SEVERUS OF ANTIOCH (c. 465-538), the most famous of Monophysite
leaders. Evagrius (Historia ecclesiastica, 3.33) said that he
was born and brought up in Sozopolis in Pisidia. It is also
known that he studied law and was trained in grammar and
rhetoric at Beirut. Much of what is known of his career comes
down through the distorted views of his theological opponents.
Upon completion of his legal training, Severus became a
Monophysite and went to live in a monastery. The first community
where he lived was situated between Maiuma and Gaza. He then
became acquainted with Peter the Iberian, who had been ordained
bishop of Gaza by Theodosius, the fiery Monophysite monk. Soon
he joined a Eutychian monastery near Eleutheropolis under the
archimandrite Mamas, and he continued to further his spiritual
development in monophysitism. He strongly rejected the HENOTICON
of Zeno and called it by various negative epithets such as
diaireticon (disuniting edict). At the same time, he
anathematized PETER MONGUS, the Monophysite p