Page:Dictionary of Christian Biography and Literature (1911).djvu/567

 on the spot where the saint was found a church was dedicated to him, connected with which was a priory as a cell of the parent abbey. The spot was thenceforth known as St. Ives. A later hand adds that  temp. Henry I. the relics of the two companions were re-translated to St. Ives. As Ramsey abbey was founded about 991 or a little earlier (Mon. Hist. Brit. 580 ; Monast. Angl. ii. 547), Eadnoth the first abbat (Liber Eliens. ed. Stewart, p. 188) would be living c. 1000 (the common date of the translation is 1001). Reckoning back 100 lustra or 400 years (computing by the four-year lustrum), we arrive at 600 as about the period of Ivo's death, and this is the year given by Florence of Worcester (Chron. in M. H. B. 526). His mission at Slepe must thus be placed c. 580–600, which nearly corresponds with the reign of the emperor Maurice, with whom Diceto (in Gale, iii. 559) makes him contemporary. Thus Ivo's Mercian mission preceded the arrival of Augustine by about half a generation and anticipated by some 70 years the conversion of Mercia as narrated in Bede. The obvious improbability of this leaves the monks of Ramsey responsible for the legend.

Possibly there may be here a lingering tradition of old British Christianity and a reminiscence of its Oriental origin, leaving the period out of the question. It would not be surprising if a British remnant should have survived in that locality as late as the Conquest. There are indications that Britons did actually maintain themselves in E. Mercia and the fastnesses of the fens long after the conversion of the English race. Moreover, the name of Patrick gives the story a Celtic look, and the locality might have been a sort of eastern Glastonbury. The Celtic element in the first conversion of the Mercian Angles was likely to prolong the vitality of Celtic traditions. If there was Celtic blood surviving in the fens when Ramsey was founded, the Oriental colouring of the legend is accounted for. The stone sarcophagus may have been a genuine Roman relic, furnishing a material basis for the story and suggesting the occasion. If the above inferences are not unreasonable, the legend of St. Ivo contains a reminiscence that the Christian missionaries who reached Britain from the East came by way of Gaul and of the tradition of their having been sent from Rome.

Slepe is found in Domesday and is still the name of one of the manors of St. Ives.

The priory of St. Ives, the ruins of which survive, is described in ''Monast. Angl.'' ii. 631. In the time of Brompton (Twysd. p. 883) no saint in England was so eminent as St. Ivo at Ramsey for the cure of diseases.

The story was written again by John of Tynemouth in 14th cent., in whose Sanctilogium, before the MS. was burnt, it stood No. 70 (Smith, Cat. Cotton MSS. p. 29). It was one of those adopted by Capgrave in 15th cent. for his Nova Legenda (ff. 199) and so is preserved. This version states that the pope commissioned him to Britain. The MS. Lives of Ivo are mentioned by Hardy (Desc. Cat. i. 184–186), and the Life by Goscelin exists as a Bodleian manuscript in a fuller form than the recension given by the Bollandists, the Life in Capgrave being another abridgment. One of the MSS. mentioned by Hardy purports to be the very Life by abbat Andrew referred to by Goscelin.

[C.H.]

Jacobus (4) or James, bp. of Nisibis in Mesopotamia, called "the Moses of Mesopotamia," born at Nisibis or Antiochia Mygdoniae towards the end of 3rd cent. He is said to have been nearly related to Gregory the Illuminator, the apostle of Armenia. At an early age he devoted himself to the life of a solitary, and the celebrity he acquired by his self-imposed austerities caused Theodoret to assign him the first place in his Religiosa Historia or Vitae Patrum—where he is entitled ὁ μέγας. During this period he went to Persia for intercourse with the Christians of that country and to confirm their faith under the persecutions of Sapor II. Gennadius (de Script. Eccl. c. 1) reports that James was a confessor in the Maximinian persecution. On the vacancy of the see of his native city he was compelled by the popular demand to become bishop. His episcopate, according to Theodoret, was signalized by fresh miracles.

In 325 he was summoned to the council of Nicaea (Labbe, Concil. ii. 52, 76). A leading part is ascribed to him by Theodoret in its debates (Theod. u.s. p. 1114). He is commended by Athanasius, together with Hosius, Alexander, Eustathius, and others (adv. Arian. t. i. p. 252). According to some Eastern accounts, James was one whom the emperor Constantine marked out for peculiar honour (Stanley, Eastern Church, p. 203). His name occurs among those who signed the decrees of the council of Antioch, in Encaeniis, 341, of more than doubtful orthodoxy (Labbe, Concil. ii. 559), but no mention of his being present at this council occurs elsewhere (Tillem. Mém. eccl. t. vi. note 27, les Arensi; Hefele, Councils, ii. 58, Eng. tr.). That the awfully sudden death of Arius at Constantinople, on the eve of his anticipated triumph, 336, was due to the prayers of James of Nisibis, and that on this emergency he had exhorted the faithful to devote a whole week to uninterrupted fasting and public supplication in the churches, rests only on the authority of one passage, in the Religiosa Historia of Theodoret, the spuriousness of which is acknowledged by all sound critics. The gross blunders of making the death of the heresiarch contemporaneous with the council of Nicaea, and of confounding Alexander of Alexandria with Alexander of Constantinople, prove it an ignorant forgery. In the account of the death of Arius obtained by Theodoret from Athanasius (Theod. H. E. i. 14; Soz. H. E. ii. 20) no mention is made of James, nor in that given by Athanasius in his letter to the bishops. As bp. of Nisibis James was the spiritual father of Ephrem Syrus, who was baptized by him and remained by his side as long as he lived. Milles, bp. of Susa, visiting Nisibis to attend a synod for settling the differences between the bps. of Seleucia and Ctesiphon, c. 341, found James busily erecting his cathedral, towards which, on his return, Milles sent a large quantity of silk