Joannes (509), called of Bêth-Rabbân or Bêthnarsi, disciple and successor in the 6th cent. of Jacobus the founder of the monastery of Bêth-Haba. Jesujab, bp. of Nineveh, stated that Joannes had been a monk 70 years before his departure from Bêth-Haba; 30 years he had lived as a solitary, 40 with Jacobus as a coenobite. Joannes was for some time in the monastery of Bêth-Rabbân, which was subject to the same abbat as Bêth-Haba. Ebedjesu (ap. Assem. Bibl. Or. III. i. 72) states that he wrote a commentary on Ex., Lev., Num., Job, Jer., Ezk., and Prov., also certain tracts against Magi, Jews, and heretics. He also wrote prayers for Rogation days, a prayer on the death of Chosroes I. (d. 579), and on a plague which befel Nisibis, besides paracletic addresses for each order in the church ( i.e. metrical discourses read in the office of the dead), a book of questions relating to O. and N. T., psalms, hymns, and chants. One of his hymns is in the Mosul Breviary, p. 61, and in a MS. in the Brit. Mus. (Wright, Cat. p. 135). Rosen and Forshall ( Cat. MSS. xii. 3 n.) mention another hymn of his. Cf. also Lelong, Bibl. Sacr. ii. 794.
[C.J.B.]
Designed to render to a wider circle, alike of clergy and of laity, the service which, as is generally admitted, has been rendered to the learned world by The Dictionary of Christian Biography, Literature, Sects, and Doctrines, published under the editorship of Dr. Wace and the late Dr. Wm. Smith, about twenty years ago, in four large volumes.Wikipedia
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