ON ST. JOHN CHOZEBITE, CONFESSOR AND BISHOP, AT CAESAREA IN PALESTINE,
AT THE BEGINNING OF THE SIXTH CENTURY.
PRELIMINARY COMMENTARY.
John, abbot, the Chuzebite, and bishop of Caesarea in Palestine. (S.)
BY R. D. B.
§ I. The cult, birth and monastic life in the Thebaid of St. John Chuzibite.
[St. John Chuzibite, praised as a monk in the sacred calendars of the Greeks at the 28th day of October] Among the sacred calendars in which the memory of Blessed John Chuzibite is celebrated, none has come to my notice which is older than the Menology of Basil, written at the end of the tenth century. In it at the present day one reads: He (John Chuzibite), born of wealthy parents at Thebes in Egypt, when he had come to mature age, wished to have no communion with the Catholic Church on account of the synod which was held at Chalcedon. But when once a desire came upon him to visit the holy places, he seemed to himself in sleep to labour much and to apply every effort to enter and adore the precious cross; and yet to be unable to find the door: and when he was distressed on that account, he heard a voice saying to him that the cross holds in contempt those who have no communion with the Catholic Church. Awakening therefore, having joined in communion with the Catholics, he at once withdrew to the nearest desert, and sat down on Mount Chozeba until his death: where he both exercised himself in every kind of virtue and performed miracles. Finally when he had drawn many, well trained in holy institutes and religious exercises, to enter on the same manner of life, he died, and was buried on the same mountain of the desert. This narrative occurs at the same day and in almost the same words in the Greek Menaea published in the year 1592, and in the vernacular Greek Synaxary of Maximus Margunius. And with these generally agree the Synaxary of Sirmond, the Menaea of Mazarin, of the Friars Preachers of Florence, and the Ambrosian. Nor does Sirleto dissent, saying in his Menology: Commemoration of our holy father John Chozebite. He, having attained in the place of the desert called Chozeba an extraordinary exercise of virtue, wrought many miracles, being the leader of very many monks, and so in the same desert he departed blessed from this life. Châtelain too in the Universal Martyrology at the 28th day of October recalls the memory of St. John Chuzebite. But besides at the same day in the Prologue of the Slavic nation, and in the Moscow Calendar, the feast-day of St. John Chuzibite is celebrated.
[2] and as bishop of Caesarea at the 3rd day of October, he is one holy man. But at the 3rd day of October in the Greek Menaea printed in the years 1592 and 1843, as also in the Synaxary of Margunius, there is made a second commemoration of St. John Chuzibite, and there is added a fairly long Life, which we shall set below before the eyes of the reader: likewise in the Menology of Sirleto one reads: Commemoration of the holy father John Chozebite, bishop of Caesarea. With Sirleto agree the Prologue and the Moscow Calendar, in which likewise is announced the feast of St. John Chuzebite, bishop of Caesarea. But this commemoration seems more recent than the former. The Armenians also keep his feast, but on the 26th day of October Aucher, Vitæ SS. Kalendar. Armeni, vol. XII, p. 284. But when Rader, as we gather from his manuscript observations on the Greek Menaea, had noticed that on the 3rd day of October was celebrated the memory of St. John Chuzibite, who had first been a monk at Chuziba, afterwards bishop of Caesarea in Palestine, and finally, having abdicated the episcopate, returned to his former desert and died there: and then that in the same Menaea at the 28th day of October was announced the feast of John Chuzibite, who seemed to have lived perpetually a monk, he thought there were two saints by the name of John Chuzibite. Not rightly, since Cyril of Scythopolis, Moschus and Evagrius, of whom the first was a contemporary of St. John Chuzibite, and the two others flourished shortly afterwards, narrate that he was first a monk in the laura of Chuziba, and afterwards bishop of Caesarea in Palestine, and Cyril adds that he was an Egyptian. All this Rader had not seen. But if in the Menology of Basil only the conversion of St. John from heresy and his monastic virtues are praised, without a word being made about his episcopate, the reason seems to be that he spent almost his whole life, except the few years of his episcopate, in the desert. But whether a Life of St. John Chuzibite was ever written, I have not ascertained; yet I suspect that he did not lack a biographer, both because various writers have reported various of his deeds, and because in the Menaea of the Greeks he is discussed far and wide. And indeed it is to be lamented that his Acts have not come down to us, both because from the Life of St. Sabas, written by Cyril of Scythopolis In Cotelier, Ecclesiæ Græcæ monumenta, vol. III, p. 327 and following, it is manifest that he was famed in Palestine before and after his death by a reputation of extraordinary sanctity: and because to the narrative of the Greek Menaea, often insipid, full credit is not always to be given.
