John of Ephesus (or of Asia) (
Greek: Ίωάννης ό Έφέσιος, c. 507 – c. 588) was a leader of the early
Syriac Orthodox Church
, native_name_lang = syc
, image = St_George_Syriac_orthodox_church_in_Damascus.jpg
, imagewidth = 250
, alt = Cathedral of Saint George
, caption = Cathedral of Saint George, Damascus ...
in the sixth century and one of the earliest and the most important historians to write in
Syriac Syriac may refer to:
*Syriac language, an ancient dialect of Middle Aramaic
*Sureth, one of the modern dialects of Syriac spoken in the Nineveh Plains region
* Syriac alphabet
** Syriac (Unicode block)
** Syriac Supplement
* Neo-Aramaic languages a ...
. John of Ephesus was a bishop, but John was more important than other bishops and what sets him apart from most others is the fact that he was a historian and a writer. He was also a political man and would often follow his own path. John was seen as a great writer and covered important aspects of events in history, and one of these important events was the plague, and John has one of the only first-hand accounts of the plague. He was also alive in what has been called the worst year ever.
Life
Born at
Amida (modern
Diyarbakır
Diyarbakır (; ; ; ) is the largest Kurdish-majority city in Turkey. It is the administrative center of Diyarbakır Province.
Situated around a high plateau by the banks of the Tigris river on which stands the historic Diyarbakır Fortress, ...
in southeastern Turkey) about 507, he was there ordained as a deacon in 529 by
John of Tella John of Tella (or John Bar Qursos) (483–538) was a monk and bishop in the Near East. John was a major proponent of moderate Miaphysitism. Although his native language was Syriac he studied Greek in order to serve in the Byzantine administration. ...
at
Zuqnin Monastery
Zuqnin Monastery was an ancient Christian monastery located just to the north of Amida, near the modern-day city of Diyarbakır in eastern Turkey. John of Ephesus was ordained here by John of Tella in 529. It is at this monastery that the ''Zuqni ...
,
When John was a teenager, he moved to Amida, located on the Tigris River. Amida was in the providence of Armenia IV. Ever since John was a small child, he lived in the monastery of Maro, the Stylite. After his death, John lived the monastic lifestyle. He left Armenia IV for Palestine. He did this because of imperial opposition to
miaphysitism
Miaphysitism is the Christological doctrine that holds Jesus, the "Incarnate Word, is fully divine and fully human, in one 'nature' (''physis'')." It is a position held by the Oriental Orthodox Churches and differs from the Chalcedonian positio ...
. This was in 534. In 535 he passed to
Constantinople
la, Constantinopolis ota, قسطنطينيه
, alternate_name = Byzantion (earlier Greek name), Nova Roma ("New Rome"), Miklagard/Miklagarth (Old Norse), Tsargrad ( Slavic), Qustantiniya (Arabic), Basileuousa ("Queen of Cities"), Megalopolis (" ...
. He returned to the east in later years of the 530s, where he witnessed the devastations of the great
plague
Plague or The Plague may refer to:
Agriculture, fauna, and medicine
*Plague (disease), a disease caused by ''Yersinia pestis''
* An epidemic of infectious disease (medical or agricultural)
* A pandemic caused by such a disease
* A swarm of pes ...
first hand. He travelled the region, going so far as Egypt, in order to collect stories for his collection of saints' lives, which he compiled in a book (containing 58 such lives) around the year 565. He was back in Amida at the start of the furious persecution directed against the Monophysites by
Ephrem
Ephrem is a masculine given name, a variant spelling of Ephraim (also spelled ''Efrem'', ''Ephraem''). It is the name of biblical Ephraim, a son of Joseph and ancestor of the Tribe of Ephraim.
People
First name Pre-Modern
* Saint Ephrem, one o ...
,
Melkite
The term Melkite (), also written Melchite, refers to various Eastern Christianity, Eastern Christian churches of the Byzantine Rite and their members originating in the Middle East. The term comes from the common Central Semitic Semitic root, ro ...
