Background
Saint John of Damascus was born in the third quarter of the 7th century AD, in Damascus, to a prominent Damascene Christian family known as "Mansoūr".
(Contents: ST. HILARY OF POITIERS: On the Councils, or the...)
Contents: ST. HILARY OF POITIERS: On the Councils, or the Faith of the Easterns.- On the Trinity.- Homilies on the Psalms. ST. JOHN OF DAMASCUS: Exposition of the Orthodox Faith. Includes indexes of subjects and scripture texts.
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(St. John of Damascus was the last of the Greek Fathers. H...)
St. John of Damascus was the last of the Greek Fathers. His genius was not for original theological development, but for compilation of an encyclopedic character. In fact, the state of full development to which theological thought had been brought by the great Greek writers and councils left him little else than the work of an encyclopedist; and this work he performed in such manner as to merit the gratitude of all succeeding ages. Some consider him the precursor of the Scholastics, while others regard him as the first Scholastic, and his "Exposition of the Orthodox Faith" as the first work of Scholasticism.
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(Saint John of Damascus(c. 676 - 4 December 749) was an Ar...)
Saint John of Damascus(c. 676 - 4 December 749) was an Arab Christian monk and priest. Born and raised in Damascus, he died at his monastery, Mar Saba, near Jerusalem. A polymath whose fields of interest and contribution included law, theology, philosophy, and music, before being ordained, he served as a Chief Administrator to the Muslim caliph of Damascus, wrote works expounding the Christian faith, and composed hymns which are still in everyday use in Eastern Christian monasteries throughout the world.
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(John of Damascus - (c. 675-749), Syrian monk and priest S...)
John of Damascus - (c. 675-749), Syrian monk and priest Saint John Damascene has the double honor of being the last but one of the fathers of the Eastern Church, and the greatest of her poets. It is surprising, however, how little that is authentic is known of his life. The account of him by John of Jerusalem, written some two hundred years after his death, contains an admixture of legendary matter, and it is not easy to say where truth ends and fiction begins. St. Hilary of Poitiers - (ca. 315-367), Bishop of Poitiers Hilary was bishop of Poitiers in west central France and was the leading orthodox Latin church father during the peak of the Arian power. Hilary was born into a prominent pagan family of Poitiers and was educated in philosophy and rhetoric. Three years after his conversion to Christianity (ca .350), he was elected bishop of his hometown by the people there, even though he was married. After the Council of Milan (355) agreed to the banishment of the orthodox Athanasius, Hilary organized the bishops of Gaul to resist the Arian emperor and those bishops who supported Arianism. As a result, Emperor Constantius exiled Hilary to Phrygia (Asia Minor) where he wrote his principal work On the Trinity (356-359).
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(John of Damascus - (c. 675-749), Syrian monk and priest S...)
John of Damascus - (c. 675-749), Syrian monk and priest Saint John Damascene has the double honor of being the last but one of the fathers of the Eastern Church, and the greatest of her poets. It is surprising, however, how little that is authentic is known of his life. The account of him by John of Jerusalem, written some two hundred years after his death, contains an admixture of legendary matter, and it is not easy to say where truth ends and fiction begins. The ancestors of John, according to his biographer, when Damascus fell into the hands of the Arabs, had alone remained faithful to Christianity. They commanded the respect of the conqueror, and were employed in judicial offices of trust and dignity, to administer, no doubt, the Christian law to the Christian subjects of the Sultan. His father, besides this honorable rank, had amassed great wealth; all this he devoted to the redemption of Christian slaves on whom he bestowed their freedom. John was the reward of these pious actions. John was baptized immediately on his birth, probably by Peter II, bishop of Damascus, afterwards a sufferer for the Faith. The attainments of the young John of Damascus commanded the veneration of the Saracens; he was compelled reluctantly to accept an office of higher trust and dignity than that held by his father. As the Iconoclastic controversy became more violent, John of Damascus entered the field against the Emperor of the East, and wrote the first of his three treatises on the Veneration due to Images. This was probably composed immediately after the decree of Leo the Isaurian against images, in 730. Before he wrote the second, he was apparently ordained priest, for he speaks as one having authority and commission. The third treatise is a recapitulation of the arguments used in the other two. These three treatises were disseminated with the utmost activity throughout Christianity. John devoted himself to religious poetry, which became the heritage of the Eastern Church, and to theological arguments in defense of the doctrines of the Church, and refutation of all heresies. His three great hymns or "canons," are those on Easter, the Ascension, and Satin Thomas's Sunday. Probably also many of the Idiomela and Stichera which are scattered about the office- books under the title of John and John the Hermit are his. His eloquent defense of images has deservedly procured him the title of "The Doctor of Christian Art."
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("Concerning the Orthodox Faith", the third book of the "F...)
