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ST . JOHN OF DAMASCUS .

BY THE

REV. J. H .

’

LUPTON,M .A . ,

SURMASTER OF ST . PAUL'

S SCHOOL, AND FORMERLY FELLOW

OF ST . JOHN'

S COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE .

PUBLISHED UNDER THE DIRECT ION OF THE T RACT COMM ITTEE.

LONDON

SOCIETY FOR PROMOTING CHRISTIAN KNOWLEDGE,

48, PICCAD ILLY, w . ; A ND

BR IGHTON .

P REF A CE.

THE fact thatth is l ittle volume is one of a series ona settled plan, and with welldefined l imits

,may

obviate in some measure the charge of presumptionto which the author wou ld otherwi se have been liable .

For to portray,in anything like du e proportion

,such

an historical character as John of Damascus, wouldrequire a far larger canvas and a hand of more variedpowers . I t is not indeed too much to say that, forany adequate representation of such a character, athreefold ability wou ld b e needful . For besides hisposition as a theologian of the Eastern Church, wehave to regard him as closely connected with the riseof Mahometanism ; and, further still, as a Christianpoet, whose hymns are sung by myriads at this veryday. But while feeling how incomplete, on thataccount

,such an essay as the present one must of

necessity b e, the author has endeavoured to makeit of some little value, as the result of an attentivestudy of -the wri tings of St. John Damascene .

In the spe lling of Arabic or Mahometan names, noattempt at uniform i ty has been made. Hardly anytwo writers agree in th is respect and hence, when aquotation ha s been made from any authority on the

i PREFACE.

subject, the form there found has been retained .

This may explain some apparent inconsistencies .Besides the special acknowledgments recorded in

the notes, mention should here b e made ofthe advan

tage gained from two works,the Hymns of fl uEa si er”

C/zu rcfi,by the late Dr. Neale, and the articles in La

B elgz'

gu e ( 1 86 1 ) on S. Jean Damascene, by M . FelixNeve. The excellent monograph ofDr. Joseph Langen,

f o/za /mes van D ama sku s did not come into theauthor’s hands ti ll the greater part of his own workwas completed but a few remarks or corrections du eto i t have been inserted . It was only at the lastmoment also that he learnt that the F nu erai Hymn

of St. John of Damascus, of Which a rendering isgiven at p. 1 50 , had been already translated by Dr.

Littleda le, and pu blished in the P eople’s Hymna l .Had he been aware of this in time, he would gladly

have availed himself of the abler version .

ST. PAUL’S SCHOOL,

November z stlz, 1 88 1 .

CONTENTS .

I . —LIFE.

CHAPTER PAGE

I . DAMASCUS

I I . THEMONASTERY OF ST . SABASI II . THEMAHOMETAN RULE IN SYR IA

IV. JOHN MANSOURV . THE GREEK CHURCH IN THE EIGHTH

CENTURY

VI . THE ICONOCLAST IC Com novnnsv

II .— WR ITINGS.

THE FONS SCIENT IAi”

OH Tina MAHOMETAN CONTROVERSY

HYMNS

COMMENTAR IES ON HOLY SCRIPTUREON NATURAL SCIENCE

DOUBTFUL WRIT INGs z — ( x )“ BARLAAM AND

JOASAPH ;”(2)

“PANEGYRIC ON ST . BAR

ST. JOHN OF DAMASCUS.

C H A P T E R I .

DAMASCUS.

IN giving an account of any eminent man, it isnatural to b estow some attention on the place fromwhich he sprang. Just as our knowledge of somescarce plant could not b e thought complete if wehad no information about the soil in which it grew,

so we can seldom understand fully the l ife and character of a great man without studying the surroundings amidst which he was born . But the strengthand impo rtance of this connecting link vary veryconsiderably in different cases . The history of aCyril i s closely intefwoven with tha t of Alexandriain his time 5 that of Gregory with Naz ianz u s that ofour own Bede with Jarrow and Monkwearmouth . Butin the case of John of Damascus

,while his native

city has given him the name by which he is alwaysdistinguished

,its influ ence upon his character and

the ultimate course of his life does not seem to havebeen important . In his extant writings he makeslittle or no allusion to it. Events which happened

there were no doubt the immediate cause of a greatB

‘2 ST. JOHN OF DAMASCUS .

and decisive change in his career. But that change— the change from the excitement of state afl

'

airs tothe seclusion of a monastery— was probably du e tothe bent of his own mind, and would have equally

taken place amid other surroundings. I t is withtheConvent of St. Sabas, or with Jerusalem,

that weassociate the rea lly prolific period of his life. Whenthere, Damascus was to him but one spot in thatouter world which he had forsaken . From that timeforward we fa i l to discern that it had any specialinterest for him .

Still,as being after all the place in which he first

drew breath, Damascus cannot fai l to have a stronginterest for anyone studying the l ife of this distingu ished scion of it. And even apar t from this

,

Damascus has claims on our regard such as fewother cities possess . For it is probably the mostancient city now standing in the world . I t wasexi sting in the days of Abraham, whose stewardEliez er wa s a native of it. Josephus ascribes itsfoundation to Uz

, a grandson of Shem . Its chequeredfortune during the reigns of the kings of Israel i sfamiliar to u s from the Bible story. While Rome wasas yetscarcely founded, one long term of the historyof Damascus was being brought to a close by its capture by T iglath-Pileser, when its leading inhabitants

were carried away captives to Kir. For a long periodafter this, partly from its being but an appanage of

the Assyrian empire, and partly from the subsequentrise of the rival city of Antioch, i t remained in com

parative obscurity. A passing compliment to its beautyand importance by S trabo, a notice of the alab aster

DAMASCUS .

found there b y Pliny, and the somewhat strangeepithet of “windy ” applied to it by Lucan, a re thechief allusions to b e metwith in classical authors].When Pompey overran Syria

,i t was brought under

Roman sway. In the time of St. Paul it was subj ec tto the rule of the King of Petra, having lately beentransferred to that government by Caligula . To theApostle Paul no spot could b e fraught with associations of intenser interest than Damascus . Nea r it swalls was the scene of that heavenly vision whichchanged the whole l ife of the man who changed theworld . No perils that he afterwards went throughseem to have made a deeper impression on his mindthan his escape as a fugitive from its battlements .The “ s treet that is called Straight ” still remains

,

running for the length of a mile du e east and west 3but alas ! how changed . In those days it was one

hundred feet in width, and divided by Corinthiancolonnades into three avenues while midway alongits course the wayfa rer passed under a Romantriumphal arch of noble proportions . Now, remainsof the colonnades and gates may still b e traced, buttime has destroyed every vestige of the ir original

1 See a rticle “ Dama scus in Smith’s “ D ict iona ry of Geo

gra phy.

” I t may perha ps b e sa id in defence of Lu can’s

epithet ventosa Dama scus,i i i . tha t i t i s not quite

certa in whether he may not ha ve meant’ to refer to the cha

meter of its‘

inha b itants , as when Cicero spoke of “ homoventosiss imu s,

” Epp . a o’

. F am . xi . 9 . If it b e a l itera l imitation of Homer’s wi ndy Ilium,

” it is not impossible to find a

ju stification for i t in wha t tra vellers tel l u s of the fierce hu rr ica nes of wind tha t tra verse the deep ravines lea ding to the

ga rden-l ike pla in of Dama scus itself.B 2

4 ST . JOHN OF Dama scu s .

magnificence. Atpresent the street, instead of thelordly proportions which once called forth thestranger’s admiration

,has been contracted by suc

cessive encroachments into a narrow passage, moreresembling a by—lane than the principal avenue of a

noble city.

”1

From the time of St. Paul onwards i t continuedunder the dominion of Rome till i ts capture by theSaracens in A .D. 6 3 4 . The incidents of that capturemay b e more properly noticed when we come tospeak of the Mahometan rule in Syria . Its subsequent fortunes, after the sea t of Mahometan rulehad been transferred to Bagdad, in 763 , may b e very

b riefly related . After being unsuccessfully besiegedby the Crusaders in 1 1 4 8, i t was taken by Tamerlanein 1 4 00, and destroyed by fire the following year. In

1 5 1 6 i t fell into the hands ofthe Turks, who retainedpossession of it till 1 8 3 2, when it was captured byIbrahim Pacha. 2 The greater indulgence shown toChristians from that date excited the bitter animosity

of the Mahometan population, who have the reputation of be ing the greatest fanatics inthe East. The

steady advance ofthe Christian community in wealthand numbers during the last thirty years,

” says awriter in “ has tended to excite their bitter

Lewin’s “ Life a ndEpistles of St. Paul i . , p. 69 ,

where a view of Dama scus, looking south-ea st, i s given, takenfrom a photograph .

Art. “ Dama scus in Mcculloch’s “ Geographica l D ictionary.

3 In the “ Cyclopaedia of Biblica l Litera ture,” by McCl in

t ock andStrong, New York, 1868, vol . i . A striking a ccount

DAMASCUS . 5

enmity. In July,1 860, taking adva ntage of the war

b e tween the Druses and Ma ronites, and encouragedalso by the Turkish authorities, they suddenly roseagain st the poor defenceless Christians, massa credabout six thousand of them in cold blood, and lefttheir whole qua rter in ashes. ” Such is the last a ct,he a dds,

“ in the history of Damascus . Thoughstill the largest city of Asiatic Turkey, with a p0pu lation in 1 85 9 of the prosperity of Damascusis on the wane . The opening of the Suez Ca na l in1 8 70 dealt i t a hea vy b low,

by divert ing much of the

traffic tha t had hitherto passed through i t by ca ravans . It is a somewha t strange retribution that theopening of a new wa ter-way should thus undo theprosperity that Dama scus has so long owed to itsown fertilis ing streams .For it is not too much to say tha t to its streams

o f water this a ncient city has owed not only itsprosperity, but its very existence .

“Are not Abanaand Pharpa r, rivers of Damascus, better tha n all thewaters of I srae l ?” was a question tha t Na amanmight well ask, as he turned indigna ntly from theprophet’s door. Travellers have vied with one an

other in describing the unrivalled beauty of thosestreams . The j uice of her l ife

,says one well

known writer,l i s the gushing and ice-cold torrent

that tumb les from the snowy side s of Anti-Lebanon .

Close along on the river’s edge, through seven sweet

of the dreadful scenes of 1860 will b e found in F rancoisLenorm a nt’s “ H istoire des Ma s sa cres de Syrie en

Pa ris, 186 1 . The F rench religious houses especia lly suffered .

Serjeant Kinglake :“ Eothen,” 1854 , p . 2 3 7 .

6 ST . JOHN OF DAMASCUS .

miles of rustling boughs and deepest shade, the cityspreads out her whole length, as a man falls flat,face-forward on the brook, that he may drink anddrink again : so Damascus

,thirsting for ever

,l ies

down with her l ip s to the stream,and clings to its

rushing waters . Standing, as i t does, at the western

extremity of the great desert plain of El-Hauran ,which stretches awa y right to the Euphrates

,no city

of any siz e could have existed here,unfed by such

l iving waters . “Without the Barada ” (the ancientAbana), says Porter,

1 the plain would b e a parcheddesert ; but now aqueducts intersect every quarter

,

and fountains sparkle out in almost every dwe lling,while innumerable canals extend their ram ificationsover the vast plain, clothing it with verdure and

beauty .

”

To what a degree the city and its surroundingorcha rds literally drink in the waters of its twostreams, may b e gathered from the fact that afterthey have escaped from its suburbs they flow withgreatly-diminished volume to a lake, or cluster of threesmall lakes, a few miles east of Damascus, and there

1 F ive Yea rs in Dama scus,

1855 , i . , p . 2 7 . As a rema rkable insta nce of the extent to which tra vellers may differ inthe ir est ima te of the same scenery, i t may b e noted tha t whileD r. Robinson,

“ Biblica l Resea rches ” (ii . thought theview inferior to tha t from the northern heights of London

,

Porter considers tha t the view tha t presents i tself to the eye

of the tra veller a s he surmounts the la s t ridge ofAntilib anu s,a fter pa ssing the bleak a nd ba rren slopes beyond, is rich a ndgra nd , a lmost surpa ssing conception .

”B utwe a re a ll familia r

with the w ay in which our impressions of a spot a re modified

by our previous expecta tions .

DAMASCUS . 7

lose themselves, there being no outflow fromthebanks . 1

The Barada is the principal stream, and brings down aconsiderable body of water. The

’Awaj , or Phege,the ancient Pharpar, i s a less important river, butbe tter for drinking purposes, for which i t is ch iefly

employed by the inhabitants. The u se of the waterof the Barada is observed to b e often attended by

goitre. Atthe edge of a plain thus fertilised, somesixty miles from the sea at Be irut, with the snowcapped summits of Anti-Lib anu s looking down uponit to the north and west, and its white dwelli ngsembosomed in green foliage, stretching away towardsthe south and east, stands this most ancient of cities .The dirt and disorder of its streets , when one

passes within the walls, in strange and unwelcomecontrast to the beauty of the gardens wi thout, seema

’

token of the misgovernment of its present rulers .Around it is na ture’s paradise man ’s wilderness iswithin . Such as it i s now in its better aspect

,i t was

twelve hundred years ago . And it must make u s

think more h ighly of the devotion of John Damascene, that he could forsake, not only the glitteringprospects of wordly ambition, but this fa irest ofearth’s fa ir cities

,for the dreary solitude of his cel l

by the Dead Sea .

It was in the l ittle vi llage of Ha ra n, nea r the south-westcorner of this lake Ateibeh , tha t the la te Dr. Beke thought hehad discovered the t rue Ha ra n to which Abraham migra tedfrom Ur of the Cha ldees . See his interesting work, “ Ja cob

’sF light .” But Lewin a rgues atlength aga ins t this Opinion .

8 ST . JOHN OF DAMASCUS.

CHAPTER I I .

THE MONASTERY OF ST . SABAS .

ON the south side of the Wa a’

y en-Ndr,or Valley

of Fire,the name given to the lower pa rt of the

Kidron Va lley where it approaches the Dead Sea ,stands the Mar Saba

,or monastery of St. Sabas .

The same circumstance causes the gorge , a littlehigher u p, to bea r the name of Wady er—Rdlzz

’

b,or

Monks’ Valley . The savage wildness of the scene,and the sense of utter desolation around

,have

always left a deep impression on the m i nds of

travel lers . To the east rise the precipices, 800 feeth igh

,behind which the blue and glossy waters ofthe

Dead Sea lie glaring 1n the sun . To the north westthe dry torrent-b ed of the Kidron leads u p toJerusalem ,

here some ten miles distant. The buildings themselves appear to hang like an eagle’s neston to the precipitous face of the rocks. Two hightowers, says a recent traveller,1

“ firstmee t theeye but on approaching nearer one is bewilderedwith the pile of massive walls

,domes

,battlements,

sta l rca ses,and five splendid buttresses supporting the

building on the edge of the precipice from the giddy

Egyptia n Sepulchres a ndSyria n Shrines, by Emily A .

Bea ufort, 186 1, i i . , p . 126 . A view of the mona stery is giveni n Ca rne’s Syria a ndthe Holy Land,

” i i . , p . 86 .

THE MONASTERY 01? ST . SABAS . 9

depths below . One uniform hu e of tawny yellowpervades alike the walls of the convent and theweather-worn cliffs to which they cling 3 and though,in the Opinion of one writer,

“the wild grandeur ofits situa tion renders this mona stery the most extraordinary building in Palestine,

” the general impression drawn from the view of it seems to b e that ofutter dreariness . But perhaps no better descript ion can b e given than in the words of one of the

latest visitors 1 to it. After speaking o f the terribleheat that preva iled, unrelieved by a blade of grass ora breath of wind

, the writer continues the silenceofthe desert surrounds it

,a nd only the shrill note of

the golden gra ckle, or the howl of a jacka l, breaksthis solemn stillness . Not a tree or shrub is in sightwa lls of white chalk and sharp ridges shut out thewestern breez e, and the sigh of the wind in the treesis a sound never heard in the solitude . The pla ce

seems dead. The convent and its valley have afossilised appea rance . Sca rcely less dead a nd fossila re i ts wretched inma tes, monks exiled for crimes orheresy, and placed in charge of a few poor lunatics.

La dies a re not a dmitted into the mona stery,2 but we

were provided with a letter to the Superior. A l ittle

iron door in a high ye llow wall gives admission from

Conder Tent Work in Pa lestine, 1878, i . , p . 3 02 .

2 Wha t M iss Bea ufort , wri ting in 186 1, deservedly ca l ls avulga r trick

,

”had been la te ly played upon the monks by

a n enterprising la dy traveller, who entered the mona stery inmen’s clothes, concea ling her ha nds in her pockets while goingover the whole building but whilst taking coffee her sex wa sdiscovered, a nd she wa s immedia tely expelled by the j ustlyofi

'

endedmonks. ”

I O ST . JOHN OF DAMASCUS .

the west thence a long staircase leads down intoa court before the chapel . The walls within a re

covered with frescoes, some old, some b elonglng to

the time when the monastery was rebuilt, in 1 84 0,

by the Russian Government . Greek saints, hideousfigu res in black and grey dresses, With stoles onwhich the cross and ladder and spear a re painted inwhite, stand out from gilded backgrounds . Againstthese ghosts of their predecessors the monks wereranged in wooden stalls or mz

’

serere benches withhigh arms

,which supported their weary figu res under

the armpits. The old men stood, or rather drooped,in their places, with pale, sad faces, which spoke ofignorance and of hopelessness, and sometimes o fvice and brutali ty for the Greek monk is perhaps

the most degraded representative of Christianity,and

these were the worst of their kind . Robed in longsweeping gowns, with the cylindrical black felt cap

'

ontheir heads, they looked more l ike dead bodies thanliving men

,propped u p against the quaint Byz antine

background . The floor ofthe church was unoccu pied, and paved with marble the transept wasclosed by the great screen , blaz ing with gold, andcovered with dragons and arabesques and gaudypictures of saints and angels on wood. A smell ofincense fi lledthe church, and the nasa l drawl of theofficiating priest soon drove u s away to the outer air.

The convent pets came about u s, the beautiful black birds with orange wings

,which live only in

the Jordan Valley, and have been named Tris tram’

s ,

grackle,

’ after that well-known explorer. They havea beautiful clear note

,the only pleasant sound ever

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1 2 ST. JOHN OF DAMASCUS.

recent times expressed it,

“the image of our life . I twas here that St. Sabas, nearly two centuries before,had fix ed his dwelling a famous anchorite of Cappadoc ian origin, whose character for sanctity stood sohigh

,that when

,about the year 4 8 3 , he made a

j ourney to Constantinople to intercede with theEmperor for the anchorites of Jerusalem,

Justinianwent outside the city to meet him, and fell on hisknees before him . Round the cave chosen by Sabasfor his cell in this lonely wilderness, a cave from whichtradition says that he had firstto ej ect the previous occu pa nt, a lion, other hermits quickly settled, and thuswas formed the l a wn : 1 of St. Sabas . The founder issaid to have survived to the‘

age of 94 years, dying in

5 3 2 and his tomb,gilded a ndadorned in the usual

tawdry manner ofthe Greeks,” i s still shown under a

dome, in the middle of a small paved court in themonastery .

2 Here lived those three hermits of thesixth century, Xenophon, and his sons Arcadius andJohn

,who “ every day saluted each other from the

threshold of their caves, not being . able to speakbecause of the distance .

” 3 And here, in du e time,came John Damascene and his foster-brother Cosmas.But before we spea k of the events which led him totake this step, and to exchange Damascus with its

“ The societ ies of the Ana chorets, who lived in a certa inunion with ea ch other in single cells, were ca l led la u m’ a

term which, derived from the a ncient Greek adjective la u ros,denoted properly a la rge open pla ce, a s treet . ” —Neander’sChurch H is tory,

”Bohn

’s edn . , iv. , p . 3 3 4 .

2 Ca rne, a bz'

. sup" p . 87 .

3 Voices from the Ea st,

”p . 156 .

THE MONASTERY OF ST . SABAS . I 3

for the awful solitudes of the Valleyof Fire, a few words seem needful on the state of

at the t ime,and the form of government

under which his native city had then passed .

1 4 ST . JOHN OF DAMASCUS .

CHAPTER I II .

THE MAHOMETAN RULE IN SYR IA.

IT has been often remarked that the fire of Maho

metan ism was long in kindling, but, when once alight,it spread a confiagration around with unexampledrapidity. The Prophet himself had reached the age

of forty before he announced his mission . For elevenyears more, from 6 1 1 t ill his fl ightfrom Mecca in 6 2 2

,

he appeared to make l ittle or no way with his fellowtribesmen,the Kuraish to b e dashing himself vainlyagainst a rock to b e growing old

,with the bitter

consciousness of failure . His abandoning Meccawas itself an acknowledgment of defeat . Andyet, asthe event showed, i t was a step towards victory .

The germs of future success,” says a mili tary critic

,l

had been planted in the midst of seeming discomfitu re. He departed, carrying away with himthe flowerof the Kuraish . Abou Bakr, Omar, Ali, Talha,Zobair, and the other

‘ companions of Muhammad,

’

left none equal to themselves, when they shook thedust of their ancestral city from off the soles of their

feet. The seventy men who followed theProphet to Medina, not merely drew away the heart

’sblood from the Kuraish— they planted in the cityWhich gave them shelter an imper i um z

'

n z'

mper z'

o,

1 Maj or Osborn Islam Under the Arabs ,”1876, p . 2 1 .

THE MAHOMETAN RULE IN SYR IA . 5

bound toge ther by the strongest of all ties, the senseof a Divine calling.

”The same preparedness of the

soil to receive the seed, which made the teaching ofMahomet take root and germinate so quickly atMedina, was the cause also of the rapid Spread ofMahometa n conquests soon afterwards . AtYathrib

,

better known thenceforwar d as Medina,

l the City,

”

the feuds of the Arabs and the Jews— and, when thelatter were subdued, the internecine feuds of theArab tribes of Aus and Khaz raj— had ended in ageneral feeling of insecurity and weariness of war

,

such as makes men cast about for a strong ruler togovern them . They were, in fact, on the point of sochoosing Abdallah, son of Obay, when the arrival ofMahomet seemed to furni sh them with the veryleader whom they sought. 2

In like manner, when the armies of Islam beganto invade the adj oin ing countries

,Egypt on the west

and Syria on the north,their success might seem at

firstout of al l proportion to the means employed, orto the t ime consumed . But the conflagration spreadrapidly because the trees were dry . Just as thecitiz ens of Yathrib had been weakened by their longcontinued blood feuds, so the inhabitants of Syriaand Egypt were in a state of re ligious, as wel l as civil,disunion and weakness . The majority in both thosecountries were Nestorians or Monophysites, de

pressed by'

the imperial laws, and ready to welcome

1 More properly Medz'

net-dl-Na bt'

,City of the Prophet.

Robertson’s H ist . ofthe Christian Church,” i i . , p . 3 9, n .

Osborn , a bz’

. sup , p. 42 .

1 6 ST . JOHN OF DAMASCUS .

the enemies of the Byz antine Court as del iverers . ”1

Tfze wlzole [lead is sick,a nd fi l e wizale b ea r!fa int

such might almost b e the language applied to Christendom at this time. The Emperor Heraclius, but

lately the conqueror of Chosroes, the deliverer fromthe Persian yoke of Syria and Egypt, was wastingaway through sickness, and constra ined to look onand see these provinces a gain lost to the empire .

Among his subjects there was the spectacle of sectopposed to sect, clergy wrangling with clergy, uponthe most abstruse and meta physical points ofdoctrine.

”

Beyond this, there was all the advantage, on ones ide, ofthe enthusiasm which novelty a lone will sometimes inspire . The religion of Mahomet was a newthing upon the earth . And there was the far morepotent and enduring enthusiasm which is born ofconviction— the decision of action arising from freshand sharply-cut impressions . The soldier who sawhell with its fires blaz ing behind him if he fled, paradise opening before him if he fell,

”9 would b e hard tobeat. And indeed it was not till Christendom hadlearnt this lesson, and the counter-enthusiasm of theCrusades was aroused, that the t ide of Mahometanconquest was seriously checked.

What has been said may lessen the surprise thatany reader m ight feel at observing, for the firsttime,the suddenness of the growth of Islam . Withinthirteen years from the Hegira, within three years

R obertson , p . 4 1 . See a lso M ilman,

“La tin Christianity,1854, i i . , p . 46 .

M ilman, ib . , p . 3 8.

THE MAHOMETAN RULE IN SYR IA . 1 7

from Mahomet’s dea th, the armies of the new fa ithhad appea red b efore Damascus .The story of the siege and capture of this ancient

and splendid city, the Granada of the Eas t,” has

been often told,1 and only the ba rest outlines of i tneed b e retraced here. Ela ted by the conquest ofBosra

,four days’ march from Dama scus,the Saracens,

in 6 3 4 , pressed on to attack this latter city. Aftersingle combats a nd deeds of individua l heroism ,

which made Volta ire draw a parallel between this andthe siege of Troy, the garrison were fina lly shut upwithin the walls . More than one re inforcement

,sent

to their a id by Heraclius, was defeated. Werdan,

the imperial general, who was despatched w ith anarmy of seventy thousand men , was sla in, and morethan two-thirds of his force perished with him . Then ,

in their despair, Thomas, the Governor of Damascus,tried the power of religious enthusia sm to rival thatwhich nerved the besiegers to such efforts . Attheprincipa l gate

,in the sight of both armies , a lofty

cru cifix wa s erected ; the bishop, with his clergy,a ccompanied the march, and la id the volume of the

New Testament before the image of Jesus and the

The work a scribed to El-Wak idy, from which Ockleydrew his picturesque a ccount , is now rega rded by comp etentschola rs a s only a n historica l novel , written in the time of theCrusa des . W z

’

ik idy’s rea l work is lost . Gibbon (ch . l i . )

follows this a ccount in its ma in pa rticula rs .— See Porter’s “ F iveYea rs in Dam a scus ” i . , p . 1 10.

2 Gibbon,observing how unlike a Greek name this is , suggests

tha t it m ay be a n anagram for Andrew,ca used by the A ra bia n

scribe writing ba ckwa rds . But surely this would b e to importthe English letter 20 into the Greek A ndr ea s .

1 8 ST. JOHN OF DAMASCUS .

contending parties were scandalised or ed'

ified by aprayer that the Son of God would defend H is servants,and vindicate His truth .

”1 All was in vain . The

impetuous Kaled, the sword of God,

” repulsed anight attack in which the Christians had put forththeir last energies ; and as he forced an entrance at

the eastern gate, Abu Ob eidah entered, by capitulation

,at thewestern . The story that Kaled, and his

more temperate colleague— the one bent on sacking

the conquered city, the other prepared to deal mercifully with it— metin the great church of St. John theBaptist i s now discredited .

2 But there is no doub tthat from this pointthe partition of Dama scus began 5the share ofthe Arabian conquerors gradually extending

,at the expense of their Christian subjects . The

metropolitan church itself, the venerable structurethat had been restored more than two centuriesbefore by Arcadius, and whose bishop had counted

fifteen dioceses under his sway, was divided for atime between the victors and the vanquished. The

former took the eastern end5 the lat ter had left tothem the western , an emblem of their setting glories .

Little more than seventy years after, Walid I . , thesixth caliph of the Omeiyades, revoked even thisconcession, and extorted from the Christians theshare they had been permitted to retain inthe church .

Originally a heathen temple, it passed once more toa worship other than Christian . I t is nowthe Mosqueof the Omeiyades, and near i t IS the tomb of thegreat Saladin . The fa te of the cathedral church is a

D ecl ine andF a ll, ch . l i .2 Porter “ F ive Yea rs in Dama scus, p . 72 .

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20 ST . JOHN OF DAMASCUS .

and his successor, Walid I .

,next after the founder of

the dynasty, Omeiyah himself, we must look for whatever elements of greatness a re to b e found in thisrace of sovereigns . Passing over these

,we find l ittle

but a record of indolence and profliga cy. The

firstYez id, Sulaiman, the second Yez id a nd his sonWalid

,who succeeded the Khalif Hisham— these

were one and all royal rakes of that thorough-goingtype which is to b e fou nd only in Oriental countries .

”1

Hisham,whose reign ( 7 24— 7 4 3 ) i s also noticeable,

from the period of John ’s l ife i t covers, was chiefly

swayed by avarice. That he kept his throne so long,was du e in measure to the political shrewdness

,or

cunn ing, which taught him to bala nce the two great

Arab ian factions more evenly against each other,and to a llow a du e prepondera nce to the Yemenitetrib e . I t does notfollow that the lo t of Christiansunder such rulers wa s harder than i t might have beenunder the rule of sincere and more s ingle-minded

z ealots of the Mahometan faith . A Yez id, who beforehis accession had scandalised the bel ievers b y hisavowed fondness for the wine-fla sk

,and for falcons

and hounds 5 a Walid I I .

