Theodoret of Cyrrhus → Athanasius, Presbyter

To the Presbyter Theodotus,

The battles your piety has fought on behalf of the apostolic doctrines are not unknown -- they are spoken of frequently, both by those who witnessed them firsthand and by those who have heard the stories from them. Continue your efforts, my dear sir, and fight for the doctrines of the Fathers.

For these same doctrines I too am being battered from every direction. While I bear the crash of the great waves, I pray our Governor either to nod his head and scatter the storm [an allusion to Homer's Zeus], or to give the victims of the tempest the grace to endure it like men.