Letter 43: Severus says Nonnus has ignored summonses and must answer openly for his conduct.

Severus writes to the archimandrite of Simeon's monastery about Nonnus, a cleric who has repeatedly ignored summonses and treated ecclesiastical discipline with contempt. Even before Nonnus entered Simeon's flock, he was called to answer charges against him. He did not obey. When church advocates placed him under injunction, he trampled on that too. He came to Severus secretly at night once, as if a hidden visit were enough to satisfy a public case. Severus says he endured this longer than he should have. He set a ten-day limit, then doubled it, and still Nonnus behaved as if he had never been summoned. His excuse was that clerics should not sit in judgment because they were the very people he had injured and from whom he had taken profane gain. Severus rejects the evasion. Injury does not disqualify the church from discipline; if anything, it makes discipline more necessary. The archimandrite is therefore asked to stop protecting delay and to help bring the case to a proper conclusion. Severus' concern is not merely Nonnus as an individual. A monastery dedicated to Simeon should not become a shelter for someone who treats holy things as material for profit and darkness. By pressing the case into the open, the archimandrite will defend the injured clerics, the monastery's integrity, and the seriousness of ecclesiastical summonses.

Whereas Nonnus even before entering the holy Simeon's flock was often summoned to answer the charges and accusations that were being brought against him and did not obey, but, even when placed under an injunction by the God-loving ekklesiekdikoi, trampled upon this with similar impudence, like a man who had grown accustomed to treat holy things with' contempt, and after repairing to me by night once only and in secret, as if doing things worthy of night and darkness, thought that he had thus done enough to give satisfaction (?), and at last after receiving an explicit letter through your religiousness continued in the same shameless state, I for my part endured, and was not roused to just indignation: but after appoint- - ing him a limit ^ of ten days I allowed him to have this doubled. And he behaved exactly as one who had not been summoned, alleging only pretexts founded upon sins, and answered through your religiousness that he asked that clergymen should not be present at his trial, because they are clergymen who have been injured by him, and from whom he used to receive the unhallowed and profane gains. For he did the same as those who have stolen or committed adultery, or perpetrated a murder, and say that those who have been outraged and injured by theft and those who have thus suffered by adultery and those who have suffered by murder ought not to be present at their trial. No wonder if, being guilty of such evil deeds, he belches forth such words. What will they say who " hate judgment and pervert all right things, and build Zion with blood and Jerusalem with iniquity,"'^ as one of the prophets somewhere said? For how can one help saying that the hands are full of blood which have sold the gifts of the Holy Spirit, which he had no right to give to some men, or to take away from those who possess them? For this is the wonderful point about his sacrilege, that he used to hide himself as in some lurking place, I mean in hypocrisy, while hearing at 1 Trpo^etr/xia. ^ Mi. iii. 9, 10. every ordination the anathemas and terrific curses that I pronounced against such unlawful gains, and to stop his ears "like the deaf asp that stoppeth her ears, which will not hearken to the voice of the charmer," ^ as the singing prophet says. However, that I may not by using many words protract the letter unnecess- arily, this is the second and third summons that I am addressino- to him through your love of God, or, rather to Speak more truly, a summons that has the force of the tenth and twentieth (for one may justly reckon them as equal in number to the days that have passed); since I wish even if late yet some time or other to induce him to make a defence, with the saintly bishops present according to the intention of the holy canons, and ready to conduct his trial, with the holy Gospels laid in the midst, and the terrific threat pronounced by them hanging over those who turn aside justice.- But, if even after this letter he shall dare to delay, then after this the same divine statutes of church discipline shall pronounce judgment and the fitting verdict^ upon him. For we for our part in no way wished the circumstances of his case to remain unknown to the glorious notables also in Antiochus' city: but we even brought these as far as was possible to their knowledge; and we would have ur^ed them and some of the P- ^37- learned rhetors to be judges of the cause,^ had it not been that we were hindered by reflecting upon the order of the holv canons, which command that ecclesi- ' Ps. Ivii. 5, 6. ' Lu. xiii. 27 (?). ^ d7ro</>ao-i?. ■• vir60ea-i<i. 1. 44- astical cases shall be tried and decided by saintly bishops/ and subject to penalties those who pass over these and turn to civil courts.^ And it was for this same reason that we sent the religious Eusebius the deacon also; for we cannot consent, after the lapse of so many days, to keep the saintly bishops here, when they ought to return to their own flock.