Constantine

ON SAINT CONSTANTINE, CONFESSOR, AT CARTHAGE.

Constantine, Confessor, at Carthage (Saint)

[1] After the Martyrs Heraclius, Zosimus, and the others, crowned with martyrdom at Carthage for the faith of Christ, have been reported, Saint Constantine the Confessor follows in several manuscript Martyrologies: that of Saint Gudula at Brussels, that of Saint Jerome at Utrecht, that of Saint Cecilia at Leiden, that of the Canons Regular at Albergen, Name in Martyrologies. that of the Society of Jesus at Louvain, and certain others under the name of Usuard: likewise in the manuscript Florarium, and in various printed editions; such as the Lubeck edition of 1475, the Cologne and Paris editions of 1590, as well as in the Martyrologies of Greven, Galesin, Canisius, and Molanus, the last alone being cited in today's Roman Martyrology in these words: At Carthage, of Saint Constantine the Confessor: in most other editions there is added: a most illustrious man and renowned for the glory of his heavenly and divine deeds. Constantine Ghini also put forth the same in his Birthdays of the Holy Canons Regular, citing only Molanus, Galesin, and the Roman Martyrology, and also appending a cross, by which he indicates that no mention of him is made in the Catalogue of Groenendaal.

[2] Certain Spaniards, after having inscribed the aforementioned Martyrs Heraclius and Zosimus without Constantine in the Chronicle of Pseudo-Dexter, afterwards inserted him with them in the Adversaria, whether he died in Spain? or Fragments, which recently appeared collected under the name of Luitprand, or Eutrand. In these, chapter 4 of the Madrid edition, or chapter 5 of the Antwerp edition, the following is read: At Carthago Spartaria, Saint Constantine the Confessor, a most illustrious man, renowned for the glory of many virtues, departs as a Confessor under Valerian on the eleventh day of March. On the same day, the passion of the holy Martyrs Heraclius and Zosimus, who suffered for Christ at the same place. Following that Chronicle, Tamayo Salazar, in his Spanish Martyrology, reports the following: Saint Constantine, Confessor, at Carthago Spartaria, a most distinguished man, heaped up an abundance of good works by which he merited the crown of life. He adds in his annotations the year 257, under the Emperor Valerian. All of which is said from mere conjecture.

ON SAINT CONSTANTINE, KING, MONK, AND MARTYR, IN SCOTLAND,

AROUND THE YEAR 576.

A HISTORICAL COMMENTARY.

Constantine, King, monk and Martyr in Scotland (Saint)

BHL Number: 1932

[1] This holy King is mentioned in the Scottish Breviary of the Church of Aberdeen for this eleventh of March with this eulogy: Constantine, son of Paternus, King of Cornwall, He entrusts the kingdom to his son: married the daughter of the King of Lesser Britain. But behold, fortune turning adverse, the Queen died: when the King refused to be consoled for the grief of her death, he more wisely committed and entrusted the kingdom and its governance to his son. Then, bidding farewell to all, having left the kingdom, in Ireland he carries and returns grain for milling: he crossed over into Ireland, and coming to a certain house of religion, he humbly endured the labor of carrying whatever needed to be ground from the granary to the mill for seven years and back again, descending from a kingdom to a mill. But one day, while Constantine the miller was sitting in the mill and seeing no one, he said: "Am I that Constantine, King of Cornwall, whose head bore so many helmets, whose body bore so many coats of mail?" Questioning himself, "Am I?" he answered: "I am not." educated in a monastery And when he had turned this over in his mind, someone hiding in the mill explained to the Abbot what he had heard. On hearing these things, all came running, and drawing him out of the mill, they led him into the cloister, he is made a Priest: taught him letters, and, the Holy Spirit inspiring, raised him to the grade of the priesthood. Without delay, having bidden farewell to all, he departed thence, and came to Saint Columba, a man indeed most dear to God, he visits Saint Columba and Saint Kentigern. and then was directed by Saint Kentigern to preach the word of God in Galloway, where, having been elected as Abbot, he strove to reform the flock committed to him by word and example. And now, when Constantine had advanced to a decrepit age, he becomes Abbot, he sought from the Lord what he had long had in mind: that he might die as a Martyr for the Church of Christ, and he heard a voice from heaven saying that it would be so, as he had asked. But when the man of God, traversing the country here and there, was preaching the word of God, and was lingering on the island of Kintyre, on the island of Kintyre certain malicious persons gathered together and hastened to the island, to wickedly accomplish what the man of God had piously sought. Coming therefore to the man of God, they cut off the hand of his servant, which he immediately healed by his touch alone. Raging therefore against the man of God, desirous of martyrdom, he is wounded: they afflicted him with various blows, and among other lethal wounds, they also severed his arm, and leaving him as though dead, they departed. Then the Saint, calling together his Brethren, consoled them in charity, and thus in the presence of the Brethren assembled before him, he fell asleep in peace, he dies. worthy to be counted among the saints and elect Martyrs of God. He died around the year of the Lord five hundred and seventy-six. So far from the Breviary of Aberdeen.

[2] We judge that the same King is treated in the Life of Saint David, Archbishop of Menevia, illustrated by us on the first of this month of March, he lived in the monastery of Menevia under Saint David, in which at number 7 the following is found: "When the fame of the good odor of Saint David was heard, Kings, Princes, and secular men abandoned their kingdoms and sought his monastery. Hence it happened that Constantine, King of Cornwall, abandoned his kingdom and subjected himself to the obedience of this Father's cell." John of Tynemouth, in the Life of the same David published by Capgrave, thus explains the King's arrival and departure: "Constantine, King of the Cornish, having left his kingdom, became a monk in his monastery: and there, having lived in divine service, he finally migrated to another distant country and founded a monastery." John of Fordun explains these matters more fully in his Chronicle, as quoted by Colgan, in these words: "A contemporary of Saint Columba the Abbot was Saint Constantine, King of Cornwall, who, having left his earthly kingdom, began to meditate upon the heavenly kingdom: and with Saint Columba he came to Scotland, he preached to the Picts and Scots: and preached the faith to the Scots and Picts. He established a monastery of the Brethren at Govan near the Clyde, over which he himself presided as Abbot. He converted the whole land of Kintyre: where he himself fell as a Martyr for the faith, and received burial in his monastery at Govan."

[3] Inscribed in Martyrologies with the title of Martyr. The memory of the same Saint Constantine is observed by Hermann Greven, who died in the year 1470 at the Carthusian house of Cologne: he, in his additions to Usuard, has the following: "In Scotland, of Saint Constantine, King and Martyr." The same is read in the Martyrology printed at Cologne and the Doctrinale Clericorum printed at Lubeck in the year 1490, and in the Martyrology collected in German by Peter Canisius. In the manuscript Florarium of Saints it is read thus: "In Scotland, of Saint Constantine the First, King and Martyr." Ferrarius also mentions him, following Canisius.

[4] Constantine the First, or the Elder. And these seem to us more certain records: from which we gather that this Saint Constantine the First is some elder, who flourished there in the sixth century of Christ among other lesser Kings, such as Alford, in his Annals of the Anglo-Saxon Church at the year 501, number 3, has established to have lived under the Kings Uther and Arthur of Britain. This one, therefore, having left the royal dominion which he possessed in Cornwall, came to Saint David, Archbishop of Menevia, and having lived for a long time in the monastery of Menevia under him, he migrated to a distant country. Meanwhile, after King Arthur departed this life around the year 540, among the Kings of Britain (we are not speaking here of the Anglo-Saxons), another Constantine was regarded as the chief, different from Constantine the successor of Arthur: surnamed by Gildas in his work On the Destruction of Britain, where he describes his vices, "the Tyrant of Damnonia." The ancient Damnonii inhabited the provinces of Devon and the aforementioned Cornwall. Whether and by what degree of kinship he was related to the former Constantine is not clear. In the time of this latter Constantine, Saint David of Menevia departed from the living in the year 544, as we said in his Life. At that time, therefore, Saint Constantine had migrated to a distant country, which from what has been said above is established to be Ireland; where afterward he came to the acquaintance of Saint Columba the Abbot, and finally departed with him to present-day Scotland: that this was done in the year 565 is taught by Bede in book 3 of his Ecclesiastical History of the English, chapter 4, and in book 5, chapter 10, he asserts that the first teacher of the Christian faith to the Picts beyond the mountains, to the north, was Columba: at which time Saint Kentigern was cultivating other Picts toward the south in Albania, as we said on his birthday, the thirteenth of January, and

on the ninth of June it will be discussed in the Life of Saint Columba the Abbot. And at last Constantine, in a decrepit age, died from a wound inflicted for the faith of Christ, around the year 576. Hector Boece, in book 9 of his History of Scotland, seems to have conflated both Constantines into one, and asserts that while he was instructing the Scots in the teachings of Christ, he suffered martyrdom at the hands of the ungodly: temples dedicated to him. and that some centuries later, when he was enrolled among the Saints, several temples were dedicated to him by the authority of the holy Pontiffs, which are still visible.

