On Epistles 31 and 33

#31 and 33 each address comments relayed by a Sergius: #31 by letter, 33 verbally.

Sergius is called a "teacher" in both; I assume they are the same, and that the original messages came to Ishoʿyahb in the same visit. This means Sergius has come from bishop Sabrishoʿ, addressee of #31. Sergius has been met in #4 and #9. Maybe in the northern bishops' letters AD 612ish. Maybe in Thomas of Marga 1.33.

Mar John... I don't know. Ishoʿyahb of Nineveh #33 seems effusive for a top-down from bishop to lowly qshîsha, which means priest.

Scott-Moncrieff again reads more into these letters than they deserve; Bet-Garmay cannot have a "bishop" on account it already has a full Metropolitan, namely Gabriel, maybe even the Catholicos himself. He is however correct inasmuch Sabrishoʿ's see is probably in Bet-Garmay.

Back to Mar John, I wonder if this priest has more venerability than his stated rank. To that, there's the Arbelene. Dark-horse, Ishoʿdnah #23:

Saint Mar John, founder of Qanqal Monastery. — When Mar Babai the Great was in his monastery, this saint came to find him and placed himself under his direction. He stayed with him for some time. Then he went to Jerusalem and to Scete [in Egypt], and settled in the city of Emesa. For two years he took care of the shrine [containing] the head of John the Baptist; then he was ordained a priest by the Bishop of Emesa. After the death of the bishop, another bishop was ordained. A discord arose between him and the bishop, because the faithful honored him more than the bishop. He came to the city of Arzoun, on the bank of the river called Sarbat, near the village called Qanqal. He had many disciples. Mar John the Baptist appeared to him in a dream and said to him: Return to Emesa; go to the place where my reliquary is, take a relic of the hair of my head, I give it to you myself, and come back to build you a convent in this place. He went as he had been told in that dream, took the hair that the saint had given him, and returned to build a famous monastery. He put the hair in the eastern foundation of the altar. As the time of his death, he called his [spiritual] children and ordered them to place his body at the door of the church, outside, so that whoever came in or out would trample him underfoot, and that out of humility. He emigrated to Our Lord the First of Kanoun I, and his children deposited him at the door of the church, as he had prescribed. May his prayer help the sinful writer.

To slot John the Priest into what I can find of Emesa: he drifted from Mount Izla over to Emesa before AG 920, under Phocas at latest. During Heraclius' first year the Persians came to Emesa and installed Basil. They still allowed "Easterners" - that is, Nestorians - safe passage "home". After Heraclius had secured Emesa for his Christology, two decades later, would have been a good time for John to travel back.

Of interest is that Arzun - whither this John washed up - was one of Athanasius' new sees. But plenty of Nestorians shared the place; many such metropolitans and abbots had their ancestry there. Was this Sabrishoʿ's see?

I also find, at the end of the Yazdshapur letter #20, this: Now the aim is to take care that - as far as possible - our brother the Godloving Mar John over there is encountered as infirm, although there has been no universal, but only partial agreement, and some of them have agreed.

FIEY 4/16/23: E. XXXI, XXXIII footnoted ch. II, p. 312 in French.