V
Spirituality and Accountability: Consequences of the Ascetic Vow

The works of the exiled community that John of Ephesus records in his Lives of the Eastern Saints are presented as a logical extension of the ascetic's practice. But the context of these works is larger than the immediate situation of religious persecution. Indeed, John extends the context by the juxtaposition of these narratives to his accounts of missionary activity undertaken by the Monophysites, whether spontaneously by individuals or in accordance with the authority of the collective Monophysite body. John unites the experience of service, exile, and mission in his chapters devoted to the major endeavor of the sixth-century Monophysites: the ordination of those who were to become a new church order. In so doing, he raises the issue of the ascetic's accountability, both for the nonbelieving world and for the believing congregation.

Mission: Individual Responsibility and Collective Authority

Expansion is not the act of a demoralized church. But the Lives of the Eastern Saints record Monophysite missions undertaken both inside and outside Roman borders and, eventually, in direct opposition to the imperially proclaimed "orthodoxy." By the end of the sixth century, Monophysite missions were to produce a substantial church body, whose confines bore little relation to the empire's physical boundaries and

whose members would feel little loyalty to an emperor upholding a faith opposed to their own.^[1] If this situation did not directly facilitate the Persian and Arab conquests of the Byzantine East in the seventh and eighth centuries, it certainly undermined basic political assumptions in the East regarding the significance of Byzantium's theocratic imperial authority.

John's Lives indicate that missionary activity might come about simply as a result of circumstance. In this context, missionary work is part and parcel of the ascetic vision John offers. Such was the case presented in his "Life of Simeon the Mountaineer."^[2]

Simeon was a hermit who wandered the territories along the upper Euphrates; he "used to go about the mountains like the wild beasts, and . . . had no intercourse except with God."^[3] Conditions in these regions were such that the ascetic could live in this manner only eight months of the year: the snowy season drove him annually to lower areas. One year, Simeon chanced upon a settled people of the remote mountain summits, whose villages—with their inhabitants loosely scattered over wide distances—were unlike those of the other communities he knew. Surprised at finding domesticated life in such rugged countryside, the hermit inquired about their general livelihood and customs. To his dismay, he discovered that these people were apparently "godless," having no religious practices and acquainted with Christianity only by name. As the situation was made known to him, Simeon's "bones shook from his fright and his tears gushed out."^[4] The hermit was beside himself:

Perhaps it was indeed for this reason that God's grace led me to the mountains here, in order that there may be salvation for these souls that are in the darkness of error. . . . What pagan is there, or what other worshippers of creation, who for so long a period of time would neglect to pay honour to the object of his worship, and would not always worship that which is reckoned by him as God? These men neither worship God like Christians, nor honour something else like pagans and they are apostates against the one and against the other.^[5]

Simeon set to work. A little church was found in the district, unused in living memory. Helped by the local inhabitants, Simeon cleaned the chapel, summoned the people of the area, and began to preach. It was as if he spoke to "irrational animals," for the people "looked at him in astonishment, and they had nothing to say." Undaunted, the holy man went on to lay down strict injunctions for their religious conduct, so that they might offer penance for their years of neglect and render fitting worship to God. For Simeon discovered matters to be worse than he had thought. Asking why none of the children had been dedicated to the

religious life of the Sons and Daughters of the Covenant, he was told, "Sir, they have not time to leave the goats and learn anything," upon which "the blessed man marvelled at the people's simpleness and carelessness."^[6]

Nor did Simeon's intervention stop there. He imposed further injunctions on the chastened populace against blasphemy, fornication, and murder. Those transgressing his orders Simeon promptly punished; few seemed to question his right to authority. On the contrary, "then [the people] began to feel a little fear, both of God and of the blessed man himself, while he continued sending and fetching all who were on the mountains to the house, and converting them afresh, as if from paganism."^[7]

But greater plans were afoot. Simeon gathered the children of the district together and shut them in the church, explaining to their parents that he had a gift for them. Then he separated one-third of the ninety children—eighteen boys and twelve girls—closed the remainder in another room, and with his helper quickly tonsured the chosen thirty, "soothing them with blandishments; and of them some wept, and some were silent." Thus were set apart the foundations of a monastic community and school. An outcry followed, but Simeon persuaded the parents of the virtue of his act, except for two families who refused to part with their children. Within three days the two youngsters had died. "Then the terror of the blessed man fell upon everyone, when the power of his word and of his prayer upon those men was seen; and they also repented."^[8] Simeon's will was never tested again.

