Leontius of Jerusalem

Leontius of Jerusalem (, ca.485 - ca.543, though debated) was a Byzantine Christian theologian, monk and proponent of the Council of Chalcedon.

Virtually all of Egypt and much of Palestine and Syria had rejected Chalcedon (451). By the 530s this reached a breaking point with the risk of schism - as eventually happened, with Oriental Orthodoxy being descended of those who rejected the council. Leontius involved himself in trying to convince anti-Chalcedonians of the validity of Chalcedonian Christology.

He is known only from two of his works:

Contra Monophysitas (Against the Monophysites) Contra Nestorianos (Against the Nestorians)

Integrity of Citations Several scholars have questioned Leontius' use of sources. In P. T. R. Gray's (Professor of Religious Studies York University) Leontius of Jerusalem: Against the Monophysites: Testimonies of the Saints, he states, "he is not at all scholarly–he is downright sloppy, in fact–when it comes to the texts he himself wishes to cite. Something more, then, is at work here than scholarly capabilities."

Confusion with Leontius of Byzantium Historically, there has been a problem of misidentification between Leontius of Byzantium and Leontius of Jerusalem. The first scholar to identify and challenge the ambiguity of the writings that come down to us under the name of "Leontius" was Friedrich Loofs in 1887, arguing for a single author of the corpus leontianum. Since the publication of that article, Richard's conclusions have been accepted by all scholars writing about Leontius. It is therefore Richard who is responsible for establishing the identity of Leontius as an author in his own right. To Leontius of Byzantium, on the other hand, he assigned the three books Contra Nestorianos et Eutychianos, the treatise against Severus of Antioch known as Epilysis, the Triginta capita contra Severum, and some other more minor works.

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