Patriarch of Antioch, and Abraham, bishop of Amida c. 520-541. Around 540 he returned to Constantinople and made it his residence.
In Constantinople he seems to have early won the notice of
Justinian I
Justinian I (; la, Iustinianus, ; grc-gre, Ἰουστινιανός ; 48214 November 565), also known as Justinian the Great, was the Byzantine emperor from 527 to 565.
His reign is marked by the ambitious but only partly realized ''renovat ...
, one of the main objects of whose policy was the consolidation of Eastern Christianity as a bulwark against the Zoroastrian power of
Persia
Iran, officially the Islamic Republic of Iran, and also called Persia, is a country located in Western Asia. It is bordered by Iraq and Turkey to the west, by Azerbaijan and Armenia to the northwest, by the Caspian Sea and Turkmeni ...
, through persecution of all the remaining pagans of the empire. John is said by
Barhebraeus
Gregory Bar Hebraeus ( syc, ܓܪܝܓܘܪܝܘܣ ܒܪ ܥܒܪܝܐ, b. 1226 - d. 30 July 1286), known by his Syriac ancestral surname as Bar Ebraya or Bar Ebroyo, and also by a Latinized name Abulpharagius, was an Aramean Maphrian (regional primat ...
(''Chron. eccl.'' i. 195) to have succeeded
Anthimus as Monophysite bishop of Constantinople, but this is probably a mistake. In any case, he enjoyed the emperor's favor until the death of the latter in 565 and (as he himself tells us) was entrusted with the administration of the entire revenues of the Monophysite Church.
He was sent by Justinian on a mission for the conversion of such pagans as remained in
Asia Minor
Anatolia, tr, Anadolu Yarımadası), and the Anatolian plateau, also known as Asia Minor, is a large peninsula in Western Asia and the westernmost protrusion of the Asian continent. It constitutes the major part of modern-day Turkey. The re ...
in 542, and informs us that the number of those whom he baptized amounted to 70,000. It was thought that John was trying to convert these people to Miaphysitism. He also built a large monastery at
Tralles on the hills skirting the valley of the Meander, and more than one hundred other monasteries and churches, mostly on top of demolished pagan temples. Of the mission to the
Nubians
Nubians () (Nobiin: ''Nobī,'' ) are an ethnic group indigenous to the region which is now northern Sudan and southern Egypt. They originate from the early inhabitants of the central Nile valley, believed to be one of the earliest cradles of c ...
which he may have promoted, though he did not himself visit their country, an interesting account is given in the 4th book of the 3rd part of his History. He was ordained
bishop of Ephesus
The Metropolis of Ephesus ( el, Μητρόπολις Εφέσου) was an ecclesiastical territory (metropolis) of the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople in western Asia Minor, modern Turkey. Christianity was introduced already in the city o ...
(Asia) for the anti-Chalcedonians in 558 by
Jacob Baradaeus
Jacob Baradaeus (; grc, Ἰάκωβος Βαραδαῖος, label=Ancient Greek, Greek; ar, مار يعقوب البرادعي; syc, ܝܥܩܘܒ ܒܘܪܕܥܝܐ, label=Syriac language, Syriac), also known as Jacob bar Addai or Jacob bar Theophi ...
, although his title was largely nominal and he remained in Constantinople.
In 546, he collaborated with the emperor during a persecution targeting pagans in Constantinople and its neighborhood. He carried out this task faithfully, torturing all suspected of the "wicked heathenish error", as John himself calls it, and finding much worship of the ancestral gods amongst the Empire's aristocracy. But his fortunes changed soon after the accession of
Justin II
Justin II ( la, Iustinus; grc-gre, Ἰουστῖνος, Ioustînos; died 5 October 578) or Justin the Younger ( la, Iustinus minor) was Eastern Roman Emperor from 565 until 578. He was the nephew of Justinian I and the husband of Sophia, the ...
