John the Deacon (Egyptian chronicler)

John the Deacon was a Monophysite Egyptian chronicler whose Life of the Patriarch Michael, finished c.768–70, is the most important source for Christian Nubia in the first half of the eighth century.[1] His book, written in Coptic, was later translated into Arabic and incorporated as the second part of the History of the Patriarchs of Alexandria.[2]

John was a spiritual disciple of Bishop Moses of Awsim, one of the most revered Coptic churchmen of his age.[2]

The later historian Sawirus ibn al-Muqaffaʿ made heavy use of John's Life, and although John is one of the only sources for the time and place, he is not always reliable. For instance, he records a Nubian invasion of Egypt that reached as far as Fustat in 745, after the Egyptians refused to release Michael, Patriarch of Alexandria.[1] This event appears to be a conflation of a real invasion of Upper Egypt and the imprisonment and liberation of the patriarch, made to coincide with a known period of Coptic uprisings and consequent persecution at the instigation of the Caliph Marwan II.[1] John is the only source to describe the dynastic struggles that followed the death c.730 of Merkurios, whom he refers to as a "new Constantine".[1] He is the earliest source to mention thirteen kings ruling Nubia under the high king Kyriakos at Old Dongola.[3] He is also an early source for the Arab slave trade.