Letter 90: Severus urges the new leadership of Isaac's monastery to guide repentant sinners with mercy.

Severus writes to the monks of the monastery of Isaac after Samuel's death. Since leadership has passed to another, he urges the community to govern with discernment. People who have fallen and now repent should not be met with severity alone, as if the church had no medicine except punishment. He asks the successor to mix firmness with mercy. The monastic life requires discipline, but discipline exists to heal and restore, not to parade strictness for its own sake. Severus points to the Father, who restrains wrath and tempers judgment with mercy. The monastery should imitate that pattern, receiving repentance seriously and guiding the wounded back into life.

I have been informed that Samuel of saintly and holy memory and presbyter and archimandrite of your holy cloister has departed from the life here, and o-one to God. o And after other things. Only I beg that he will not on the repentance of those who have fallen and wish to come to the orthodox faith put forward the untempered cup of strictness, but besides this will take the cup of merciful discretion, and show the mercy of pity towards those who share our weakness, and are ceived the same " Spirit of adoption," " and will imitate ^ Hence this letter seems to have been written during the banish- ment of the monks, which began according to Jo. Eph. in 521 (Land Anec. Syr ii. 512), according to the so-called Zacharias (viii. 5) in 525, and ended according to both authors in 531. - Ro. viii. 15. the Father in heaven, who does not pour out His wrath according to our sins, but tempers it with mercy