John's authority was harshly questioned twice by
Jerome, then
abbot in
Bethlehem. The first time was in the frame of the first polemic with
Origen's followers, and is narrated mainly in Jerome's treatise dedicated to
Pammachius "
Contra Ioannes Hierosolymitanum (Against John of Jerusalem)", as well as in other letters of Jerome (n. 51, 82 and 86). Jerome accused John of supporting the ideas of the
Origenists. The Origenist doctrines attributed to John were: (i.) that the
Son does not see the
Father; (ii.) that souls are confined in earthly bodies, as in a prison; (iii.) that the
devil may be saved; (iv.) that the skins with which God clothed
Adam and Eve were human bodies; (v.) that the body in the
resurrection will be without sex; (vi.) that the descriptions of
Paradise are allegorical: trees meaning
angels, and rivers the heavenly virtues; (vii) that the waters above and below the firmament are angels and devils; (viii.) that the image of God was altogether lost at the
Fall. The immediate occasion of this crisis was the visit of
Epiphanius, bishop of Salamis in
Cyprus, at Jerusalem, in 394. Epiphanius preached, in the
Church of the Resurrection, a pointed sermon against Origenism, which was thought to be directly aimed at John. After many unseemly scenes, Epiphanius advised Jerome and his friends to separate from their bishop John. To be fully independent from him, Epiphanius ordained Paulinian (Jerome's brother) to priesthood. Epiphanius attempted to defend his irregular action, but John appealed to
Alexandria against Jerome and his supporters as schismatics. The bishop,
Theophilus, at once took the side of John. The dispute was thus prolonged for about four years, and, after some attempts at reconciliation, and the exhibition of much bitterness, amounting to the practical excommunication of Jerome and his friends, the dispute was stopped, perhaps by Theophilus. The dispute broke out afresh when Jerome deeply criticized the reception reserved by John for some of the 400 Origenistic monks of
Nitria, dispelled by the Egyptian deserts by the bishop of Alexandria Theophilus (fifty of these monks went to
Constantinople, and found there a cordial welcome with the bishop
John Chrysostom in 401). The second harsh attack against John was triggered off in 414 by Jerome and concerned
Pelagius.
Jerome, supported by a
Latin disciple of
Augustine of the name of
Paulus Orosius, took a stand against the deacon
Pelagius, who was then received in Jerusalem and not explicitly condemned by the local
synod of Diospolis (415). We have a letter of
Pope Innocent I who censures John for having allowed the Pelagians to cause a disturbance at Bethlehem and exhorts him to be more watchful over his diocese in future: this letter is dated 417, the year of the death of both John and Innocent, and it is probable that John never received it. Although sources are more diverse here, the accusation of
arianism seems a little simplistic and it is probable that we do not have all the information needed to understand the situation. In 415, two years before his death in 417, he was probably directly involved in the discovery of the
Relics of
Saint Stephen. ==Writings==