Jacobus (15) or James
Baradaeus (Al
Baradai, Burdoho, Burdeono, Burdeana, or
Burdeaya, also Phaselita, or Zanzalus), ordained by the Monophysites bp. of Edessa (c. 541), with oecumenical authority over the members of their body throughout the East. By his indomitable zeal and untiring activity this remarkable man rescued the Monophysite community from the extinction with which persecution by the imperial power threatened it, and breathed a new life into what seemed little more than an expiring faction, consecrating bishops, ordaining clergy, and uniting its scattered elements in an organization so well planned and so stable that it has subsisted unharmed through all the many political and dynastic storms in that portion of the world, and preserves to the present day the name of its founder as the Jacobite church of the East. Materials for his Life are furnished by two Syriac biographies by his contemporary, John of Asia, the Monophysite bp. of Ephesus ordained by him, printed by Land (Anecdota Syriaca, vol. ii. pp. 249–253, pp. 364–383), and by the third part of the Eccles. History of the same author (Payne Smith's trans. pp. 273–278, 291).
The surname Baradaeus is derived from the
ragged mendicant's garb patched up out of
old saddle-cloths, in which, the better to disguise
his spiritual functions from the unfriendly
eyes of those in power, this indefatigable
propagator of his creed performed his swift and
secret journeys over Syria and Mesopotamia.
James Baradaeus is stated by John of
Ephesus to have been born at Tela Mauzalat, otherwise called Constantina, a city of Osrhoëne, 55 miles due E. of Edessa, towards the close of 5th cent. His father, Theophilus Bar-Manu, was one of the clergy of the place. In pursuance of a vow of his parents, James, when two years old, was placed in that monastery under the care of abbat Eustathius, and trained in Greek and Syriac literature and in the strictest asceticism (Land, Anecdot. Syr. t. ii. p. 364). He became remarkable for the severity of his self-discipline. Having on the death of his parents inherited their property, including a couple of slaves, he manumitted them, and made over the house and estate to them, reserving nothing for himself (ib. 366). He eventually became a presbyter. His fame spread over the East and reached the empress Theodora, who was eagerly desirous of seeing him, as one of the chief saints of the Monophysite party of which she was a zealous partisan. James was with much difficulty induced to leave his monastery for the imperial city. Arriving at Constantinople, he was received with much honour by Theodora. But the splendour of the court had no attractions for him. He retired to one of the monasteries of the city, where he lived as a complete recluse. The period spent by him at Constantinople—15 years, according to John of Ephesus—was a disastrous one for the Monophysite body. Justinian had resolved to enforce the Chalcedonian decrees universally, and the bishops and clergy who refused them were punished with imprisonment, deprivation, and exile. Whole districts of Syria and the adjacent countries were thus deprived of their pastors, and the Monophysites were threatened with gradual extinction. For ten years many churches had been destitute of the sacraments, which they refused to receive from what were to them heretical hands. The extreme peril of the Monophysites was represented to Theodora by the sheikh Harith, and by her instrumentality the recluse James was drawn from his cell and persuaded to accept the hazardous and laborious post of the apostle of Monophysitism in the East. A considerable number of Monophysite bishops from all parts of the East, including Theodosius of Alexandria, Anthimus the deposed patriarch of Constantinople, Constantius of Laodicea, John of Egypt, Peter, and others, who had come to Constantinople in the hope of mitigating the displeasure of the emperor and exciting the sympathies of Theodora, were held by Justinian in one of the imperial castles in a kind of honourable imprisonment. By them James was consecrated to the episcopate, nominally as bp. of Edessa but virtually as a metropolitan with oecumenical authority. The date is uncertain, but that given by Assemani ( 541) is probably correct. The result proved the wisdom of the choice. Of the simplest mode of life, inured to hardship from his earliest years, tolerant of the extremities of