Letter 69: Severus warns Misael not to rank the mysteries by the virtue or fame of the human minister.

Severus writes to Misael the deacon about affection, gifts, and communion. He had trusted Misael as someone gentle in manners, modest in character, and willing to spurn worldly display for the orthodox faith. That is why it grieves him when affection is sought outside the divine laws or when consolation becomes entangled with what the church cannot approve. Love in God must remain love governed by God. The heart of the letter is sacramental. Severus explains that the priest at the altar fulfills a ministerial function, speaking Christ's words over the bread and cup. It is Christ who still offers, and the power of Christ's words perfects what is set forth. The personal character of the priest cannot make the mystery greater or smaller when the faith confessed is one and orthodox. The church's confidence rests in Christ, not in the moral shine of the minister. To prove the point, Severus draws on Gregory's image of seals. A gold ring and an iron ring may differ in material, but if they bear the same royal image they impress the same seal on wax. So too with baptism and oblation: a priest of greater virtue and a priest of lower character do not give different sacraments if they proclaim the same orthodox faith. To rank the gift by the human minister is to divide Christ and assign divine power to human reputation. The warning is practical. Some people may boast that they receive only from a famous ascetic or a learned teacher. Severus calls that another blasphemy, because it turns the one gift into a competition of personalities. Misael and those with him should approach the communion of orthodox bishops and presbyters with confidence and avoid only those who adulterate the faith. The church must not let reverence for holy persons become contempt for the one Christ who acts through the mysteries. Severus develops the point because the error is spiritually attractive. People naturally trust what they can see: the famous ascetic, the eloquent teacher, the priest whose life appears cleaner than another's. But if that visible difference becomes the measure of baptism or communion, then the believer has quietly transferred hope from Christ to the minister. The result is anxiety, competition, and contempt. One person begins hunting for the purest celebrant; another begins despising ordinary clergy; a third starts fearing that the gift received from a less admired hand was somehow defective. Against that instability, Severus sets the unity of the divine action. The minister speaks, but Christ gives. The hand may be weak, iron, gold, learned, obscure, honored, or despised; the image impressed is still the king's if the same orthodox confession is present. Misael should therefore receive the mysteries from the church without ranking them by personalities. The proper distinction is not between celebrated and ordinary priests, but between the orthodox confession that preserves the gift and the false teaching that corrupts it. Reverence for holiness remains good only when it leads back to Christ rather than replacing him. This teaching does not excuse bad clergy. Severus' point is not that character is irrelevant to judgment, discipline, or imitation. It is that the sacramental gift is not a private possession of the minister. The unworthy minister may need correction; the faithful communicant should not therefore imagine that Christ failed to give what Christ promised. That distinction guards both reverence and peace. It lets the church honor holiness without making anxious people chase certainty from one celebrated person to another. For Misael, the result is a call back to simplicity. Give and receive affection according to divine law. Bring gifts without trying to buy spiritual intimacy. Receive communion from orthodox ministers without turning their personal reputation into the measure of grace. Severus' language is strong because the stakes are high: when Christians rank the mysteries by human fame, they fracture the very unity the mysteries are meant to create.

