John ^geatAs (o Aiyi(iTT]c), a presbyter of ^Eg£e (Ai'yrti) (probablv in Cilicia, between Mopsuestia and Issus). Photius calls him (Cod. 55) a Nestorian, but Fabricius, with reason, supposes that he was a Eutych- ian. When he flourished is not known ; he may perhaps be consigned to the latter half of the 5th centuW. Vos- sius places him under Zeno the Isaurian, but Cave thinks he was later. He is the reputed author of (1) 'EKKXtjmaffTiKt) ivTopia (Historia Ecclesiastica), in ten
books, of which Photius had read five, containing the history of the Church from tlie deposition of Nestonus at tlic Council of Ephesus (tlie third general councU, A. D. 431) to the deposition of Petrus Fullo (A.D. 477), who had usuqjed the see of Antioch in the reign of the emperor Zeiio. As the Council of Ephesus is the point at which the ecclesiastical history of Socrates leaves oif, it is probable that the history of John of JEgee com- menced, like that of Evagrius, at that point, and conse- quently that these live books were the first five of his history. I'hotius describes his style as perspicuous and florid," and says that he was a great admirer of Diosco- rus of Alexandria, the successor of Cyril, and extolled the Synod of Ephesus (A.D. 449), generally branded with the epithet i) XriarpiKli, " the synod of robbers," while he attacked the Council of Chalcedon. How late a period the history came down to cannot be deter- mined : — (2) A work which Photius describes as Kara riig ayiaQ TtrapTric avvoCov {A dversus Quartam Sanc- tam S;/nodum). This must be Photius's description, not the original title of the work; for, opposed as we infer John to have been to the authority of the Council of L'halcedon, he would hardly have described it as " the fourth sacred council." Photius commends the style in wliich the work was written. Fabricius identifies John of /Eg;B with the Joannes o ^la/cptvo/if I'oc, i. e. " the dissenter," cited by the anonymous writer of the At- aaTuaeig avvTOfioi xpoviKai (Breves Demonstrationes Chrovof/rap/iiae), given by Combefis (in his Origenuni C. Poltlvuiriim Manipulus, p. 24, 33), but Combefis him- self {tbiil, p. 50) identifies this John with John Malalas. Whether John of JEgx is the John o 'Pqrojp, "the Rhetorician," cited by Evagrius Scholasticus (Hi^t. Eccl. i, 16; ii, 12; iii, 10, etc.) is doubtful. Le Quien {Ope- ra S. Joannis Damasceni, i, 368, note) identifies them, but Fabricius thinks they were different persons. See Photius, Bill. Cod. 41, 55; Fabricius, Bihl. Gr. vii, 419; Cave, Hist. Lit. i, 456, ed. Oxford, 1740-43; Smith, Did. of Greek and Roman Biography, ii, 585.
John AoRicoLA. See Agricola.
John Ai.Asco. See Lasco.
John OF Ai.KXAxnaiA. See Joiix Xiciota; John Tai.aia.
John Alexandkixus. See John the Laborious.
John THK Al-MSGIVEK (JOHAXXES ElEEMOSYNA-
itifsv one of the best of the patriarchs of the East- ern Church, was born of noble parentage at Amanthus, in CypriLS, about 550. He had married young, but, losing Ills wife, he distributed his possessions among the pf)or, and devoted himself to a life of ascetic practices. So irreproachable was his conduct, and so great his rep- utation for piety and charity, that, on the murder of Theodore, he was unanimously demanded as successor in the patriarchate. He was appointed by the emperor in A.D. 606. The first years of his reign were quiet; not so the last years, which were marked by the suc- cessfid invasions of Chosroes H, king of the Persians, during the reign of Phocas, into the lloman jiossessions of the Orient (compare Gibbon, Decline ami Fall of the Rom. Empire, ch. xlvi). From all parts of Syria Chris- tians tied to Alexandria to find a protector in" John, and when at last Jerusalem also had fallen (A.D. 619), not content with feeding and clothing the refugees he found right at his own door, lie sent large sums of money to the Holy City to redeem Christian captives and prevent fur- tlier massacre. (The statement that at this fall of Je- rusalem "00,000 Christians were massacred, and that pnncipally by the Jews, who jjurchased them from the Persians on purpose to put them to death" | Neale], has no better basis than the inventions of prejudiced monas- tics, bent on the destruction of the Jews. Corap. Griitz Gesch. d. Juden, v, 34 sq., 438 sq.). In 620, when the 1 ersians threatened Egypt also, he lied to his native island, and died there a short time after his arrival. He IS commemorated in the Oriental Church November 11, and la ilm Latin January 23. Curiouslv enough, he
0 JOHN
is also commemorated by the Jacobites. It is from this John that the famous order of the Hospitallers, in the first instance, derived its name. Gardiner, bishop of Winchester, ascribed to him the authorship of the cele- brated Epistola ad Cmsarium, with which most Protes- tant and some Roman Catholic critics credit Chrysos- tom. Three biographical accomits were written of him : (1) by Joannes Moschns and Sophronius (no longer ex- tant) ; (2) by Leontius, bishop of Neapolis, in Cj^prus (translated, between 858 and 867, into Latin by Anasta- sius Eibliothecarius, and repeatedly printed) ; found in the ^c^a Sanctorum of the BoUandists (Jan. 23, ii, 495) ; (3) by Simeon Metaphrastes (but not trustworthy). See Neale, Hist. East. Ch. {Alexandria), ii, 52 sq. ; Wetzer u. Welte, Kirchen-Lexikon, v, 718 sq. ; Fabricius, Biblioth. Grmca, i, 690, note xx ; viii, 322 ; x, 262. (J. H. W^)