[3] [St. John, born after the year 450, is offered as a boy to a monastery of the Thebaid according to the custom of St. Pachomius;] Of the first years of St. John little has been handed down to posterity. Since he was guiding the reins of the church of Caesarea in the year 518, somewhat after
the middle of the fifth century he seems to have been born. He was brought into the light at Thebes in Egypt; which most celebrated city had at that time lost its splendour in great part [Description de l'Egypte, vol. III, p. 270 and following; p. 275 and following, Panckoucke edition]; and, as the Menaea of the Greeks add, he was clothed with the angelic or religious garment by his grandfather and entrusted to a certain elder; most probably in the Thebaid, his native land, where he without doubt embraced the Tabennesiot rule or that of St. Pachomius. For nearly all, not to say all, the monasteries of the Thebaid were governed according to the norm of the Tabennesiot institute. For the author of the book of the Words of the Elders, no. 34, reports that Pachomius was the father of an infinite multitude of monasteries in the parts of the Thebaid Rosweyde, Vitae Seniorum, Book III, no. 34, p. 4; nor does Cassian dissent, saying in Book IV on those who Renounce Complete Works, vol. I, col. 151, Migne edition: Mixing in some things from the rules of the Tabennesiots, whose monastery in the Thebaid is as much stricter in rigour of conduct as it is more populous in number than all others. To some monastery of the Thebaid, then, St. John was offered as a little boy, since in the Menaea of the Greeks he is said to have been clothed by his grandfather with the angelic garment; no wonder, because St. Pachomius, as is read in his Life, received among his disciples boys living in such simplicity that they could not know right from left Rosweyde, Vitae Seniorum, Book I, p. 126, Antwerp edition, p. 1615. Yet the same discipline does not seem to have been in use there as in the West; if indeed eastern customs were employed there in this matter. For among the Latins, as is established both from the formulas of oblation Mabillon, Vetera Analecta, p. 155 and following and from the decrees of the Roman Pontiffs and of the councils of Germany, Spain and Italy Du Cange, Glossarium latinitatis, under Oblati, boys were bound over to the divine service in perpetuity: on the other hand St. Basil Works, vol. III, col. 955, Migne edition in the longer rules, no. 15, after showing that boys too are to be admitted into monasteries, adds: But then is the profession of virginity to be admitted, as being firm, and as proceeding from their own opinion and judgment, their reason being now perfect and complete: after which time both rewards and punishments are decreed by the just judge for those who sin or do rightly according to their merit… But he who does not wish to pass his life in virginity, let him, as one unable to care for the things of the Lord, be dismissed before witnesses. And this same discipline for infants promoted to the diaconate still flourishes even now among the Copts, and Pope Benedict XIV approves it in the instruction of the 26th of June 1724 on doubts pertaining to the rites of the church and nation of the Copts Bullarium of Benedict XIV, vol. III, p. 139, Mechlin edition.
[4] the angelic or monastic garment being assumed. Now it may be asked with what angelic garment St. John was clothed: whether it was that which St. Theodore the Studite Testament, Complete Works, col. 1815, Migne edition, a writer of the eighth century, calls great and distinguishes from the small, and which Goar Rituale Græcorum, Office of the great and angelic habit, p. 571 and Helyot [Histoire des Ordres religieux, vol. I, ch. 19, p. 187 and following, Paris edition, 1792] show from the rites of the Greeks to have been assumed only by the more perfect: the small being reserved for the less perfect. But in the fifth century this distinction does not yet seem to have existed; and in the fourth and fifth centuries the angelic garment and the monastic garment were the same thing Rosweyde, Vitae Patrum, Book II, p. 457. For we read that Hor, a monk of Nitria, no differently from a younger monk of Scetis, of whom Moschus speaks in the Spiritual Meadow Ibid., Book X, p. 918, were clothed with the angelic garment; whereas the monks of Nitria had for their garment only a tunic and a cloak Bivar, De veteri monachatu, part I, p. 228 and those of Scetis tunics of skin Rosweyde, Vitae Patrum, Book V, p. 618. Likewise it had been prescribed by an Angel to St. Pachomius and his disciples that at night they should wear linen lebitons, (garments barely reaching to the bottom of the elbows Ibid., p. 141,) with their loins girded: and that each should have a melote, that is, a dressed white goatskin, without which they should neither eat nor sleep Ibid., p. 120; Bivar, De veteri monachatu, part I, p. 266
§ II. The renunciation of Eutychianism. His monastic life in Palestine.
