To Jobius, Presbyter and Archimandrite

The patriarch Abraham won a victory in his old age. The great Moses was already an old man when he defeated Amalek, for as long as he held out his hands in prayer. The divine Samuel was an old man when he put the foreigners to flight. Your venerable old age is following their example. In our wars for the sake of true religion you are playing the man, championing the cause of the doctrines of the gospel, and putting young men in the shade by the vigor of your spirit. [a]

I rejoice to hear it, and I am glad, and I long to embrace your most venerable gray head. This I cannot do, for your reverence is kept at home by your years, and I am held here under guard by the imperial decree. But I beguile my longing with this letter, and through it I give your piety this most loving embrace. I call on you in your prayers to help the churches, now swamped by the storm, and to win for me God’s support, attacked as I am for the sake of the doctrines of the gospel, and badly in need of help from above.