Sophronius

Sophronius is known only as a correspondent of Nilus of Ancyra (d. c. 430), to whom Nilus addressed at least eleven surviving letters from the early-5th-century Ancyra milieu in Galatia. Most are addressed to "Sophronius, monk" and consist of spiritual direction and doctrinal instruction: Nilus urges him toward humility and obedience even to an unlettered superior, rebukes a monk who would keep new brothers out of the community, counsels him to combat the devil-instilled unbelief that troubles him, and instructs him in Christology against the Manichaean denial of Christ's real humanity, alongside exegesis of Pauline and Gospel passages. One letter in the group is instead addressed to "Sophronius the Tribune," praising his open-handed charity to the needy, so this address may belong to a different man (or to the same person before he entered the monastic life); the identification is uncertain. Beyond these letters Sophronius is otherwise unattested.