Renouncing the heresy of Eutyches he passes to Chuziba, At the time when St. John was living the monastic life in the Thebaid, he adhered so vehemently to the impious dogmas of Eutyches that, when he had come to mature age, he is said in the Menology of Basil to have wished to have no communion with the Catholic Church on account of the synod which was held at Chalcedon. Nor is this strange: for the heresy of the Monophysites had nowhere obtained so many and such fervent adherents as in Egypt: where all the patriarchs of Alexandria, with perhaps one or two excepted, who gave bishops to Thebes and to all Egypt [Schelstrate, Antiquitas ecclesiæ, vol. II, diss. 5, ch. 3, art. 3, p. 362 and following], had championed it by fair means and foul [Acta SS., vol. V of June, Chronological history of the Patriarchs of Alexandria, p. 33 and following; Renaudot, Historia patriarcharum Alexandrinorum Jacobitarum, p. 114 and following]. But when by a signal benefit of God John had joined in communion with the Catholics at Jerusalem, he at once withdrew to the nearest desert on Mount Chozeba χουζεβα . And this is the reason why St. John is called Cuzebite or Chozebite, in Greek χουζιβίτης, χουζεβίτης.
[6] A laura of Palestine; whose site and condition in later times is described. The laura of Cuziba, says Evagrius Hist. eccles., Book IV, ch. 7, with whom Nicephorus agrees Hist. eccles., vol. II, Book XVII, ch. 4, p. 737, was situated at the extremity of the valley which leads from Jerusalem to Jericho. That this whole space between Jerusalem and Jericho was desert and rocky is testified by Josephus Jewish Antiquities, Book X, ch. 4. But what were the fortunes of this monastery after St. John I have not found: I think however that by the Saracens, who for a century laid waste Palestine with fire and sword, it was reduced to destruction, no differently from the other monasteries of this province Bivar, De monachatu veteri, part I, pp. 117 and 204. Yet it did not altogether perish, except that perhaps it was built somewhat higher on the rock; and so far one should seemingly agree with Louis Bulteau Histoire de l'ordre monastique d'Orient, Book IV, p. 705, who judges that the monastery of St. John is not different from that which Phocas saw in the year 1187 and described in his journey through the Holy Land in these words: After this monastery (of St. Euthymius) there extends an interval of twelve thousand paces; and then there meets one a vast abyss, which a torrent cuts through the middle. On its opposite side lies the monastery of Choziba: a thing indeed which, when told, is not believed, and even in the very sight is a matter for wonder. For the very openings of the caves are the cells of the monks, and the church itself and the cemetery are hollowed out in a cleft of the rock, so scorched by the heat of the sun that little tongues of fire are seen to leap from those rocks in the manner of pyramids; and the water gathered for the drink of the monks is such as you would draw from a pond, when the sun in midsummer, resting on the pools, kindles them with fiery rays and most burning heat. In this monastery we visited various men conspicuous for sanctity: among them one standard-bearer, speaking with God face to face, whose name is Luke the Elder. But we both went down into the monastery and came up not without danger, both on account of the steep places of the rock and on account of the most vehement heat of the sun [Acta SS., vol. II of May, p. VI; Leo Allatius, Συμμικτα, p. 11, Venice edition, 1733]. But in the sixth century the Chuzebite monastery does not seem to have been situated in so difficult and high a place. For, to say nothing of Evagrius, John Moschus above all is to be heard on a certain aged Chuzibite monk; who, as he himself says, went along the road which leads from the Jordan to the holy city, carrying loaves and water. And if ever he saw someone growing weary, he carried his burden, and went up as far as the holy Mount of Olives, and returned again by the same road with the others, carrying their burdens as far as Jericho, etc. Vitae Patrum, Book X, p. 861: and similarly Nicephorus, saying: They relate moreover that John the Chozibite accomplished a new kind of life: so that like a rabbit he dug a certain tortuous passage under the earth: and there, avoiding the frequent crowd, he pursued quiet Ecclesiastical History, Book XVII, ch. 4, vol. II, p. 737, Paris edition, 1630. On the contrary the monastery of the twelfth century was hollowed out in the high rock. Wherefore the Chuzebite