JOHN of EPHESUS. – So called because he worked most extensively in Ephesus, but born at Amida (Syria) at the beginning of the 6th century and died c. 586. This Monophysite monk, who appeared in Constantinople in 535, enjoyed for 30 years the favour of Justinian, succeeding in establishing himself as a Monophysite bishop in the Byzantine patriarchal see. But from 572, after the accession of the anti-Monophysite Justin II, he had to suffer every kind of persecution, which forced him almost constantly to a wandering life.
J. is the author of two valuable works written in Syriac: the History of the Eastern Saints, of interest for the fortunes of monasticism in Mesopotamia (ed. E. W. Brooks: PO 17, 1; 19, 2), and an Ecclesiastical History, covering the period from Julius Caesar to 585, divided into 3 parts of 6 books each. Only the 3rd part (575–85) has come down to us substantially complete and directly transmitted (ed. E. W. Brooks, Corpus Scriptorum Christianorum Orient., Script. Syri, III, III, Paris 1935; with Latin version, Louvain 1936).