The Life of Saint Sophronius, Patriarch of Jerusalem, Collected from Various Sources

I have not refused the labor of collecting everything that was inscribed under his name. A truly pious work, and steeped in the sweetness of religion, which demonstrates the author's soul to be inflamed with heavenly affections. That Sophronius also composed other parts of the ecclesiastical office, is known; and the codex of the Coislin library at Montfaucon, p. 591, informs us of this specifically: 'The beginning of the *Typikon* of the ecclesiastical order of the holy Laura of our holy and God-bearing Father Sabas, composed and written by the most holy Father and hieromonk, the lord Sophronius; this office is held also in the other holy monasteries of Jerusalem.' You have a dogmatic fragment of Sophronius, printed by me in Volume VII of *Script. vet.*, p. 22, and I think it pertains to his Opusculum on the Trinity and the Incarnation, which is believed to survive in some codices. Furthermore, in codex Vat. 483, f. 158, [I read a paraphrase of Sophronius on memory, and recollection, and sleep, and wakefulness, and the divination occurring during sleep.] Finally, in the miscellaneous codex of the Vatican, I read a certain fragment of Sophronius, on the praise of virginity, which I ascribe here: "As for the interval between virginity and temperance, the very designations of the virtues scream it out, as well as the superior place for sons and daughters, which is granted there only to those who have honored the virginity in Christ of the soul and body together, and who have become and are imitators of the immaculate Virgin who bore Him. This indeed the Savior himself, by appearing to all, made manifest, not saying that all are capable of this—I mean the gift of virginity—but only those whom Jesus, as worthy, prepared according to divine foreknowledge."

Regarding the two histories of the SS. Cyrus and John and their interpretations, we have spoken accurately below in the announcement on p. 229; wherefore we must now temper our words. I greatly rejoice and am glad that three Greek sermons of the great Cyril, although they are indeed very brief, have been entrusted to me to publish, preserved for us by the biographer Sophronius, of whom no one had made mention, nor did any edition exist; and these also recur in the Latin text of Anastasius.

...[a] writer of the late eleventh century, whose notice we have exhibited on p. 267. The interpretation of the first and last miracle, which is in cod. Vat. 6075, demonstrates this well. But furthermore, Petrus wrote the history of the aforementioned martyrs with a critical prologue, which is not read without fruit, on his own initiative. For it seems that the cult of the saints, namely Cyrus and John, was already famous in those times in the city of Naples; a cult, that of St. Cyrus, which in our own age the holy Francis de Hieronymo, S.I., most happily revived and restored in that same place, and he performed very many prodigies through his relics, so that the fame of the ancients recorded by Sophronius is confirmed by these recent events: especially because, just as with Sophronius, it seems that Francis was moved to honor the Martyr Cyrus himself by his exhortation or vision (b). Moreover, Petrus is not a nameless biographer; wherefore I saw in the same codex the passions of St. Juliana, the Four Crowned Martyrs, and St. Catherine written by him, of which, however, I gave only the prologues, which recommend themselves by some erudition, and declare the age of the author.

NOTE. (b) See the Life of the same St. Francis by the author Longaro Oddi, lib. II, 4.

THE LIFE OF SAINT SOPHRONIUS, PATRIARCH OF JERUSALEM, COLLECTED FROM VARIOUS SOURCES.

CAPUT I. Common studies with his teacher John Moschus at Alexandria; whence he is called the author of the *Spiritual Meadow*.

1. Sophronius, the sixty-second bishop of the Church of Jerusalem, from the city of Damascus, is asserted by the Greek Menologion of this day to have been born eminent in manifold erudition, in the knowledge of Divine Letters, and in piety: the Menaea agree with this; from which the names of his parents are brought forth, who were Plintas for his father, and Myro for his mother. The Acts of his later life clearly prove that his study of sacred doctrines was immense, and no less was his skill in his studies: the honorable appellation of Sophist, under which name John Moschus inscribes the *Spiritual Meadow* to him, ^A indicates his profession of dialectical precepts and the rhetorical art in his youth, and before he had professed the monastic life: since Sophronius was the disciple and companion of John—[he who is] ^B believed with greatest probability to be [the author of the *Spiritual Meadow* of our holy Father Sophronius, Archbishop of Jerusalem, cited and produced by St. John Damascene, at the end of the book he wrote for the holy images, another century only after the death of Sophronius, the same man living in Palestine.]

2. By what reasoning it is known for certain to be John Moschus, is known both from Photius vol. 199 and the very inscription of the prologue to Sophronius; is it attributed to Sophronius himself by Damascene, and also by the second Nicene synod, held to restore the veneration of sacred images, not long after Damascene had written? For in the 4th action of this [synod], at the suggestion of Eustathius, hegumen of the monastery of Maximos, the monk Stephanus reads from the *Limonarion* of our Father Sophronius, word for word, those things which are contained in the chapter of the *Spiritual Meadow*, as we have said. Alex...

ius Lipomannus, bishop of Verona, through whose study that illustrious work was first brought to Latin print in the Camaldolese version, [ascribes it to Sophronius for these reasons;] ^A either because it is inscribed to him by his very dear companion, just as Cicero’s Rhetoric to Herennius and his letters to Atticus are called books to Herennius and to Atticus: so let this book be called Sophronius’s, because it is directed to Sophronius; and especially from the fact that it was written primarily for his use. For the author himself, in the epistle which he puts before the book, confesses that he has woven a crown for Sophronius from this Meadow and through him afterwards offered it to others.

5. Or because the sayings and deeds of Sophronius himself are for the most part contained in this book: for he was the author's inseparable companion on his entire journey; and whatever occurred to them as they walked together, or happened to be answered to those asking, has been most diligently described. Therefore you will see these words repeated very often: "I and my master the sophist Sophronius came to such and such an abbot," etc. And for this reason he also always uses the plural locution, saying: "We went on, we approached, we saw, the elder, the leader of the monastery, told us." By which it is clear to be seen that the writer was never alone in searching out those things which he narrates. Just as therefore Plato’s *Phaedrus*, *Timaeus*, *Gorgias*, and *Parmenides*, and Tully’s book *On Old Age* (the *Cato Major*), are inscribed after the persons who are introduced there conversing and disputing; what will prevent it from being called Sophronius’s book, when he is asserted to be everywhere in it, walking, visiting, acting, questioning, and answering? Or, finally, it is ascribed to Sophronius for this reason, that since it was composed together with the aforementioned John, he was, so to speak, perhaps the co-author of the same book. Read chapter 77 of this volume and you will find it written at its beginning: "I and my master Sophronius went to the house of the philosopher Stephen for the sake of learning," etc. Then at the end of the same chapter, it is written in this way: "When we heard these things, my master Sophronius signaled to me, and we withdrew, and he said to me: 'Truly, Abba John, let us study nothing further today; for we have been sufficiently edified.' We have therefore written these things, so that you might be equally edified."