monks in the time of St. John seem to have had their cells in the valley and in the adjacent rock, but after the occupation of Palestine by the Mahometans to have transferred their monastery to the high rock: which kind of monasteries, which they call meteora, was for several centuries, and even now, as being impregnable citadels, very frequently employed against the incursions of the Arabs in Syria, Egypt, Nitria and Thessaly Mislin, les Lieux saints, vol. III, ch. 35, p. 132, Paris edition, 1858. But the Chuzebite monastery has long been abandoned, although its site and condition at the far end of Mount Quarantana toward Jericho near the fountain of Elisha were not long since described by Messrs. Joanne and Isambert Itinéraire de l'Orient, p. 838, Paris, 1861, just as if they had had before their eyes the Itinerary of Phocas.
[7] There he lives under the discipline of St. Sabas On Mount Chozeba St. John lived under the discipline of St. Sabas, superior of the monasteries of the tract of Jerusalem, and there he became famous for his virtues among the monks, as is established from Cyril of Scythopolis and others. For in the Life of St. Sabas, written by the contemporary Cyril, we read that a certain monk of the monastery of Blessed Theodosius named Aphrodisius, when once on a journey, stirred with anger, he had killed a mule, and on that account had been expelled from the laura by Blessed Theodosius, went down to the Jordan, and laid open his fall to St. John the Egyptian, who at that time was shining with virtues at Chuziba. And when he had heard from him: "If you wish to obtain salvation, go to our abbot Sabas, and whatever he says to you, do;" he came in haste to him, confesses his sin, begs to receive from him a word of salvation. Cyril adds that Aphrodisius was kindly received by St. Sabas, and after thirty years passed in every kind of piety exchanged the earthly life for the eternal Life of St. Sabas, in Cotelier, vol. III, p. 288. In agreement
is Evagrius. He not only extols the virtues of St. John, but also reports that he was joined in close friendship with Abbot Zosimas, (different, says Nicephorus Nicephorus Callistus, Ecclesiastical History, Book XVII, ch. 4, vol. II, p. 737, from him whom we know to have met St. Mary of Egypt.)
[8] and he becomes famous for virtues and miracles; Receive the words of Evagrius: In the same times in which Zosimas flourished, a certain man, John by name, distinguished by adornments of virtue equal with Zosimas: who in the laura of Chuziba, which is situated at the extremity of the valley on the northern side of the public road which leads from Jerusalem to Jericho, had practised the monastic life, separated from all matter, and who obtained the episcopate of the above-mentioned city of Caesarea. This John Chuzibite, then, when he had learned that the wife of Arcesilaus (a nobleman, conspicuous for the honours he had held) had dug out one of her eyes with a weaver's shuttle, hastened at a run to her house, to inspect the wound. But when he noticed that the pupil had fallen out, and the eye had wholly flowed away, he ordered a certain physician who had come there to bring a sponge, and to put the fallen eye, so far as could be done, back in its seat: and finally to bind the sponge, placed around it, with bandages. Arcesilaus chanced to be absent then. For he was staying at that time with Zosimas in his monastery, which was situated in the village of the Syndeni, which is distant from the city of Caesarea about five hundred stadia. At once therefore men hurry with the most strenuous speed to report these things to Arcesilaus. He was sitting beside Zosimas, conversing with him. As soon as he learned of his wife's accident, he began to wail grievously, and tearing and plucking his hair, he threw it into the air. And when Zosimas asked the cause of so great grief, Arcesilaus set out what had happened, often interrupting his speech with lamentations and tears. Soon, therefore, Zosimas, leaving Arcesilaus there, hastened to a certain chamber, in which he was accustomed, as is the custom of such men, to speak with God alone. Coming out somewhat later, with a cheerful face and smiling modestly, stroking the hand of Arcesilaus: Go, he said, go joyful. Grace has been given to the Cuzibite. Your wife is healed. She has both eyes unharmed, having suffered no detriment from that accident, since it has so pleased the Cuzibite. And so it came about, both those just men performing the miracle together Evagrius Scholasticus, History, Book IV, ch. 8.