,who could order a copy of

the Koran to b e setup before him as a mark for hisarrows

,having taken offence at some verse in it

which smote his conscience , a nd then pierce it with

his arrows, ex cla imirigthe while —2

You threa ten the ma n proud and rebell ious ; well, tha t man

proud a nd rebellious is me .

When you appea r before your M a ster on the day of resu rrec

t ion,say to Him,

Lord,it is Wa lid who ha s cut me into

shreds .

Osborn, a bz'

. sup , p . 3 3 7 .

2 Osborn , p . 3 3 8.

THE MAHOME'

I'

AN RULE I N SYR IA. I

such men might b e capricious a nd tyrannica l rulers,might leave the ir soldiers unpa id, their la nds untilled,their sub jects the prey of rapacious ofii c ia ls— butJews or Christians, a s such, were not l ikely to sufferso much comparatively as under ma sters of stricterorthodoxy . In later times indeed Dama scus has beennotorious for the intolerance of its Mussulman population . But under the free-thinking caliphs of the

house of Omeiyah, Christians were often foundoccupying important posts . Intermarriages werenot unknown . The mother of Kha lid ibn Ab da llah ,whom Hisham had a ppointed governor of Irak, wasa Christian . Akhta l,the court poe t of Abd a i Ma lek,who was led in a robe of honour through the streetsof Damascus

,with a hera ld procla iming : “ Behold

the poet of the Commander of the Fa ithful ! thegreatest ba rd among the Ara b s wa s also a Christian .

Itwas not unti l the re ign of the same caliph thateven the sta te records were ordered to b e kept inArabic . Before tha t time the records of Ira k hadbeen kept in Persian

,those of Syria in Greek . The

value ofthe knowledge derived b y Western Europefrom the Sa ra cens ha s been often ove r estima ted .

Most of the learning they ga ined was in fa ct pickedup from the conquered races . The Arabs haverendered a la sting service to mankind b y acting fora time as the depositories of science 5 b uttheycould not originate . They could b uttransmit wha tthey had rece ived . Mere Bedouins of the desert,

”

writes Ma j or Osb orn,1 they found themselves a ll at

once the ma sters of vast countries with everything to

Osborn , p . 93 .

ST . JOHN OF DAMASCUS .

learn . They were compelled to put themse lves toschool under the very people they had vanquished .

Thus the Persians and Syrians, conquered thoughthey were and tributary, from the ignorance of theirmasters retained in their hands the control of theadministrative machinery. We may thus find less

difficu lty in understanding how a Joannes Philoponu sshould b e able to influ ence the conquering Omar atAlexandria, or the father of John of Damascus b e ahigh officer of state in the divan of Moawiyah .

ST. JOHN or DAMASCUS . 2 3

C HAPTER IV.

JOHN MANSOUR .

Life of St. John of Damascus, which is found

prefix ed to editions of his collected works, thoughtheonly one of the kind we possess, i s in many respectsan unsatisfactory one . The style i s rhetorica l andturgid 5 there is little precision about names ordates 5 whilst one at least of the events re lated sofa r surpasses bel ief, as to make Neander a nd othersstigmatise it as fabulous . This , however, i s probab lyan extreme opinion . The author’s name i s given asJohn

,Patria rch of Jerusalem 5 and, as there were more

than one of this name and title, we a re left in someuncertainty about the writer himself. Without entering into de tails of criticism ,

i t may su ffice to say thathe i s considered to b e the John, Pa tria rch of Jerusalem,

who wa s put to death b y the Saracens in

the latter part of the re ign of N icephoru s Phocas

(A .D . 96 3 He i s thus removed by two cen

tu ries from the sub j ect of his b iogra phy 5 a nd therea der has to exercise his own judgment on theamount of credence to b e given to the rude and fragmentary accounts in Arabic, which the biographerprofesses to have embodied and superseded. Still,as the nearest approach to a contemporary Life that

24 ST . JOHN OF DAMASCUS .

has been preserved to u s, an abstract of it shall b egiven here.

The writer begins by remarking that, as statues a reerected to perpetuate the memory of great men, sothose who have the power of raising a lasting

memorial by their written works a re bound to taketh is means of handing down to posteritythe names ofthose who deserve such honour . Who could deserves u ch a memorial better than the saint called from hisnative city Dama scenu s P For he was no mean starin the ecclesiastical firmament, shining with steadyray in the dark night of heresy, what time the tyrant,leonine in name and leonine in disposition (for so,after his manner

,he plays on the name of the

Emperor,Leo the I saurian), was fu lfilling the pro

phetic words of Amos The lion ha th roared, who

wi ll- not fear ?

” Such a champion of the faith, whofled not from the roaring lion, should not b e sufferedto have his record only in rude and scattered accounts,written in the language ofthe unbeliever. He was acitiz en moreover of no mean city. Damascus wasfamed for its beautiful gardens, famed for its rushingstreams. Its streets had been trodden by St. Pa ul ,when firsthe became a Christian . I t had given b irthto many a noble scion (Dama sciu s

,the philosopher,

80phroniu s, the patriarch of Jerusalem,and others ),

but to none more worthy than John . Like fragrantflowers in the midst of thorns, such had been hisforefathers amid the infidel conquerors of Damascus .

Like Joseph or Daniel, their vi rtues had won for themthe respect of their unbelieving rulers . They hadbee n stewa rds in high trust even among the Saracens .

JOH N 114 115 06 12. 2 5

And as the father of John Baptist had been a fa ithfulservant of God

,so the fa ther 1 of this second John

was not unworthy of such a son . He was a man inhigh sta tion

,being appointed to administer the public

affairs through the whole country . He had in consequence grea t wealth . But all his riches he devoted,not to rioting and drunkenness, but to the good workof ransoming Christia n captives, and enabling themto find sub sistence in the land to which they hadbeen brought as slaves .When a son had been born to him, and baptised

at the risk of incurring the displeasure of the rulingpowers, his education was cared for as beseemed hisb irth. As John grew up he was taught , not to hunt,or shoot with the bow,

or ride, or throw the spear, butaccomplishments more fitted for his future calling .

To this end there was nothing so much longed forby his fa ther as a good tutor. And Providence indu e time brought him what he desired. Among the

It will b e observed tha t the wri ter does not give his name .

Assema nu s says tha t John’s fa ther wa s named Mansur, a ndfinds fa ul t with Pagi for making Mansur the grandfa therB ib l ioth . Orient . , i i . , p . This opinion is followed by

Dr . Littleda le, in a note to the “ Hymns of the Ea sternChurch . Assem anu s even thinks i t wa s this Mansur whohelped to betray Dama scus to the Sa ra cens in 6 3 4 . Buttheda tes make this improbable, a s the birth of John ofDama scusis commonly fix ed at6 76 , a nd in a ll probability was la ter .Theophanes 1863 , p . 84 1 ) seems to implytha t Mansur was his gra ndfa ther’s name 5 and Lequ ien coneludes in fa vour of Sergius be ing his fa ther, who is spoken of byTheophanes, under A. O . 69 1, a s be ing a good Christian , andlogot/zete to the Ca l iph Abd a l Ma lek, by whom he wa s highlyesteemed .

26 ST . JOHN OF DAMASCUS .

captives oneday brought in to the slave market atDamascus was an I talian 1 monk . His reverend air

and bearing made even his fellow-prisoners throwthemselves at his feet, to b eg a blessing in the irdistress . No wonder then that his captors wereimpressed. The father of John was standing by, aspectator ofthe scene . Moved by the captive’s tears,he drew near and

'

questioned him . His name wa s

Cosmas,a simple monk 5 he fea red not death for its

own sake, but for the loss it would bring of all thelearning he had painfully acquired . The wisdom ofthe Stagirite

,the philosophy of Plato— all the stores

of Grecian learning and theology— were as an in

heritance he had laboriously won, and would now b elost by his death for want of an he ir to succeed to it.Such an heir, such an intellectual son, he had not yethadthe opportunity of finding. Here, i t was evident,wa s the very tutor for whom the father had so longsearched . He hastened with all speed to the Caliph,2

1 The conquest of Sicily by the Sa ra cens (on which occa sionthey might ea sily ha ve ra vaged the adja cent coa st of Ita ly) wa snot t ill the yea r 827 . ButLequ ien inclines to pla ce thisoccurrence about the yea r 699, when the Arabs, ha ving conquered the north coa st of Africa

,were infesting the adj a cent

shores of the Mediterranean . He quotes indeed a sta tement ofTheophanes to show tha t pa rt of Sic ily wa s overrun , a nd itsinhabita nts conveyed to Dama scus, a s ea rly a s the twentysecond yea r of Constans I I . (A .D . but this seems to la ckconfirmation . The point would not b e worth d iscussion, butfor the light i t mightthrow, if clea red u p, on the da te of JohnDama scene’s birth.

2 Here a ga in the writer mentions no ca l iph’s name . Abd a l

Ma lek (685 or his successor Wa l id I . (705 a re

natura lly thought‘

of a s the most l ikely .

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28 ST. JOHN OF DAMASCUS .

on image-worship broke out. The Emperor Leo theIsaurian

,the roaring lion

,had issued his firstedict

against the practice (A. D . Atsuch a challengethe privy-councillor of Damascus could not remainsilent . He girded up his loins to the contest with az eal l ike that of Elias in the days of Ahab . Toanimate the orthodox in the faith to resistance, hesent out circular letters,1 to b e passed from hand tohand among the Christ ians . This roused the angerof the emperor. Unable to crush his opponent by

force, as be ing a subject of a hostile power, he hasrecourse to stratagem . Having succeeded in intercepting an autograph letter of John of Damascus, helays it before some of his scribes, that they mayfamilia rise themselves both with the form of thecharacters and the turn of expression . He then bidsthem concoct a letter, in imitation of John

’s writing,

purporting to b e addressed to himself, in which Johnis made to propose a treasonable surrender ofDamascus

,i fthe emperor would send a force thither.

The Saracen guard at Damascus (so the letter ran)was weak and negligently kept, and if Leo woulddespatch a ba nd of resolute men he would capturethe city with little trouble . The writer would aid inbringing about such a result. This forged letter wasthen forwarded to the caliph

,with another from the

Gibbon (eh . l i . ) the Ommia des hadonly a katab, or secreta ry,and the offi ce of viz ir wa s not revived or inst ituted till theone hundred and thirty-second yea r of the Hegira ”

A . D .

which wou ld b e la ter tha n the events under considera t ion .

I t i s amusing to ob serve under wha t a cloud of wordsthewriter wra ps up this,

‘

to u s, simple no tion .

JOHN MANSOUR . 2 9

emperor himself. Letthe caliph look to his Christian subjects, when such were the proposa ls they werecapable of making. On receipt of this, John wassummoned at once to the presence ofthe Mahometanruler, and the letter shown him . He admitted thesimilarity of the writing, but indignantly denied theauthorship of it. His denial , and his appea l for arespite in which to prove his innocence, were alikevain . The sentence was given that his ofi

'

endingright hand should b e chopped off. This was done 5and that same hand— such i s the writer’s childisha ntithesis— which was lately dipped in ink in defenceofthe truth, was now dipped in blood. When evening came

,the pain of the wound be ing intolerable,

John ventured to peti tion the caliph for the restitution of the amputated member, that it might rece iveburial

,instead of being left hanging up in the market

place . Such rites of interment might bring him therelief they did to Archytas. The desired request wasgranted, and the hand sent back . Then John, prostrating himself b efore an image of the Virgin in hisprivate chape l, poured out his soul in supplication,praying that the hand which he placed against hismu tilated arm might grow again to the limb fromwhich i t had b een severed . He falls asleep

,worn

out with pa in and weariness, and in a dream beholdsthe Holy Virgin signifying that his prayer is hea rd .

The vision comes true. On starting up he finds hishand to b e indeed restored whole a s the other . The

news of this miracle soon reaches the ea rs ofthe caliph .

John is again summoned to his presence , and strictlyquestioned . His enemies try in vain to explain it

3 0 ST . JOHN OF DAMASCUS .

away 5 the red line showing where the knife had gone

still remains visible, and no earthly physician cou1dhave wrought such a work of healing. The caliph isconvinced, and would fain have had the suffererresume his former office . But John pleaded so

earnestly for relief to re tire from public affairs that

his master yielded 5 and so, having disposed of a ll

his worldly goods, he setout, accompanied by hisold companion Cosmas

,for the convent of St. Saba s .

On arriving there he was lovingly rece ived by the

abbat 5 but, for a while, none of the inma tes wouldundertake the task of training so distinguished anovice. Atlast an aged monk wa s found willing.

Taking the new—comer with him to his cell, he taughthim the firstprinciples of monastic obedience to donothing of his own private will, to wrestle with Godin prayer, to lethis tears wash outthe s tams of bygones ins . Harder perhaps than all these, for one ofDama scenu s

’ habits, was the inj unction to write tono one, to keep silence even from good words

,to

remember the precept of the heathen Pythagoras .A less earnest spirit might have broken down undersuch probation 5 but John was not one to fl inch.

The seed of instruction was falling, in this case,ne ither among thorns nor on the rock , but into goodground . Yetharder trials still remained . The oldmonk bade him load his shoulders with baskets, ofthe convent make, and go with them straight toDamascus . There he was to offer them for sale atdouble the ir value, and on no account to bate a j otof his price. With the fondness of Oriental nationsfor driving a bargain, this fi x edness of price would

JOHN MANSOUR. 3 1

expose the vendor to abuse and ill-usage . But,

noth ing daunted, the once Privy-Councillor ofDama scus trudged on under his burden

,till he

reached the streets of his old city. There he bravedfor hours the j eers and ridicule of all such as askedthe price of his wares, till at last a former a cqu a intance, recognising him in his squalid disguise, boughtthe baskets out of compassion , andthe novice returnedunvanquished to his task-master. On another occasion, the brother of one of the monks who had diedb esought John to indite a funeral hymn, as some consolation to his feel ings . The request was not complied with at first, from a fear of transgressing theletter of his superior’s command 5 but at last, yieldingto the mourner’s importunity, John composed theshort dirge beginning

All huma n things a re va in,Nor bide with u s through dea th 5

No wea lth may cheer the tra ve ller there,Nor honour’s empty brea th .

”

When the old monk, who was John’s instructor

,

heard the sound of music on return ing to his cell, a sthese words were being sung, he angrily upbraidedthe novice . Wa s this the way for him to keep hispromise ? these the sounds which should come from

the l ips of one mourning for his sins in sol itude andgloom ? It was in vain that h is disciple pleaded a

cause for what he had done, and implored forgive

ness . He was expelled, as insubordinate, from histrainer’s cell . On this the other monks interceded 5but for a long time the elder was obdura te, a nd

3 2 ST. JOHN OF DAMASCUS .

wou ld listen to no entreaties . Atlast he consentedto name a penance as the condition of rece iving theoffender back 5 but one so humiliating, involvinga menial labour so base, that the very monks themselves stood aghast . John, however, had no scruples .He had felt as one driven from Paradise, and noservile labour should count with him , if only hemightfindthe gate of entrance open again . Thus he won

the admiration even of his severe teacher.

And now the t ime came when the probation migh tcease . The old monk was warned bythe Virgin

,in a

dream,to check no longer the outpouring of a spirit

of song in his gifted pupil. The hymns of JohnDamascene were to b e a j oy of the whole Church,surpassing even the Song of Moses and the choralminstrelsy of M iriam . His exposition of the Faith

,

his refutation of heresies, would b e as pillars ofsupport on which the Church might lean . Thusadmonished,the monk calls John to him,

and bids himgive free course to the inspiration by which he wasmoved. Thus setfree at last, and with those pursuitsnow sanctioned to which he was by nature inclined ,John gave full play to his voice and to his pen . Nowwere composed the great works on which his fame as

a writer will rest— his F ons Scz'

entz'

ce,his sermons

,his

hymns . In all of these he had a friend and advi ser

m his old companion, the younger Cosmas,1 himself

There i s still extant a number of hymns, canons, a ndthel ike bea ring the name of Cosma s ; but i t is difficu ltto determine which of them be long to the younger one ofthe name

(made bishop of Ma iuma about A . D . a nd which to the

elder Cosma s, the tutor. A ccording to D r. N ea le, “ Hymns

JOHN MANSOUR .

a poet and composer of hymns, t ill his promotion tothe see of Ma iuma

,near Gaz a, in Palestine , removed

him from the convent. Some years before, i f thechronology can b e reconciled,

l the same Patriarch ofJerusalem who had raised Cosmas to the b ishopric,had ordained John to the priesthood . But whilethus enabled to “ praise God in the seat of thepresbyters ” (Ps . cvii . he did not forsake themonastery of St. Sabas . And consideringthe “doub le

of the Ea stern Church , third ed. , p . 63 , Cosma s is themost lea rned of the Greek Church poe ts 5 a nd his fondness fortypes , boldness in the ir a pplica t ion, a nd love of aggrega tingthem, make him the orienta l Adam of S . Victor . Severa l ofhis compositions ha ve been transla ted by D r. N ea le, of whichthe following m ay serve as a specimen

Rodofthe Root of Jesse,Thou , F lower ofMa ry born

,

F rom tha t thick shady mounta inGam’st glorious forth this morn 5

O i her, the Ever Virgin,Inca rna te wa s t Thou made ,

The imma teria l Essence ,The God by a ll obeyedGlory, Lord , Thy servants payTo Thy wondrous might to-day

The reference in the third line i s to Habakkuk i i . , 3 .

The da te of the consecra t ion of Cosma s is commonly givenas about A . D . 74 3 5 tha t be ing the yea r in which Theopha nespla ces the mutila tion and dea th of Pe ter, me tropolita n of

Dama scus, while he a dds tha t atthe same time his namesa ke Peter of Ma iuma (Cosmas

’

s predecessor) glorifiedGod bya volunta ry ma rtyrdom . Ou the other hand, the same chtonologer places the dea th of John IV. , Pa triarch of Jerusa lem(who is sa id in the text to ha ve both promoted Cosma s andorda ined Damascenu s) , in the yea r 7 3 5 .

D

3 4 ST . JOHN OF DAMASCUS .

honour of which St. Paul deems the elder that ruleswell to b e worthy ( 1 Tim . v. to mean rather adouble responsib ility,

'

and a twofold obligation tokeep both the body and mind under discipline, hesethimself the mental labour of diligently revisingand correcting his former writings . Wherever therewas too much of a flowery luxuriance (says thisbiographer

,who is a noticeable ofi

’

ender in the sameway), he would u se the pruning—hook, and reduce hisstyle to the measure of a du e sobriety. Along withthis, he continued his labours of preaching in defenceof the sacred images , earning from his nephewStephen, when he too came to glorify God like his

namesake, the firstmartyr, the ti tle of wnem é /e andz'

myfiz'

rm’fi Thus occupied, death came upon him 5and he of whom I write, says his b iographer, nowsees God face to face. This humble record hasbeen written, he adds, riot to increase his glory,or to keep his memory from fading (which needsno such memorials to preserve it), but rather thathe, the glorified saint, may remember me, and fill

1 The reference to this ma rtyr is introduced somewha tabruptly and obscurely, but there seems no doubt who is

intended . St. Stephen, ca lled the Sab a ite, from the pla ce ofhis

prolonged abode, wa s brought (a ccording to Leontiu s) atthe ageof ten yea rs to this convent by his uncle, John of Dama scus,a nd died there in A .D . 794 , a fter a residence of nea rly sixtyyea rs . It i s to him tha t we owe what, i n Dr. Nea le’s translat ion

,i s one ofthe mostbeautiful of modern hymns

Art thou wea ry, a rtthou languid,Artthou sore distrest?Come to me,

’ sa i th One 5‘a ndcoming,

Be at

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3 6 ST. JOHN or DAMASCUS .

in the Greek Church atthe time. That alone need nothave disqu a lified the author for obtaining credence,when he wrote simply of the ordinary events of a

man’s l ife. Our complaint is that, instead of anything

definite and tangible, we havethe inflateddeclamationof one who seems chicfly concerned to extol certainfavourite doctrines of the Greek Church . For itmust b e remembered that in the above abstract theoutlines only have been given, the framework— so far

as there i s any— of the composition . To gain anyadequate idea of the style

,the reader must suppose

these dry bones clothed with a body of swellingverbiage . Still

,as i t is the only biography of any

pretensions we possess, i t has seemed desirable topresent such a summary of it as the above . I t willb e a more satisfactory task to endeavour to fill upsome portions at least of this shadowy outline by astudy of Damascene’s extant works . B utbefore proceeding to this portion of our subj ect, i t may clearthe way a li ttle to survey the state of the GreekChurch at the t ime, and in particular the long controversy about image-worship, in which John ofDamascus played so conspicuous a part .

ST . JOHN OF DAMASCUS. 3 7

CHAPTER V.

THE GREEK CHURCH IN THE E IGHTH CENTURY.

‘

IT is difficu ltto make the great principles understoodwhich were at work in the Eas tern Church in thet ime of John of Damascus, without some referenceto earlier controversies . To trace back the chain of

cause and effec t atall completely would indeed b e an

endless ta sk , but it may su ffice to begin with thespread ofthe doctrines known as monop/zysz

’

fe.

As Alexandria had been the centre of Neo-Pla

tonism ,it wa s natura l for i t to b e a nursery also of

monophysite principles . For there was an undoubtedconnection between the two . The exa ltation of theDivine na ture and b eing, a s some thing beyond mea

sure transcending all human expression,or human

power of thought, i s a prominent feature in thewritings o f the so-called Dionysius the Areopagite .

So also is the exa ltation of the mystic, contemplativemode of life , as the only way of attaining in anydegree to the godlike . Al l this would b e as an echoof familia r sounds to those who had imbibed theteaching of Plotinus. For that philosopher had laid

To a void the trouble of frequent references, i t may b e

sta ted atthe outset tha t the a uthorit ies for this chapter a rechicfly Gieseler

’

s“ Eccles . Hist,

” vol . i i . , a nd Neander’sChurch Hist .” (Bohn

’

s edn. ) vols . iv. a ndv.

3 8 ST . JOHN OF DAMASCUS .

down,that even meditation can only b e regarded as

the way to truth, without being ever able to reach it 5nay

,that unconditioned Being, or the Godhead,

cannot b e grasped by thinking, or science, but onlyby intuition .

” Hence, when theologians, reared insuch an atmosphere of thought, approached the sub

jectof the Incarnation, i t was to b e expected thatthey would regard it more or less exclu sively in

one particular l ight. And so it came to pass . The

ineffab le incomprehensible, transcendent u nion ofnatures —such was the language in which they pre

ferred to speak of th is mystery. The supernaturalside of it

,the absolute oneness of the divine and

human in Christ,was that which had the most

attraction for them . They carried this so far as totransfer the terms appropriate to the divine essenceto the human nature in Christ

,and the converse .

Gradually,such expressions as

,

“God has sufferedfor u s

,

” God was cru cified for u s,” and

,above all

,

Mary, the Tfieoz‘okos

,or Mother of God,

” becamerecogmsed watchwords of the party. Cyril of Alexandria, who died in 4 4 4 , may b e taken as a reptesentative of the cause in its earlier stage . The

decrees of the Council of Chalcedon,summoned by

the Emperor Marcian in 4 5 1 , served only to ex a s

perate the Monophysite party,who considered them

too indulgent to Nestorianism 5 and scenes of violence and bloodshed followed, both at Alexandriaand Jerusalem,

and in the capital itself. The Mahometans, though professedly hostile to Christianityin any form

,were natura lly more inclined to b e in

du lgenttowards a phase of i t which x appea red some

THE GREEK CHURCH IN THE E IGHTH CENTURY. 3 9

what more akin to their own central doctrine of theunity of the Godhead 5 and thus an addi tional party,and a most important one, was brought into thestrife .

The monotfwlete l controversy, or that which turnedupon a single w i ll in Christ, was an afterswel l of thisstorm . I t arose from the endeavours to carry outthe monophysite princip les to their logical conclusion .

If in man,it was argued, who has a single huma n

nature, though consisting of soul and body, there i sbut one will, which we may call the human will, andone energy, or active exercise of that will,— so in Christ ,who had a single nature, though both God and man ,there must needs b e in like manner bu t one will andone energy or operation . The unrivalled flex ib ilityof the Greek language

,and the ready way in which

i t lends itse lf to the formation of compound words,while i t undoubtedly renders discussion easier

,may

have to answer for some of the confusion of thoughtin which the combatants were often involved. Whenit was found that Dionysius the Areopagite had usedthe term tfzea ndr zk, to express the working of Christ,so conven ient a word was gladly borrowed 5 and itwas doubtless felt to b e an easier task to maintainthe unity of Christ’s will, or operation , when a termwhich looked single, though really double, had beenmetwith to denote it.The subject began to b e a ctiveiy debated about

The term monot/zelete is sa id to b e fi rstmetwith in thewritings of St. John of Dama scus . Of course the subj ect,conveniently summed up in tha t word , had beeri deba tedea rlier.

4 0 ST . JOHN OF DAMASCUS .

the same t ime that'

Mahomet entered on his career.Sergius, patriarch of Constantinople, had noticed, ina le tter ascribed to his predecessor

, Menna s, the ex

pression,

“one will and one l ife-giving operation

,

”

applied to the Saviour. Be ing struck with it,b e

consulted Theodore, Bishop of Pharan ,in Arabia '

a “ person , says Robertson,1“of whom nothing is

known except in connection with this controversy,but who

,from the reference thus made to him ,

may

b e supposed to have enjoyed an eminent cha racterfor learning, and to have been as yetunsuspected of

any error in doctrine 5 and as Theodore approved thewords

, the patria rch adopted them,and had some

correspondence with other persons on the sub ject .”

The opposite, ordyot/zelete view,was that the faculty

of willing is inherent in each of our Lord’s natures 5although

,as his person is one, the two wills act in

the same direction— the human will be ing exercised

in accordance with the divine .

”One of the ablest

champions of the orthodox, or dyothe lete view,was

Maximus,a man of a noble Byz antine family

,whose

career was not unlike that of Dama scenu s himself.

He had been firstsecretary,” or secretary of state,

under the Emperor Heracl ius, and, like the one j ustmentioned, had a prospect of high preferment at

court . But he, too, determined to embrace themonastic life, and became the z ealous and untiringopposer of monotheletism . Neander

’s analysis of his

religious system may help the reader to form a betterconception of the grounds on which the twofold

Christian Church,” vol . l l . , p . 4 2.

THE GREEK CHURCH IN THE E IGHTH CENTURY. 4 1

nature of Christ’s will was maintained . Christianity,

a s it seemed to him,forms the exact mean b etw ixt

the too narrow apprehension of the idea of God inJudaism , and the too broa d one of the de ification of

nature in paganism 5 and this mean is expressed bythe doctrine of the Trinity. The highes t end of thewhole creation b e supposed to b e the intima te unioninto which God entered with it through Christ ; when ,without detriment to His immuta b ility

,He assumed

human nature into persona l union for the purpose ofrendering human ity godlike : God becoming manwithout change of his own essence , a nd rece ivinghuman nature into union with Himself w i thout itslosing aught tha t belongs to its peculiar essence . Itwas with a view to secure this point

,that he attached

so much importance also to the articles touching theunion of the two natures, in which each retains

,

without change, its own peculia r properties .” I t is

an instructive comment on the passions that can b eroused b y such seemingly abstruse and speculativedoctrines, to note what was the end of “the saintlyMaximus

,a s he i s often called. After being banished

to a fortress in Thrace, where he was kept imprisonedin the hope of a recantation , he was dragged backagain to Constantinople , and there publicly scourged ,his tongue cut out, and his right hand severed fromthe wrist— in this circumsta nce again recalling whatis recorded of John of Damascus . He was thenbanished once more to the region of the Laz i,— theancient Colchis,— and there died, in 66 2 , from theinjuries he had undergone . St ill severer, if possible,were the sufferings endured in the same cause a few

4 2 ST . JOHN or DAMASCUS .

years before, by Pope Martin 1. When Constans hadpublished in 64 8 his rel igious edict known as the7 3755 , the exarch Olympiu s had orders to proceedfrom Ravenna to Rome, and there enforce the monothelete principles contained in it. On the death of

Olympiu s in 65 3 , his successor, Ca lli0pa s, went onwith the execution of these orders . Martin I . wasseiz ed by an a rmed band of the imperial soldiers inthe Lateran church, and conveyed as a criminal toConstantinople . In March

,6 5 5 , he was banished to

the Crimea, and there he died , after enduring thegreatest privations

,in September ofthe same year.

