elder used to say." This must surely mean more than that the authority cited was one of the many presbyters of the church and we cannot help connecting with it the fact revealed by the minor Johannine epistles, that there was some one in the Asiatic church who spoke of himself, and no doubt was habitually spoken of by others, as "the Elder."
The only Eusebian argument then that remains is that Papias mentions the name John twice over and therefore may be presumed to speak of two Johns. But might he not first enumerate John in his list of seven apostles, concerning whom he had been able to glean traditions, and a second time in his shorter list of men of the first Christian generation who had survived to his own day? Papias wrote for the men of his time, to whom the facts were well known, and the idea of being misunderstood would no more occur to him than it would to us, if we spoke of one of our leading statesmen at one moment by his surname only, the next with the addition of his title or Christian name. The second time the title "elder" is used it does not mean "one of the first generation of Christians," for Aristion to whom the title is refused was that; it does not mean merely one holding the office of presbyter, for then the phrase "the elder" would have no meaning. What remains but that the second John had the same right to the title as Andrew, Peter, and the rest to whom it is given in the beginning of the sentence?
Hence while we own the Eusebian interpretation of Papias to be a possible one, we are unable to see that it is the only possible one; and therefore while willing to receive the hypothesis of two Johns, if it will help to explain any difficulty, we do not think the evidence strong enough to establish it as an historical fact: and we frankly own that if it were not for deference to better judges, we should unite with Keim in relegating, though in a different way, this "Doppelgänger" of the apostle to the region of ghostland.
[G.S.]
Joannes (504), surnamed Climacus, Scholasticus, or Sinaita. At the age of 16 he entered the monastery of Mount Sinai, subsequently became an anchoret, and at 75 abbat of Mount. Sinai. At the entreaty of John abbat of Raïthu he now composed his works, the Scala Paradisi and the Liber ad Pastorem; from the title (κλῖμαξ) of the first of these he gained his name of Climacus (Climakos). It contains his experiences in the spiritual life, with instructions for the attainment of a higher degree of holiness, and is dedicated to the abbat of Raïthu who afterwards wrote a commentary upon it (Patr. Gk. lxxxviii.1211–1248). Returning into solitude, John died at an advanced age early in the 7th cent. Boll: Acta SS. Mart. iii. 834: Migne, u.s. 631–1210; a new ed. of the Gk. text of his works was pub. in 1883 at Constantinople by Sophronius Eremites; Surius, de Probatis Sanct. Historiis, Mar. 30.
[I.G.S.]
Joannes (507) Saba, a native of Nineveh, fl. in 6th cent.; an orthodox monk of Dilaita or Daliatha, a small town on the W. bank of the Euphrates. His works are 30 discourses and 48 epistles, of which Syriac and Arabic MSS. exist in the Roman libraries. Though abounding in digressions, the style is marked by persuasive eloquence. They are headed "on the divine gifts and spiritual solaces vouchsafed to monks for their comfort and delight." Assem. Bib. Or. i. 433–444 iii. i. 103, 4; Bickell, Cons. Syr. p. 26.
[C.J.B.]
Joannes (509), called of Bêth-Rabbân or Bêthnarsi, disciple and successor in the 6th cent. of Jacobus the founder of the monastery of Bêth-Haba. Jesujab, bp. of Nineveh, stated that Joannes had been a monk 70 years before his departure from Bêth-Haba; 30 years he had lived as a solitary, 40 with Jacobus as a coenobite. Joannes was for some time in the monastery of Bêth-Rabbân, which was subject to the same abbat as Bêth-Haba. Ebedjesu (ap. Assem. Bibl. Or. III. i. 72) states that he wrote a commentary on Ex., Lev., Num., Job, Jer., Ezk., and Prov., also certain tracts against Magi, Jews, and heretics. He also wrote prayers for Rogation days, a prayer on the death of Chosroes I. (d. 579), and on a plague which befel Nisibis, besides paracletic addresses for each order in the church (i.e. metrical discourses read in the office of the dead), a book of questions relating to O. and N. T., psalms, hymns, and chants. One of his hymns is in the Mosul Breviary, p. 61, and in a MS. in the Brit. Mus. (Wright, Cat. p. 135). Rosen and Forshall (Cat. MSS. xii. 3 n.) mention another hymn of his. Cf. also Lelong, Bibl. Sacr. ii. 794.
[C.J.B.]
Joannes (520), surnamed Moschus and Eucratas (also Everatas and Eviratus, corruptions of Eucratas as Fabricius remarks), a monk, author of Pratum Spirituale, c. 620. The materials of his Life are to be collected from his book (which exhibits no historical arrangement), a brief notice by Photius (Cod. 199) and a Greek Vatican MS. of which Migne has printed a Latin version entitled Elogium Auctoris. This document extends the chronological material, and purports to have been composed while the Laura of St. Sabas in Palestine was standing.
Photius states that Moschus commenced the recluse life in the monastery of St. Theodosius, perhaps c. 575. In the Pratum Moschus is found at two monasteries named after two Theodosii, near Antioch and Jerusalem respectively. The one intended by Photius is a Laura founded c. 451 by the younger St. Theodosius a little E. of Jerusalem (Boll. Acta SS. Jan. i. 683). The Pratum (c. 92) shews Moschus at this spot, described as "in the desert of the holy city," Gregory being archimandrite. In the reign of Tiberius (Prat. 112) John Moschus was sent by his superior on monastic business with a companion, Sophronius Sophista (said to have been afterwards patriarch of Jerusalem), to Egypt and Oasis. This circumstance, unnoticed by Photius, is assigned by the Elogium to the beginning of the reign of Tiberius (i.e. 578). The absence was perhaps temporary, and Moschus's more protracted wanderings in Egypt may be assigned to a much later day. His Palestine life lasted more than 25 years, and Sophronius Sophista is frequently mentioned as his companion, once with a remark that it was "before he renounced the world." Photius states that he began monastic life at St. Theodosius, he afterwards resided with
