RELIGIOUS ENCYCLOPEDIA
Seventh-Day Adventists Severus
Klagenfurt); while churches existed not only at Lauriacum, but at Salzburg, Astura (near Klosterneuburg), Comagena (near Tulln), Cucullse (Kuchel), Quintana (Plattling or Kiinzing), Boiodurum (Boitro), and Passau. The clergy were numerous, and the bishops were chosen by the people. Monasteries, on the other hand, do not seem to have existed before the coming of Severinus.
While Christianity was thus flourishing, political conditions were in an evil way. The power of the Huns was indeed broken, but the German tribes were steadily pressing the Romans back — the Alemanni from the west, the Thuringians and Rugians from the north, and the Goths from the east, the latter as formidable to the other Germanic tribes as to the Romans. Under such conditions Severinus labored, without the prestige of ecclesiastical or official position, solely through the power of his personality. Foreseeing that the Romans could not continue to hold the country, he begged that his body might rest in Italian soil. Accordingly, when Odoacer, in 488, drove the Roman power from Noricum, the body of the saint was interred first at Monte Feltri, near Naples, whence it was removed, four years later, to the monastery of Lucullanum, near the same city, which had been established for the exiled monks. (A. Hauck:.)
Bibliography: The principal source, the Vita by Eugippius, ut sup., is also to be found, with commentary, in ASB, Jan., i. 483-499. For MSS. and other editions cf. Potthast, Wegweiser, pp. 1572-73. The Translatio is in MGH, Script, rer. Langob., i (1878), 452-459, and ASB, Jan., i. 1098-1103. Consult further: J. Freiherr von Hormayr, Wiens Geschichte und seine Denkwurdigkeiten, i. 56-78, Vienna, 1823; J. L. Reitmayr, Der heilige Severin der Einsiedler, Regensburg, 1829; J. G. Waitzmann, Lebensgeschichte des heiligen Severin, Augsburg, 1834; J. F. von Patruban, Lichter und Schatten, pp. 1-15, Vienna, 1852; R. Pallmann, Geschichte der V olkerwanderung, ii. 393-413, Weimar, 1864; J. Leitner, Leben und Wirken des heiligen Severin, Passau, 1868; J. Jung, R timer und Romanen in den Donauldndern, Innsbruck, 1877; idem, Die romanischen Landschaften des rvmischen Reichs, ib. 1881; G. Kaufmann, Deutsche Geschichte, ii. 23-27, Leipsic, 1881; A. D. Sembera, Wien der Wohnsitz und Sterbeort des heiligen Severin, Vienna, 1882; A. Ebert, Allgemeine Geschichte der Literatur des Mittelalters, i. 452-454, Leipsic, 1889; C. A. Bernoulli, Die Heiligen der Merovinger, pp. 47 sqq., Tubingen, 1900; Wattenbach, DGQ, i (1904), 50 sqq.; A. Baudrillart, Saint Severin, apdtre du Norique (458-482), Paris, 1908; Tillemont, Memoires, xvi. 168-181; Friedrich, KD, i. 358- 383; Hauck, KD, i. 361 sqq.; Rettberg, KD, i. 226-245; DCB, iv. 627-628.
SEVERUS, si-vi'rus: Bishop of Antioch; b. in Sozopolis of Pisidia; d. at Xois, on the Sebennitic arm of the Nile, Egypt, Feb. 8, 538. His grandfather had been bishop in Sozopolis, and took part in the Council of Ephesus (431) which condemned Nestorius. He was sent by his mother, after his father's death, to Alexandria for his education, where he came into connection with a pietistic circle, the Philoponoi, where he met his biographer Zacharias. After a period of diligent study he settled at Berytus Beirut), possibly in the autumn of 486, whither Zacharias followed him a year later to find him weaned away from the study of grammar and rhetoric and practise of law to the study of religion and theology, in which he requested the guidance of the newcomer. He was led to a study of the Church Fathers, particularly of Chrysostom and Cyril, and
their influence and that of Evagrius was strongly felt, while he acquired rapidly a reputation for learning. As a first specimen of his rhetorical studies applied to Christianity he issued a panegyric of the Apostle Paul. Evagrius urged him to be baptized, from which he at first shrank; moreover, Zacharias refused to baptize him there, as he himself would not commune with the clerics of Berytus, being a Monophysite. Severus, however, went to Tripolis, where he was received into the Church, and then returned to Berytus.
This began a new period in his life. His asceticism was extreme, and he passed not only the evenings but part of the nights at prayer in the church. While Severus had declared that he would not be made to become a monk, it needed only a spur to bring this about, which was found in the death of Peter the Iberian. Evagrius urged him to put himself under the guidance of Peter's successor, and himself set the example. After visiting Tripolis, Emesa, and Jerusalem to pray over the subject, he entered the convent of St. Peter. There, however, the asceticism was not sufficiently pronounced for him, and he took up the hermit's life in the desert of Eleutheropolis, where his ascetic practises drew the attention of the abbot (Mamas?) of the monastery of Romanus, who offered him a home there. This he declined, and gave himself to solitude in a cell at Majuma, whither he attracted others, for whom he built a monastery with individual cells, using the remainder of his patrimony. He was made a priest by Epiphanius of Magydum, just then abiding in Palestine. This was the time of the appearance among the Palestinian monks of Nephelius, who had changed from being a heated opponent of the Chalcedonian creed to become its partizan, and was denouncing the monks of Majuma and Gaza, who, as followers of Peter the Iberian, opposed the findings of the synod. These were driven out, Severus became their advocate, and with a large number (200 or 396, according to different authorities) went to Constantinople, where he won his spurs as an ecclesiastical politician. He had part in the events which led to the fall of the Patriarch Macedonius, and his attitude was that of one who seemed to favor in turn this party and now that. He was even mentioned for the patriarchate; but failing in that, he became a friend of Timotheus, who was chosen. But he yielded to the desire to renew his life in the desert, and returned thither, and the monks at Majuma took up undisturbed their old manner of life. While at Constantinople he wrote a Philalethes directed against the "Nestorians," i.e., the Chalcedonians. For the imperial chancellor Zacharias Rhetor he answered a series of dogmatic questions in his Apokriseis pros Eupraxion koubikoularion.
The success of Severus at Constantinople had put new thoughts into his mind; he was the hero of the monks, whose influence upon public affairs was becoming ever greater. Flavian, patriarch of Antioch, was driven out and Severus was designated his successor, Nov. 6, 512, and on Nov. 25 he delivered his first sermon. His inaugural he sent to the other patriarchs; John III. of Alexandria and Timotheus of Constantinople recognized him, Elias of Jerusalem ignored the document. In his own diocese opposi-
Severus Sewall