Letter 21: Severus asks the Master of the Offices to report the truth to the emperor and protect the Antiochene bishops from slander.

Rufinus, the tested servant of Your Eminence, brought me your reverent and pious letter summoning us to Heraclea, but illness in his eyes kept him from receiving our reply. That reply has now been carried to Your Glory, the Master of the Offices, by the distinguished Leontius, another of your servants. Since Rufinus is about to go up to the royal city, I pay my debt by greeting Your Eminence and by reporting what the God-loving bishops here judged necessary. They decided to summon the bishops of Second Syria, especially those of Epiphania, Arethusa, and Rhaphania, so that they might be drawn away from the disorderly heads of monasteries who have unreasonably broken communion with us. Some people who delight in schisms insulted the bishops gathered in Antioch and even called them no bishops at all. It rests with Your Excellency not to let us be trampled and slandered by people chasing their own interests. Report the truth to the Christ-loving ears of our pious king, and extend to us the same just help you give to all who are wronged.

The illustrious Rufinus, the well-tried servant of your high eminence, when he brought to our meanness your revered and pious letter, which summoned us to the city of the men of Heraclea, was unable to receive our mean answer, because he was detained by a disease of the eyes; which answer was a short time ago brought to your glory by the resplendent Leontius, who is also one of your slaves. But, now that he is about to go up to the royal city, in payment of my debt I greet your highness. And I report and announce to you that the God-loving bishops residing in this city thought it a right thing to warn those who were bishops in Second Syria, of Epiphania I mean and of Arethusa and of Rhaphania, by a letter of summons, and summon them to them, in order that they might be detached from the disorderliness of those who are heads of the monasteries in those parts, and have unreasonably broken away from communion with us, and that they might either convince the others or be willing to yield to what is right. And some of those who rejoice in schisms and divisions, p. 82. ^ Mansi ii. 672. and have often conspired and plotted against my mean self also, and do not escape the knowledge of anyone, though they themselves desire to do so, persuaded them not only to pay no attention to their summonses, but even to compose an insulting and unlawful document against the holy synod of God-loving bishops, a document that contains blasphemous ex- pressions against God and against the dress of the priesthood. These things the afore-mentioned saintly bishops discussed with the sacred and venerable book of the gospels laid before them, as well as the other sins committed by them at different times, and they found them to be madly excited (?) against the holy canons and church discipline and against our pious kine, as the transactions in their case in fact show; and they laid them under sentence of deprivation: knowing clearly that, if such offences were to be left without reproof, the ordinances of the Spirit would be trampled upon, and any man who is a hearer would rise in opposition to those to whose lot it has fallen to be heads of churches: and, as in the case censured by the divine Paul, disorder would prevail, and the foot would say, " Because I am not the hand I am not of the body," and the ear, " Because I am not the eye I am not of the body,"^ and each of the limbs would renounce its proper place. For there is a canon which says thus; " Bishops who are summoned to a synod should not treat the summons with contempt, ^ I Co. xii. 15, 16. but should go and teach or be taught for the purpose of reforming the church and the rest. But, if they treat it with contempt, such a man will be bringing an accusation against himself, unless perhaps he stay away on account of illness." ^ But these gentle persons under consideration not only set this statute at naught, but also insulted with unlawful expressions the God- loving bishops who are assembled in the great city of Antiochus which after God is yours. They thought fit to call them " no bishops at all," and in unmeasured arrogance they uttered yet other fatuous words which I shrink even from taking upon my tongue. It rests therefore with your excellency not by negligence to allow us to be trampled upon by such men, and be calumniated by men who are seeking their own interests, but to report the truth to the pious Christ- loving ears of our pious king, and extend to us sinners, who pray for your salvation, the just help that you extend to all who suffer wrong