. About 571
John III the Scholasticus, the orthodox or Chalcedonian patriarch, began (with the sanction of the emperor) a rigorous persecution of the Monophysite Church leaders, and John was among those who suffered most. John was imprisoned at Chalcedon. He gives us a detailed account of his sufferings in prison, confiscation of his property, etc., in the third part of his ''History''. The latest events recorded are of the date 588, and the author cannot have lived much longer; but of the circumstances of his death nothing is known.
Writings
John's main work was his ''Ecclesiastical History'', which covered more than six centuries, from the time of Julius Caesar to 588, although John himself employs the
Seleucid era
The Seleucid era ("SE") or (literally "year of the Greeks" or "Greek year"), sometimes denoted "AG," was a system of numbering years in use by the Seleucid Empire and other countries among the ancient Hellenistic civilizations. It is sometimes r ...
. It was composed in three parts, each containing six books. The first part seems to have wholly perished. The second, which extended from
Theodosius II
Theodosius II ( grc-gre, Θεοδόσιος, Theodosios; 10 April 401 – 28 July 450) was Roman emperor for most of his life, proclaimed ''Augustus (title), augustus'' as an infant in 402 and ruling as the eastern Empire's sole emperor after ...
to the 6th or 7th year of Justin II, was, according to
F. Nau, reproduced in full or almost in full in John's own words in the third part of the
Zuqnin Chronicle
The ''Zuqnin Chronicle'' is a medieval chronicle written in Classical Syriac language, encompassing the events from Genesis creation narrative, Creation to CE. It was most probably produced in the Zuqnin Monastery near Amida (Mesopotamia), Amida ...
, which was until recently mistakenly attributed to the patriarch
Dionysius Telmaharensis. Modern research has shown that it is more likely that large parts are missing. Of this second division of John's ''History'', in which he may have incorporated the so-called ''Chronicle'' of
Joshua the Stylite Joshua the Stylite (also spelled Yeshu Stylite and Ieshu Stylite) is the attributed author of a chronicle which narrates the history of the war between the Byzantine Empire and Persians between 502 and 506, and which is generally considered to be ...
, considerable portions are found in the
British Library
The British Library is the national library of the United Kingdom and is one of the largest libraries in the world. It is estimated to contain between 170 and 200 million items from many countries. As a legal deposit library, the British ...
manuscripts Add. 14647 and 14650, and these have been published in the second volume of
J. P. N. Land's ''Anecdota Syriaca''. But the whole is more completely presented in the
Vatican
Vatican may refer to:
Vatican City, the city-state ruled by the pope in Rome, including St. Peter's Basilica, Sistine Chapel, Vatican Museum
The Holy See
* The Holy See, the governing body of the Catholic Church and sovereign entity recognized ...
manuscript (''Codex Zuquenensis'',
shelfmark
A shelfmark is a mark in a book or manuscript that denotes the cupboard or bookcase where it is kept as well as the shelf and possibly even its location on the shelf. The closely related term pressmark (from press, meaning cupboard) denotes only th ...
Vatican Syriac 162), which incorporates much of John's chronicle in a kolophon dated to the eighth century. (English translation, with notes, by
Amir Harrak, ''The Chronicle of Zuqnin, Parts III and IV'' (Toronto, 1999) and by
Witold Witakowski
Witold may refer to:
*Vytautas the Great
Vytautas (c. 135027 October 1430), also known as Vytautas the Great ( Lithuanian: ', be, Вітаўт, ''Vitaŭt'', pl, Witold Kiejstutowicz, ''Witold Aleksander'' or ''Witold Wielki'' Ruthenian: ' ...
, ''Pseudo-Dionysius of Tel-Mahre: Chronicle, Part III'' (Liverpool, 1997)).
