"Yerak"

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Hieraks or Hieraks is an Egyptian scholar, calligrapher and religious figure, Christian by religion, founder of the Hierakite sect.

Biography

Hierax was born around 275 in the Egyptian city of Leontopol (Leontopolis), where he lived most of his conscious life. Jeracus was an Egyptian and lived in the Egyptian city of Leontopolis. Jeracus knew the Egyptian language perfectly, and spoke Greek fluently. Epiphanius writes that Jeracus was a man capable in all respects. Jeracus received information in the preparatory sciences, and then began to study all the Hellenic sciences, carefully studied medicine and other natural sciences, probably touched even astronomy and magic; and was highly educated in many sciences. Epiphanius, who read the works of Hierak, speaks of him as a skilled writer. In the beginning, Jeracus was a Christian and a member of the Christian community. Being in the Christian church, Jeracus diligently studies the Old and New Testaments, and as a result proposes new interpretations of the Holy Scriptures, different from the general Christian ones, on the basis of which he creates his doctrine, different from the Christian one. Epiphanius believed that the religious views of Hierak were influenced by the teachings of Manes.

Jeracus wrote a series of commentaries on the Bible (in Greek and Coptic). Among his works is the work “On Many New Psalms”.

Jeracus became the founder of an ascetic sect professing a doctrine reminiscent of Didache and Didascalius and the Order of the Essenes. Jeracus saw in the commandments of purity, abstinence, and especially celibacy the main difference between the Bible and the Gospel. The teachings of Hierak were largely reflected in the ideas of Origen. He called Isaiah’s Ascension “sacred and authentic.”

The teachings of Hieraxes were spread especially among Egyptian monks.

Notes

Literature
Harnack A. Real Encycl., VIII, 3, pp. 38-39; idem, Gesch. altchr. Literat, I, 467.
Bronzes A. St. Macarius of Egypt, I, 1899
The Orthodox Theological Encyclopedia. 6, 251-54.

References
Epiphanius of Cyprus. Eighty heresies of Panarius, or the Ark. Against the Hierakit. Forty-seventh, and by general order, sixty-seventh heresy.
John of Damascus. "A hundred heresies in brief"

Egyptian calligraphers
Founders of sects