I t might seem strange to u s, did we not recollecthow often the same scenes have been enacted since,that such should b ethe practical outcome of Opinionsso purely theoretica l as those above described . And

yeti t i s only ignorance or indifference, that candismiss the subject of these controversies (as issometimes done) with only a hasty express ion ofcontempt . I say advisedly, the subject, as distin

gu ished from the mode in Which the dispute wascarried on

,or the practical results to which it led.

“ If we looked at th is controversy from one s ide,”

writes the late Professor Maurice} “we might pro

nounce i t one of the most important and serious inwhich men were ever engaged —the gathering up ofall previous disputes respecting freedom and neces

sity, respecting the relation of the Divine will tothe human

,respecting the struggle in the heart of hu

manity i tself. All these arguments would seem to b e

i Mediaeva l Philosophy ( f859 ), p . 29 °

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4 4 ST . JOHN OF DAMASCUS .

widely-spread acquaintance with the writings of Aristotle

,and the increased practice to which it wa s put

in the monophysite and monothelete controversies,were made subservient to a formal orthodoxy, to

enu nciating articles of a creed ; The ignorant crowdm ight b e goaded to fury by party cries in the church

or the amphithea tre 5 but to clamour for or aga inst ana ddition to the Tr z

'

sagz'

on could afford little presumption that the clamourer was in earnest about therealities of Christian life . Atthe same time these“miserab le circus-fights of the sixth century, ofwhich Maurice indignantly complains, these windycontroversies of people “who had talked ab out thedivine and human nature till they had lost a ll fa ith in

God and man,

” were fa r from devoid of effects, evenlasting effects, on the political world . Itis not easyto measure the importance of the step taken b y the

Roman pontiff in 4 84 , when, solely on the groundof monophysite opposition

,Fel ix I I . issued his

anathema against the patria rch of Constantinople,and communion was broken ofl

'

between the Ea sternand Western churches . Who can calculate whatmight have been the condition of Russia, of Europe,of the Turk ish Empire, at this day, had the union ofthe Eastern and Western churches not been severed ?

The outline thus b riefly sketched of the two greatcontroversies which harassed the Eastern Churchduring the fifth, s ixth, and seventh centuries, seemed

necessa ry as an introduction tothe state of that Churchin John of Damascus’s own day. The latter ofthe two,indeed, the monothelete, l ingered on into the e ighthcentury, and John

’s writings a re colou 1edby allusions

THE GREEK CHURCH IN THE E IGHTH CENTURY . 4 5

to i t a nd its predecessor. Nearly a hundred yea rs a fterHeraclius had vainly striven to unite the disorganisedprovinces of the empire by a compromise whichshould satisfy the monophysites, we findthe EmperorPhilippicu s Bardanes (7 1 1 -7 1 3 ) giving the ascendancyto the monothelete party, an ascendancy only to b ewrested from them once more under his successor.The subservience ofthe Greek bishops to the imperialwill i s an unfavourable sign of the t imes : with fewexceptions, they appear to have changed the ir front,and marshalled the ir subordinates in new positions , atthe promulgation of an ect/zesz

'

s,or fienotz

'

mn, or {ypcywiththe same readiness as officers at a review executethe evolutions of the ir troops when the ir general hasgiven the word of command . Such independentthought as there was seems mostly to have soughtthe she lter ofthe cloister. Yeteven here, how greata difference i s perceptible between the freedom andprogress of the West, and the ever-circling and u n

progressive disputations of the East. We involu n

ta ri ly recall our own Bede, spending his last momentsin Wea rmouth Abbey, dictating the closing verses ofhis translation of St. John’s Gospel, and comparehim with an Eastern counterpart, such as might havebeen found in the solitudes of Palestine or Egypt

,

on that same eve of Ascension Day, 7 3 4 . It mayhave been from a crushing sense of inferiority to the

ever-growing power of I slam, no less than from theinflu ence of writers like the so-called Dionysius, andOrigen , and Gregory of Nyssa, that a mystic, con

templative, symboliz ing habit of mind took possession

of the Greek Church at this t ime . The spread of

4 6 ST. JOHN OF DAMASCUS .

Christ’s kingdom on earth must have seemed to

many to b e so checked, that the thoughts had norelief but in the contemplation of the world unseen .

Thus the figu rative, spirituali z ing tendencies of thetheologian , and the craving for coarse and materialrepresentations of the illiterate, could find their satisfaction together. . As the newer Platonism had triedto sublimate the sensual rites of the old Greekmythology, so this

“positive.

and negative mode ofapprehension,

” 1 this way of conce iving God andthings divine only under images, enabled the teacherto extract a spiritual meaning from the rude and um

artistic image, or the childish ceremonial, in whichthe vulgar delighted .

This may make it less strange to find that the nextgreat controversy which agitated the Church, thatwith which the name of John of Damascus i s so pro

m inently associated, was about a subject at firstsightso utterly foreign to the two preceding ones, as theworship of images . The iconocla stic controversy, as i tis commonly called, was, however, by no means sodisconnected, as might have appeared, from the morespeculative ones already described . I t was theirlegitimate successor . While the star-gaz er moves onwith his eyes intent on the constel lat ions, his feetfall into the ditch . While the speculative mindsof the Greek Church were thus lost in bewilderingaltitudes

, the unlearned ones at the other extremewere - fast falling into idolatry . The term is hardly toostrong a one . The picture, or the image, which the

Catapfzatz'

c andApop/zatz'

c, to u se the a ctua l terms.

THE GREEK CHURCH IN THE E IGHTH CENTURY. 4 7

theologian tolerated, it may b e, even approved, as in itsway a shadow of that reality of which nothing in thisworld could b e more than a shadow, was allowed tobecome for the multitude a palpable object of theirdevotions . I t has been often alleged as a reason for

the success of the Mahometan creed, as a ju stification of i t in the providential government of theworld

,that it did, in fact, recall men from what was

practically a worship of saints,and relics

,and images,

to the primal confession of One only God ; that i tbade men, while they were lost in endless discussionsabout His nature and will

,realise the fact that there

wa s indeed a God over the world,and that His will

must b e obeyed . When once established, the Mahometan faith has indeed shown a far more lifelessrigidity than ever the Byz antine Church did in it sdarkest days . But in the firstvigour of its youth, theupholders of Islam had certainly this ground of vantage , and knew how to turn it to account. Therei s extant a letter of Leo the Isa u rianl to the Caliph

The history of this letter,to which reference may b e made

hereafter, is a n interesting one . I owe my firsta cqua intancewith i t to an a rticle in La Be lgique,

” by F él ix Né ve . An

Armenia n doctor of the eight century, named Ghévond,

had left a history of his own times, beginning with the submission of Armenia to the Arabian yoke in 66 1, and endingwith events of 7 70 or 77 1 . In the course of i t he embodies alet ter of Oma r I I . , wri tten soon a fter his a ccession ( in 7 17 ) toLeo, himself also newly sea ted on his throne, as wel l as theemperor’s reply . Oma r’s letter is one of enquiry about theChristia n religion, with a statement of his objections to it a shitherto presented to him . One of these runs as follows, inthe F rench transla tion (Pa ris, 1856, p. 4 2) ofthe a rchimandrite

4 8 ST. JOHN or DAMASCUS .

Omar I I .

,in reply to one addressed to him by the

latter, in which, singularly enough , we see the greaticonoclastic emperor playing the part of a defenderof images— atleast, of what he then thought theirreasonable u se .

“We honour the cross,

”he writes

,

“ because of the sufferings endured upon it by theincarnate Word of God. As for pictures, we do notpay the like respect to them , not having rece ivedfrom Holy Scripture any command whatever on thesubject. Atthe same t ime, as we find in the O ldTes tament the divine commission to Moses to carvefigu res of cherubim in the tabernacle, and as we a re

inspired by a sincere regard for the disciples of theLord

,and burning with love of the inca rnate Lord

Himself, we have ever felt the need of preserving

the ir likenesses 5 and these have s ince become for u s,as i t were, the ir l iving representation . The ir presencedel ights u s ; and we glorify God, who saved u s by

the mediation of His only Son, appearing in theworld under a l ike figu re . We glorify the saints also 5but we render no homage to painted wood (a u boisetauxSuch were the moderate Opinions of Leo about the

year 7 1 7 . But within the next ten years we find himtaking a very different course . The temperate de

fender of the u se of images now appears as the

determined opposer of what he considered the irabuse. What causes may have been at work to

Chahna z a rian Pourquoi a dorez -vous les ossements desa p6tres etdes prOphetes, a insi qu e les tableaux, etla croix quia nciennement serva i t, selon la loi, d

’

instrumentde su ppliee ?”

Leo’s reply is not so c ivilly worded as tha t ofhis correspondent .

THE GREEK CHURCH IN THE E IGHTH CENTURY. 4 9

produce this change can only b e inferred .

1 I t mayhave b een a conviction that nothing but a pu rifiedfaith in Christendom could long withstand theadvance of I slam . I t may have been the fruit ofcontinued attention given to the subject, since he

was firstattracted to i t by the Caliph’s letter. Or itmay have been that matters had been getting worsein the Christian churches of his dominions during thepast decade , and that, by the year 7 26 , he felt i tneedful to interpose , and check the growing abuse ofwhat (for want of a more convenient term) we mayallow ourselves to call image-worship . Atany rate ,in the yea r above-named

,he i ssued his firstordi

nance 5 in which , while not as yet condemningimages in themselves, he strove to abolish the prevailing mode of showing honour to them by kneel ingand prostration . Thus the signal was given for battle

-a battle which raged long and fiercely and withvery varying success . That the cause espoused byLeo ultimately failed, is (irrespective of the inherent

The cha ra cter and motives of Leo . I I I . , commonly ca lledfrom his na t ive country the I sa uria n, ha ve been very va riouslyrepresented. The ecclesia st ica l historians have na tura lly portrayedhim a s a violent and persecuting tyrant . Gibbon

, per

haps the more readily on this a ccount, commends the wisdomof his a dministra tion and the puri ty of his manners . ” Dea n

M ilman pra ises the “ incompa rable a ddress a s prompt a s

dec isive,'

which he showed in the most t rying situa tions .F inlay (

“History of the Byz antine Empire,”

1854 ) and

F reeman (“ History a nd Conques ts of the Sa ra cens,”

1876 )speak of him in still higher terms . The former indeed rega rdshim as one of the unapprecia ted heroes of the world, thesa viour ofthe eas tern empire.

E

5 0 ST . JOHN OF DAMASCUS .

merits of the case) but one instance mo'

re of thetruth of the observation, that a reforming movementrarely succeeds, i f it begins with the governmentinstead ofthe people.

The immediate results ofthe edict,and the part

taken by John of Damascus,may b e more convenientlyreserved for a fresh chapter.

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5 2 ST. JOHN OF DAMASCUS.

to b e seen the images‘

of Christ and of His Mother,images of the saints, emblems of divine grace oroperat ion, the dove for the Holy Spirit, the ark for

the Church, the fish, as the letters of its name inGreek formed the in itial letters of the name and titleof Christ, the anchor of Christian hope, and so on .

Such effigies were engraved on their signets, anddrinking-cups

,and tombs 5 and b y-and-by were found

on the walls of their churches as well . To trace thegrowth of this practice throu gh successive generationswould b e beyond our limits i t may b e su fficienttoremark that it developed more slowly in the Westernthan in the Eastern branch of the Church . Comingat once to a time approaching that of John ofDamascus

, we find Gregory the Great (5 90- 604 )writing to a hermit who had appl ied to him on thesubj ect

,that he was well aware that his correspondent

desired not the image of his Saviour, to worship it asGod

,but to kindle in him the love of Him whose

image he beheld .

“Ne ither do we,”he added,1

“ prostrate ourse lves before the image as before a

De ity 5 but we adore Him, whom the symbol represents to our memory as born , or suffering, or seatedon the throne .

”

There could have been small cause for dissension ,i f a ll who found comfort in a cru cifix or a painting

had kept themselves within these bounds. But evenin the Western Church , and still more widely andrapidly in the Eastern, the actual practice, unless al ltestimony is to b e discredited

,went far beyond this .

Neander, v ., p. 275 .

THE ICONOCLAST IC CONTROVERSY. 5 3

I t had become usua l to (a ll down before images,to

pray to them, to kiss them ,to burn lights and incense

in their honour, to adorn them with gems andprecious metals, to lay the hand on them in swearing,and even to employ them as sponsors at baptism .

”1

The miracles alleged to have been wrought by themwere multiplied . Germanns , Patriarch of Constanti

nople, when Leo's firstedict was put forth

,dwel ls

particularly on this as a motive for reta ining them inveneration . He specifies, in one of his letters, animage 2 ofthe Virgin at So z opol is in Pisidia, from thehand of which unguents distilled . More famous stillwas the l ikeness of our Lord, said to ha ve been b orneby Ananias to Edessa, and placed by King Abga r ina n iche over the city gate . There i t was carefullyconcealed by the Bishop of Edessa , in the time ofAbga r

’

s grandson,with a lamp burning

.

before i t 5 andwhen, five centu ries after this, the Pers ians had been

Robertson, p . 9 1 .2 Gieseler, i i . , p . 20 1 . I t should b e observed tha t , whilethe terms “ images a nd “ image-worship ” a re reta ined , forwa nt of a better subst itute , ea ch of them requires some qu a l ifica t ion . The

“ images ” fina lly sa nct ioned in the seventhgenera l council (the second of N icaea

,

“ were not worksof sculpture, but pa intings a nd other representa tions on a flatsu rfa ce ; a limita tion to which the Greek Church has eve rs ince adhered .

”Robertson , ib . , p . 164 . We ha ve a lso, a s

Dea n M ilman ha s observed , no words corresponding to the

prosku ni rz'

: a nd[a fra id of the Greeks ; the s ingle term worship having to do duty both for the fwnou r implied in theformer, which the Greek d ivines a llowed to b e pa id to the iricons

, and for the serv ice or homage implied in the la tter, whichis du e to God only. Of course the ma in quest ion is, whetherthe multitude pra ctica lly observed any such distinction .

5 4 ST. JOHN 017 DAMASCUS .

repulsed by the hidden virtue of this picture, itWa sfound, on being taken from its concealment, to havethe lamp still burning before it. It was afterwardsremoved to Byz an tium .

1 The rough mountaineer ofIsauria, an emperor whose l ife had been spent chieflyinthe camp, was not likely to listen with more patiencetothe recital of such fables, than our own Henry VI I I .

to accounts of the marvels wrought by the image ofSt. Mary of Walsingham or our Lady of Ipswich .

But our immediate concern is with the way inWhich John of Damascus took up the gauntlet

(thusthrown down . As soon, probably, as the newsreached Syria, he drew up his firstApology , or discourse in defence of the sacred images

,designed for

circulation throughout the empire . In this he com

bated the position taken by the iconocla sts . To theobj ection drawn from the language of the Second

Commandment,he replied that figu res of the

cherubim,and of animals and plants

,were used to

adorn the Temple, and that the letter killeth, but

the spirit giveth life.

” If the prohibition in thatSecond Commandment was directed, not againstmaking such images, but worshipping them,

then (hecan reply)

“ I adore not the earthly material, but its

Creator, who for my sake vouchsafed to dwell in anearthly tabernacle, and who by the earthly materialwrought out my salvation .

”2 With such a relative

1 The story is in Georgius Cedrenu s, a monk of the eleventhcentury . See Mr . Wright’s a rticle on Abga r in the

“ D ictiona ry of Christia n Litera ture .

”

2 N eander, v . , p . 286, where an abstra ct of the discourse i sg iven .

THE ICONOCLASTIC CONTROVERSY. 5 5

honour and veneration ,”1 belonging to them in virtue

of their associations, he declares that he will nevercease honouring the earthly material by means of

which his salvation had been effected . Or aga in,

should it b e urged that the images of Christ and theVirgin Mother would b e su ffic ientfor this pu rpose ,

he answers , that to forb id the rendering a share ofthe l ike honour to images of sainted men would b e todisparage that human nature which Christ had exaltedby His inca rnation .

“Why should not the saints ,who have shared in the sufferings of Christ, sha re also ,as His friends, even here upon earth

,in His glory

In this, in truth, lay the difference between the olddispensation and the new. Under the old , a man

’sdeath was but an occasion for mourning. No templewas dedicated to God under any man

’s name . Butnow the memory of the saints was held in honou r,and the “mourni ng for a Jacob ” changed into therej oicing for a Stephen .

”

Meanwhile the imperial edict was producing agreater ferment in men’s minds than Leo himself hadprobably expected . The eruption of a volcano inthe ZEgaean, and the sudden throwing up of avolcanic island, was looked on as a token of thewrath of heaven against the suppressors of imageworship . In the Archipelago the influ ence of the

1 The phra se i s from the Rev . W . Pa lmer’s “ D isserta tionson Subjects Rela t ing to the Orthodox or Ea stern -Ca tholicCommunion,” 185 3 , p . 265 . D isserta tion xv ii i . of tha t work isentitled : Of the worship or venera t ion of icons and rel ics,

”

a nd conta ins a skilful defence, though in the na ture of specia lpleading, of the pra cti ce of the Eastern Church in this pa r

5 6 ST . JOHN OF DAMASCUS .

monks was great, and this was thrown into the scaleagainst the emperor. An insurrection was raised inthe Cyclades . A pretender to the throne was setupin the person of one Cosmas, and an ill-equippedfleet was sent against Constantinople 1 Leo had nodiffi cu lty in suppress ing the revolt, and the exasperation it produced only led him on to take st ill severermeasures . In 7 3 0, or shortly before, he issued asecond edict, in which, not content with forbiddingthe worship of images, or ordering them to b e placedin such a position on the walls as not to invite adoration , he decreed the absolute unlawfulness of imagesin churches . Such as were found there were to b edestroyed, and the vacan t spaces where they hadbeen were to b e washed over. Germanus , Patriarch

of Constantinople,an old man of ninety-five, resigned

his office sooner than obey this new edict,and was

succeeded by his syncellu s, or secretary, Anastasius.

On hearing of the deposition of Germa nu s, Johnof Dama scu s

.

composed his second address . The

immediate cause of it, he says at the beginning, wasa want of perspicuity in the first on account of

the firstdiscourse being not very intelligible to themulti tude .

” Possibly they found it less difficu lttounderstand his meaning than to determine at oncewhat ought to b e done. John himself, whether stil lat the Caliph

’

s Court in Damascus,or an inmate of

the monastery of St. Sabas,2 was within Saracen

Robertson, p . 94 .

2 To this period belongs the story of Leo’s attempt to com

pa ss the ruin of John of Dama scus by means of the forgedletter before referred to . If we could trust the author of the

THE i conocm sr rc CONTROVERSY. 5 7

j urisdiction,and out of the emperor’s reach 5 and in

his boldness therefore there was not of necessity any~

thing very heroic . But those who were more exposedtothe imperial displeasure must often have felt themselves in a strai t. As an instance of the height towhich popular pa ssions were roused,may b e mentioned

the destruction of the great statue of Christ standingover the Bronz e Gate ofthe palace in Constantinople,and known by the name ofthe Surety, from a legendof its having once been a surety for a Christian sailorwhen forced to borrow money. This image, obnoxious

to Leo from its prominent position and the super

stitiou s veneration with which it was regarded, wa sdoomed to destruction , and a soldier of the impe rialguard mounted a ladder to remove it. A crowd ofwomen thronged about him,

with entreaties to spare

it. When he struck his a x e against the face of theimage, they dragged down the ladder in fury, and thesoldier was e ither killed by the fall, or, like a secondPentheus, torn in pieces by the infuriated women .

1

Life,” John wa s then atDama scus . But Lequ ien conjec

tures tha t he must ha ve been orda ined before th is controversybroke out (Opp . i . H is rea son for thinking so i s, tha tin his sermon on the Annuncia tion , del ivered a fter his ordinat ion , he speaks of the Roman Empire a s atpea ce . This, inLequ ien

’

s j udgment, would not have been sa id a fter the iconocla st ic storm had begun to rage . Wha tever the a rgument isworth, i t will ha rdly bea r Gibbon out in saying (Ch . xl ix . not.in lac. ) the legend [ofthe amputa ted hand]is famous 5 but hislea rned editor, fa ther Lequ ien, 1za s u n lu ckily proved tha t St.John Dama scenu s was a lready a monk before the Iconocla stdispu te .

”

1 See an a rticle in the Cfir z'

stz'

a n Observer for 1877 , whereBa roniu s

’

s commenda tion of these ha rridans is discussed.

5 8 ST. JOHN or DAMASCUS .

The house of the new patriarch,Anastas ius

, wa s

attacked, and i t was not without considerable bloodshed that order was restored . The statue was however removed— to be erected again at a later t ime bythe Empress Irene— and a plain cross setup in theniche where i t had stood . An inscription was added

,

in Greek iambics, as a testimony to the emperor’sz eal

Enduring not tha t here a l ifeless form,

A speechless wooden image,smea red with pa int ,

Should bea r the name of Christ,our sov’ran lord

Leo, a ndwith him Constant ine his son,Have ca rved this blessed emblem ofthe cross,Joy ofthe fa ithful, o

’er the pa la ce ga tes .”

It was to minds thus excited that the remainingletters of John were addressed . His second andthird discourses do not contain many fresh arguments 5the third in particular being little more than a repetition ofthe other two 5 but he uses much stronger language in the second than in the first. I t i s the welfareofthe sta fe

,he says, that is the concern of kings 5 the

settlement of the church i s for pastors and teachers .

Without as yetgoing so far as to anathematise Leo,even praying that the necessity for such a step may

b e averted, he hints very plainly at such an issue in

the turn he gives to a passage from St. Pau l . Citing

the words of Gal . i . 8, he significantly inserts thename of kz

'

7zg-“But thou gh we, or an angel from

heaven , or a king, preach any other gospel unto youthan tha t which we have preached unto you —andthere stops short . Shut your ears,

”he concludes,

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6 0 ST . JOHN OF Dama scu s .

reflectupon the emperor’s conduct,by throwing onthe

ground a coin bearing his image and stamping uponit. For this he was imprisoned afresh 5 but his actwas applauded so warmly, that Constantine wasdriven to exclaim,

“Am I, or is this monk, emperor

of the world ?” The words,j ust as in the parallel

case from our own history,were caught up by eager

court iers. The prison in which Stephanus wasconfined wa s burst open, he himself was dragged

through the streets by a rope t ied to his heels till hewas dead, and his body thrown into a receptacle forsuicides and criminals .1 Such proofs of indomitableresolution in his opponents may have convincedC0pronymu s that his hands would need strengthening by the support of church councils . Accordingly

,

in 7 54 , he convened an assembly of bishops from hisown dominions to the shores ofthe Bosphorus . The

pope disregarded the summons, and would nota ttend 5 the patriarch of Constantinople (Anastasius)was dead ; the other three patriarchates were underMahometan sway. Still

,an imposing array of three

hundred and thirty-e ight bishops was collected, andby their pliant decisions the iconoclastic principleswere confirmed. The chief defenders of imageworship were anathematised by name 5 the oldpatriarch Germanu s

,George, metropol i tan of Cyprus,

and, above all, John of Damascus, being conspicuousobjects of displeasure .

“ Anathema to Mansou r,”

ran the sentence,“ cursed favourer of the Saracens,

traitorous worshipper of images, wronger of Jesus

Robertson, p . 105 .

THE ICONOCLAST IC CONTROVERSY . 6 1

Christ, and disloyal to the empire ! Anathema toMansour, teacher of impiety, and bad interpreter of

Scripture An additional insult was devised, by theemperor’s causing his name to b e written Manz er,

”

ba sta rd} instead of Mansour ; a species of affrontvery popular at the time, and hardly less so s ince .

I t is difficu ltto believe that the bigotry of Constantinecould carry him so far

,as to ordain that, in place of

the religious paintings removed from church walls ,there should b e substituted pictures of “ birds andfruits

,or scenes from the chase, the theatre, and the

circus .” Yeti t is not easy to say what bounds aruler of such a disposition would setto his imperiouswill

,when provoked by the fanatical obstina cy of the

opposing party. Even his ablest apologist cannotdeny that in following out his purpose he was guiltyof violent excesses, and that when either policy orpassion prompted him to order punishment to b einflicted, i t was done with fearful severity .

” 2

Instea d of his gra ndfa ther’s name, Al am oa r (saysTheopha nes, Chronogra phia ,

” cd . M igne, p . which isby interpreta t ion ra nsomea

’

, he ca lled the new doctor of theChurch Ma u ser , with a Jewish meaning.

”The word is u sed

in this form in the Vulga te ofDeut . xxi ii . , 2, and in the Douayversion taken from it A mamz er, tha t is to say, one born ofa prostitute, sha ll not enter into the church ofthe Lord .

” Ina l ike spirit John had been nicknamed Sarab a ita for Sab a ita ,a nd Jannes for Joannes ; while he himself wa s not ba ckwa rdto misca l l the iconocla stic bishops epismtoz

’

(obscurantists) forepz

’

scopoz'

. Readers of Dr. Ma itland W il l ca l l to mind themany instances he brings of the fondness ofthe ea rl ier Puritansfor the same kind of thing .

2 F inlay, Byz a ntine Empire, i . , p . 72 . How diffi cu ltit isto discern the true cha ra cter of the grea t a ctors in these t imes

ST. JOHN or DAMASCUS .

B utas the suppression of image-worship took itsrise with the emperor, so i t was liable to come to anendwith any change in the occupant of the throne.

Constantine had bound the inhabitants of Constantinople— according to some, all the inhabitants of hisdominions— b y an oath , to the observance of hisdecrees . But he died in 7 7 5 , and his son, Leo IV .

,

reigned but four years and a half. The empressmother, Irene, was left as regent during the minorityof her son , Constantine VI .

, a child of ten years old .

Irene had been bound, l ike the rest, by her father-inlaw’s oath, but her mind was bent on undoing therel igious work of his reign. Comparing the shortinterregnum of Leo IV. to that of our Edward VI .

,

the task she setherself will appear notaltogetherunlike that undertaken by Q ueen Mary. Withou t

entering into detail s concerning the Opposition she

had to overcome, or the prelates and soldiers she hadto conciliate

,it may su ffice to say that in 787 a second

council was assembled, by her direction, at N icaea, atwhich the decrees of the iconoclastic council in theHeraeum in 7 5 4 were revoked . I t was now decidedthat

,

“even as the figu re of the cross was honoured,

so images of the Saviour and the Blessed Virgin,of

angels and of saints, whether painted or mosaic, or of

any other su itable material, a re to b e setup for kiss

through the mists of pa rtisan historians, m ay b e inferred fromthe very sobriquet of Cop ronymu s which they have succeededin fa stening on this emperor . Though a s familia rly known tou s by ita s Ca ius by his nickname of Ca ligula , i t wa s rea llymeant for a most opprobrious epithet, ba sed on a legend of hisha ving fouled the baptisma l font when an infant.

THE i conocm sr rc com novnnsv. 6 3

ing and other honou rable reverence butnot for that real service (latrez

'

a ) which belongs to theDivine nature alone .

” 1 This council gradually cameto b e regarded, both by Greeks and Latins, as theseventh general council ; and with its settlement ofthe question we may for the present take leave ofthesubject .

Robertson, p . 157 .

64 ST. JOHN OF DAMASCUS .

PART I I .

W R I T I N G S .

CHAPTER VII .

THE “ FONS SCIENTUE.

IT is not easy to keep separate the l ife and works ofan author

,when he i s known to u s only by a collec

tion of writings, admitting no settled order of chronology 5 and by vague traditions, suggested in many

cases (as it i s probable) by those writings . Of such aone i t might almost b e said that his written worksconstitute his life . So it i s in a great measure with this

Doctor of the Eastern Church. Had we possesseda ny complete or trustworthy account of him from independent sources, i t would have been natural torelate the story of his life first, and then enter uponan investigation of his writings . But the events inwhich we can trace any active part taken by him a re

so few,and among those the controversy on image

worship holds so prominent a place,that it seemed

most fitting to notice his three letters or discourses on

that subject, in the account of the controversy j ustgiven . If we a re to trust the accredited biography ofJohn of Jerusalem,

these letters also differ from all

the rest of his writings in having been composedbefore his retirement to a

'

monastery. There may

THE FONS SCIENTUE.

"6 5

a ccordingly b e the less impropriety in beginning oursurvey of the extant works 1 of John of Dama scuswith those which confessedly belong to his monasticlife. Of these the firstin order of importance is theFons Sc ientiae, or Source of Knowledge .

”

Under this title is comprised a group of threeworks

,each complete in itself, but forming to

gether an encyclope dia of Christia n theology . Theya re ( 1 )

“ Capita Phi105 0phica ,”

(2 ) De Haeresib u s

Liber, (3 )

“Ex positio accurata Fidei Orthodox ae .

