ON S. SOPHIA THE SENATORIAL,
AFTERWARDS A NUN IN THRACE.
From the Ms. Divion Synaxarium.
CommentarySophia widow, of Aenus in Thrace (S.)
BY THE AUTHOR D. P.
[1] Where between the mouths of the rivers Hebrus and Absyrthus the land of Thrace runs out by a narrow boundary into the Aegean, Sprung from Aenus, lies the city of Aenus, commonly Eno, in the province of Rhodope, subject to the Metropolitan of Trajanopolis, whose Bishop Macarius is read to have subscribed to the Council of Chalcedon in the year 451. It is distant from Trajanopolis and Cypsella or New Constantiniana toward the North at almost equal interval of about 24 miles; from Lemnos or Stalimene the island, which it directly faces to the East, about 60 thousand paces. This city, which is said today to give its name to the adjoining gulf, by her birth and, if not also her death, S. Sophia illustrated, a matron of senatorial rank, at an uncertain time: for the Synopsis of her life does not explain this, happily preserved in the Synaxarium of Dijon after the eulogy of S. Metrophanes Patriarch of CP., of whom otherwise we should know neither the cult nor the name. That Synopsis is thus described, as much at least as I could attain to the words and sense, the pages of the linen Codex barely pulled apart, which by humidity had become stuck together, as I remember to have said more fully in March: a few words which entirely escaped me I shall supply with marked dots… and leave to the reader's conjecture.
[2] Τῇ αὐτῇ ἡμέρᾳ, that is, δ᾽, Μνήμη τῆς ὁσίας Σοφίας, praised in the Ms. of Dijon Συνκλητικῆς καὶ ὁσίως βιωσάσης. "On the same day, namely the fourth, Memory of the holy Sophia, Senatorial and holily living."
Αὕτη μὲν ὥρμητο ἐκ πόλεως Αἴνου, θυγατὴρ γονέων εὐσεβῶν καὶ κατὰ χώραν περιβοήτων· συνήφθη δὲ ἀνδρὶ παρ᾽ αὐτῶν, καὶ γέγονε μητὴρ παιδῶν ἓξ. Μέσον δὲ τῶν βιωτικῶν θορυβῶν οὖσα, ἔδεξεν ἐξ ἔργων ὡς οὐδέν τι προσιστάμενον πάντη βουλομένῳ, καὶ ἐν ταῖς βίου περικοπαῖς καὶ συγχήσεσι, διὰ τῆς τῶν θεοφιλῶν πράξεων ἐργασίας τῷ Θεῷ εὐαριστῆσαι. Οὐκ ἀφίστατο γὰρ τῶν ἐκκλησιῶν· ἀλλὰ καὶ οἴκαδε διανυκτερεύουσα, προσευχαῖς…,… Καὶ θανάτῳ τοὺς παῖδας ἀποβαλλομένη, ὀρφάνων μητὴρ ἐγέγονε καὶ χηρῶν ἀντίληψις οὐ μικρὰ, καὶ τοῖς προσαίταις ἀναγκαιότερα τῶν προσόντων αὐτῇ διανείμασα. Ἡ δίαιτα ταύτης ἐκ τότε ἀσκητικὴ ἦν, καὶ τὸ ποτὸν ὕδωρ· τὸ δάκρυον μηδέποτε λειπὸν ἐν ὀφθαλμοῖς, ὁ ψαλτὴρ καὶ ἡ προσευχὴ καὶ ἡ εὐχαριστία ἀνάπαυστος οὐκ ἠτόνησεν· οὐ κατωλιγόρησε προσευχομένη· ἡ ταπείνωσις πρὸς τοὺς τύχοντας ἄμετρος, καὶ πρὸς τοὺς καθεκάστην προσερχομένους ἐπιδεεῖς ἡ ἐλεεμοσύνη ἱλαρὰ καὶ φιλότιμος καὶ σχεδὸν ὑπὲρ δύναμιν, κρεῖσσον λογιζομένη ἑαυτὴν στερεῖσθαι ἢ τὸν ἐπιδεῆ κενὸν ὑποστρέψαι, καὶ ἔχαιρε μᾶλλον διδοῦναι ἢ λαμβάνειν. Ἀπὸ γὰρ ἀγγείου, ἀφορισθέντος εἰς διάδοσιν, τὸν ἐν αὐτῷ οἶνον ἀμφοτέραις χερσὶ περιαντλοῦσα, καὶ τοῖς δεομένοις παρέχουσα, ἑώρα, πράγμα ἐξαίσιον, πεπληρωμένον ἀεὶ τὸ ἀγγεῖον εὑρίσκουσα καὶ γέμων, ὡς μὴ τὴν οἴαν δή τινα δεξάμενον ἔφεσιν. Καὶ μέχρις ἂν παρ᾽ ἑαυτῇ καὶ ἐν κρυπτῷ ἦν τὸ θαῦμα, πλῆρες τὸ ἀγγεῖον ὡρᾶτο, κατὰ τὸν καιρὸν τῆς ἀνοίξεως· ὁπηνίκα δὲ τα μεγαλεῖα τοῦ Θεοῦ ἀνακρύπτουσα, τινὶ τῶν ἐν αυτοῖς τὸ παράδοξον ἀνεκάλυψεν, οὐκ ἔτι πλῆρες εὑρέθη, ἀλλ᾽ ἐλλιπὲς τοῦτο, καὶ τῶν μυελῶν αὐτῆς … Προφάσεως γὰρ ἐκ τοῦτο δραξαμένη, καὶ τὸ ἀνάξιον προβαλλομένη, ἐπὶ πλεῖον τὴν ἄσκησιν ἐπέτεινε, καὶ ἐπὶ τοσοῦτον, ὡς καὶ εἰς ἀκρὰν ἔκτηξιν ἐλθὼν, μηδὲ τὸ ἀναπνεῖν δύνασθαι. Οὕτως οὖν καλῶς ἀγωνισαμένη, καὶ μηδ᾽ ὅλως παρεμποδισθεῖσα ὑπὸ τῶν τοῦ βίου δυσχερῶν, καὶ ἐπὶ χρόνοις τέσσαρσι πρὸς τοὺς τριάκοντα διαβιοῦσα, ὡς εἶναι τὸν ὅλον τῆς ζωῆς αὐτῆς χρόνον πεντήκοντα πρὸς τοῖς τρισὶ μικρόν τι πλέον, καὶ τελευταῖον ἀποκειραμένη, πρὸς Κύριον ἐξεδήμησεν.
