Letter 102: Severus tells Victor that love requires sending John back to his monastery rather than indulging disorder.

We are all convinced that love is what holds Christianity together. The mark of love is to regard the neighbor as oneself. For that reason, Victor of Philadelphia, since we have heard a bad report about the devout John, who formerly ministered to the saintly presbyter Aelian, I urge Your Holiness, rich in obedience as well as in other virtues, to send him back to his own monastery so that he may keep quiet. The report is that he has fallen into love of money and the other vices related to filthy gain. He also came to us improperly, self-invited rather than summoned to carry out an order and receive a reward. His bad reputation has reached the holy fathers of the house of John and Theodore. I will not say how, but those who reported it are not liars. I write with the love of Christ filling the letter. Though I am a sinner, I try to do what is good for no other reason than goodness itself. Send him back, and let the matter be healed by order rather than by indulgence.

That the thing which holds Christianity together is love we are all assured. But what is the peculiarity of love except to regard a neighbour as itself.'* There- fore, since we have heard a report that is not good about the devout John, who formerly ministered to the presbyter yElian who is among the saints, to the effect that he has lapsed into love of money and the vileness of filthy lucre, and the other vices that are akin to these (if the text is not false which said that "the love of money is the root of all evil things " ^), we urge your holiness, who besides your other good qualities are rich also in the virtue of obedience, to send this man to his own monastery in order that he may keep quiet: p- 427- especially since he came to us in an improper way and as one may say self-invited, and not by invitation and as one who is carrying out an order so that he might also receive a reward. For I have learned that his evil repute has also reached our holy fathers of the house of the saintly John and Theodore. In what way I do not intend to say: but that those who related these things are not liars, and that they have "the fear of God before their eyes,"^ and that they are greatly devoted to your love of God I know and am assured, and I have gained this knowledge from actual experience. I remember also that the devout John often showed a lucre-loving character in affairs, in the neighbourhood of the holy monasteries where I and your love of God lived, and that he did not edify us much (for we must speak thus moderately). The occasion of this hunting after lucre in him was that old man, and the attend- ance on that invalid, and the disguise thence derived, coloured with Melian earth ^ of this kind. Therefore I beg your holiness to purge away this blot also and reflect that nothing is likely to impair the whole administration of those who preside over a people (not ^ I Ti. vi, 10. 2 pg XXXV. I. 3 A substance used by painters; see Liddell & Scott s.v. MT/Ato?, only spiritual administration but also political or any other kind whatever) so much as intercourse with those entrusted by them with things that cannot be entrusted to those without. For this reason the prophet David, leaving us a rule and a statute for an illustrious life, sang- to the God of all, " When the wicked man turned aside from me I did not know ": and, " Mine eyes are upon the faithful of the land that they may sit with me: and he that walked in a blameless way he ministered to me ": ^ and the passages that agree with and resemble these, words which everyone sings and takes into his mouth, but few, and those such as you, display in act. These things have been written by us with the love of Christ going in advance and filling up the measure of the letter. Though we are sinners, we are in the habit of endeavourinor to do what is good not for the sake of anything else, but for the sake of goodness itself only