ic
faith This excellent piece was confirmed in the sixth general council.
St. Sophronius sent this learned epistle to pope Honorius and to
Sergius. This latter had, by a crafty letter and captious expressions,
persuaded pope Honorius to tolerate a silence as to one or two wills in
Christ. It is evident from the most authentic monuments, that Honorius
never assented to that error, but always adhered to the truth.[1]
However, a silence was ill-timed, and though not so designed, might be
deemed by some a kind of connivance; for a rising heresy seeks to carry
on its work under ground without noise: it is a fire which spreads
itself under cover. Sophronius, seeing the emperor and almost all the
chief prelates of the East conspire against the truth, thought it his
duty to defend it with the greater zeal. He took Stephen, bishop of
Doria, the eldest of his suffragans, led him to Mount Calvary, and there
adjured him by Him who was crucified on that place, and by the account
which he should give him at the last day, "to go to the apostolic see,
where are the foundations of the holy doctrine, and not to cease to pray
till the holy persons there should examine and condemn the novelty."
Stephen did so, and stayed at Rome ten years, till he saw it condemned
by pope Martin I. in the council of Lateran, in 649. Sophronius was
detained at home by the invasion of the Saracens. Mahomet had broached
his impostures at Mecca, in 608, but being rejected there, fled to
Medina, in 622. Aboubeker succeeded him in 634 under the title of
Caliph, or vicar of the prophet. He died after a reign of two years.
Omar, his successor, took Damascus in 636, and after a siege of two
years, Jerusalem, in 638. He built a mosque in the place of Solomon's
temple, and because it fell in the night, the Jews told him it would not
stand unless the cross of Christ, which stood on Mount Calvary, was
taken away: which the Caliph caused to be done.[2] Sophronius, in a
sermon on the exaltation of the cross, mentions the custom of taking the
cross out of its case at Mid-Lent to be venerated.[3] Photius takes
notice that his works breathe an affecting piety, but that the Greek is
not pure. They consist of his synodal letter, his letter to pope
Honorius, and a small number of scattered sermons. He deplored the
abomination of desolation set up by the Mahometans in the holy place.
God called him out of those evils to his kingdom on the 11th of March,
639, or, as Papebroke thi