when my messenger could not have come near your excellency, and when grief would have kept you from reading what I wrote. [a]

But now that your reason has had time to wake from the drunkenness of grief, to check your emotion and to discipline the unruliness of sorrow, I have ventured to write. I beg your excellency to think of human nature and of how common the loss you mourn is; above all, to accept the divine teaching, and not to let your distress go beyond the bounds of your faith. For your most excellent husband, as the Lord himself said, “is not dead, but sleeping”: a sleep a little longer than he was used to. This hope the Lord has given us; this promise we have received from the divine oracles. I know indeed how painful the separation is, how very painful, especially when affection has been made stronger by likeness of character and length of time. But let your grief be for a journey into a far country, not for a life that has ended.

This kind of philosophy is especially fitting for those brought up in piety, and it is with this philosophy that I beg you, my honored friend, to seek to adorn yourself. And I do not give you this advice as someone who feels nothing himself; in truth my heart was grieved when I learned of the departure of one I loved so well. But I call to mind the Ruler of the world and his inexpressible wisdom, which orders everything for our good. I implore your holiness to take these thoughts to heart, to rise above your sorrow, and to praise God, who is the Master of us all. It is with a providence beyond words that he guides the lives of men.