The holy man continued his own ascetic practices and, once order had been established, again returned to solitude during the summer season. After twenty-six years of such labor, Simeon grew feeble; and thereafter he stayed in the village, in his cell, and practiced with an equal severity.

And accordingly the blessed man's name had gone out over all that country, and he was a law and a judge of the country; and every matter that was in need of reform was referred to him.^[9]

An anchorite in the oldest tradition of the Syrian Orient, Simeon had offered the whole of his existence to God in worship. Having sought the divine in the purity of natural creation, he found it where he least expected it: in the imperfection of human society. John pays tribute to Simeon as one who reveals the unsought possibilities of life dedicated to holy pursuit. For here was a region too remote to be reached by matters afflicting the greater part of the East; indeed, Simeon's story contains

none of the calamities so visible in John's other accounts.^[10] Simeon is not drawn or forced out of seclusion by the urgency of crisis. Rather, he is confronted by a "godless" existence, and his reaction is as spontaneous as it is thorough. Set on saving the mountain people, this holy man was not satisfied with offering a church tradition of ritual and preaching; he imposed upon this isolated society the fruits of his ascetic discipline. He was law, judge, and spiritual father to them, far more than priest or abbot.

Simeon had in fact fulfilled an aspect of Syrian ascetic tradition that many had followed before him. Spontaneous missionary activity had long been part of the ascetic's responsibilities in the Syrian Orient, both in Roman and in Persian territory.^[11] But Simeon was not consciously taking up this role and was thus all the more in accordance with his own heritage: precisely because the Syrian ascetic had of necessity to stay within reach of society, conditions ripe for evangelization arose. As in Simeon's experience, it was more often than not a case of responding by instinct to religious need. But Simeon when instituting his rules of conduct for the villagers did show an intentional awareness of his role; for example, by the early fifth century, it was canonically ruled by the Syrian Church that chorepiscopi should set apart certain sons and daughters of each family, in each village, for the Sons and Daughters of the Covenant.^[12]

The story of Simeon the Mountaineer underscores the tie between John's subjects and those ascetics who preceded them. Responsiveness was inherent to the tradition of the Syrian ascetic's vocation. But Simeon's case is one among several John presents that is concerned with mission, and each adds a different dimension to his portrayal of activity in this sphere as a collective act of grace. Comparison highlights the contrasting nuances involved; the case of Simeon the Debater, who became bishop of Beth Arsham in Persia, is one example.^[13]

John refers to Simeon the Debater as "the brave warrior on behalf of the true faith." Indeed, this Simeon did more warring than episcopal administering. Something of a legend in his own time, Simeon's story lent itself to melodrama; John played on this with narrative styled as romance. Thus in John's telling of the story, Persia is a land steeped in the hated traditions of Marcion, Bardaisan, and Mani as much as in those of the Nestorians resettled from Roman territory, who were then the majority of the Christian populace.^[14] Further, when Simeon debated with the Nestorians on doctrine, the Magi invariably awarded the victory to Simeon and sometimes even converted.^[15] As a debater Simeon "put everyone to shame," and was even more skilled "than the ancients."^[16]

Nestorians trembled at his name. As spokesman for the "orthodox" minority, Simeon traveled with the help of an underground network over vast distances at tremendous speed. Wherever a dialogue on faith was taking place Simeon appeared:

As if God had made him ready and as if the earth had vomited him up, Simeon would suddenly spring up and be present there, since from the greatness of his zeal and fervour of his will he did not rest and sit still in one district.^[17]

But John's story of Simeon also contains the historical reasons behind his daring and intrigue. By Simeon's time, it was the Nestorians, based at Nisibis in particular, who held sway among the Persian Christians; against these "the blessed Simeon was always strongly armed and ceaselessly contending"^[18] in the regions beyond the eastern Roman frontiers, in Persia, and among the Arab tribes. Although John paints Simeon as so impressive that almost everyone who heard him converted, Simeon himself seems to have seen his main task as one within the church body. This was a different matter from that of Simeon the Mountaineer's confrontation with heathenism, or of John of Ephesus' own battle against paganism. "Deeply versed in scripture," Simeon "debated" misguided doctrinal positions, a method of discipline by persuasion.