[9] [afterwards he is made abbot and presbyter, and sees the Holy Spirit descending during Mass.] Moreover that St. John was abbot and presbyter of the monastery of Chuziba we are taught by John Moschus in the Spiritual Meadow: There was a certain brother, he says, in the monastery of Chuziba, as Abbot Gregory, formerly of the Scholares, related to us, who had learned the words and rite of the holy oblation. One day, then, being sent to bring the blessings (that is, the eulogiae, about which Cabassut Notitia ecclesiastica, diss. XI, p. 41 and others), when he was now returning to the monastery, he said the words of the holy oblation, as if he were chanting some verses. And the deacons placed the same blessings on the holy altar. When Abbot John the presbyter, who afterwards was bishop of Caesarea, offered them, he did not see, as he was accustomed, the coming of the Holy Spirit. And being greatly saddened and thinking that perhaps he had sinned in some way in mind, and that for that reason the Holy Spirit had turned away, he entered the sacristy, weeping, and fell on his face. And an angel of the Lord appeared to him, saying: Because that brother who brought the oblations said the words of the holy oblation on the road, they have already been sanctified and made perfect. From then on therefore the elder established that no one thereafter should learn the words of the holy oblation, except one who had been ordained for this, nor should anyone say them indiscriminately, at any time, outside a consecrated place Vitae Patrum, Book X, Pratum spirit., ch. 25, col. 130.
Annotations* χουζιβα in Cyril and others.
§ III. The episcopate of St. John at Caesarea. His abdication and death.
He was also bishop of Caesarea in Palestine in the year 518; From what has been argued thus far it is evident that St. John, as Evagrius, the Menaea of the Greeks, and especially the contemporary author Cyril of Scythopolis also narrate, was promoted to the episcopate of Caesarea in Palestine. But none of these writers mentions at what time he ascended the see of Caesarea. It is known however from the Life of St. Sabas that St. John was already bishop of the church of Caesarea in the year 518. For Cyril of Scythopolis reports Life of St. Sabas, p. 326 that Justin, the emperor Anastasius having died on the 10th of July in the year 518, as soon as he assumed the empire, issued laws by which he ordered that to all Catholics, driven into exile for rejecting the insolence of Eutyches, opportunity should be given of returning home, and also that the synod of Chalcedon should be inserted in the sacred diptychs. When these commands of Justin had been made known, very many monks, laymen and bishops came together at Jerusalem on the sixth day of August, and pronounced that the Catholic doctrine and the four councils were to be admitted by all. Then John, archbishop of Jerusalem, persuaded the holy father Sabas to go as far as Caesarea and Scythopolis, together with certain other hegumens of the desert, to make known the emperor's letter and to have the four councils inserted in the sacred diptychs throughout the cities. And when they had come to Caesarea, there met them St. John Chuzibite, who at that time held the pontificate of that city; and when what had been commanded had been completed there, they came also to Scythopolis Ibid., p. 288. Which manifestly indicates that St. John was already set over the church of Caesarea in the year 518.
