John the Faster

Overview

John the Faster, also called John IV the Faster and John Jejunator, was a patriarch of Constantinople whose reputation combines severe personal asceticism, controversy over patriarchal authority, and a substantial penitential tradition transmitted under his name. The Coptic Encyclopedia identifies him as a native of Cappadocia and dates his patriarchate to 582–595; it also records his canonization by the Orthodox Church and a feast day of 2 September.¹

His importance for Coptic literary history rests particularly on a Greek homily on penitence and abstinence that was translated into Coptic. Its authorship is not certain, but its survival in two Coptic manuscript witnesses makes it a significant part of the transmission of works associated with Constantinopolitan bishops in Coptic. The encyclopedia distinguishes this possibly genuine homily from another penitential text attributed to John that it considers the work of a later writer.²³

John the Faster must be distinguished from Saint John the Short, also called John Colobos or John the Little. The encyclopedia lists the Constantinopolitan patriarch and the Egyptian desert father separately; ascetical stories about John the Short therefore do not establish details of the Faster’s life.⁴

History and origins

Cappadocian origin and entry into the clergy

The Coptic Encyclopedia states that John was born in Cappadocia and received the epithet “the Faster” because of his extreme asceticism. The Rudder supplies a fuller traditional account of his ecclesiastical beginnings: at the suggestion of Eutychius, patriarch of Constantinople, John entered the clergy and was ordained a deacon.¹⁵

According to The Rudder’s prologue, John initially resisted elevation after Eutychius’s death. It describes an extraordinary vision in which angels told him to cease resisting, after which he accepted the patriarchal throne against his own wishes. In this account he became the fourth patriarch of Constantinople named John.⁵

The narrative presents his accession as reluctant obedience rather than the pursuit of ecclesiastical distinction. This is the explanation supplied by the prologue itself: John yields because of the angelic command, while his personal life continues to be characterized by fasting and restricted sleep.⁵⁶

Chronological disagreement

The sources do not give a consistent date for John’s death. The Coptic Encyclopedia states that he died in 595 and assigns his patriarchate to 582–595. The Rudder’s prologue says that he flourished in 580 but places his death in 619. These dates should be reported as a disagreement rather than combined into a single chronology.¹⁵

The Rudder associates him with the reigns of Tiberius II Constantinus and Mauritius, also called Maurice, as well as an emperor it labels “Justin I (called the Younger).” Its discussion of the patriarchal title likewise places John’s use of that title in the reign of Maurice, whose name appears in varying spellings in the supplied text.⁵⁷

Ascetic life and traditions of miracles

Fasting and watchfulness

The Coptic Encyclopedia’s concise explanation of John’s epithet is expanded considerably in The Rudder. The latter reports that he drank no water for six months and that, over thirteen and a half years, his food consisted only of lettuce stalks or small amounts of watermelon, grapes, or figs. It also describes his sleep as exceedingly little and carefully measured.⁶

These are claims of the traditional account, not dietary instructions. Within that account, the hardships explain both the name “the Faster” and his reputation for holiness: the prologue explicitly connects his ascetic practices with a divine gift of working miracles during his life and after death.⁶

Miracles associated with John

The Rudder’s explanatory notes attribute several healings to John’s prayers. They report that he healed a blind man, enabled women who had been unable to conceive to have children, delivered a possessed person, and cured other illnesses.⁸

The same notes preserve the beginning of a posthumous miracle narrative involving Eparch Nilus. When Nilus approached to kiss John’s body, following a custom the text associates with the Greeks, the deceased patriarch is said to have risen and returned the kiss. The supplied passage ends before the narrative is complete, so its continuation cannot be reconstructed from this extract.⁸

The controversy over “Ecumenical Patriarch”

An existing title and John’s own use of it

John’s use of “Ecumenical Patriarch,” spelled “Oecumenical Patriarch” in The Coptic Encyclopedia, brought him into controversy with Pope Pelagius II and Pelagius’s successor, Gregory I the Great. The encyclopedia explains their protest in terms of the title’s implication that Constantinople was spiritually equal to Rome.¹

