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832 27. the definition and enforcement of orthodoxy
together with his influence over the Monophysite groups, his prestige in the
eyes of imperial authority sharply declined.
The hopelessness of attemping to enforce unity, let alone Chalcedonian
orthodoxy, on anarchic Monophysite groups had become plain. Although
there is little reliable and comprehensive information about ecclesiastical
events in the reign of Tiberius’ successor Maurice (582–602) because of the
polarity between the pro- and anti-Chalcedonian sources, it seems that
Maurice too abandoned formal negotiations with Monophysites. Outside
the empire he was able to secure Georgia for the Chalcedonian cause, but he
was unsuccessful in substituting Chalcedonianism for Monophysitism in
Armenia. Notwithstanding the fact that the wars with Persia will have preoccupied
the emperor until the Byzantine victory in 591, there is more than
a suggestion that Monophysites were persecuted during his reign. According
to John of Ephesus, John the Faster, patriarch of Constantinople at the time
(582–95), asked why pagans were given amnesty while Monophysite
Christians were persecuted. 83 At the instigation of his nephew Domitian, the
metropolitan of Melitene, the emperor apparently gave permission for a persecution
of Monophysites near Melitene, but the persecution cannot have
achieved significant proportions, for Maurice became a saint in the
Monophysite tradition. 84 In the Nestorian tradition, too, he appears in a hagiographical
light. 85
Soon after the accession of Peter of Callinicum, another dispute arose
in Monophysite circles as a result of the sophist Proba and the archimandrite
Juhannan Barbur, who appear to have applied the philosophical terminology
of the Alexandrian sophist Stephen to Christ. 86 Their teaching
that it was impossible to maintain the difference in natural quality in
Christ’s natures without confessing at the same time a division and plurality
of natures brought them close to the Dyophysite position. Their
evangelization among Monophysites was so successful that in c. 585 Peter
of Callinicum convoked a synod at Goubbā Barrāyā, the headquarters of
the Monophysite patriarchate between Aleppo and Mabbug, in order to
excommunicate them and check the progress of their doctrine. Together
with their followers in many monasteries, Proba and Juhannan Barbur
subsequently went over to the Chalcedonian side, where they were
accepted by the Chalcedonian patriarch of Antioch, Anastasius (559–70;
593–8). 87
Stability among Monophysite groups was also threatened by the dissolution
of the Ghassanid federation in 584 after al-Mundhir had fallen under
suspicion of treachery to the Byzantine state. Many members of the Arab
83 John Eph. HE v.15. 84 Mich. Syr. Chron. ed. Chabot ii.381. See Allen, Evagrius 27.
85 See Nau (1910) 773–8. 86 Uthemann (1985) 398–9.
87 Mich. Syr. Chron. ed. Chabot ii.361–3; Van Roey (1961).
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