natures by relegating to the divine Logos the formative and controlling
agency. It is not a human individual that the Logos assumes,
nor is it humanity, or human nature in general. It is rather a
potential human individual, a nature not yet developed into a person
or hypostasis. The hypostasis through which this takes place is
the personal Logos through whose union with this potential man,
in the womb of Mary, the potential man acquires a concrete reality,
an individual existence. He has, therefore, no hypostasis of himself
but only in and through the Logos. It is denied that he is non-hypostatic
(ἀνυπόστατος); it is affirmed that he is en-hypostatic (ἐνυπόστατος).
Two natures may form a unity, as the body and soul in man. So man,
both soul and body, is brought into unity with the Logos; there being
then one hypostasis for both natures.” There is an interchange of
the divine and human attributes, a communication of the former
which deifies the receptive and passive human nature. In Christ
the human will has become the organ of the divine will. Thus while
John is an adherent of Chalcedon and a dyothelite, the drift of his
teaching is in the monophysite direction. “The Chalcedonian
Definition is victorious, but Apollinaris is not overcome”; what
John gives with the one hand he takes away with the other. On
the question of the Atonement he regards the death of Christ as a
sacrifice offered to God and not a ransom paid to the devil.
Literature.—The Life of John of Damascus was written by John, patriarch of Jerusalem in the 10th century (Migne, Patrol. Graec., xciv. 429–489). The works were edited by Le Quien (2 vols., fol., Paris, 1712) and form vols. 94 to 96 in Migne’s Greek series. A monograph by J. Langen was published in 1879. A. Harnack’s History of Dogma is very full (see especially vols. iii. and iv.; on the image-worship controversy, iv. 322 seq.), and so are the similar works of F. Loofs-Seeberg and A. Dorner. See also O. Bardenhewer’s Patrologie, and other literature cited in F. Kattenbusch’s excellent article in Hauck-Herzog, Realencyklopädie, vol. ix.
JOHN OF HEXHAM (c. 1160–1209), English chronicler, is
known to us merely as the author of a work called the Historia
XXV. annorum, which continues the Historia regum of Simeon
of Durham and contains an account of English events 1130–1153.
From the title, as given in the only manuscript, we learn John’s
name and the fact that he was prior of Hexham. It must have
been between 1160 and 1209 that he held this position; but the
date at which he lived and wrote cannot be more accurately
determined. Up to the year 1139 he follows closely the history
written by his predecessor, Prior Richard; thenceforward he is
an independent though not a very valuable authority. He is
best informed as to the events of the north country; his want of
care, when he ventures farther afield, may be illustrated by the
fact that he places in 1145 King Stephen’s siege of Oxford, which
really occurred in 1142. Even for northern affairs his chronology
is faulty; from 1140 onwards his dates are uniformly one year
too late. Prior Richard is not the only author to whom John is
indebted; he incorporates in the annal of 1138 two other narratives
of the battle of the Standard, one in verse by the
monk Serlo, another in prose by Abbot Ailred of Rievaux; and
also a poem, by a Glasgow clerk, on the death of Sumerled of the
Isles.
The one manuscript of John’s chronicle is a 13th century copy; MS. C. C. C. Cambridge, cxxxix. 8. The best edition is that of T. Arnold in Symeonis monachi opera, vol. ii. (Rolls Series, 1885). There is an English translation in J. Stevenson’s Church Historians of England, vol. iv. (London, 1856). (H. W. C. D.)
JOHN OF IRELAND (Johannis de Irlandia), (fl. 1480),
Scottish writer, perhaps of Lowland origin, was resident for thirty
years in Paris and later a professor of theology. He was confessor
to James IV. and also to Louis XI. of France, and was rector of
Yarrow (de Foresta) when he completed, at Edinburgh, the work
on which rests his sole claim as a vernacular writer. This book,
preserved in MS. in the Advocates’ Library, Edinburgh (MS. 18,
2, 8), and labelled “Johannis de Irlandia opera theologica,” is a
treatise in Scots on the wisdom and discipline necessary to a
prince, especially intended for the use of the young James IV.
The book is the earliest extant example of original Scots prose.