[5] There was another Constantine among the Kings of Scotland, whom John Major, in book 3, chapter 2, of his work On the Deeds of the Scots, asserts to have left the scepter and become a religious at Saint Andrews, Another Constantine, King of Scotland, a monk in the tenth century. and to have remained there for five years until his death. The same is written by Leslie, who counts him as the seventy-fifth King and calls him Constantine, and by Boece, who asserts he was tonsured and consecrated to a monastery in the year 943. Dempster and Camerarius inscribed this one in their Menologies, omitting the other, and Camerarius again on the twentieth of December, and in the index they are indicated as two distinct persons. Gorman Marian, in his manuscript Irish Martyrology, places on this day in the first position Constantine the British, Abbot of Rathen of Saint Mochuddae, concerning whom in the annals of Tallaght it is read thus: "Constantine the Briton, or the son of Fergus from the Crutheni"; according to Aengus he is called "Constantine, King of Rathen": from all of which nothing certain can be brought forward, except that a Saint Constantine is venerated on this day, to whom each author has attached his own explanations.

[13] Hermann Greven again has the following at the thirteenth of March: Of Constantine, King, Protomartyr of Scotland: memory on 13 March. whom we judge to be one and the same as the one reported by the same author on this day.

SAINT SOPHRONIUS, PATRIARCH OF JERUSALEM,

YEAR 638.

LIFE COMPILED FROM VARIOUS SOURCES.

Sophronius, Patriarch of Jerusalem (Saint)

FROM VARIOUS SOURCES

CHAPTER I

His studies at Alexandria shared with his master John Moschus; why he was called the author of the Spiritual Meadow?

[1] That Sophronius, the sixty-second Bishop of the Church of Jerusalem, was born in the city of Damascus, distinguished by manifold learning, knowledge of divine letters, and piety, is asserted by the Greek Menologion on this day; the Menaea assent: from which the names of his parents are brought forward, The birth of Saint Sophronius: which were Plinthas for his father and Myro for his mother. That the study of sacred doctrines was immense in him, and that his expertise was no less than his study, the Acts of his later life abundantly prove: the profession also of dialectical precepts and of the rhetorical art in his younger years, before he had yet professed the monastic life, is indicated by the honorific appellation of Sophist; the cognomen of Sophist, under which John Moschus inscribes the Spiritual Meadow to his name: for the Sophronius who was John's disciple and companion is the one we are treating. Moreover, there is very good reason to believe that this is the work cited and produced by Saint John Damascene as "the Meadow of our holy father Sophronius, Archbishop of Jerusalem," at the end of the book he wrote in defense of images, only one century after the death of Sophronius, and himself living in Palestine.

[2] But by what reasoning is this work, which is certainly known to be that of John Moschus, both from Photius, codex 199, and from the very inscription of the prologue addressed to Sophronius, attributed to Sophronius himself by Damascene, and also by the Second Council of Nicaea, Why is the Spiritual Meadow attributed to Sophronius? celebrated not long after Damascene had written, for the purpose of restoring the cult of sacred images? For in its Act IV, at the suggestion of Eustachius, Hegumen of the house of Maximus, the monk Stephen read word for word from the Meadow of our Father Sophronius the passage contained in chapter 45 of the Spiritual Meadow, as we have said. Aloysius Lipomanus, Bishop of Verona, through whose efforts that illustrious work was first submitted to the Latin press in the translation of Jerome Camaldulensis, answers that it is attributed to Sophronius for these reasons: either because it is inscribed to him through his dearest companion; because it was dedicated to him, just as Cicero's Rhetoric to Herennius and his letters to Atticus are called the books To Herennius and To Atticus: so this book may be called Sophronius's, because it is directed to Sophronius: and especially because it was written primarily for his use. For the author himself, in the letter which he prefixes to the book, confesses that from this Meadow he wove a crown for Sophronius, and through him offered it subsequently to others.

[3] Or because in this book the sayings and deeds of Sophronius himself are for the greater part contained: for he was the inseparable companion of the author throughout the entire journey of this book; the author's inseparable companion on his travels, and whatever occurred to both of them as they traveled, or whatever answers they happened to receive when inquiring, are described most diligently. Wherefore you will also see these words most frequently repeated: "We came, I and my lord Sophronius the Sophist, to such-and-such an Abbot," etc. And therefore he always also uses the plural form of speech, saying: "We proceeded, we approached, we saw, the elder, the leader of the monastery, told us." Through all of which it is apparent that the writer was never alone in seeking out the things he narrates. Just as, therefore, Plato's Phaedrus, Timaeus, Gorgias, and Parmenides, and Cicero's book on old age are entitled Cato the Elder, from the persons who are introduced there conversing and debating: what will prevent this book from being called Sophronius's, since in it he is everywhere almost represented as walking, visiting, working, asking, and answering? Or finally, it is ascribed to Sophronius for this reason, perhaps also as a collaborator in the work, that together with the aforementioned John he was, so to speak, perhaps a co-writer of the same book. Read chapter 77 of this volume, and at its beginning you will find it written thus: "I and my lord Sophronius proceeded to the house of the philosopher Stephen for the sake of learning," etc. Then at the end of the same chapter it is written thus: "When we heard these things, my lord Sophronius nodded 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.' These things, therefore, we have written, so that you likewise may be edified."

[4] By one, therefore, of these reasons, or rather by all of them together concurring, the book seems rightly and deservedly to have been inscribed with the name of Sophronius: to which reasons of Lipomanus this also may be added, if you please: for it was known both in Palestine, that the book began to be published and celebrated through the efforts of Sophronius, who had himself received it, as if by testament, from his Master dying at Rome, where the work was finally completed, and had brought it, together with the body of the deceased, to Palestine, as we shall see shortly. What Aloysius, however, assumes for his second reason, that Sophronius was the inseparable companion of the author, this must be understood of those times after which the latter joined him in Egypt: for it is not credible that for all the things narrated in Palestine and Syria and in Egypt: as being heard (although John, speaking in the plural, indicates that companions were present), he always had Sophronius as his companion, who had not yet embraced the will of the monastic profession, and is nowhere named in those passages. The Greek Menaea indeed say that, betaking himself to the monastery of the Great Theodosius, he there strengthened his soul in quiet and silence by the meditation of divine letters: and furthermore (when he burned with even greater zeal for learning Philosophy) sailed to Alexandria: but with events and times in confusion, more things are recorded in that eulogy; and what was done by the man is attributed to the youth, if indeed we wish to understand the Menaea as referring to the assumption of the monastic habit: for otherwise it is gathered that the youth, eager for knowledge and advancement, frequented not infrequently the monasteries near his homeland, including that very one of Saint Theodosius, and that he came to know there the already famous John, later the author of the Meadow, from this beginning of chapter 91: "Our venerable Father Abbot Gregory, Archimandrite of the monastery of our holy Father Theodosius, told us, namely me and brother Sophronius the Sophist."