4. One of these reasons, or rather all of them coming together, makes it seem that this book is rightly and deservedly inscribed with the name of Sophronius; to which of Lipomannus’s reasons may this also be added, if it pleases: that the book began to be celebrated in the vulgar tongue as a work of Sophronius, which even he himself, having received it as if by testament from his dying master in Rome, where it was finally perfected, had brought into Palestine together with the defunct body, as we shall see a little later. Yet what Aloysius assumes as a second reason—that Sophronius was the author’s individual companion—must be understood as applying to those times after which he joined himself to him in Egypt; [for] ^B it is not credible that all those things which were related in Palestine and Syria were heard by him (although John indicates that companions were present by speaking in the plural), [or] that he always had Sophronius as a companion, who had not yet undertaken the desire for the monastic profession, and is nowhere named in them. The Greek Menaea indeed say that "betaking himself to the monastery of the Great Theodosius, he strengthened his soul there in quiet and silence by the meditation of Divine Scriptures; and furthermore (since he burned with even greater study for learning philosophy) he sailed to Alexandria;” but as things and times were in a state of turmoil, many things are recorded in that eulogy; and what the man did will soon be made clear, [yet] it is attributed to him as a youth, if we wish to understand the Menaea as referring to the monastic habit assumed: for otherwise it is gathered from this beginning of chapter 91 that the youth, avid for knowledge and progress, had not infrequently visited the monasteries near his fatherland, and had become acquainted with that very S. Theodosius, and with John, already famous there at the time, the future author of the *Limonarion*: "Our venerable Father, Abbot Gregory, archimandrite of the monastery of our Holy Father Theodosius, told us, namely me and brother Sophronius the Sophist."

5. As for the fact that he calls him brother, it can be understood no otherwise than by a certain anticipation of that title by which they used each other when these things were being written at Rome: [otherwise] he calls him Lord in chapter 69. "We went on together, therefore, and lord Sophronius, before he renounced the world, to Alexandria to Abbot Palladius." And more explicitly in chapter 77 cited above, and chapter 110: "I took," he says, "my lord Sophronius, and we went on into the monastery, which is distant eighteen thousand paces from Alexandria, to a certain elder of great virtue, an Egyptian by race, and I said to the elder: Tell us a word, Father, how we must live together: for lord Sophronius the Sophist has the desire to renounce the world. The elder said: You do well, my son, renouncing the world and saving your soul; sit therefore in a cell, where you wish, soberly and vigilantly, keeping quiet and silence, and praying without intermission." ^D I believe that Sophronius assumed the monastic habit at that time, and that this points to what is read in chapter 102 concerning the vision offered to him on the road. "When Abbot Sophronius the Sophist, my brother, was questioned, while I and Abbot John the Scholastic, and Abbot Cyriacus and certain others of the Fathers were standing near him, he said to us: 'I was just now on the road and a choir of young girls was dancing before me, and they were leaping and saying: Welcome, Sophronius: Sophronius is crowned.'” Whether, however, as often as the author of the *Limonarion* says in the plural: "we went, we proceeded," etc., it ought to be understood that Sophronius was present, even if it is not expressed, is rightly a matter of doubt; for it does not seem to be for nothing that chapter 262 so clearly [records this].

7. And from these [examples], for the sake of elucidation, another thing can also be understood: namely, what was the zeal, and the hunger in both of them, that bound them to one another in such a close relationship; for they were doing this, to be sure, so that from the things which they saw and heard everywhere, they might pluck, if I may so speak, the more select flowers and transplant them into that meadow which they were meditating upon, for their own benefit and that of others: of which matter various examples could be brought forth from the aforementioned book; one here suffices for all, which is found in the eleventh chapter, in these words: ‹When I and my associate Sophronius were in Alexandria, on a certain day we went to the church of Theodosius, and we met on the way, in the street, a certain man, bald, dressed in a tunic reaching to the knees: and he seemed like a fool and a madman. Abbot Sophronius therefore said to me: Give me money, and you will see the virtue of the comer. I gave him five coins; he took them and gave them to the one who seemed like a madman: but he accepted them, saying nothing at all: we, however, followed him secretly on his heels; and when he had turned off from the road, he stretched out his right hand towards heaven, holding the coins, and after this he prostrated himself before God, and having placed the coins on the ground, he departed. ›

8. For they went about like industrious bees—both the disciple and the master—and together they stored up into spiritual honeycombs the things they had gathered. And to this alludes that part of the hymn customarily sung by the Greeks on this day, whose initial letters constitute this verse: Σωφροσύνης μέλπω τὸν ἐπώνυμον, αἴσιμα ῥέζων. I sing of him who bears the name of Sophrosyne [Temperance], doing what is right. This hymn, I say, the thirteenth verse from the end alludes to this, when it said: Ὅλος ἀνάθημα Θεῷ τὰς τῶν ἀσκητῶν φυτουργίας περιπτάμενος, σοφέ, λειμῶνα τὴν σὴν κατεφύτευσας, ἀρετῶν ἐμμελέτημα τῷ Θεῷ τῷ ἐν ὑψίστοις καθιερώσας. ‹Wholly devoted to God, flying around the plantations of the ascetics, O wise one, you have planted your meadow, that is, you have cultivated it, offering the diligent exercise of virtues to God, who is in the highest.› So that here the work of the *Limonarion* [Spiritual Meadow] is not obscurely attributed to Sophronius, as if he were another author of it.

9. Moreover, it is helpful to set forth here the eulogy (which Photius in part inserted into his ^A *Bibliotheca*, and which our Heribert Rosweyde, having rendered it into Latin from an ancient Vatican MS. code by Francisco Olivari, published among the lives of the Fathers); since it appears to contribute not a little to illustrating the affairs of the disciple, so that the history of his master may be known in some part. It therefore holds: ‹This book of the *Meadow*, or the Life of the saints and those endowed with virtue and pleasing to God, who are contained within it, as well as the other very useful narrations, and the aptly spoken words of the holy righteous, and of the Fathers and Brothers who love Christ, was written by John, a presbyter of holy memory, and a monk by the surname Moschus: who at the beginning of the century renounced the world in the monastery of our holy Father Theodosius, abbot and archimandrite of all the coenobia or monasteries that are in Jerusalem: but when he had spent no small amount of time in the desert by the holy Jordan with the holy Fathers who dwell there, and had collected their virtues, he inserted them into this work. And when he was living in the New, as it is called, monastery, which was constructed by our holy and great Father Sabas and his disciples and remains to this day, hearing with what tyranny the Persians had oppressed the Romans, on the occasion of the slaughter of the emperor Maurice and his children, departing from the New monastery, he proceeded to the regions of great Antioch. ›

