Letter 56: Severus grants Froclus' weakness but calls him back to courage and Pauline teaching.

Severus tells Froclus that what he wrote to the two bishops in common should have been enough to show his opinion. Because he has frankness with them, he expected Froclus, trained from youth in works of piety and tested by many storms, to be able to advise others in what is right. Yet Severus also recognizes the weakness of human nature. Choice can become evil in adverse times and can overthrow even wise people. He therefore grants forgiveness for common weakness and tries to answer the thoughts that may trouble Froclus. Froclus might think Severus speaks too easily because he is outside worldly affairs, free from family ties, and does not know the pull of marriage and children. Severus rejects that imagined objection by turning to Paul. The apostle knew both commandment and concession, and his teaching about marriage and continence must govern ascetic advice. The letter is an exercise in sympathetic correction. Severus does not pretend that hard choices are simple, especially when family and public danger are involved. But sympathy does not erase the need for direction. He calls Froclus back to courage, to the teaching of Paul, and to the possibility that God can make possible what seems impossible to human beings. Brooks notes that part of the source assignment is doubtful, so the letter is preserved with that caution rather than treated as a perfectly secure unit. The power of the letter lies in its refusal to caricature fear. Severus can imagine the objection before Froclus states it: the advisor in exile may seem detached from household burdens. By naming that suspicion, Severus makes his counsel more credible. He is not dismissing the weight of family, marriage, and children. He is asking Froclus to let apostolic teaching govern those attachments rather than letting attachment decide the whole question.

The words that I wrote to the two of you in common^ were enough to show '^ your love of God my opinion, since you thought me at all competent to give advice. For my part, since " I have boldness of speech towards you," as Peiul says to the Corinthians,^ I thought that, inasmuch as you have been brought up from the earliest times in w^orks of piety, and have stood with us from the beginning, and borne the assaults of many waves, that you are competent to give advice and direction to others also in what is right. However choice is an evil thing, evil indeed, and may involve even wise men in ruin in adverse times, for, " they were confounded and staggered like a drunken man, and all their wisdom was swallowed up,"* says he that sings figuratively and instructively. Wherefore I myself also recognise our nature's feebleness, and, inasmuch as I am subject to the same weaknesses, I grant you forgiveness for having 1 V. 13. - Whether the following to 70, 1. 4, belongs to this letter is doubt- ful: see vol. i., Intr. Co. vii. 4. "* Ps, cvi. 27. shown a common weakness and being in need of en- couragement. Perhaps also some thoughts are spring- ing up in your heart, which put such ideas as these into you and say, "This man, because he has nothing to do with the affairs of the world, and is not assailed 1^6. \^y trouble of this sort, and does not know what kind of thing is the tie of nature that arises from the marriage connexion and the birth of children, will give you impassioned advice from beyond the boundaries, and will speak as from some exalted height with those that creep upon the earth." Therefore in answer to these things also we must use introductory words and say what is the truth. Paul the wise man and chosen vessel, who had Christ so firmly established in him that in orivinor ecclesiastical commandments he would sometimes appeal to the laws of Christ, and draw his admonitions from them, and at another put forward his own thoughts in place of a law and say, '* I have no commandment of the Lord; but I give counsel; inasmuch as I have obtained mercy of the Lord to be a believer,"^ when appointing bishops, did not take men from the trainino -school of the solitarv life and set them over the churches, nor men of philosophic habits, free from wives, and without children, but he said, " The bishop ought to be the husband of one wife," and, "one that ruleth his house well and hath his children in subjection with all gravity "; '^ and he was not assured as regards these ties of nature, the ties of ^ I Co. vii. 25. - I Ti. iii. 2, 4. J. 56. children I mean and of a wife, that they would corrupt the character of a shepherd in times of stress. But, as to what the character of a shepherd is, hear the shepherd Himself crying and saying, "The good shep- herd layeth down his life for his sheep." ^ If therefore we have been called by Him to so great a height of p- i^7. spiritual authority, it is absolutely necessary that we should rise to the same height, and that we should "mindhio'h thingfs " and "seek the thinos which are above, where Christ is, sitting on the right hand of God ": so that, when He " is revealed," then we " also may be revealed with Him in glory,'"" and share with Him in splendour. But, that you may not think to yourself that you alone among bishops have had a wife and children, and are required to "resist sin even to blood," as it is written,^ and to distinguish yourself in combats on behalf of piety, the words of the apostolic legislation that have just been quoted, words that have a general application to every bishop, would in them- selves have been sufficient answer to such a fancy: but I will quote to you from actual experience also an example worthy of consideration, which shows that in times of martyrdom the women also who were joined in marriage to those who held the rank of the episcopate contested and strove in the same contests. Here it is. Diony- sius, who was bishop of the great Christ-loving city of the Alexandrines, in an epistle to Flavian * bishop of ^ John X. II. - Col. iii. i, 2, 4. •^ He. xii. 4 ■* Fabius is meant. - Antioch, in which he describes the combats of those who were martyred in the neighbourhood of Alexander's city in the days of Decius, after describing the other events introduces this statement also: ^ S. in sin. and utterly refuses to turn her eyes upwards while there is time. For for you, who bear with patience that which has happened in this matter also, a worthy reward will surely be reserved, although you did not treat her case with circumspection at the begin- ning. But, if you both exert yourself and bring her back from the error in which she is involved to repent- ance and recoo^nition of the truth, then vou will in truth be doubly a father to her, insomuch as to be able to say, " Behold I I and the children whom God has given me." - For you must do all these things to the best of your power, in order that you may not have your con- science accusino- you, as if vou ouoht to have done something and had neglected it. You know well from the sacred writings what Eli suffered, because, though he spoke reprovingly to his sons and chid their folly in the unhallowed deeds which they committed, yet he did not deal with them as a ruler. But the Lord will, I know well, grant your sanctity understanding, so that with fatherly admonitions you may mingle such cen- sures as are likely to produce conversion and are suited to a ruler, and that you may take the sheep upon your shoulders, and present it to the chief shepherd Christ, ' Eus. H.E. vi. 41. 2 Is viii 18. and reckon it among- those that are saved. For indeed He alone is able by His almighty power and His grace to make things possible that with men are impossible.