Page:Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology (1870) - Volume 3.djvu/889

Rh SOPHRONIUS. of by Fabririus {Bibl. Graec. bk. v. c. xvi. § 7), there are only two that require any notice here. 1. A contemporary and friend of St. Jerome, who gives him a section in his treatise De Viris lUustribus (c. 134), where he informs us that " So- phronius, a man of distinguished learning, wrote the Praises of Bethlehem (Laudes Bethlehem) while yet a boy, and lately composed an excellent work. De Suhversione Serapis ;" that is, on the destruc- tion of the temple of Serapis at Rome, in a. n. 389 or 390 (see Clinton, Fast. Rom. s. a. 389): "he translated into Greek, in an elegant style, my works, De Virginitate ad Eustochium and Vita Hilarionis monachi ; also the Psalter and the Pro- phets, which we translated from Hebrew into Latin." Now, since the Catalogue of Jerome was written in A. D. 392, the date of Sophronius is clearly determined by this passage. We have no information respecting his country or condition in life. In the year 1539, Erasmus published at Basel, from what he calls an ancient and corrected MS., a Greek version of the Catalogue of Jerome, pur- porting to be made by Sophronius. This publica- tion has ever since been a literary stumbling-block. Soon after its appearance there were not wanting persons who accused Erasmus of fabricating the version from motives of vanity. Isaac Vossius (ad S. Ignatii Episi. ad Smyrn. p. 237), while pro- fessing to reject this imputation, but solely on the faith of Erasmus's veracity ("• nisi Erasmus haec diceret, multum de ejus fide dubitarem "), strongly contends, on the ground of the badness of the Greek, and on other internal evidence, that Erasmus had been imposed upon by a modern forgery. Stephanus le Moyne (ad Var. Sac. p. 418) replies to the charge against Erasmus by asserting that there are MSS. older than the one used by him, and that the version is quoted by earlier writers ; but he does not say where these MSS. and quotations are to be found. Fabricius and Cave defend the genuineness of the version, chiefly on the following ground, which ap- pears decisive, that many articles of Suidas are in the very words of this Greek version. It is true that Suidas does not quote Sophronius by name, any more than he does Jerome ; but, if the anti- quity of the version be established, there is no reason to ascribe it to any other person than So- phronius. The somewhat remarkable circumstance, that Clinton mentions the translation as the work of Sophronius, without intimating, either in his account of the Catalogue of Jerome, or in his notice of Sophronius, that its genuineness has been ques- tioned, may be taken, we presume, as a proof of its decided genuineness, in the opinion of that great scholar (Fast. Rom. s. aa. 392, 393). Besides the separate edition of it by Erasmus, the version of Sophronius is contained in the Paris (1623) and Frankfort (1684) editions of the works of Jerome ; and in the Bibliotheca Ecclesiastica of Fabricius (Hamb. 1718) it is printed with Jerome's original, and the passages of Eusebius, which were Jerome's chief authorities, in parallel columns. To this same Sophronius Fabricius and others ascribe the work •' in defence of Basil against Eunomius" (virep BacnAeiou Kara Evvofxiov), which is very briefly noticed by Photius (Bibl- Cod. v.). There is another small work ascribed to him by Erasmus, which professes to be a Greek version of Jerome's Episiola ad Paulam et Eustochium de Adsumtio7ie Mariae Viryinis, but it is most probable SOPOLIS. 877 that both the Latin epistle and the Greek version be- long to an age later than that of Jerome and Sophro- nius. (Fabric. Bibl. Graec. vol. ix. pp. 158 — 161 ; Cave, Script. Eccles. Hist. Lift. s. a., 390, p. 285, td. Basil. ; Vossius, de Hist. Graec. p . 306, ed. Wes- terinann.j 2. Patriarch of Jerusalem, a. d. 629-" 638, was a native of Damascus, and at first a sophist, afterwards a monk, and in a d. 629 he succeeded Modestus as patriarch of Jerusalem. He dis- tinguished himself as a defender of orthodoxy ; and at the Council of Alexandria, in a. d. 633, he openly charged Cyrus with introducing heresy into the church under pretence of peace, and renounced all communion with him. When Jerusalem was taken by Omar, in A. d. 636, he obtained for the Christians the free exercise of their worship. He died, according to some, in the same year ; accord- ing to others, two years later, in A. D. 638. There are extant in MS. numerous epistles, dis- courses, commentaries, and other treatises, by Sophronius, full lists of which are given by Fa- bricius and Cave. He also wrote hymns and other poems. An Anacreontic poem by him, on the sub- ject of Simeon taking Christ into his arms, was published by Leo AUatius, in his Diatriba de Si7neonibus, pp. 5, foil. Three epigrams in the Greek Anthology are ascribed to him. (Fabric. Bibl. Graec. vol. ix. pp. 162 — 169 ; Cave, Script. Eccles. Hist. Lilt. s. a. 629, p. 579 ; Vossius, de Hist. Graec. pp. 333, 334, ed. Westermann ; Brunck, A?ial. vol. iii. p. 125 ; Jacob's, Anth. Graec. vol. iv. p. 95. vol. xiii. pp. 619, 954, 955.) [P. S.] SOPH US, P. SEMPRO'NIUS, is mentioned by Pomponius (Dig. 1. tit. 2. s. 2. § 37) after App. Claudius Caecus, as one who owed his name o Sophus or Wise to his great merits. He was Tribunus Plebis in b. c. 310, and attempted to compel the censor Appius Claudius to conform to the Lex Aemilia which limited the censor's func- tions to eighteen months. (Liv. ix. 33.) He was consul B.C. 304 with P. Sulpicius Severus (Liv. ix. 45). The two consuls defeated the Aequi, and had a triumph. He was the first plebeian consul pontifex (Liv. x. 9) B. c. 300, and in the next year a lustrum was celebrated by him and his former colleague, as censors ; and two tribes were added. He seems to be the same person who took the praetorship at a time when Rome was alarmed by a rumour of a Gallic war (Livy, X. 21). Pomponius says that no one after him bore the name of Sophus, but a P. Sempronius Sophus was consul in b. c. 268 (Fasti) and censor in B.C. 252 (Liv. Epit. 18 ; Fast. Capitol.), and he is called the son of Publius, who may have been the consul of b. c. 304. There is a story of one P. Sempronius Sophus, who divorced his wife, be- cause she had been bold enough to see the public games without his consent ; but those who believe the story of Carvilius divorcing his wife suppose that this Sophus must have lived later than the consul ofB.c. 304. [G. L.] SO'POLIS (SwTToAis), son of Hermodorus, com- manded the Araphipolitan cavalry in the army of Alexander the Great, in the battle against the Triballians on the banks of the river Lyginus, b. c. 335. He is mentioned again as commanding a troop of horse, probably the contingent from Am- phipolis, at the battle of Arbela in B. c. 33 1 ; and we may perhaps identify him with the father of Hermolaus, the youthful conspirator against Alex-