”

The general title of “ Source, or Well-Spring ofKnowledge ”

(P age7 Gfl o'

seé'

s) is given by the authorhimself, atthe end of the second chapter of the firsttreatise, in which he says tha t his intention isto sketchout an epitome of all knowledge . To this end, he

will firstclear and strengthen the inte llectual visionby help of the best philosophical system he knew

,

that of Aristotle 5 then he will pas s in review theerroneous opinions of heretics , from the earliest time sto his own 5 and lastly, he will setforth a n expositionof divine truth . From the dedication to Cosma s ,

I t may be mentioned tha t the firstprinted edition of any

portion of Damascenu s wa s tha t of a La tin version ofthe De

F ide Orthodox a ,” by Jacobus F abe r

,in 1 507 . The firstGreek

edi tion in print wa s tha t of the same trea t ise , with a dditions, atVerona , in 15 3 1 . The firstapproa ch to a collected edition ofthe works, still only in a La tin transla tion, w a s tha t by Gra viu sof Bayeux, publ ished atCologne in 154 6 . Pa ssing over othered itions, we come to the grea t one of the F rench Dominica nLerlu ien , in two vols . , fol . , Pa ris, 17 12 . This ha s been te .

printed, with the a ddition of some doubtful pieces , in the seriesof the Abbé M igne, 3 vols . , Pa ris, 1864 5 and i t is to thistha t a ll references will be made .

F

66 ST . JOHN OF DAMASCUS .

Bishop of Ma iuma,i t would seem that the collective

work was not fin ished, at least in its present form ,

before the yea r 7 4 3 5 that being the date assigned to

Cosma s’

s consecration . We propose to give a shortanalysis of each of these threetreatises.

The t itle of the first,Capita Philosophica

(Kep/za la z'

a or Heads of Philo50phy,

” appears to indicate a wider scope than theextant treatise takes in . As i t actually stands

, thecurrent heading,

“Dia lectica ,” really answers more

accurately to it, as it consists of little more than aseries of short chapters on the Categories of Aristotle

,

and on the Universals of Porphyry. If it is not to b eregarded as one section or instalment of a la rger work,we must conclude that Dama scenu s was content withso much only of philosophic introduction

,as would

fithis readers to j udge the better between what wasfalse and what was true— the subject matter of hisnext two divisions ofthe “Fons Sc ientiae.

” For hesays plainly enough (cap . i i i . ) that logic, or dialectic,i s rather an instrument of philosophy than a divisionof it itsel f. And that he took no narrow view of thefield of philosophy, i s clear from the fanciful sixfold definition of it which he gives at the outset, andstill more from his division of it into 1 ) Speculative,(2 ) Practical 5 these again being subdivided respectivelyinto 1 ) Theology,Physiology (or Natu ra l Sc ience), andMathema tics ; (2 ) Ethics, Economics, and Politics .I t i s obvious, therefore, that by the t itle of this piece,assuming it to b e complete, he can only have meantto give a summary of one department of philosophy. This is further evident from the contents of

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6 8 ST. JOHN or DAMASCUS .

made the seat of empire. He preceded by awhole century the Arabic translators of Aristotle,Mé su ch the physician, Hona i

’

n his pupil,Isaac the

son of Hona’

in.

1 The great Syriac Lexicon of Bernstein shows

,by the ~numb er of words of Greek forma

t ion i t contains,how much the vernacular had been

enriched by the contributions of writers l ike Damas

cenu s, from the middle of the e ighth century. I t isthis priority in time

,along with the application ofthe

Aristotelian method to Christian theology, that givesits value to the Capita Philosophica .

”

The second work of this group isthe “DeHaeresib u s

Compendium,

” or Summary of Heresies . In this thereis the least originality of the three, as it i s l ittle morethan

'

a transcript of a similar work by Epipha niu s,, in

the fourth century, with some additions by Damas

cenu s himself. In the introductory letter to Cosmashe had disclaimed all pretence to originality, so that

we must not misj udge him . Epiphaniu s, in his work,had enumerated eighty sects, or heresies, beginningwith what we should hardly class in such a list,the four states of l ife mentioned by St. Paul (Col .i i i . as those ofthe Greek, the Jew,the Barbarian ,and the Scythian . His last is that ofthe Massalians .

This accordingly re-appears in the work of John ofDamascus, and is followed by an appendix of sometwenty-three or twenty-four more, drawn from Timotheus Presbyter, and others . The author himselfmakes the number to b e j ust one hundred (p. 7 7 7 ) 5

“ La Belgique, tom . x 1i . , p . 127 . See a lso Mu llinger’

s

University of Cambridge ” p . 92 .

THE FONS SCIENTUE.

but counting one or two doubtful ones, which may

have been added by some later reviser, there a re one

hundred and three in all . The most interestingarticle in this latter portion

,as wel l as the only one

(with the exception of tha t on the Christianocategori,or Iconoclasts), which may probably b e the work ofDama scenu s himself

,is that on the Mahometans,

whom he calls Ishmael ites . The arguments conta inedin it may b e more conveniently noticed when we cometo consider John’s writings on this topic collectively .

But we may observe,in passing, his odd derivation

ofthe name Saracen. Tracing the origin ofthe raceup to Haga r and Ishma el, who were sent emptyaway bv Sa r a /z, he deduces the ir name from twoGreek words (Sa r r/za s-kazza z) , signifying

“ Sarah’sempty ones . ” Like Epipha niu s, he concludes hi ssummary of false bel iefs by a profession of thetrue . Ever mindful of monophysite and monotheletedisputes, which he had referred to even in hisDialectic

,

”he inserts a clause in this creed on the

one will, one action in the three hypostases of theGodhead . The mystery of the Trinity he strives toillustrate b y a pa rallel with the root, the branch , andthe fruit, of a tree 5 or aga in, with fountain, river,and

sea . Atthe end i s added an inj unction to worship

(p rosku nez’

n)1 and honour the Holy Mother of God . i

2 The kind of worship implied by this word , a s i t will b eremembered , is wha t the Greek Church a llowed to b e pa idto sa ints, or to the holy images, and is ca refully distinguishedfrom latr cz

'

a,the service du e to God a lone . The other word

Dama scenu s uses in the text is a genera l term for honour orreverence. I mention this, beca use the writer in Ceillier

’

s

70 ST . JOHN OF DAMASCUS .

The third and longest of the series, the De FideOrthodox a , is perhaps the most important of allJohn’s writings

,and, in some respects one of the

most important works that have come down to u s

from Christia n antiquity. For it is the firstcomplete“ Body of Divinity ” that we possess, and, as such ,has had an influ ence that cannot easily b e measured

qr on the theology ofthe West. I t was made known tothe Latin Church by the version of Burgundio ofPisa. John of Brompton fi x es the date with pre

cision, by saying that the translation was ma de thesame year that the Thames was froz en over— z

’

. e. ,

in the Grea t Frost of The statement thatPeter Lombard had this version before him whenpreparing his Book ofthe Sentences thus becomesquite probab le . Without

,therefore , taking account

of Aquinas,later on, whose indebtedness to the work

of Dama scenu s i s admittedly great, we have herea visible link of

'

connection between the EasternChurch and the Western . In fa ct

,the common

divis ion i nto four books, which the“De Fide ” pre

sents, is thought, not without good reason, to havebeen the work of transcrib ers seeking to make i tharmonise more closely, even in outward form,

with

the popular textbook of Lomb a rdu s. The divis1oninto four books seems to have been a favourite one

Histoire Généra le tom . xviii . , p . 1 1 7, seems to drawa n inference from the equiva lence of the La t in words by whichthese two a re rendered, a ndwhich he quotes Nous deyonsa dorer ethonorer (ca r i l metces deux termes comme synonymes )la tres-sa inte Mere de D ieu .

Twysclen’

s“ Decem Scriptores, p . 103 6 .

31 1113“ FONS SCIENTUE.

”

7 1

with the Latins for works of this cla ss, as we may see

b y the“ Sententiae ” of Bandinu s 5 which resembled

Peter the Lombard’s so closely in form,that it has

been disputed which of the two imitated the other. 1

The division of Dama scenu s himself is into one

hundred chapters, possibly meant to correspond with

the hundred sections of his De Haeresib u s Liber 5and a separation into four books really breaks theconnection between chapters meant to b e consecu ~

tive 5 as, for example, the forty-third and forty-fou rth

(on the providence of God, a nd on His foreknow

ledge) .Bes ides pas sages from Holy Scripture, which a re

largely quoted, though in a way that may often seemto u s fa r-fetched, the chief quotations a re fromGregory of Na z ianz u s, and his namesa ke of Nyssa,Basil

,Chrysostom

,Epiphaniu s, Nemesiu s, and some

others . The writings ascrib ed to Dionysius theAreopagite should not b e left out ; in pa rticula r, the )De Divinis Nominib u s .

” In fact,the amount of his

indebtedness to these and similar writers is greaterthan might at firstsight b e ob vious, from his way ofusing the ir language at times without troubling tospecify the ir names . Thus

,for example, towards the

end of the second chapter,when treating of the

impossib ility of knowing God, or comprehending thenature of the Incarna te Word, he has recourse to theillustration used by the Areopagite (

“Div. Nom. c .

namely, the walking upon the sea . The divisioninto books being, as was said above, in all probabil ity

Gieseler, i ii . , p . 29 1, n .

7 2 ST . JOHN or DAMASCUS .

an arbitrary one, not contemplated by the author,wea re at l iberty to class ify the chapters in larger orsmaller groups, according to the subj ects . Down tothe seventy-fifth chapter we can trace a fairly consistent plan ; but in the remain i ng chapters it i sdifficu ltto distinguish any method or sequence ofsubj ect. The following may serve as an imperfectoutline ofthe groundplan ofthe work 1

(a ) The impossibility of our knowing or comprehending God, who far transcends all human knowlege. The proof of God’s existence ; His essence,and unity (Chs. i .

(2) On the Trinity : the distinct personality of theWord and Holy Spirit (vi .

(c) On the crea t ion : angels, demons ; physicalphenomena, such as light, fire, winds, &c . (x v.

(d) On man : his creation in Paradise 5 his fa cu l

t ies and passions, -anger, fear, and the l ike : man ’sfree will and God’s predestination ( x x v.

(e) On God’s scheme for man

’

s redemption

f On the Incarnation : the double nature ofChrist : various topics in connection with that, suchas Peter the Fuller’s a ddition to the Ter Sanctus,the meaning ofthe Dionysian phrase

,tb emm'

r z'

c operat ion

,a ndthe like ( xlvi .

(g) Excursus on passions or affections to whichhuman nature i s subject ( lxiv. apparently intro

du ctory to

Some u se ha s been made , in th is a rra ngement, of an a rticleon John of Dama scus in M’

Clintock and Strong's Cyclopeedia

(New York , 1868, vol . in which an abstra ct ofthe “.De

F ide forms the most prominent pa rt .

THE FONS 50113 111 1112.

(lz) Our Lord’s passion

,death ,

“

and burial (1101.

(z'

) The descent into hell the resurrection , a scension

,and session at the right hand of the Father

( lxxiii .Answers to objections, chiefly on the double

nature of Christ (lxxvi .

(I) Ou fa i th : baptism : praying to the east : theholy images : the Holy Scriptures,— and other miscellaneou s subjects (lxxxii .

The above synopsis may enab le the reader to formsome slight idea of the course taken by the author inthis grea t work, and of the extent of ground goneover. I t would fa r exceed our present l imits toattempt any detailed ana lysis of it. A few indications of his mode of treatment must su ffice .

In what he sa ys atthe b eginning on the existenceand attributes of God

,we may readily trace the influ

ence ofwritings like those ascribed to Dionysius . Thati s to say, he proceeds b y way of nega tion rather thanof a ffi rmation . God is uncreate, unchangeable , incor

porea l, invisible, incomprehensible, and so ou . Hencethere i s nothing tha t we can afli rm of God beyond

!\

what has been revealed to u s in Holy Scripture (0.

As evidence ofthe existence of God, he points to theconcurrent testimony of those who have had a revela tion to guide them,

in the Old and New Testament,a nd of those who have had but the light of nature, aswe call it. Reason comes to the same conclusion .

For all things that ar e, a re e ither created or uncreated .

I f created, there must have been a Crea tor, that is,

74 ST. JOHN or DAMASCUS .

God ; if uncreated, there could b e 1n. them . no

liability to change or decay . But we w1tness thelatter all around u s. Therefore the other alternativemust b e the true one : the world has been created,and that proves a Creator. The order and regularityprevailing in the universe strengthens this conclusion

(c . i ii ) . What follows is on the attributes of God ;and in treating of th is we have the same peculiaritiesas at the first. The negative method of shutting outfalse conceptions is pursued.

“Whatever we say ofGod by way of affirmation ,

”a re his words

,

“ showsnot His nature

,but only the surroundings of His

nature . If you speak of Him as good, or j ust, orwise

,or anything e lse, you a re not express ing the

nature of . God,but only its surroundings . Some

things there a re spoken affirmatively of God, whichhave the force of negation in excess 5 as, for instance,when we speak of da rkness with God, we do notmean positive darkness, but that which is 7201 [gri l lfrom its be ing above light . So when we u se theword 122912! of Him,

we mean the nega tion of darkness ” (c . I t will b e noted that i t i s on theme taphysical or transcendental attributes of God thatDama scenu s dwells

,rather than on the ethical . His

arguments for the existence of a Son of God, and a

Holy Spirit, may strike u s as somewhat —too much inthe nature of inferences from words and names . The

F ai herhood of God implies a Son . The Spirit mustpertain to Him as necessarily as the breath (spirit) ofman which is in his nostrils pertains to him (c .

This Holy Spirit we may also ca ll the Spirit of\the

Son, but we must not say that He is from the Son

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7 6 ST . JOHN or DAMASCUS .

heaven,was gravely maintained by St. Chrysostom

and others, partly on the strength of such passages asIsaiah x l. , 2 2 ,

“ that stretche th out the heavens as acurtain (where, instead of curtain

,the Septuagint

has “ chamber ” or 5 and partly on theimpossibility of there be ing “

ends ” of heaven ,a ccording to a common Scripture phrase, i f theheaven were circula r (c . In treating of theworks of creation

,he has an opportunity of showing

the astronomical attainments which his biographercommended . The

'

seven planets, and the ir order 5the signs of the z odia c ; the na ture of the star thatappeared to the Magi 5 the nature of air and windsand water— a re all discussed in order. Ocean ” isthe reflu entstream,

compassing the earth like agirdle, with which we a re familiar from Homer. The

four rivers of Paradise, parting away from this circumambient ocean-stream

,a re the Ganges, the N ile, the

Tigris,and the Euphrates (c . His measure

ments of the continents, which a re given in stades,a ppear to b e taken from Strabo . The tree of l ife,

”

and the “ tree of the knowledge of good and evil,he interprets in a manner purely allegorical . The

former is an image of that contemplation of God, byvirtue of which we can rise from things terrestrial to

the great Artificer of them all 5 the latter, of thatbodily nourishment and gratification which passesaway into corruption .

Pas sing on to man (c . he gives what hasbeen called a “ psychology in 722468. Contrary toPlotinus

,he makes the mind of man not a distinct

element of his nature from the sou l, but only the

THE FONS 7 7

most subtle and refined pa rt of the soul. For a s

an eye in the body, so is mind in the soul . The

chapters which follow treat of man’s faculties, and inparticular of his freedom of will. The fa ll of man isthe subject with which the third book begins (0. x lv. ) 5but it i s trea ted in a brief, rhetorical kind of way.

Nothing is sa id as to the l iteral or figu rative meaningof the act of our firstparents 5 but some reflectionson it

,in an oratorical strain, a re made to introduce

the subject of Christ’s incarnation . The personalityand twofold na ture of Christ a re discussed atlength

,

and with great dia lectic skill. This na tura lly leads

the author to one of his favourite topics,the mono

physite doctrines ; in handling which he relates theaddition to the “Trisagion ,

” or “Ter Sanctus,

” madeb ythe monophysite patriarch ofAlexandria , Pe ter theF u llerl (c . A fruitful source of error he decla resto have been the confusion of natu re with persona l ity

A man consists of soul a nd body,

which,when compared with each other, a re as u rt

l ike as possible . And yetwe can truly say, of anygiven man, that he has one common nature— humanna ture . Beca use , while there is an infinite number ofindividual men, and no two of them exactly a like,all these individual personalities (hyposta ses) a re sofar after the same pattern , that they all consist ofsoul and body. Hence i t i s allowable to speak of

one natu re in any pa rt icular man. But when the

The surname of Gnap/zeu s, Fuller or Cloth-dresser, wa sgiven him from the c ircumstance of his having worked atthi semployment when a monk . He l ived in the reign of Ana stas ius (491

7 8 ST . JOHN or DAMASCUS .

same principle i s applied by heretics to the twofold

nature of Christ,and they would speak b y parity of

rea soning of his one nature, they err . For Christ i snot an individual of a species . There i s no otherlike him . And, therefore, it is not admissible tospeak of one nature in him,

in the same way as wecan speak of the one (human) nature shared alike bytwo different human be ings, each composite in himself, as Peter and Pau l1 (c . The flesh, orhuman nature, was present by way of efl /zyposz

‘a sz

'

fl inthe incarnate Word (0. The position held by

the Virgin Mother comes in du e course after this,and her right to the t itle T/zeotokos, or Mother ofGod, i s strenuously defended . This had been madea battle-cry in the Greek Church ever since the daysof Nestorius, when the churches at Constan tinoplerang with the applause of heated partisans, cheering

the turgid e loquence of a Proclus in defence of thehonour

'

of Mary. Nestorius i s assailed in nomeasured terms by John of Damascus for hisendeavour to substitute Motfier of Chr istfor Moffier

of God (c . The nature of the twofold will andoperation in Christ is then brought under review . Asone i llustration of it

,he cites the passage where the

divine and human will in Christ seem to manifest

As natu re (p/zysis) i s here distingu 1shed from per son or

person a lity (kyposta sz’

s ) so both a re elsewhere distinguished byDama scenu s from ozm

'

a,which he expla ins a s the speci es to

which va rious individua ls belong (c . xlvi ii .2 This may b e more intell igible to some by its La t in equ iva

lentin the Athana sia n Creed, where Christ is decla red to b eof a rea sonable soul, andhuman flesh

THE “FONS scmnrm .

”

79

themselves diversely— the same which long afterwa rds formed the subject of a n interesting discussionbetween Erasmus and Colet —the agony in Gethsemane, with its prayer

“Not my will,but thine

,b e

done (c . lxii. This leads to a consideration ofthepassions, or affections, of our nature, to which, asbe ing sinless, Christ in His humanity could b e sub

ject. Such a re the cravings of hunger and thirst,

wea riness a nd sorrow and fea r. In like manner a rewe to understand the growth , or progress, made byChri st, when it i s written that he

“ increased inwisdom and knowledge (c . The feeling ofhuman weakness su ggests prayer. Thus it is na turalto turn next to the Lord’s Pra yer. Christ’s divine a ndholy mind needed nothing to ra ise i t to communionwith God . He needed not to ask anything of God,who was Himself God . But having taken upon Himour nature in its entirety, Jesus would give u s thisexample of prayer. Such, it i s added, was the reasonfor His praying given by Christ Himself at the raisingof Laz arus (c. The reality of the humannature taken upon Him b y Chri st suggests thequestion of its corruptibili ty. He saw no corruption ” in the grave, but yetHis body could not b ecalled “ incorruptible ” ti ll the resurrection 5 other

wise it would not have been tru ly our nature that He

wore. The third book ends (c . lxxi ii . ) with a shortsection on the Descent into He ll, and the proclamation of a Redeemer there :

“ that unto Him everyknee should bow, of beings in heaven, and on earth,and under the ea rth .

The fourth book (0. lxxiv. ) begins with the resur

80 sr . JOHN or DAMASCUS .

rection of Christ ; the meaning of His eating anddrinking with the disciples, namely, to show the truthand reality of His resurrection in the body ; Hiss itting, but not in any literal or local sense, at the

right hand of the Father .” Then follows a series ofchapters (lxx vi. —lxxxi . ) of a retrospective character,referring again to the double nature of Christ and hiss ingle personality . An answer is given to the ob

jections of those who reason that, if there a re twonatures in the Christ whom we worship, one of whichis human

,we must b e worshipping what is human

that is,a crea ture (c . As has been before

noticed, the remaining chapters a re of a m iscel

laneou s description , and cannot wel l b e reduced toany systematic order. The eighty-second is headed

On Faith and Baptism,

” but should more properly

b e entitled On Baptism a lone 5 the following one

be ing On Fa ith .

”The threefold immersion is con

sidered to b e a symbol of the three days duringwhich Christ lay in the grave. Remission of sins is

given to all a l ike by means of baptism 5 but the gra ceof the Holy Spirit is given in proportion to theirfaith and previous pu rification .

” O i l is employed atbaptism , a s

~sign ifying our anointing, and renderingu s Chr ist’s anointed ones and promising u s God’smercy throu gh the Holy Spirit 5 even as it was a

branch of olive-tree that the dove brought to thosewho were saved from the deluge .

” 1 I t is charac

According to the usa ge of the Greek Church , the candida te for baptism is a nointed with simple oil, and then a fterbaptism he is anointed aga in, this time with a chrism compounded of va rious unguents, a s a token of the gra ce of con

’

I‘

HE“FONS 8 1

teristic ofthe writer, and of his t ime, that the sectionon Fa ith is much shorter tha n that on the Cross

,

which follows . The cross,he says, i s the sign that

distinguishes the Christian , as the sea l of circumc ision did the Jew. I t i s that which ra ises up themtha t a re fa llen, strengthens them tha t stand, the staffofthe weak the salvation of soul a ndbody .

Hence we should worship the manger, the grotto, thesepulchre, the very wood which b ore Christ

’s suffering body. Even images of it, in whatever material,deserve the same . Not that we pay this honour tothe material object (God forbid but to the emblem,

as a type of Christ . ” For if the very dwelling, theb ed, the clothing, of those whom we love is dear tou s, how much more so should b e the things belonging to God our Saviour ? (c . lxxxiv. ) In our devotions we worship towards the Eas t, for we turn tothe rising of our sun of righteousness,

” and we lookwith longing eyes to our na tive home, the Edenplanted in the East, from which we a re exi led for atime for our sins (c .

The chapter on the sacraments is among the mostimporta nt in the work . After reciting the goodness

of God in creating man, and ma n’s disobedience

which cut him off from union with his Maker, the

author b riefly refers to the scheme for our redemption ,

firmation, and the descent of the Holy Spiri t . I t may b e

observed tha t by the phra se ex treme u nctz'

on is properly meantla stunction , last of the va rious ones which a believer mayreceive during the course of his l ife ; and not, a s may somet imes b e thought , an anointing only resorted to when a personis in ex fr emz

'

s .

8 2 ST. JOHN OF DAMASCUS .

whereby we might once more become fitto enj oy thepresence of God . Now

,for a man to b e raised to

this new and better life,he needs the regeneration

which shall b e his b irth into it,and the new food

which shall sustain him in it. Both these a re suppliedu s

,and in a way to correspond to the two-fold wants

of our nature. The double birth for - that two-foldna ture IS m baptism 5 wherein , as our body rises fromthe water, our soul is quickened by the Holy Spirit .The double food for the same composite nature i s in

the Holy Eucharist 5 wherein the bread and winerefresh man’s body 5 the outpouring of the Spiri t, hissoul . The institution of the Lord’s Supper is thenrelated “After Christ had eaten the old Passoverwith His disciples

,and thus fu lfilledthe old covenant

,

He wa shedthe feet of His disciples, presenting thereina symbol of Holy Baptism . Then He brake theb read, and gave i t to them,

saying : Ta ke,eat, fl zz

’

s is

my body ,broken on you r befia lf for remission of sins.

And in l ike manner he took the cup, of wine and

water, and gave them to partake of it, saying :” —after

which follow the words of consecration . I t will b eob served that Dama scenu s makes the washing of thedisciple s’ fee t to have been before, and not after, theinst itution ofthe Lord’s Supper, and that he uses thisinference to complete the para llel with baptism : also,that he speaks of wine and water, not wine alone, asthat which Christ took. To express the way in whichthe consecra ted e lements become the Body and Bloodof Christ, he uses the words a re 5124 723

164! and a re

tu rned,and borrows an illustration from the natural

processes ofthehuman body . As bread by eating,”

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84 5 1 . JOHN OF DAMASCUS .

to su rmou nt~the difficu lty by suggesting a new pieceof subtilty, that like as a man

’s body takes in dailymatter, and all becomes one and the same

body,so our Lord’s persona l body takes in all the new

ma a’

e bodies of the Eucharist ; and thus, by a kindof growth or augmentation

,all become one and the

same personal body of Christ. A marvellous thoughtBut he wa s wedded to a new scheme.

” This “new

scheme,” ofwhich Waterland makes John ofDamascus

a votary,was the ca use of image-worship . Upon

this,in fact

,Waterland lays the blame of much of

the innovation in theory which about this t ime beganto prevail respecting the Holy Eucharist . The

bread and wine,” Dama scenu s goes on to say

i s not a type of the body and blood of Chris t : Godforb id ! but the very deified body of the Lord .

Commenting upon language like this,Waterland

tells u s that the next time this new doctrineappeared upon the stage was in the service of imageworship

,then creeping into the Church . They who

opposed tha t innovation, kept up the ancient principlewith regard to the elements of the Eucharist as

symbols, figu res, images ; pleading that our Lord hadleft no visible image of Himself, His incarnation,passion

,sa crifice, &c .

,but that of the Eucharist. In

reply to tha t plea,the innovators remonstrated against

the symbolical nature of the Eucharist, contendingtha t the consecrated e lements were no images, types,or figu res, but the very body and blood of Christ,l iterally so.

”1 Nea r as the la nguage of Dama scenu s

l “ Epist. adZ a cha riam , 13 . I 97

THE FONS SCIENTUE.

”85

may seem to go to the Roman doctrine of transu bstantiation, it is proper to add that, in its strict a ndtechnical sense, that doctrine could not b e deducedfrom it.

So much space has been given to this importantchapter ofthe De Fide,

” that what remains must b eb riefly despatched . After a section in honour of theVirgin Ma ry

,vindicating her right to the title of

Tfieotokos,or Mother of God, the author passes on to

a favourite sub j ect with him, the worship of images

(0. lxxxix) . He meets the argument drawn from theabsence of any direction for such worship in the O ldTestament, by urging that it was the incarna tion , thepresence of God in visible form among men

,tha t

gave a motive and sanction for the practice . Tomake the life and actions of Jesus and his followersmore intel ligible to the ignorant, the Fa thers of theChurch ,1 he says, resolved to setthem forth by thismeans, for the easier instruction of such as could notread . Atthe same time, John is careful to add tha tthe honour we pay to images of the saints, or of theHoly Mother, or to the cru c ifix , i s only an expressionofthe reverence we rea lly feel for what they represent.The next chapter (c . x c . ) is on Holy Scripture . The

books of the O ld Testament he makes to coincidein number with the letters of the Hebrew a lphabetthat is to say, they amount to twenty-two, of whichfive a re double ones, thus making twenty-seven in a ll

,

Lequ ien, in his note on the pa ssa ge , a dmits tha t for thefirstthree centuries such a u se of images (so fa r atlea st as a ny

adora tion of them went) was unknown 5 a nd tha t in fa c t it didnot begin to develope itself until the fifth century.

6 ST . JOHN or DAMASCUS .

if counted separately. The double ones a re ( 1 ) Judgesand Ruth 5 (2 ) First and Second Books of Kings (ourI . Samue l and I I . Samuel) 5 ( 3 ) Third and FourthBooks of Kings (our I . Kings and I I . Kings) 5 (4 )F irstand Second Books of Chronicles 5 (5 ) First andSecond Books of Esdras (our Ez ra and Nehemiah) .The Book of Judith is not named by him ,

whileEcclesiasticus and the Book of Wisdom a re not madecanonical . In the New Testament hi s l ist agrees

With our own , except that he adds to the number theApostolz

’

ca l Ca nons, drawn u p, as he supposes, byClement . Returning to a subject discussed beforethe twofold nature of Christ— he enquires into thea ppl ication of va rious texts of Scripture to thatdoctrine . The origin of evil i s then trea ted of, butat no great length ; as also the Ma nichean theory oftwo co ordinate principles, one good, the other bad

(cc . xcii .,xcii i . ) In what he says of the Sabbath

(c . there a re some striking remarks, coupledwith much that is merely fanciful . God

,knowing the

coarse and fleshly nature of the people of Isra el,I

ordained for them this outward observance, that theirslave s and cattle might rest as we ll a s they. Hadthey been ab le to realise the higher position of sons,and not servants

,of God, the Israel ites would not

have been thus commanded to setapart a fraction oftheir time

‘

for the special service of Him to whomthey owed all . In this respect, as in others, t/ze lawwa s 7201

‘

madefor a r zgfi leozzs ma n,butfor Me lawless

1 In taking this tone, Dama scenu s m ay remind u s of Dea nGo let’s Letters to Radu lphu s

” on the same subject.