Simeon's reputation was not unfounded. The Monophysite minority in Persia was periodically harassed by the Magian imperial cult, John claims at the promptings of the Nestorians. On different occasions in the course of his career, Simeon called upon the respective authorities of the emperor Anastasius, the Aethiopian king, and the empress Theodora, each of whom successfully interceded with the Persian king on behalf of that minority.^[19] Eventually, Simeon was consecrated against his will and by force to the metropolitan see of Beth Arsham. This added responsibility apparently did not hinder Simeon: "And so he would go about in the interior countries beyond the Persians and make disciples, and convert men from paganism and Magism, and return again to the same country, and strenuously meet those who held the impious doctrine of Nestorius in the same contests."^[20] Thus Simeon passed his life until he died of old age while on a visit to Constantinople, where he was staying with John of Ephesus.

If the story of Simeon the Mountaineer illustrates the range of responsibilities for the ascetic, that of Simeon the Persian Debater indicates the scope of care needed within the church's own confines. Both accounts are focused on activity outside the mainstream social and political sphere that provides the major context for most of John's Lives . But

the particular emphases found in these two narratives illuminate John's other, and considerably briefer, accounts of missionary activity. John was too self-conscious to speak at length of his own role in the missions to the pagans, but his Lives offer tribute to the deacons, presbyters, and bishops who aided this undertaking.^[21] Of the campaign itself, John here tells us only that

eighty thousand were converted and rescued from paganism, and ninety-eight churches and twelve monasteries, and seven other churches transformed from Jewish synagogues were founded in these four provinces, Asia, Caria, Phrygia, and Lydia.^[22]

Elsewhere, in his Ecclesiastical History, John writes of these missions performed under imperial aegis and carried out not only in the provinces but in the capital city itself. Pagans were turned from their ways or, failing this, tragically put to death. So too were many heretics: Manichees, Montanists, and others.^[23] If Justinian's patronage of the campaign prompted confused speculation about its purpose, John's Lives dispelled doubts about the theological tenor of the undertaking.

The ascetics who accompanied John were "strenuous workers."^[24] These holy men "gained a blessed end" not, John assures us, for any reason other than their own witness in mission.

Each one of them . . . was strengthened to abolish paganism, and overthrow idolatry, and uproot altars and destroy shrines and cut down trees in ardent religious zeal; and . . . all of them also toiled and laboured with us with joy and great earnestness.^[25]

In his Lives John names some of his coworkers; but he tells us they were part of an entourage altogether deserving of the same homage. That he should include his helpers in his collection of holy men and women is sufficient statement of their spiritual integrity, whatever the political impetus of the missions themselves; he does not discuss the doctrinal positions of these coworkers, leaving us without knowledge of the group's makeup in this respect. Again, the complexity of Justinian's religious policy comes to view.

To a large extent, the value of John's Lives lies in their orientation toward the events and crises of their times, a vantage point often lacking in hagiographical works. It is in his accounts of mission that John merges critical situations in time into the timeless realm of divine activity worked through human agency. The service missions in various cities of Paul of Antioch,^[26] or the salvific campaigns led by John himself, express an urgency offset by the measure of the two Simeons. For through his tales of the Mountaineer and the Debater, John declares that mission is a labor

intrinsic to asceticism, that times of crisis are inherently those in which the ascetic moves, and that political boundaries offer no barriers to ascetic endeavors.

John portrays mission as an extension of the ascetic vocation and its responsibilities. But such individual autonomy carried inadvertent consequences: it contributed to the development of the Monophysite body into a separate church.

