Letter 19: Severus tells Solon to halt disputed ministries until forged documents and irregular actions are investigated.

Severus tells Solon that the constant evils in Isauria almost drive him to silence, yet the judgments of God burn in him like Jeremiah's fire and force him to speak. Last year he compelled Paul of Olba to return to the flock entrusted to him. Now the same old bishop, simple in character and weak in body, is being disturbed again and drawn from place to place by people who are not well disposed. Paul accepts Severus' advice in words but does not carry out what was decided. The previous agreement was that each side should remove from the sacred tablets the names of those who had signed the impious acts of Chalcedon, while remaining silent about the others until a fitting time for further progress. Severus thinks Solon should have treated Paul according to his age and simplicity, instead of frightening him like a child with signatures and documents after common professions had already been made. The most troubling matter is documentary fraud. A letter has been produced in a form that Severus finds impossible to trust. Some signatures look so unlike others, he says, that they differ as much as sheep from elephants. No one should pretend that a forged or altered document can settle a church dispute. Callistus and those connected with the case must not rely on such papers to force their way. Severus therefore orders restraint. The disputed ministries must be suspended and no one should act as if the case has been decided. The matter requires careful inquiry, not noise, fear, or manipulation. Only after a thorough investigation is held can the church know what belongs to Paul, to Hilarian, to Callistus, and to the order of the churches.

The constant evil things that are being done in close succession and in various ways in Isauria counsel us to silence. But still, when we turn over in our p. 75. mind the judgments of God, we are again distressed, and cannot keep within us the cause of the distress, and we are brought round to the necessity of speaking. We have been in the same state as Jeremiah, who said, " I said, ' I will not name the name of the Lord nor speak in his name ' "; and afterwards he was confounded and broke through the restraint that was ^ I Ti. iii. 2, vi. 11 (?). upon his mind, and he changed his mind and said, " And it became in my heart as fire burning and blazing and flaming in my bones, and I am dissolved on all sides and cannot endure."^ What indeed am I to do? Last year I compelled the God-loving bishop Paul of Olba to return to the flock which it has fallen to his lot to feed; and now again I see him being disturbed in the same way by certain men who are not rightly disposed, and in old age and bodily weakness visiting now one country now another and wanderinof about: and, althouo-h the man acquiesces in our counsel, he carries out none of the things that we determined to be right. Now the things that we so determined are these, points which upon their coming a short time ago the party of the God-loving bishop Epiphanius and Symbatius also promised in common to observe with all their might and to their best endeavour, I mean that each should remove from the sacred tablets the names of p- 76. those who signed the impious deeds of Chalcedon, but, as to the others, should remain silent and wait for a fitting season for progress to excellence. For there is no objection to ascent, as Gregory the Theologian also somewhere says.^ But, as the old man, I mean the God-loving bishop Paul whom I mentioned before, is of a more than ordinarily simple disposition, I do not know how it is that you have been frightening him like a child with the signatures of documents, and have thus thrown him again into perturbation, when you should have treated each man according- to his own condition and character, seeing that satisfactory professions have been made in common, and there is no doubt about them. So long therefore as the man remains of the same mind, receive him readily and honour him, on account of his venerable old age. Again as to the dispute that he had with the God- loving bishop Hilarian about a monastery,^ when we heard of it, we should perhaps have given a proper solution and decision, had it not been that he flew to the royal city, as we have heard, separating himself from communion with you, on account of the presumptuous and illegral deed of Callistus. For he charges him with interpolating or forging or garbling the letter that was sent by him'^ (I do not know what expression p- 77- to use on account of the many methods of committing g\i the crime). For, on comparing the signature of the \ letter that was produced with the other signatures of ' the aforesaid God-loving bishop Hilarian that are preserved here in synodal documents, we found them to be as far removed and as different from one another as sheep differ in appearance from elephants. And, to say nothing of the strictness of the canons, it is manifest to everyone that the laws of the Romans also, which contain excellent enactments upon these matters, fix beheading as the punishment; ^ and this is an offence against public law. We wish therefore that the man who has acted so impiously in this affair should for the present abstain from all sacred minis- tration: and, as soon as he comes back, we will submit the matter to examination; since even in thinors that are thouorht to be acknowledored we like examination: and then we will pronounce for the facts of which the truth is established, placing before every- thing the just judgments of the balance-scales of God, p- 78. and trembling lest by sparing others we make our- selves liable to these. For we are not io-norant what punishments Eli the priest received because, when his sons outraged the divine sacrifice, he only reproved them as a father and did not as an instructor and a ruler punish them according to the law. We have heard that the clergymen in the same monastery, while under inhibition from the God-loving bishop Paul, made light of his inhibition, and took part in the ministration with the God-loving bishop Hilarian. Therefore we have determined it to be right that they also hold aloof for the present from the sacred ministration, until he comes and a thorough investigation of the matter is held