THE FON S SCIENTUE.

”8 7

a nd disobedient( 1 . Tim . i . , in evidence of which

we m ay observe tha t Moses a nd Elijah , in the ir fa sts

of forty days, must have included Sa b baths, on which

the law forb ade men to fast . Hence he a rgues that ,for the Christian

,the letter of the precept is to b e ex

changed for the law of liberty. As circumcision isspiritua l ised for the Christian

,so is the Sabb ath 5

which he observes on the recurrence of that true a nd

only perfect day of rest for humanity, tha t firstday ofthe week, when Christ b y his resurrection opened outfor u s the inheritance ofthe saints .The sub j ect of the next chapter (c . xcvii . ) i s

Virginity ; which Dama scenu s, as might b e expected,exalts above the married sta te . Ma rriage is honourable, b utthe other excels it the one i s a human

,the

other an angelic, mode of l ife . From a compa risonof Gen . vii . , 7 ,

“And Noah went in , and his sons,and his wife

,and his sons’ wives with him

,into the

a rk,

” with Gen . viii . , 1 6, Go forth of the ark

,thou

,

and thy wife, a nd thy sons , a nd thy sons’ w ives with

thee -he draws the strange inference (in which,however, he is not a lone among ancient expositors) ,tha t a sepa ra tion of sexes in the a rk i s pointed atby

the order of the words in the former passage , to b ediscontinued on the ir leaving the a rk .

1

After two short chapters on Circumcision a ndAntiChrist

,the work ends w ith a fina l one (c . c . ) on the

Resurrection . In it he sums up the Scriptura l argu

1 The order in the e ighteenth verse , in which the ir depa rturefrom the a rk is mentioned, is the same a s tha t in vii . 7 5 whichseems to neutra liz e wha tever force the inference might ha ve

8 8 ST. JOHN or DAMASCUS .

ments for a resurrection of the body,and for our

personal identity being unchanged . The conclusions drawn by St. Paul from the analogy of nature

( 1 . Cor. , x v., 3 5

—3 8 ) a re repeated and enforced 5 and

with the following words Dama scenu s concludes :Wherefore we shall rise again

,with our souls united

a gain to their bodies, now made incorruptible and

putting off decay, and shall stand before the dread

tribunal of Christ . Then shall the Devil, and hisa ngels, and that man of his, even Antichrist, and theungodly and sinful, b e del ivered up to everlastingfi re not a material fire,1 as with u s, b utsuch as willb e known to God. But they that have done goodshall shine forth, like the sun, unto eternal life, alongwith the ange ls and with our Lord Jesus Christ 5 everse e ing Him and seen by Him 5 enjoying for evermorethe happiness that comes from Him 5 praising Him ,

w ith the Father and the Holy Spirit, for endless agesof ages . Amen .

”

Even such an outline as the above, brief and ske tchya s it unavoidably is

,may yetb e considered by the

reader as somewha t tedious . But the importance ofthe “De Fide ,

”or rather

,of that encyclopaedic “Source

of Knowledge of which it is but one portion, shouldb e borne in mind . And if it i s remembered that wehave here the earliest system ,

or body ,of Christian

theology,the precursor of the great works of Lom

b a rdu s and Aquinas, we shall not grudge a little effort

1 In the “ D ia logu s contra Man ichaeos (Op . i . , pp . 1505the na ture of this fire i s more pla inly described . I t is

there sa id to b e not ma teria l fire, but the unquenchable fl ame of

s inful desire .

THE “ FONS SCIENTUE.

"89

to obta in'

a passing survey of such a monument ofChristian intellect in the e ighth century.

1

1 I regre t tha t I ha ve not been able to meet with C . J.

Lenstro'

m’

s De e x positione F idei orthodox ae,”Upsa lae, 183 9 5

the only work (so fa r a s I ca n j udge from its t itle ) which isknown to me a s trea ting ata ll fully of this work ofDama scenu s .

There is no copy in the B ritish Museum libra ry. The abstra ctsofthe De F ide given in Ce illier andHerz og a re necessa rilyvery meagre .

0 ST . JOHN or DAMASCUS .

CHAPTER VIII .

ON THE MAHOMETAN CONTROVERSY .

THE writings which John of Damascus has left onthis subject a re not so much of importance from the irextent

,as interesting to u s from the nearness of the

author to the time when Mahometan ism arose . On

this ground he i s placed by Ma ra cci 1 at the head ofcontroversial writers against Mahomet . Besides thesection 1 0 1 ) in the De Haeresib u s Lib er ” beforespoken of

,on the q bersz

‘z’

i z'

on of the [ sh na elz’

ten wehave two short dialogues or disputations between a

Christian and a Saracen 2— the term Sa r a cen beingused as synonymous with Ishmaeli te and Aga rene, to

denote a descendant of that Agar who was sentempty ” away by Sarah . Hence the fanciful de

rivation of the name before noticed, as if it meantSara h’s empty ones (Sa r rfia s

2

1 Prodromus ad refutationem Alcora n i , Romae, 169 1 .

2 “ Disputatio Christiani etSa ra ceni,” vol . i . , pp . 1585

1597, a nd a nother with the same t itle printed by M igne inthe “‘ Addenda , vol . i i i . , pp . 1 3 3 6—1 3 4 8 .

2 The most probable etymology of the word seems to b e tha twhich makes i t simply denote Orienta ls,

”from the Arabic

word for r is ing ; though Bocha rtprefers a root sa r a /éa , de

noting to plu nder . The reference to Sa r a /z i s not, however,entirely given up by modern a uthorities . See the a rticle“Sa ra ceni ” in Smith’s “ D ictiona ry of Geography,

”and

Lequ ien’

s note on i . , p . 763 .

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9 2 ST . JOHN OF DAMASCUS .

remarkable a feature in the early religious systems of

the peninsula, a nd which was modified, rather than

extinguished, by Mahometanism,i s not here j oined

by Dama scenu s to the two preceding idolatries. Fromthe t ime of Heraclius, whose re ign (6 1 1—64 1 )covered the chief events of Mahomet’s life , Damascenu s goes on to say that these pagan superstitionswere changed. The new prophet, happening to meetwith the scriptures of the O ld and N ew Testaments,and with a living expounder in the form of an Arianmonk 1 (or, according to another reading,

“with'Hebrews, and so-called Christ ians, Arians and Nestoria ns formed a composite system of his own fromthese various sources . God, according to the new

religion,i s the one Maker of all things, ne ither b e

gotten nor begetting . Christ is the Word and Spiritof God

,but a created be ing and a servant, born

without man ’s intervention of Mary, who is identifiedwith M iriam

, the s ister of Moses and Aaron .

2 Jesuswa s begotten of her by the Logos, or Word ofGod. He was a prophet of God . But what theJews in their wickedness cru cifiedwas not Christ, buta mere shadow. This form of Docetism, i t may b e

1 This sta tementmay ha ve a risen from the story of his meeting with the monk Bahi ra , on one of his j ourneys into Syria .

Thestory is discussed by Sir W . Muir in his Life of Mahomet,

”i . , p . 3 5 .

This is the inference commonly drawn fromthe words oftheKoran, “

Ma ry, the da ughter of Imram”

(zl e. Amram ) . Sa letries to sa ve Mahomet from the reproa ch of so stra nge a n

a nachronism by giving a nother interpreta tion to the pa ssage .

See his note on it in Sura i ii . , and a lso Sura xvi . , su é fi n .

ON THE MAHOMETAN CONTROVERSY. 93

observed, was devised long before Mahomet’s time .

The real Christ ascended without any such passageof death into heaven 5 and, when questioned by theAlmighty as to whether he had given himself out tob e the Son of God, a nd himself God, ma de answerGod forbid Thou knowes t that I said it not, nordisdain to b e Thy servant . Wicked men wrote thisstatement concern ing me, and they lied and a re

dece ived .

” 1 Such a re the figm ents contained in tha tbook of Mahomet, the Koran , which he pretends tohave had del ivered to him b y God .

From this point the section in the De Haeresib u s

Liber ” takes a more directly controversia l tone 5the assertions of Mahometans

,and the replies of

Christians, be ing thrown into an argumenta tiveform . I t may b e the simplest way of exhib itingthese arguments, and showing the l ine taken b y

a Christian apologist in those days, to combinewhat we here find with the substance of the twoshort D z

’

sputatz'

om ,and setdown the result in the

form of a debate between a Christian and a

Mahometan .

CHR . You say that Mahomet had his commissiondirectly from God . Now wha t evidence i s there ofthis ? We have the testimony of Moses and of a longseries of prophets to the divine mission of Christ,a nd the events of his life a re a ll clearly foretold intheir writings . Why ha s the same evidence not been

a ccorded to Mahomet ?

1 The substance of this pa ssage is found nea r the end of

Su ra v.

94 ST . JOHN or DAMASCUS.

MAH. God can do a s seemeth Him best.CHR . Undoubtedly he can . But if that i s all that

is to b e said, tel l u s at any rate more particularly inwhat way your prophet rece ived this communicationfrom God, in which you say his scriptures wererevealed to him .

MAH. They came down to him while sleeping.

CHR. Then, if so, one may fairly quote the oldadage, and call them such stuff as dreams a re madeOf.

” 1

MAH . Letu s leave the question of evidence andcome to doctrine . Why do you make a plurality inthe Godhead, and earn your name of H

'

etcen'

sts

(“Associators by averr ing that Christ is the Son ofGod, and is God?CHR. Because we find i t so in the writings of the

prophets, which you yourselves profess to rece ive, andin our own scriptures . Further, you yourselves admitthat God has a Word and a Spiri t. Now a re thesecreated or uncreated? external to God, or inherent inHim PMAH. Suppose I say, uncreated and inherent ?CHR . Then you agree with me

,for whatever is not

created is God.

MAH. But if I say, created and external P

1 If the pa ssage is notincomplete a s it stands— “the say

ing of the common proverb is fu lfilled respecting him ”— we

must suppose the proverb to b e a ssumed a s too familia rly knownto need quoting . Probably the a llusion is to one of Lucian’s,You tell me dreams,

” given in Era smus’s “Adagia ” underthe heading Va nita s ” (cd . 1629, p .

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96 ST . JOHN 011 DAMASCUS .

the stone in your Chab atha 1 with your kisses as

devotees ?MAH . And with good reason, when the sacred

associations of the spot are considered. That stone

wi tnessed the nuptials of Abraham and Agar ; to i tAb raham bound his camel, when about to sacrifi ce

I saa c .CHR . His camel ! why in Scripture (Gen . xxii .

we do but read of an ass, which he left some distance

1 This refers to the famous stone in the Ka aba , or “Squa re,atMecca , believed by Moslems to have been origina lly built bySeth, a nd rebuilt a fter the deluge by Abraham and Ishmael .“ The bla ck stone,

” says Ockley, “ which the Mohammedanshold in grea t reverence, and bel ieve to b e one ofthe stones ofpa radise, which fel l down with Adam from heaven, is a sma l lstone setin silver a nd fix ed in the south-ea st corner of theKa aba , aboutfour feetfrom the ground . Itis sa id to b e whitew ithin , but to ha ve been turned bla ck on the outside by thesins of the people , or more probably by the kisses of thepilgrims . H ist . of the Sa ra cens,

”184 7 , p . 3 . According

to a nother a ccount the stone wa s brought to Ishma el by thea ngel Gabriel . Tradition sa id tha t the gua rdianship of thetemple rema ined for many centuries in the ha nds ofthe Djorhomites, a tribe of Yemenite extra ction . These in t ime neglectedtheir cha rge, and about A . D. 206 the stone was dislodged fromits pla ce in the wa ll and buried . A Khoz a ite woman hadw itnessed its interment, and informed the chiefs of her tribe .

I t thus came into their custody till aboutA .D . 44 0 . Its subsequent history, when i t pa ssed into the keeping of theModha r ites, i s told atlength by Ma j or Osborn, Islam underthe Arabs,

”

p . 76, sqq . See a lso the “ Vie de Mohammedtransla ted from the Arabic text of Ab ou

’lféda by A . N

Des Vergers, 183 7 , p . 105 . Mahomet’s firstimpulse wa s toabolish this stone-worship ; and i t is interest ing to specula tewha t might ha ve ensued had he made Jerusa lem his sa credcentre, instea d of Mecca with its Kaa ba .

ON THE MAHOMETAN CONTROVERSY. 9 7

off,in charge of his young men . The pla ce , more

over,wa s wel l wooded at lea st, Abraham could

cleave wood there for a burnt-offering 5 a nd thi saccords but ill with the situation of your Kaaba .

MAH . For all that,i t is Abraham’s stone .

CHR . Grant that it i s ; c an you kiss i t in devotionbecause, forsooth , Ab raham tied his camel to it, oreven for some less decent associa tion ; a nd thenblame u s for bow ing down b efore the cross of Christ?MAH. This mention ofthe cross brings u s to wha t

you say of Christ’s su fTering. Now do you hold tha tthose who do the will of God a re good or b ad?CHR . I see your art . If I say good, you will tax

me with approving the conduct of the Jews,who fu l

filledthe will of God in slaying Jesus : if b ad,then I

should seem to make Christ suffer unwillingly,or he

too would come under that head.

MAH. Such was my meaning.

CHR . Then letu s b e clear about the meaning ofthis ambiguous term will . ” I hold that it oftenstands for tolera tion or longMAH . How so PCHR . Suppose that God says, Thou shalt not

steal 5 thou shalt not kill . As He i s Almighty,His

w i ll cannot b e b atfled. Yeti t i s evident that either

of u s could, if we chose, rise up this very moment,and steal or kill . If this is so, then a re we not boundto admit

,that by God’s w i ll may sometimes b e meant

His endurance,and that in this sense the wicked may

b e doing what he endures, and so far fu lfillingHis will?

This may su ffice as a specimen ofthe way in which11

98 ST . JOHN or DAMASCUS .

John of Damascus,or one of his disciples, might haye

argued with a Mahometan of his t ime . I t should b estated that, while the substance of the various arguments is given above

,an effort has been made to

string them together more connectedly, and to soften

off abrupt transitions . The latter pa rt of the section

in the “De Haeresib u s Liber consists of an invectiveagainst the immora l conduct of Mahomet himself, in

the marriages he contracted, and the precepts in theKoran by which he strove to screen his own delin

qu encies while permitting indulgences to others .

The special reference i s to the subject-matter of the

4th Sura, and to the story of Zeid’

s wife,alluded to

in Sura xxxiii . The monstrous legends also foundin the Koran, or in the writings of its expounders,a re held up to ridicu le 5 such as that ofthe she-camel,spoken of in the 7th Sura, which drank up whole

r ivers, and could sa tisfy a whole tribe with its milk .

In this instance, perhaps, the commentators havemore to answer for than the Koran itself.

The least satisfa ctory feature , as some m ay think,i n the aspect of religious controversy here presentedto u s

,i s the playing on words— for i t scarcely

deserves to b e called by any better name . It seemsa childish dilemma in which to place an opponent,to make him own that, if Christ, the Word of God,were notuncreated, there must have been a timewhen God was Wordless and Spiritless . We miss, also,what might fairly have been expected from the greatchampion of “ image -worship

,

” a ju stification of thel imits within which the Christian might lawfully availhimself of images or symbols, as a help to devotion ,

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1 00 ST . JOHN OF DAMASCUS .

The author, the Abbé Bourgade, assures u s thatthis was the very answer he had from twoMahometans of Algiers

,to whom he had given the

same explanation,while they were one day dis

cussing religious topics on board the j osepkz'

ne,in

1 84 6 . To the ardent,but ill-informed mind of

Mahomet, the nature of the firstimpressions he

received from Christianity was a matter of the utmostimportance . The apparently idolatrous character ofChristian worship in his day was one grievousstumbling-block ; the apparent obscuration of theunity of the Godhead was another. Believe, therefore, in God and His apostles,

”a re his words towards

the end ofthe 4th Sura , and say not there a re threeGods . Forbear this 5 it will b e better for you . Godis but one God .

”

“ Itappears probable,says S ir William Muir

,1

that the creed of the Christians of his day wasunderstood by Mahomet to b e, that Mary was one ofthe persons in the Trinity. This probab ly arose fromthe worship paid to the Virgin by the EasternChurches

,and from the statements of Mahomet’s

Jewish followers— themselves imperfectly acquaintedwith Christianity. Had the true doctrine,

”he adds

,

“ regarding the Virgin Mary been rightly placed

before Mahomet, together with that of the spiritualand eternal generation ofthe Son of God, and shown

to b e necessarily deducible from the legitimate con

struction of the Scriptures acknowledged by him to

b e inspired, could he have refused to approve those

doctrines P1 “ The Kora n,

”1878, p . 179 .

ON THE MAHOMETAN CONTROVERSY. 1 0 1

I t indeed, many sorrowful reflections, tothink how greatly the history of the world mighthave been changed, had the Christ ian fa ith been presented to the mind of the Arabian enthusiast in apurer form . But, at any rate, the fact of there beingsuch weak points must not b e forgotten, a ndmust b etaken count of as we try to estimate the strength ofthe position taken up by John of Damascus .

1 02 ST . JOHN OF DAMASCUS .

CHAPTER IX .

SERMONS .

THE work of John of Damascus as a preacher doesnot fill a ny great space in the record left u s of hislabours. His biographer, in the vague manner whichhas disapp ointed u s before

,merely says in pa ssing

that he “ moreover composed discourses for thej oyous festivals ” (c . xxxiii . ) 5 but when a nd wherethey were del ivered, we a re not told . In fa ct

, thecircumstance i s mentioned before he rela tes hisordination 5 and the very word employed, which wehave rendered “ composed ”

(literally“ put forth ”

)leaves i t doubtful whether the wr1ter meant thatJohn of Damascus really delivered them ,

or merelywrote them,

as rhetorical or devotional exercises .The expression is such as might have been used byone who had glanced at this portion of his writings

,

and took no pains to go more deeply into the ma tter .When we examine the

‘

sermons themselves, there i snot much more to satisfy u s

,in the way of exa ct in

forma tion . In the title to one of them— tha t - on the“

L

Withered Fig-tree ” — the author is styled “ Priestof the Holy Resurrection of Christ our God 5

” and,

coupling this Wi th the sta tement that he wa s orda inedby John, Bishop of Jerusalem,

we may infer tha t hewas then serving as priest of a church dedica ted bythat name in Ieru sa lem . From the language used in

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1 04 ST . JOHN or DAMASCUS .

The firstin order, as we now have them,is that

on the Transfigu ration of our Lord . Lequ ien thinks

that i t was delivered in the church erected onMount Tabor to commemorate that event. And

certainly, though there does not appear to b e anything in the language employed which absolutely

requires it,th is supposition would accord very well

with the general tone of the discourse . Tabor,as is

well known, was from the earliest ages believed tohave been the scene of the Tra nsfigu ration . Nomountain

,it i s agreed by all, could b e more suitable

for such an event, from its isolation,its solemn

beauty,a ndthe grandeur ofthe widespread view from

its summit . But the ascertained fact that in ourSaviour’s time i t was crowned by a Roman fortress,ha s caused this be lief to b e now given u p . In themonastic ages

,however, there was no misgiving on

the subject. It was then a favourite resort forhermits . St. Jerome had spoken of it unhesitatinglyas the scene ; and thus

“ itwas one of the shrines ,from the earl iest period, which pilgrims to the HolyLand regarded it as a sacred duty to honour withtheir presence and the ir prayers . ”1 Atthe presentday

,both the Latin and Greek Christians mainta in

periodical services here . If i t were mdeed to a congregation gathered together on this mounta in that St.John of Damascus spoke, his words must have comewith vivid interest and power, as he thus beganCome

, ye assembly of God-loviug people, and let

1 Professor Ha cket t : A rt. in Smith’s “ D ictiona ry of theB ible .

”

SERMONS . 105

u s hold high festival this day. Come , and letu s keepthe feast this day along with the festal Powers above .

For they a re come hither to j oin in the fest iva l w ithu s. Come, letu s ra ise the shout of j oy with our lips,as with well-tuned cymb a ls . Come

,letu s exult in

spirit . For to whom b elong fea st and solemnity ?To whom belong joy a nd gladness, i f not to themthat fear the Lord, tha t worship the Trinity, tha trevere the Son and Holy Spirit with the Fatherco-e ternal, that w ith heart and mind and mouthconfess the Godhea d revealed to u s indivisibly in threePersons

,that both know and affirm that Christ is the

Son of God,and very God, revea led to u s in two

natures, without division andwithout confusion , andwith the ir natural properties ? For u s i s gladnessand every festa l j oy. It is for u s tha t Chris t hasordained the festivals 5 for a

‘lzero is no joy to t/zeLetu s lay as ide the cloud of every grief that darkensour mind

,and suffers i t not to b e raised on high .

Letu s make light of all ea rthly things, for ourcitiz enship is not on the earth . Letu s direct ourthoughts to heaven

,from zolzem e a lso we look for tlze

Sa viou r , tlze Lordj esu sThe reader will not fa i l to b e struck with the way

in which the preacher brings the controverted topicof Christ

’

s twofold nature even into this exordium .

After enlarging on the same sub ject (c . he quotesthe words of the Psalmist

,Ta bor a nd H

'

ermon s/za ll

rejoice in tlzy fl ame ; and applies them in the usualmanner. Hermon had its day of rej oicing whenChrist was b aptiz ed in the neighbouring Jordan .

Now Tabor has its day of honour,that divine and

1 06 ST . JOHN or DAMASCUS .

holy mountain,towering on high no less by its glory

and splendour tha n by its cloud-capt loftiness . I tvies with heaven in the grace conferred upon it.For while in heaven the very angels avail not to gaz eunwaveringly on Christ, here the chosen apostles seeHim shining forth in the glory of His kingdom .

On th is mountain an assurance i s given of the resurrection of the dead 5 and Christ i s shown to b e Lordboth of the quick and dead

,by bringing forth as a

witness Moses from the dead, andEl ias still alive,him who of oldsped away to the celestial reg1ons inhis chariot of fire

”

(0. He then goes on tocontra st Tab or a nd S inai . When the law wa s givenon S inai

,there was cloud and storm and darkness ,

all symbols ofthe impenetra b le mystery in which theDivine Giver of the law was shrouded . But now

,on

Mount Tabor,all i s full of light and radiance . For

the Son is come from the bosom of the Father toreveal His glory . And His countena nce sfiz

'

fl es a s

z‘

fie su n ; for it beams forth in hypostatic union withimmaterial light 51 and hence He i s become the Sunof righteousness. But His garments a re w il lie a s

1 This pa ssage may serve a s a specimen of the w ay in whichthe Greek text of D ama scenu s still needs revi si on . The reading here i s (pwr i ydp a i hq) r a vr iZsr a r a

’ In a

fragment of a Ca tena on St. Ma tthew,given la ter on in the

same volume ofMigne’

s edition (col . i t i s owr i yap ciANyr a vn

’

Zer a z x a 9’ é r é a r a mv . No one

,I suppose, would hesita te

to repla ce in the la tter pa ssage by (1151 41 from the former,while for r a vr iZer a r in both I have ventured to read a z

’

lyé Zea-a t.

Even if r a vr iZje-r a t could have the meaning of is madeidentica l with,

” tha t sense is not wanted ; the following wordssu fi

’

i ciently expla ining wha t kind of union is m eant .

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1 08 ST . JOHN or DAMASCUS .

nor of Paul, nor of Joseph , nor of any other fa ther,but of ma n : for He had not a father on earth

,who

had not a mother in heaven (0.

Reasons a re next given for the u se of the express ion,

“ there a re some standing here which shall notta s te of death,

”&c .

, on the ground tha t if one onlyhad been singled out

, the words would have beeninterpreted in the same sense as the declaration inSt. John xxi. 2 2

, and referred to the survival ofSt. John 5 whereas if a ll had been used instea d ofsome

,the unworthy Isca riot would have been included

(c . The apparent discrepancy between St. Matthew and St. Luke as to the time,

“ after six daysand “ after ezgfif da ys,

” is explained in the simpleand natural way of supposing tha t one evangelistcounts both extremes in

,the other nei ther . But not

content with this, the preacher goes on to display thesymbolic propert ies of both these numbers in a way

tha t reminds u s ofthe N umeror um My ster z’

a of PetrusBungus. Size i s a perfect number, for i t is made upof the sum of its factors

,and ezglzti s the number of

the resurrection . In connection with this he quotes

the b eautiful applica tion made by Na z ian z en of thepassa ge in Ecclesiastes (xi .

“Give a portion toseven , and also to e ight ” 5 where seven, the numberof the week, is interpreted of the affairs of this lifewhich demand our care, while ezgfit, denoting therecurrence of the firstday over again, i s interpretedof the l ife to come , which also must have its portionin our thoughts (c . The rea son for the choiceof Peter, James, and John , to b e witnesse s of the

T ransfigu ration ,i s then given 5 as also the reasonof

SERMONS . 1 0 9

a mountain being the chosen spot . A mountain,a s

rising high above the level of the ea rth,i s a symb ol

of that charity, or love, which is the crowning Christ ian gra ce . T0 readers of the works b earing thename of Dionysius the Areopagite

,this thought will

b e a familia r one . Through the successive stages of

pu rification and illumina tion the soul must rise to itsperfection 5 as through faith and hope we reach theempyrean summit of love .

“Wherefore,”St. John

of Damascus continues,“we should leave to the

earth what is ea rthy, and surmount this body of ou r

and borne on high to the lofty and divinewatch-tower of love, there ga z e on wha t had b atfledour ga z e . For he who ha s attained to the eminenceof love, be ing in a measure out of himself, discernsthe unseen , and b y soaring above the gloom of thiscorporea l cloud that hovers over him,

and rea chingthe clear upper air of the soul, fi x es a more piercingga z e upon the Sun of Righteousness, even thoughunable a s yetto b e fully sa ted with the specta cle .

And on the words apa rta nd lo pr ay ,b rought to

gether by joining the accounts of the first and third

evangel ist, he a dds the pithy comment, For quietudei s the mother of prayer 5 as prayer is the manifes tat ion of divine glory ” (c . The Transfigu rationitself wa s not an assuming of what Christ had not

b efore , b uta manifesting to the disciples of tha twhich he had 5 their eyes b eing opened , so tha t,while hitherto but b l ind, they were now enabled to

see (c . x ii ) . From the words, his face did shine as

the sun,”he draws another illustra tion of the topic

ever present to his thoughts, the twofold nature of

1 1 0 ST. JOHN OF DAMASCUS .

Christ. For light was in existence before the sun .

Even so Christ, be ing Light of light, e ternal andunapproachable, came to dwell in a temporal andcreated body, and is thus one Sun of Righteousness,one Christ, revealed to u s in two undivided natures

(c . In describing the b enefits that the chosenapostles would gain

,by the sight of their predecessors

in God’s service,Moses and Elias, thus glorified, the

preacher allows himself to b e carried away for amoment from the patient task ofthe expos itor I twas meet that they should see this glory and state offreedom of their own fellow-servants and ministers ofGod 5 and having seen it, b e amaz ed at the lovingcondescension of their Master, and b e more filledwith z eal, and become nerved for the contest. Forhe who has seen what a re to b e the fruits of hislabours

,will most readily venture on the confl ict.

The desire of gain can tempt men to b e unsparing ofthe ir bodies. For soldiers, and athletes, and husbandmen

,and merchants, betake themselves cheerfully to

their labours, risking the ocean billow, and heedingnotwild beasts or robbers, that they may obtain thelonged-for reward 5 and the more they see those whohave toiled before them enjoying their gains,the morea re they spurred on to endure hardships . Even so willthe

‘

spiritu a l men-at-arms, and athletes, and husbandmen, and merchants of the Lord, who covet notearthly gains, nor asp1re after fleeting honours, whenwith the ir own eyes they behold what they have storedup in expectation, and see those who have toiledbefore them realising the delights of the good thingsthey had hoped for, gird themselves up more reso

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1 1 2 ST . JOHN OF DAMASCU S .

