Yoḥannan of Dailam (d. 738) [Ch. of E.]
Monk and missionary. He was a monk of the Monastery of Beth ʿAbe, but was taken prisoner to Dailam; there, once he had been freed, he converted many pagans. Travelling to Damascus, he is said to have healed a child of ʿAbd al-Malik. He finally settled in Fars, near Arragan, founding a bilingual monastery, with Syriac- and Persian-speaking monks. A fragment of the earliest form of his Life is known in Sogdian translation. Later developments are to be found in an E.-Syr. verse narrative and a W.-Syr. prose Life. There are also short notices in Toma of Marga (‘Book of [monastic] Superiors’, II.22–5) and Ishoʿdnaḥ (‘Book of Chastity’, 104, 116). A few short liturgical texts are attributed to him.
Sources
- S. P. Brock, ‘A Syriac Life of John of Dailam’, ParOr 10 (1981/2), 123–89.
- J.-M. Fiey, ‘Jean de Daylam et l’imbroglio de ses fondations’, POC 10 (1960), 195–211.
- W. Sundermann, ‘Ein Bruchstück einer soghdischen Kirchengeschichte aus Zentralasien?’ Acta Antiqua Academiae Scientiarum Hungaricae 24 (1976), 95–101.