The Life of Severus

...we advised Severus to oppose the discourses of the sophist Libanius, whom he admired equally to the ancient rhetors, with those of Basil and Gregory, those illustrious bishops, and to compare them together. We gave him this advice so that he might reach, by way of the rhetoric that was dear to him, the doctrine and philosophy of those men. When Severus had learned to know these writings, he was entirely won over by them. He was immediately heard praising the letters addressed by Basil to Libanius and those that Libanius wrote in response, in which he admitted to having been defeated by Basil and granted the victory to the letters of the latter.
* fol. 110 v° a.

It resulted from this that Severus plunged from that moment into the reading of the works of the illustrious Basil and [into] meditations, and that Menas, my friend, who was the admiration of everyone for his fervor, declared in a prophecy that events have confirmed (Menas, in fact, loved to do good): "That one (Severus) will shine among the bishops like Saint John, to whom the helm of the holy Church of Constantinople was entrusted." God, who alone knows the future, was thus revealing these things about Severus when he was still a young man, while using even here the intermediary of a pious soul.