John of Scythopolis
JOHN OF SCYTHOPOLIS
Sixth century Byzantine priest and bishop of Scythopolis in Palestina II for a period probably after 536 but before about 548. He is not to be confused with John the Grammarian. A scholastikos, or lawyer, and a very learned man, John of Scythopolis composed several important theological works, all but one of which are lost: a work against the Monophysites, attacked before 512 by the strict Dyophysite, Basil of Cilicia, now lost; after about 518, a work against severus of antioch, extant in a fragment defending the formula of two energies in Jesus Christ; and finally, the first long scholia on the works of pseudo-dionysius the Areopagite, later incorporated into the less extensive scholia of maximus the Confessor but preserved also in a Syriac translation. The scholia defend both the authenticity and orthodoxy of the corpus of Pseudo-Dionysius. John's Christology is Neochalcedonian, that is, defends the agreement of the formulas of the Council of chalcedon (451) with the Christology of cyril of alexandria.
Bibliography: h. u. von balthasar, "Das Scholienwerk des Johannes von Scythopolis." Scholastik, 15 (1940) 16–38. c. moeller, "Le Chalcédonisme et le néo-chalcétonisme," a. grillmeier and h. bacht, Das Konzil von Chalkedon: Geschichte und Gegenwart, 3 v. (Würzburg 1951–54) 1:674–676.
[d. b. evans]