^B 10. ‹And thence again, when he saw the nation prevailing, he betook himself to Alexandria; and having traversed the whole wilderness which is around it (for he had already been sent into Egypt from the beginning of the reign of Tiberius to perform a ministry) and having reached the Oasis and the wilderness nearest to it; after he had visited the Fathers who were there, and from there heard again that the holy places had been occupied, and the Romans seized with fear; having left Alexandria, he arrived by ship at the great city of the Romans together with his dearest disciple Sophronius. But while they were on the journey, they visited various islands. Such grace was bestowed upon the blessed man by the Lord, that if he had heard or seen anything concerning the life and deeds of men distinguished by virtue, he would commit it to writing: whereby it happened that when he was in Rome, he executed the same plan. › Thus far the eulogy, the second part of which, touching more closely upon the life of Sophronius, will be set forth in the following paragraph. Here I only observe ^C that Tiberius, at the beginning of whose reign Moschus had the opportunity of visiting Egypt, at the end of the year of the Christian era 579, took up the reins of empire: but Maurice, whose death was followed by the calamities that brought Moschus the necessity of abandoning Palestine, was removed from life around the end of the year 602.

11. That he took Sophronius with him as he departed from Antioch, and thus had a witness of many things which he writes were seen and heard by him from the Fathers dwelling around Antioch; and that he was assisted by him, while still a layman, with the expenses necessary for the journey, we can suspect, but by no means affirm; since the Menaea say that he himself was found at Alexandria by Sophronius: which, however, does not have great weight with us on account of the other anachronisms in that eulogy, which we shall subjoin below from the Menaea: but there is no other argument to the contrary: nor does any reason of the times conflict with him having been able to adhere to Moschus already at that time: for if you grant that Sophronius ^D lived at least sixty years, he was, at the death of Maurice, twenty-three years and more of age.

an age that is indeed most opportune for the labors of travels and studies.

CAPUT II.

12. Setting aside conjectures, we hold this for certain: that Sophronius frequented the company of Moschus in Egypt, being first a layman, then a monk; and that both visited the monasteries of that region together and penetrated as far as the desert itself. What, specifically, Sophronius did at Alexandria is clear in part from the argument of the *Spiritual Meadow*, especially from the aforementioned chapters 77, 110, 111, and others; and in part from the *Life of St. John the Almsgiver*, and from a remarkable volume regarding the holy Cyrus and John written there by Sophronius. This [volume], which was sought in vain for the thirty-first of January, the day on which these saints are honored, and was believed to have perished, we happily found during our Roman journey—in both languages, in fact—and we are preserving it in place of a vast treasure to be brought forth at the proper time, when we shall add a not-inconsignificant supplement to the ever-growing work. As for the occasion and instruction for writing it, you may learn this from the protheoria or preface.

^B 13. Because of an infirmity of the eyes, we stayed near the basilica of the martyrs Cyrus and John, ^C observing the overflowing abundance of their miracles. We wished to read these records of the martyrs that might instruct us about their combat, or proclaim the preceding miracles. Finding nothing of what we spoke—save only two brief sermons of the great Cyril, who stood as a champion and herald of the truth—we were stirred to an intolerable zeal. For if pagans, writing false accounts, while saying nothing true nor anything free of fables, have written so many books about demons, shall we, like beasts of burden, according to the friends of the just Job, remain silent regarding such great and wondrous works of the truth—which is Christ our God—wrought through his true servants? Therefore, also burning with a more ardent zeal, we ran to the confession of the saints, piously falling on our faces, and with our whole soul vowing that, if they granted us the duty of the vision, we would write down their miracles, concerning their combat and what is done by them, with divine grace cooperating with us....

14. Wherefore, arising, and subsequently having gathered ourselves—on the one hand beholding the loftiness of the martyrs and discerning the multitude of the miracles that were taking place, and on the other [beholding] our own weakness ^D —we wished to decline this, which had been promised by us in vows to God and his martyrs as an offering of redemption. But Solomon kept us from doing this, saying: "According to what you have vowed to God, do not delay in paying your vow." Being bound, therefore, to these men, being at times terrified to write because of [my] previous state, and at other times not knowing what I should do, I fled to the same martyrs and begged from their holiness [to know] what ought to be done. They, however, accepting my purpose, instructed me to write, promising to confer their protection and counsel. Thus they appeared to us countless times while we were writing, fulfilling what they had promised: at one time handing us ink and a reed, at other times taking up the quire, and correcting what had escaped us; at times, because they delighted in the narratives, they showed with a cheerfulness of countenance that they were discussing them with pleasure—which we also often experience, when with joyful eyes we reach those places that have the grace of the relation. For a thousand times, while we were occupied with other things, they complained and rebuked us as though we were negligent, saying: "How long until you complete the truth?" They defended these things regarding the writing and the praise of their name; and if we wished to write everything, we would burden those who are to read. But it is sufficient by these means, for now, to point out the protection frequently bestowed upon us by them while we were writing, having God and them as witnesses of the truth that is in these things.

15. ...we have written, and that they were deposited in the temple of the venerable Mark, and how at last they were then transferred to the house of the Evangelists: gathering the occasions and seeds of these from the words of Saint Cyril. After which, we wrote these seven decades of miracles—having thousands of decades to describe, if only we were able to tell them, and those who are to read these were able to hear.... And of these seven decades, the first three contain what was done after the martyrdom, the burial, and the translation; but the half of the fourth [decade] enumerates the virtues of Cyrus and John that were performed in Alexandria; the remainder of the fourth and the fifth decade proclaim what was done in the Egyptian and Libyan [lands]; but the sixth and seventh intimate the benefits granted to strangers.... We are not unaware that a soft and loose style is more appropriate for sacred narrations of miracles, but leaving this, we undertook an extended one, so that through it we might designate the intensity of the saints' fervor and the solicitude for conferring help upon the needy.

16. ...[these] having been passed over here, and marked with a point: but in the very sermon on the praises of the said saints, he explains more clearly what the infirmity of his eyes was like and how he was cured of it: "For we, being infirm in our eyes, the Savior called the lamp of the whole body.... and hearing from the physicians—some of whom called this malady an effusion, others a *platycoria*, or dilation of the pupil—that this infirmity would bring blindness, we went to the saints who work well for us, namely Cyrus and John, suspending all our hope of living upon the grace divinely given to them, and human..."

