which passes all plausibility? Who are the bishops who confirmed for him the ordination that was per- formed by one as he says? or where are those who made x\\^ psephisma about him? It is known to every- one that the apostles made all their enactments through the Holy Spirit, and saw the future like the present through the illumination of the heavenly light from above. Therefore it seems that Isaiahs ordination escaped the notice of Simon the Cananaean, and the fact that it alone was to be devoid of bishops to make a psephisma about him, and to confirm that which was lame and imperfect This is an absurdity, and a piece of silly trifling: nay rather it is a fit subject for sorrow, and fraught with tears. For how will even the spirits of the saints refrain from sighing when they see the high priesthood, which is awful even in the sight of the heavenly powers themselves, turned into a mockery? For of such a kind are the mysteries to which we summon, which, as Peter the chosen one of the apostles wrote, even '*the angels desire to look into."^ What need is there of many words, when the very devices of Isaiah the stony man, who has taken to him all the madness of Satan, show the demon-like nature of the act? He has indeed refuted his impiety which he falsely reported of himself by means of another p. 240. impiety, adding iniquity to his iniquity according to the saying of the Psalmist in the Psalms.^ For he did not even stay his presumptuous and unholy hand at
1 I Pe. i. 12. ■' Ps. Ixviii. 28/
II. 3- SELECT LETTERS OF THE HOLY SEVERUS. 215
the name of deacons and of presbyters, but he assigns bishops also and archbishops to peoples and to cities, after the manner of the giants of the fable who sprang from the earth. And **let so-and-so," he says, **be archbishop of Egypt: and so-and-so of Pamphylia: and another of Palestine ": and, since he lacks instru- ments for such madness, I have learned that he even collects men for himself from the crossroads, some blind men some lepers, some men with other bodily afflictions or suffering from disease. When I say this, I do not put forward the infirmities of the body as something shameful (the one real sickness and disease is the sin of the soul and falling away on our part from God), but I am desirous of showing the folly of the lunatic, how he is eager to lay his unholy and all- presumptuous hand even upon irrational things, if one may so speak, if the fatuity of men fail him. The holy Basil also in his letters mentions such roving pseudo-bishops as having been foolishly in- stituted by the foolish Apollinaris, writing thus: *Ms not the great mystery of religion made a laughing- stock, in that bishops are going about without p. 241. people and clergy, carrying about the bare name only, and doing no such right action as tends to the extension of the gospel of our salvation?"^; so the spirit of error, which uttered much nonsense in Apol- linaris and in the heretics who resemble him, but was deaf and dumb, as the Gospel says,^ was in Isaiah
^ Ep. 265. 2. 2 M]j ix. 25.
216 SELECT LETTERS OF THE HOLY SEVERUS. II. J.
and knew how to do uncanonical acts. Many other things might be said to refute the illegal fraud and this irrational madness. But, since the greatness of the unseemly and unstable abomination reaches to absurd- ity, it is a very superfluous thing to extend the dis- cussion unnecessarily. What synod of saintly orthodox bishops has accepted this? Who has not closed his ears and refused to endure even so much as the bare mention of this unlawful report? In what other country did not the gentle Isaiah deceive, or to what place did he not betake himself, as we may hear those that know relate? Did he not move his erring steps to Egypt seeing that he has no stability, but as Jeremiah the prophet says loved to move his feet ^? did he not p. 242. betake himself to Pamphylia, boasting and lying and saying that he was called to this illegal episcopate by Leontius the saintly old hermit, who practised the philosophic life in the wilderness? for on the contrary he was actually anathematized by him by word of mouth, as all who dwell in that country testify. Did he not also come to the great Christ- loving city of Alexander, having been driven to it, like some ship without a helmsman, by the stormy waves of error; and, after he had been rejected by all, form the plan, as he in fact said, of confirming the fiction regarding him by supposed signs, and setting himself to imitate Christ, and fast forty days continuously, in order to raise a dead boy who lay like meat that has been dried
^ Jer. xiv. 10.