[5] Where, in calling him brother, this cannot be understood otherwise than by a certain anticipation of that term where he still wore the secular habit, which they used between themselves at Rome when these things were being written: elsewhere he calls him Lord, in chapter 69: "We went together, I and the Lord Sophronius, before he renounced the world, to Alexandria to Abbot Palladius." And more expressly in chapter 77, cited above, and chapter 110: "I took," he says, "my Lord Sophronius, and we proceeded to a monastery which is eighteen miles from Alexandria, to a certain elder of great virtue, an Egyptian by birth, and I said to the elder: 'Tell us a word, Father, how we ought to dwell together: for the Lord Sophist has the desire to renounce the world.' The elder said: 'You do well, my son, in 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.'"

[6] he exchanges the secular for the monastic habit: By these and other similar admonitions I believe Sophronius was moved to assume the monastic habit: and that this is what is meant by what is read in chapter 102 about a vision offered to him on the way. "When Abbot Sophronius the Sophist, my brother, was questioned — we were standing near him, I and Abbot John the Scholastic, and Abbot Quiricus, and certain others of the Fathers — he said to us: 'I was just now proceeding on the way, and before me young maidens were leading a dance and leaping, saying: Welcome, Sophronius; Sophronius is crowned.'" But whether thereafter, whenever the author of the Meadow says in the plural: "we went, we proceeded," etc., Sophronius should be understood to have been present, even if this is not expressed, may rightly be doubted; for it does not seem to be without reason that in chapter 262 he adds this so clearly: "We saw Abbot Theodore of Pentapolis (and Sophronius the Sophist was with us) and we questioned him," etc.

[7] And from these things, set forth here for the sake of elucidating the history, another thing also can be understood: and examples of virtues namely, what kind of study it was, the equal desire for which in both of them bound them together in so close a bond: for what they were doing was this, that from those things which they saw and heard everywhere, they would pluck, so to speak, the choicer flowers and transfer them to that Meadow which they were planning, for their own and others' advancement: of which matter various examples could be brought forward from the named book: one here for all is that which is found in chapter eleven, in these words: "I and my companion Sophronius, when we were in Alexandria, one day proceeded to the church of Theodosius, with his Master he studiously observes: and on the road we encountered in a quarter a certain bald man, wearing a sack down to his knees: he appeared as though foolish and demented. Therefore Abbot Sophronius said to me: 'Give me some coins, and you will see the virtue of the man coming.' I gave him five coins; he took them and gave them to the man who appeared as one demented: but that man received them, saying nothing at all: and we secretly followed him in his footsteps: and when he had turned from the road, he stretched his right hand, which held the coins, toward heaven, and after this he prostrated himself before God, and placing the coins on the ground, went away."

[8] from which the Spiritual Meadow was composed. For they went about like industrious bees, the disciple equally with the master: and they carried back jointly into spiritual honeycombs what they had gathered. And to this alludes that part of the hymn

customarily sung by the Greeks on this day, whose initial letters form this verse:

"I sing of him who bears the name of Wisdom, doing what is fitting."

Of this hymn, I say, the thirteenth verse from the end alludes to this, when it says: "Wholly devoted to God, flying about the plantations of the ascetics, O wise one, you planted your meadow, dedicating the studious practice of virtues to God who is in the highest." So that here the work of the Meadow is not obscurely attributed to Sophronius, as its second author.

[9] Who was John Moschus? Moreover, the eulogy of the first author (which Photius for the most part inserted into his Library, and which, complete from an ancient Vatican manuscript codex, was rendered into Latin by Francesco Olivari, and published by our Heribert Rosweyde among the Lives of the Fathers) it is useful to set forth here; since it seems to contribute not a little to illuminating the affairs of the disciple, so that the history of his master may be known to some extent. It reads as follows: "This book of the Meadow was written, or of the Lives of the holy and virtuous Fathers pleasing to God, who are contained in it, and the other most useful narratives for the soul, and the wise sayings of the sacred, righteous, and Christ-loving Fathers and Brethren, by John of holy memory, Priest and monk, surnamed Moschus: who first renounced the world in the monastery of our holy Father Theodosius, Abbot and Archimandrite of all the monasteries which are in Jerusalem: and when he had spent no small time in the desert at the holy Jordan with the holy Fathers who dwell there, the author of the Meadow? and had collected their virtues, he inserted them into this work. And when he dwelt in what is called the New Monastery, which was built by our holy and great Father Sabbas and his disciples and remains to this day, hearing of the tyranny with which the Persians had oppressed the Romans, on the occasion of the murder of the Emperor Maurice and his children, departing from the New Monastery, he proceeded to the regions of Antioch the Great."

[10] And thence again, seeing the nation prevailing, he betook himself to Alexandria; and having traversed all the solitude which surrounds it (for he had already at the beginning of the reign of Tiberius been sent to Egypt to fulfill a ministry), and reaching as far as the Oasis and the desert adjacent to it; his journeys, after he had visited the Fathers who were there, and thence again heard that the holy places had been occupied and that the Romans were seized with fear; leaving Alexandria, he sailed to the great city of the Romans together with his most beloved disciple Sophronius. While they were on the journey, they visited various islands. But the blessed man was endowed by the Lord with such a grace that if he heard or saw anything concerning the life and deeds of men distinguished by virtue, he would commit it to writing: whence it came to pass that even when he was at Rome, he carried out the same plan." So far the eulogy, the other part of which, more closely touching on the life of Sophronius, will be set forth in the following paragraph. Here I only observe that Tiberius, at whose accession Moschus had the occasion of visiting Egypt, assumed the reins of empire at the end of the year of the Christian era 579: and that Maurice, whose death and the consequent calamities brought upon Moschus the necessity of leaving Palestine, was removed from life around the end of the year 602.

[11] But that when departing for Antioch he took Sophronius as his companion, and so had him as a witness of many things to what times do these things refer? which he writes as having been seen and heard by himself from the Fathers dwelling around Antioch; and that he was even assisted by him, still a layman, with the expenses necessary for the journey, we can suspect but by no means affirm; since the Menaea say that Sophronius found him at Alexandria: which, however, does not carry great weight with us on account of other anachronisms in that eulogy which we shall append below from the Menaea: whether Sophronius departed from Palestine with him? but there is no other argument to the contrary: nor does any reckoning of times prevent him from having been able to adhere to Moschus even then: for if you grant that Sophronius lived at least sixty years, he was, when Maurice died, more than twenty-three years old: which age is certainly most opportune for the labors of travels and studies.

CHAPTER II:

He writes the miracles of Saints Cyrus and John; a friend of Saint John the Almoner: goes to Rome; returns to Palestine.

[12] Setting aside conjectures, therefore, we have this for certain from what precedes: that Sophronius shared the companionship of Moschus in Egypt, first as a layman, then as a monk: Miracles of Saints Cyrus and John, likewise that both together visited the monasteries of that region and penetrated even into the deserts themselves: but as to what Sophronius did specifically at Alexandria, this is clear partly from the subject matter of the Spiritual Meadow, especially from the aforementioned chapters 77, 110, 111, and others: partly from the Life of Saint John the Almoner, and from the remarkable volume on Saints Cyrus and John, written there by Sophronius; which, having been sought in vain at the thirty-first of January, the day on which those Saints are venerated, and believed to have perished, we happily found on our Roman journey, and indeed in both languages, and we preserve it in place of an immense treasure, to be brought forth in due time, when we shall add a not insignificant supplement to the ever-growing work: but learn the occasion for its writing and the wonders which accompanied the writing from the protheoria, or preface:

[13] freed from an affliction of the eyes by them, "On account of an affliction of the eyes, hastening to the Martyrs Cyrus and John, we were staying at their basilica, and beholding the abundance of their miracles, we wished to read writings commemorating these things, which would instruct us in the contest of the Martyrs, and which would proclaim their preceding miracles: and finding nothing of what we sought, except only two brief sermons of the great Cyril, who was the champion and herald of truth, we were roused to an intolerable zeal. For if pagans, writing falsehoods, when they say nothing true or free from fables, have written so many books about demons: shall we, like quadrupeds, according to the friends of the just Job, remain silent while beholding such great and remarkable magnificent works of the truth, which is Christ our God, accomplished through His true servants? ... Therefore we also, burning with a more ardent zeal, hastened to the confession of the Saints, piously falling on our faces, and devoting ourselves with our whole soul, that if they should grant us the service of sight, we would write about their contest and about the miracles performed by them, with divine grace cooperating with us..."