The third part of John's history, which is a detailed account of the ecclesiastical events which happened in 571-588, as well as of some earlier occurrences, survives in a fairly complete state in Add. 14640, a British Museum manuscript of the seventh century. It forms a contemporary record of great value to the historian. Its somewhat disordered state, the want of chronological arrangement, and the occasional repetition of accounts of the same events are due, as the author himself informs us (ii. 50), to the work being almost entirely composed during the times of his imprisonment in Constantinople. The same cause may account for the somewhat slovenly Syriac style. The writer claims to have treated his subject impartially, and though written from the narrow point of view of one to whom Miaphysite Orthodoxy was all-important, it is largely a faithful reproduction of events as they occurred. This third part was edited by
William Cureton
William Cureton (180817 June 1864) was an English Orientalist.
Life
He was born in Westbury, Shropshire. After being educated at the Adams' Grammar School in Newport, Shropshire and at Christ Church, Oxford, he took orders in 1832, became chapl ...
(Oxford, 1853) and
E.W. Brooks (
CSCO 105, Louvain, 1935), and was translated - sometimes paraphrase - into English by
Robert Payne Smith
Robert Payne Smith (7 November 1818 – 31 March 1895) was Regius Professor of Divinity at the University of Oxford and Canon of Christ Church from 1865 until 1870, when he was appointed Dean of Canterbury by Queen Victoria on the advice of Wil ...
(Oxford, 1860), into German by
J. M. Schonfelder (Munich, 1862) and into Latin by Brooks (
CSCO 106, Louvain, 1936).
John's other known work was a series of ''Biographies of Eastern Saints'', compiled about 565-7. The purpose of John's writing "Lives of eastern saints" was to show and talk about the lives of holy men and women of the Miaphysite faith. These stories about these people giving glory to god, and it was supposed to help bolster the faith of people that were persecuted and scatted throughout the Eastern Empire. These have been edited by Land in ''Anecdota Syriaca'', ii. 1-288, and translated into
Latin
Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as Latium) around present-day Rome, but through the power of the ...
by
van Douwen and Land (Amsterdam, 1889), and into English by Brooks (''
Patrologia Orientalis
The ''Patrologia Orientalis'' is an attempt to create a comprehensive collection of the writings by eastern Church Fathers in Syriac, Armenian, Arabic, Coptic, Ge'ez, Georgian, and Slavonic, published with a Latin, English, Italian or mostly Fre ...
'' vols 17-19, 1923–26). An estimate of John as an ecclesiastic and author was given by the
Louis Duchesne
Louis Marie Olivier Duchesne (; 13 September 1843 – 21 April 1922) was a French priest, philologist, teacher and a critical historian of Christianity and Roman Catholic liturgy and institutions.
Life
Descended from a family of Breton sailors, ...
in a memoir read before the five French Academies on October 25, 1892.
Christ appears quite frequently in John's life and in the writings that he produces. John wrote the ''Lives'' of John of Tella and John of Hephaestopolis. In those writings, John talks about how he sees Christ as an example of humility. He believes that monks should follow this way of thinking. An example of this can be found in chapter 14, where John is told, 'He has … in his own person shown you humility', and humility is a universally important monastic virtue. Another example of Christ's teachings about humility also appears in another text, Life of Simeon. Where it talks about how whenever Simeon would get a visitor, he would wash their feet. It did not matter how many there were. The example that it is talking about is foot washing and how a holly man will do it no matter how insignificant the task might be. John talks about how he interprets Christ's teachings. He seeks to live to the fullest extent of Christ's teachings. He seeks like Christ did to serve others, be humble and wash the feet of others.
Climatic observations
Writings by John of Ephesus describe the sun's light as going dim during the years 535 and 536 AD, which was subsequently followed by a cooling that lasted for just over a decade:
There was a sign from the sun the like of which had never been seen or reported before. The sun became dark and its darkness lasted for eighteen months. Each day it shone for about four hours and still, this light was but a feeble shadow. Everyone declared that the sun would never recover its full light again.
Previously, these were explained as religiously symbolic or a local occurrence. These were shown to be, in 2010, an actual report of two distant volcanic eruptions which resulted in a dimming of the sun for close to two years and created an artificial winter in the Northern Hemisphere that lasted for just over a decade. A search for writings mentioning these dark years was undertaken when dendrochronologists around the world began to realize that the rings of ancient trees indicated that there was a miniature Ice Age lasting about two years that began at around this time. The hypothesis at that time was that it was possibly the result of a supervolcano that erupted in South America. A subsequent search puts forward that it may have been two different volcanoes that were some distance away from each other.
