Ishoyahb to bishop Jacob

[Ishoyahb as metropolitan, letter #5]

Some of the "saints" in our time, when they are often filled with their own justice, often fall into the aberration of folly, and under the guise of humility and fear of God, as has been said, go above the order and ecclesiastical life. They institute for themselves strange manners, which the holy fathers have neither handed over to us, nor the conscience of experts proves.

First of all, while they humble themselves much, they begin from disobedience, which the administration advises helping them to act. And then, while they add a little to their humility, they fall down to insubordination and daring. When also it turns out that ecclesiastical power moves the force of its action against them, in order to reduce them in every way to the advantage of their lives, then do not even Christians appear to be of this kind humble they move those whom they think are far from God. And they also compel us, to whom by divine grace all the orders of our Lord have been commended, as disabled men run after them to all winds, to correct and direct and convert a great variety of their morals by the variety of their knowledge. We should take special care to turn away from their vain hope those who, after changing their positions, think that the power of our Lord's church is to be nullified.

For two of the more notable men, whom I, obeying the opinion of some concerning them, ordered or persuaded or encouraged or warned or asked or solicited, that they engage themselves in the ministry of the Lord, in the name of the direction of the most distinguished places; they grew furious, they kicked against the stings of the priests, and departed afar off. When they thought that the power of their priesthood was less concerned with you than with God, they dwelt, as they say, in places subject to your dominion: let your solicitude therefore show to those who are so, that God is everywhere and that his fugitives should be taken not only by the servants of God in any place, but also by the sea and the whales living therein. Therefore, when your Holiness has heard the names of those who are thus from the bearer of the letter, let them keep them from all countries subject to the power of your administration, and at the same time from sharing in the divine mysteries in any place; so that when they turn to the Lord, they turn themselves to the Lord, become mindful of themselves, escape from the net of Satan, in whom they are taken by his will; all and in us all. When they have come out of the bonds of necessity to the grace and understanding corresponding to their transgression, when I shall see their sincere conversion, I will come before them in giving profits according to the sense of our Lord's teaching, so that each of us, according to his order, may be found through spiritual trade the exacting of his advantage. May the help of the Lord guide us all at all times to what pleases him. Farewell and pray for me.