Page 7 - Adiabene letters_Neat

48 ISIIOCYAIJB III ()!• AdIABKNK

God”, I lea mt correctly from an evil cause which occurred a little
before that this sickness of little faith had occurred in the peoples
(living) beyond you and perhaps amongst you as well. I wanted,
just like a learned'1 doctor, to carefully cure the natural cause itself
of the sickness with the power of our Lord’s help, which indeed
was (the same as) now?5 1 mean that neither from the ecclesiastical
tradition nor from the supreme source of life of the priestly power
docs the laying on of hands of priesthood come to you
legitimately-'6 according to ecclesiastical law, but your bishops
confer it upon one another mutually, as do the heretics who arc
outside of the Church, those who apply to themselves the title of
the episcopate, but arc deprived of the power of the name?7 And
for that reason not even a likeness of the power is found among
them, neither in the holy (monastic) way of life's which is an image
of the life after the resurrection nor in the divine working of
miracles, wliich are usually performed by the saints of our Lord for
the healing of the sick and the casting out of evil spirits. For since

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in the evil fashion of the foul heretics, the bishops of Fars3440and
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your own bishops have cut themselves off from the Church of
God, they have rendered the faith of Christians among them
without example of faith, wliich makes itself known by the holy
(monastic) way of life and the working of divine miracles.
But because there was no faith in the Christians of the kind
that it ought to be, in the smallest breath of the southern heat10 it
was pitifully burned up and abandoned for eternal perdition, as
long as no family of Christians41 there offered the customary
sacrifices in the blood of witness’2 to God who is over all;43 and
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35 Uc, 6uUl
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37 CXSuk—
38 lloA-ua, feaoj
39 1 >J°>ciHriAc4
40 Lxicul Jl2>Qa.
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42
43 |oM