Ordination: Individual Responsibility and Collective Accountability

While John presents better examples of specific activities elsewhere in the Lives of the Eastern Saints , nowhere in John's writings can the critical juncture of his ascetic vision and its implications be seen more clearly than in his account of the bishop John of Tella.^[27]

John of Tella exemplified all that John of Ephesus admired: he was ascetic, priest, hero, and martyr. He distinguished himself early in his career as a solitary^[28] but was raised to the bishopric of Constantina/Tella in 519. John of Ephesus tells us that John of Tella conducted his ecclesiastical affairs while continuing his severe ascetic labors. When the persecutions reached Osrhoene in 521, he was expelled along with the other bishops and ascetics of his area; he took his place in the desert with the rest of the exiled community, providing a steadying presence.^[29]

The desert, as we have seen, did not serve as a place of dissociated retreat for the expelled Monophysites; rather, for those like John of Tella, it nourished their spiritual resources. The persecutions were succeeding, even if differently from the way their instigators had hoped.

In the wake of the expulsions the faithful body as a whole was forced by circumstances to reassess its religious situation. For John of Ephesus, the Monophysite believers showed remarkable determination, refusing the poison of "false" shepherding by the Chalcedonians. Instead, pressuring those in exile to provide them with the guidance they required, they asked that new pastors be ordained to meet their needs.

But the blessed men, inasmuch as they were troubled by fear of lighting the furnace of persecution more hotly against them, refused to practice this openly, though they did a few things in secret; and a murmuring on the part of those among the believers who had been banished from every quarter began to be stirred up against the blessed men [the bishops], since they had been reduced to great difficulties. . . . Then all the bishops assembled together, and considered what to do. . . . Finally, out of fear, they refused the thing.^[30]

As the bishops knew, the issue of ordination was not an innocent one; it involved more than avoiding further wrath from the imperial court. The greater issue at stake was the question of orthodoxy and the church. In the history of the dispute over the Council of Chalcedon, despite its lurching from side to side, no rival clerical or ecclesiastical structure had been discussed. The dispute had been played out within the existing church structure and body; despite vehemence on all sides, the opposing groups had resembled political parties that, although based on apparently divergent principles, worked within the same system. Severus of Antioch and the other leaders were more aware of the dangers of moving towards the ordination of a separate clergy than the rank and file of the anti-Chalcedonians. These latter feared for their personal salvation, which might be irreparably damaged in the event of receiving the Eucharist at the wrong hands; salvation to them was far more important than the welfare of the ecclesiastical structure.^[31]

Severus did his best to impart an appropriate sobriety to the Monophysite body, strictly adhering to canon law, scripture, and patristic teaching. In exile, he continued to fulfill his responsibilities as patriarch of Antioch in the context of patriarchal jurisdiction, rather than as the leader of an "outside" group. He continually drew upon the precedents, and to his mind parallel experiences, of Basil of Caesarea and Gregory of Nazianzus during the fourth-century Arian controversies. To ordain a "private" clergy for the Monophysite body, instead of healing the diseased church from within, should only be a last resort.^[32]

But the presence of a Chalcedonian clergy in charge of the lay populace was a danger of more tangible proportions for many of the faithful.^[33] Finally, John of Tella took their cause before the bishops.

And henceforth whither shall the persecuted and distressed believers who are with us go? Do you wish, pray, that we should send them to those who are every day killing them? For God knows that I for my part was ready for a life of quietude by myself, but that I should leave God's people and church in distress and need, and serve my own self, far be it from me in the Lord's name.^[34]

So sometime before 527, John of Tella having passed his exile thus far in retreat, the Monophysite bishops, apparently sanctioned by Severus himself, granted him special permission to ordain clergy to meet the needs of the faithful. This authority was recognized as an emergency power, since John received the authority to ordain all who came to him if the candidates met the disciplinary standards of the church. The results, as has been said, were sensational.^[35] Even if John exaggerates the numbers (as he did), the response was great enough to warrant attention.

Multitudes "rushed in crowds to come to the blessed man freely without impediment like a flood that is produced in a river by thick clouds."^[36] John traveled about, receiving candidates for the priesthood and diaconate in monasteries or makeshift hideaways. While John of Ephesus was quick to glorify the situation, he took care to point out that the bishop's choices did not lack quality for the quantity.