^A aid, as if it were weak and less powerful against the passion, repelling it; but they, admitting our faith... provided swift health from the languor, and concerning future events, that we would suffer nothing from this, which the Asclepiadae said we would suffer, they rendered us certain, putting to flight our Homeric blindness through visions and enigmas, as is pleasing to them. 17. But no one will wonder that these private studies of Sophronius were often interrupted by other occupations: whoever reads how much, both he and his master John, were held in esteem by Saint John the Almsgiver, the archbishop of the Alexandrian city, and how great a part of public cares pertained to them. Concerning these, Leontius writes in number 60, in the *Life* edited by us on 25 January: ‹God sent him wise and ever-memorable men, John and Sophronius: for they were truly good counselors, whom he obeyed indiscriminately as if they were fathers, and he gave thanks to them as to soldiers standing firm and acting manfully for the piety of religion. For, relying on the power of the Holy Spirit, with his wisdom and disputations, they conducted battles and conflict against the Severians and the other unclean heretics existing in our region, and like good shepherds, they were eager to pluck away many fortresses and many churches, and likewise monasteries, from the jaws of such beasts: for which reason this truly most holy man honored these saints most especially.›

18. He even seems to have held them as members of his household: so familiarly, in the *Life* written by the Metaphrast numbered 9, when he questions him at home in the evening, sad, whom no one else dared to question, the divine Sophronius who was present says: ‹What is it, O divine man, that afflicts you with trouble?... But he, with a mild and gentle voice, said: "Today, alas, miserable John has not received any reward from anyone, nor could he offer any, even the smallest, atonement to Christ for his many and great sins...." When, therefore, the sacrosanct Sophronius had understood what he meant by what had been said: "You should rather rejoice," he said, "and not be afflicted, most blessed lord, because you have made the flock committed to you live in such peace that no one has a controversy with a neighbor over anything: but that men live on earth like some angels without any strife and contention."›

19. Moreover, he had the man he held as his most approved minister and confidant of his virtues and secrets while he lived, as the one who delivered his funeral eulogy: ‹For in his death, as the Menaea testify, (when he was lulled to rest in blessed peace), this Sophronius wrote a funeral eulogy for his immense treasure of almsgiving and his most excellent virtue, and followed his passing with many tears.› Leontius mentions this eulogy in number 2: ‹"Now indeed," he says, "others before us have philosophized about this admirable man and supreme priest, being powerful in deed and in word. I speak of John and Sophronius, worshipers of God, lovers of virtues, and champions of piety: yet although they were such, they omitted much concerning the dignity and merit of this man; but afterwards, because they were wise and powerful in deed and word, and were lovers of history, they depicted the matter wisely and sublimely."›

20. Before he emigrated, however, and while the most holy bishops were still alive, John and Sophronius, returning to Alexandria after traveling through the interior of Egypt, found everything in turmoil: ‹While the Persians were conquering the places of the Jordan, Palestine, and the holy city by the force of arms. And with the capture of the patriarch of Jerusalem, Zachariah, with the precious and life-giving wood of the Cross also snatched from those places, they led away an innumerable multitude of captive men into Persia and ravaged all of Syria. ‹But those who were able to escape their hands (as Baronius describes from the Metaphrast, although, confusing the authors, he names Leontius), both the laity, as well those who held magistracy and those who were private citizens; and the clergy with their bishops had fled to Alexandria.› But they were not allowed to be easy there for long: for in the following year the Persians conquered Egypt, Alexandria, and Libya, up to the borders of Ethiopia. John Moschus had foreseen that this would happen: therefore, with Sophronius and the other disciples, he boarded a ship and sailed to Rome. And that he retreated into Cyprus with the patriarch John, and upon his death, traveled through Cilicia and other tracts of Asia, which are recorded in the *Limonarion*, and to Samos, and the islands of the Archipelago, and finally reached Italy, I would readily believe, if any argument were offered for that opinion.

21. But now it is not permitted to divine [something] from the silence of other authors: yet the fact that among so many things that Moschus narrates as having been done and heard in Cyprus, there is no mention of a departure from Alexandria in the company of the patriarch, does not disturb me: for I see that in that whole work the patriarch John is not named even once; perhaps because whatever Moschus and Sophronius knew to be worth commemorating about him, they reported in his *Life* which they themselves wrote at Rome: but if the funeral eulogy by Sophronius was different from this, and it was established that it was spoken at the funeral, then it would indeed be almost certain that Sophronius was present in Cyprus with the bishop. But nothing is clear concerning these things. Perhaps even the work of the *Limonarion* has not come down to us entire, but is mutilated by a good portion: for as Photius says: ‹"You will not find the same number of narratives preserved in all the books: since in some they extend to three hundred and forty-two (today, however, only two hundred and nineteen chapters are counted), and that is increased by the division of certain chapters, or certainly by the interjection of others."›

22. He was near the end of the pontificate of Pope Deusdedit, or Boniface [IV], when he [set out] to Rome with his own...

^A arrived, where it is credible that the presence of such men was not unfruitful, so that the Roman See might be more fully informed about the heresies growing and blooming daily throughout the East: these I believe were Sophronius's particular duties; for the declining old age of the master requested rest: who in the meantime, that his senile leisure might not be useless to posterity, wrote the *Limonarium* or *Spiritual Meadow*, from all that he had seen, heard, and noted down for edification, when he had foreseen the time of "his migration to God," says the author of the Eulogy produced above, which continues in this manner: "Not, however, according to the order of those things which had been heard or seen by him; but as they were equal among themselves, both those things which had been heard and those which had been seen, he committed them to writing, joined together one by one. But when he was about to depart from these earthly tumults, and to pass to a tranquil and quiet life, having called his dearest disciple, he handed this book over to him, in which the Lives and deeds of the holy Fathers, well-pleasing to God, are contained; and he commanded him that he should not leave his remains at Rome, but should endeavor to transfer them enclosed in a wooden chest to Mount Sinai, as much as lay in his power, so that they might be laid to rest with the holy Fathers who are there. But if any barbarian tumult should arise by which this might be prevented, that they be laid to rest in the monastery of St. Theodosius, in which, at the beginning of his life, he had renounced the world."