II. 3. SELECT LETTERS OF THE HOLY SEVERUS. 217
and thrown into an earthenware vessel; but, when the greater part of the forty days had passed, he was sorely tried by the lack of food, which was broken by bread taken by stealth, though he hypocritically pretended not to have tasted anything; while the dead boy's father was beginning to mourn and weep at having been disappointed of his hope, and was crying aloud and wailing bitterly and after the manner of a rustic (he was a gardener); but the body having become putrid filled the house with noisome corruption and a deadly smell, so that the pretended bishop, simulated p- ^43. faster, and false miracle-worker was in danger of being delivered to the fire, seeing that his hateful conduct had been exposed, if it had not been that he hid him- self and escaped from the hands of those who sought to inflict a just vengeance upon him for the drunkenness of his mind? Is inquiry therefore needed in the case of such men, who from the declaration ^ of our Saviour himself have the confutation which plainly says of false shepherds like them, ** By their fruits ye shall know them " ^? If ** the less is blessed by the greater,'' * as the wise Paul says, let us examine as a proposition who it was who gave Isaiah the fictitious ordination. Was it one who has the right of ordaining bishops and, being a metropolitan, knows also the prayer for the appointment of high-priests? or, if as a concession we grant this point also, how does a bishop of a metropolis give a man who is ordained by him authority to institute
* a7ro<^(rt9. ^ Mt. vii. t6 ' He. vii. 7.
218 SELECT LETTERS OF THE HOLY SEVERUS. II. 3.
archbishops among peoples and cities; as in fables and dreams? If, as he says, bishop Epiphanius of saintly memory * was actually drawing his last breath and giv- ing up the ghost, a man who was not bishop of a
p. 244. metropolis, but of one of the cities under a metropolis, and gave him the hand of ordination at the moment of death, and never finished the ordination such as it was, what are we to say of such a prayer? and how is it not a matter for tears, if Paul in speaking to the Corinthians about all prayer says, ** I will pray with my spirit, I will pray also with my understanding,*' ^ while Isaiah's institutor uttered the prayer which is, if one may so say, higher and more solemn than all prayers, I mean that which institutes high-priests, with faltering tongue and indistinct and feeble voice, when he had not even ordinary intelligent consciousness, and heard it repeated from a book like a small boy who goes to school, and each word ^ was pronounced and lisped to him by those standing round him, since they elaborate this also as part and parcel of the snare and fraud? All the details of this elaborate play and of the case * show weakness and lack of substance, but set the saintly bishop Epi- phanius free from calumny, who departed blamelessly to the Lord, and, when he stands before the judgment- seat that does not respect persons on the last day, will have no knowledge of what the prayer of the ordination
p. 245. of a bishop is, and by the sentence of the just Judge will send those who calumniate him to the fire that is
1 Cf. vit. Sev. p. 26 1. 37. 2 I Co. xiv. 15.
3 Xc'^cts. ^ wro^€o-t5.
IL 3. SELECT LETTERS OF THE HOLY SEVERUS. 219
not quenched, and the wicked Isaiah to the outer dark- ness, with those that are ** clad in strange apparel," as one of the prophets said.^ Why should one repeat the whole story? It has been told me that he has reached such a height of madness as even to entitle himself ** high-priest of high-priests," and even ** apostle" also, and thereby to show everyone that he has received the evil spirit of Montanus and of Mani. For in fact those also named themselves apostles, and presumed to exalt themselves to the title of Paraclete which cannot be shared by any creature, and fitly belongs to Christ only and to the Holy Spirit; imitating Satan the chief of the rebel host, who in ancient times said, *' I will exalt myself to heaven, and above the stars of heaven will I set my throne," ^ and is also expected through Anti- christ, as Paul the speaker of divine things foretold, ** to sit in the temple of God and make it appear con- cerning himself that he is God." ^ And yet, after those stupid unlearned advocates of the error have gone through all these things which show the artificial nature of the fiction, they presume, I hear, to cite, as if the imaginary ordination of Isaiah were valid, the action that was taken in the case of Gregory the Miracle- worker, I mean how Phaedimus who ordained this man p- 246. hunted him by the power of prayer when he was flee- ing from the burden of the bishopric, and when absent and at a distance uttered a prayer, so that even when absent he was involved in the chains of prayer, and
^ Zeph. i. 8. 2 Is. xiv. 13, 14. ^2 Th. ii. 4.
