Letter 123: Severus praises Misael's help to the church but tells him that his public role is now a form of ascetic obedience.

Severus writes to Misael the chamberlain with gratitude and pressure in the same breath. Misael has labored for Severus and has helped free the church from a heavy burden caused by Aegilas' hostile schemes. Severus cannot praise him adequately with one mouth and one tongue, but he knows Misael is not seeking earthly applause. His real concern is that Misael's name be written in the book of life through good works, and Severus prays that God will give him that grace in abundance. Precisely because Misael's soul has been struck by divine love, Severus is troubled by his wish to withdraw into the solitary or philosophic life. Misael already lives philosophically: he is chaste, ascetic, and faithful while still engaged in public affairs. He has also been granted not only to believe in Christ but to suffer for Christ, and that suffering is weaving a martyr's crown for him. To retreat now would be like one of the three young men in Babylon fleeing when Nebuchadnezzar set up the golden image. Their glory came because they stood before the furnace and refused worship; if they had withdrawn for private safety, they would have lost the moment God had given them. Severus makes the point sharper. If Misael leaves the struggle against the heretics, Severus' grief will double. He has already suffered the loss of Peter the presbyter; Misael's departure would feel like fall after fall, as Job says. Severus would take it as a sign that God had turned away his face from those who praise him rightly. Nor, he warns, would Misael obtain the desire he seeks, because abandoning public service at such a time would not be according to God's judgment. He supports the counsel with a monastic story. During the Arian crisis, two desert ascetics were asked to help defend the truth because they were capable of the fight. One forced himself to obey the commandment and left his beloved peace. The other stayed in the desert, preferring contemplation, but evil spirits assailed him more violently, and he came to feel stripped of God's help. He woke up, recognized his thoughtlessness, changed his mind, and joined his brother in the contest for the faith. For Severus, the lesson is plain: even the desert can become disobedience when God is calling a person to public help. Scripture points the same way. Obadiah served under Ahab and still hid and fed a hundred prophets against the ruler's will. Joseph's bondage and false accusation also show that holy service can be required inside painful circumstances. Misael knows these stories already, so Severus says he writes only as an admonition. Since Misael does not live for himself but for God, he should say with Christ, "Not as I will, but as you will." To desert Christ when Christ needs help is a grave sin, like a rich man walking past someone hungry, naked, sick, or imprisoned. Christ makes the need of his little ones his own, and Severus prays that none of them will have to experience the judgment attached to neglecting them.

How can I express my admiration of the labours of your magnificence which you display towards my meanness in the way that they deserve, seeing that I have one mouth and one tongue? Still however, since you do not care about praises upon earth, but make it your one and only endeavour that through good works your name may be written in the book of life, I pray as a sinner that this grace may be abundantly bestowed upon you by God the bestower of gifts that are so great. For by your faithful care you have delivered our church that was in a pitiful condition through the hostile contrivances of the illustrious Aegilas from a heavy burden. ^ John X. 16. ~ tlt\o<;. ^ Cf. Land, Anec. Syr. ii. 275. 12, 22, iii. 356. 11. XL But it wounds me deeply that, because your soul has been smitten with divine love, it should conceive the idea of adopting the philosophic and solitary life, though it is living in a philosophic manner and has within that which it seeks as if it were at a distance. By God's grace, while you conduct yourself in so chaste and ascetic a fashion, you have this privilege also that has been bestowed from above, I mean not only to believe on Christ, but also to suffer for His sake,^ and endure distress with Israel when in turmoil; whence also the illustrious crown of martyrdom is being woven for you. By desiring retreat or solitariness at a time so unsuited for it you are doing the same as if one of those three boys, of one of whom you are namesake, when the golden image of Nebuchadnezzar the fighter against God was set forth, and he was required to stand up and confute the error, had fled and withdrawn, thinking to win safety for himself, and not bow his head to the abominable and unlawful object of worship. In that case they would not have obtained such glory with God as that which they gained by undergoing the trial of the furnace, and quenching the fire by their virtue, and gaining God as a witness to their modest and humble mind by saying, " Our God is in heaven whom we serve, one that is able to deliver us from the burning furnace of fire; and if not be it known unto thee, O king, that we do not serve thy gods, and the golden image 1 Ph. i. 29. XI. which thou hast set up we do not worship "; ^ in order that these words might be an instruction and a pattern in piety to all in later times too who should love God. How then can you, when the king is pious, flee from the fight with the heretics, instigated as you are i^- by a God-loving thought, and refusing to endure their blasphemies, and looking at this only, and reckoning our nakedness as nothing? If this is carried into effect, you will now double for me personally the grief that I felt by reason of the departure of Peter the presbyter " who is among the saints, and will throw me " fall after fall," as the great Job somewhere says: ^ and then I shall know clearly from facts themselves that God has utterly abandoned us, and has turned away His face from those that praise Him in the right way: and we will say as is written " to the mountains, ' Fall upon us,' and to the hills, ' Cover us.' " ^ I forbear to say that neither will you obtain that desire, seeing it will not be in accordance with God's judgment that you will be abandoning the life in the world. Further also a story like this has been conveyed to us by those who have grown old in asceticism. In the times of the Arians, two men who lived in the philosophic manner remained in the desert, and in the unsocial life. And, when the word of truth was being attacked, and was being obscured by heretical craftiness of speech, and they were called to give help (for they had in fact qualifications for fighting on behalf of piety), they were > Da. iii. i 7, i8. "- Cf. p. v, and Wright C.B.M. 335. 3 Job xvi. 14. '' Ho. X. 8. XI. disinclined to do so, because they clung to philosophy, and action seemed to them irksome. And the one put constraint upon himself, and showed more respect to the commandment than to the peace that he loved, and hastily set off to take part in the contests, and - obeyed those who called him. But the other remained according to his pleasure in the desert, and the spirits of evil came and assailed him with greater vehemence, and he became possessed of the feeling that he had been stripped of God's grace and help, and was in danger of being devoured by fiends as it were by lions; and he was awakened and reflected upon his thought- lessness, and he changed his mind and immediately followed his brother's good resolution, and took a hand with him in the contests on behalf of the faith. I say nothing of Obadiah who served under Ahab the grievous tyrant, and secretly fed a hundred prophets in a cave, contrary to the pleasure of the holder of power. I also pass over the selling of Joseph, and the bondage to the Egyptian woman and her false charge, and the other stories: since not only have you heard the sacred writings, but you are in fact well-versed in them. Wherefore these things too we have written as a mere admonition only so to speak, by which we urge you, inasmuch as you live not to yourself but to God, immediately to say what has been written and has been handed down by our Lord as a teacher, " Nevertheless not as I will but as thou wilt." ^ ' Mk. It is in truth a great sin for us to desert Christ when He needs help. Such a man acts in the same way as a man who is rich and quickly passes by one who is hungry, and one who is naked or sick, or shut up in prison; for the need of all these Christ makes His own. Wherefore also He bitterly inveighs against the crime and holds it up to reprobation before the theatre ^ of the world or rather before all rational nature, saying, " Inasmuch as ye did it not to one of these little ones, neither did ye it to me.'"" May we all escape having experience of these words!