Lord ordain thee to setin order. Thy disciples, thysheep, which the good chief pastor placed in thycharge

,have brou ght thy words to their fu lfilment,

by erecting for Christ, and for his ministers Moses

and El ias,the tabernacle wherein we now keep the

feast (c . xvi ) .The cloa a

’entered by the three was the antitype of

that cloud a nd darkness which Moses entered at thegiving of the law. For the law

,as St. Pa ul writes,

has a ska a’ow of good tlzz

'

flgs to come. Only on thatformer occasion the cloud was one of da rkness 5 nowiti s a cloud of light . For the mystery hid from pastgenerations was now revealed— that mystery which

the law and the prophets had a l ike foretold . Hencethe fi tness of Moses and Elia s being now present, onethe representative ofthe law,the other ofthe prophets 5one moreover representing the quick, and the other

the dea d (c . xvi i). That voice from the cloud whichproclaimed

,T/zz

'

s i s j lly beloved Son , was the voice ofHim who at the firstsaw all tha t He had m ade andpronounced it very good. The good pleasure oftheFather welded together in His only-begotten Son theconnecting link of all . For if man is indeed themicrocosm

,bearing in himselfthe l ink which couples

the visible universe with the invisible,be ing in fa ct

both the one andthe other 5 rightly was it well-plea singto the Lord and Crea tor and Governor of a ll things

,

that in His only-b egotten and consubstantial Son

there should b e made a connecting link of Godheadand manhood, and, through that

,of the whole

creation 5 that God might b e all in all (c . xvii) .In his exposition of the words Hea r ye fi lm,

SERMONS . 1 3

Dama scenu s takes occasion to run overthe commandments

,as b eingr pa rt of that divine utterance to

which we a re to l isten ; and he thus concludes :“ These ordinances of God letu s keep with a ll

watchfu lness,that we too may luxuriate in His

divine b eauty, and may have our fill in tasting Hissweetness

,b oth in this life

,as fa r a s i s possib le for

those who a re we ighed down wi th this earthly tabernacle of the b ody, and herea fter in grea ter clearnessand purity 5 when t/ze r z

'

g/zteou s slzz'

nefort/z a s z‘lze su n

,

a ndwhen,released from the constraints of the b ody

,

they will b e as the angels, l iving imperishab ly with

the Lord, in the grea t and glorious reve la tion fromheaven of our Lord, and God, and Saviour, JesusChrist Himself 5 to whom b e glory a nd dominion

,

now,henceforth, and for ever. Amen .

"

The serm on ontheWithered Fig-T ree,which follows,though considerably shorter than that on the Trans

figu ration, takes a wider sweep, and is not so closean exposit ion of its subject . From the title , i t would

a ppear to have been del ivered in a “ church of theHoly Resurrection ,

" presumably in Jerusalem . Atthe outse t, the prea cher says tha t he was moved toutterance by the sub sistent Word of God theFather

,who departed not from the bosom of the

Fa ther,and yetwas conce ived incomprehensibly in

the Virgin’s womb 5 who for my sake b ecame what I

am 5 who, though free from passions in His godhead,put on a human body of like pa ssions with myself 5who

,while riding on the chariots of the cherubim

,

yetseated Himself, when on earth,upon the foal of

1 1 4 ST. JOHN or DAMASCUS .

an ass (c . i) . And he then proceeds to speak morefully of Christ’s inca rnation .

I t might not b e obvious with what design the discourse was thus begun, or what was the association ofthought in the prea cher’s mind. But as we advancewe discern his leading idea to b e, that, as Christcame to the fig-tree hungering for fruit

,and found

none,so He came to mankind, impelled by a divine

yearning after them . Beyond the line of thoughtthus marked out, and what i s necessary to elucidate

it, there i s very little in the way of comment or

exposition of the text. With this clue,however, to

the preacher’s drift, the reader will have no difficu ltyin tracing the connection of the following passagesWe ha ted Him,

and turned away from Him,

becoming slaves to another. But He continued tohave an unchangeable love for u s. On th is account

He ran after u s . He came to those who hated Him ,

He pursued those who fled from Him,and

,when He

overtook them,chastised them not in sternness nor

brought them back with a scourge 5 but, as a good

physician,when insulted, spit upon, beaten , by a

patient in delirium,only applies remedies, so did He .

And as a mighty work of healing, He applied His

own Godhead to b e a remedy of man’s human nature

a remedy most effica ciou s, a remedy a ll-powerful . ”

This rendered the weak flesh mightier than thepowers unseen . For just as iron is unapproachable,when united with fire when made burning hot) ,even so the mere stubble of our nature, when unitedwith the fire of the Godhead, has been made u n

approachable to the devil . And, seeing\

tha t

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1 1 6 ST. JOHN or DAMASCUS .

forth,cu rsed is Me grou ndfor My sa ke z

'

n sor row

s/za ll t/zou ea z‘

of ita ll flee day s of lay If e (0. i i i) . Asan example of barren and ungrateful wordiness,which he compares to the profu sion of leaves on theu nfruitful fig-tree— rough leaves in place of sweetfru i t— the preacher cites the harsh questions put toJesus shortly afterwards by the chief priests and

e lders of the people (St. Matth . xxi . who cameto Him in the temple , and said : By w i l a l a ut/zor z

'

zy

doestt/zoa f/zese t/z z'

fzgs ? a a a’w/zo game time t/zz

'

s

a a f/zor i/y Behold,

”he cries , the ir barrenness of

spirit and unbel ief They ought to have said, Wel l

done, good Master, for that Thou didst raise Laz arus

after being dead four days,didst make the lame to

walk,didst give the power of see ing to the blind,

didst heal the bruised and wounded, didst driveaway every infirmity, didst put the evil spirit s tofl ight, and showedstthe way of salvation .

’ But inplace of this they ask

,By w/zata u l/zor z

’

iy doesl t/zoa

t/zese tlzz'

rzgs ? O wicked and faithless generation .

The explanation which John of Damascus gives al ittle later on of Christ’s being the cfi z

’

qf com er stone i snoticeable . Instead of His be ing so called as j oiningand locking together in one the Jewish and Gentileworlds

,as adjacent wa lls, he regards Him as perform

ing that office for the two parts of the Church, thevisible and the invisible, angels and men .

“ I wil lj oin the two hosts together, the things that a re nowseparate, what i s on earth and what is in heaven .

Throu gh m e shall there b e formed one Church,of

angels and of men (c . iv) .

SERMONS. 1 1 7

Come then, brethren, he concludes,as many

as rece ived the name of believers, who have beencounted worthy to b e ca lled the people of Christ

,let

u s not make our calling void,nor dehle our fa ith b y

unseemly deeds . ’Tis not enough to b e called a

b el iever ; letu s manifest our fa i th by worksLetu s remember the renunciation and the covenantwhich we made in baptism . We renounced the devi land his angels, and all his service . Letu s keep ourrenouncing 5 letu s not return aga in like the dog to his

vomit. ” He then enumerates the works ofthe devil ,which they should renounce ; and the graces of the

Spirit,which they should follow (c . vi) ; ending with the

prayer Hold thou the dominion over my heart, 0Lord

,and keep it as Thine inheritance . Make Thou

Thy dwell ing in me, along with the Father a nd theHoly Ghost. Widen in me the cords of Thy taberna cle, even the opera tions of Tby most holy Spirit .For Thou art my God

,a ndI will praise Thee, together

w ith Thy Eterna l Father and Tby quickening Spirit,now

,henceforth , and for ever. Amen .

”

The third sermon is on Good Friday— SamtaP a r a sfeve

,the “day of prepara t ion for the Jew ish

Sabba th . In some manuscripts it i s attributed toSt. John Chrysostom

,andwas included in the works

of tha t writer by S ir Henry Savile . Lequ ien seemsto think it genuine

,by a sserting that it is wrongly

ascrib ed to Chrysostom ,and by introducing it in hi s

own edition of Dama scenu s’

s works without furtherremark . I am bound to say that the style appears tome to show a higher order of e loquence than is found

1 1 8 ST . JOHN OF DAMASCUS .

in the confessedly genuine works of Dama scenu‘

s .

1

But a few extracts may perhaps with propriety b egiven

,i f only to enable the reader to form some

estimate for himself ofthe merits of this discourse .

He begins with a panegyric upon the cross, a ndtheday on which Christ was crucified .

“On this, thesixth day, Adam was formed. On this day he borethe l ikeness of God . Oh this day was e stablished

the microcosm in the macrocosm (zi e.

,man

,the

lesser universe in the greater). On this day man,a s pilot

,had given to him the fair rudder of the

world,a l iving creature that was to control a ll living

creatures . On this day he rece1ved commandments

to b e willingly obeyed 5 on this, he fell from paradise 5on this

,he was brought into paradise again . Oh !

day of viciss itudes, mournful, yetfree from mourning.

Oh ! day fraught with sorrow at dawn , with gladness

at eventide 5 nay, rather, a day that wounded not somuch as i t healed . Downcast I am

,letme own

it, as I recur to those disastrous deeds of old ; as Ihear of Adam expelled from his native home 5 fromparadise its deniz en ,

man . There had he found

1 It would b e out of pla ce here to go into minute deta ils ofcriticism . ButI doubt whether Dama scenu s uses such termsa s Aomdv 13 5 17)

“ now 5”?tevx etpomb

“ I rej oice ( lit .“am

clad in white ga rments p ovovovx c’

,and some others . There

is a lso a conspicuous absence of tha t constant a l lusion to thetwofold na ture of Christ, a nd kindred topics

,observed in

Damascenu s. The mention , too, of a ll peoples, na t ions andlanguages (col . a s observing the Lenten fa st , would b eless a ppropria te in the ca se of Dama scenu s, ata t ime when theworld, especia lly his own qua rter of it, wa s be ing overrun bythe Sa ra cens .

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1 20 ST . JOHN or DAMASCUS .

It was fitthat they‘

should b e beaten by women .

Rahab, the ha rlot, beat them 5 the one with an issueof blood beat them 5 the Canaanitish woman bea tthem . And now once more a woman rece ives thecrown of victory over them .

”

One more extra ct w ill su ffice. I t is fromthe close ofthe sermon

,when he is speaking of the penitent thief

on the cross “ I could have w ished,”he says

,to

pass over the story, so often has it been rela ted toyou . But the robber is before my eyes, ever forcingme . And no marve l 5 for he forced even the gates ofpa radise, turning his rob ber

’s skill to his own preservation . There we behold standing on the Cross theLamb between two wolves . But the one of themcontinued in his former m ind, the other repented .

R emember me,he sa id, w/zezz Tfioa eomesz‘ Tay king

a’

om. Oh ! the power of Jesus . The robber is nowa prophet, and this is his message from the crossR emember me

,Lord, w lzefz Tlzou eomesz‘ T/zy king

a’om. Why

,what emblems of roya lty dost thou see ,

poor robber ? buffetings,spittings , nails, the cross of

wood, the scoffs of the Jews , and the lance of the

soldier now ba red for its work .

‘ Yea , but,’ saith he

,

‘ I see not these things that appear. I see angel sstanding a round

,I see the sun hiding 1ts face, the

ve i l of the temple rent, the ea rth shaking, the dea dpreparing to flee.

’And Jesus, that rece iveth a ll

, eventhose who come at the eleventh hour to prophesy inhis name, and giveth them all the ir penny, as beinga l ike workers , sa ith to him Amen . Take thou toothy Amen

,poor rob ber ! to da y a rob ber, to—day a\son .

To—a’

ay s/za lttfiou be w z'

l/z me in pa r adise. I, that cast

S ERMONS . I 2 I

thee out, do bring thee in 5 even I , that shut the ga tes

of paradise and barred them with a flam ing sword .

If I bring thee not ih,the gates rema in shut . Come

hither to me,robber

,tha t ha st rob bed the devil, a nd

gained the crown of victory over him . For whenthou sawest me as man

,thou didst worship me a s

God . Thine old weapons thou hast flu ng away, butha st taken the shield of fa ith .

The fourth sermon , on Holy Saturday, or Ea ster

Eve, is the longest of a ll, and is an important, thoughsomewhat tedious one . About its genuineness, a s

Langen admits,there ca n b e no doubt. Beginning

with the question of the Psa lmist, W/zo ( a n utter flze

mz'

g/zly a cts of Me Lor a’ w/zo a m slzow forma ll ffis

pra ise ? the prea cher replie s tha t none can fully do

so,though he should speak with the tongue s of

angels and of men . Such mysteries of divine love

can only b e accepted by fa ith 5 a nd to approach them

b ecomingly, we need tha t purity of mind which thelove a nd dread of God a lone can give . This wa ssymb olised b y the putting off his sanda l s b v Moses,a figu re of the laying a side a ll dea d and grovellingthoughts. Letu s then , my b rethren,

”he proceeds ,

purify ourselves from every ea rthly imagina tion , andfrom all the disturbance and confusion of l ife

,tha t

we may receive with unclouded vision the radiantsplendours of the divine word, a nd ha ve our soulsnourished with the spiritual bread which is angels’

food ; and pa ssing within the ve i l may lea rn clearlythe divine pa ssion of the passionless, even the sa lvation of the world (c . i .) After a prayer for himself

1 2 2 ST. JOHN or DAMASCUS .

and his hearers that they maydie u nto sin with Christ,

resting as on that day in the stillness of the grave, hetakes occasion from this very pause and intermission,as it were

,in the work of Christ, to pass in review

the whole system of God’s dealings with man . This,

while adding to the importance ofthe present homily,

as conveying to u s the views of Dama scenu s on manydoctrinal matters, leads to a somewhat tedious prolix ity.

Beginning at the very beginning, with the e ternal

existence of a Divine First Cause, God the Father,he passes on to speak ofthe eternal generation oftheSon

,and the procession of the Holy Ghost

,and the

relations between the persons of the Holy Trinity.

The Holy Ghost i s of God and the Father, asproceeding from Him 5 and is also said to b e of tlzeSon, as being through Him made manifest and commu nicated to the crea ted world, but not as havingHis existence from Him (c .

In describing the Creation, Dama scenu s gives freeplay to his exuberance of la nguage . And though theeffect is

!marred by the incongruous nature of the

ma terials he works with ,— old epic and dramatic

1 The memorable a ddition of the words fi lz'

ogzee to theWestern creed, which involved the doctrine tha t the HolyGhost proceeds from the Son in l ike manner a s from theF a ther, is sa id to have been firstmade in 589, atthe thirdCouncil of Toledo . The cla use would appea r to have beenslipped in a lmost without opposit ion or comment atthe time .

The firstOpen contention about i t be tween the Greek a ndLa t inchurches began atthe Council of Gentilly in 767 , not manyyea rs a fter this sermon of Dama scene’s w a s del ivered . See

Lumb y’

s“ H istory ofthe Creeds,

”187 3 , p . 85 .

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1 2 4 ST. JOHN or DAMASCUS .

have had its name,

'

either because i t was meant totest man’s obedience

,and would thus make his good

or evil bias known 5 or because its fruit would impartto those who partook of i t a knowledge of the ir owntrue na ture .

The sub ject of God’s plan for man’s redemption ,which is next discussed

,leads to a digression on the

twofold nature and will of Christ,in terms very

similar to those employed in the “De Fide .

”By

c . xix . Damascene comes back more directly to hissub ject . For sz

'

nee tb roaglzl

ma fz came a’eatlz, i t wasright also that through m an should b e given theresurrection from the dea d . See ing tha t a ra tionalsoul of i ts own free w i ll wrought the transgression, i twas right that a ra tiona l soul , of its natura l and ownfree will

,should work obedience to the Creator 5 and

tha t Salvation should return through the samechannels whereby Dea th had b a nished life, that

Death might not deem himself a despot over man .

”

This is followed by a singula rly forced metaphorAnd what was the issue of this ? Dea th , a fterba iting for man with the hope of his becoming a s

God,was himself ca ught by the bait of proffered

flesh 5 and after tasting a sinless body, became sick ,and vomited forth , poor wretch, all the food that hehad in his inside (c . xx . ) It i s fa ir to say that suchstra ined meta phors as this a re not often found in ourauthor, though he often errs in that direction . The

pa ssage which immedia tely follows,on the Cruci

fi x ion , i s not a bad example of the forced antithesis,and striving after effect, which marks the decadenceof a l iterature .

“He who had fa shioned man with

SERMONS . 1 25

divine hands, stretched out His u ndefiled hands allday long to a disobedienta na’ ga z

'

fzsay z'

ng people, andcommended His Spirit into the hands of His Father.A lance pierces the s ide of Him who formed Eveout of the s ide of Adam,

and opens the fountain ofd ivine blood and water, the draught of immortality,the la ver of regeneration . Atthis sight the sun wasabashed

,not enduring to see the inte lligible Sun of

R ighteousness treated with insult . The earth didquake, b eing sprinkled with the blood of i ts Lord

,

a nd lea pt for j oy at its pu rification ,as it shook off the

defilementof idols’ blood . Many tha t were deadrose from the ir sepulchres , foreshadowing the resurrection of Him who was b e ing put to death for u s.

The sun was eclipsed, and rekindled its rays again,so as to make the number of three days spoken of bythe Lord .

1 The ve il ofthe temple wa s rent in twain,

showing plainly the way of approach to the innersanctuary

,and the revelation of tha t which had been

hidden . For now the rob b er was to enter paradise,

and the Man who was lifted up a s a malefactor,was

1 This i s expla ined more fully a l it tle la ter on (c .

Taking the words of St. Ma tt . xii . , 40, in which our Lordquotes the i llustra tion o f Jonah, to require tha t his dea thshould extend over pa rts of three days a nd t/z ree m

'

g/zts,Dama scene thus computes them . The superna tura l da rknessfrom the s ixth hour to the ninth, on the day of the Pas sion,was the firstnight, making, with the restored light tha t tema ined before sunset, one complete day. This would leavetwo successions of nights a nd days to follow before the resurrection . Zech . xiv . 6 , 7 , IS quoted a s ha rmoniz ing with thisAnd i t sha l l come to pa ss in tha t day tha t there sha ll not b el ight but atevening time it sha l l b e light . ”

1 26 ST. JOHN or DAMASCUS .

to b e believed on andworshipped by every creature

(c .

‘

A figu re of the cross is found, somewha t a rtifi

c ia lly, in the act of Moses, when hidden to lzfz‘up

his rod and stretch ou z‘ his hand over the sea 5 the

uplifted rod, as it would seem , be ing meant for atype of the upright beam of the cross

,and the out

stretched arm for the transverse beam across it. 1

The rea son why Christ should have been laid in a

new sepulchre i s thus stated : But why is He laidin a new sepulchre , wherem no dead was ever yetlaid ? Methinks i t was that the resurrection mightnot b e supposed to have been that of any of itsformer occupants . For the men who thus lookedwith evil eye on their own salvation were rea dy forany device, and most prompt to disbel ieve . And

,

therefore, that the resurrection of the Lord may

b e visibly and conspicuously displayed, He i s buriedin a new and unused tomb . He, the spiritual Rockof life , from which as it followed them the unmindfulIsraelites drank 5 He

,the corner stone, not hewn with

This seems the true expla na t ion of an obscure pa ssage .

Dama scene’s words a re :“ Does not the same Moses aga in

smite the sea with his rod, and by the twofold manner of hisstroke , the upright andthe transverse, betoken the ngure of

the cross (c. x x v. ) Lequ ien b riefly refers to Exod . xiv . 27 5

but in tha t verse there is mention only of the stretching out ofthe hand over the sea . To complete the fanciful idea in thetext, we wantthe mention of the uplifted rod a s well , found inxiv . 16 ; unl ess indeed there ha s been some confu sion in thewriter’s mind between this and the smit ing the rock twice ; a s

there i s nothing in Exod . x iv. to suggest tha t Moses srriote thesea .

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1 28 ST . JOHN OF DAMASCUS

of God, a nd from ~ wine into the blood of God

(0.

His closing words a re an ex hortatlon to watchfulness

,enforced by the parable of the Ten Virgins .

“ So watching, he ends,

“ with our lamps brightlyburning

, we shall go forth in bright array to meet thevanquisher of death , the immorta l Bridegroom 5 and

we shall b e welcomed in the bridechamber u ndefiled,and with face unve iled shall look upon the glory ofthe Lord, and luxuriate in His beauty ; with whomto the Father and the Holy Spirit b e glory, honour,adoration

,and ma jesty

,now

,henceforth

,and for ever .

Amen .

”

After analysing so minutely the firstfour homilies ,there i s the less need to notice the others in detail .The next two in order a re on the Annunciation .

2

1 Wha t inferences can b e drawn from Dama scenu s’

s u se of

the word “ changed ” (p er a n-oroz'

lpw ov) in this connect ion isa question tha t ha s been pa rtly discussed above, p . 83 n .

Pe trie, commenting on the pa ra llel pa ssage in the De F ide

(c . xiv) quotes him a s saying, By invoca t ion, a ndby workingof the Holy Ghost , the Brea d a ndWine a ndWa ter a re supernatura lly changed into the Body andB lood of Christ . ” The

Pa pishes,”

adds the old Scotsman , make u se of this testimonyfor the ir Transubstantia tion ; but there is a l so a superna tura lcha nge of the Wa ter in Bapt ism, and yetno Transu b stantiat ion ; nei ther do the Greeks believe i t to this day, but only amystica l change in rega rd ofthe u se a ndefi

'

ect. ” CompendiousH istory of the Cathol ick Church,

”1662, pa rt i . , p . 88.

2 The firstof these bea rs no number in Migne’

s edition, thenext counting a s the fifth of the series. F or greater precision,I ha ve reckoned them a s the

‘

fifth a nd sixth, making fourteen ina ll.

SERMONS . 1 29

The firstof these exists only in an Arabic vers ion,and

that pla inly defective and incomplete. A Latin translati0n from this was made by the Ab bé Du Four deLonguerue for Lequ ien

’s edition

,but the piece calls

for no particula r remark . According to Langen , thegenuineness of it i s very doubtful , while tha t of thenext on the same subject cannot b y any means b eadmitted . We should b e sorry indeed to think thatthis latter of the two was by Damascene . After ashort introduction

,calling on all nations to rej oice at

the good tidings, the homily, if such it can b e called ,i s made up entirely of exclamatory sentences, eachb eginning with the firstword ofthe angel ic saluta tion

,

Ha z’

l / in slightly va ried forms . I t would b e impossible to give, in an English version, any adequateconception of the turgid, affected style,

'

with its compound epithets setting all the resources of lex icogra phy at defia nce .

1

The five homilies which come next in order, a reall on kindred subjects 5 two on the Nativity of theBlessed Virgin, and three on her Assumption . The

genuineness, at least of the firsttwo of these- thoseon the Nativity— ha s been called in question 5 partlyon the ground that the festival which gave occasionto them was not instituted till a later date . But thereseems good authority for believing that the feast of

the Nativity ofthe Virgin (Sept. 8 th) was observed inthe Greek Church as early as the seventh century .

2

One account even makes i t to have been appointed

1 Within the spa ce of three or four l ines we ha ve obpa

v6¢9a o r og, wa pfionroc, dytéfiha a r oc.

Andrea s Cretensis,quoted by Gieseler, 11. p. 3 13 .

K

3 0 ST. JOHN or DAMASCUS .

by Pope Sergius I . ,in 695 . The growth of legendary

fancies which led to that of the A ssumptio111 was

gra dual and involved in much obscurity. The wordsof Symeon in St. Luke i i . , 3 5 , Yea , a sword sb a ll

pierce tfi roag/z t/zy own sou l a lso,were understood by

some at a very early period to imply that the VirginMary was to suffer martyrdom . Origen argued againstthis notion 5 pointing out that a material sword doesnot pierce the soul

,but the body . Then, the very

s i lence of Scripture respecting her end caused variouslegends to spring u p . As early as the time of Epi

phaniu s some held this silence to b e a warrant for supposing that she had never really died, but had beentaken to God

,as Elias was. She was the Woman in

the Apocalypse, pursued b ythe Dragon, to Whom weregiven the wings of an eagle, that she should flee intothe wilderness and escape him . A later form of thel egend was that she had been buried in the valley ofJehoshaphat

,and afterwards caught up into heaven .

Gregory of Tours,in the s ixth century, gave cur

rency to a more circumstantial account, in which theapostles were said to have been summoned by amiraculous call from the ir various scenes of labour

,

to b e present at the bedside of the Virgin on the eve

of her departure. This story, by whomsoever ihvented, is related most fully and minutely by Johno f Damascus, or at any rate by the author of the

The term a ssu mptz’

o is used of the dea th of sa ints, without implying a nything mira culous .” Robertson “H ist . of

the Christian Church,” vol . i i . , p . 2 3 2 n . The sta tements inthe text a re ba sed a lmost entirely on the authorities quoted byGieseler andRobertson .

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1 3 2 ST . JOHN 01? DAMASCU S .

carried with angelic and apostol ic psalmody, withfuneral rites, was deposited in a coffin at Gethsemane .

In this place the chorus and singing of the angel scontinued three whole days . But after three days,on the angel ic music ceasing, those of the apostleswho were present opened the tomb 5 as one of them,

Thomas, had been absent, and on his arrival wishedto adore the body which had borne God . But hera ll-glorious body they could not find5 but they foundthe linen clothes lying

,and they were filled with an

ineffab le odour of sweetness which proceeded fromthem . Then they closed the coffin . And they wereastonished at the mysterious wonder 5 and they cameto no other conclusion than that He who had chosento take flesh of the Virgin Mary, and to b ecome aman , and b e born of her- God the Word, the Lordof Glory— and had preserved her virginity after birth ,was also pleased, after her departure, to honour her

immaculate and unpolluted body with incorruption ,and to translate her before the common resurrectionof all men .

”1 The special day (Aug. 1 5 th) to b ekept in memory of this passing of the Mother of theLord

,i s said to have been fi x ed by the Emperor

Maurice (A .D . 5 8 2

The reader wil l now b e in a position to understandthe general drift of these homilies, and to anticipate

1 The pa ssage i s atp . 74 8 of vol . i i i . of Migne’

s ed. I tshould b e a dded tha t in the “ De D ivinis Nominib u s

”of the

Pseudo-A reopagita,cap . i i i . , mention is made of some of the

a postles be ing a ssembled to witness the Virgin’s decea se, a nd

tha t Hierotheu s, the tea cher of D ionysius, surpa ssed a ll the

others in the d ivine hymns to which he then ga ve utterance .

SERMONS . 1 3 3

the kind of handling which the sub ject rece ives . I tis not easy, nor perhaps desirable, to reproduce muchfrom them in an English dress . The subject

,to a

member ofthe Church of England,is a pai nful one .

The style, to an English mind, i s oppressively forcedand exaggera ted . Joa chim and Anna ,the traditionalparents of the Virgin Ma ry, a re addressed under

every conce ivable figu re . Rational pa ir of turtledoves ” i s the most frequently recurring . The birthof their child is the bringing forth of a conch-shell,hereafter to conta in the most precious of pea rls .They a re the planters of a vine destined to bea r thefairest fruit . They a re the rearers of a ladder that i sto connect ea rth with heaven . I f such a re the termsapplied to them, the language in which the Virginherself i s apostrophised may perhaps b e imagined .

There i s ha rdly a metaphor in the Song of Solomonwhich is not pressed into the service . No doubt therea re some good qualities brought into play by such a

method . While modern commenta tors, especia lly ofone pa rticula r school, a re fond of re iterating a fewtexts , or, at a ny ra te, resort ing to a few portions ofHoly Writ for the ir a uthorities . the older ones showa command of a far wider field. N0 book

,e ither of

the O ld Testament or the New, is neglected by them .

The correctness or propriety of the ir references mayoften be a matter of dispute ; but the fact rema ins ,that the minds of men like John of Dama scus musthave b een sa tura ted w ith the language of the Bibleto a degree we can ha rdly rea lise . Dr. Neale 1 has

1 “Mediwva l Preachers,”1856 , Introd. pp . xxv .

- xxxi .

1 3 4 ST . JOHN 01? DAMASCUS.

i llustrated this subj ect by a comparison of the textscited in two parallel discourses on the same topic

,

one by a mediaeval preacher,the other by a modern

divine . But this method of comparison a lone wouldnot give anything like an adequate idea of the difference . The Bible phraseology seems to come sonaturally and spontaneously to the l ips of thepreacher m the former case, that his langu age i scoloured by it in a manner no marginal referenceswill indicate . I t would indeed b e a b urden too grea tfor any editor to have to analyse the expressions insuch homil ies as those now before u s, and assign

every word or sentence there quoted to its originalauthor. To take but a single example from the firstof the sermons on the Nativity of the Virgin (0.

Among various metaphors by which the mother oftheLord is there described, one i s taken from the wordsofthe Psalm Tfi z

’

s z'

s z‘lze fi z

’

ll waffle Goa’

a’esz

'

r ez‘

a todwell in . As there i s not a single marginal referenceprovided by the editor throughout this chapter

,it

might easily e scape -a reader even well acquaintedwith his English Bible, that the rest of the passage i sa quotation from the same Psalm T/i e moz mla z

'

n ofGod is a r z

'

e/Emoam‘a z

'

a, a mou nta in ea ra

’lea

’a s elzeese,

a f l’

ea mozm la z’

a . Nor is it without some consideration that we identify this with our own version

T/zefi z'

ll of Goa’is a s z‘lze f al l of B a sfia ez

,a n en lzz

'

ll,

a s Me b ill of B a slza a .

