of works of which Eusebius had no certain knowledge besides those enumerated by him. Of the latter Jerome gives an account (de Script. Eccl. c. 41) borrowed from Eusebius (H. E. v. i9; vi. 12). They are—(1) a letter to Caricus and Pontius against the Cataphrygian or Montanist heresy, containing a copy of a letter of Apollinaris of Hierapolis, and substantiated as to the facts by the signatures of several other bishops, including some of Thrace; (2) a treatise addressed to Domninus, who during the persecution of Severus had fallen away to the Jewish "will-worship"; and (3), the most important, directed against the Docetic gospel falsely attributed to St. Peter, addressed to some members of the church of Rhossus, who were being led away by it from the true faith. Serapion recalls the permission to read this apocryphal work given in ignorance of its true character and expresses his intention of speedily visiting the church to strengthen them in the true faith. Dr. Neale calls attention to the important evidence here furnished to "the power yet possessed by individual bishops of settling. the canon of Scripture" (Patriarch. of Antioch, p. 36). Socrates refers to his writings, as an authority against Apollinarianism (H. E. iii. 7). Jerome mentions sundry letters in harmony with his life and character. Tillem. Mém. eccl. iii. 168, § 9; Cave, Hist. Lit. i. 86; Le Quien, Or. Christ. ii. 702.
[E.V.]
Serapion (3), a penitent of Alexandria, who fell during the Decian persecution. Dionysius of Alexandria uses his case as an argument against the Novatianist schism, to which his correspondent, Fabius of Antioch, was inclined. Serapion lived a long life without blame, but had sacrificed at last. He often begged for admission to the church, but was refused. He was then taken sick, being three days without speech. When he awoke to consciousness he dispatched his grandson for a presbyter, who was sick and unable to come, but sent a portion of the consecrated Eucharist, telling the boy to moisten it and drop it into Serapion's mouth, who then died in peace. Reservation of the Sacrament must then have been practised in Alexandria. No argument, however, for communion in one kind can be drawn from this, as doubtless the bread had been dipped in the Eucharistic wine, according to Eastern fashion (see Bingham's Antiq. lib. xv. c. v.). Eus. H.E. vi–44.
[G.T.S.]
Serapion (9), surnamed Scholasticus, bp. of Thmuis in Egypt. He was a friend of St. Athanasius and St. Anthony of the desert, and occupied a position of some importance in 4th-cent. theological struggles. Anthony bequeathed one of his sheepskin cloaks to Serapion and the other to Athanasius (Vita S. Anth. in Opp. S. Athan., Migne, Patr. Lat. t. xxvi. col. 971). Serapion's literary activity was considerable. St. Jerome (Catal. No. 99) mentions several of his writings, as his treatise contra Manichaeos, his de Psalmorum Titulis (now lost), and some epistles. His work against the Manicheans, described by Jerome as "Egregium librum," and noticed by Photius (Cod. 85), was for the first time printed in its original form by Brinkmann in 1894. It had previously been mixed up with a similar work by Titus of Bostra. In its restored form it is a valuable argument against Manicheism. Two letters by him were pub. by Cardinal Mai—one a consolatory letter to bp. Eudoxius, who had been tortured; the other censuring some monks of Alexandria. In Texte und Untersuchungen (Leipz. 1898) Wobbermin published a dogmatic letter "on the Father and the Son," and 30 liturgical prayers, the 1st and 15th of which are the work of Serapion. They have been reprinted, with valuable notes and discussions, by F. E. Brightman in the Oxf. Journ. of Theol. Studies, 1899–1910, under the title of The Sacramentary of Serapion of Thmuis, and an English trans., ed. by bp. Wordsworth of Salisbury, has been pub. by S.P.C.K.
[G.T.S.]
Serapion (11), surnamed Sindonites from the linen or cotton clothing he always wore; an Egyptian monk in the time of Palladius. Though uneducated, he knew the Scriptures by heart. Some of his sayings are recorded in the Verba Seniorum (Rosweyd, Vit. Pat. lib. v libell. vi. § 12, libell. xi. 31), and in the Apophthegmata Patrum (Coteler. Gr. Ecc. Monum. i. 685, 686) there is an account of his visit to a lewd woman, whom he brought to repentance. His missionary zeal led him to travel, but in more than apostolic poverty, and he even sold his volume of the gospel to relieve a destitute person, a circumstance alluded to by Socrates (iv. 23), though without naming Serapion. Once he sold himself as a slave to a theatrical company, and once to a Manichean family, with a view to converting them from their errors. He visited Athens and Sparta. At Rome he met Domninus, a disciple of Origen (Pallad. Laus Hist. 83, 84; Vit. Joan. Eleemos. c. 22 in Rosweyd, lib. i.). He died, aged 60, c. 400, not at Rome as stated in the Latin version of the Lausiac History, but in the desert, as in Heraclides (Paradis. c. 24) and the Greek of Palladius. The Greeks honoured his memory on May 21, the Menaea erroneously calling him ὁ ἀπὸ Σείδονος, belonging to Sidon. He may be the Serapion of Mar. 21 in the Latin Martyrologies (vid. D. C. A.), though the Roman Martyrology makes this one bp. of Thmuis.
[C.H.]
Serapion (14), a solitary, of Scete, and leader of the Anthropomorphites against the festal epistle of Theophilus, patriarch of Alexandria. The monks of Scete, with the one exception of Paphnutius, an abbat, rejected the orthodox view as to God's nature. Serapion, however, was converted by the efforts of Photinus, an Oriental deacon. Cassian tells us that an abbat Isaac explained to him in connexion with Serapion's conversion that the Anthropomorphite heresy was simply a relic of paganism. Pious men like Serapion had been so long accustomed to an image that without a material notion of God their prayers seemed objectless. Cassian, Collat. x. 16; Ceill, viii. 176.
[G.T.S.]
Serapion (16), bp. of Heraclea, an Egyptian by birth, ordained deacon by Chrysostom (Socr. H. E. vi. 4), and by him made archdeacon of the church of Constantinople (Soz. H. E. viii. 9). His character as drawn by contemporary historians is most unfavourable. Presuming on his official power, he treated others with contempt and exhibited an intolerable arrogance (Socr. H.E. vi. II;