[11] at which time in the council of Jerusalem About the same time St. John Cuzibite was present at the council of Jerusalem, to which thirty bishops flowed together from the three Palestines, as we gather from their letter to John of Constantinople. Binius Labbe, Collectio Conciliorum, vol. IV, col. 1587, however, Labbe Ibid., place cited, Le Quien Oriens Christianus, vol. II, col. 571, Mansi Collectionis novæ Conciliorum supplementum, vol. I, p. 399 and others have thought that this synod was no other than the synod celebrated on the 6th day of August in the same city: but not rightly. For if St. John Chuzibite had sat among the fathers of the council of the 6th of August, the octogenarian St. Sabas, at the persuasion of John of Jerusalem, would not have undertaken a journey to him for the sake of promulgating the imperial decrees. The same is proved from the time at which the fathers of Jerusalem gave the letter to John of Constantinople. For when the bishop of Constantinople had informed the bishop of Jerusalem of the anathema pronounced against Nestorius, Eutyches, Manes and Severus of Antioch in the synod of Constantinople on the twentieth and following days of July Labbe, Collectio Conciliorum, vol. V, col. 178 and following; col. 190, he sent to the prelate of Constantinople a letter full of praise, which St. John Cuzibite and other bishops assembled at Jerusalem subscribed Ibid., col. 185. Now, even if John of Constantinople had given his letter on the very day of the 20th of July (but this will be considered less likely by one who inspects the acts of the council), yet within fifteen days, that is, before the sixth day of August, it could not have been brought to Jerusalem, although journeys, as Bergier [De publicis et imperialibus imperii Romani viis, Book IV, in Graevius, Thesaurus Antiquitatum Romanarum, vol. X, col. 411] and Hinnius Ibid., col. 739 prove, were accomplished with great speed along the imperial roads; and much less within so short a time could thirty bishops of the three Palestines have been assembled. Wherefore I think that this council was celebrated after the sixth day of August; and that it is not to be taken for the synod at which the emperor's letter about inserting the four councils in the diptychs was made known. But on what day, in what month the fathers came together, I should not dare to affirm: this however is certain, that the council was not assembled after the 23rd day of February of the year 520, on which John of Constantinople died Acta SS., vol. I of August, History of the Patriarchs of Constantinople, p. 57*, to whom the synodal letter of the fathers of Jerusalem was sent.
[12] [he first subscribes the letter to John of Constantinople. What then were the rights of the see of Caesarea.] The synodal letter of which we were just speaking St. John Chuzibite subscribed first of all in this manner: John, by the mercy of God bishop of Caesarea; pray, holy lords and fathers most beloved of God, that I may fare well and be well pleasing to the Lord Labbe, Collectio Conciliorum, vol. V, 190 and following. He placed his name first because the church of Caesarea, from the time when Vespasian had destroyed Jerusalem, had been made the metropolis of all Palestine. I am indeed not unaware that Jerusalem under the name of Aelia was rebuilt by the emperor Hadrian, and that its bishop asked the Fathers of the council of Nicaea that on account of the holiness of the place it should be adorned with some honour above the other churches of Palestine, and that the Fathers partly granted these desires in canon VII, saying: Since custom has prevailed and ancient tradition, that the bishop of Aelia be honoured, let him have the sequel of honour, saving to the metropolis its proper dignity Ibid., vol. II, cols. 42 and 73. But by this decree metropolitan rights were by no means restored to the bishops of Jerusalem. Yet I should not think that they were in the hands of St. John Chuzibite: for, after Cyril of Jerusalem about the year 357 had stirred up a controversy over the metropolitan right against Acacius, bishop of Caesarea, as holding an apostolic see Sozomen, Ecclesiastical History, Book IV, ch. 25, his successor John entered upon nearly the same path, so that he refused to be subject not only to the metropolitan of Caesarea, but also to the patriarch of Antioch Letter to Pammachius, Complete Works, vol. III, col. 389, Migne edition. Juvenal, another bishop of Jerusalem, went further, leaving no stone unturned in vain in the year 431 at the council of Ephesus, to obtain the primacy in the three Palestines, Arabia and the two Phoenicias Labbe, Coll. concil., vol. III, col. 642. But the matter turned out better for him in the year 451 at the council of Chalcedon, session VII, where, repeating his attempt, with the Fathers approving, he entered a pact with Maximus, patriarch of Antioch, so that the church of Antioch should have the two Phoenicias and Arabia; and that of Jerusalem should have the three Palestines Ibid., vol. IV, col. 617. But neither by this judgment of the Fathers of Chalcedon were their metropolitan rights taken from the bishops of Caesarea and thus from St. John Chuzibite: for St. Leo I declared the Chalcedonian pact void, ordering that the rights of the church of Antioch should be kept entire. Yet St. John Chuzibite does not seem to have used his rights: for in the council of Jerusalem John, the bishop of this city, not only held the primacy, which even by the Nicene canon does not seem to have been permitted him, but he gathered there the bishops of Palestine, among whom St. John Chuzibite, and he delegated, as we have seen, St. Sabas, who should make known the emperor's letter through the whole province, even at Caesarea, and insert the four councils in the diptychs: moreover he prefixed to the synodal letter of the council of Jerusalem this inscription: To my lord, most beloved of God and most holy fellow minister, John, and to the holy synod assembled in Constantinople, John, by the mercy of God
bishop of Jerusalem, and the holy synod of the three Palestines, being under the holy places of Christ the God of all, greeting in the Lord. Which indeed prove that John of Jerusalem, with St. John Chuzibite's leave, acted as metropolitan. Nor should it be passed over that the synodal letter of which we were just treating is the most ancient historical monument of the pre-eminence of the see of Jerusalem over that of Caesarea. Afterwards the bishops of Jerusalem assumed for themselves the name of patriarch Ibid., vol. V, cols. 74 and 279; which the Roman Church does not seem to have acknowledged to them before the year 1215, when the Fathers of the fourth Lateran council issued the following canon V: We decree that after the Roman Church… the church of Constantinople shall hold the first, Alexandria the second, Antioch the third and Jerusalem the fourth place Ibid., vol. XI, part I, col. 153. But that decree pertained only to patriarchs of the Latin rite, since all the patriarchs of the Greek rite had at that time passed over to schism.
