MODESTUS, Bishop of Jerusalem.
WE have no other Monument of this Author, who flourished towards the year 620. but an Extract of one of his Sermons mention'd by Photius in the 275th. Volume of his Bibli∣otheca. * 1.1 The first is taken out of a Sermon upon the Women of the Gospel, which carried Balm to anoint Christ. He tells us there, That Mary Magdalen, out of whom Christ cast 7 Devils, was a Virgin, and that she suffered Martyrdom at Ephesus, whither she went to S. John the Evangelist, after the Virgin's death. Which shews how far they were then from the Opinion which hath obtained since, That Mary Magdalen is the same with the Woman that was a Sinner, [Luk. 7. 37.] The 2d. Sermon of Modestus, mentioned in Photius, was a Sermon upon the death of the Virgin the Mother of God, which he calls, A Dormitory Ser∣mon, after the manner of the Ancients. Photius speaks of no Extract of it; he only taketh notice, 'tis a long Discourse, containing nothing necessary, and nothing like the former. The 3d. Sermon is upon the Festival of the meeting [of Christ and Simeon] or the presentation of Jesus Christ in the Temple. Photius sets down an Extract of it, in which, the Vertues of Anna, and the Virgin's Purification, are discoursed of Figuratively and Rhetorically.