Letter 11: Severus admits the pain of Cosmas' failed episcopate while warning against staying away from the mysteries under plausible pretexts.

Severus receives the archimandrite's letter with affection because even the address brings the monastery of Bassus vividly before him and gives him rest from affairs. That warmth makes his astonishment sharper. The request itself, he says, is profitless and impossible. It concerns Cosmas, whom Severus had made bishop of Apamea after trusting reports from others, though he confesses he never personally had confidence in the man. The history that follows is painful. Cosmas, according to Severus, spoke blasphemously, resisted correction, and finally resigned the bishopric after many pleas, tears, and evasions. His resignation created a difficult and tangled situation. Severus does not pretend that his own choice was harmless; he calls the appointment another of his sins. Yet he also refuses to let grief over a failed bishop turn into an impossible demand after the man has died. The broader issue is how people caught in error should be brought back to communion. Severus worries about plausible arguments that sound righteous but keep people away from the life-giving mysteries. A person can make strictness look like justice while actually strangling the very righteousness he claims to defend. That is why Severus urges those involved in the error not to remain outside communion under a respectable pretext. The letter is unusually revealing because Severus admits the cost of episcopal decisions. He trusted testimony, made an appointment, saw disaster follow, and now has to counsel others after the damage. He does not hide behind office. He wants the archimandrite to see both the seriousness of Cosmas' failure and the danger of letting that failure produce a new separation from the mysteries. Pastoral judgment must tell the truth about the wound without making the wound permanent. This is why Severus rejects the request rather than merely postponing it. After death, no new administrative solution can undo Cosmas' troubled episcopate or make every grief clean. The living, however, can still choose whether the past will drive them away from the altar. Severus wants the monastery of Bassus to resist that temptation. The memory of a failed bishop should lead to sober repentance, careful judgment, and renewed communion, not to a refined refusal of the grace that heals the very failures being mourned.

The letter of your love of God which has just been brought to me I have taken into my hands, and re- cgived as yours. For I rejoice and exult when I read your name even on the mere outside address, and I am brought to a more lively memory of your holy monas- tery, and draw away my thoughts from the worry of affairs, and in this way am refreshed and comforted. But, when the things written met my eye, I was astonished, and wondered how it could have come into your mind to make a profitless and impossible request. The devout Cosmas, who has just died, I instituted bishop of the city of the Apamenes, because I trusted to the report of others concerning him and their par- tiality on his behalf. For I confess to your holiness ^ Ex. xxiii. 7. I. II. that I never had any confidence in him. Accordingly during all the time previous to my coming to this city - of Antiochus it can in no case be shown that I ad- dressed a letter to him; but it was the religious pres- byter Theodore who used to write to him. But for what reason I would not consent to write to him it is not proper to the present time to say. However, as I said, I instituted him bishop, thus adding yet another to my sins. For what blasphemous utterances he vomited forth, and what darts he hurled against heaven God who heard knows. In plain language, not to make a long story, after many roundabout methods and entgreaties on my part, and tears unsuited to the Holy Spirit, after alleging one reason and another, and at last bringing in his bodily infirmity also, he re- signed the bishopric. Thenceforward the whole position was an insoluble difficulty to us, and full of doubt. For it was not only on account of the mistake made in his case and the words blasphemously put forward by him that there was cause for weeping, but also owing to the question in what way the affairs of the Apamenes would have to be administered: for in such a state of confusion all counsel was helpless. The God-loving bishops who in accordance with the statutes of the church were residing at that time in the city of the Antiochenes, being present, exhorted me to recgive him as wishing to resign. And, since it was im- possible for one church to be united to two men at the same time, he drew up petitions of resignation, saying of himself that he was no bishop and no clergy- man, nor did he hold any other degree in the ministry. And, after this had