Both principal sources indicate that John did not invent the designation. The encyclopedia says that it had been given to his predecessor by the emperor and had also been used in Rome. The Rudder makes a narrower distinction: earlier patriarchs had been addressed with the title by others, whereas John was the first to apply it to himself in his subscription.¹⁷⁸

The Rudder places this development within a longer history of usage. It names Epiphanios, Anthimos, Menas, and Eutychios as bishops of Constantinople called Ecumenical Patriarchs in Justinian’s Novels and Edicts. It also recalls that Peter, the papal legate at the Seventh Ecumenical Synod, used the designation for Tarasios.⁷

Competing meanings of “ecumenical”

The Rudder explains the controversy through two possible meanings of the title. In the first, it would imply a bishop’s personal and monarchical authority over the whole Church. In the second, it would refer to authority over a major part of the inhabited world, together with care for the faith and the traditions of the synods and Fathers beyond the bishop’s own immediate see.⁷⁹

Its terminology is connected with the transliterated Greek word Oikoumene, the inhabited world. To illustrate the broader, nonliteral use of such language, it notes that emperors could be called rulers of the inhabited world even though they did not govern its entirety; Evagrios’s description of Zeno supplies its example.⁷

The Rudder interprets Pelagius and Gregory as rejecting the first meaning and John and the emperor as accepting the second. It recounts the popes’ exceptionally strong objections, including Gregory’s association of the title with a forerunner of Antichrist, but argues that both parties were right within their respective understandings. It reserves universal authority in the fullest sense to Christ.⁷⁹

This explanation differs in emphasis from The Coptic Encyclopedia’s account of a dispute over the spiritual standing of Constantinople relative to Rome. The encyclopedia emphasizes institutional equality; The Rudder emphasizes conflicting interpretations of an ambiguous title. Neither account should be silently substituted for the other.¹⁹

The Rudder further states that “Ecumenical” and “All-holiest” were titles established by custom rather than conferred by canons of the synods or Fathers. The encyclopedia records that John and his successors continued to use the disputed designation and that later popes also used it.¹⁹

Writings, texts, and terminology

The homily on penitence and abstinence

The most substantial Coptic literary witness associated with John is a long homily on penitence and abstinence, catalogued as Clavis patrum Graecorum 3.7555 and printed in Patrologia Graeca 88, columns 1937–1977. The Coptic Encyclopedia considers its attribution to John potentially genuine rather than certain.²

The work is predominantly monastic in character and consists largely of excerpts from [[John Chrysostom]], especially in its central section. The encyclopedia refers in this connection to De Aldama’s 1965 study, number 269. Its Chrysostomic material is therefore integral to the work’s composition, not merely an incidental parallel.²

Coptic manuscript witnesses

The Coptic translation survives complete in a seventh-century papyrus codex, identified in the source as British Museum, London, Or. 6001. A second witness consists of fragments from an eleventh-century papyrus codex, National Library, Vienna, K 7602–7613.³

One part of the London text differs from both the Greek version printed in Patrologia Graeca and the Vienna witness. The encyclopedia suggests that displaced pages in an earlier manuscript could account for this difference. Apart from that disturbance, it describes the Coptic as corresponding closely to the Greek.³

Both Coptic codices identify the author simply as “John, archbishop of Constantinople.” The encyclopedia suggests that Coptic readers probably understood this as John Chrysostom, whose name also appears occasionally as the author in the Greek tradition. The shared episcopal designation and the homily’s extensive Chrysostomic content thus accompany an unresolved attribution problem.²³

The penitential collection

The Rudder calls the penitential collection the Canonicon of the Faster and presents a principal series headed “The Thirty-Five Canons of John the Faster.” Its numerical catalogue likewise assigns John thirty-five canons.⁵¹⁰

