Crisis of Empire. Phil Booth

be known to tradition as “the Almsgiver.” The principal sources that later describe John’s life—two anonymous paraphrases of a Life by Moschus and Sophronius themselves, and a continuation of that same Life by Leontius of Neapolis—all attempt to excuse the election of their hero (who as both a layman and an outsider was ineligible to be patriarch). Thus the former sources claim that John’s virtuous life on Cyprus made him celebrated throughout the empire and that “under strong pressure from the emperor Heraclius and through the particular instigation of Nicetas [hupo tou basileōs Hērakleiou lian ekbiastheis eisēgēsei malista Nikēta] . . . but also with the approval of the entire Alexandrian populace he was raised as archbishop to the patriarchal throne”;³² while the latter source goes even further, stating that John’s accession was “truly by divine decree [psēphōi ouraniōi] and not ‘from men neither through men’ [Gal. 1:1].”³³ The origins of John’s association with Heraclius and Nicetas cannot be established conclusively—the former had perhaps encountered him en route to Constantinople via the islands³⁴—but soon that association would be confirmed through solemn oaths of friendship and mutual dependence, for at the beginning of his patriarchate John was, or became, the ritual brother (adelphopoiētos) of Nicetas,³⁵ a relationship that was further formalized when the patriarch became the latter’s children’s godfather (sunteknos).³⁶ Based on a rereading of an awkward passage within Leontius’s Life, Claudia Rapp, moreover, has made the tantalizing suggestion that John, along with Nicetas, became the sunteknos of Heraclius’s son and designated successor Heraclius Constantine at the latter’s baptism in the capital in 612/13.³⁷ John, therefore, was a political appointee and an intimate of the emperor’s cousin Nicetas, if not also of the wider imperial household.

      From the Lives that derive from that of Moschus and Sophronius, written for the patriarch’s funeral in 620, the Almsgiver appears as an active Chalcedonian. Thus the fifth chapter of those Lives informs us that upon his election as patriarch John suppressed the widespread use of the theopaschite addition to the Trisagion, for although he discovered a mere seven chapels (euktēria) maintaining the orthodox rites, “through much diligence he provided that that number be increased to seventy, and there sanctioned the celebration of the immaculate offering [tēn amōmēton proskomidēn].”³⁸ As Vincent Déroche has pointed out, this means not that John found the numbers of Chalcedonian churches in decline and realized a rapid reversal of that same process (as is often said) but rather that he enforced the exclusion of the theopaschite addition from Chalcedonian churches that had adopted it.³⁹ That concern to preserve the strict doctrinal and liturgical boundaries between Chalcedonian and anti-Chalcedonian communities was also manifested, the same texts claim, in the patriarch’s attitude to ordinations, for he demanded from those aspiring to clerical position “written confessions [libellous] for the preservation of the orthodox faith and the protection of all the proclamations set forth in the canons.” “Those priests who repudiated certain heresies, gave written confessions of their repentance, confessed the teaching of the orthodox faith, and both received the four ecumenical holy councils and anathematized all the heresies along with the heresiarchs, these [John] welcomed with open arms and restored as communicants in the catholic Church.”⁴⁰

      John’s patriarchate was nevertheless remembered as a time of peace in anti-Chalcedonian circles, and it is probable that the emperor had charged him with that precise goal: that is, maintaining religious concord following the turbulent period of Heraclius’s rebellion.⁴¹ It is thus of considerable interest to note that the later Life of Leontius of Neapolis (composed ca. 641–42), which is conceived as an explicit continuation of that by Moschus and Sophronius, presents the pair as the patriarch’s most trusted advisors and doctrinal disputants.⁴² Thus one chapter of that Life states that “Toward the purpose of this celebrated man, which was wholly divine, God sent to him John [Moschus] and Sophronius, who were wise in the divine [theosophoi] and of everlasting memory [aeimnēstoi].” “They were truly useful counselors,” Leontius continues, “and he listened to them unquestioningly as if to fathers and celebrated them as especially noble and courageous soldiers for piety. They put their faith in the power of the Spirit and the Archshepherd; they launched an unceasing war with the Severans and the other impure heretics who were in the province; and like fine shepherds delivered many villages, but more churches, and in like manner monasteries, like sheep from the mouths of these beasts. And because of this the all-holy [patriarch] showed them above all especial honor.”⁴³

