Letter 5: Severus tells Peter that no canon confines laypeople to one city for ordination.

Peter of Apamea has written in anger, both to Severus and to the presbyter Thomas. Severus says he will not judge the heat of the words; he will state his mind as before God. Peter's first charge, he says, is unknown to Scripture, the canons, and church law: no rule confines laypeople permanently to one city or district so that they may receive ordination only from a local bishop willing to give it. If such a charge were valid, many bishops could accuse Severus in similar cases. The deeper issue is episcopal responsibility. Severus does not deny that ordinations should be handled with order, nor does he make light of local churches. But he resists Peter's attempt to turn a new and overly strict claim into a universal law. The church must not invent charges simply because a particular event has irritated a bishop. Divine words must be handled with judgment, and ministries must be fulfilled according to the canons that actually exist. Severus' reply is therefore both defensive and corrective. He will not accept Peter's anger as a standard for law, but neither does he dismiss the seriousness of ordination. A bishop may have real concerns and still frame them badly. Severus asks Peter to distinguish injury, jurisdiction, and canonical principle. The goal is not to win a quarrel but to prevent local resentment from becoming a false rule that would bind the whole church. He also models how a bishop should answer an angry colleague. Severus does not return anger for anger. He slows the question down, places it before God, and asks what rule actually exists. That method matters as much as the result, because episcopal conflict can quickly turn personal annoyance into church policy. Peter must learn to argue from the canons rather than from wounded authority. The letter therefore protects both freedom and order. Laypeople are not property of a city, and bishops cannot invent fences the church has not received. At the same time, ordination remains a fearful act that must not be handled casually. Severus' answer holds those truths together: no false charge, no careless ministry, and no law born from irritation.

When the letters of your love of God came before me, not that only which was written to me, but that also which was written to the religious presbyter Thomas, I thought it right not to judge words which were put forward, as you yourself also say, under a feeling of wrath and anger, but only to declare my mind as if God himself were listening, and to say to Him like Jeremiah, " The things which came forth from my lips are before Thy face." " In the first ^- place you bring a charge against us, which is not known to the canons, nor to the church laws or precepts. For what law of the God-inspired scrip- ture, or precept of the holy fathers, encloses and con- fines the laity in cities and in countries, and prevents these from going to receive ordination from anyone willing to give it? And how is it that this new charge, which has hitherto escaped the notice of many, has found such a strict prosecutor in you alone? It ^ Ec. iii. 2, 3. - Jer. xvii. 16. is time for the God-loving bishop JuHan of the city of the Emesenes also to make the same accusation against us in the case of the devout deacon Irenaeus, because he registers his fathers' house at Emesa. The saintly Dionysius also, who has reached extreme old aoe, and is crowned with honourable white hairs, who is venerable for the length of his life, will perhaps more justly put forth a complaint against us, in the case of the religious deacon Anatolius. For in fact he too was previously thought to be a citizen of the city of the Tarsians. And I am sure that the pur- pose which we had as to the magnificent count Qicumenius is also not unknown to you. Have I therefore up to this day been interfering with all these shepherds of metropolitan sees and causing them annoyance, and been infected with such greed, and been coveting other men's property without it being known? or is it rather, as the truth is, because I have given no handle for a lawful charge against me, nor caused annoyance to anyone soever? As to the devout Leontius, it was not out of need as you think that we raised him to the honour of the presbyters' seat, but because we wished to honour the man. And this is not the first time (I speak with God himself as witness), but long before this was in my mind, even before your love of God was raised to the high-priest- hood. We had in fact made the acquaintance of the man and he was known to us by letters, even while we were practising the philosophic life in Pales- tine. However, I did not even know that the said Leontius himself is amono- those that are in such high esteem with you. Neither had you ever be- stowed upon him such laudatory expressions as you now do in your letter, nor had we ever learned that the stability of the holy church of the Apamenes was shaken by him. However, if the man is of such a character, and is among your friends and coun- sellors as you say, even one letter from your love of God is enouofh to win him over: and if he desires to live in the city of the Apamenes we will in no way prevent him, nor will we detain his devoutness, even though it was thougrht that we needed him for some- thing. But that we should commit the unholy and uncanonical action of driving him out against his will, and turn the honour into a shame, neither you nor any other intelligent man like you will judge to be right. If you wished to raise the man to the priest- hood as you say, the time past would have suited you equally well for this purpose. I consider that the grace of ordination receives no difference in similitude from the fishing-net, which is thrown into the sea of the world or into worldly matter by the Spirit itself: and that it is one, though divided among the nets of many fishers; among whom are Peter and James and John and Andrew, and all who fed the churches after them. All did not catch the same persons, but one caught one, and another another: but the grace of the fisher was one, because the faith also is one, and the church under the whole heaven of those who hold the same things is one. That therefore which was done in the case of the devout Leontius is the action of the Holy Spirit, not of us. For it " bloweth where it Hsteth,"^ as is said by our God and Saviour. If therefore you also catch one of the Antiochenes in your net, we shall find no fault at all with your fishing, but we shall praise the Holy Spirit which distributes to each man individually its own grace, and does everything in an ineffable manner and as it lists. Indeed in this frame of mind we pray that John also, the eloquent scholastic, the son of Matronian of illustrious memory, and the eloquent and Christ-loving i- scholastic Sergius may be enrolled in the order of those who minister to the Lord, and that they may adorn the church and be adorned by it and praise Christ. This I remember to have told your love of God also many times. And it was and is in my mind to raise the eloquent scholastics Peter and Maximin also to the priestly order; and I do not know through what reasons, known as they are to the wisdom that passes understanding, I have not yet been able to carry out what I intended. But for this also I am waiting for sanction from above, and divine inspiration. However I shall not dispute whether they are to be drawn in by my hand or yours: but so far am I from being jealous of you in respect of the fishing, that I will even help you and catch hold of the net with you above. Every matter whatever that is not contrary to the canons surely urges us to give help and to act 1 John iii. 8. in unison with one another. How is it anything but shameful that, while those who hunt birds reckon the air common property, and fishers, as I have said, the sea, we should dispute about things that lie not in our power but in God's? However, not to use many words and interfere with the moderate length of the letter (I think that even what has been written has gone beyond a moderate length), if the devout Leon- tius acquiesce in your wish as you say, we will consent, and will not retain him ao-ainst his will: and this as a concession to you, and in order to show that, in thing's such as these, it is not our endeavour to sub- serve to the best of our power human purposes, but to walk according to the divine laws only. 513-8.