5. Of BYZANTIUM or CONSTANTINOPLE, an ecclesiastical writer of the latter part of the sixth and the commencement of the seventh century, sometimes designated, from his original profession, SCHOLASTICUS, i. e. the pleader. Several works of about the same period bear the name of Leontius, distinguished by the surnames of BYZANTINUS, PRESBYTER CONSTANTINOPOLITANUS, CYPRIUS, HIEROSOLYMITANUS, MONACHUS, NEAPOLITANUS, and PRESBYTER et ABBAS ST. SABAE; and as there is difficulty in determining how many individuals are designated by these various epithets, and which of the various works ascribed to them should be assigned to each, it will be desirable to compare the present article, which refers to the author of the work De Sectis, with Nos. 20 and 26.
According to Cave, Leontius, having given up the exercise of his profession as a scholasticus, retired to the monastery which had been founded by St. Saba near Jerusalem, but was rejected by that saint for his adherence to the obnoxious tenets of Origen. But Cave is manifestly in error, and has confounded two different persons of the same name and place. The Leontius of Byzantium, who was excluded by St. Saba for Origenism, died in the reign of the emperor Justinian I. (Cyril. Scythopolit. Vita S. Sabae, c. 86, apud Coteler. Eccles. Graec. Monum. vol. iii. p. 366), but the work De Sectis appears from internal evidence to have been written at least half a century after Justinian's death, and must therefore be the work of a later Leontius. Photius (cod. 231) and Nicephors Callisti (H. E. 18.48) call the author of the De Sectis a monk, and do not notice his earlier profession. Galland (Bibl. Patrum, vol. xii. Prolegom. c. 20) says that Leontius retired from the bar, and embraced a monastic life in Palestine; but we apprehend this is only a supposition, intended to account for the designation HIEROSOLYMITANUS in the title of some of the works, which he ascribes to this Leontius. Oudin, who is disposed to identify several of the Leontii, supposes that the exscholasticus became a monk and abbot of St. Saba (comp. No. 26), near Jerusalem. (De Scriptorib. Eccles. vol. i. col. 1462, &c.)