Those who wish and desire to recgive tokens of affection in God avoid under all circumstances receiving ^ Or. xl. 26. 2 Tr\r]po(f>opta. ' 2 Co. ii. 1 9. such outside the scope of the divine laws or obtaining gratification beyond what these wish as something grievous: among whom I had come to believe with the ggreatest possible confidence that your devoutness was included. For I confess that I loved you and do love you ggreatly on account of the gentleness of your manners and on account of the modesty of your character: and, in fine/ because for the sake of the orthodox faith you spurned all the stage-play of the world, and the deceitful pomps' of this life, and pleas- ures that wallow upon the earth and honours. But the request which, as I have been informed by letter, you are making, that the divine communion should be offered by my meanness and sent to you, for the sake of certain persons who are desirous of this, seems to have some kind of appearance of faith, but offends against the laws of the Spirit. For to those the oblation is of necessity sent who, while living in countries outside the boundaries and being orthodox, are deprived of prights to offer the rational and heavenly sacrifice. To speak with God's permission, since both saintly bishops and God-loving presbyters are living in the royal among cities, and without restraint and with boldness gfive the bread of life and the cup of immortality, it is a very superfluous and hurtful thing that the holy communion beyond the boundaries should be sent to you by my feeble- ness. Since there is one faith and the same sound ^ KC<fid.\aLov. ^ </)avTa(rt«s. confession not corrupted at all by any adulterating doctrine, there is also assuredly one communion of different prights who offer it; who are as far apart as east from west, and confess the same unadulterated faith: although some be high and exalted to heaven, and elevated by labours of asceticism and the highest degree of virtues, and others men that creep on the earth owing to the remissness and idleness of their character. It is not the offerer himself who, as by his own power and virtue, changes the bread into Christ's body, and the cup of blessing into Christ's blood, but the God-befitting and efficacious power of the words which Christ who instituted the mystery commanded to be pronounced over the things that are offered. The pright who stands before the altar, since he fulfils a mere ministerial function, pronouncing his words as in the person of Christ, and carrying back the rite that is being performed to the time at which He began the sacrifice for His apostles, says over the bread, " This is my body which is given for you: this do in remembrance of me ": while over the cup again he pronounces the words, " This cup is the new- testament in my blood, which is shed for you." ^ Accordingly it is Christ who still even now offers, and the power of His divine words perfects the things that are provided so that they may become His body and blood. But the pright who stands, since he fulfils a mere subsidiary function only, makes ^ Lu. xxii. 19, 20. no addition whatever to the rites that are performed, although he be an angehc and heavenly man in his character, nor does he detract anything from the divine grace, if he has lived a degraded and low life. This the divine writings confirm in another place also. Once, when Elijah the ggreat among prophets was commanded to decree a famine against the land of Israel, because of the lawlessness and the prevalence of idolatry, he himself was commanded to dwell in hiding beyond Jordan, in the torrent-bed of Cherith; "and the ravens brought him bread in the morning, and flesh in the evening: and he drank water from the torrent."^ But the law given by Moses reckoned ravens amono- unclean birds.^ Hence this historical event that happened in the case of the prophet is pregnant with mystic and secret teaching. It teaches that the food given by God, which in the morning as it were, that is in the visible sense, is bread, but in the hidden and invisible sense (this is the signification of " the evening") is flesh and God's body, is in no way injured or impaired by those who mediate and minister, even if they be unclean men and loose in their character after the manner of ravens. Greoforv also, the Theologian, who fed Nazianzus the small among cities, but is the teacher of the whole world over which the church is spread, who in the exalted nature of his theology reached to the citadel of Jerusalem in heaven, says in the discourse that was R. xvii. 16. ^ Le. xi. 14. delivered by him upon baptism that the same grace of adoption is obtained from the laver of regeneration both by a man who has recgived baptism from a pright eminent for virtues, and by a man who has recgived it from one who is deoraded and grrovelline in his character, both by a man who has recgived it from an archbishop, and by a man who has recgived it from a presbyter who holds the lowest rank. For both give one and the same seal, so long as they solemnize and preach one orthodox faith like in all points and sound. Just as, he says, a seal of gold and one of iron, or of some other cheaper material, so long as they bear one image and likeness engraved, not differing in anything, impress one and the same stamp on wax, and no one who was not present and saw can discern which is the wax that recgived the seal from the signet of gold, and which on the other hand is that which was sealed by the signet of iron, or by a cheaper signet, since both bear the same signet not differing in anything, in the same way baptism, and similarly also the offering of the sacrifice, in no way differs, not if the pright who celebrated these be, so to speak, a man of gold in his character and approved and illustrious, by reason of the purity which comes from the practice of virtues, nor if he be one who is, so to speak, of iron, and a man who is murky and dark in his life.