23. Therefore, when his dearest disciple studied to fulfill this command, having taken with him John and his disciples (for they were twelve in number), he imitated the great Joseph, who, taking Israel from Egypt with his brothers, transferred them to his fathers, just as it had been commanded him by his parent. But when he had arrived at Ascalon, and had learned that it was impossible to reach the holy mountain of Sinai on account of the tyrannical incursions of those who are called Hagarenes, having taken up the remains of the blessed John, he came to Jerusalem at the beginning of the eighth indiction; and having found George, the priest and superior of the great monastery of our holy father Theodosius, after he had reported to him all things that had been commanded by the elder, with those Brothers of the monastery who were then found in the city, and the monks who lived with him, they carried away the blessed John: and just as he had commanded, he laid him to rest in the cemetery of St. Theodosius, together with the holy Fathers who lie there, and he passed the remaining time of his life in the same monastery. Thus far the eulogy prefixed to the *Spiritual Meadow*, the final words of which, unless we wish to believe that someone other than Sophronius of Jerusalem was the companion of Moschus (contrary to the consensus of almost all Greek antiquity, which the author of the Menaea follows), we must interpret more generously as referring to the far greater part of his remaining life, of which thirteen years in all were spent in the monastery; while only three were spent in the patriarchate.

24. This signifies the year of the eighth indiction as the six hundred and twentieth; which indeed is not without wonder: since it is credible that this was true no less for this year than the following, which Theophanes recounts at the 11th year of Heraclius, that Chosroes had made the yoke of his dominion intolerable to all through frequent slaughters and taxes. Furthermore, as to the years spent by Sophronius in the monastery rather than in the brief time of his episcopate, I believe that most of his works, which we now lament have perished, pertain to that time: as also the Lives of the saints: if indeed, besides those enumerated ^B thus far, he wrote some others: just as Nicephorus Callistus, the author of the *Ecclesiastical History* (lib. 17, cap. 5), is the authority that the Life of St. Mary of Egypt, which is now in our hands, was written by him; and the same one suspects the same about the Life of Anastasius the Persian, at the year 622, as the most eminent Baronius does: both of which we admit are such that they contain nothing from which it can be denied or affirmed with certainty whether they are Sophronius's or not: the style is otherwise very different from that in which we rejoice to have found the laudation and miracles of the holy Cyr and John described by the same author, and indeed they are undoubted.

CHAPTER III. The Patriarchate of Sophronius and the struggles against the Monothelites.

25. Meanwhile, Jerusalem was groaning under the immense slavery of the Persians, and with it all of Syria, until God, avenging His injuries, having three times defeated the blasphemous Chosroes in battle, drove him from life and kingdom at the same time through the parricidal hands of his son Siroes; and with captives returned on both sides, peace was established between Heraclius and the Syrians in the year of the Christian era 628, Modestus filling the place of the captive Zacharias with the title of vicar (some writers less correctly say he was bishop immediately upon the city's capture), the abbot of the Theodosian monastery, who, bearing the cares of a most afflicted diocese in a most difficult time, had transferred the rule of the monks to George: although they themselves had retreated into the city from the monastery, as those times dictated, being neither changed nor in any part safe against the daily infestations of the Persians: which was the cause for Sophronius ^D returning from Rome with the master's body and his companions for coming to Jerusalem, and, as appears to me, for remaining there until peace was concluded; when it was permitted for the monks to return to their old seats, or rather to the ruins of their old seats, and Zacharias was restored to his bishopric by the emperor Heraclius, bringing back the wood of the life-giving cross to its own place.

26. This occurred in the year 629, when I believe Sophronius, by the mandate of the pontiff Zacharias and his vicar Modestus, intended the restoration of the sacred codices, in order that they might be sung in the entire Jerusalem patriarchate in the ancient manner and with propriety for the Divine Office: for this is established by the words of Simeon of Thessalonica, cited by Leo

Allatius in his first dissertation on Greek books, page 7, who introduces this author—hitherto unpublished, and famous six hundred years ago—speaking thus in his dialogue against heresies: ^A “The order is more orderly and sweeter... the order is prescribed by the Typicon of the monastery of St. Sabas in Jerusalem, which can be accomplished even by one person alone... and without chanting... For our Holy Father Sabas prescribed this order, which he received from the holy Euthymius and Theoctistus; these, in turn, took it from the elders and the confessor Chariton.” And indeed, the constitution of the holy Sabas, as we have heard, having been lost when those places were ravaged by the incursion of the Barbarians, Sophronius, patriarch of the holy city, restored it with study and labor: and after him, John of Damascus renewed it again, and delivered it committed to writing: because, specifically, the Saracens, not keeping the faith given to Sophronius, and he not being able to endure seeing holy things trodden by dogs along with the holy patriarch, had already brought him to the end of his life from grief; and because of the first onset of barbarian incursion, there was a great desolation of books and all sacred things: for afterwards, when the empire of the Saracens was established in Syria and Palestine, it was ^B easier to act with moderation, and it was easy for the Damascene to restore what had been lost. And these things were indeed long in use in the Jerusalem Church alone: but now, after the Eastern Church has been almost extinguished, under the rule of the Turks, with the rites of the other churches falling silent, says Allatius, that which is said to have been St. Sabas's, as being better and more accommodated to reality, and therefore more acceptable, has prevailed among the Greeks: so that not only those who enrolled their names under the rules of St. Sabas, but even the rest, followers of other Orders, and priests living life in the world, and what is greatest, almost all of Greece, are guided by it to recite the divine offices.

27. In the year 630, Athanasius, patriarch of the Jacobites, met the emperor, then still staying in Hierapolis, and feigning to admit the Council of Chalcedon and professing two natures in Christ, he circumvented him with his crafty interrogation, asking him whether a dual operation and will should be ascribed to Christ, and he drew the unwary emperor into the Monothelite heresy, the conflagration of which consumed almost the entire eastern empire: that it might not burn further, that it was done specifically by the work of Sophronius, all Catholic writers acknowledge. For he was the first to open up the hidden deceits and brought into the light the heresy seeking cover, as Theophanes reports for the year in which Athanasius injected the pernicious spark into the mind of Heraclius, here placing the whole history of the Monothelite flame under one view, and weaving together in a continuous narrative what was done over more than fifty years, up to the year 682 specifically; so that no one should think that, according to the mind of Theophanes, the beginning of Sophronius’s sitting at Jerusalem should be referred to this year, although it might seem to be said, where the attached chronological tables show Zacharias as pontiff, ^C as they do also in the following year.