220 SELECT LETTERS OF THE HOLY SEVERUS. II. 3.
was caught in the nets of the Spirit from which there is no escape, and hastened to him who was lawfully pursuing him, and thus underwent and received all the legal requirements of ordination, and did not stop at the prayer made at a distance, as is thought by the men who are bereft of intelligence and do not under- stand what they read. A witness of this is Gregory, who wrote his history, the brother in blood and in the Spirit and in the office of the high-priesthood of the great Basil, and bishop of Nyssa, who wrote as follows: ** For this reason Phaedimus having been by some specially divine impulse roused to the task before him, paying no regard to the intervening space by which he was separated from Gregory (seeing he was three days' journey distant from him), but, looking to God and saying that he himself was seen by God at that hour in the same way as he was, in place of a hand applies the spoken word to Gregory, dedicating to God a man who was absent in body, and allotting p-247. him to a city which down to those times had, it so happened, been held in the error of idols, so that, while those who dwelt in the city itself and in its neighbourhood were without number, there were not found more than seventeen who had received the word of faith. Having thus therefore received the yoke by force, and all the legal requirements having afterwards been performed over him, and having asked the man who proclaimed the priesthood over him for a short time to reflect upon the exact character of the mystery, he no longer thought it right for him, as the Aposrie
11. 3. SELECT LETTERS OF THE HOLY SEVERUS. 221
said, to * attend to blood and flesh/ but asked God that a revelation of the secrets might be made to him/' ^ You see he has clearly shown that the prayer made at a distance only stopped his course of flight, but all the legal requirements were performed over him after he had hastened to him who consecrated him, and nothing whatever was lacking. At the same time it has certainly been admitted that, since Phaedimus was head of the ■ metropolis of the men of Amasia, that he had his bishops close by him, and with them pursued Gregory. For, when he pursued, he pursued promptly: so that, when he had caught the quarry, he immediately performed the ordination. Accord- ingly he had the bishops standing round him, and taking part with him in the prayer also that was made over the divine Gregory at a distance. But it seems p- ^48. ridiculous for us to pass beyond the proper limits in considering the silly arguments of those deceivers, and to go on to refute arguments that are feeble and have no substance, which some intelligent and devout hermits repeated to me in Egypt as having been invented by one of Isaiahs deceivers. To these I also said, ** The saintly bishop Epiphanius we ourselves committed to the grave in our monastery* in Palestine: and of these follies and futilities we have a clear written refutation. For indeed at the very end of his life he made a will,^ in which he appointed count Eusebius the Alexandrine of magnificent
1 P.G. xlvi. 909. ^ C/:vit Sev. p. 26. » StaS'JKTf.
222 SELECT LETTERS OF THE HOLY SEVERUS. II. 3.
memory, who was called * Eleonos,' ^ who was living at that time his heir, because he knew that the man had spent all his property on the poor, ordering that what was left by him also should be distributed to the needy in an exactly similar manner: and Isaiah was to have charge of the distribution of it, who was then educating the sons of the magnificent Eusebius, who were being brought up in the monastic fashion. And the man who made these provisions at the actual very gate of departure from the world named Isaiah 'presbyter,' thereby leaving a written confutation ot the dead calumny. For, if he had had the intention p- 249- of ordaining him bishop after the will,^ he would not yesterday have named a man in writing * presbyter,' whom to-morrow he was going to make an unrecorded and unnamed bishop. This is manifestly foolishness. But let the reproof be turned against the head of those who invented the fraud." They, having heard these things and been delighted at what was said, said to me, ** One of us was invited by Isaiah through a certain intermediary to become archbishop of Egypt. However all we Egyptians made answer with one consent, *We for our part do not inquire into this foolish tale of Isaiah's ordination: but we hold to the canon of the holy and great synod of the three hundred and eighteen fathers, knowing an ordination that is performed by one bishop to be void and illegal.' " To this I made answer and said: ** Let
^ /.tf. 6 *EA.€a>vos (gen.). ^ Sta^ioy.
