John Rufus and the World Vision of Anti-Chalcedonian Culture

Abstract: The present study deals with the works of John Rufus, disciple of Peter the Iberian at Gaza. There are three works preserved from him, composed in Greek at the turn of the sixth century, and preserved in Syriac: the Life of Peter the Iberian, the Commemoration of the Death of Theodosius, and the Plerophories. This study reads the hagiographic works of John Rufus in search for the basic ideological motive behind the anti-Chalcedonian movement. Through John RufusÕ texts we encounter a culture that identified itself on the basis of the claim of walking in the paths of the holy fathers. It is argued that the ideals of this culture derived from virtues closely associated with Egyptian monasticism and the orthodox heritage of the great Alexandrine patriarchs. Its external borders were defined in terms of opposition to a dominant culture that surrounded this community and that was regarded as deeply polluted by the sins of secularism. At the heart of anti-Chalcedonian culture we find a radicalised notion of the struggle between the principles of materiality and the supernatural world. Reading John RufusÕ hagiography we find ourselves in the midst of a cosmological warfare between good and evil, where holy men enter into history as GodÕs warriors against the rebellion of demons and heretics. It is shown that this dualistic cosmology was a specific feature of the strong monastic opposition against the Council of Chalcedon in the fifth and sixth centuries. The study begins with a survey of the historical background of John RufusÕ works, including the Palestinian insurrection against Chalcedon, the monastic milieu at Gaza as the centre of anti-Chalcedonianism in Palestine, the idea of Egypt as the bulwark of orthodoxy and the birthplace of monasticism, the ideological tension between ascetic retreat and monastic involvement into the destiny of the church, and the debate on Emperor ZenoÕ Henoticon. Then follows an inventory of the preserved texts and a discussion of the evidence on the life of John Rufus. The subsequent analysis focuses on three rhetorical themes in John RufusÕ works: the question of the Òholy manÓ in relation to the divine initiative of God, the stories about visions and miracles and the way these function as confirmations of GodÕs judgement against heresy, and the dogmatic presumptions of John Rufus and the idea of heresy as pollution.