1 And just as the reader’s

1 Ps . lxviii . ( ln the Vulgate, lx vu . ) 1 5 . The La t in Vulga teagrees verba lly with the Septuagint, of which the above i s al itera l t ransla tion . I t is a nother instance of the confusiona rising from words being trea ted in one version a s propernames, and in another not .

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1 3 6 ST . JOHN or DAMASCUS.

b e led into regions of obscurity in the search for fa rfetched and recondite allusions . But whether it b efrom a certain oppressive consciousness of the fameof his subj ect as a sacred orator, or from an effortto write on this occa sion with more classic symmetryof form,

the Greek is undoubtedly stifi'

er and morelaboured than is usual with Damascene .

After praising the exce llent nature that was inChrysostom, his unwearied z eal

,his orthodoxy (under

which head he is praised for upholding what John of

Damascus is never weary of adverting to— the twofoldnature and double will of Christ), he continues“ 0 that I had given me a tongue worthy of thypanegyric ! 0 that I were brought back to that dayo f old time, when there beamed forth the divine firea mder the l ikeness of tongues, and rested in one form

. a nd in many measures on each of the apostles , thatthere mlghtb e preached in diverse tongues the one

unbroken doctrine of the fa ith ! That doctrinebrought together into one wha t had been separated,by doing away with the manifold error which theythat built the tower in ancient days conspired tobring in

,when they received the reward of their im

piety in the confusion of tongues, and, through that,in divided counsels . 0 that I had a share of tha ttongue ofthe Spirit, so as to rehearse the more thanhuman excellences of this man who was fi lled withthe Spirit. I would b id an ocean of words then b er eady at my call

,and a profoundest depth of thoughts .

B utthe grace ofthe Spirit yields not to words . Forthe who, without the Spirit, would decla re the thingso fthe Spirit

,i s as a man who chooses to see without

SERMONS . 1 3 7

light,and has darkness for the gu ide of his vision

(0.

The more strictly biographical part ofthe discoursebegins at 0. viii . , and this chapter may serve as aspe cimen of Damascene ’s style in ha ndling wha tneed b e no more than simple na rrative . In apla in English version it is not, of course, possibleto convey the ornate character of the Greek . Afterdescribing Chrysostom

’

s self-discipline in early youth,he proceeds 5—

“He now goes for instruction toMeletius, Patriarch of the Church at Antioch, a manadorned with very many divine graces, whose famefor holy living and teaching was in every one ’smouth . He rece ived him when now about the age

of e ighteen, and became enamoured of the lovelyqua l ities of his heart . Foreseeing with prophetic eyethe youth’s future career, he grounded him in thedoctrines of religion , and gave a serious tone to hischa racter and manners, a nd after tracing in him thefair outl ines of truth , thus at length by the laver ofregenera tion portrayed in him the image of Christ,fa i r er tfia n tlze e/zz

'

la’

ren of men, as shining forth withthe beauty of the Godhead. He was about thirtyyea rs of age , and thus a rrived at the perfection b othof his b odily and spiritual stature , when, after b e ingpromoted to the rank of reader and teacher of thedivine ora cles

,under the impulse of heavenly love he

removed his dwelling to the desert. He sought tow ither up the ever-swelling, ever-fermenting lusts ofthe flesh, that the higher nature might not b eensla ved by the lower . For these do b oth lust, theone aga inst the other, and the decay of the bodily

1 3 8 ST. JOHN or DAMASCUS.

tabernacle gives, a s i s meet, the supremacy to thesoul . And so

,resorting to the mountains hard by,

he was led to an old man, of Syrian speech but of nomean knowledge, who had reached the heights of

philosophic self-control . For four years he took thepattern of austerity from him 5 and after easily gaining the mastery over every kind of indulgence, sincehe had reason for his companion in the strife

,he

longed for seclusion , and became a dweller in aremote spot, del ighting to have a cave for his resort,the gymnasium and arena of his virtue. Whatstruggles did he here undergo

,receiving the comfort

of the Spirit in proportion to the multitude of hispains What steps of ascent to the Spirit did he layand prepare in his heart

,as he went forward from

strength to strength, and by means of work and contemplation both, exterminated from his soul and body

every device of Egypt.” 1

I t i s not our object here to follow the events of

Chrysostom’s l ife, even in the shadowy outline pre

sented to u s in this encomium . How extremelyshadowy the outline i s, may b e inferred from thefollowing passage, in which it will b e observed that abrief allusion

,in one single l ine, i s all that is given to

1 A good dea l of this is taken, with b utlittle a ltera tion, fromthe contempora ry a ccount of Pa lladiu s, Bishop of Helenopolis .

The English rea der may verify this by compa ring with theabove pa ssage the extra cts from Pa lladiu s quoted in the a ccountof St. Chrysostom in the D ict iona ry of Christia n B iography,

”

vol . i . , pp. 5 19—20. The origina l will b e found in Ga llandiu s

“ Bib lioth . Vet. Pa tr .” viii . , p . 2 7 1 . Tha t there should b e nohint of this in Lequ ien

’s edition, is one proof how much is still

wanting to supplementtha t edit ion, meritorious a s i t i s.

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1 4 0 ST . JOHN OF DAMASCUS .

of John of Damascus,in closing this review of them ,

that while they show a marvellous familiarity with thelanguage of Holy Scripture, and a re at t imes lit upwith fla shes of real e loquence, they leave a vaguesense of unreality behind them,

from the way inwhich facts a re alluded to instead of being plainlystated, and from the constant preference of themystical sense to the l iteral .

ST . JOHN o r DAMASCUS . 1 4 1

CHAPTER X .

HYMNS .

UNDER the general t itle of hymns it i s convenient toinclude all Damascene’s poetical compositions , asthey a re all on sacred subjects . But the reader mustnot be misled by the term . With u s the word issuggestive of metre and rhyme . But in the Ea sternChurch it is properly applied to such passages fromthe bible as the Angels’ Song (St. Luke i i . Gloryto God z

'

n i lze lzz'

glzest, eta ,hence called the Angelic

Hymn 5 the Song of the Seraphim (Is . vi . knownas the Tersanctus ; and the l ike .

1 In the LatinChurch the term is extended to include Introits,Graduals, and other sentences for singing. It willthus b e seen that, in speaking of St. John of Damascusas the “ chief of the Greek Hymnodists,

”2 we mustnot form our conception of his work in that department from modern hymnology. In point of fa ct, theexta nt pieces which have gained for him tha t proudti tle are but few in number 53 and of these the

1 See the Glossa ries to Hammond’s Liturgies Eastern a ndWestern” andLittledale’s “ Offices of the Ea sternChurch under the word Hymnus .2 Littledale, p . 278. To the same cfl

'

ectthe la te Dr . Nea le,in his Hymn s of the Ea stern Church,” third ed. , p . 3 1 .

2 In Lequ ien’

s origina l ed ition, underthe heading“Ca rmina ,

1 4 2 ST. JOHN or DAMASCUS .

majority a re not in verse at all, but in rhythmicalprose. A few words of explanation may b e desirableto enable the reader to understand the nature ofthese prose hymns . 1

In the Early Church, when forms adapted forsinging began to b e required, a difficu lty must havebeen experienced from the very outse t as to themetre or measure in which they were to b e composed . Probably the earl iest of all were in a kindof measured prose

,such as the one quoted in

Eph . v. 1 4

Awake, thou tha t sleepest,And a rise from the dead,And Christ sha ll give thee l ight. ”

were given ( 1 ) three hymns in iambic metre, on the“ Theo

gonia ,” or Birth of Christ

, the Theophania ,” or Epiphany,

and the Eentecost,” respectively 5 (2) four canons, on

“ Ea ster,” the “Ascension, the “ Tra nsfigu ration,”andthe

Annunciation ; a nd (3 ) a Pra yer in so-ca lled a na creontics .These occupy pp . 8 17—856 of vol . i ii . of Migne

’

s edition ; andthere a re added to them

, a s a n appendix (pp. 13 64 ( 1 )a ca non on the pa ssing of the Virgin Ma ry 5 (2 ) stanz a sIdiomela

”) used in the Offi ce for Buria l of the Dead ; and

3 ) six canons found by Ca rdina l Ma i in a MS. in the Vatican .

There a re thus, in a ll, four pieces in cla ssica l metres 5 one setof verses on no fi x ed pa ttern, hence ca lled “ Idiomela 5

”a nd

eleven canons or hymns in rhythmica l prose . No doubt thenumber might b e la rgely increa sed .

1 The description which follows i s taken entirely from Dr.Nea le’s “ H istory of the Holy Ea stern Church,” pa rt 1.(Genera l Introduction), 1850, Bk . iv. , 0. i i i . 5 and from theIntroduction to his “ Hymns of the Ea stern Church ” beforementioned . While notable to sha re D r. N ea le’s views on theEa stern Church, in many respects, I mu st bea r my tribute of

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1 4 4 ST. JOHN or DAMASCUS .

though ma de unfa shionable for a time in the Roma nl iterary world by the preference shown to the Greek ,had probably never died out, nor ceased to enshrine

the songs of the people.

1 Hence, its u se in church

hymnody would b e a revival rather than a novelty,a nd would appeal with genial force to the nationalsentiment.In the Greek Church, as the metres borrowed by

Virgil and Horace were indigenous, they had, asmight b e expected, a longer struggle for existence .

St. Gregory of N a z ian z u s,for example, wrote in the

ordina ry cla ssica l metres 5 and his iambics ha ve much

of the Attic grace and spirit in them . But evenagainst the iamb ic metre

,as framed on strict rules

,

there were objections ever growing in strength . Itsu se b rought ba ck the a ssociations of the Attic stage.

The increa sing power of accent over quantity madei t more and more inconvenient to conform to itsproper laws . On the other hand ,the Greek language,in this its period of decadence, had not, for variousreasons

,the resource which its sister tongue pos

sessed and developed so freely —that of rhyme. Andhence , as a matter of fact

,by the b eginn ing of the

eighth century, the u se of verse had in the great

1 See on this subject the introduction to Trench’s “ Sa credLa t in Poetry,

”and a lso tha t to Kyna ston

’

s“M iscellaneous

Poems .” The l ines in this metre were scanned by a ccent, a s i sthe ca se in modern languages, without rega rd to the quantity ofthe syllables. The following stanz a will give a good idea oftheSa turnian metre

Go fetch my sword,Ex ca lib a r, Go saddle me my steed,

Now by my faye tha t grim ba ron Sha ll ru e this ruthful deed .

HYMNS . 1 4 5

majority of cases given way to that of rhythmicalprose.

The completest form in which these prose hymnsare found is that of the canon. A .canon properlyconsis ts of nine odes, and each ode i s divided intoa varying number of stanz as— if these short sentences,or groups of sentences, w ithout rhyme , ca n b e properly so called— termed troparia. ” The number oftropa ria in an ode is often five, sometimes less .Those in each ode follow the pattern of one, sometimes printed at the beginning of the ode, sometimesatthe end5 but in the Greek service -books alwaysdistinguished by inverted comma s , called a hirmos . ”

As the h irrnos takes its name from “ drawing ” theothers after it, so the ensuing troparia a re so s c a lled

from their turning towards it as the ir model . One

or two examples of verses se lected from the Englishvers ion of the Psalms, which happen to correspondin rhythm , a re given by Dr . Neale in illustration ofthis peculiari ty of the Greek canon . Thus, i f verse1 3 ofthe cx i xth Psalm b e taken as a hirmos

I will ta lk ofThy commandmentsa ndha ve respect unto Thy wa ys . ”

then as troparia to it, or verses presenting the samerhythm (in this case a n almost complete trochaic),the following would be found to correspond

With my lips have I been tellingof a ll the j udgments of Thy mouth

0 do well unto Thy servanttha t I may live, andkeep Thy word .

(cx ix .

1 4 6 ST . JOHN OF DAMASCUS .

When the Lord sha ll build up Sionandwhen His glory sha l l a ppea r . ”

(cu .

Such a series of troparia as the above, not - limitedto three, but not as a rule exceeding five, would constitute an ode . The last troparion in each ode

being to the praise of. the.

Holy Virgin,as the

Tfieoz‘okos, or Mother of God, is entitled T/zeotokz'

on .

N ine such odes make a canon ; the number ninebe ing interpreted as a three-fold repetit ion of thenumber of Persons in the Blessed Trinity: Moreover, as an assistance to the memory, these canonsa re often acrostichal . That is

, each troparion beginswith one of the letters

,taken in order, of a line or

lines (usually iambic), prefix ed to the canon , andhaving reference to its subject . The alphabeticarrangement of the c x ixth Psalm will make this moreintelligible to the reader. If

,for example (to take

the illustration provided by Dr. Neale) , the a crostich

were

To rev’rend a thletes pour a rev’rend song,

(that being a literal rendering of one of the headingsin the service-book, and coinciding m the numberof letters), then the troparia of the odes in succes

'sion would begin with the letters T .,O.

,R .

, and soon to the end.

Some l ittle notion may b e thus formed of thenature of Greek hymnody in this particular department .

'

Itwil l b e seen how widely it differs from thesystem on which the great h ymns of the LatinChurch, whether rhyming or not, are composed 5

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1 4 8 ST. JOHN or DAMASCUS .

of Damascene, is familiar to many from the poeticalversion of Dr . Neale :

Tis the Day of Resurrect ionEa rth tell i t outabroad

The Pa ssover of gladnessThe Pa ssover of God

F rom Dea th to Life e terna l,

F rom» this world to the sky,Ou r Christ ha th brought u s over,With hymns of victory.

”

But it may give a truer idea of its real form tosubj oin Dr. Neale’s li tera l rendering of one or twoofthe odes composing it

ODE 3 .— T/ze H z

’

rmos .

QIZome, a nd letu s drink the new drink, notproduced bymira cle from the ba rren rock , but the founta in of immor

ta l ity,Christ ha ving burstfrom the tomb, in Whom we a re esta

b lished.

£3. ow a re a ll things filled with light ; ea rth a nd heaven,and tha t which is under the ea rth . Now then leta ll crea t ionkeep fest iva l for the Resurrection of Christ, in which it isestablished .

33 esterday, O Christ,I wa s buried together with Thee ;

to-day with Thee a rising I a rise. Yesterday I wa s cru cified

together with Thee glorify me, O Sa viour, together with Thyself in Thy Kingdom .

ODE 4 .— H z

'

rmos .

Ea pon thy divine wa tch-tower, Ha b accu k , Prophet of

God,stand with me and shew the Angel of Lightcont inua lly

procla im inn o-day is sa lva t ion to the world, for Christ, a s

A lmighty, ha th a risen .

”

Qli hr ista ppea red a s a ma le, opened the Virgin’s womb ;

and, a s morta l, He is named a Lamb . Spotless is our Pa scha

HYMNS . 1 4 9

ca lled, a s be ing without ta ste of blemish, and, a s t rue God , He

is named perfect .

g s a yea rl ing la rnb , our blessed Crown, Christ, wa s of

His own a ccord sa crificed as the expia tory Pa scha for a ll 5 and

aga in shone forth to u s from the tomb, the beautiful Su n of

R ighteousness.

g a vid , the D ivine F a ther, lea pt a nd da nced before themystic Ark 5 andthe holy people of God, behold ing the forthgiving of the symbols . Letu s rej oice in God , for tha t Christ ,as Almighty, ha th a risen .

Of the other hymns of Damascene, those withwhich English readers have b een made most familiar,are perhaps the or irregu lar verses, for

All Saints,beginning in Dr. Nea le ’s beautiful ver

sionThose e terna l bowersMan ha th never trod,

and the Stz'

e/zer a 1 of the La st Kiss . These las ta re the solemn verses sung by the grave side, in thefuneral service of the Ea stern Church

,while the

relatives and friends of the deceased advance and

give a parting kiss to the corpse before i t i s laid inthe earth 5 the priest doing so last of all . The opening lines, a s rendered by the same translator, a re asfollows

Take the la st kiss , the la s t for everYetrender thanks amid your gloom

He, sever’

dfrom his home a nd kindred ,Is pa ssing onwa rds to the tomb.

1 A stz’

e/zeron is a verse, or short hymn , in mea sured prose,much the same a s a tr opa r ion before expla ined 5 the specia lname given to the la tter pointing out its rela tion to the modeLverse , or lz z

'

rmos .

1 50 ST . JOHN or DAMASCUS .

F or ea rthly labours, ea rthly plea sures,And carna l j oys, he ca res no moreWhere a re his kinsfolk a nd a cqua intanceThey stand upon a nother shore .

Letu s say, a round him pressed,Grant him , Lord, eterna l rest l

”

There a re e ight [ a’z'

omela composed by Damascene in the Funeral Service, one for each tone .

1 InLequ ien

’

s edition only four of these a re given, butthe remainder will b e found in the Eu chologium .

2

As'

I am not aware that they have ever appeared inan English version, I will venture to give the followi ng

FUNERAL HYMN .

I .

Wha t pride of l ife a bides u ntou ch’dby sorrow ?Wha t ea rthly glory fa des not on the morrow ?~Like fleeting shadows, or l ike dreams dece iving,nOne moment ours, then Dea th

’s the a ll-receiving .

Then letThy fa ce upon our lost one shine 5Cheer him,

sweet Saviour, with Thy love divine,And give repose to this electof Thine

I I .

Ah me the agony of l ife depa rtingHow gr ieves the soul , on her long journey sta rt ing

1 The e ight tones, or modes, referred to, a nswer to the Gregorian in the Western Church 5 four, ca lled a utlzentz

'

e,corres

ponding to the first, third, fifth, and seventh Gregorian ; and

the other four, ca lled p laga l, corresponding to the even numbers . A ninth is sometimes reckoned . See Nea le’s Ea sternChurch ,

”

p . 1046 .

2 Ed. Venige p . 4 14 .

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1 5 2 ST . JOHN OF DAMASCUS .

VI I .

Once in Thine image a ndThy l ikeness mouldedWa s man ,

the lord of a ll, in Eden folded 5Till bythe Tempter, envious of his blessing,Beguiled he ate, Thy firstcomma nd tra nsgressing .

Wherefore the doom went forth R etu rn to du st,F or du stfleau a rt. Andyet, 0 Lord, we trustThy word

,tha t rest rema ineth for the j ust .

V I I I .

I mourn andweep , atthoughts of dea th repining,When in the gra ve a ll cold I view reclin ingTha t form, now formless, once by God crea tedIn H is own image

,a ndwith bea uty ma ted .

Stra nge, pa ssing strange, this fa te of man mysteriousCorruption’s prey, a ndyoked to dea th imperious .

God wills it we H is written promise keep,Tha t so He gz

'

vet/z H i s beloved sleep .

One more specimen may su ffice . I t i s a Prayerbefore the Holy Eucharist. As the entire hymnmight b e thought too prolix, I have given the firsthalf

,or rather more

,together with the closing lines

A PRAYER .

With lips unclean, O Lord,Andwith a hea rt defiled,

With tongue profa ned a nd conscience sta inedI come

,Thy err ing child .

0 Christ rej ect me notF or ways or works of shame 5But letme 5

da re in tru stful prayerTo ca ll upon Thy name .

Yea,ra ther, tea ch Thou me

Both wha t to do a nd say 5

HYMNS.

But she her Saviour sought 5And, finding, meekly da redTo ba the H is fee t with ointment sweet ,The spikena rd she prepa red .

Tha t off’r ing ofthe hea rtThou didst not then disda in 5Then, O my Lord , to me a ccordHer pa rt to a ctaga in

In fa i th to cla sp, to hold,To kiss

,with banished fea rs,

To ba lm those feet with unguents sweet,The spikena rd ofmy tea rs.

Yea , letthose tea rs for me

Become a hea l ing stream’Tis I tha t cra ve the clea nsing wa ve,

’Tis Thou tha t canst redeem .

Nothid from Thee my fa ults,My fa il ings in the fight5

The sca rs rece ived, the steps ret rieved,A l ike a re in Thy sight .

Thou knowest my desire,My Maker a ndmy God 5

The tea rful sob, the hea rt’s low throb,

A re hea rd in Thine abode .

And bid my sufferings cea se 5O God of a ll, to Thee I ca ll ,

1 5 4 ST . JOHN OF DAMASCUS .

Thy mysteries d ivineCan hea venly life impa rt,

Yea , godlike make a ll those who takeIn pure a ndhonest hea rt.

Who ea teth ofMy fleshAnd drinketh ofMy blood

,

Abides in Me, a nd I will b eIn him,

” the word ha th stood .

My thoughts by this inspiredOu fresher pinions soa r ;

Exultto ga z e with rapt amaz eOn gra ce’s boundless store .

Like straw with fire, my soulMay fl ame, with love illumed

The love tha t burns , to dew but turns 5The bush is not consumed .

Therefore with thankful hea rtAnd spirit I a dore,And hymns of pra ise to Thee will ra ise,My God

,for evermore .

1

Mention has been already made ofthe e ight tones,or modes, used in the sacred music of the EasternChurch . From these is derived the title of one ofthe Service-books, the Octoechos

,

” which contains

the musical portions of the Sunda y services. Beforetaking leave of St. John of Damascus as the great

1 M igu e’s edition, vol . i i i . , p . 853 . In the Eu chologiumi t is a t tributed, I know not on wha t grounds, to Symeon theyounger . The verses a re entitled Ana creontics 5 and Bi lliu s,

i n his La t in version, ha s preserved this metre . But thoughsome of the l ines may, by a l it tle ingenuity, b e sca nned a s

Ana creontics,i t seems to me tha t they a re in rea l ity trocha i c

dimeters, sca nned by a ccent, not qu antity.

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1 5 6 ST . JOHN 01? DAMASCUS .

CHAPTER XI .

COMMENTAR IES ON HOLY SCR I PTURE.

FROM the importa nce of the sub j ect of this chapter,

it might seem to have deserved a n earlier considerat ion . The space taken up by the works inclu dedunder it— amounting together to nearly one-half ofa ll published by Lequ ien1 —is so great, that we may

b e thought to have postponed too long our notice ofDamascene as a commentator on the Bible . The

reason is simply that there is but little of his own inthese expositions . In the firstof the works in question

, the“ Loci Selecti,

”he only professes to b e

giving extra cts from the commentary of St. Chrysostom . In the other two, the

“ Sacra Pa rallela,

”

he does no more than group together passages ofScripture on consecutive topics, and add shortillustrations of them from other writers . The natureof these works will b e expla ined more fully presentlywhat has been said may account for the precedencegiven to other compositions of Damascene

,at first

1 M igue ’s ed. ,vol . pp . 4 3 9—1588, and vol . i i i . , pp .

9—544 . A 11 abridgement only of the la st of the three works,

the Pa ra l lela R u pefu ca ldina ,” is printed by Lequ ien, beca use

he considers i t to b e substa ntia lly the same work a s the preceding one . It bea rs its name of

“ Ru pefu ca ldina fromthe manuscript conta ining i t ha ving been given to the Jesuits’

College atClermont by Ca rdina l Rochefoucauld .

COMMENTAR IES ON HOLY SCR I PTURE .

sight occupying a much less prominent place in his

extant writings .Before examining these commentaries in detail, it

may b e well to call attention to the mere fact of the irexistence, and the ir extent . The eighth century ha ssometimes been reckoned a pa rt of the dark a ges ;and very extraordinary assertions have been made ,

and a re still made, about the ignorance of HolyScripture then preva iling . It becomes instructive,therefore, to observe how, nearly at the same time ,John of Damascus in the Ea stern Church, and ourown Bede in the We stern, were labouring at the taskof Biblical exposition . Atthe end of his “ChurchHistory,

” Bede sets down a list of his works, and thegreat majority of these a re commenta ries on thesevera l books of Holy Scripture . He wa s occupiedin this tas k

,as i s well known , up to the very close of

his life . The touching letter of his disciple Cuthbertshows him to u s

,at Whitsuntide in 7 3 4 , dicta ting the

la st verse of his translation of St. John ’s Gospel,when his own departure wa s nigh at hand. And insuch studies the best part of his life had been spent.“ From the time that I was ordained priest, he

write s,“ till now

,when I am fifty-eight years old, I

have occupied myself with writing commentariesupon the sacred Scriptures, to suit my own needsand those of my brethren 5 gathered from the worksof the venerab le fa thers, and either b riefly given,or as a paraphrastical interpreta tion of the same .

” 1

It has been remarked that of the one hundredand thirty-nine works from his pen, printed in the

1 Historia Ecclesia stica (ed. Moberly), Introd . , p. x iv.

1 5 8 ST . JOHN or DAMASCUS .

Cologne edition of, his w ritings, sixty-four consist

entirely of biblical commentary, embracing illustrations of almost every portion ofthe inspired volume .

” 1

Such was what one single scholar was doing in ourown land in the early part ofthe e ighth century . We

have now to see how far St. John of Damascus was afellow-labourer in the same field.

The firstof the three works referred to at thebeginning of this chapter, and which, for shortness,may b e termed Loci Selecti,

” consists of aselection of passages, chiefly from the Homilies ofChrysostom, appended as a running commentary tothe text of St. Paul’s Epistles . According to theexact title given by the author himself, Selectionstaken from the Catholic interpretation of John Chry

sostom ,

” it would seem as if he had begun by drawinghis expositions entirely from the writings of thatfather . And, in fact, on the Epistles to the Romansand Corinthians, the commentary IS m the main fromhis homilies . But on others— especially those to theEphesians, Philippians, Colossians and Thessalon ians—iti s not from Chrysostom b utfrom TheodoretandCyril of Alexandria

,that the substance ofthe annota

tions is derived .

2 From the great brevity of the

1 L. A . Buckingham The B ible in the M iddle Ages

p . 29. A list of Beda ’s commenta ries is given by Proessor Stubbs in his a rticle under tha t name in the D ict iona ryof Christian Biography. ”

2 This is pointed out by Lequ ien, who a l so observes tha there a re pa ssages in the notes which a ppea r to b e written , i fnot by Dama scene himself, atany ra te by some one who liveda fter the rise of Nestorianism ; te rms peculia r to tha t heresybeing used, a s in the comment on Col . i i . 9 .

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1 60 ST . JOHN 01? DAMASCUS .

for instance, the eternity of God, w z'

sa’om

,efia r z

'

fy ,

and what not— a re grouped together, and followed,generally

,though not always

,by illustra t ive passages

from other authors . There i s a carefully-preparedindex in the Greek, in which the subj ects treated ofmay b e found under the initial letter of the worddenoting them 5 and at the end of each alphabeticalgroup comes a series of pa r apompw,

or cross-references, to fa cilitate the search . Thus

,to take an

example from the English names,if one wishes to

find what i s said in Holy Scripture about a f rogamy ,

he is directed to turn to the word pr ide 5 for menplea sers

,he will have to turn to fl atterers, and the

l ike.

There is, of course, nothing very original in allthis

,and nothing that may b e thought of much

interest or importance to u s now ; still, i t is notundeserving of mention in its pla ce, as showing thelaborious and systematic way in which the sacredScriptures were studied . The original idea ofDama scenu s, as it would appea r from his preface,was not tha t of an a lpfiaoetz

'

ea l concordance of sub

jects, but of an arrangement in three books 5 of which

the firstwas to treat of God and the Holy Trinity,the second of human affa irs, and the third of virtues

and vices . Moreover,the passages to b e selected as

illustrative, were meant by him to b e taken entirelyfrom the fathers ofthe Church . Whether this originalplan was modifiedbythe author himself in later years,or whether it was altered by others, it would now b every difficu ltto decide . Atany rate, in the form inwhich we now have it, the alphabetical arrangement

COMMENTAR IES ON HOLY SCR IPTURE . 1 6 11

has entirely efi‘

acedthe traces of division into books 5while in a kind of postscript to the preface (p .

i t is stated that extra cts from Philo and Josephuswill b e found among the illustrations . Indeed, in thelong list of authors quoted, we may findthe names ofmost ofthe cla ssica l writers of Greece . The circumstance of the author’s firstdesign having been sogrea tly changed, may b e taken as a testimony to thepractica l usefulness ofthe work . Its fa te has simplybeen that of any ma nual, or work of reference, whichhas passed through ma ny editions .For the sake of completeness, a few extracts a re

here given as an illustration ofthe mode of treatmentemployed . It would b e su perflu ou s to pursue thesubject to any length, because, as the passages citeda re taken from other authors

,they do not affect our

estimate of Dama scene, otherwise than as they may

make u s th ink more or less highly of his skill andjudgment in the selection . A few subj ects have b eentaken , almost at random ,

and a portion only of thepara l lel passages given .

ON THE SA INTS o r G01) .

