In chapter 90 of the Life of Saint Daniel the Stylite, we read:
Through the Devil's working a tumult once arose in the most holy
churches, for tares had sprung up from vain disputations and questionings,
so that some of the monks, who were renowned for good living,
through their simple-mindedness and through their failure to consider
the matter with precision, left the most Holy Church and separated
themselves from the holy fellowship and liturgy.
These mischief-makers
came to the holy man and tried to confound him with similar arguments,
but he who kept the foundation of the holy faith unmovable and
unshakable answered them saying:
"If the question which you raise
is concerning God, your inquiry is no simple or ordinary matter,
for the Divinity is incomprehensible; and it will be sufficient
for you to study the traditions of the holy apostles about Him
and the teaching of the divine Fathers who followed in their steps
and not trouble yourselves any further.
But if the matter in dispute
is about human affairs, as, for instance, if one priest has removed
another, or has accepted one to whom the others object, all such
things must be submitted to the judgment of God and to the rulers
themselves to judge according to the divine canons; for we are
the sheep and they are the shepherds, and they will give account
to God for the flocks entrusted to them; let us abstain from vain
and dangerous questionings and let us each consider that which
concerns ourselves knowing that it is not without danger that
we separate ourselves from our holy mother, the Church. For her
bridegroom is the true Shepherd Who is able to recall to His fold
the sheep that have strayed and to lead those who have not strayed
to better pasture.
Therefore it suffices us to believe unquestioningly
in the Father, Son and Holy Spirit, and to receive the incarnate
dispensation of our Lord Jesus Christ and his birth from the Virgin
in the same way as He Himself was pleased to do in His own loving
kindness, for it is written: 'Seek not out the things that are
too high for thee, neither search the things that are too deep
for thee' (Ecclesiasticus 3:21)."
With this and similar counsel
and warning he led their hearts away from soul-destroying questionings
and kept them unshaken in the faith.
From Three Byzantine Saints: Contemporary
Biographies of St. Daniel the Stylite, St. Theodore of Sykeon
and St. John the Almsgiver, trans. Elizabeth Dawes, and introductions
and notes by Norman H. Baynes, (London: 1948).
