St. Joannes Saba

• St. Joannes Saba was a native of Ninevah who flourished in the 6th century; some believed that he lived in the 8th century.
• Wace & Piercy (p. 568) gives the date as 507.
• He was an Orthodox monk of Dilaita or Dalyatha, a small town on the west bank of the Euphrates.
• He is known as “The Spiritual Elder” (in Syriac, “elder” means “Sabaﺎﺳﺒ.”
• He was Nestorian by birth and probably became a monk in a Nestorian monastery. Afterwards, when he became aware of the faults of Nestorianism, he abandoned the Nestorian Church of the East and established a monastery which adhered to true Orthodox doctrine and prayers.
• Approximately 300 years after his death in 786-7, he was anathematized by a synod of the Nestorian Church, presided over by Catholicos Timotheus (780-823).
• The Nestorians opposed his writings because he adopted Orthodox doctrines against the doctrines of the Nestorian

Church.

• In many places in his writings he refers to the Virgin St. Mary as “Theotokos,” Mother of God.

• His works are 30 discourses and 48 epistles, of which Syriac and Arabic manuscripts exist in the Roman libraries.
• His style is marked by persuasive eloquence; the works are headed, “On the divine gifts and spiritual solace vouchsafed to the monks for their comfort and delight.”
• His writings are recognized and famous in the Syrian, Coptic, and Ethiopian Orthodox Churches.
• In Letter 5, St. John Saba wrote: Your door is open, Lord, and no one is entering. Your glory is revealed, but no one pays attention. Your light shines out in the pupils of our eyes, but we are not willing to see. Your right hand is extended, ready to give, but there is no one who takes from it! You entice us with all sorts of attractions, but we ignore them. You instill fear with terrors which are nevertheless intermingled with mercy, but we do not flee to You. O our God

who is good, have pity on our miserable state… Remove our soul from prison, for we have imprisoned ourselves, and bring us to the true light.