28. But for the year 652 we find in the same tables the bishop of the Jerusalem church Modestus: who had previously been the vicar of Zacharias, and is indicated to have sat for two years. The patriarchate of this prelate also was entirely turbulent due to new movements from Arabia by the Saracens, against whom Heraclius fought using his own leaders, being at times conquered and at times victorious with changing fortune, finally in the year 634, Sophronius having been substituted in the place of the dead Modestus, “as if the situation were desperate, Syria having been abandoned, and the venerable woods [the Holy Cross] having been carried away from Jerusalem, he withdrew to Constantinople,” as Theophanes says for this year. Meanwhile, while Modestus was still alive, whom we suspect to have died on the day the cult of the sacred was transferred to him in the Menaion on December 18; and so in the year 654 among the Greeks, starting from the three-month period that had begun: to Modestus, I say, while he was still alive, Cyrus, patriarch of Alexandria, gathered a council at Alexandria in the month of May, as we are taught from the Acts of the Sixth Council; and he opened the way to the Monothelite heresy, hitherto secretly growing; with the feigned pretext that he could join all the heretics located in Egypt to the Catholic Church if he would suppress in silence the expressions of two wills and operations: saying that it was enough if one only spoke of a theandric will and operation in Christ, from which an exact profession of the two natures in Christ would be sufficiently issued; because, even if the expressions were not used, the things themselves were nevertheless expressed.

29. This matter being seen, he says, carried the appearance of piety and charity; if (as they were saying) without detriment to the Catholic faith, the terms were sometimes kept silent, by which discords might be nourished. But the outcome declared that all things were acted at that time with evil deceit: and it did not escape Sophronius that it was done fraudulently: “For the Jacobites and Theodosians boasted from this, says Theophanes, openly bragging that they did not indeed communicate with Chalcedon, nor did Chalcedon communicate with them in doctrine: and that, one having been admitted, they also taught the one nature of Christ.” Therefore, recognizing the deceits and fallacies of the heretics hidden under the cloak of peace, he wrote to Sergius, patriarch of Constantinople; who, feigning Catholic piety, although he fostered hidden poison in his breast, was considered orthodox ^D by everyone, and with wonderful applause had received the decree of the Alexandrian pseudo-council sent to him and the union tainted with ill water, as Theophanes speaks; asking that that chapter of the Alexandrian council concerning the single operation be revoked: indeed, he even traveled to Constantinople to the same Sergius for that reason, as Sergius himself testifies in his Epistle to Pope Honorius. Of which we here produce the words from the 12th action of the Sixth Council.

30. Sophronius, venerable monk, having been placed in Alexandria at that time, with the aforementioned most holy Pope (he understands Cyrus) when, as we have said, he was composing that wonderful unity concerning those who had long been heretics, by the good pleasure of God; and when he was with him concerning the same chapters...

he insisted on discussing this matter with us as well, so that the term "one operation" might be removed from such chapters after the union had been effected: we deemed this difficult, for how would it not be difficult and very burdensome, when to resolve and overturn this was to destroy all that harmony which had been well effected, both in the city of Alexandria and throughout the provinces under it; which had at no time until now acquiesced to mentioning even the simple name of the divine and laudable Father Leo, or of the holy and great and universal Council of Chalcedon. Therefore, after much discussion with us, we finally exhorted the aforementioned venerable Sophronius to produce for us the testimonies of the holy and reliable Fathers, namely those whom we all collectively confess as doctors, and whose dogmas the holy Church of God recognizes as law, testifying specifically and in their very own words to two operations in Christ. He, however, was entirely unable to do this....

31. Since we saw that this contention was arising, we judged it necessary to follow the well-worn voices of the holy Fathers, defined synodically, rather than to reduce to a dogmatic rule and law through all things those things which, having been said rarely by certain Fathers who did not intend them in this context, might seem to set forth a plain and unambiguous doctrine regarding them; such is what was said by them concerning one operation: and again, just as we should not proffer those things which were in no way said by reliable Fathers, but are now put forward by some, I mean two operations. In the end, it stood and pleased everyone that the aforementioned venerable Sophronius ought to move no further word regarding one or two operations: but let the aforementioned, cautious, and trite ^D right tradition and doctrine of the holy Fathers suffice for him. Being content with this, the often-mentioned venerable man, and certifying that he would guard these things, we asked him to provide us also a response by letter concerning them, so that he might show such a letter (as he says) to those who might wish to question him regarding the aforementioned matter: which we did promptly, and he indeed sailed through these things well. Thus far Sergius, cautiously and craftily: who also in the following points submits his own sentiments to the judgment of the Roman Pontiff: and he indicates that silence should be imposed on both parties: although he obscurely hints that the primary and more powerful parts belong to those who asserted a single operation in Christ.

32. Sophronius, however, as soon as he returned to Palestine (which we can barely say happened before the end of July, or even August or September), and Modestus upon his death left the patriarchal see vacant, was elevated to the same; a fact which Sergius mentions in the above-cited epistle that he had heard, ^A but that he had not yet received the synodical letters concerning his ordination. But he received them not long after: for as Theophanes says: "Sophronius, having been instituted bishop of Jerusalem, having gathered the bishops over whom he presided, condemned the Monothelite dogma, and sent synodical Acts to Sergius of Constantinople and John" (he intended to say Honorius: for John by that name had died sixty-two years earlier, when Sophronius was perhaps still but a boy: the fourth [John], however, was not elected until three years after the death of Sophronius had elapsed; and yet Anastasius the Librarian transcribed this slip of the pen or memory from Theophanes, and from Anastasius the author of the *Historia Miscella*, and Baronius in his notes to the *Martyrology* was seduced by these and others in an equal error: but he corrected himself in his *Annals*): Acts, I say, he sent synodically to Sergius of Constantinople and Honorius, bishop of Rome, through his proctor Leontius, deacon of the Holy Resurrection and chancellor of the secretariat, and first notary; and to him he added as a companion Polyeuctus, bearing the letters of Sophronius. These letters, indeed, are recited in full in the Acts of the Sixth Synod: in which, as Photius says, he accurately weighs the orthodox sentiment, and demonstrates the doctrine of the sacred dogmas to be by no means common... he asks, however, to be corrected if anything has been omitted or stated otherwise than is proper in the epistle. ^{B C}

53. Indeed, Sophronius was still not suspected of anything sinister ^D by Sergius, and therefore, consenting to one desiring silence regarding new terms or agreeing to his deceits, he had departed from him, and now was sending letters to him in good faith: which the same Pope Honorius had also done: and responding to the former epistle of Sergius: "Receiving the copy," he says, "of the letters directed to the same Sophronius, and observing that your fraternity has written with sufficient providence and circumspection, we praise the novelty of the term, as it could generate scandal for the simple: for we must walk in that to which we have attained... confessing the Lord Jesus Christ working divine things, through the humanity naturally united to the Word of God; and the same working human things, the flesh being assumed ineffably and singularly, distinctly, inconfusedly, and inconvertibly in the fullness of divinity." These things Honorius did for the sake of ecclesiastical peace and tranquility, nor did he himself suspect anything evil from Sergius; but time uncovered his iniquity, and the aforementioned ecumenical synod condemned it many times: In Action 13, however, the gathered Fathers bore this testimony concerning Sophronius: "We have also perused the Synodical [letter] of Sophronius of venerable memory, formerly archbishop of the holy city of God, Jerusalem, and finding these things consistent with the true faith, and equal to the doctrines of the Apostolic and holy and reliable Fathers, inasmuch as they are orthodox, we have received them, as healthy for the holy Catholic Church."

we have received, and we have judged it right that his name be inserted into the holy diptychs of the holy churches. ›

CHAPTER IV. Stephen is sent to Rome by Sophronius: the latter dies after the city is captured by the Saracens.

