Severian

SEVERIANO. - Bishop of Gabala, d. after 408, was one of the principal enemies of John Chrysostom (Socrates, Hist. eccl., VI, 11; Sozomen, Hist. eccl., VIII, 10; Palladius, Dialogus de vita s. Joannis Chrysostomi, passim). Gennadius, De vir. ill., 21, calls him "learned in the divine Scriptures and an admirable declaimer in homilies." As a preacher he went to Constantinople and began the intrigues against John Chrysostom.

Gennadius knows of an Expositio in epistulam ad Galatas by him. In reality, however, S. commented on all the Pauline epistles: many fragments of these commentaries have been preserved in the "catenae" (v. K. Staab, Pauluskommentare der griechischen Kirche, Münster 1933, pp. 213-351). As an exegete he is a representative of the Antiochene school and often approaches his master Diodore (ibid., p. xxxi). His exegetical work existed in two recensions (ibid., p. xxxiii; H. Emonds, Zweite Auflage im Altertum, Leipzig 1941, p. 372). A complete collection of his sermons does not yet exist; many of these are in the tradition falsely attributed to St. John Chrysostom, e.g.: six sermons on the Hexaemeron go under the name of the Saint (PG 56, 429 ff.: many fragments in Cosmas Indicopleustes). 9 Sermons have been preserved in Armenian (ed. Aucher, Venice 1827; homilies 10-15 are not the work of S.), and some of these have been traced among the works of Chrysostom. It would be useless to try to list all the homilies that have been attributed to him with more or less reason, but mention must be made of S.'s importance for Western homiletics, especially for Peter Chrysologus, and perhaps also for Victor of Capua (v. A. Siegmund, Die Überlieferung der griechisch-christlichen Literatur in der lateinischen Kirche, Munich 1939, p. 130 ff.). Moreover Gennadius attests the Latin translation of works of G. (v. P. Courcelle, Les lettres grecques en Occident, Paris 1943, p. 222). S., who because of his attitude toward St. John Chrysostom had remained somewhat in the shadows (Altaner treats him in a paragraph that deals with the adversaries of John Chrysostom), as a result of recent studies has become a person of greater importance. S. was a cultured man, an orthodox theologian and perhaps an ambiguous character.

Erik Peterson