      

      In another remarkable tale we are told that “Certain heretics called Theodosians came to his holiness seeking to ridicule him, who was wise in the things of God, as inexperienced in the sophistic and rhetorical arts, and to show him contempt as a fool.” Upon arriving the heretics confront him and ask, “How is it that, when you are patriarch, you believe in the faith and do not dogmatize about it but entrust your soul and your faith to the lips of others?”—making allusion, Leontius explains, “to John [Moschus] and Sophronius, the true lights.” With divine inspiration, the Almsgiver then asks his accusers if they have experienced everything that they believe or proclaim, and they confirm that “If we are not convinced of something through actual experience of it, then we not do believe in or proclaim it.” The patriarch then proceeds to ask whether they believe that the All-holy Spirit is present and descends upon the holy font and holy oblation (epiphoitai kai katerchetai to panagion pneuma eis tēn hagian kolumbēthran kai eis tēn hagian anaphoran), and when they answer yes, he asks, “What, then? Have you seen it with your own eyes?” “Even if we have not seen it,” they respond, “our fathers have.” “Well look, then,” John retorts, “you too believe from others in what you have not known or seen. And so why do you reproach me that I believe in something that I do not know how to proclaim and dogmatize about?”⁴⁴

      In combination, the two Lives thus present the patriarch as a committed Chalcedonian, keen to preserve the liturgical and doctrinal boundaries between Chalcedonians and anti-Chalcedonians, but nevertheless avoiding active persecution and instead engaging with doctrinal dissenters through debate and through Moschus and Sophronius. Although this picture is constructed in retrospect, it nevertheless finds a complement in Sophronius’s Miracles of Cyrus and John, composed in the first half of John’s patriarchate. For here too we discover that same combination of concerns: on the one hand, a strict sacramental differentiation between orthodox and heretic; but on the other, a relative moderation in the denunciation of heretics and explicit promotion of Chalcedon.

      Although Chalcedon receives but one explicit mention within the extant Greek text, in a series of central tales Sophronius nevertheless presents the saints as opponents of the enemies of the Chalcedonian settlement.⁴⁵ From these it becomes clear that the Menuthis shrine’s clientele was less homogenous in its doctrine than he may have cared for. At Alexandria, of course, the Chalcedonian shrine of Menuthis competed against the far grander and more celebrated anti-Chalcedonian cult of Menas at Mareotis.⁴⁶ We should not suppose, however, that all Alexandrian Chalcedonians patronized Menuthis and, vice versa, all anti-Chalcedonians Mareotis.⁴⁷ Whereas all Christian shrines regularly and very publicly proclaimed their particular doctrinal affiliation (through choice of clergy, the diptychs, the creed, etc.), such shrines were, it seems, nevertheless frequented by Christians of various doctrinal stripes, and those opposed to the official doctrinal position of a shrine could put into play various strategies of subversion or resistance through which to circumvent a shrine’s official confession.⁴⁸

      Sophronius’s Miracles of Cyrus and John indeed describes those strategies in vivid detail. In Miracles 36, for example, a heretic Theodore comes to the saints and is encouraged by them to participate in the orthodox eucharist. “No, I shall not come,” he says. “For I am of another doctrine and not of the confession of the Church. Today I await my mother, who is bringing the gifts of my own communion.” Having refused to commune within the Chalcedonian Church, Theodore then requests the saints’ permission to take some oil from their tomb. “For many who are not in communion still do this,” Sophronius says, “taking the oil that burns in the candle instead of the holy body and blood of Christ, God and Savior of us all.”⁴⁹ Theodore, therefore, simply circumvents the shrine’s sacramental system by substituting the Chalcedonian eucharist for his own imported host and for the oil from the