John of Ephesus
John of Ephesus (c. 507 area Ingilene in Diyarbakir in Armenia; † 588 ) was a late antique bishop and Syro -Roman church historian.
Life and work
John, who rejected the decrees of the Council of Chalcedon (451 ) and therefore mostly regarded as adherents of Monophysitism, has already been given as a small child in a convent and moved with 15 years of Amida, where he allowed himself to take up the monastic order of St. John. Since the Monophysites were exposed in the Eastern Roman Empire after 518 many official reprisals, evaded the monks 521 in the nearby smaller place Hazim, but turned 530 back at the behest of the Emperor Justinian I ( and perhaps due to an initiative of the Empress Theodora ) by Amida.
Since 532 John traveled extensively throughout the Roman Orient, where he particularly stories about famous saint gathered that he should write down decades later. 540 he came to Constantinople Opel, where he, after he had 541 made a trip to Egypt, and stayed, as there raged the so-called Justinian plague in the spring of 542. This year he received despite his Monophysite tendencies from orthodox Emperor an order to devote himself in Asia Minor Bergland mission to the Gentiles - that he into three decades baptized claims to have 70,000 people, is an indication of how many non-Christians at that time still in Eastern Roman Empire survived. 558 John was consecrated by the non- Chalcedonian Jacob Baradai bishop of Ephesus, he seems to have there but never stopped. Main place of his work remained rather Konstantin Opel. Under Emperor Justin II since it was 570 again reinforced to persecution of the Monophysites; John, who was considered one of the most important representatives of this group for some time, was imprisoned and died in 586 or 589, probably in Chalcedon.
John wrote several works that are only partly preserved. Particularly important are the surviving books of his drafted in Syriac ( Aramaic ) church history that is fully narrated for the years 571-585, and also interesting information on the political history of this period offers; he reports about about the Persian war of Maurikios. Provide for the beginning of his time Christianization of Nubia nine chapters of his work, the most important source dar. The (now lost ) second part of church history was made using pseudo - Dionysius of Tell Mahre. Importance are also next to the Lives of the Eastern Saints, a collection of 58 biographies mainly Syrian and Egyptian monks and hermits.