Jacob Bardaeus

(d. 578)

   Bishop and supposed Sect Founder.

   Jacob was a native of Tella, near Edessa. He became a monk at the monastery of Phesilta. From there he visited Constantinople to plead the cause of the Monophysites with the Empress theodora. In about 542 he was consecrated Bishop of Edessa and spent the rest of his life as an itinerant preacher. He was nicknamed Bardaeus (‘ragged’) because, to avoid arrest, he disguised himself as a beggar. For nearly forty years he travelled between the rivers Nile and Euphrates, founding independent churches and monasteries. The Monophysites of Syria, who rejected the doctrine of the two natures of Jesus Christ, were described as Jacobites in commemoration of Jacob’s work. Led by the Monophysite Patriarch of Antioch, the Jacobite Church still exists.

   W.H.C. Frend, The Rise of the Monophysite Movement (1972).