John

ON ST. JOHN,

DISCIPLE OF ST. GREGORY THE DECAPOLITAN AT CONSTANTINOPLE.

ABOUT THE YEAR 850.

John, disciple of St. Gregory the Decapolitan, monk at Constantinople (S.)

BY G. H.

[1] The region of Palestine was formerly called Decapolis, from the ten cities which it contained. In the ninth century of Christ another little region of Isauria obtained the same name, Of St. Gregory the Decapolitan of Isauria. and provided the birthplace to St. Gregory, therefore called the Decapolitan, in whose Greek Life, to be given on November 20, his homeland is called μία τῶν τῆς Δεκαπόλεως, τῶν πρὸ τῆς Ἰσαυρίας, πόλις, ᾗ ὄνομα Εἰρηνόπολις, "one of the cities of the Decapolis in Isauria, whose name is Irenopolis"; and in the Menology of the Emperor Basil, Gregory is called Decapolitan of Isauria. This St. Gregory's disciple was St. John, of whom we treat here, whom also the author of his life mentions as an eye-witness. "There was," he says, "St. Gregory's disciple John, his disciple St. John, a man adorned with every reverence and piety: who, recognizing us with great certainty, mentioned in his Life, inquired whence we were walking so early; and at the same time how it had happened that I had strayed so by another way, and had not come a short time before St. Gregory." No further mention being made of John the disciple, the rest of the Acts are described with the death and miracles of St. Gregory.

[2] and of St. Joseph the hymnographer, Among the familiar friends of the same St. Gregory was St. Joseph the hymnographer, whose Life we gave on April 3, in which no. 23 it is said that Joseph himself, freed from his Cretan captivity, found St. Gregory dead and mourned him; and then no. 24 the following is read of St. John the disciple: "In the same place Joseph constantly persevered, in which the divine Gregory, enclosed, had exercised himself in the philosophic stadium: he lived together with him. and chose for himself as a companion of his labors a certain John, who was a disciple of the great Gregory and his imitator: with whom passing much time of life, he seemed to see Gregory himself, and was both giving and receiving many proofs of virtues. For John also had very many graces residing in his tongue. But after he, likewise with fastings and vigils having subdued and consumed his body, departed to God; the divine Joseph, leaving that place, gladly dwelt in the temple of the great John endowed with a golden tongue, in which, as a kind of treasure, and carried the dead man's relics to the church of St. Chrysostom he placed the most sacred relics of Gregory and of his disciple. But with many flocking to him, to be governed by him and directed with watchful care, and to hear the sweetest secrets of his tongue, the narrowness of the place shut them out. Whence, having found a place everywhere deserted not far from there, he placed there his seat, the school of his cares: in which he both distributed the multitude of disciples, and above all, as a certain inviolable monument, placed the body of the great Gregory and of his disciple." Thus far the said Life of St. Joseph the Hymnographer.

[3] The Menology of the Emperor Basil Porphyrogenitus celebrates the same with this eulogy: "On the same day of April 18, the memory of St. John, disciple of St. Gregory the Decapolitan. John our holy Father, from the first years of childhood pursued the world with hate, Cult among the Greeks, and embraced God with love, and came to the great Gregory the Decapolitan, and became a monk under him, and afterwards sustained with him the contests of life, in all things serving God. And so famous was he in obedience, and in humility submissive, and a most true cultivator of religion, that the great Gregory greatly rejoiced about him and willingly glorified God." Which same things are had in the New Anthologium of Antonius Arcudius, and on the following day in the MS. Parisian Synaxarium of the Clermont College. In the printed Menaea the same eulogy is placed on April 11, with the following distich:

Ἰωάννη σκίρτησον ὡς Ἰωάννης, Οὐ γαστρὸς ἐντὸς, ἀλλὰ τῆς Ἐδὲμ ἔνδον.

"Exult, John, as John did; Not within the womb, but within paradise."

But what is joined in all the said books about the withdrawal to the Old Laura but to be distinguished from St. John Palaeolaurita refers to another Saint also called John, about whom we shall treat on the following day. Further, both are excellently distinguished in the Typikon of St. Sabas, the double Horologium of the Greeks and Menology included in the same, the Greek Calendar edited by Genebrardus, the Menology likewise of Sirletus, and Molanus in the additions to Usuard: in which on this April 18 is memorialized St. John, disciple of St. Gregory the Decapolitan, and on the next April 19 St. John in the Old Laura.

[4] since in different regions and centuries, both lived and died, Place and times excellently distinguish both. St. Gregory the Decapolitan died at Constantinople about the year 841 or the following. For after the death of the Emperor Theophilus, when peace of the Church was restored under St. Theodora and her son Michael, St. Joseph returning to Constantinople, and understanding the death of St. Gregory, joined himself to St. John, and lived with him until his death at Constantinople, which we can conjecture happened about the year 850. On the other hand, the other John died in Palestine and the desert of the holy city, in the Laura of St. Chariton, perhaps some centuries earlier, when Palestine was not yet devastated by the Saracens, much less in the ninth century of Christ, when most of the monasteries there were destroyed: as is sufficiently clear from those things which we said about the twenty monks of the Laura of St. Sabas, crowned with martyrdom by the Saracens in the year 797, on March 20.

[5] The Tables of the Muscovite Kalendar often cited set forth on this day a certain St. John, but in Episcopal habit, which could easily have crept in for an unskilled sculptor for the monastic habit. We therefore think this to be the disciple of the Decapolitan: and the same in the Ruthenian Kalendar according to Possevinus in the Apparatus today also noted with the title of Holy Father.