Jacob of Tsurtavi also known as Jacob the Priest (იაკობ ხუცესი, Iakob Khutsesi) was the 5th-century Georgian

Georgia (country)

Georgia is a sovereign state in the Caucasus region of Eurasia. Located at the crossroads of Western Asia and Eastern Europe, it is bounded to the west by the Black Sea, to the north by Russia, to the southwest by Turkey, to the south by Armenia, and to the southeast by Azerbaijan. The capital of...

 religious writer and priest from Tsurtavi, then the major town of Gogarene and the Lower Iberia

Caucasian Iberia

Iberia , also known as Iveria , was a name given by the ancient Greeks and Romans to the ancient Georgian kingdom of Kartli , corresponding roughly to the eastern and southern parts of the present day Georgia...

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A personal priest of Saint Shushanik

Shushanik

Saint Shushanik was a Christian woman who was murdered by her husband Varsken in the town of Tsurtavi, Georgia. Since she died defending her right to profess Christianity, she is regarded as a martyr...

 and an eyewitness of her martyrdom at the hand of her spouse, bidaxae Varsken, Jacob compiled her life in his hagiographic

Hagiography

Hagiography is the study of saints.From the Greek and , it refers literally to writings on the subject of such holy people, and specifically to the biographies of saints and ecclesiastical leaders. The term hagiology, the study of hagiography, is also current in English, though less common...

 novel the Martyrdom of the Holy Queen Shushanik

Martyrdom of the Holy Queen Shushanik

The Martyrdom of the Holy Queen Shushanik is the first extant piece of Georgian literature. Purported to have been written between 476 and 483, the earliest surviving manuscript dates from the 10th century...

, the oldest surviving work of the Georgian literature written between 476 and 483. Except for scarce information obtained from his work, nothing more is known about Jacob’s life.