[14] "Whence arising, and afterwards collected within ourselves; Sophronius vows to write: on the one hand we beheld the loftiness of the Martyrs and perceived the multitude of miracles which were being done: on the other, our weakness... whence we wished to refuse this offering of redemption promised by us in our vows to God and His Martyrs: but Solomon restrained us from doing this, saying: 'According as you have vowed to God, do not delay to fulfill your vow'... Bound, therefore, by these men, now terrified to write on account of the former things, now trembling not to write on account of the latter, and not knowing what to do, and fleeing to the same Martyrs, I asked of their holiness what was to be done. They, however, accepting my purpose and disposition, he is aided by them in the work: commanded me to write, promising to confer their aid and counsel. Many times, therefore, they appeared to us as we were writing, fulfilling what they had promised: now offering ink and pen, now taking up a quire and correcting what had escaped us: sometimes, as though rejoicing in the narratives, they showed by the cheerfulness of their countenances that they were examining them with delight: which we also often experience, when with joyful eyes we have come to passages possessing the grace of the narrative. A thousand times, indeed, while we were occupied in other matters, they complained to us and rebuked us as negligent, saying: 'How long will you not complete the truth?' defending these things concerning the writing and the praise of their name: all of which, if we wished to write, we would burden those who will read. But it suffices for now to establish, through these things, the aid frequently conferred on us by them while we were writing; and having God and them as witnesses of the truth which is in these things."

[15] its division. "First, therefore, we wrote the martyrial contest of these Saints, and how they were deposited in the temple of the venerable Mark, and how they were finally transferred to the church of the Evangelists: gathering the occasions and seeds of these things from the words of Saint Cyril. After which, we wrote these seven decades of miracles; having thousands of many decades to describe, if indeed we could speak and those who will read these things could bear to hear... And of these seven decades, the first three contain the things done after the martyrial contest, burial, and translation: and the half of the fourth enumerates the virtues of Cyrus and John accomplished in Alexandria; the remainder of the fourth and the fifth decade proclaim the things done in Egypt and Libya: and the sixth and seventh make known the benefits granted to strangers... We are not unaware that a smooth and flowing style is more suitable for the sacred narratives of miracles: but leaving this aside, we have adopted an extended one, so that through this we may designate the fervent ardor of the Saints and their eagerness to confer healing upon the needy."

[16] The manner of the restored health. These things are found there, and many more, here omitted for the sake of brevity and marked with ellipses: in the discourse itself on the praises of the said Saints, he explains more clearly what the infirmity of the eyes was and how he was cured of it, as follows: "We indeed, afflicted in our eyes, which the Savior called the lamp of the whole body... and hearing from physicians that this infirmity would bring blindness, some of whom called this defect an effusion, and others platycoria, or dilation of the pupil; we set out for these beneficent Saints, namely Cyrus and John, suspending all our hope of seeing upon the grace divinely given to them, and repelling human aid as weak and less effective against the affliction: and they, admitting our faith... provided a swift cure for the illness, and made us certain about the future, that we would suffer nothing more of what the physicians had said we would suffer: driving away our Homeric blindness through visions and enigmas, as is their pleasure."

[17] Counselor of Saint John the Almoner, But these were the private studies of Sophronius, which no one will marvel were often interrupted by the occupations of others: who shall only read how greatly both he and his Master John were esteemed by Saint John the Almoner, Archbishop of the city of Alexandria: and how great a share of public cares pertained to them. Concerning which Leontius writes the following at number 60 in the Life published by us on the twenty-third of January: "God sent him wise and ever-memorable men, John and Sophronius: for they were truly good counselors, whom he obeyed as fathers without discrimination, and to whom he gave thanks as to the most constant and manfully acting soldiers for the sake of religious piety. For indeed, relying on the power of the Holy Spirit, with the Severianists and other unclean heretics existing in our region, they waged battles with their wisdom and disputations."

waging battles and conflict, they strove to snatch many fortresses, several churches, and likewise monasteries from the jaws of such beasts, as good shepherds: on which account that truly most holy man honored these Saints most exceedingly.

[18] indeed a member of his household, Indeed he seems to have had them as members of his household: so familiarly, in the Life written by Metaphrastes at number 9, does the divine Sophronius, who was present, question him at home in the evening when he was sorrowful, which no one else dared to do, saying: "What is it, O divine man, that afflicts you with distress?" ... And he, with a mild and gentle voice, said: "Today the wretched John has received no reward from anyone, nor has he been able to offer to Christ even the smallest propitiatory gift for his many and great offenses." ... When, therefore, the most sacred Sophronius understood what was meant by what had been said by him, he replied: "You ought rather to rejoice and not be afflicted with sadness, O most Blessed Lord, because you have made the flock committed to you live in such great peace that no one has any controversy with his neighbor about anything: but people live on earth like Angels, without any strife or contention."

[19] He whom he had as a most proven minister in his hierarchical office, he writes the praises of the deceased: and as a confidant of his virtues and secrets while he lived: the same he also had as his eulogist after his death: for upon the death of the Patriarch, who fell asleep in blessed peace (as the Menaea attest), this Sophronius wrote a funeral oration concerning his immense treasure of almsgiving and his most excellent virtue, and he himself with many tears mourned his passing. Leontius mentions this oration at number 2: "Already indeed," he says, "others before us have philosophized concerning this admirable man and supreme Priest John, being powerful in work and in word. For I speak of John and Sophronius, worshippers of God, lovers of virtues, and champions of piety: nevertheless, although they were such men, they omitted many things concerning the dignity and merit of this man... then, because they were wise and powerful in work and word, and lovers of history, they depicted the subject wisely and sublimely."

[20] With the Persians threatening Alexandria, Before, however, the most holy Bishop departed from the living, John and Sophronius, returning to Alexandria after traversing the interior of Egypt, found everything in turmoil: for the Persians had conquered by force of arms the regions of the Jordan, Palestine, and the holy city. After capturing Zacharias, Patriarch of Jerusalem, and seizing from those places also the precious and life-giving wood of the Cross, they carried off an innumerable multitude of captive men into Persia, and devastated all of Syria. Those who were able to escape their hands (as Baronius describes from Metaphrastes, although confusing the authors he names Leontius), both laymen, those who held office as well as private citizens, and Clergy together with Bishops, had fled to Alexandria. But not even there were they permitted to be safe for long: for in the following year the Persians subjugated Egypt, Alexandria, and Libya as far as the borders of Ethiopia. thence he departs with his master and companions: John Moschus had foreseen that this would happen: therefore, boarding a ship with Sophronius and his other disciples, he sailed to Rome; and I would readily believe that he had first taken refuge in Cyprus together with the Patriarch John, and after the latter's death, had arrived finally in Italy through Cilicia and other regions of Asia which are mentioned in the Meadow, and through Samos and the islands of the Archipelago, if some argument were offered in support of that opinion.

[21] whether also with Saint John the Patriarch? Now, however, in the profound silence of the authors, it is not permitted to conjecture: yet the fact that among the many things which Moschus narrates as done and heard in Cyprus, there is no mention of a departure from Alexandria in the company of the Patriarch, does not move me: for I see that throughout that entire work the Patriarch John is not named even once: perhaps for this reason, that whatever Moschus and Sophronius knew to be worthy of record concerning him, they referred to his Life which they wrote at Rome: but if the funeral oration by Sophronius was different from this, and it were established that it was delivered at the funeral, then it would be nearly certain that Sophronius was present with the Bishop in Cyprus. But nothing is clear about these matters. Perhaps also the work of the Meadow has not reached us in its entirety, but mutilated in a good part: for as Photius says: "You would not find the same number of narratives preserved in all the books: since in some they extend to three hundred and forty-two" (but today only two hundred and nineteen chapters are counted), "and this either from the division of certain chapters or certainly from the interpolation of others, with the number increased."