34. Furthermore, since Cyrus and his followers were not in the least quiet, and were continuing to preach one will in Christ, Sophronius believed that he was no longer bound by the laws of silence imposed by Sergius. Wishing to oppose their rashness, he provided, in two books, six hundred testimonies for the refutation of their impiety and the demonstration of the truth, as Stephen testified at the Lateran Council under Pope Martin I, having once been sent on these matters as a legate to Honorius by Sophronius himself, who said: ‹ He was unable to recall them in the least; but he stirred up against himself snares and malicious slander, › while they all loudly proclaimed that Sophronius was the cause of all the disturbances arising in the church. As Pyrrhus of Constantinople said after his death in a disputation with Saint Maximus, ‹ At an inopportune time he stirred up the discourse concerning the operations. › From this calumny, the same Maximus brilliantly defended Sophronius and showed that all the blame was to be cast back upon the ^A changeability and inconsistency of Sergius, who shifted his views at different times and remained fixed in no sense, while he wished to appear orthodox; and yet he had not receded from that opinion which he had instilled in Heraclius.

35. But what of Sophronius? Stephen continues: ‹ He was in no way cowed by this, nor did he fear a fear where there was no fear: for the just man is as confident as a lion. Filled with zeal for God and confidence, he deemed me, unworthy as I am, and set me in the place of holy Calvary, where for our sake He who is by nature God above us, our Lord Jesus Christ, deigned voluntarily to be crucified in the flesh. And there he bound me with indissoluble bonds, saying: "You shall render an account to Him who for our sake was voluntarily crucified in the flesh in this holy place, when at His terrible coming in glory He is to judge the living and the dead, if you delay and set aside His endangered faith." Even though I, as you know, am hindered from doing this bodily because of the incursion of the Saracens brought about by our sins. Therefore, travel as quickly as possible from the ends of the earth to its boundaries until you reach the Apostolic See, where the foundations of the orthodox dogmas exist, not once, nor twice, but very often; revealing to the holy men residing there everything according to the truth that has been set in motion in these parts. And do not cease, urgently beseeching and entreating them, until through the apostolic prudence that is in God, they ought to bring the matter to a victorious judgment and effect the complete destruction of the newly introduced dogmas according to the canons.... › ^B

36. Driven by this adjuration of his patriarch, Stephen proceeds to explain to the synod in this manner: ‹ Therefore, being fearful and terrified at these things, because of the terrible adjuration laid upon me in a fearful and venerable place, and also considering the episcopal ministry entrusted to me by agreement of God (of the Church of Doren, that is), but also the supplication of almost all the most reverend bishops living in the eastern tract, and of the Christian peoples, who consistently invited me to this, as the first of the Jerusalem diocese (in the priestly office, that is, when I was adjured by Sophronius, just as is recounted in the beginning), I did not, according to Scripture, give sleep to my eyes, nor slumber to my eyelids, inasmuch as I had to fulfill such a desirable command. But without any delay for this reason alone I hurried hither: from which time I am seen to be present for the third time at your apostolic footsteps, seeking and entreating what he and all are known to ask willingly, that is, to extend a hand to the endangered faith of the Christians. ^C But those of the contrary party did not leave me alone with light afflictions, directing orders regarding me through places and provinces, so that I might be seized and, bound in iron, be sent to them, as everyone knows: but the Lord helped me and delivered me from all those persecuting me, as I was running toward the prize of your apostolic see. Nor did God despise the prayers offered with tears by his suppliants, but He aroused, not indeed insignificantly, the apostolic predecessors and prelates through the commotion and also the protestation of the aforesaid men. › We judge these apostolic prelates to have been Severinus, John, and Theodore, the first of whom not only did not accept the Ecthesis composed by the Emperor Heraclius, Sergius, and their accomplices—to which Cyrus untruthfully boasts in his letter to Sergius, produced in the registry of the Lateran Council, that he had been coerced by the exarch of Italy, Isaac—but, as Martin says in the same place, ‹ he condemned and anathematized it. › — John, also, by the testimony of Theophanes, having convened a synod of bishops, condemned the Monothelite sect with ^D an inflicted anathema; and, as Baronius teaches from St. Maximus, he applied himself in the year 640 to ensuring that the one who had been sought out—he who had written the first letter of Honorius—might clearly interpret its meaning, writing to the Emperor Constans so that, in this way, the pretext might be removed from the heretics of slanderously brandishing the name of the Roman Pontiff as if he were working in their favor. Theodore, finally, who had kindly received Pyrrhus, converted by the disputation of St. Maximus, when he soon returned to his vomit as soon as he reached Ravenna, the rest…

of those who had been in communion with him, he excommunicated and condemned with his own hand; ^A having shaken a drop from the life-giving blood of Christ into the ink, and having commanded that this be brought in a chalice to the tomb of the chief of the apostles during the solemnity of the Mass, he did so, and having convened the whole assembly of the Church for this purpose, as we have it from Theophanes.

38 When Constans had made Paul patriarch, and Sergius, the bishop of Jaffa, was clinging to him (who, relying on secular power, had already arrogated to himself patriarchal authority since the retreat of the Persians, while Sophronius was still living and watching, and had sacrilegiously ordained bishops who agreed with him), he began to stir up wondrous turmoil in the churches subject to the Jerusalem patriarchate with those same assistants. The renowned champion of piety, at the request of the Orthodox, again for the second time (for I believe he had come the first time to the council indicted by John in the year 640) set out for Rome, and having explained the cause, and having been ordained by Pope Theodore as guardian of the sacred place, by his mandate he deposed those who were persistent in heresy, and received only those "who offered a libellus of penance, whose libelli," he said in the Lateran council, "I recently brought forward and offered to your most holy presence, O most blessed Pope Martin, in the year 649." And these were the third proceedings in which Stephen says he was present in the footsteps of the apostolic Fathers who had gathered at Rome, from which time he had been adjured by St. Sophronius. And the plots which he complained of above, which were set for him when he was about to come to Rome, pertain to this.