Notes
References
* Alan Harvey. Economic Expansion in the Byzantine Empire, 900–1200. New York: Cambridge University Press. 1989. Pp. XVI, 298. $49.50.” ''The American Historical Review'', 1991.
https://doi.org/10.1086/ahr/96.3.859.
* “A. P. Kazhdan and Ann Wharton Epstein. Change in Byzantine Culture in the Eleventh and Twelfth Centuries. (Transformation of the Classical Heritage, Number 7.) Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press. 1985. Pp. XXII, 287. $35.00.” ''The American Historical Review'', 1986.
https://doi.org/10.1086/ahr/91.3.648-a.
* Gregory, Timothy. ''A History of Byzantium''. Chichester, U.K.: Wiley-Blackwell, a John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., Publication, 2010.
* HERRIN, JUDITH. “Byzantium,” 2009.
https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctv6zdbvf.
* HOSKIN, MATTHEW. “The Close Proximity of Christ to Sixth-Century Mesopotamian Monks in John of Ephesus’ Lives of Eastern Saints.” ''The Journal of Ecclesiastical History'' 69, no. 2 (2017): 262–77.
https://doi.org/10.1017/s0022046917001762.
* Jan Jacob van Ginkel, ''John of Ephesus. A Monophysite Historian in Sixth-century Byzantium''. Groningen, 1995.
* “Hardcover.” Princeton University. The Trustees of Princeton University. Accessed December 18, 2022.
https://press.princeton.edu/books/hardcover/9780691656878/peasant-society-in-the-late-byzantine-empire.
* Harvey, Susan Ashbrook. ''Asceticism and Society in Crisis : John of Ephesus and the Lives of the Eastern Saints''. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1990. Print.
*Harvey, Susan Ashbrook. “Physicians and Ascetics in John of Ephesus: An Expedient Alliance.” ''Dumbarton Oaks papers'' 38 (1984): 87–93. Web
*James, L. “A Concise History of Byzantium, by Warren Treadgold (Basingstoke: Palgrave, 2001; Pp. 273. Pb. 13.99).” ''The English Historical Review'' 116, no. 469 (2001): 1238–38.
https://doi.org/10.1093/ehr/116.469.1238.
*Paweł Nowakowski. “A New Imperial Letter from the Ephesian Dossier, Concerning the Churches of John and Mary in Ephesus? A Re-Edition of ‘IG’ XII 6,2 928.” ''Zeitschrift für Papyrologie und Epigraphik'' 204 (2017): 72–78. Print. Tripolitis, Antonia, and Susan Ashbrook Harvey. “Asceticism and Society in Crisis: John of Ephesus and ‘The Lives of the Eastern Saints.’” ''The Classical World'' 1991: 404–404. Web.
*Sharp, Roger S. “Cyril Mango, Ed., The Oxford History of Byzantium, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002. Pp. XVIII, 334.” ''Byzantine and Modern Greek Studies'' 29, no. 1 (2005): 98–101.
https://doi.org/10.1017/s0307013100015238.
*Tompkins, Ian G. “S. A. Harvey, Asceticism and Society in Crisis: John of Ephesus and the Lives of the Eastern Saints (The Transformation of the Classical Heritage XVIII). Berkeley: University of California Press, 1990.
*“Warren Treadgold. a History of the Byzantine State and Society. Stanford: Stanford University Press. 1997.
;Attribution
*
External links
Public domain translation of part 3 of the Ecclesiastical historyTranslation of portions of part 2 dealing with the Justinianic plague
{{Authority control
Syriac writers
507 births
586 deaths
6th-century Syriac Orthodox Church bishops
Syrian archbishops
6th-century Oriental Orthodox archbishops
6th-century historians
Historians of Justinian I
6th-century Byzantine writers