[22] The pontificate of Pope Deusdedit was at its end, or that of Boniface V just begun, What John and Sophronius did at Rome: when John arrived at Rome with his companions, where it is credible that the presence of such great men was not without fruit, so that the Roman See might be more fully informed about the heresies spreading and daily budding forth again throughout the East: which I consider to have been especially the role of Sophronius; for the declining old age of his master rather demanded rest: who meanwhile, lest his elderly leisure be useless to posterity, from all the things he had seen, heard, and noted down that would profit for edification, wrote the Meadow, or Spiritual Meadow, "when he had foreseen the time of his migration to God," says the author of the eulogy cited above, which continues in this manner: "Not, however, in the order of those things which had been heard or witnessed by him; but as they were similar among themselves, both those heard and those witnessed, joined to one another, he committed to writing. here the body of the dead master When, moreover, he was about to depart from these earthly tumults and pass to a tranquil and quiet life, having called his most beloved disciple, he delivered this book to him, in which the Lives and God-pleasing deeds of the holy Fathers are contained: and he charged him not to leave his relics at Rome, but to try, as far as it was in his power, to transfer them, enclosed in a wooden chest, to Mount Sinai, so that they might be deposited with the holy Fathers who are there. But if any barbarian tumult should arise that would prevent this from being done; that they should be deposited in the monastery of Saint Theodosius, in which he had first renounced the world."

[22] When, therefore, the most beloved disciple strove to fulfill this charge, he carries it back to Palestine having taken with him John together with his fellow disciples (for they were twelve in number), he imitated the great Joseph, who, taking Israel with his brethren, transported him from Egypt to his fathers, just as had been commanded by his father. When he had landed at Ascalon and had learned that it was impossible to reach the holy Mount Sinai, on account of the tyrannical incursions of those who are called Hagarenes; taking with him the relics of Blessed John, at the beginning of the eighth Indiction he came to Jerusalem; and finding the Superior of the great monastery of our holy Father Theodosius, George the Priest, after he had reported to him all the things that had been commanded him by the elder, together with those Brethren of the monastery who were then found in the city and the monks who lived with him, they brought down Blessed John: and as he had commanded, he deposited him in the cemetery of Saint Theodosius, together with the holy Fathers who lie there, and spent the remaining time of his life in the same monastery. So far the eulogy prefixed to the Spiritual Meadow, whose final words, unless we wish to believe that Moschus had a companion other than Sophronius of Jerusalem (against the consensus of nearly all Greek antiquity, which the author of the Menaea follows), we must interpret more generously as referring to the by far greatest part of his remaining life, of which thirteen years in all were spent in the monastery; but only three in the patriarchate.

[23] in the year 620. The character of the eighth Indiction indicates that the year of return was six hundred and twenty; which indeed is not without wonder: since no less concerning this than the following year is it credible that what Theophanes says at the eleventh year of Heraclius was true, that Chosroes had made the yoke of his dominion intolerable to all through frequent slaughters and tributes. Moreover, I consider that most of his works, which we now grieve to have perished, belong rather to the years spent in the monastery by Sophronius than to the brief time of his episcopate: and likewise the Lives of Saints: if indeed, besides those already mentioned, he wrote some others: as Nicephorus Callistus is the authority that the Life of Saint Mary of Egypt, which is now in our hands, was written by him, in book 17, chapter 5, of his Ecclesiastical History; and the most eminent Baronius suspects the same concerning the Life of Anastasius the Persian at the year 622: He is said to have written certain Lives both of which we acknowledge to be such that they contain nothing from which it could be either denied or affirmed with certainty that they are or are not by Sophronius: moreover, the style is very different from that in which we rejoice to have discovered the oration in praise and the miracles of Saints Cyrus and John, described by the same author, and indeed undoubtedly so.

CHAPTER III

The patriarchate of Sophronius and his struggles against the Monothelites.

[24] Meanwhile, captive Jerusalem groaned under the dreadful servitude of the Persians, and with it all Syria, Jerusalem having been taken by Chosroes. until God, avenging His injuries, expelled the blasphemous Chosroes, thrice defeated in battle, from both life and kingdom through the parricidal hands of his son Siroes; and with captives restored on both sides, peace was established between Heraclius and Siroes, in the year of the Christian era 628, with Modestus, filling the place of the captive Zacharias under the title of Vicar (some less correctly write that he was made Bishop immediately after the city was taken), the Abbot of the Theodosian monastery, who, sustaining the cares of the most afflicted diocese in a most difficult time, Sophronius returns; had transferred the governance of the monks to George: although the monks from the monastery, as those times bore, neither walled nor in any way safe against the daily infestations of the Persians, had withdrawn within the city: which was the reason for Sophronius, returning from Rome with the body of his master and his companions, to come to Jerusalem, the same having been received by Heraclius, and, as it seems to me, to remain there until the conclusion of peace; when it was permitted for the monks to migrate back to their old seats, or rather to the ruins of their old seats: and Zacharias was restored to his bishopric by the Emperor Heraclius, who was bringing the wood of the life-giving Cross back to its place.

[25] he restores the lost books of the sacred Office, These things occurred in the year 629, when I also believe that Sophronius, by the command of the Pontiff Zacharias and the Vicar Modestus, applied himself to restoring the sacred books, in order that the divine Office might be sung throughout the entire Patriarchate of Jerusalem in the ancient manner and splendor: for this is established from the words of Simeon of Thessalonica, cited by Leo Allatius in his first dissertation on the books of the Greeks, page 7, who introduces that author, hitherto unedited and famous six hundred years ago, speaking thus in his dialogue against heresies: "A more orderly and pleasant order is prescribed from the Typikon of the Jerusalem monastery of Saint Sabbas, which can also be performed by one person alone... and without chant... For our holy Father Sabbas prescribed that order as received from Saints Euthymius and Theoctistus: they, moreover, derived it from their predecessors and from Chariton the Confessor. But the constitution of the holy Sabbas, lost, as we have heard, when those places were devastated by the incursion of barbarians, Sophronius, Patriarch of the holy city,

restored by his study and labor: and after him, John Damascene again renewed it and committed it to writing as a tradition: and again after the Saracen invasion because indeed the Saracens, not keeping the pledge given to Sophronius, had at once both brought an end to the life of the holy Patriarch, who could not bear to see holy things trampled upon by dogs, through grief; and had also wrought the greatest devastation upon books and all sacred things alike, in the first onset of the barbaric invasion: for afterward, when the empire of the Saracens was established in Syria and Palestine, they acted more moderately, and it was easy for Damascene to restore what had been lost. And these things were indeed long used in the Church of Jerusalem alone: Saint John Damascene. but now, after the Eastern Church has been almost extinguished under the empire of the Turks, with the rites of other Churches falling silent, says Allatius, that which is said to have been of Saint Sabbas, as the better and more suited to conditions, and therefore more approved, has prevailed among the Greeks; by which not only those who have given their names to the rules of Saint Sabbas, but also the other followers of other Orders, and Priests living in the world, and, what is most significant, almost all of Greece, are directed in reciting the divine offices."

[26] Athanasius the Jacobite deceives Heraclius In the year 630, Athanasius, the Patriarch of the Jacobites, met the Emperor, who was still lingering at Hierapolis, and pretending to accept the Council of Chalcedon, by professing two natures in Christ, he circumvented him with his crafty questioning, asking whether a single or a twofold operation and will should be said to exist in Christ: and he drew the unwary Emperor into the heresy of the Monothelites, whose conflagration consumed nearly the entire Eastern Empire: but that it did not burn to the ground was due especially to the efforts of Sophronius, as all Catholic writers acknowledge. For he was the first to uncover the hidden deceits and to drag into the light the heresy that sought dark corners, as Theophanes reports at this year, when Athanasius cast the pernicious spark into the mind of Heraclius, setting forth the entire history of the Monothelite flame under a single view, and weaving in continuous narrative the events of more than fifty years, up to the year 682; so that no one should think that, in the mind of Theophanes, the beginning of Sophronius's tenure at Jerusalem should be referred to this year, although it may seem to be said so, when the attached chronographic tables exhibit Zacharias as Pontiff, as also in the following year.