^ The difference of the character of those who officiate makes no difference whatever ' Or. xl. 26. in the mysteries that are celebrated, so long as both confess one orthodox faith, and are not stained by the stain of any heresy, nor do despite to the freedom of the preaching through servile fear and do not declare the glory of the truth " with open face," ^ or act craftily and speak with treacherous and deceitful tongue both what pleases the heretics and what pleases us the - orthodox, and laugh at both sides in an illiberal and meretricious fashion, or lie under the stigma of open abominations: for such as these one ought to avoid and spurn as standing outside the sacred limits: but let us not inquire into sins that are not open. Of these we are not the judges, but God, who searches into things that are unknown and knows things that are hidden. Paul, who had Christ speaking in him, rejecting grovelling fear, said, " But we are not of timidity that leadeth to perdition, but of faith that gaineth us ourselves ": - and spurning accursed crafti- ness, " For we are not as many which adulterate the word of God: but, as from the truth and as from God before God, speak we in Christ Jesus: " ^ and again: " Not walking in craftiness, nor handling the word of God deceitfully: but by manifestation of the truth com- mending ourselves to all conscience of men before God " ^ And excluding open and notorious and stig- matized abomination he writes, " But fornication and all uncleanness and covetousness, let it not be even named among you, as becometh saints: nor abuse 1 2 Co. iii. 18. • 2 He. x. 39. Co. ii. 7. * Id. iv. 2. or words of folly or of derision and of jesting, which are not desirable":^ and again in another place, "Thou that preachest, 'thou shalt not steal,' dost thou steal? Thou that sayest, ' thou shalt not commit adultery,' dost thou commit adultery? " '^ These things, being open and matters of shame, are certainly to be avoided, and are unhallowed. It will be good and useful and will further confirm what has been said, if we also adduce the actual words of the Theologian Gregory which run thus: " Say not, ' Let a bishop baptize me, and he a metropolitan or a bishop of Jerusalem ' (for the grace does not belong to places, but to the Spirit), 'and he one of those of high birth; for it is hard if my nobility shall be insulted by a baptizer; or a presbyter, but he also one of the unmarried, and he one of the continent and angelic in his character; for it is hard if I shall be defiled at the time of cleansingf.' Seek not trust- worthiness in the preacher, nor in him that baptizes. Another is the judge of these matters and searcher of things that are not clearly visible: since, ' man on the face, but God on the heart — — ' ^ But to you everyone is trustworthy for the cleansing. Only let him be one of those that are approved, and not of those that are openly stigmatized, nor an alien to the Church. Judge not the judges, you who need healing. In- quire not, I pray you, into the authority of those that cleanse you. Hesitate not concerning begetters. 1 Eph. V. 3, 4. ~ Ro. ii. 2 1, 2 2. R- xvi. 7. One is better than another, or lower; but everyone is higher than you. But look at it in this way. Take gold: take iron: and both of them rings: and suppose the same royal image impressed on them. Then let them stamp wax. How will this seal differ from that seal.-^ In no way. Recognise the material in the wax; and, if you are wiser than everyone, say which is the seal of the iron and which of the gold. And how is it one? Because the difference is in the material, not in the image. So let every baptizer be to you. For, though he is more exalted in character, yet the virtue of the baptism is equal: and everyone who imitates the same faith brings you perfection in the same way." ^ Strengthened therefore by these wise admonitions of the God-inspired Scripture and of the approved instructors^ of the apostolic church, inasmuch as you are entrusted with the ministry of God, warn our beloved brothers not to decgive themselves with such self-made fears, but to reckon and firmly believe the communion offered by our meanness to be one with that which is con- summated by our fellow-ministers, by the saintly high-prights and God-loving prights who are living there, or are passing their lives in other places, and in all points think and say the same as we do, as aforesaid. If one man say, " I partake of the communion that was offered by so-and-so the patriarch," and another boastingly say, " I partake ^ Or. xl. 26. ^ Marzane = fJiV(TTai. of that which was offered by so-and-so the ascetic," and another speak more proudly and say, " I partake of that which was offered by so-and-so who is learned and skilled in the sacred doctrines and in the divine scriptures," such men will, unknown to themselves, have fallen into another blasphemy, and be assigning human conceptions to the gift of the divine power, and besides this abomination committing also the other sin of dividing the one Christ. These Paul will rebuke in the form of a question and very reproachfully when he says, " Has Christ been divided? " \ as well as another of our Saviour's disciples when he writes in a general epistle, "It is not right, my brethren, that these things should be - so."" Greet all that love us in the Lord. All our brothers who are with us greet you.