taken place, the God-loving bishop Peter was thereupon instituted. How then is it possible to undo, as you ask, a thing that was carried out with so much caution and without anger? x'\ssuredly, if the trans- action which renders Cosmas not a bishop is not main- tained, it results that the God-loving Peter was uncan- onically instituted, and was given to a church that had already recgived a bishop. Accordingly it is plain that the resignation of the often-mentioned Cosmas tends to establish the ordination of the God-loving bishop Peter. But I for my part am wondering who advised your sanctity to ask this. Does anyone intend to clothe the dead man in that of which in accordance with the ordinances of the Holy Spirit that cannot be rejected he voluntarily stripped himself? or does any- one wish to mention him as a bishop? What therefore the wisdom of such a request is I am unable to under- stand. And what a time was it for a man's resignation to be recalled after his decease! Again, as to the fact that I went out to the devout Cosmas after he had fallen ill, I wish the sequence of events not to be unknown to your sanctity. Some of the zealous brethren came up to me and beafoed me to cro to him, - on the orround that he himself was askino- for this. But I said, " This cannot be. With a man who is not in communion with the holy church, I do not consider that I myself have any communion." And, though those who made the entgreaty persevered, I would not consent: and I was so firm that for three whole days they urged 4 I. II. the point, and I did not yield. But at last one of those who were with us, the religious deacon father Elijah, began to say that perhaps he wished to repent, and to recgive the oblation from my sinful hands. When this was said, I considered that I should bring myself under the judgment of God, if I did not on this con- sideration consent to the request itself: and in this hope I went to visit the afore-mentioned man. How- ever, knowing as I did his unyielding character, I said to those who were with me: " Believe me when I say that I am going out against my will and without any confidence." ^ And, when I had gone, I made a prayer in the expectation that he would repent: but to crive him a orreetino- or to ask a orreetino- from him I would not consent, far be it! For with what reason could I have given a greeting of peace to a man who refused the mystical peace before the holy altars and communion with us? Woe is me if I give a bodily greeting to any man when my soul does not agree to the orreetinor. When therefore we had sat down and none of the things that were expected was said by him, but, though he could not articulate, he kept urging and inviting us to enter upon a long conversa- tion, while 1 for my part considered it a sin for us to enter upon a contentious and profitless conversation while the man was on the point of giving up the ghost, I rose, and prayed to God in private to forgive me the inconsiderate visit. To a man who was so disposed I ' TrXrjf}0(f>npia. ought not to have gone out at all. Even when he was dead and many thought I should go there, I did not go; considering that " everything that is not of faith is sin,''^ according to the words of the Apostle. For I for my part consider a man who separated himself with- out reason from our orthodox communion an enemy not a brother, even if he is decgived by the devil, who "is transformed into an angel of light,"- by con- siderations that are rather upon the right side. For 1 hear the Lord say, "He that is not with me is against me: and he that gathereth not with me scattereth." ' Indeed by the prayers of the saints and of your holi- ness, when church histories and the labours of the holy fathers from the coming of the ggreat God and our Saviour Jesus Christ down to this time come before me, - I find that this present condition * of the holy churches in the East and in Egypt is purer than the condition ^ - in former times, when the facts are examined side by side. They therefore that trouble the simple " shall themselves bear the judgment whosoever"^ they are, and shall themselves " give account in the day of judg- ment," ^ when " he shall come who knoweth the hidden things of darkness and revealeth the counsels of the hearts."^ As for me, may I have no part with such men, either in this world or in that which is to come! For, shunning as I do harshness of speech, I do not wish to declare in detail what is the judgment ^ Ro. xiv. 23. - 2 Cor. xi. 14. ^ Mt. xii. 30. ^ /caraorao-ts. ° Karaarttcrfts. ^ Ga. V. lo. '^ Mt. xii. 36. ^ I Co. iv. 5. of those who turn aside. Wherefore also I am urgent in entgreating" every one of those who have been in- v^olved in the error not to continue in the plausible strangulation of this righteousness, and hold aloof from the life-giving communion of the holy mysteries. And so forth.