II. 3- SELECT LETTERS OF THE HOLY SEVERUS. 223
your devoutnesses know that at a later time also, when Paulinus, being patriarch of the city of the Antiochenes, himself alone at the end of his life ordained Evagrius and appointed him his successor, while the orthodox bishops in the East lawfully ordained Flavian arch- bishop of the same Antioch, a synod was assembled to deal with this case ^: in the West in the city of p- 250- Capua: and in the East at Caesarea in Palestine: because Siricius, who was then archbishop of Rome, had decided that after the discussion at Capua the task of making a more careful investigation of the actual facts of the case^ should be transferred to the East, Theophilus, the archbishop of the great city of the Alexandrines, having been invited to preside over those who were assembled: who owing to the overthrow of the heathen temples and of the images in Alexander s city had his time occupied and failed to join in assembly with them. And then the synod of saintly bishops which was assembled at Caesarea in Palestine reported its decree to the God- loving kings of pious memory, Theodosius, Arcadius, and Honorius, and made it known to them in these words: * For we have read the letter of our reverend brothers to our reverend brother and bishop^ Theophilus, and that which was written to ourselves the bishops of the East by the bishops at Capua, and that of the religious Siricius the bishop p. 251. of Rome, to the effect that before all things we must
^ vrroOea-Ls. * The Greek must have been <rvven-L(rK07rov,
224 SELECT LETTERS OF THE HOLY SEVERUS. II. 3.
look to this point, i.e. not to disturb the canon of Nicaea which clearly lays down that it is not per- missible for the ordination of a bishop to be performed by one only.^ There was further inserted in the letter of the religious bishop Siricius a decision also upon the hearing that was to be held: in which was inserted the statement ** there must be one bishop of Antioch, he who has been legally and ecclesiastically appointed according to the canon of the Synod of Nicaea "; and which clearly decreed that an ordination performed by one is illegal and not to be accepted. With joy there- fore we have received the accurate teaching of bishop Siricius concerning the church canons, and, following this letter, we have decreed that these things be ratified: in that we have given legal and just votes, to the effect that we know one bishop of Antioch only the religious lord Flavian the bishop.' " ^ After I had given vent to these words, the devout old men and p. 252. Egyptian monks to whom I was speaking added that the advocate of Isaiah s deception who promised them the archbishopric of Egypt used to say that the holy Timothy also, the archbishop of the city of the Alex- andrines, was ordained by two bishops only, not by three according to the canon. And it has been shown clearly that Peter also the bishop, he of saintly memory, the apostolic man, who came from Iberia, our father, was present there, and held the gospel over Timothy s sacred head, and made up the number of*
1 Mansi ii. 669. 2 See Journ. of Theol. St. iii. 433.
II. 3- SELECT LETTERS OF THE HOLY SEVERUS. 226
three bishops: he having been brought by force to the church by the orthodox people, and dragged from the very bed on which he was still lying as being an old and infirm man. But, while he was being carried along by violence, he in an ineffable manner heard a voice from heaven commanding him not to flee from the sacred service.^ Whence also he gladly and with much assurance 2 assisted in the ordination. After- wards, when the institution had been thus legally completed, the whole synod of the God-loving bishops of the Egyptian administrative district after these things acknowledged and considered the saintly Timothy as archbishop: and again, when he was returning after exile to Alexanders city, all the p-^SS bishops of the other districts made union with him through the Encyclical letter and proclaimed him archbishop. How then do those presumptuous and unlearned men presume to compare with those legitimate bishops the illegitimate Isaiah, who was not even carried in the womb at all or conceived like the abortive and imperfect offspring of mothers who bring forth abortions, but by the fact of wishing it only created himself bishop for those silly men? These things I have written not because I wish to upset a thing that is tottering on all sides and contains feebleness in itself, but because I desire none of the statements made about him and discussed in' my presence in Egypt to be unknown to your diligences:
^ Cf, Zach. Rh. iv. i. ^ 7r\rfpo<t}opia,
IS
226 SELECT LETTERS OF THE HOLY SEVERUS. II. 3