[27] Modestus becomes Patriarch In the year 632, however, we have in the same tables Modestus as Bishop of the Church of Jerusalem: he who had previously been the Vicar of Zacharias, and is indicated as having held his seat for two years. The patriarchate of this Bishop too was entirely turbulent with new disturbances from Arabia caused by the Saracens, against whom Heraclius, fighting through his generals, with alternating fortune defeated and victorious several times, at length in the year 634, having substituted Sophronius in the place of the deceased Modestus, and having left Syria as though in a desperate condition, and having carried off the venerable wood from Jerusalem, retired to Constantinople, Sophronius is substituted: as Theophanes says at this year. Meanwhile, while Modestus was still living, whom we suspect from the day of the sacred cult assigned to him in the Menaea, the eighteenth of December, to have died; and so by the year 634, already begun three months earlier according to the Greeks: while Modestus, I say, was still alive, Cyrus, the Patriarch of Alexandria, assembled a Synod at Alexandria in the month of May, as we are taught from the Acts of the Sixth Council; and opened the way for the heresy of the Monothelites, Cyrus opens the way for the Monothelite heresy, which had hitherto been spreading in secret; under that feigned pretext that he could join all the heretics in Egypt to the Catholic Church if he suppressed in silence the expressions of two wills and operations: saying it was sufficient if in Christ only a theandric will and operation were spoken of, from which a sufficiently exact profession of the two natures in Christ would be produced; because, even if the expressions were not used, the realities themselves would nevertheless be expressed.

[28] The matter seemed, says Baronius at this year, to bear the appearance of piety and charity; if (as they said) without detriment to the Catholic faith, the expressions by which discords were nourished should sometimes be suppressed. But that everything was then done with evil deceit the outcome declared: nor did it escape Sophronius that things were being done fraudulently: "For thereupon the Jacobites and Theodosians gloried," says Theophanes, which Sophronius opposing "openly boasting that it was not they who communicated in doctrine with Chalcedon, but Chalcedon with them: and that, with one operation admitted, they were teaching also a single nature of Christ." And so, recognizing the deceits and fallacies of the heretics cloaked in the wrapping of peace, he wrote to Sergius, the Patriarch of Constantinople; who, feigning Catholic piety, although he nourished hidden poison in his breast, was regarded by all as orthodox, and had received with wonderful applause the decree and the union, badly dyed in water, as Theophanes puts it, of the Alexandrine pseudo-synod sent to him; writes to Sergius of Constantinople; asking that the chapter on the single operation from the Alexandrine Synod be abolished: indeed he also went to Constantinople for this reason to the same Sergius, as Sergius himself attests in his letter to Pope Honorius. We here set forth the words of this letter from Act 12 of the Sixth Council.

[29] Sergius writes to Pope Honorius "The venerable monk Sophronius, then residing at Alexandria, when the aforesaid most holy Pope" (he means Cyrus), "as we said, was composing that admirable unity, by God's good pleasure, concerning those who had long been heretics; and was treating with him concerning the same chapters, opposed him; and spoke against the chapter on one operation, saying that two operations of Christ our God ought entirely to be acknowledged... Since, therefore, on account of this he came to us with letters of the same most holy fellow minister, pressing the argument upon us concerning this matter also, that the expression of one operation should be removed from such chapters after the completed union: we judged this to be harsh: he reports the complaints of Sophronius: for how would it not be harsh and very burdensome, when to undo this was to overthrow all that future concord which had been well effected, both in the city of Alexandria and throughout all the provinces under it; which at no time until now had acquiesced even in making mention of the simple name of our divine and praiseworthy Father Leo, or of the holy and great and universal Council of Chalcedon. Therefore, after many discussions on this matter had been raised by us with the aforementioned venerable Sophronius, at last we exhorted him to produce for us testimonies of the holy and approved Fathers, namely those whom we all commonly acknowledge as Doctors, and whose teachings the holy Church of God recognizes as law, teaching that two operations are to be expressly said in Christ in those very words. But he was utterly unable to do this..."

[30] and he imposes silence on him concerning one or two natures: "Seeing, therefore, this contention beginning to be kindled, we judged it necessary always to follow rather the well-worn and synodically defined expressions of the holy Fathers: and neither to reduce to a dogmatic rule and law in all respects what has been rarely said by certain Fathers, and not by those who had their attention directed to these matters, as though they were setting forth a plain and unambiguous doctrine on them; such as what has been said by them about one operation: nor again to put forward what has in no way been said by the approved Fathers, but is now brought forth by some, namely two operations. Sophronius acquiesces And in the end it was determined and agreed that the aforesaid venerable Sophronius should henceforth raise no argument about either one or two operations: but that it should be sufficient for him to follow the aforesaid cautious and well-worn right tradition and teaching of the holy Fathers. The oft-named venerable man, therefore, being content with these things, and certifying that he would observe them, we asked him also to provide him a response about these matters in a letter; so that he might show such a letter (as he says) to those who might wish to question him about the aforesaid question: which we also did readily, and he then sailed away from here." So far Sergius, cautiously and craftily: who also in the following passages submits his views to the judgment of the Roman Pontiff: and merely suggests that silence should be imposed on both sides: although he obscurely hints that the first and stronger part belongs to those who asserted a single operation in Christ.

[31] but having been made Patriarch Sophronius, however, as soon as he returned from Constantinople to Palestine (which we can scarcely suppose to have happened before the end of July, or even August or September), and Modestus by his death left the Patriarchal See vacant, he was elevated to it: which in the letter cited above Sergius mentions having heard, but not yet having received synodical letters concerning his ordination. He received them, however, not long after: for as Theophanes says: "Sophronius, having been installed as Bishop of Jerusalem, a synodical condemnation of Monothelism having assembled the Bishops over whom he presided, condemned the Monothelite doctrine, and sent Synodical Acts to Sergius of Constantinople and to John" (he meant to say Honorius: for John, the Third of that name, had departed this life sixty-two years before, he sends them to Sergius and Honorius, when Sophronius was perhaps still a boy: the Fourth, moreover, was not elected until three years after the death of Sophronius had elapsed: and yet this slip of the pen or memory was transcribed from Theophanes by Anastasius the Librarian, from Anastasius by the author of the Historia Miscella, and from these and others, misled by the same error, by Baronius in his notes to the Martyrology: but he corrected himself in the Annals.) He sent, I say, Synodical Acts to Sergius, Bishop of Constantinople, and to Honorius, Bishop of Rome, through his Procurator Leontius, Deacon of the Holy Resurrection and Chancellor of the secretariat, and chief of the Notaries; and added to him as a companion Polyeuctus, bearing the letters of Sophronius. Which letters indeed are recited in full in the Acts of the Sixth Council; in which, as Photius says, "he carefully expounds the orthodox opinion, and demonstrates a by no means ordinary teaching of sacred doctrines... and asks that it be corrected if anything in the letter has been either omitted or stated otherwise than is fitting."

[32] Indeed Sophronius did not yet suspect anything sinister of Sergius, and therefore, sincerely and without deceit consenting to the one who wished silence concerning the new expressions, he had departed from him, and was now sending letters to him in good faith: which the same Pontiff Honorius also had done: and replying to the first letter of Sergius: "Receiving," approving the counsel of Sergius. he says to the same Sophronius, "a copy of the letters directed to him, and seeing that your brotherhood wrote with sufficient foresight and circumspection, we praise you for removing the novelty of the expression which could generate scandal among the simple: for we, in the state to which we have arrived, ought to walk... confessing that the Lord Jesus Christ wrought divine things through the mediation of His humanity, the Word of God being naturally united; and that the same wrought human things, the flesh having been assumed ineffably and uniquely, distinctly, without confusion, and without change, with full divinity." These things Honorius wrote for the sake of ecclesiastical peace and tranquility, himself suspecting nothing evil of Sergius: but time uncovered his iniquity, and the aforesaid ecumenical Council condemned him many times: and in Act 13, the assembled Fathers rendered this testimony concerning Sophronius: "We have also examined the Synodical writings of Sophronius of venerable memory, the Council receives the opinion of Sophronius. formerly Archbishop of the holy city of God, Jerusalem, and finding these to agree with the true faith, and to be in accord with the teachings of the Apostles and of the holy and approved Fathers, as being orthodox we have accepted them, and as salutary to the holy Catholic Church we have received them, and we have judged it right that his name be inscribed in the holy diptychs of the holy Churches."

