Page:Dictionary of Christian Biography and Literature (1911).djvu/577

Rh The sting of the transaction still remained; they had now to efface from the diptychs the names of five patriarchs and two emperors—Acacius, Fravitta, Euphemius, Macedonius, and Timotheus; Zeno and Anastasius. All the bishops at Constantinople gave their consent in writing; so did all the abbats, after some had raised a difficulty. On Easter Day the pacification was promulgated. The court and people, equally enthusiastic, surged into St. Sophia. The vaults resounded with acclamations in praise of God, the emperor, St. Peter, and the bp. of Rome. Opponents, who had prophesied sedition and tumult, were signally disappointed. Never within memory had so vast a number communicated. The emperor sent an account of the proceedings throughout the provinces and the ambassadors forwarded their report to Rome, saying that there only remained the negotiations with Antioch. John wrote to Hormisdas to congratulate him on the great work, and to offer him the credit of its success. Soon after, Jan. 19, 520, John died.

Baronius, ad. ann. 518, x.–lxxvii. 520, vii.; Fleury, ii. 573; Acta SS. Bolland. 18 Aug. iii. 655; Theoph. Chronogr. § 140, ''Patr. Gk.'' cviii.; Niceph. Callist. iiii. 456, ''Patr. Gk.'' cxlvii.; Photius, iii. § 287 a, ''Patr. Gk. ciii.; Avitus, Ep.'' vii. ''Patr. Lat.'' lix. 227; Hormisdas, ''Epp., Patr. Lat.'' lxiii. p. 426, etc.

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Joannes (125) III., surnamed Scholasticus, "The Lawyer," 32nd bp. of Constantinople (Apr. 12, 565-Aug. 31, 577), born at Sirimis, in the region of Cynegia, near Antioch. There was a flourishing college of lawyers at Antioch, where he entered and did himself credit. This was suppressed in 533 by Justinian. John was ordained and became agent and secretary of his church. This would bring him into touch with the court at Constantinople. When Justinian, towards the close of his life, tried to raise the sect of the Aphthartodocetae to the rank of orthodoxy, and determined to expel the blameless Eutychius for his opposition, the able lawyer-ecclesiastic of Antioch, who had already distinguished himself by his great edition of the canons, was chosen to carry out the imperial will.

Little is known of his episcopal career. Seven months after his appointment Justinian died. The new emperor, Justin II., was crowned by the patriarch, Nov. 14, 565. John himself died shortly before Justin.

One of the most useful works of that period was the Digest of Canon Law formed by John at Antioch. Following some older work which he mentions in his preface, he abandoned the historical plan of giving the decrees of each council in order and arranged them on a philosophical principle, according to their matter. The older writers had sixty heads. He reduced them to fifty. To the canons of the councils of Nicaea, Ancyra, Neocaesarea, Gangra, Antioch, Ephesus, and Constantinople, already collected and received in the Greek church, John added 89 "Apostolical Canons," the 21 of Sardica, and the 68 of the canonical letter of Basil. Writing to Photius, pope Nicholas I. cites a harmony of the canons which includes those of Sardica, which could only be that of John the Lawyer. When John came to Constantinople, he edited the Nomocanon, an abridgment of his former work, with the addition of a comparison of the imperial rescripts and civil laws (especially the Novels of Justinian) under each head. Balsamon cites this without naming the author, in his notes on the first canon of the Trullan council of Constantinople. In a MS. of the Paris library the Nomocanon is attributed to Theodoret, but in all others to John. Theodoret would not have inserted the "apostolical canons" and those of Sardica, and the style has no resemblance to his. In 1661 these two works were printed at the beginning of vol. ii. of the Bibliotheca Canonica of Justellus, at Paris. Photius (Cod. lxxv.) mentions his catechism, in which he established the Catholic teaching of the consubstantial Trinity, saying that he wrote it in 568, under Justin II., and that it was afterwards attacked by the impious Philoponus. Fabricius considers that the Digest or Harmony and the Nomocanon are probably rightly assigned to John the Lawyer. Fabricius, xi. 101, xii. 146, 193, 201, 209; Evagr. H. E. iv. 38, v. 13, ''Patr. Gk.'' lxxxvi. pt. 2; Theoph. Chronogr. 204, etc., ''Patr. Gk.'' cviii.; Niceph. Callist. iii. 455, ''Patr. Gk.'' cxlvii.; Victor Tunun. ''Patr. Lat.'' lxviii. 937; Baronius, ad. ann. 564, xiv. xxix.; 565, xvii.; 578, 5; ''Patr. Constant. in Acta SS.'' Bolland. Aug. i. p. * 67.

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Joannes (126) IV. (surnamed The Faster, Jejunator, sometimes also Cappadox, and thus liable to be confused with the patriarch John II.), 33rd bp. of Constantinople, from Apr. 11, 582 to Sept. 2, 595. He was born at Constantinople of artisan parents, and was a sculptor. In 587 or 588 he summoned the bishops of the East in the name of "the Oecumenical Patriarch" to decide the cause of Gregory, archbp. of Antioch, who was acquitted and returned to his see. Pelagius II., bp. of Rome, solemnly annulled the acts of this council. In 593 we find John severely blamed by pope Gregory for having allowed an Isaurian presbyter named Anastasius, accused of heresy, to be beaten with ropes in the church of Constantinople.

In 595 the controversy was again rife about the title of universal bishop. Gregory the Great wrote to his legate Sabinianus forbidding him to communicate with John. In the case of a presbyter named Athanasius, accused of being to some extent a Manichee, and condemned as such, Gregory shews that the accuser was himself a Pelagian, and that by the carelessness, ignorance, or fault of John the Faster the Nestorian council of Ephesus had actually been mistaken for the Catholic, so that heretics would be taken for orthodox, and orthodox condemned as heretics!

His Writings.—Isidore of Seville (de Script. Eccl. 26) attributes to him only a letter, not now extant, on baptism addressed to St. Leander. John, he says, "propounds nothing of his own, but only repeats the opinions of the ancient Fathers on trine immersion."

But there are extant four works attributed to John the Faster. (1) His Penitential, Libellus Poenitentialis, or, as it is described in bk. iii. of the work of Leo Allatius, de Consensu Utriusque Ecclesiae (Rome, 1655, 4to), Praxis Graecis Praescripta in Confessione Peragenda. The Greeks of the middle ages