[He was] receiving and dismissing companies of fifty and of a hundred in a day, and even now and again as many as two and three hundred a day, giving expositions and injunctions and caution and instruction, and performing the ordinations after careful investigation and many testimonies given, subjecting every man to a careful examination and test in reading the Scriptures and repeating the psalms, and ability to write their names and signatures.^[37]

Candidates came from "every city as far as the frontier, and as far as Armenia and Arzanene, and the land of the Cappadocians and the seacoasts."^[38] Among them in 529 came the young John of Ephesus, to be admitted to the diaconate, while John of Tella was based in Marde. He arrived with a group of brethren from the Amidan monasteries, then in exile as well; they were warmly received by John of Tella, who knew of their communities by reputation and was impressed by their learning and discipline. The pioneer bishop left his mark on the young monk John, who "remembered always" the impact of his presence.^[39]

For a time John of Tella performed his ordinations from the city of Marde, in the company of Philoxenus of Mabbog and others. Severus wrote to them, praising them both for the excellence of their ascetic practices and for their labors on behalf of the Monophysite body.^[40] The importance of John of Tella's ascetic training and prowess was not to be underestimated, as Severus knew. Not only must there be no charges of canonical misconduct, but John himself had to be above reproach.^[41] His ascetic training and vocation provided the necessary assurance and, as in the case of Severus himself, must have been genuinely formidable. But in the eyes of John of Ephesus, John of Tella was inspired to the work of ordination because of the nature of his religious calling. When he received official orders from the government to halt his subversive work, he gave the reply,

I for my part have received a gift from God, and with it I am trading and am not negligent; and know this, that, as long as I am in the bodily life, and a hand is given me to extend to anyone that is in need, not you nor any earthly king shall hinder me from performing the service that the heavenly king has given me.^[42]

The imperial authorities were understandably alarmed. It fell to Ephrem of Antioch, "the executioner of the believers" (as John of Ephesus calls him), to take on John of Tella.^[43] John's eventual death in prison in 538 was as powerful as an act of martyrdom as his career was impressive throughout. It thus heralded disaster for pro-Chalcedonian hopes. John of Tella had been decidedly efficacious; if John of Ephesus exaggerates hopelessly in claiming that John ordained 170,000 men into the clergy,^[44] it is of little concern. Two irrevocable steps had been taken: first, a network of ecclesiastical leaders had been established, ensuring the renewed care of the Monophysite congregations; second, the precedent of an independently ordained Monophysite structure had been established. If the founding of the "Jacobite" church has traditionally been attributed to Jacob Burd'aya, it was in fact John of Tella who laid the necessary groundwork.

From the "Life of John of Tella," John of Ephesus continues his collection with the story of John's spiritual brother and successor, John of Hephaestopolis.^[45] Following a pattern similar to that of his predecessor, this John began his career as an ascetic. He was promoted to the episcopacy by the patriarch Theodosius of Alexandria, with whom he journeyed to Constantinople when the persecutions were launched in Egypt in 536. Not long thereafter, while living with the refugees in the imperial city, John of Hephaestopolis took up the task left by John of Tella to continue the ordination of Monophysite clergy.

Recognizing that he seemed to be straying from his professed intentions, and covering territory more appropriate for his Ecclesiastical History , John of Ephesus felt the need to defend his choice of bishops as subjects in this collection; he prefaced his "Life of John of Hephaestopolis" with this apologia:

[John of Tella and John of Hephaestopolis] were complete and perfect in both forms of beauty [pastoral and ascetic]; and for this reason, though we seem to be passing from one subject to another, we did not think it alien to the excellent purpose to describe and hand down to remembrance for the glory of God that life which was practised by these men also.^[46]

By granting these select bishops a place in his Lives , John strengthened their authority at a time when their activities involved a canonical and theological risk. Furthermore, the decision was both a declaration about Monophysite asceticism and a statement about Monophysite leadership. In the schema of John's Lives and in the ascetic vision they reflect, the campaign for ordinations set underway by John of Tella and

John of Hephaestopolis was in effect obligatory for men of their spiritual standing.

