Philoxenus of Mabbug

Philoxenus was the Syriac-speaking bishop of Mabbug (Hierapolis) in Syria, one of the great masters of classical Syriac prose and the foremost defender of miaphysite — one-nature — Christology against the Council of Chalcedon. He sponsored a fresh Syriac translation of the New Testament, the “Philoxenian” version, and wrote a celebrated set of thirteen Discourses on the ascetical life. His firm opposition to Chalcedon cost him his see: exiled by the emperor Justin I, he died in banishment about 523. He is honoured as a saint in the Syriac Orthodox Church, which does not accept Chalcedon.