Theologian, abbot, and solitary of the Ch. of E., who has been viewed as the
systematizer of the mystical and ascetic life for the Syriac-speaking
churches. The primary source for Yawsep’s life is ‘The Book of Chastity’ by
[
Ishoʿdnaḥ
](https://gedsh.bethmardutho.org/Ishodnah) of Baṣra (ca. 868–70). Yawsep was born to Persian
Zoroastrian parents in the village of Nimrud early in the 8th cent. (ca.
710?). After the village rebelled against Caliph ʿUmar b. ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz (r.
717–20), the latter retaliated, and soldiers captured the seven-year-old
Yawsep, eventually selling him as a slave to an Arab, then later to a
Christian of Qardu in present-day northern Iraq. Impressed by the life of
the monks of the nearby monastery of Yoḥannan of Kamul, Yawsep asked to be
baptized and was allowed to enter at a young age into the monastery of Abba
Ṣliba in [
Beth Nuhadra
](https://gedsh.bethmardutho.org/Beth-Nuhadra)
in northern Iraq. After the obligatory novitiate in the cenobitic community,
Yawsep established himself as a hermit in Qardu for a number of years. Later
he was made the head of the monastery of Mar Bassima, also in Qardu, but
eventually he returned to the eremitic life in the mountain of Zinai in [
Adiabene
](https://gedsh.bethmardutho.org/Adiabene) of northeast Iraq. In the neighborhood of his hermitage
was another monastery, that of Rabban Bakhtishoʿ, and before long Yawsep was
persuaded to become their abbot, remaining until his death. [
ʿAbdishoʿ bar
Brikha
](https://gedsh.bethmardutho.org/Abdisho-bar-Brikha) (d. 1318) said that Yawsep had written an incredible number
of works, 1900 in total, but only ten were extant by ʿAbdishoʿ’s time. His
most systematic work, ‘A letter on the three stages of the monastic life’,
was not positively identified as his work until the last thirty years. In
the ms. tradition it was attributed to [
Philoxenos
of Mabbug
](https://gedsh.bethmardutho.org/Philoxenos-of-Mabbug), but a number of items in and about the text had raised
questions about its authorship for quite some time. A synod called in
786–787 by the
Patr.
patr.
of the Ch. of E.
[
Timotheos I
](https://gedsh.bethmardutho.org/Timotheos-I)
condemned a trio of writers — [
Yoḥannan
Iḥidaya
](https://gedsh.bethmardutho.org/Yohannan-Ihidaya), [
Yoḥannan of
Dalyatha
](https://gedsh.bethmardutho.org/Yohannan-of-Dalyatha), and Yawsep Ḥazzaya — for some of their theological
ideas. Yawsep was accused of messalianist tendencies, supposedly claiming
that it is necessary to reject prayer and the office in order to receive the
gifts of the Spirit. Allied to this is the alleged doctrine that the gmirā (the perfect or mature person) no longer has
any need of active prayer, the offices, reading, or manual labor. Neither
charge has any substantive foundation in the known writings of Yawsep. The
synod denied the possibility of perfection for human nature, except for that
of Christ.