The imperial decree on the church in 536 had effectively confined the Monophysite bishops and clergy to the refugee camps in Thrace and Constantinople; Egypt was no longer safe territory, and John of Tella was soon imprisoned in Antioch. The need for pastoral care was acute. Crowds began to arrive in the imperial city, not only seeking solace from the Monophysite community but, even more, seeking ordination "as there was absolutely no man to extend a hand of ordination to any believer in the whole Roman territory as far as the Persian frontier."^[47] Yet, even with Theodora's protective presence, those with authority refused to ordain the candidates, "as it was indeed truly impossible for them to live if an ordination were performed there, if the adversaries heard of it."^[48]

To John of Hephaestopolis, it seemed the bishops were no longer fulfilling their episcopal duties: "We for our part have been named pastors of God's church to no purpose, since we have suffered her lambs to be torn by wolves. . . . What is the benefit that we are now doing for God's church?" On his own authority, he acquired separate quarters in the capital with Theodora's help and began to ordain the "companies of those who were in distress, and had been for a long time beaten and buffeted and had none to relieve them."^[49]

An immediate and angry clamor arose from inside the Monophysite ranks, from those concerned about simple safety. But the patriarch Theodosius of Alexandria, now head of the Monophysite community in Constantinople, granted tacit blessing to the renegade's activities by disclaiming responsibility but not censuring John; Theodora herself begged John to "remain still and keep quiet like your companions and do not make priests in this city."^[50] But John contrived to escape the imperial house prison and took his authority where it was needed. He traversed the islands and territories of the eastern provinces, receiving candidates for the priesthood, performing ordinations, and ministering to the congregations. The Chalcedonians complained to Justinian that "one of the bishops [from Constantinople] has come out, and has thrown the whole church into confusion."^[51] John's actions, indeed, bordered on the outrageous. In Tralles, John of Ephesus served wide-eyed as deacon while fifty men were ordained secretly in the upper-level women's gallery of a church, with a Chalcedonian service in full progress below; he tells us, "I was amazed at the man's courage and fortitude."^[52]

But John of Ephesus could look upon the ordinations only as an act of grace; in his eyes the two Johns were God given:

In this time of [the church's] distress also [God] set up these two pillars of light in it to comfort it; by whose holy prayers may schisms and strifes be done away from within it until the end, Amen!^[53]

John of Ephesus could not see that the process was irreversible. The ordinations were charged with the awareness of resistance. The momentum would neither be diverted nor reabsorbed into a "mainstream" church. By the time Jacob Burd'aya and Theodore of Arabia were consecrated to the task of replenishing a shrunken Monophysite hierarchy, the way was clearly set. Even without Jacob's energy, an equally decisive act would surely have taken place.

The death of John of Tella had left a gap partially filled by John of Hephaestopolis; but age and the hardships of enforced exile took their toll on the other leaders of the Monophysite body. Philoxenus of Mabbog had died in 523, and Severus himself died in 538 almost immediately after John of Tella. Most of the episcopal hierarchy marshaled by Severus had disappeared or been rendered ineffectual.^[54] Then, in 542, matters changed. Harith bar Gabala, king of the Saracens and a Monophysite sympathizer, approached the empress Theodora because "a lack of priests had . . . arisen in the countries of the east and of the west, and especially of bishops."^[55] He asked that she direct two or three bishops to be consecrated for Syria to ensure the welfare of his own tribes and fellow believers.

And, since the believing queen was desirous of furthering everything that would assist the opponents of the synod of Chalcedon, she gave orders and two blessed men, well-tried and divine persons, whose names were Jacob and Theodore, were chosen and instituted, one for Hirtha of the Saracens, that is Theodore, and Jacob for the city of Edessa.^[56]

Jacob began, John tells us, by sharing a cell in a Constantinopolitan monastery with another monk named Sergius.^[57] Together they practiced arduous and severe ascetic labors, yet Sergius seemed to emerge second best in John's eyes. John explains that although Sergius practiced in the same manner as Jacob, he would also speak to those who approached their cell on matters of business and hence fell short of Jacob, who "entirely refused to take part in these things, and refused also to appear during the day outside his cell."^[58] This was, of course, but a preparatory process.

Jacob and Theodore were not to be ordinary bishops; their jurisdiction was governed by the state of emergency in which the Monophysites found themselves. Their task was to restore the depleted ranks of the ecclesiastical hierarchy and, specifically, to refill the sorely wanting

higher echelons. In Theodore the faithful had chosen a diligent worker; but with Jacob, the movement came into its own.

