Sophronius of Jerusalem - theology through people and places

Anastasius the Sinaite (see my earlier post) came a generation or so after Sophronius of Jerusalem, who played an important role in the debates leading up to the Sixth Ecumenical Council (Constantinople III).

Born in Damascus in around 560, Sophronius was a monk, ascetic, hagiopgrapher, poet, philosopher and theologian.

Having succeeded St Modestus as Patriarch of Jerusale, he was primate of that church from 634 until 638, when he died after guiding his flock through a two year siege of Jerusalem by the Moslems.

By the time of Sophronius, the Church had already condemned:

(a) the Nestorian heresy (which taught that the fact that Christ possessed divine and human natures meant, in effect, that he was a human person united by means of a kind of moral union to the divine person of the Son),

(b) the Monophysite heresy (which taught that the fact that Christ was a single undivided person - the Son of God incarnate - meant, in effect, that he possessed only a divine nature, and that his humanity was somehow swallowed up in his divinity).

In the late sixth/early seventh century, a subtler version of the Monophysite heresy emerged. The more evolved form of this was Monothelitism, which taught that Christ had just one (divine) will, and which was condemned at Constantinople III.

Monothelitism was itself a development from Monergenism, which taught that there was just one (divine) operation or activity (Latin: operatio) in Christ - or, in Greek (the language in which the debate was for the most part conducted), one divine energy (energeia - a term which carries a good deal more theological weight than the Latin equivalent).

The role of Sophronius in this ongoing dispute was to defend the orthodox Catholic faith at a time when both the Pope and the Patriarch of Constantinople were initially unable to see the dangers inherent in this new and more refined variant of Monophystitism.

A definitive explanation of the true doctrine of the two energies and the two wills was to be developed a little later by Maximus the Confessor and the Sixthe Ecumenical Council.

As a preacher, Sophronius seems to have had a gift for seeing and reflecting on Christ's work of redemption through the eyes of those who encountered him.

The following is an extract from a homily on Christ's presentation in the Jerusalem Temple - a location of great significance for Sophronius - (a longer version of which is available on the Mystagogy blog of J. Sanidopoulos):

Let us be shining ourselves as we go together to meet and to receive with the aged Simeon the light whose brilliance is eternal.

Rejoicing with Simeon, let us sing a hymn of thanksgiving to God, the Father of the light, who sent the true light to dispel the darkness and to give us all a share in his splendor.

Through Simeon’s eyes we too have seen the salvation of God which he prepared for all the nations and revealed as the glory of the new Israel, which is ourselves.

As Simeon was released from the bonds of this life when he had seen Christ, so we too were at once freed from our old state of sinfulness.

By faith we, too embraced, Christ, the salvation of God the Father, as he came to us from Bethlehem.

Gentiles before, we have now become the people of God.

Our eyes have seen God incarnate, and because we have seen him present among us and have mentally received him into our arms, we are called the new Israel.

Sophronius appears also to have possessed a gift for seeing and reflecting on Christ's work of redemption in the light of the physical geography of the City of Jerusalem. In one of his poetic works, the twentieth of his Anacreonta, he writes:

[...] Let me walk thy pavements
and go inside the Anastasis,
where the King of All rose again,
trampling down the power of death.

[...] Through the divine sanctuary
I will penetrate the divine Tomb,
and with deep reverence
will venerate that Rock.

[...] And prostrate I will venerate
the Navel-point of the earth, that divine Rock
in which was fixed the wood
which undid the curse of the tree.

How great thy glory,
noble Rock, in which was fixed
the Cross, the Redemption of mankind!

[...] And let me go rejoicing
to the splendid sanctuary, the place
where the noble Empress Helena
found the divine Wood;

and go up,
my heart overcome with awe,
and see the Upper Room,
the Reed, the Sponge, and the Lance.

Then may I gaze down
upon the fresh beauty of the Basilica
where choirs of monks
sing nightly songs of worship.

Extracted from a much longer extract, translated by John Wilkinson (Jerusalem Pilgrims before the Crusades, 1977).