[13] He attacks Severus of Antioch; he deserts his see and dies. That St. John wrote some work against Severus of Antioch, leader of the Eutychians, was suspected by Michael Lequien Oriens Christianus, vol. III, col. 572, because in the Lateran synod held under Martin I in the year 649 (where the rejecting of the writings of heretics is treated), decree V, one reads: Likewise of the same Severus (of Antioch) against John of holy memory, bishop of Caesarea of Palestine; some book of whom therefore had been attacked by Severus. Whether besides this St. John did anything distinguished in the episcopate, the historians are silent. But it is not to be passed over that he, when he saw that no part of the religious life, as the Menaea of the Greeks say, was being granted to him, having deserted the episcopate, returned to the desert. And it is certain that this happened before the end of the year 536: for Helias, his successor, subscribed the sentence of deposition passed in the synod of Jerusalem against Anthimus of Trebizond, on the 29th day of September of the year 536, in these words Labbe, vol. V, cols. 283 and 286: Helias, bishop of Caesarea, I have defined and subscribed. Nor is it to be supposed that St. John deserted the church of Caesarea without the leave of the bishops of his province: for otherwise he would have offended against the sacred canons: unless perhaps it be said with Thomassin [Discipline de l'Église, Book II, ch. 5, vol. II, col. 1034 and following. Paris edition, 1725] that the ecclesiastical discipline on resigning an episcopate was not yet exactly established in that age. This observation I think should not be held of small account, since several holy men, for example St. John the Silentiary Acta SS., vol. III of May, p. 232, St. Justus of Lyon Ibid., vol. I of Sept., p. 573, St. Ambrose of Cahors Ibid., vol. VII of October, pp. 1042 and 1048, at about the same time, no permission being obtained, preferred eremitical leisure to episcopal care. At length, far advanced in age, as the Menaea of the Greeks say, he breathed out his soul in peace.
LIFE OF ST. JOHN CHUZIBITE, BISHOP OF CAESAREA.
From the Greek Menaea, Matthew Rader, S. J., translator.
The birth, monastic life, episcopate and death of St. John.
John, abbot, the Chuzebite, and bishop of Caesarea in Palestine. (S.)
a[St. John, a Theban monk, having abdicated the episcopate of Caesarea in Palestine,] This our holy Father John, born at Thebes in Egypt, when, clothed with the angelic garment of the monks by his grandfather, he had committed himself to a certain elder, went to Jerusalem b, to venerate the holy places, and returning to his grandfather, he attached himself to the old man. Then, leaving the monastery, having found a cave in a steep and harsh rock, he fixed his seat there, and sustained his life on acorns. When God wished to set forth his virtue for mortals to behold, he declared it thus. A certain Ananias, an excellent ascetic, celebrated everywhere, was living in that tract: to which distinguished man when the son of a certain very rich man, possessed [c] by an evil demon and unclean spirit, had been brought, he was not received by him, but out of his humility was sent away at his urging to the interior solitude, where this John the Egyptian was living, that they should search out John: and when those who had been sent had found him, they set out to him the business entrusted to them, and at first he could by no prayers be induced to drive out the unclean spirit by praying: at length, wearied by them, he began to pray, and turning to the demon: Unclean demon, he said, in the name of Jesus, not I, but that Ananias, the servant of God, commands you to go out from this boy. When the unclean spirit heard this from the holy man, it went out, and the boy was restored to health. When report had spread this far and wide, though refusing he was compelled to take up the pontificate of Caesarea. But when he saw that no quiet and no part of the religious life was being granted him, having deserted the episcopate, he returned to the desert.