And, while the blessed Theodore exercised authority in the southern and western [Syrian] countries, and the whole of the desert and Arabia and Palestine, as far as Jerusalem, the blessed Jacob, having armed himself with religion, and clothed himself in the zeal of heroism, extended his course over all the countries not only of Syria and the whole of Armenia and Cappadocia . . . but also of Cilicia and the whole of Isauria and of Pamphylia and Lycaonia and Lycia and Phrygia and Caria and Asia, and in the islands of the sea Cyprus and Rhodes, and Chios and Mitylene, and as far as the royal city of Constantinople.^[59]

Once again, John's narrative turns to romance embellished with legend: the Monophysite movement was transformed, as if at once. Jacob "accomplished his ministry, causing the priesthood to flow like great rivers over the whole world of the Roman dominions."^[60] He traveled over distances and at speeds that defied human strength: his disguises were impenetrable, his movements untraceable.

But the practicalities lie close by in John's story. Charged with so awesome a task, Jacob engineered the ordination of two other bishops to travel with him to ensure the canonicity of his ordinations and consecrations.^[61] John claims he ordained more than 100,000 clergy, as well as twenty-seven bishops and two patriarchs.^[62] Among these was John himself, whom Jacob consecrated to the titular see of Ephesus around the year 559. Before Jacob's efforts, it was possible to claim that the Monophysites did not constitute a separate church in their own right. But despite John's impossibly high numbers, Jacob did turn a de facto situation that had long been hardening, into an institutional one. The Jacobite Syrian Orthodox Church had been founded.

The tracing of Jacob's activities—of exactly what he did and how he did it—is a sensitive operation.^[63] As legends grew, his work was entwined with that of Severus of Antioch. Later tradition claimed that Jacob was consecrated to his task by the great patriarch himself.^[64] These two have been glorified above all, yet neither would have accomplished their work without substantial efforts by their comrades. Jacob, for his part, ended his career a puppet in the factionalism of his own movement, far from the glory of his ecclesiastical conquests.^[65]

In fact, what had happened to the Monophysites in the sixth century, and what is unwittingly chronicled in John of Ephesus' Lives of the Eastern Saints , was a transformation of structure, as much in their thought as in the governance of their movement. Once an ecclesiastical

hierarchy was in existence, specifically in opposition to another system holding different bonds for communion (loyalty to the Council of Chalcedon), then the subsequent dialogues ceased to offer any real solutions to end the division. Refined theological definitions, even outright concessions, could not measure up to the concrete obstacle of two separate systems.^[66]

The pivotal point goes back to John of Tella. For wherever Jacob went, he found ranks of candidates, deacons or priests such as John of Ephesus himself, prepared for the priesthood; they had received their ordination at the hand of a Monophysite and aspired to fulfill their vocation within a Monophysite hierarchy. And he found, too, the receptivity of a laity pastored by such leadership.

But John of Tella had not sought such a consequence to his efforts, and it is here that one must look again to his inclusion, and indeed Jacob's, in the Lives of John of Ephesus. John of Ephesus was raised from his childhood within the Amidan ascetic community; he was ordained deacon by John of Tella, blessed by John of Hephaestopolis, and consecrated bishop by Jacob Burd'aya. The degree to which his ascetic views were shaped by the spiritual mentors he encountered, is the degree to which his Lives display a vision not his alone but shared by a significant part of the Monophysite body.

For John of Ephesus the particularities of the ascetic's situation are overridden by the ultimate responsibility of the ascetic's vow. Maro the Stylite had climbed his brother's pillar with fear but without hesitation. Z'ura the Stylite had responded to persecution by descending his pillar in order to protest at the imperial court of Constantinople. Susan had forfeited her devotion to solitude to guide an exiled community in Egypt. Simeon the Mountaineer had embraced the lost flocks of the Lord in their unwitting error; John of Tella had taken on the burden of ordaining shepherds for the faithful.

These holy men and women lived out a personal relationship with their God; ultimately, they were bound by neither canon nor ecclesiastical rank. John of Tella badgered his fellow bishops and superiors for official sanction to perform his ordinations; John of Hephaestopolis did not and took his authority and justification from the legacy of his predecessor. The official charge to Jacob Burd'aya was a virtual fait accompli, but he fulfilled it to an extent probably greater than his superiors had intended him to. Like the local ascetics of Amida, these men responded to the crises of their times according to their understanding of their vows.