It was still in MS. in 1910, but an edition was promised by the
Scottish Text Society. In this book John refers to two other
vernacular writings, one “of the commandementis and uthir
thingis pretenand to the salvacioune of man,” the other, “of the
tabill of confessioune.” No traces of these have been discovered.
The author’s name appears on the registers of the university
of Paris and on the rolls of the Scottish parliaments, and
he is referred to by the Scottish historians, Leslie and
Dempster.
See the notices in John Lyden’s Introduction to his edition of the Complaynt of Scotlande (1801), pp. 85 seq.; The Scottish Antiquary, xiii. 111–115 and xv. 1–14. Annotated extracts are given in Gregory Smith’s Specimens of Middle Scots (1902).
JOHN OF RAVENNA. Two distinct persons of this name,
formerly confused and identified with a third (anonymous)
Ravennese in Petrarch’s letters, lived at the end of the 14th
and the beginning of the 15th century.
1. A young Ravennese born about 1347, who in 1364 went to live with Petrarch as secretary. In 1367 he set out to see the world and make a name for himself, returned in a state of destitution, but, growing restless again, left his employer for good in 1368. He is not mentioned again in Petrarch’s correspondence, unless a letter “to a certain wanderer” (vago cuidam), congratulating him on his arrival at Rome in 1373, is addressed to him.
2. Son of Conversanus (Conversinus, Convertinus). He is first heard of (Nov. 17, 1368) as appointed to the professorship of rhetoric at Florence, where he had for some time held the post of notary at the courts of justice. This differentiates him from (1). He entered (c. 1370) the service of the ducal house of Padua, the Carraras, in which he continued at least until 1404, although the whole of that period was not spent in Padua. From 1375 to 1379 he was a schoolmaster at Belluno, and was dismissed as too good for his post and not adapted for teaching boys. On the 22nd of March 1382, he was appointed professor of rhetoric at Padua. During the struggle between the Carraras and Viscontis, he spent five years at Udine (1387–1392). From 1395–1404 he was chancellor of Francis of Carrara, and is heard of for the last time in 1406 as living at Venice. His history of the Carraras, a tasteless production in barbarous Latin, says little for his literary capacity; but as a teacher he enjoyed a great reputation, amongst his pupils being Vittorino da Feltre and Guarino of Verona.
3. Malpaghini (De Malpaghinis), the most important. Born about 1356, he was a pupil of Petrarch from a very early age to 1374. On the 19th of September 1397 he was appointed professor of rhetoric and eloquence at Florence. On the 9th of June 1412, on the re-opening of the studio, which had been shut from 1405 to 1411 owing to the plague, his appointment was renewed for five years, before the expiration of which period he died (May 1417). Although Malpaghini left nothing behind him, he did much to encourage the study of Latin; among his pupils was Poggio Bracciolini.
The local documents and other authorities on the subject will be found in E. T. Klette, Beiträge zur Geschichte und Litteratur der italienischen Gelehrtenrenaissance, vol. i. (1888); see also G. Voigt, Die Wiederbelebung des klassischen Altertums, who, however, identifies (1) and (2).
JOHN OF SALISBURY (c. 1115–1180), English author,
diplomatist and bishop, was born at Salisbury between the years
1115 and 1120. Beyond the fact that he was of Saxon, not of
Norman race, and applies to himself the cognomen of Parvus,
“short,” or “small,” few details are known regarding his early
life; but from his own statements it is gathered that he crossed
to France about 1136, and began regular studies in Paris under
Abelard, who had there for a brief period re-opened his famous
school on Mont St Geneviève. After Abelard’s retirement, John
carried on his studies under Alberich of Reims and Robert of
Melun. From 1138 to 1140 he studied grammar and the
classics under William of Conches and Richard l’Evêque, the
disciples of Bernard of Chartres, though it is still a matter of
controversy whether it was in Chartres or not (cf. A. Clerval,
Les Écoles de Chartres au moyen âge, 1895). Bernard’s teaching
was distinguished partly by its pronounced Platonic tendency,
partly by the stress laid upon literary study of the greater Latin
writers; and the influence of the latter feature is noticeable in
all John of Salisbury’s works. About 1140 he was at Paris
studying theology under Gilbert de la Porrée, then under
Robert Pullus and Simon of Poissy. In 1148 he resided at
