JoannesCAPPADOX27. CAPPADOX, or the CAPPADOCIAN (1).
John the Cappadocian was made patriarch of Constantinople (he was the second patriarch of the
name of John, Chrysostom being John I,) A. D. 517 or 518, a short
time before the death of the aged emperor Anastasius. Of his previous history and opinions we
have little or no information, except that he was, before his election to the patriarchate, a
presbyter and syncellus of Constantinople. Subsequent events rather indicate that his original
leaning was to the opponents of the Council of Chalcedon : but he had either too little
firmness or too little principle to follow out steadily the inclination of his own mind, but
appears to have been in a great degree the tool of others. On the death of Anastasius and the
accession of Justin I. the orthodox party among the inhabitants of Constantinople raised a
tumult, and compelled John to anathematize Severus of Antioch, and to insert in the diptychs
the names of the fathers of the Council of Chalcedon, and restore to them those of the
patriarchs Euphemius and Macedonius. These diptyehs were two tables of ecclesiastical
dignitaries, one containing those who were living, and the other those who had died, in the
peace and communion of the church, so that insertion was a virtual declaration of orthodoxy;
erasure, of heresy or schism. These measures, extorted in the first instance by popular
violence, were afterwards sanctioned by a synod of forty bishops. In A. D.
519 John, at the desire and almost at the command of the emperor Justin, sought a
reconciliation with the Western church, from which, during the reign of Anastasius, the
Eastern churches had been disunited. John accepted the conditions of pope Hormisdas, and
anathematized the opponents of the Council of Chalcedon, erasing from the diptychs the names
of Acacius, Euphemius, and Macedonius, three of his predecessors, and inserting those of popes
Leo I. and Hormisdas himself. Hormisdas, on this, wrote a congratulatory letter to John,
exhorting him to seek to bring about the reconciliation of the patriarchs of Antioch and
Alexandria to the orthodox church. John the Cappadocian died about the beginning or middle of
the year 520, as appears by a letter of Hormisdas to his successor, Epiphanius.
Works
Letters
John the Cappadocian wrote several letters or other papers, a few of which are still
extant.
Editions
Two short letters (Ἐπιστολαί), one to Joannes or
John, patriarch of Jerusalem, and one to Epiphanius, bishop of Tyre, are printed in Greek,
with a Latin version, in the
Concilia, among the documents relating to the
Council of Constantinople in A. D. 536. (Vol. v. col. 185, ed. Labbe, vol. viii. col.
1065-1067, ed. Mansi.)
Four
Relationes or
Libelli are
extant only in a Latin version among the
Epistolae of pope Hormisdas
in the
Concilia. (Vol. iv. col. 1472, 1486, 1491, 1521, ed. Labbe; vol.
viii. col. 436, 451, 457, 488, ed. Mansi.)
Possible Confusion with another John of Cappadocia
It is remarkable that in the two short Greek letters addressed to Eastern prelates, John
takes the title of οἰκουμενικὸς πατριάρχης,
oecumenical, or universal patriarch, and is supposed to be the first that assumed this
ambitious designation. It is remarkable, however, that in those pieces of his, which were
addressed to pope Hormisdas, and which are extant only in the Latin version, the title does
not appear; and circumstances are not wanting to lead to the suspicion that its presence in
the Greek epistles is owing to the mistake of some transcriber, who has confounded this John
the Cappadocian with the subject of the next article. It is certainly remarkable that the
title, if assumed, should have incurred no rebuke from the jealousy of the popes, not to
speak of the other patriarchs equal in dignity to John; or that. if once assumed, it should
have been dropped again, which it must have been, since the employment of it by the younger
John of Cappadocia, many years after, was violently opposed by pope Gregory I. as an
unauthorized assumption. [JOANNES
CAPPADOX, 2.] We may conjecture, perhaps, that it was assumed by
the patriarchs of Constantinople without opposition from their fellow-prelates in the East
during the schism of the Eastern and Western churches, and quietly dropped on the termination
of the schism, that it might not prevent the reestablishment of friendly relations.
Further Information
Theophanes, Chronog. pp. 140-142, ed. Paris, pp. 112, 113, ed. Venice,
pp. 253-256, ed. Bonn; Cave, Hist. Litt. vol. i. p. 503; Fabric. Bibl. Gr. vol. xi. p. 99.