Letter 38: Severus urges Simeon to combine confidence, discipline, and avoidance of hostile pretexts.

Severus tells Simeon of Chalcis that he did not really need letters to be assured of Simeon's affection and zeal. Still, written assurance has its place, especially when accusations and anxieties are circulating. Severus has confidence in Simeon's disposition, and he wants him to act from that confidence rather than from fear of slander. The case concerns people who have created trouble and then seek to frame the matter to their advantage. Severus urges Simeon to handle them with both firmness and clarity. He should not give enemies an occasion by acting rashly, but he also must not let the wish to avoid criticism paralyze discipline. God should be praised through the way the matter is settled, and those who want an occasion against the church should find none. The letter is a bishop writing to another bishop about the moral pressure of public conflict. Simeon must bear accusation without becoming defensive in the wrong way. He must correct wrongdoing without turning correction into personal retaliation. Severus' counsel is steady: act so that the church's order is visible, the innocent are protected, and hostile observers lose the pretext they are looking for. In that balance, discipline itself becomes an act of praise. He knows that this is difficult because public accusations change the atmosphere in which every decision is read. If Simeon moves too quickly, opponents can call him harsh. If he delays too long, the injured and the guilty both learn the wrong lesson. Severus therefore points him toward a disciplined middle path, where the bishop's conduct is transparent enough to withstand scrutiny. The letter also reveals the emotional labor of episcopal friendship. Severus trusts Simeon, but he still writes because trust needs to be strengthened when conflict is noisy. The assurance between them is not sentimental. It exists so that Simeon can make a hard decision without mistaking fear for prudence or resentment for justice.

For my part I had no need of words and of assurance bv letter as regards the various matters that have happened and been transacted with the tranquillity of ' P.^. xciii. 9. '" Ke<^dXa'.a. your love of God, since the facts, if one may so say, utter a voice and plainly cry this out. But, because there is a time to speak, as there is also a time to keep silence, according to the saying" of the wise Koholeth,^ I now wish to repeat again as in a summary - the events that occurred before, and to say like the prophet, " I have kept silence, lest I should keep silence also for ever; I have refrained myself like a travailing woman." ^ Your holiness probably, I think, remembers that all through the summer the men from the villao-e called Thelhadin were uroino- us, p- "o. and that, though their request was refused by us once and twice (I do not hesitate to say even three times and many times), so that a chance might be given you of settlino- their affair bv some wise method and God- pleasing plan, we effected nothing at all, but we were more pressingly and more violently urged by them, and we were now being abused even by the citizens themselves who saw that they were continually com- plaining to us and did not receive any answer; and thenceforward we had also to submit to murmurs of no ordinary kind. Whence also we exhorted the devout presbyter Ignatius, who happened to be here, to appease the men by some means and invite them to a peaceful frame of mind. At last, not to make a long story, we were compelled to resort to such an extreme measure as bringing the periodeutes himself here and having the details of the case * examined before the ^ Ec. iii. 7. '"' K€(fid\aLov. ^ Is. xlii. 14. ^ V7r6$€(ri<;. saintly bishops. How repulsive to the ears the counts ^ of the accusations that were examined were I forbear to state, seeing that the gravity of these is known to those who examined them with us, and closed their ears when they were being examined and proved. But this I know clearly, that in the middle of the examination into these things the same periodeutes wanted to run away; and in the hearing of everyone and while he was standing up I said to him in clear and distinct tones, directing the words towards him, "If you dare to depart, you old man, before the investigation is ended, you will be ex- communicate, and under deprivation." Upon hearing this he promised not to run away. And the next day, when his presence was required, though he was sitting in what is called the psepheion, and had been seen by certain men, he would not come: but he formed the plan of running away, and departed while in full health, thus offending against the reverence due to the apostolic see, and against the synod of saintly bishops. The saintly bishops Sergius and Marion, who are much devoted to your love of God, are trustworthy witnesses of these things. These things therefore having thus passed in order and been transacted, it is now your part, not mine, to say what punishment the man deserves who presumed to take part in priestly functions and down to yesterday to write letters as a chorepiscot>us and to administer the affairs of the ' K€(f)dX.aLa. I. ^S. SELI-:CT LETTERS oF THE HOLY SEVERUS. 109 district, When a man dares even to lie and swear, and to retain a thing in ignorance, and that after he has personally received the prohibition, what chance of forgiveness or indulgence can he have? Who is there even among men of very peaceful disposition whom he is not treating as a fool and rousing to an anger that is just and well-pleasing to God? For for a man to be jealous for the divine laws when they are transgressed is to offer a sacrifice to God, just as the opposite course, I mean to be silent on such occasions, is to rouse the wrath of Him who laid down such laws. And yet we for the sake of your holiness' tranquillity remained silent, as we ought not to have done under such circumstances: and, when at an earlier time those who came from the monastery of the holy lord 'Akiba were asking us about the same said cho7'episcopus or periodeutes, we kept silence out of respect to you, because we were ashamed to expose the abominable character of the affair, of which even men of no distinction were not unaware. Quite recently again, when the religious presbyter father Cosmas came to us about this same matter, and said that his conscience and that of the others was wounded, and that they ought not to communicate with a man who had trampled upon the strictness of the canons, and had reckoned the ban of excommunication as nothing, we were compelled to tell them the whole affair, and to place the facts proved by examination before their eyes and read them to them, fearing as we did the prophetic curse which lays under a miserable con- demnation those who call bitter sweet or darkness light.i After this again the letter of your love of God came, and we gathered together in our mind all the details of the same affair, and we summoned the said God-loving presbyter Cosmas to us, and we had some conversation with him concerning peace and concord; after which we thought it right for the sake of your holiness' tranquillity to relieve the above-mentioned presbyter from his punishment, and allow him com- munion: but only on condition of his remaining quiet and not approaching the office of cli07^episcopus or pei^iodeiites in any way, because, to speak in the words of scripture and in fitting language, some had been caused to stumble through him."' But, while I was in the middle of writing these things, the company of the men of Thelhadin again assailed me, buzzinor about my ears like bees: and they were again dismissed by us with insult and with many contumelies heaped upon them. It is therefore the dutv of vour sanctitv to appoint such a chorepiscopus and peinodeutes for them that God may be praised, and all occasion be cut off from those that wish to find occasion.