John Scythopolita (c.536–550), also known as "the Scholasticus", bishop of Scythopolis in Palestine, where Beit She'an is today, was a Byzantine theologian and lawyer adhering to neo-Chalcedonian theology.[1]

He is famous for several works (lost) against Monophysite heresy: his major one is a treatise written ca. 530, defending the theory of "dioenergism",[2] against his contemporary Severus of Antioch. Another work attacked the heretic Eutyches, one of the founders of Monophysitism.

We have some data about him by Photius, learned bishop of Byzantium.[3]

Hans Urs von Balthasar suggested than John was the author of much of Maximus the Confessor's scholia.[4][5]

A recent theory by Byzantinist Carlo Maria Mazzucchi suggests that John of Scythopolis' was aware that the Corpus Dionysiacum was a forgery and that his awareness is revealed by his extensive marginal commentary—despite the fact that John's commentary apparently defends the originality of the Corpus.[6]

Notes

  1. A doctrine following the Christological path of the general council of Chalcedon (451), about the dual (human & divine) nature of Christ, integrated with the orthodox tenets of Cyril of Alexandria on the predominance of the divinity in Christ's unity.
  2. Teaching Christ's dual source of vital activity: both human and divine.
  3. "Photius, Bibliotheca or Myriobiblion (Cod. 1-165, Tr. Freese)".
  4. Daley The Cambridge companion to Hans Urs von Balthasar - Page 206 Edward T. Oakes, David Moss - 2004
  5. Critica et philologica, Nachleben, first two centuries, Tertullian ... - Page 120 Maurice F. Wiles, International Conference on Patristics - 2001 Corderius' edition also attributes the entirety of the scholia to a single author — Maximus the Confessor — but this attribution has long been questioned. In 1940, Hans Urs von Balthasar attempted to resolve the question of authorship.
  6. Mazzucchi, Carlo Maria (2017). "Impudens societas, sive Ioannes Scythopolitanus conscius Areopagiticae fraudi" [An insolent coven, or: John of Scythopolis being aware of the Areopagite fraud]. Aevum (in Latin). 91 (2): 289–94 via JSTOR.
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