Joannes
111. Of SCYTHOPOLIS, a Greek ecclesiastical writer, apparently of the latter end of the fifth century or the beginning of the sixth.
Works
Contra desertores Ecclesiae
He wrote a work against the followers of Eutyches and Dioscorus, entitled Κατὰ τῶν ἀποσχιστῶν τῆς ἐκκλησίας, Contra desertores Ecclesiae. It was divided into twelve parts, and was undertaken at the suggestion of a certain prelate, one Julianus, in reply to an anonymous Eutychian writer, who had published a book deceitfully entitled Κατὰ Νεστορίον, Adversus Nestorium, and whom Photius supposed to be Basilius, a presbyter of Cilicia. This Basilius wrote a reply to Joannes in very abusive style, charging him, among other things, with being a Manichaean, and with restricting Lent to a period of three weeks, and not abstaining from flesh even in that shortened period.
Scholia
Certain Παραθέσεις, Scholia, to the works of the pseudo Dionysius Areopagita, which Usher has observed to be mingled in the printed editions of Dionysius with the Scholia of St. Maximus, have been ascribed to Joannes of Scythopolis. Anastasius Bibliothecarius in the eighth century made a Latin translation of these mingled scholia, not now extant, in which he professed to distinguish those of Maximus from those of Joannes by the mark of a cross. Fabricius identifies the Scholia of Joannes with the Commentarii in Dionysium Arcopagitum cited by Joannes Cyparissiota as by Dionysius of Alexandria.
Further Information
Phot. Bibl. cod. 95, 107; Usher, Dissert. de Scriptis Dionys. Areop. suppositis, p. 299, subjoined to his Historia Dogmatica de Scripturis, &c. Vernaculis, 4to. Lond. 1689; Fabric. Bibl. Gr. vol. vii. p. 9, vol. x. pp. 707, 710; Cave, Hist. Litt. vol. i. p. 466.
From William Smith (ed.), Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology. Text provided under a CC BY-SA license by Perseus Digital Library, http://www.perseus.tufts.edu, with funding from the National Endowment for the Humanities and Tufts University. Data accessed from https://github.com/PerseusDL/canonical-pdlrefwk/ on 17 October 2026.