John Baptist,' a French missionary priest in the latter part of the 18th and the beginning of the 19th century. The son of the emperor of Cochin China, Gya- ' Long, having come to France with the bishop of Adran in 1787, concluded a treaty with king Louis XVI, by which the latter was to aid him in regaining his throne, which he had lost l)y a revolution. J>]vents prevented Louis from keeping his promise, but Gya-Long, having regained his kingdom, called to his court the bishop of Adran. wlio became his prime minister, and John Bap- tist, who liad acted as general vicar to the bishop. He also enacted several laws favoring Koman Catholicism. The bislioj) of Adran died in 1817, and Gya-Long him- self in 1819. His successor being opposed to Christian- ity, John Baptist left Hue-Foo, the capital of the em- iiire of .\nnani, wliere he had resided, travelled throu'-'h the Fast, and in lHi7 settled in the convent of St. Frali- «is at .Macao, where he died July 9, 1847. He is said to iiave left a collection of interesting documents on China and the other countries he visited. See Le Constitiition- nel, Oct. 17, 1847.— Hoefer, Noui: Bion. Generale, xxvi 507. (.LN. P.) '" '
John oi' Bassora is the name of a prelate of the Eastern Chiurch who Hourishcd at Bassora, the ancient B<)stra, from A.D. G17-G50, after whom one of the litur- gies of the Oriental Chiirch is named. He was formeriv supposed to be the author of it, but Xealc thinks it of
52 JOHN
later date, and supposes it had its origin in the north- ern parts of Arabia. See Neale, Ilist. of East. Church, Introd. p. 328 (6).
John Bessarion. See Bessarion.
John OF Beverly. See Beverly.
John BoRELLus. See John of Parma.
John OF Bruges. See Joris, David; Anabap- tists.
John BuRiDANUS, a celebrated Nominalist of the 14th century, was born at Bethune^ in Artois. He is re- puted to have been a pupil of Occam, then to have lec- tiu-ed with great ability and success in Paris, and to have risen to the distinction of rector of the university of that city about 1330, and to have quitted that place only after the Realists had gained the ascendency [set Realism and Nominalism], and to have assisted in the founding of the university at Vienna. He was looked upon by his contemporaries as one of the most powerful adversaries of Realism, and distinguished him- self also by his rules for finding the middle term in logic, a species of contrivance denominated by some the Ass's Bridge, as well as by his inquiries concerning free- will, wherein he approached the principles of Determi- natism, maintaining that we necessarily prefer the greater of two goods. As for the celebrated illustration which bears his name, of an ass dying for hunger be- tween two bundles of hay, it is not to be found in his writings, which are, Qucestiones in X libh. Ethirnrum A rUfot. (Paris, 1489, fol. ; Oxford, 1637, 4to) -.—Qiupst. in Pollt. A rist. (Par. 1500, fol.) : — Compendium. Logica- (Ven. 1499, fol.) -.—Sumviula de Dialecticd (Paris, i4S7, fol.) ; (frc. Complete editions of his works were published at Paris in 1500, 1516, and 1518. See Bayle, Histor. Diet. art. Buridanus ; Tennemann, Gesch. der Phil, viii, 2, 914 S'l.; Man. of Philos. (transl. by MoreU), p. 246.
John OF Capistran. See Capistr.\x.
John the Cappadocian, patriarch of Constantino- ple (he was the second patriarch of the name of Jc^hn, Chrysostom being John I) from A.D. 517 or 518, was, before his election to the patriarchate, a presbyter and syncellus of Constantinople. Originally he sided with the opponents of the Council of Chalcedon, but he had either too little firmness or too little principle to follow out steadily the inclination of his own mind, for he aji- pears to have been in a great degree the tool of others. On the death of Anastasius, and the accession of the emperor Justin I, the orthodox party among the inhab- itants of Constantinople raised a tumult, and compelled John to anathematize Severus of Antioch, and to insert in the diptychs the names of the fathers of the Council of Chalcedon, and restore to them those of the patriarchs Euphemius and Macedonius. These diptychs were two tables of ecclesiastical dignitaries, one containing those who were living, and the other those Avho had died in the peace and communion of the Church, so that inser- tion was a palpable declaration of orthodoxy, and erasure of heresy or schism. These measures, extorted in the first instance by popular violence, were afterwards sauc- j tioned by a synod of forty bishops. In A.D. 519, John, at the expressed desire of Justin, sought a reconciliation ■vvith the Western Church, from which, under Anasta- ! sins, the Eastern Church had separated, and in this task j .John displayed considerable cunning. Not only was he successful in restoring a friendly and unionlike feclhig between the Greek and Roman churches, but Hormisdas even left to him the task of bringing about also the rec- onciliation of the patriarchs of Antioch and Alexandria to the orthodox Church. See Hormisdas. In this he failed. .John died about the beginning or midtUe of the year 520, as appears by a letter of Hormisdas to his suc- cessor Epiphanius. John wrote several letters or other papers, a few of which are still extant. Two short let- ters (EmaToXai), one to John, patriarch of Jerusalem, •and one to Epiphanius, bishop of Tyre, are printed in (ireek, with a Latin version, in the Concilia, among the documents relating to the Council of Constantinople in