Letter 89: Severus tells Simeon that people turning toward orthodox faith need healing guidance, not suspicion.

Severus tells Simeon that his greeting brought real joy. Yet he is troubled by reports that Simeon has answered people turning toward the orthodox faith with a severity unsuited to the moment. When people are moving away from error, a shepherd should not meet them first with suspicion and coldness. Their flock has repudiated impiety and is trying to return. That calls for patience, humility, and careful guidance. Severus does not deny the need for sound confession, but he insists that healing has its own season and tone. Strict words may be true in themselves and still be badly timed. For that reason he tells Simeon plainly that he is astonished and can hardly believe that such a mind is his.

Joyfully I have received the greeting of your love of God, which refreshed me greatly even before reading it because even in its mere superscription only it bore your honoured name. A^id after other things. Since therefore the sacred text says of kings who act in this spiritual mind that "by patience kings prosper,""' it beseems your statesmanship,^ and is very consonant to it, with patience and in very great humility readily to receive those who wish to come to the orthodox faith and share with you in the same struggles, and to go forward to meet them and em- p. 366. brace and welcome them readily, so that the word of truth also may go on in the right way and make progress. It has in fact come to the hearing of our meanness that the flock of Simeon who has the lot of the saints have repudiated the impiety in writing, and have stripped themselves for the same stadium as you,^ and that your sanctity used some strict words that are not suited to the present time: and I am astonished and cannot believe that this mind is yours