Letter 8: Severus resists treating priestly ordination as a stipend or trade despite pressure from petitioners.
Severus of Antioch→Timostratus, duke and correspondent of Severus of Antioch|c. 515 AD|Severus of Antioch|From Antioch, Syria|AI-assisted
ordination; church finances; priesthood; poverty; episcopal administration
The letter gives a rare administrative glimpse of debt and poverty in the church of Antioch. Source id I.8; Brooks page 41; source-facing English extracted by body markers from the Archive OCR text; original Syriac source-text backfill remains pending.
Severus tells Timostratus that writing to him should have been a happy duty, almost the repayment of a debt of friendship. Instead the occasion has made him ashamed and sad. Timostratus' recent letter was welcome because it came from him, but its request was painful: it treated ordination as though it could be used to relieve a person's need.
Severus refuses that way of thinking. Paul warns that no one should lay hands hastily on another, because the ordainer becomes responsible for other people's sins. Ordination is not like learning a craft, becoming a smith or carpenter, or receiving an office that brings regular support. A man should pass through the church's orders, be trained for sacred work, and then be admitted to the presbyterate or diaconate only with caution and need. The hand should be drawn to the head of the ordained almost unwillingly, because the act is so grave.
There is also the material problem. The church of Antioch is poor. It has debts, interest, and existing obligations, and Severus cannot add people to the clergy merely to provide them with sustenance. Doing so would harm the church twice: by burdening its resources and by making the priesthood look like a livelihood instead of a ministry. He asks Timostratus to see that the refusal is not personal coldness. It is a necessary defense of the church's order, made harder because such requests now arrive so often and are difficult to satisfy on account of their frequency.
To me it appears something to be prayed for and desirable to communicate with your greatness by letter: and to return the greeting that is owed to you as if it were some necessary debt, and not make this p. 46- the accidental result of causes about which I am even * Cf. Zach. Rh. ix. i (Eng. transl., p. 222 note 2). ashamed to write. Thoucrh I was glad to see vour magnificence's recent episde, it was in sorrow that I ceased the reading of it. For I found the cause or subject ^ of the letter to be grievous when tested by the divine purpose, and difficuh and impossible and ''after the flesh" - to speak in the language of scripture, and one that is sensually judged.^ Whereas the divine apostle, or rather Christ who speaks in him, limits and restricts the gift of ordination under a certain threat, and says, " Lay thine hand suddenly on no man. neither be par- taker of other men's sins; keep thyself in purity," * by many the thing is considered as one of the ordinary trades, that of a smith let us say or a carpenter, or as some office that brings with it the gift of sustenance, and an occasion of dapane or expense and a relief for need; as if it were not permissible for us to acquire the means of life from any other source than this. And the good men do not know that a man must pass through all the degrees of the church, and obtain some kind of previous training for priestly functions, and thus be admitted to ordination as presbyter or as deacon: and this because the thing is a matter of difficulty and rarely to be undertaken in accordance with the pre- viously cited statute which says, " Lay a hand suddenly and yet further enacts, " Keep thyself in purity"; and each of the additions declares the awfulness of the statute, and shows that the hand should in some way 1 vTToQf.cri'i. - 2 Co. i. 17 (?). ^ I Co. ii. 14. ^ I Ti. v. 22, 23. be drawn to the head of those who are ordained under great necessity and unwilHngly. In order to explain the first reason for which ordination is a formidable matter, these few words are enough for us. But I will add also a second reason, which is concerned with material considerations. This is that our holy church is very poor and needy, and that it is so much dis- tressed and laden by the weight of interest, that it is hardly able even to hold up its head, but debts upon debts are added to its account, and interest upon interest is piled up against it. Of this all who live in the great city of Antiochus are witnesses: and I think there are not many even among those beyond its bounds who have not heard of the fact. And never- theless certain persons in the royal city, and others in its neighbourhood, being worried by certain persons. do not cease every day so to speak writing to our meanness and asking for ordinations; and they think that this is not a matter to excite ano-er. And so foolish did this desire make some men, that they even made a show of desiring the dress of the priesthood p- 48. only, and not seeking further to receive sustenance also: and, having once obtained their object, when the time of distribution came, they so to speak held out their hands before all the others: so that not only were those who made a mockery of divine things laughed at for the guile and treachery, but we also who were fraudulently deceived. These things I have been compelled to write to your magnificence, be- cause I suffer in myself, and because I know that my letter is addressed to a Christian, and to one who is cap- able of sympathizing with me and is perhaps also able to hold out a hand to me who am wearied and stupefied like a man who is being strangled by creditors, and am compelled to find sustenance for need without sufficient incomes and revenues, considering the im- moderate extent of a demand that is pious indeed, but still difficult to satisfy on account of its frequency
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Severus tells Timostratus that writing to him should have been a happy duty, almost the repayment of a debt of friendship. Instead the occasion has made him ashamed and sad. Timostratus' recent letter was welcome because it came from him, but its request was painful: it treated ordination as though it could be used to relieve a person's need.
Severus refuses that way of thinking. Paul warns that no one should lay hands hastily on another, because the ordainer becomes responsible for other people's sins. Ordination is not like learning a craft, becoming a smith or carpenter, or receiving an office that brings regular support. A man should pass through the church's orders, be trained for sacred work, and then be admitted to the presbyterate or diaconate only with caution and need. The hand should be drawn to the head of the ordained almost unwillingly, because the act is so grave.
There is also the material problem. The church of Antioch is poor. It has debts, interest, and existing obligations, and Severus cannot add people to the clergy merely to provide them with sustenance. Doing so would harm the church twice: by burdening its resources and by making the priesthood look like a livelihood instead of a ministry. He asks Timostratus to see that the refusal is not personal coldness. It is a necessary defense of the church's order, made harder because such requests now arrive so often and are difficult to satisfy on account of their frequency.
AI-assisted translation - This translation was produced with AI assistance and has not been peer-reviewed. See the 19th-century translation or original Latin/Greek below for scholarly use.
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