[3] that bereft of children "This Saint sprung from the city of Aenus, daughter of pious parents and well-known throughout the country, was given by them in marriage to a man, by whom she was made the mother of six children. But living amid the strepitous tumults of secular life, she showed by her very works that nothing can offend him, who wishes even amid the very burdens and confusions of the world to please God, by the exercise of pious works. For she did not depart from the churches, and even at home she spent the night in prayers… But after through death she was bereft of her children, she gave herself wholly to devotion toward God and charity toward the poor, she became the mother of orphans, and no scanty supporter of widows, bestowing on the needy from what was at her disposal what was more necessary. Her diet thereafter was ascetic, and water her drink; tears never failing in her eyes; the psalter and prayer and thanksgiving in her mouth were never silenced. In praying she never grew weary; her self-abasement was infinite toward all comers, and toward those daily approaching her, needy, her alms were cheerful and generous and almost beyond her means: she preferred to deprive herself of conveniences, than to send a needy person away from her empty: she rejoiced more to give than to receive. Therefore when from a vessel set aside for daily distribution, with both (as I might say) hands she dispensed wine to the poor, she saw a thing utterly admirable; the vessel, I say, was always full, and so as not to overflow, sensing no diminution of itself. And indeed, from which vessel pouring wine, she long uses it unfailing, as long as the miracle was hers alone and secret, the vessel was found just as full when first opened: but after she revealed God's great works to one of her household; no more so; but beginning to fail, also of her very marrow… Whence taking this occasion to charge her own unworthiness, she began to intensify her ascetic exercise to such a degree, that with her body wasted to the extreme, she could scarcely even breathe. In this way well contending, and in no way hindered by the burdens of the world, for thirty-four years living thus; she dies a Nun at age 54: so that the whole time of her life came to fifty-three years and a little more. Shorn at last, she emigrated to the Lord."
[4] From the fact that finally she is said to be "shorn," it seems consequent to me, previously widowed; which the previous life also makes probable, that she was widowed of her husband, perhaps before she was bereft of all her children; and that may have been hidden under the words I was unable to attain. Whether her Life was ever written more amply, I would not guess; but it is to be regretted that in this epitome, which we rejoice to have unearthed as a treasure, no word is found from which it can be understood at what time she lived. Yet that very defect gives some argument for suspecting that not long before the aforesaid Synaxarium was written (it was written about 600 years ago) she died; perhaps in the 10th or 11th century, so that the still recent memory of her holiness, known to all, took away from the writer the care of designating the time, then well known. The same cause must have been for not naming either the city in which the Saint died, or the church in which she was buried.
For that she is said to have been born at Aenus, so far from proving that she also passed her life there, and that at Constantinople, rather makes one suspect the contrary.
[5] The dignity also of Συγκλητικῆς, "Senatorial," founds a presumption for the city of Constantinople; to whose use also the Synaxarium we use seems to have been composed: where the Senate and Senatorial women, because in it alone such a title fell to women, the more we believe, the less we know that elsewhere than in either Rome, old and new, there were Senate and Senators, so absolutely and without addition of place named. And not only from their husbands did the wives of Senators receive the title of Synclitica; but it seems even to have passed to their daughters. This persuades us on the 5th of January of S. Apollinaris, surnamed Syncletica. Although it was also a proper name then of others, and of her whose so many distinguished sayings are reported among the Apophthegms of the Fathers, and whose Life is printed on the same 5th of January: just as among the Latins also "Senatores" were called by proper name; and virgins; of whom one Bishop of Verona was commemorated by us on the 7th of January; and another of Milan on the 28th of May: besides whom Ferrarius, in the Catalog of Saints of Italy, indicates to us a third for the 14th of September, with brothers and mother, crowned with martyrdom at Argentanum in Bruttii (it is now called the city of S. Marco in Calabria), about whom we hope to find more for that month.