JOHN OF ASIA (or of EpHEsus) (b. c. 505), a leader of the Monophysite Syriac-speaking Church in the 6th century, and one of the earliest and most important of Syriac historians. Born at Amid (Diarbekr) about 505, he was there ordained as a deacon in 529; but in 534 we find him in Palestine, and in 535 he passed to Constantinople, on account of pestilence or persecution. In Constantinople he seems to have early won the notice of Justinian, who desired the consolidation of Eastern Christianity as a bulwark against the heathen power of Persia. He was entrusted with the administration of the entire revenues of the Monophysite Church. He was also sent, with the rank of bishop, on a mission in Asia Minor, and informs us that the number of those whom he bap ' tized amounted to 70,00o. He built a large monastery at Tralles on the hills skirting the valley of the Meander, and more than 90 other monasteries. He promoted a mission to the Nubians. In 546 the emperor entrusted him with the task of rooting out the secret practice of idolatry in Constantinople and its neighbour hood. But his fortunes changed soon after the accession of Justin II. About 571 Paul of Asia began (with the sanction of the emperor) a rigorous persecution of the Monophysite Church leaders, and John was among the sufferers. He died probably soon
after 585.
John's main work was his Ecclesiastical History, in three parts, which covered more than six centuries, from the time of Julius Caesar to 585. The first part seems to have wholly perished. The second, which extended from Theodosius II. to the 6th or 7th year of Justin was (as F. Nau has proved) reproduced in the third part of the Chronicle once attributed to the patriarch Dionysius Telmaharensis. The third part of John's history, covering the years 571-585, survives in a fairly complete state in Add. 14640, a British Museum ms. of the 7th century. This third part was edited by Cureton (Oxford, 1853), and was translated into English by R. Payne-Smith (Oxford, 186o) and into German by J. M. Schonfelder (Munich, 1862).
John's other known work was a series of Biographies of Eastern Saints, compiled about 569. These have been edited by Land in Anec dota Syriaca, ii. 1-288, and translated into Latin by Douwen and Land (Amsterdam, 1889). See a memoir read before the five French Acade mies (Oct. 25, 1892) by the abbe Duchesne.