39 But these things pertain to later times and those following the death of St. Sophronius. As for his own history, it pertains more closely to the fact that in the year 635, the Saracens, having slain the two commanders, the Sacellarius and Bahan, who were leading forty thousand soldiers, triumphantly and with a well-organized army attacked Damascus, the fatherland of Sophronius, and took it, along with the rest of the province of Phoenicia at the same time. Having established their own seats there, they soon marched into Egypt and subjugated it as well to themselves. ^D The following year, Umar sent Jathrius to Syria, and added the whole region to the Saracen empire. For his part, he undertook an expedition into Palestine; in which, while he occupied all the towns everywhere with garrisons, and held the fields and roads infested with robberies, the inhabitants of the holy city could not celebrate the birthday of the Lord in Bethlehem with the usual piety; but blocked within the city for fear of the Saracens, Sophronius delivered an oration which exists in the Great Bibliotheca of the Fathers, and graphically narrates the calamities of that time. Nowhere, however, is there mention of a siege or assault in it, and we are the more moved to believe that the beginning of the siege was given only after January of the year 636, which being continued for two years, namely this year and perhaps 37 in total (at least according to the Greeks who begin the year in September), Umar obtained the City under a pledge of faith, as Theophanes narrates.

40 But Umar entered the holy city, describing the entry and the death of Sophronius that followed in these words: "But Sophronius, the patriarch of the Jerusalemites, had received from him the safety of all Palestine. Umar therefore, covered in the haircloth garments of camels, and these torn and filthy, and showing a clearly diabolical hypocrisy under the veil of piety, enters the holy city; and soon, intending to convert the temple built by Solomon into an oratory of impiety and blasphemy, he demanded it be shown to him. When Sophronius had seen him: 'This,' he said, 'is truly the abomination of desolation foretold by the prophet Daniel, which now stands in the holy place,' and at the same time he wept with a great abundance of tears. Therefore, while he remained within the temple precincts, the patriarch prayed with him that he might take and put on the linen garment he had received from him; though he refused to accept it, the bishop barely persuaded him to wear it until his usual garments could be washed; and having resumed his own, he immediately returned those to Sophronius."

41 In that calamity of affairs, Sophronius, having previously magnified the Church of Jerusalem with clear words and deeds, and bringing back most clear trophies from the depravities and inventions of Heraclius and those addicted to the Monothelites, and from the refutation of Sergius and Pyrrhus, died, to the great detriment of the Catholic cause, which lost a most powerful pugilist at that time when it was wavering greatly, while the patriarchs of Antioch, Alexandria, and Constantinople were contending against it along with Heraclius. With Pyrrhus, however, there was not as yet a contention while Sophronius was patriarch, if there was any; for his first year is aligned by Theophanes with the 29th year of Heraclius, and thus with the year of Christ 639; since Sophronius expired within a few months after the city was surrendered, in the month, as we believe, of March of the preceding year. Nor can we agree with Baronius, who sets the beginning of the siege of the city to the 15th year of Heraclius; for as for the 26th year of Heraclius, when Theophanes relates the expedition undertaken into Palestine, and even narrates the surrender of the holy city and the death of Sophronius, he does this for no other reason than that he did not wish to drag out the history of this expedition over many years, and it sufficed to have indicated that in this year Jerusalem began to be besieged so that it was taken only in the following, that is, in the space of two years. This being posited, it is entirely consequent that Sophronius (if indeed he was translated from this life in the month of March, on the day on which he is commemorated) entered his 38th year of life with three full years spent in the patriarchate: to which added months or weeks—not many of those years in which he was ordained and died—will constitute perhaps scarcely half a year or even a trimester. For indeed, Sophronius is read to have acted against Cyrus after the Alexandrian synod, while the messengers going and returning took up almost the whole year 634.

42. The catalogue of the patriarchs of Jerusalem, according to Nicephorus, Patriarch of Constantinople, ends with Sophronius. After his death, some conclude from Zonaras that the Church remained widowed of a pastor—Zonaras, who, when enumerating the princes at the Sixth Ecumenical Council held in the year 689 under Constantine Pogonatus, and excusing why the patriarchs of Jerusalem and Alexandria were not present, says: "Neither Alexandria nor Jerusalem had a patriarch, for they were occupied by the Saracens." But even if you say that at that time there were none in those churches, you would not rightly say that there were absolutely none under the Saracens, since various ones are named in the histories. Regarding this matter, see more in the Acts of the Sabaite Martyrs on March 20, where it treats of Elias and his successors. Therefore, nothing prevents us from believing that Theodore, elected Roman pontiff in the year 641, was a father, successor to Saint Sophronius, whom the manuscript *Florarium sanctorum* adds on 15 Kalends of April with these words: "Also of Saint Theodore, Bishop of Jerusalem, father of Saint Theodore the Pope." Nor do the catalogues of the Roman pontiffs contradict this—whether in the very ancient membranes once of the Palatine, now of the Vatican library, or in Anastasius the Librarian, who, using a nearly similar example, writes thus of this pontiff: "Theodore, by nation a Greek, from his father Theodore, bishop of Jerusalem," or "of the city of Jerusalem," as it is in the aforementioned membranes. But we do not find either son or father numbered among the saints elsewhere.

42. Moreover, the famous cult of Saint Sophronius on this day is found among the Latins just as among the Greeks, and is recorded on this day in the Martyrologies of Galesinius, in the second edition of Molanus, and of Baronius in the Roman [Martyrology]; however, with the Greeks [it is recorded] in the Anthologion, the Menologion, and the larger Menaea, from which we provide this summary of his life, although it is written with the order of events somewhat confused, especially where it treats of his patriarchate of Jerusalem, as if it were undertaken before the holy city was captured by the Persians, which, as we have already seen, pertains to the final years of his life. Indeed, his stay in Alexandria with John the Almsgiver pertains to his middle years, as is clearly evident from what has been deduced thus far.

EPITOME OF THE LIFE.

From the Greek Menaea.

But after he returned to the holy city, it cannot be expressed with how much care and labor he ruled the Church committed to him by God: for he gave no sleep to his eyes nor slumber to his eyelids; for he had to fight not only against the violence and assault of external enemies, but also against the deadly dogmas of heretics; these he recalled to the path by his writings and the authority of the Fathers, and disarmed and broke them with his own disputations. Meanwhile, he left behind many and noble monuments of his intellect for the profit of the Church, by which we are taught both how to live with virtue and, according to the divine precept, how to treat present things. Of this number is that book, to be praised with all admiration, in which he explained the deeds of Mary of Egypt, who was rightly to be compared with the angels, and who advanced beyond the measure of human life. This was his ^C way of living, by which he proved himself to God, instructed others, showed himself a vicarious tongue of Christ, and ruled the flock committed to him, and within the third year of his pontificate, having obtained blessed peace, he was translated to the Lord. ^D