[2] he frees himself and others from the snares of the demon, But the treasure did not lie hidden from a certain farmer, who, having a little boy possessed and vexed by a most evil spirit, placed him in a basket, and covered with herbs hung him at the holy man's window and withdrew. Aroused by the boy's wailing the holy man saw and understood that the boy was vexed by an unclean spirit, and soon cured him by driving out the demon: but the demon, driven into exile, did not rest. For, feigning the form of a man, at the feet of the holy man, whom he had found among the precipices, he threw himself as if to ask a holy prayer from him; struck suddenly by which sight the servant of God, his feet being entangled by the demon, is rolled head first, his body turned upside down, into the furthest and deepest valley and chasm of the rock. But the abominable parricide gained no profit from this; for heavenly grace kept the holy man unharmed. Then (the same enemy of mortals) sent against him a robber, by whom he was now beaten, now stripped of his clothes, now his hut was burned. While amid all these the holy man said this one thing: "If these things have so seemed good to thee, Lord, I praise thee and give thanks." The Lord heard from heaven. For the robber having been arrested by the magistrate, and his soul torn from his body by a dreadful death, the servant of God was not a little relieved. But not even so did the desperate old schemer rest, driving mines against him (and digging a pit into which he might fall). For when the holy man was going round the dwellings and monasteries for the sake of visiting them, a little woman, meeting the holy man in passing, and following his footsteps, earnestly asked him not to disdain to turn aside to her, that her house might draw some sanctity from his entry. The holy man yielded to her prayers, and entered the woman's house, who at once, the doors being shut, bared her whole body, and did those most shameless and most impure things which modesty forbids to speak of, trying to defile the undefiled man. But that man of iron laid low the fire-brand of the evil demon, rejected it, and escaped unharmed.
[3] and by divine aid he converses with St. Marcian. This same blessed John, when he had heard of a certain Marcian d, an ascetic celebrated by report among all everywhere, burned with a wondrous desire of seeing him. But because he had so bound his feet e that he could not go out of the cave, even if the last necessity should compel him, when he had put fetters on himself, he could not take them off or break them. Here, O what a providence of the godhead contemplating all things comes to his help beyond expectation: for an angel, snatching Marcian from his cell, and bearing him aloft, set him down without a sound in the cave of John. When therefore both had met, and embraced each other, and had been fed to satiety by heavenly conversation with each other, John, beginning at last to give thanks to God and speaking in this manner: "Praise to the holy God, who has deigned me the sight of Marcian, most desired by me," suddenly Marcian was withdrawn by the angel from the eyes of blessed John. Hence John began to be tossed in wondrous ways by cares, torn by doubtful thought, and after long struggling with his mind, at length, his chains being divinely broken, he went out of the cave and took the way to St. Marcian. And being struck by the greatness of the miracle, he thought the whole matter was nothing but a phantasm. As soon as he went out, then, he hears himself called by name by St. Marcian; and when blessed John had learned from him the way (in which he had been brought to him by the angel), St. John, elated with gladness, exulted in joy with his whole heart. When therefore they had again greeted each other, and had paid thanks to God, John returned to his cave. But why many words? This John both cast out demons from not a few, many, and cured incurable diseases, drew forth waters in many places by prayers, often obtained rains from heaven by his vows, and God wrought through him many other miracles of the kind; far advanced in age he breathed out his soul in peace.
ANNOTATIONS.
The victories which St. John gained over the demon the author of the metrical Greek Martyrology has celebrated in these verses:
Πειθείς ἀπείρων πειρατηρίων βίου, Ιωάννης ἄπειρα λείψεται γέρα.
Tried by a thousand trials of life, John will obtain a thousand rewards.