patriarchs were of equal rank and mutually independent. Jacob went to Alexandria to endeavour to settle the matter. But he was not the man for delicate negotiations. The party of Peter won him over to signing his assent to the deposition of Paul, though not to the excommunication of him. The result was a schism beginning in the year 576, which, as John of Asia says, "spread like an ulcer."[1] The misfortune was that both parties were Monophysite, both therefore under the ban of the Chalcedonian party and the imperial government. All other attempts at a settlement having failed, Jacob set out a second time for Alexandria in the vain hope of making terms of peace. He was now an old man, wearied and vexed with the constant strife in the midst of which his lot was cast, so utterly against his will and nature, since he would have infinitely preferred the quiet seclusion of his cell from which he had been dragged against his will. He never reached his destination. His party was stricken with a serious illness at the monastery of Cassianus on the borders of Egypt, and Jacob and three members of the company died there (July a.d. 578). Of course there were rumours of foul play. But no evidence was brought forward to confirm them. It was perhaps a happy ending to a life which at its zenith had shone with brilliant success, but the later half of which had been overcast with gloom and failure. Jacob was a good, unambitious man, an enthusiastic evangelist, an indefatigable peace-maker; but the larger half of the Church denounced his evangel, and his old friends whom he desired to reconcile would not have his peace.
Meanwhile the persecution of the Syrian Monophysites, like that of the Nestorians at an earlier date, was driving them into the hands of the Persians. Then divisions of a doctrinal character appeared among them. There were the Niobites, led by Niobes, a teacher who maintained the perfect unity of Christ as distinguished from the more moderate Monophysites, among whom some distinction between the Divinity and the humanity was allowed.
- ↑ John of Asia (trans. by Payne Smith), p. 282.