"Concerning the Orthodox Faith", the third book of the "Fountain of Wisdom", is the most important of John Damascene's writings and one of the most notable works of Christian antiquity. Its authority has always been great among the theologians of the East and West. Here, again, the author modestly disavows any claim of originality - any purpose to essay a new exposition of doctrinal truth. He assigns himself the less pretentious task of collecting in a single work the opinions of the ancient writers scattered through many volumes, and of systematizing and connecting them in a logical whole. It is no small credit to John of Damascus that he was able to give to the Church in the eighth century its first summary of connected theological opinions. At the command of Eugenius III it was rendered into Latin by Burgundio of Pisa, in 1150, shortly before Peter Lombard's "Book of Sentences" appeared. This translation was used by Peter Lombard and St. Thomas Aquinas, as well as by other theologians, till the Humanists rejected it for a more elegant one. The author follows the same order as does Theodoret of Cyrus in his "Epitome of Christian Doctrine". But, while he imitates the general plan of Theodoret, he does not make use of his method. He quotes, not only form the pages of Holy Writ, but also from the writings of the Fathers. As a result, his work is an inexhaustible thesaurus of tradition which became the standard for the great Scholastics who followed. In particular, he draws generously from Gregory of Nazianzus, whose works he seems to have absorbed, from Basil, Gregory of Nyssa, Cyril of Alexandria, Leo the Great, Athanasius, John Chrysostum, and Epiphanius. The work is divided into four books.
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Saint John of Damascus was born in the third quarter of the 7th century AD, in Damascus, to a prominent Damascene Christian family known as "Mansoūr".
John of Damascus was provided with the best education available to members of the court, but his father was concerned that he be educated as a Christian.
When John took over his father's position at court, he was familiar with both Islam and Christianity. John eventually left the service of the Caliph to seek the solitude of a monk's life and entered the monastery of St. Sabas near Jerusalem. Soon his reputation for holiness and intelligence made him a popular and respected preacher in the city of Jerusalem. Because of his background at court and his common sense, a number of bishops came to the monastery to seek his advice. John was loved and respected by those who came in contact with him.
The Byzantine emperor Leo III, the Isaurian, issued in 726 a decree forbidding images in churches. John, the learned theologian and articulate preacher, quickly entered the controversy. The Iconoclasts obtained a condemnation of John at the Council of Hieria in 754 that was reversed at the second Council of Nicaea in 787.
Soon after 730, John became a monk at Mar Saba, near Jerusalem, and there passed the rest of his life studying, writing, and preaching, acquiring the name “the Golden Orator”. Among his approximately 150 written works the most significant is Pēgē gnōseōs, (“The Source of Knowledge”), a synthesis of Christian philosophy and doctrine that was influential in directing the course of medieval Latin thought and that became the principal textbook of Greek Orthodox theology. Revised c. 743, it is composed of three parts: the philosophical (“Dialectica”), drawing largely from the late 3rd-century Neoplatonist Porphyry’s Isagoge, an introduction to the logic of Aristotle; the historical, transcribing sections from the 4th-century Greek churchman Epiphanius’ work Panarion, on heresies; and the theological and most widely known segment, the “Exposition (Ekthesis) of the Orthodox Faith. ” Essentially a résumé of the 4th-century Cappadocian Fathers Basil, Gregory of Nazianzus, and Gregory of Nyssa, and expressed in Aristotelian vocabulary, it manifests some distinctive originality in John’s choice of texts and annotations reflecting Antiochene analytical theology. Through its translation into Oriental languages and Latin, the “Exposition” served both Eastern and Western thinkers not only as a source of logical and theological concepts but also, by its systematic style, as a model for subsequent theological syntheses composed by medieval Scholastics. The “Exposition” speculates on the nature and existence of God, providing points of contention for later theologians.
Elsewhere the “Exposition” analyzes the nature of free choice and the will. The author was sensitive to this question in light of Christian doctrine on personal responsibility for salvation. He describes the human will as a rational appetite or inclination to the good, functioning with regard to ends or goals rather than with means, which relate more to the intellect.
A counterpart to The Source of Knowledge is John’s anthology of moral exhortations, the Sacred Parallels, culled from biblical texts and from writings of the Church Fathers. Among his literary works are several intricately structured kanōns, or hymns for the Greek liturgy, although his reputation in liturgical poetry rests largely on his revision of the Eastern Church’s hymnal, the Octoēchos.
Saint John of Damascus died in 749.
The Syrian theologian St. John of Damascus opposed the Byzantine emperor in the controversy over religious images. He is considered the greatest medieval theologian of the Eastern Church.
John of Damascus is recognized as a Saint. He is sometimes called the last of the Church Fathers by the Roman Catholic Church. In 1890 he was declared a Doctor of the Church by Pope Leo XIII.
("Concerning the Orthodox Faith", the third book of the "F...)
( Is all Christian art fundamentally blasphemous? That wa...)
(St John of Damascus wrote the treatises Against Those Who...)
(Saint John of Damascus(c. 676 - 4 December 749) was an Ar...)
(Saint John of Damascus(c. 676 - 4 December 749) was an Ar...)
(John of Damascus - (c. 675-749), Syrian monk and priest S...)
(John of Damascus - (c. 675-749), Syrian monk and priest S...)
(Contents: ST. HILARY OF POITIERS: On the Councils, or the...)
(St. John of Damascus was the last of the Greek Fathers. H...)
Quotations:
"The whole earth is a living icon of the face of God. "
"If a pagan asks you to show him your faith, take him into church and place him before the icons. "
"I do not worship matter; I worship the Creator of matter who became matter for my sake. "
"Woman is the daughter of falsehood, a sentinel of hell, the enemy of peace. "