Authorship requires caution. The Coptic Encyclopedia says that a penitential text attributed to John in Greek must belong to another writer because it apparently received its redaction in the twelfth century. By contrast, The Rudder defends the genuineness of the canons it has selected, while rejecting other canons circulating under his name as spurious. The supplied extracts do not establish a complete correspondence between the late text discussed by the encyclopedia and every item printed or cited in The Rudder.²¹¹

There is also a numbering problem within the supplied material: although the principal collection contains thirty-five canons, a commentary elsewhere cites Canon XLIII of the Faster. The extracts do not explain whether this reflects an expanded collection, another numbering system, or an error.¹⁰¹²

Theology and meaning of the penitential tradition

Repentance rather than elapsed time alone

The first canon, headed “Canon I (or Apology),” explains why periods of penitence may be shortened. It contrasts older prescriptions of abstinence from Communion with a system that gives explicit weight to fasting, vigils, genuflections, and other voluntarily accepted hardships. The stated condition is genuine repentance accompanied by a changed manner of life.¹³

The canon describes reductions linked to particular forms of abstinence: foregoing wine on appointed days, abstaining from meat, or renouncing cheese and eggs, fish, or olive oil. It assigns a reduction of one year for each such category in the examples given. Repeated genuflections and generous almsgiving also count, with the qualification that almsgiving should not exceed the penitent’s means.¹³

Entering the solitary life can justify a further reduction because the remaining life of the penitent will involve enduring ascetic hardship. The principle is consequently not that wrongdoing has become less serious, but that the form and intensity of repentance can affect the duration of exclusion from Communion.¹³

The Rudder’s commentary defends this approach by appealing to Basil the Great’s Canon LXXIV, which it understands as authorizing the increase or decrease of penances according to the person, disposition, and circumstances involved. It also quotes Nicephoros Chartophylax on adjusting penalties to each individual’s strength. On this interpretation, pastoral discretion serves the benefit of the penitent rather than an arbitrary relaxation of discipline.¹¹

Thoughts, struggle, and consent

The collection also addresses the moral significance of inward struggle. Canon IV states that “wrestling” deserves either a crown or punishment; its interpretation, drawing on John of the Ladder, explains that the soul may overcome a troubling thought or be overcome by it. Canon V identifies consent as the origin of penances.¹⁴

Elsewhere, The Rudder directs readers to John’s Canons II–V when discussing stages described as attack, assent, struggle, and captivity or passion. These references distinguish the arrival of a thought from the person’s response to it, although the supplied extracts do not reproduce the entire sequence of canons and interpretations.¹⁵

Liturgical and practical use

Confession and access to Communion

The Rudder states that the Faster’s canons were widely used by confessors, both in earlier times and in the compilers’ own day, to hear confessions and correct penitents. This is evidence for the collection’s reception in the tradition represented by that book, not by itself evidence of present-day Coptic pastoral practice.¹¹

Many provisions regulate access to the Eucharist. The collection’s central explanation treats exclusion from Communion as a penalty whose duration can be adjusted in relation to repentance and ascetic effort; The Rudder elsewhere summarizes John’s method as judging by fasting, prostrations, and other hardships accepted by the penitent.¹³¹⁶

Homicide, negligence, and responsibility

A comparative discussion assigns to John’s Canon XX three years for involuntary homicide and five years for intentional killing. In the same passage, Basil’s periods are given as eleven and twenty years respectively, while Gregory of Nyssa’s are nine and twenty-seven. The comparison illustrates the shorter periods associated with the Faster’s tradition, though the accompanying ascetical conditions must also be considered in light of Canon I.¹²¹³

Other references concern responsibility for an infant’s death. Canon XXVI is cited as treating abandonment of infants at church doors as murder, while Canon XXIII is described as treating a mother’s fatal overlaying of her infant as murder when caused by negligence. Another commentary cites the same Canon XXIII in connection with moderate penalties and a different explanation involving abandonment by God because of other misdeeds; the extracts do not provide the complete canon needed to reconcile these presentations.¹²¹⁷