CHAPTER IV

Stephen is sent to Rome by Sophronius: the latter dies when the city is taken by the Saracens.

[33] Moreover, since Cyrus and his followers by no means ceased to preach one will in Christ, Sophronius again opposes the Monothelites Sophronius no longer believed himself to be bound by the laws of silence imposed by Sergius, and wishing to oppose their temerity, he gave in two books six hundred testimonies for the conviction of their impiety and the demonstration of the truth, as Stephen testified at the Lateran Council under Pope Martin I, who had formerly been sent as legate to Honorius on these very matters by Sophronius himself. "He was unable to call them back," he says: he is assailed by their calumnies: "but he stirred them up against himself to treachery and malicious detraction: while, that is, they clamor that Sophronius is the cause of all the disturbances arising in the Church through them; who (as Pyrrhus of Constantinople said after Sophronius's death in his disputation with Saint Maximus) raised the discussion about operations at an inopportune time": from which calumny the same Maximus excellently vindicated Sophronius, and showed that all blame should be cast back upon the changeableness and inconstancy of Sergius, who passed to different opinions at different times, and remained in no single conviction, while wishing to appear orthodox: and yet he had not receded from the opinion which he had instilled in Heraclius.

[34] But what did Sophronius do? Stephen continues: "He was in no way deterred on this account, he adjures Stephen, nor did he fear a fear where there was no fear: because the righteous is confident like a lion." Proverbs 28:1. "But filled with the zeal and confidence of God, he led me, unworthy, and stationed me in the place of the holy Calvary, where for our sake He who is above us by nature God, our Lord Jesus Christ, deigned to be voluntarily crucified according to the flesh; and there he bound me with indissoluble bonds, saying: You will give an account to Him who was voluntarily crucified for us according to the flesh, God, in this holy place, when with glory at His terrible coming He shall judge the living and the dead, if you delay or postpone His faith in peril: although I am prevented from doing this in person, as you know, that he should go to Rome and plead the cause of the faith: because of the incursion of the Saracens which has arisen from our sins. As quickly as possible, therefore, walk from the ends of the earth to its boundaries, until you reach the Apostolic See, where the foundations of orthodox doctrines exist, not once, not twice, but many more times; revealing to the sacred men there stationed all the things which have been stirred up in these parts according to the truth: and do not cease most urgently seeking and entreating them, until from the Apostolic prudence which is in God, they shall lead the judgment to victory, and bring about the perfect destruction according to the canons of the newly introduced doctrines..."

[35] Compelled by this adjuration of his Patriarch, Stephen continues to explain to the Council what he did and suffered, in this manner: which that man striving "Therefore I, fearing and terrified at these things, on account of the terrible oath imposed upon me in that awesome and venerable place, and also considering the Episcopal ministry entrusted to me by God's permission (namely of the Church of Dora), and also the supplications of nearly all the most reverend Bishops inhabiting the Eastern region, and of the Christian peoples, unanimously inviting me to this in agreement with the aforesaid Sophronius of blessed memory, as the first of the diocese of Jerusalem (namely in the priestly office when he was adjured by Sophronius, as he states in the beginning), I did not, according to Scripture, give sleep to my eyes or slumber to my eyelids, studiously to carry out, and rest to my temples, so that I might fulfill this most desirable command. Psalm 131:14 But without any delay, for this purpose only I hastened hither: since which time I have been seen a third time to be present at your Apostolic footsteps, seeking and beseeching what he and all are known to willingly request, that is, to extend a hand to the imperiled faith of Christians."

[36] assailed by many plots "Learning of which, the adversaries involved me in no slight afflictions, sending orders on my account through places and provinces, that I should be apprehended and, bound in chains, should be dispatched to them, as everyone knows: but the Lord aided me and freed me from all who persecuted me, as I ran toward the goal and hastened toward the prize of your Apostolic See. He arrives at Rome: Nor did God despise the prayers offered with tears by His suppliants, but stirred up no small measure the preceding Apostolic Bishops in admonition and also in attestation of the aforesaid men." These Apostolic Bishops we judge to have been Severinus, to the successors of Honorius: Severinus, John, and Theodore, of whom the first not only did not accept the ecthesis of the Emperor Heraclius, devised by Sergius and his associates, which Cyrus falsely boasts that he was compelled to accept through Isacius, the Exarch of Italy, in a letter to Sergius produced in the third session of the Lateran Council: but, as Martin says in the same place, he condemned and anathematized it. John likewise, as Theophanes attests, having convened a Synod of Bishops, condemned the sect of the Monothelites by inflicting anathema; and, as Baronius teaches from Saint Maximus at the year 640, took pains that the person who had written the first letter of Honorius, being sought out, should clearly interpret its meaning, writing to the Emperor Constans, Theodore, so that the pretext might be removed from the heretics of calumniously exploiting the name of the Roman Pontiff, as if he favored their cause. John IV, Finally Theodore, who had kindly received Pyrrhus, converted by the disputation of Saint Maximus, wrote out with his own hand the rejection and condemnation of the same Pyrrhus, who, as soon as he landed at Ravenna, had returned to his vomit, and of the others who had communicated with him; shaking a drop from the life-giving blood of Christ into the ink, and ordering the chalice to be brought for this purpose to the tomb of the Prince of the Apostles during the solemnities of Mass, with the entire assembly of the Church convoked for this purpose, as we have from Theophanes.

[37] When, however, Constans had made Paul, equally a heretic, Patriarch, and the Bishop of Joppa, Sergius, who had arrogated to himself the patriarchal authority ever since the withdrawal of the Persians, while Sophronius was alive and watching, relying on secular power, and had sacrilegiously ordained Bishops agreeable to himself, with these same helpers wonderfully disturbed the churches subject to the Patriarchate of Jerusalem; then again at the request of the Orthodox, for the second time (for I would believe that the first time he had come to the Council called by John in the year 640), he arrived at Rome, and having explained the case, was ordained guardian of the holy place by Pope Theodore, and by his mandate deposed the obstinate heretics, and received only those who offered a written statement of penitence, whose written statements, and finally to Martin. he says at the Lateran Council, "I recently brought and presented to the most sacred presiding Holiness, Martin, the thrice-blessed Pope," in the year 649: and these were the third occasions on which Stephen says he was present at the Apostolic footsteps of the Fathers assembled at Rome, from the time he had been adjured by Saint Sophronius: and to this belong those plots which he complained above had been laid for him as he was coming to Rome.

