A Dictionary of Greek and Roman biography and mythology

15. ANTIOCHENUS (7). A discourse, λόγος, on the gift of monasteries and their possessions to lay persons is given in the Ecclesiae Graecae Monumenta of Cotelerius (vol. i. p. 159, &c.). It is in the title described as the work τοῦ ἁγιωτάτον καὶ μακαριωτάτου πιιτριαπχον Ἀντιοχείας κυπίου Ἰωάννου τοῦ ἐν τῇ Ὀζείᾳ νήσῳ ἀσκήσαντος, Sanctissimi et beatissimi patriarchae Antiochiae, domini Joannis qui in Oxia insular aliquado monachus fuit. From internal evidence, Cotelerius deduces that this patriarch Joannes lived about the middle of the twelfth century. The island of Oxia, in which, before his elevation to the patriarchate, he pursued a monastic life, is in the Propontis. There is (or was) extant in MS., in the imperial library at Vienna, a work described as Eclogae Ascetiae, containing extracts from the Fathers and other ecclesiastical authorities. The inscription subjoined to this work, τέλος τῆς βίβλου τοῦ μακαριωτάτου πατριάρχου Ἀντιοχείας κυρίου Ἰωάννου τοῦ ἐν τῇ Ὀζείᾳ, Finis libri beatissimi patriarchae Antiochiae domini Joannis qui in Oxia fuit, has led Cotelerius (Ibid. p. 747) with reason to ascribe it to the same writer. From this conclusion Cave dissents, and contends that the Eclogae Asceticae is the work of an earlier Joannes, patriarch of Antioch, who lived, according to William of Tyre (6.23), Ordericus Vitalis (lib. x.), and others, about the close of the eleventh century; but the mention of the island Oxia leads us to identify the writers with each other; and Cave's argument that the latest writer from whom any part of the Eclogae is taken is Michael Psellus, who flourished about A. D. 1050, is insufficient for his purpose. Cotelerins ascribes some other works and citations to this Joannes. (Cave, Hist. Litt. vol. ii. pp. 159. 225 ; Cotelerius, ll. cc.)