since this other futility also was, as I heard, being ad- vanced by that deceiver: ** Some men, you know, in the churches buy ordinations for gold contrary to the canons. Therefore*' (he says) "it is in no way beyond the limits of what is proper for me too to become a bishop contrary to strict canonical rule ": and the wretched man is not ashamed of daring to confirm his illegal fiction by a similar illegality. Who when taken in adultery says, ** I am not an adulterer because so-and-so p-254. also is a murderer," and, ** I have not offended against the laws because that man also is an offender "? In the next place, in which of the churches of the orthodox, fellow, is it openly put forward as a law that it is right for some men to be ordained for gold, as you make the fictitious and illegal episcopate into a law, and call sin righteousness? If a man tramples in secret on church ordinances, he will give account to the just Judge, but he will not inflict any stain on the appearance of the holy churches, which is confident in its enjoyment of freedom from blame and reproof in all things. I forbear to say that he even presumed to circulate a fictitious letter as having been written by me, which makes a show of finding fault with the fraud concerning him, and gains the plausibility thence derived, but admits that the mockery of the spurious and pretended epis- copate was carried to completion. Isaiah therefore, who has been on all points rejected as illegitimate and unhallowed, and has been cast out as a stinking abom- ination, is trying to force himself into your distinguished believing metropolis, though there also (speaking under
II. 3. SELECT LETTERS OF THE HOLY SEVERUS. 227
God s permission) he will not find an entrance. For p- 255- the proof of your faith and loyalty has even by actual experience been disseminated among all men: and we know well and are confident that you are gloriously minded in the Lord, all you who belong to the revered clergy, who have respected the orthodox faith, and all you magnificent and distinguished ktetores, who hold the first place, and all you who fill up the body of the church, and cleave to the sound faith. But I have thought it right and seemly for me and a deed consonant with the ordinances of the Spirit not to commit to silence that which has just come into my thoughts, but to testify beforehand to the delusion of error and mark it before- hand and point it out beforehand, lest, when the divine wrath comes upon those who are led to act in violation of the divine laws, and have become the prey of the devil, I find myself under condemnation for those men's blood. For He that speaks through Ezekiel says, '* And thou man, I have given thee as a watchman to them of the house of Israel, and thou shalt hear a word from my mouth. When I shall say to the sinner, *Thou shalt surely die,* and thou speak not that the impious man may refrain from his way, the wicked man shall die in his wickedness, but his blood will I require at thine hand. But, if for thy part thou forewarn the impious man concerning his way that he may turn from it and he turn not from his way, he shall die in his impiety, and thou shalt deliver thy soul." ^ In the same p. 256.
^ Eze. iii. 17-19.
228 SELECT LETTERS OF THE HOLY SEVERUS. II. 3.
way as Isaiah Gregory also has been convicted, as I have learned, in the great city of Alexander. For he too has been detected, and his guile exposed in the minutes^ of the records.^ Therefore, learning these things as you do through this mean letter of mine, if anyone presumes to name Gregory or Isaiah a bishop, or shall reckon as valid the profane ordinations per- formed by them, and does not reject even the very mention of them as being altogether abominable and unlawful, such a man shall be anathema, and shall be found an alien to the glory and communion of the Father and. of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, both in this world, and in the world that is to come. If anyone, despising our exile and the persecution by which we are persecuted for the sake of the orthodox faith, shall reckon the things written as nothing, he shall give account to Him who said to the holy apostles and disciples, " But when they persecute you in this city flee to the other '';^ and again, ** He that scorneth me and receiveth not my words hath one that judgeth him; the word that I have spoken it shall judge him in the last day";* and again, ** If they have persecuted me they will also persecute you "; ^ and all the expres- P-257. sions that are like and similar to these. For, when men have such an unlawful and unholy disposition, and reduce the great mystery of religion to an absurdity, the sacred scripture commands us not even to give
^ Trpo^iS. * VTrofiVT^fmra, ^ Mt. X. 23.
* John xii. 48. ^ John xv. 20.
II. 3. SELECT LETTERS OF THE HOLY SEVERUS. 229
them greeting, and not to receive these men in the house or take them under our roof, nor to have any dealings at all with them. " If any man," it says, ** Cometh unto you, and bringeth not this teaching, receive him not in the house, and say not to him ' Hail! ': For he that saith to him * Hail! ', is partaker of his evil deeds." ^ And again Paul the Apostle, ** But I beseech you, my brethren, to mark them which cause the divisions and offences contrary to the teaching which we have learned, and avoid them. For such men minister not to our Lord Jesus Christ, but to their belly. And by mild words and blessings they deceive the hearts of the simple.*' If you observe these things, the words also that the same sacred Paul added to these will assuredly be fit to address to you in praise and approbation: and we will truly say, ** For your obedience has reached the ears of all men. I rejoice therefore over you."^ For with this it is well to con- clude what we have to say. The end.
^ 2 J. lo, II. ^ Ro. xvi. 17-19.
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