The same comparative discussion attributes to Canon XLIII the rule that a fatal blow constitutes murder whether the person delivering it initiated the fight or responded to another’s attack.¹²

Clerical and sexual discipline

The Rudder attributes to John distinctions between sexual misconduct before and after ordination. Its discussion of masturbation allows admission to orders after a penalty when the act preceded ordination; for an ordained cleric it describes one year’s suspension and additional discipline, with deposition and placement among readers for repeated lapses after recognition of the act’s sinfulness.¹⁸

Other passages associate his tradition with six years’ deprivation of Communion for intercourse with a mother-in-law, three-year penalties for a woman’s intercourse with two brothers or with a eunuch, and an eight-year penalty for a sexual act with one’s wife designated arsenocoetia in the translation. The latter provisions combine duration with restricted eating after the ninth hour and specified daily numbers of prostrations or genuflections.¹⁹²⁰

Further cross-references direct readers to canons attributed to John for bestiality and prohibited relationships involving godparental kinship, but the relevant penalties are not reproduced in those extracts. These references establish the range of subjects associated with the collection without supplying a complete system of rules.²¹

Bodily conditions and sacramental discipline

The supplied text also contains prescriptions concerning bodily emissions, including recitation of Psalm 50 and forty-nine metanies, and in another provision seven days’ exclusion from Communion. A separate discussion associates John with restrictions on Communion during menstruation, while another assigns forty days to vomiting after Communion. These are historical prescriptions reported by The Rudder, not instructions established here for contemporary practice.¹⁴¹⁷²²

A note concerning Baptism refers to the commentary on John’s Canon XXIV regarding an infant baptized in mortal danger by someone described as an “unholy person.” It says that, if the child survives, a priest is to baptize the child. Because the passage explicitly points to a footnote, this statement should be distinguished from a verbatim quotation of John’s canon.²³

The Rudder also cross-references Canon VI alongside a canon on scriptural teaching, Canon XXVII alongside a provision allowing sinners to enter monastic life, and three canons associated with John in a discussion of monks ministering to nuns. These are evidence of how the collection was used within a larger canonical commentary rather than full quotations of the referenced texts.²⁴

Saints and figures connected with John

John’s traditional biography connects him with Eutychius, who encouraged his entry into the clergy, and with Eparch Nilus in the posthumous miracle narrative. His patriarchal title brought him into dispute with Pelagius II and Gregory the Great, with the emperor Maurice also appearing in the discussion.⁵⁸⁹

His literary and penitential reception connects him especially with John Chrysostom, whose writings supply much of the Coptic-preserved homily; Basil the Great, whose canonical principles are invoked to defend adjusted penances; Gregory of Nyssa, whose penalties are compared with his; and John of the Ladder, used to explain inward spiritual struggle.^2111214

Historical reception and significance for Coptic studies

The clearest specifically Coptic evidence is the preservation of the homily in seventh- and eleventh-century manuscripts. These witnesses show the circulation of a Greek monastic exhortation in Coptic while preserving an authorial designation broad enough to create uncertainty between two bishops of Constantinople named John.³

John’s reception therefore has distinct dimensions: the patriarch remembered for fasting and a contested title, the possible author of a homily transmitted in Coptic, and the authoritative name attached to a penitential collection whose authorship is disputed. Keeping these dimensions separate allows the manuscript evidence, traditional biography, and later canonical use to be described without assuming that every work bearing his name was personally composed by him.¹²¹¹

The Rudder’s own evidence also requires differentiation: its commentary places the selected canons outside the group confirmed by the Sixth Ecumenical Synod, whereas a supplied topical index describes John’s canons as accepted by the ecumenical synods. The discrepancy remains unresolved in the extracts and cautions against deriving a precise account of formal canonical authorization from the index alone.¹¹²⁵