Page:Dictionary of Christian Biography and Literature (1911).djvu/579

Rh to their prison; and their personal followers were also confined in the dungeons of the palace. The misery of the four bishops was aggravated by the reproaches of the leading Monophysite laymen, who supposed that their obstinacy alone hindered a compromise which would stop the persecution. The cunning patriarch was careful to encourage this belief. At last his victims gave way, the patriarch promising upon oath that the council of Chalcedon should be sacrificed. The four bishops twice communicated with him; but when they reminded him of his promise, he referred them to the pope; he could not, for their sakes, risk a schism from Rome. Our historian touchingly describes the sorrow of himself and his companions over this fraud; even their opponents pitied them, until they once more faced them with galling taunts, which led to a second imprisonment (i. 17–25). The emperor made further fruitless attempts at conciliation. The upshot of a discussion before the senate was that the four bishops boldly uttered their anathema "upon the whole heresy of the two natures," and renounced communion with their deceivers for ever. Thereupon they were sentenced to "banishment." The sentence was at once carried out. They never saw each other again. John of Ephesus was confined in the hospital of Eubulus at Constantinople. Though helpless from gout and exposed to swarms of vermin, he was denied all assistance. As he lay in his filthy prison, it seemed to him that his feverish thirst was slaked and his misery comforted by a heavenly visitant, whose coming he describes with much pathos and simplicity. After a year he was removed to an island, where he remained 18 months, when the Caesar Tiberius ordered his release. For three years, however, he was under surveillance, until the patriarch died ( 578). Before the outbreak of this persecution, John of Ephesus and Paul of Aphrodisias had argued publicly with Conon and Eugenius, the founders of the Cononites, nicknamed Tritheites, in the presence of the patriarch and his synod, by command of Justin (v. 3). Conon had vainly tried to win the support of John, who proved to him that he was a heretic and afterwards wrote him a letter of warning (v. 1–12). Eutychius, who, upon the death of John of Sirmin, was restored to the patriarchal throne, was hardly more tolerant of Monophysites than its late occupant. Persecution was renewed, and John of Ephesus again met with disgraceful injustice. By another imprisonment Eutychius wrung from him the resignation of a property which Callinicus, a chief officer of the court, had bestowed, and which John had largely improved and converted into a monastery. After being further deprived of his right of receiving five loaves at the public distributions, for which he had paid 300 darics, John was released.

Tiberius, Justin's successor, though unwilling to persecute, was overcome by popular clamour. The mob of the capital groundlessly suspected their new emperor of Arian leanings (iii. 13, 26). An edict was therefore published ordering the arrest of Arians, Manicheans, etc. Under cover of this, the "orthodox" were once more harried and plundered. The first victim was John of Ephesus (iii. 15), who had now lived many years and suffered much in Constantinople. He and his friends were incarcerated at Christmas in a miserable prison called the Cancellum ( 578?); and after much fruitless argument were finally ordered to leave the city.

It is greatly to our historian's credit that, during the bitter strife which raged long among the Monophysites themselves, in the matter of the double election of Theodore and Peter to succeed Theodosius as their patriarch of Alexandria, he maintained an honourable neutrality, standing equally aloof from Paulites and Jacobites, although his sympathies were with Theodore, the injured patriarch (iv. 9–48). John wrote his account of this pernicious quarrel in 583, the 2nd year of Maurice; for he says that it had already lasted 8 years (iv. 11), and that he is writing an outline of events from the year of Alexander 886 ( 575) onwards (iv. 13). In his anxiety to heal the schism, John sent 10 epistles to "the blessed Jacob" [ ], protesting his own neutrality, and urging reconciliation between the two factions (iv. 46); and after Jacob's death ( 581) his party made overtures to John of Ephesus, then living at the capital, to induce him to recognize Peter of Callinicus as patriarch of Antioch in place of Paul (iv. 45). In reply the historian rebuked them for violating the canons. John accuses both sides of an utter want of mutual charity, and an entire aversion to calm examination of the grounds of their quarrel. He adds that he has briefly recorded the main facts from the outset to the current year, 896 ( 585)—the latest date observable in his work.

The Ecclesiastical History.—John states (pt. iii. bk. i. c. 3) that he has already written a history of the church, "beginning from the times of Julius Caesar, as far as to the sixth year of the reign of Justin II., son of the sister of Justinian." If, as Dr. Payne Smith assumes, pt. i. was a mere abridgment of Eusebius, its loss is not a great one. The disappearance of pt. ii. is more unfortunate, as it would probably have furnished much important matter for the reign of Justinian. It brought the history down to 571. Pt. iii. continues it to c. 585, thus covering the period between the 6th year of Justin II. and the 4th of Maurice. It was called forth by the persecution above mentioned, which broke out in the 6th or 7th year of Justin, and the writer often apologizes for want of chronological order, occasional repetitions, and even inconsistencies of statement (see esp. i. 3; ii. 50), as defects due to the stress of untoward circumstances: "This should be known to critics: many of these stories were penned in time of persecution . . . people conveyed away the papers inscribed with these chapters, and the other papers and writings, into divers places, and in some instances they remained hidden so long as two or three years in one place or another" (ii. 50). John had no memoranda of what he had already written, and never found opportunity for revision. With these drawbacks, the work possesses special interest as an original account. John