Nothing is known of John's life beyond the facts that around 825 he was consecrated as metropolitan of Dara by Patriarch Dionysios of Tel Maḥre and that before that he was a monk of Mar Hananya.
He addresses him in the preface, which has been preserved in Michael the Great's chronicle: Since your soul is set insatiably and with an unbridled desire upon the accumulation of wisdom, you, who are dearer than any to me, my spiritual son [John], metropolitan of Dara; and since divine learning is not enough for you, nor the dogmas of Orthodoxy, in which you have been trained from the softness of your fingernails until the silvering of your hair ...
I perceive you are so enflamed with the desire to accumulate wisdom, that you must also muse upon the texts containing narratives of the events that have occurred in the world.
[3] Attributed to John are treatises on the soul (in eight chapters),[1] Paradise,[2] Creation,[2] the economy of salvation,[2] the resurrection of Jesus,[2] Pentecost,[2] the discovery of the True Cross,[2] demons,[2] and Christian doctrine in general.
[3] He also quotes from the pseudo-Platonic treatise On the Subsistence of Soul's Virtues, which was written originally in Greek but survives only in Arabic.
[10] According to Bar Hebraeus' Hudoye (nomocanon), written in the 13th century, the writings of John were required reading the monasteries.