[38] But these things pertain to later times and followed the death of Saint Sophronius; the Saracens having occupied Phoenicia and Egypt more closely pertinent to his history, however, is that in the year 635, the Saracens, having slain two Generals, the Sacellarius and Bahanes, leading forty thousand soldiers, triumphantly with splendid victory, attacked Damascus, the homeland of Sophronius, with a well-organized army, and gained possession of it, along with the rest of the province of Phoenicia: in which, when they had established their own seats, they soon marched into Egypt and subjugated that also: in the following year, moreover, Umar dispatched Iasdius into Syria and added it to the Saracen Empire: and he himself undertook an expedition into Palestine: in which, while he occupied all the towns everywhere with garrisons; they besiege Jerusalem and capture it. and kept the fields and roads infested with brigandage, the inhabitants of the holy city were unable to celebrate the Nativity of the Lord at Bethlehem with the customary piety; but to them, confined within the city through fear of the Saracens, Sophronius delivered an oration, which exists in the great library of the Fathers, and graphically describes the calamities of that time: yet nowhere in it is there any mention of a siege or assault, and we are all the more moved to believe that the beginning of the siege was not given until after January of the year 636, which, continued for two years, namely this year and probably all of 637 (at least according to the Greeks, who begin the year from September), Umar obtained the city upon a pledge of faith, as Theophanes narrates, describing Umar's entrance and the death of Sophronius which followed, in these words:

[39] "Sophronius, however, the Bishop of Jerusalem, had received from him a pledge of faith for the safety of all Palestine. Sophronius exposes the hypocrisy of Umar Umar, therefore, covered with garments of camel's hair, and those torn and filthy, and openly displaying a clearly diabolical hypocrisy under the veil of piety, entered the holy city; and immediately demanded to be shown the temple built by Solomon, intending to convert it into an oratory of impiety and blasphemy. When Sophronius saw him, he said: 'This is truly the abomination of desolation foretold by the Prophet Daniel, which now stands in the holy place': and with a great abundance of tears that renowned champion of piety bewailed the Christian people. While he therefore lingered within the precincts of the temple, the Patriarch entreated him to put on the linen robe and garment he had received from him: when he refused to take it, the Bishop barely persuaded him to wear it until his customary garments were washed; and having resumed his own, he immediately returned it to Sophronius."

[40] "In that calamity of affairs, Sophronius, who had long magnified the Church of Jerusalem with illustrious words and deeds, and dies bringing back the most glorious trophies against the depravities and inventions of Heraclius and the Monothelites devoted to him, and against Sergius and Pyrrhus refuted, died, certainly to the great detriment of the Catholic cause, which lost its strongest champion at the time when, with the Patriarchs of Antioch, Alexandria, and Constantinople, together with Heraclius, fighting against it, it wavered most greatly: yet Pyrrhus was not yet Patriarch when Sophronius had his contention, if any there was: in the year 638. for the first year of the former is matched with the twenty-ninth of Heraclius by Theophanes, and thus with the year of Christ 639; since within a few months after the city was surrendered, Sophronius expired, in the month, as we believe, of March of the preceding year: nor can we assent to Baronius, who posits that the city began to be besieged in the fifteenth year of Heraclius: for the fact that Theophanes, reporting at the twenty-sixth year of Heraclius the expedition undertaken into Palestine, also narrates the surrender of the holy city and the death of Sophronius, he does for no other reason than that he did not wish to spread the history of this expedition over several years, and considered it sufficient to indicate that Jerusalem began to be so besieged this year that it was not captured until the following, that is, in the space of two years: which being granted, the entirely consequent result is that Sophronius (if indeed it was in the month of March, on the day on which he is venerated, that he departed from this world) had entered the thirty-eighth year of his life, having completed three full years in the patriarchate: to which the added months or weeks of the years in which he was ordained and died will perhaps scarcely constitute even half a year or perhaps a quarter of a year: for it is read that Sophronius acted against Cyrus after the Alexandrine Synod, while messengers went and returned, which consumed nearly the whole year 634:

[41] his successor The catalogue of the Patriarchs of Jerusalem in the work of Nicephorus, Patriarch of Constantinople, ends with Sophronius: after whose death some gather from Zonaras that the Church remained widowed, deprived of a pastor. Zonaras, enumerating the principals of the Ecumenical Council celebrated under Constantine Pogonatus in the year 689, and explaining why the Patriarchs of Jerusalem and Alexandria were not present, says: "Neither Alexandria nor Jerusalem had a Patriarch, having been occupied by the Saracens." perhaps by Theodore But even if at that time there were none in those churches, it would not be correct to say that there were none at all under the Saracens: since various ones are named in the histories: concerning which matter more is said in the Acts of the Sabaite Martyrs on the twentieth of March, where the discussion concerns Elias and his successors. Wherefore nothing prevents us from believing that Theodore, father of Pope Theodore of Rome, elected in the year 641, succeeded Saint Sophronius, whom the manuscript Florarium of Saints adds to the Saints on the fifteenth day before the Kalends of April in these words: "Likewise of Saint Theodore, Bishop of Jerusalem, father of Saint Theodore the Pope." Nor do the catalogues of the Roman Pontiffs disagree, whether in the most ancient membranes formerly of the Palatine, now of the Vatican Library, or in Anastasius the Librarian; who, using an almost identical example, writes thus concerning this Pontiff: "Theodore, Greek by nation, son of Theodore, a Bishop from Jerusalem," or "from the city of Jerusalem," as it is in the aforementioned membranes. But we find neither the son nor the father numbered among the Saints elsewhere.

[42] The cult of Saint Sophronius on this day is celebrated among the Latins as well as the Greeks: The sacred cult of Saint Sophronius. and it is recorded in the Martyrologies of Galesin, Molanus in his second edition, and in the Roman Martyrology of Baronius on this day: by the Greeks, moreover, in the Anthologion, Menologion, and greater Menaea, from which we give this summary of his life, although written with the order of events somewhat disturbed, especially where the Patriarchate of Jerusalem is treated as if received before the holy city was taken by the Persians, which, as we have already seen, pertains to the last years of his life: while his Alexandrian sojourn with John the Almoner pertains to his middle years: as is clearly evident from what has been set forth thus far.

EPITOME OF THE LIFE.

From the Greek Menaea.

Sophronius, Patriarch of Jerusalem (Saint)

The birth of Sophronius, This great luminary of the Church drew his origin from incense-bearing Phoenicia, from the city of Damascus, the offspring of pious and frugal parents. His father's name was Plinthas, his mother's Myro. Sophronius, through the outstanding power of his intellect, increased however by study and diligence, soon attained the summit of all the sciences, as if beyond the limits of nature. While he was still dwelling at Damascus, he nevertheless emulated the virtue of those who were in the wilderness. Then he betook himself to the monastery of the great Theodosius, his upbringing, where in quiet and silence he dealt familiarly with God, and strengthened his heart and mind by the meditation of divine letters; and brought all his thoughts and senses into the service of Christ. Furthermore, when he burned with even greater zeal for learning philosophy, he sailed to Alexandria, a most noble city, and there met a certain John, his learning, a man most flourishing and most famous for the praise of his wisdom and prudence; and having become his companion, table-fellow, and associate, he lived with him in a perfectly harmonious spirit; from whom he also drank wisdom, and in turn imparted to his master what he knew. It came to pass from this, through constant reading, that a kind of night and darkness seized his eyes, but he was divinely cured by Saints Cyrus and John, who sought no other payment from him his writings. than that he should record in writing the daily miracles performed through them, which he did diligently. Afterward he was made Patriarch of Jerusalem on account of the singular holiness of his life; but when the holy city was captured by the impious Persians, he set out for Alexandria, to John, who had acquired his name from almsgiving and administered the Apostolic throne. his Alexandrian sojourn On the death of the latter, who fell asleep in blessed peace, this Sophronius wrote a funeral oration concerning his immense treasure of almsgiving and his most excellent virtue, and he himself with many tears mourned his death. After he returned to the holy city, it cannot be expressed with how great care and labor he governed the Church commended to him by God: for he gave not sleep to his eyes, nor slumber to his eyelids; the Patriarchate of Jerusalem for he had to fight not only against the violence and assault of eternal enemies, but also against the destructive doctrines of heretics; whom he recalled to the right way by his writings and by the authority of the Fathers, and he himself disarmed and broke them by his disputations. Meanwhile he left very many and noble monuments of his genius for the benefit of the Church, by which we are taught both to live virtuously the fight with heresy. and to handle present affairs according to the divine precept. Among the number of which is that book, to be proclaimed with all admiration, in which he set forth the deeds of Mary of Egypt, deservedly to be compared with the Angels, and who had advanced beyond the measure of human life. This was his manner of living, by which he proved himself to God, instructed others, displayed himself as the vicarious tongue of Christ, and governed the flock committed to him; and within three years of his pontificate, having attained blessed peace, he was translated to the Lord.