Ps. xciv.

,— B lessed

'

z'

s t/ze ma n wlzom Tfiou

eb a stenesl , 0 Lord, a nd lea elzestll im in Tlzy law .

1 The pa ssages from Scripture a re taken in regula r order inthe Sa cra Pa ra lle la .

”The ea rl iest quoted unde r this hea d is

Le\f it. xxvi . 2 , which I ha ve pa ssed over, owing to the rendering of the English version making it inappropria te Ye sha ll

r everm ee my sa nctu a ry ( instead of my sa ints ) . This is a

difficu lty tha t often a rises . Thus in Ps . lxviii . 3 5 , lzoly pla cesi s agam our rendering for the sa ints of the Septuagint a ndVulga te . In Jerem . xxxi . 12

,for Me sou l of the sa ints slza l l

M

1 6 2 ST . JOHN OF DAMASCUS.

St. Matth . v. ,1 1 .— B lessed a re ye wlzen men sb a ll

f eu'

leyou a na’

persea /teyoa , Cave.

Heb . xi .,1 3 .

— l ese a ll died in fat'

ik,notb am

’

ng

receivedtb epromises, é v e.

(And thirty-three other passages from Scripture) .

St. Gregory Na z ianz en. This,I say

,i s the best

of bargains, to purchase the kingdom of heaven for afew drops of blood, and in return for temporal advantages to receive an eternity of glory.

”

St. Chrysostom . The wonder—workers of Christa re not men who run on a slender cord, or whothrow somersaults over naked swords

,avoiding

wounds by the ir dexterity. What they run alongwith unfaltering step

,i s not a rope, but the narrow

and precipitous pathway of righteousness . The pointsof tyrants’ swords they blunt by the ir own eagernessfor rece iving wounds . They count it not a mark ofskill to avoid suffering, but study how to conquer in

suffering.

”

ON A Goon KING.

Numb . xxiv.

, 7 . kingdom slza ll be ex a lted.

Prov. x iv.,28 .

— [ 7z tlze mu ltitude of people is z‘

lze

king’s lzofzoa r .

(And twenty-five other passages .

St. Gregory Na z ian z en .— “Kings

,reverence your

purple . For the Word of God will give laws even to

the law-givers . Recognise what has been entrusted

be a fr u z'

lf ul v ine,our version ha s tb ez

’

r sou l sb a ll be a s

a w atered ga rde n. The whole string of texts could not b equoted

,owing to this circumstance, without frequent explana

t ions .

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1 64 ST. JOHN or DAMASCUS .

tossing waves . As the body grows weak,the passionsfurl the ir sails .

ON KEEPING WATCH OVER THE TONGUE.

Job xxvii . , 4 .—l l[y lzLos sb a ll fl oz

‘

spea k w ickedness,7207 my tongu e utter a

’eeez

'

t.St. James ii i.

,2 .— ]f ( my ma n of ena

’notin word,

tire same is a perfectma n,a nd a ble a lso to br z

'

a’

le flee

wleole body .

(And twenty other passages . )

St. Gregory Na z ianz en .

“Ye know not what agift from God is s ilence . Yetspeak, i f thou hastaught better than s ilence . But b e content to holdthy peace, where that i s better than words .

”

N ilus . — “Refrain, I b eseech thee, thy unbridledtongue. For a slip of the tongue is more seriousthan a slip ofthe foot.”

ON THE CHURCH, AND Hou se OF GOD .

Ps. xxvi . , 8 ,

— Lor a’

,lza ve loved t/ze b a bz

'

tatz'

on ofl y bou se, a nd Me pla ce w/zere T/zz

'

ne honou r

dwelletlz .Baruch i ii . , 24 . How great is t/ze b oa se of

Goa’

a nd b ow la rge is t/ze pla ce of 1171'

s possessionGreat, a na

’

lza llz a b a e efl a’

lzzg/z, a fl a7

immea su r

a ble.

(And twenty-nve other passages . )

St. Chrysostom Like harbours at sea , God

established His churches in cities 5 tha t we m ight

flee to them from the tossing of life’s commotions,and find still water. If we put in there for refuge, weneed fear no surging of waves, no attack of pirates,

COMMENTAR IES ON HOLY SCR IPTURE . 1 6 5

no violence of winds, no monsters of the deep . Forthe harbour is one safe sheltered from all these . The

Church is the haven of souls. ”

I t would take a far abler translation than mine todo justice to the thoughts of a Na z ia nz en or a Chrysostom 5 but even from such specimens as these thereader may perhaps conclude

,that the Bible com

mentary prepared by John of Damascus was of a kindhe would at times b e glad to getin exchange for

more modern annotations .

1 66 ST . JOHN or DAMASCUS.

CHAPTER XII .

ON NA T U RA L S C I E N C E .

THE debt which Europe owes to Arabia for thetransmission of ancient learning and science has beenoften stated, and may b e cheerfully owned . Under

the splendid rule of the Caliphs of Bagdad, from themiddle of the eighth century, the arts and sciencesflou rished on the banks of the Tigris, in a way thatnone could have expected from the previous historyof Mahomet’s successors. Atthe court of the Abassides, says Hallam,

1 “ learning, Which the firstMoslem had despised as unwarlike, or rej ected asprofane, was held in honour. The Khalif Almami m,

especially, was distingu ished'

for his patronage of

letters 5 the philosophical writ ings of Greece wereeagerly sought and translated 5 the stars were num

bered, the course of the planets was measured ; theArabians improved upon the science they borrowed,and returned i t with abundant interest to Europe inthe communication of numeral figu res and theintellectual language of algebra~ The merit oftransmitting and

,as time went on, of improving upon

the sciences they transmitted, cannot, under any circumstances

,b e denied them . But there i s no reason

to allow them,as i s sometimes done, the higher meri t

1 “‘ M iddle Ages, 0. vi .

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1 68 ST . JOHN OF DAMASCUS .

Africa to the rest of Europe chiefly by means of theJews about the tenth and eleventh centuries 5 1 andof astronomy as “ a science which the Arab iansengrafted upon medicine .

” Ba illy has given a morej ust estimate of their claims to our respect, as be ingthe safe-keepers and continuers of a learning that

would have been lost but for them 5 while yet, on theother hand, their existence is scarcely marked by asingle memorable discovery.

2 In giving an abstract

of what one ofthe authors named above by Chaucer,our own Damascene,

’ has left on sc ientific subjects,

i t will b e our aim to show the part taken by SyrianChristians in the transmission of ancient lore . If hes tudied in his youth the Diophantine arithmetic,which was the germ of our modern algebra 5 i f heepitom iz ed the Orga num of Aristotle, and made himsel f acquainted with the astronomical system ofPtolemy,— and that before the seat of Mussulmanempire was removed to Bagdad— we may see in him

one evident link at least, by which the knowledgeof ancient Greece was conveyed to the new con~

qu erors.

The part played by Syria in the history of the

world has not been conspicuous, e ither in arms or

1 Hist. of English Poetry, sect . x v u .

2 “ Les Arabes ne sont recommandables qu e pour a voi r é tél’entrep6tdes sciences, pour a voir conserve

’

le feu sa cre’, qu i seseroitéteint sans eu x . Ma i s s’ils nous ont tra nsmis les sc iences ,113 nous les ont fa i t pa sser a peu pres tel les qu

’i ls les a vo ient

regues ; a peine u ne découverte mémorable ma rque-t-elle leurexistence .

” “ H ist . de l’Astronom ie Moderne ” t. i . ,

p . 221 .

ON NATURAL SC IENCE. 1 69

secular literature . But it has not been on that accountunimportant . It was in Syria that Greek philosophyfound a home

,after it had been driven from

Alexandria . The Aristotelia n philosophy,in par

ticu la r,which was looked on with suspicion and

dislike by the earlier fa thers of the Church , andwhich John of Damascus himse lf inveighs against inone of his writings

,when used as a pilla r of Nes

torianism ,

1 became domiciled there, and was in theend employed by Dama scenu s in the service of theorthodox fa ith . To Syria n Christians b elongs thecredit of having taught the ir Arabian conquerors whatthe latter in turn taught Western Europe . The

versions of Aristotle were not made b y Arabicschola rs directly from the Greek, b utby Syrianinterpreters , firstinto Syria c, and then (often fromtha t same Syria c version) into Arabic .

2 The chiefphysicians

,and in tha t sense tea chers of science, at

the court of Bagdad, a ppea r to have b een Nestoria nsof Syria ; and as the firstArab ic translation of

Ar istotle was not made t il l the re ign of Almami m

(8 1 3 i t becomes a matter of some interest to

1 “ Contra Ja cobita s,M igue’s cd. , tom . i . , col . 144 1 . He

there bitterly speaks of Aristotle a s a thirteenth a postle ”in

the estima t ion ofthe heret ics .2 This is d ist inctly sta ted by Renan in his essa y De Philo

5 0phia Peripa tet i ca a pud Syros,” 1852 , p . 5 5 5 and to the sameeffec t Schrfiolders, Essa i sur les écoles philosophiques chez lesArabes ,

”184 2, p . 95 , a nd Ueb erweg,

“ H is t . of Philosophy ”

(tr . by N orris a nd Porter), 1875 , i . , p . 4 10.

“ The a cqua inta nce of the Mohammed an A ra bs,” sa ys the la st-mentioneda uthor, “ with the writings of Aristotle wa s brought a boutthrough the agency of Syrian Christians. ”

1 70 ST . JOHN or DAMASCUS.

observe what scientific knowledge wa s possessed byJohn of Damascus nearly a century before .

What Dama scenu s has written on the subject ismainly to b e found in the second book of his De

Fide Orthodox a .

” After a few general remarks, in

the fifth chapter, about the vis ible creation, he proceeds to discuss the meaning of Hea ven . This hedefines to b e that which encompasses all things, bothvisib le and invisible . Such expressions, found inScripture, as b eam” of hea vens andtl a

'

ra’b ea ven may

b e explained,without laying stress on the Hebrew

way of using a plural for a singular,as denoting ( 1 )

the air, (2) the firmament, and (3 ) the starless region

beyond . I t is to the second,or starry firmament,

that the term b ea vers most properly belongs 5 andvarious Opinions as to its nature, shape, and motiona re b riefly referred to . Some have held, with regardto the firstof these points, that i t must b e a gu intameorp a s, or fifth variety of matter, see ing that it hasproperties distinct from those of any of the fourknown. This refers

,of course, to the doctrine of

the later peripatet ic school, deduced from Aristotle’s

treatise De Caelo .

” 1 The shape of it i s thought bysome to b e spherical , and its motion circular, whileothers hold it to b e of a hem 1spherica l form . Here

L

1 Lib . i . , c . 11. The a rguments on this topic a re summed upby F ranciscus Coventr iensis

,atp . 29 of his “ De Mundo

Peripa tetico,

” Antwerp, 1652. The work is, I bel ieve, verylittle known

,and certa inly does not appea r to possess a ny

sc ientific merit . But the frequent a llusions conta ined in i t toEnglish persons a nd events might possibly give i t a va lue forenquirers with other objects .

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1 7 2 ST. JOHN os DAMASCUS .

would b e a rising.

1 As against the theory of Plato in

the Timaeus,

” that the heavenly b odies a reor have a soul in-dwelling, he a fii rms that they a re

devoid of soul and sense . Such passages of Scriptureas might appear to imply the contrary, such as thePsa lmist’s Lei tlze lzea vea s rejoice, a na

’lett/ze ea r l}:

be glad, must b e regarded as instances'

of a kind of

personification , often found in fi gu rative language.

So in another psalm we may read : Tb e sea saw it

a ndfl ed; f ora'a a wa s dr iven ba rb . Tb e moa nla z

'

a s

skipped like rams, a na’t/ze l ittle lzz

'

lls lz'

be lambs.

Light,which is identical with fire

,was called into

be ing by the Creator on the firstday . Darkness isnotan essential property of matter, but an accident,being nothing e lse than the absence of light . The

moon and the stars were ordained to give l ight bynight 5 not that they a re absent from the sky by day,but the sun by its superior bri lliancy then makesthem pale away and disappear . They a re not lightsin themselves, but light-holders . Conspicuous amongthese luminaries a re the seven planets, called pla nets ,or erratic stars

,because they move in an opposite

direction to the genera l motion ofthe heavens . The ir

names in order of distance from the earth a re, the

1 The peripatetics illustra ted this by supposing the ca se of a

well, or sha ft, bored diametrica lly throughthe ea rth . If a stonewa s dropped down, they ma inta ined tha t i t must rema in inequil ibrium atthe centre . See “ Johannis Velcu rionis Commenta rii ” (Lugd. p . 159 . Era smus a lso includes thisp roblema among his Colloquies , but more prudently leaves i t a san exercise for the schola r, to settle wha t the stone under suchcircumstances would do .

ON NATURAL SC IENCE . 1 7 3

Moon, Mercury,Venus

,the Sun

,Mars

,Jupiter,

Saturn . These heavenly bodies were setby God inthe firmamentof heaven , to b e for signs a nd forsea sons

,a ndfor days a ndyea rs. I t i s to the sun ,

accordingly, that we owe the alternations of the fourseasons . I t was in the firstof these, the spring, thatthe world was made 5 a yearly reminder of which wehave in the reappe arance of plants and flowers inspring. I ts duration is from March 2 1 5t1 to June24th. The summer quar ter extends from June 24thto September 25th, the autumn from this latter dateto December 2 5th, and so on . Each quarter has itsspecial effect upon the temperament 5 spring tendingto increase the sanguineous humour, summer thecholeric, autumn the melancholy or atrab ilious, andwinter the phlegmatic 2 I t may have been owing topassages such as this, or the fragment Q u z

'

a’estlzomo,

to b e afterwa rds noticed, tha t John of Damascus cameto b e regarded a s a proper writer for a “Doctou r

of Phisicke,

” like Chaucer’s, to study. For the poet’sphysician

was grounded in a stronomieHe kept his pa cients a full gre t deleIn houri s by his magike na turell .

”

And for many ages a fterwards the healing art was

1 Ah obvious correction of the Greek text a s i t here a ppea rsin M igue’s edition is to a l ter da b Ma pr iov x a i p éx ptg toci srb Ma p

‘

r iov mi, from M a r ch 2 1st.

2 The same a rrangement of influ ences is given in Velcu rio,before quoted , p. 144 .

1 74 ST. JOHN or DAMASCUS .

tinctured with astrology. Atathe same time, whilethus noting the influ ence of the seasons, real orimaginary, on the bodily temperament, Dama scenu senters a strong protest against attributing to the starsany influ ence on the human will or actions . Hiswords on this subject deserve quoting.

“The

Gentiles say that all our affairs a re ordered by therising and se tting and conj unction of these stars, andofthe sun and moon . For such is the subject thatastrology treats of. But we assert, that while signsare given by them of rain and fair weather, of coldand heat

,of moisture and drought, of winds, and the

l ike, yetof our own actions no signs at all a re given .

For, s ince we were formed by our Creator withfreedom of will

, we a re thus masters of our ownactions . Now, if i t i s by the leading of the stars thatwe do all that we do, then a re our actions notvoluntary. But what is not voluntary is neither virtuenor vice. And if we a re possessed of neither virtuenor vice, we a re deserving of neither praise norpunishment

,so that God also will b e found unjust

,in

giving blessings to one and a ffl ictions to another.Nay

,it will follow that God provides neither guidance

nor forethought for h is creatures, if all a re led andcarried along involuntarily Wherefore we

affirm that the stars a re not the essential causes of

anything that comes to pass , e ither of the birth ofwhat comes into being, or the decay of that whichdecays ; b uta re rather sign s of showers of rain, andchanges of the atmosphere Our habits a re

among the things in our own control, for they a re

governed by reason , and follow the turn we give

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1 7 6 ST. JOHN or DAMASCUS .

treatise now before u s— that we must conclude that

the moon was created at the full, be ing then in itsperfect and b efitting state . Hence i t would have gota start of eleven days over the sun , beginning in thecondition of fifteen days old, whereas the sun wascreated on the fourth day. Four from fifteen leave

eleven ; and thus it arises that the lunar year i s

eleven days shorter than the solar. It would not b egiving a j ust representation of what Dama scenu s hasWritten on these subjects, to pass over unnoticed sucha specimen of childish reasoning 5 but i t is only fairto observe

,on the other hand, tha t the thought does

not appear to b e hi s own , b uttaken from a writermentioned by Lequ ien , Severianu s Gab a litanu s.

In describing the ecliptic circle , he assigns threea’

eeam'

,or thirty degrees

,to ea ch sign of the z odiac

,

making 3 60°for the entire circumference. In what

follows,on the lzozzses of the planets

,he seems rather

to verge on astrology51 but a short enumeration is

all that he gives on this head . Aries and Scorpioa re the lzoa se of Ma rs 5 Ta u-rus and Libra of Venus,and so on .

Next in order he discusses b riefly the nature of airand wind . A ir i s a subtle element, heavier than fire,b utlighter tha n earth or water

,in itself colourless and

non-luminous,but serving a s a vehicle to three of our

1 In so fa r a s the planets were concerned , i t wa s of especia limportance [for ca l cula ting na t ivities]to note throu gh wha t signofthe z odia c they happened to b e pa ssing, since ea ch planet hada peculia r sign ,

ca l led the dom a s or house of the planet , duringits soj ourn in which it possessed superior power. ” Prof.

‘

R am

say’s a rt. on Astrologia ” in Smith’s D iet. ofAntiqu ities . ”

ON NATURAL SC IENCE . 1 7 7

senses, sight, hearing, and smell . Wind is an agitation, or current of air ; and according to the quarterfrom which it sets, we give i t in each case a specialname . The names of the winds, twe lve in all, a rethen setdown . This is followed by an account ofwater, and the chief collections of water on the globe .

By oeea n —the “reflu entocean stream ” of M ilton

is meant “ a kind of river encircling the whole earth,about which Holy Scripture seems to speak , in thewords a r iver wentoutof Eden ,

having sweet anddrinkable water. This supplies wa ter to the va riousseas . But from the water remaining a long time inthem without change, it becomes bra ckish 5 the morera refied part be ing constantly drawn off b y the sunand by wa terspouts . I t i s from this that clouds a reformed and rain ensues,the water becoming sweet bypercolation through the air.” The four rivers ofParadise he identifies with the Ganges, the N ile, theTigri s, a nd the Euphrates . The different seas, orparts of seas, then known , a re next named in order,beginning with the ZEgaean . Lastly, the mea surements ofthe three continents a re given . The length 1

of Europe, as one coasts along from the mouth ofthe Tana is (Don) to the Pillars of Hercules (Gibraltar),i s stades 5 that ofAfrica, from Tingis (Tangier)to the Ca nob ic mouth ofthe N ile , is stades 5and that of Asia

,from Canob u s to the Don, is

stades . It i s plain that some error ha s here creptinto the text, possib ly by a misinterpretation of the

1 Taking lengZ/z in its geogra phica l sense of longitude, ord istance ea st a ndwest .

1 78 ST . JOHN or DAMASCUS .

Greek numerical letters 5 1 for, taking the usualmeasurement of 202 yards for a stade

, we shouldthus arrive at the prodigious result of nearlymiles

,as the length of the southern coast-l ine of

Europe . I t will b e observed that the shores of theMediterranean , and ofthe land-locked seas connectedwith it

,a re alone comprised in this survey.

In what follows,on earth

,paradise

,andthe tree of

knowledge, to the twelfth chapter, which treats ofman

,there i s l ittle but inferences or reflections from

Scripture 5 and hence nothing further need b e saidon these subjects here .

Besides the above, there a re extant a few short fragments in which Dama scenu s treats of matters more orless connected with natural history 5 though his modeof treatment will hardly b e thought sc ientific . The

firsttwo of these a re on dragons and ghouls ? Inthese he appears as the opponent of popular superstitions. Dragons

,he tells u s, were vulgarly supposed

to b e huge snakes capable of assuming human form ,

of entering houses under that disguise, and doingharm of various kinds to the inmates . Moreover,they were especially a mark for thunderbolts, being

1 I do not understand the principle on whichthe first of theseletters (sta a ,

orthe ( l igamzzza ) is made bythe La tin tra nslator tostand for According to Herodianu s, D e N a mer z

'

s, a

difierentsymbol would b e used . N ei ther do the three amountsabove given make up thetota l which follows of stadesfor a ll the coa stl ine round the Mediterranean and up to theSea of Az ov. I f we read and 4 , 1 1 1 stadesrespectively, we should b e nea rer the mark ; though these wouldnot give the tota l, reduced on the same principle, of

2 M igu e’s cd . ,vol . i . , p . 1599 .

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1 80 ST . JOHN o s DAMASCUS .

any other animal, in every case the blow falls alike .

The tone of this answer will remind u s of that given

b y the Spartan survivor of Spha cteria , who, when anAthenian wa s tauntingly supposing that all the b ravemen on the island must have b een killed, and nonebut the sorry remna nt left to surrender, replied tha ti t would b e a wise arrow that could select the braveand not the cowardly for its mark . Dama scenu s

proceeds to add a few remarks on the cause why theflash precedes the sound . Both originate simultane(ou sly 5 but whereas the one, previously latent, is theninstantly visible

,the other produces no effect until

ithas come down from its he ight. If the reasongi ven b e not clear, he adds a natural i llustration .

Leta man stand 011 a distant eminence and give asignal by striking with his stick . You see the movement of his arm , as he strikes the b low, some l ittlespace before the sound of i t reaches - you . If m en

would only study the Bible,they would not b e misled

by these childish fa ncies . Ignorance i s a very misleading thing ; a ndwe suffer the greatest loss by not

obeying our Lord’s precept to search the Scriptures .As it i s

,all a re

'

full of excuses for neglecting the duty.

'

The soldier says he has no need of reading, be ing a

m an of war 5 the husbandman pleads the necessity ofa ttending to his fa rm and so we a ll fa l l short.The simple answer to the monstrous fables about

the Stry agee, or female forms that can pass throughclosed doors on their ma levolent errands, i s thatC hrist a lone claimed and exercised this power, whenHe came to the disciples a fter His resurrection 5 a ndto aver that any

' ghoul or fairy can do the same thing

ON NATURAL SCIENCE. 1 8 1

would b e bla sphemously to a ssign to them the samepower as to Christ .The reader may b e disposed to think that in thus

arguing, w ith rea sons of whatever soundness, aga instthe popula r superstitions of his country

,John of

Damascus appears in a cha racter somewhat at variancew ith that under which we have viewed him elsewhere,a s the defender of image-worship . But

,as Neander

points out,there i s no real inconsistency. We see

no good reason,’he says, why a defender of image s

worship might not at the same t ime sethimse lf toOppose tha t species of superstition . His conduct

,in

both cases a l ike, proceeded from re ligious motives .Image-worship appears to him a pra ctice a ltogether correspondent with the spirit of Christianity,a nd conformable to rea son ; but these stories b eregarded as alike repugnant to Christian truth andreason . He a scribes the spread of the la tter superstition among the people to the fa ct tha t they werekept in such total ignorance of the Scriptures . He

insists that laymen of all cla sse s, even soldiers andpeasants, ought to read the sacred word .

“This

b iblica l tendency,”he adds,

“might seem to collidew iththe tra ditional one of a z ealous image-worshipper 5b utne ither are these contra rieties of such a na turethat they might not exist together in the same individua l. ”

One other fragment may b e noticed .

1 I t appearsto have formed part of a letter, and in its presentform is headed Q a z

’

a’

estIzomo ? l/Vb atis ma n ? I toccupies but a single column , and breaks off in the

1 M igne’

s ed.,vol . p . 24 3 .

1 8 2 ST . JOHN or DAMASCUS .

middle of a sentence. The definition given of manis that he is “ a rational animal, l iable to death, andcapable of intell igence and knowledge. His bodilynature consists of four elements : blood, phlegm,

yellow b ile, and black bile .

1 The seats of thesehumours a re then described

,and the effects observed

from the preponderance of one or other of them .

Traces of these Opinions,as we a re aware, sur

vive in our own language. When we speak of aman as sanguine

,choleric, melancholy, or phleg

matic, we a re of course embodying the old ideas

expressed by those words 5 j ust as, when we

describe a person as humorous , or humoursome, orof a good or bad temper (that is, blending or combination of these b amoa rs), we a re unconsciously

employing terms of ancient medical science . An

account of the noblest part of man’s body, the head,is then begun . But the text is in such a mutilated

condition that it i s not easy to extract much meaning

1 In the De F ide Orthodox a , 11. 12, the same distribution

is made, with a n a dditiona l compa rison of them to the fourcosmica l e lements . The bla ck bile answers to ea rth, a s beingdry and cold 5 the phlegm to wa ter, which is cold a nd moist 5the blood to a ir

,which is wa rm a nd moist; a nd the yellow

bile to fire, which is hot and dry . The four sea sons, i t will b eremembered, were a lso made a na logous to them ,

a s a lso the four

periods ofhuman life . Besides Cha ucer’s “Doctou r ofPhisike,”

Who

Knew the cause of eve ly ma ladie,Were i t of cold , or hote, or mo iste, or drie,And whetengendred, a nd of wha t humour,

Burton may b e cited a s i llustra t ing this subject Ana tomy ofMelancholy (ed. p . 93 .

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1 84 ST . JOHN o r DAMASCUS .

seen . Still,the claim put forth on his behalf

'

doesnot appear affected by this . There i s still reason tomaintain that i t was through him

,and other Syrian

Christ ians like him ,that the chain of ancient learning

continued unbroken . What Edessa was,as a link

between Alexandria and Bagdad, such wa s John of

Damascus between the Greek philosophers and theSaracen conquerors .1

1 A s a sl ight evidence, in pa ssing, of the tendency to a ssignto the A rabians more credit tha n is their du e, i t m ay b e observedtha t John of Dama scus himself i s described

,by a n able ed itor

of the Ca nter bu ry Ta les , a s a n Arabian physicianprobably of the ninth century.

”See the Cla rendon Press

edit ion of the “ Prologue ,” &c . , 187 7 , p . 1 3 5 . While notingthis

,a s sign ificantof wha t I sta ted above , I must not refra in

from a dding my sma ll tribute to the grea t meri t of Dr . Morris’seditoria l work .

ST . JOHN OF DAMASCUS.

CHAPTER XII I .

DOUBTFUL WR ITINGS.

( I . B a r la am a ndj oamp/z (I I . ) P a fzeg /r z'

c on S i . B a r ba ra .

IN considering the works of doubtful genuinenessa scribed to St. John of Dama scus

,the firstplace

must b e given to the Christia n romance , i f such wemay call it, of

“ Ba rla am and Joa saph .

” This precedence i s du e , not merely to i ts length,1 but to thewide popularity i t once enjoyed . A glance at theca ta logu e s of manuscripts of Dama scenu s, whether atVienna or elsewhere, will show how frequently i t wascopied . The same testimony is borne b y earlyprinted editions . The presse s of Antwerp, Munich,and Cologne multiplied it in ab undance to the end

of the seventeenth century . In our own country anabridged version of it was issued as a chap-book bythe sta tioners on London Bridge .

2 An epitome of it,in a La tin dress, appea red in the

“ Speculum His

toria le ” of Vincent of Beauvais, and also‘

in the

1 I t occupies pp . 85 7—1250 of vol . i ii . of Migu e’s edition .

Lequ ien did not include it, his design be ing to add a thirdvolume to his edition , in which such pieces might a ppea r.

2 Such a n edition a ppea red in 1 7 1 1 , under the t itle of “ Sa intJosa pha t : the H istory of the F ive Wise Philosophers, 1 21110.

The introduction is signed by N . Her ick , who commends it a s

profitab le reading for his countrymen .

86 ST . JOHN or DAMASCUS .

Golden Legend . The question of its genuineness 1

would b e too long and difficu ltto enter upon here .

It may su ffice to say that, on the one hand, thefrequent citations from Gregory of Na z ian z u s andother confessedly favourite authorities, as well as theoccurrence of passages verba lly coinciding with partsofthe De Orthodox a Fide,

” no less than the prolixdiscussions on the personality of God andthe worshipof the Holy Images

,offer a strong presumption in

favour of John of Damascus as the author. Ou theother hand

,the statement (p. 1 0 28) as to the proces

s ion ofthe Holy Ghostfrom ike Son as wel l as fromthe Father, would b e at variance with the acknowledged teaching of a writer of the Ea stern Church .

I t might no doubt b e easily maintained that thewords a re an interpolation ; and perhaps more convinc ing reasons, to some minds, would b e drawnfrom the general style of the work . From the t itleof it no certain conclusion can b e derived, owing to

the varying forms under which it appears . In one

manuscript 2 it i s given as “ A profitab le history ofBa rla am and Josaphat

,from the interior region of

E thiopia, composed by our holy father and poet,

1 When Boissonade published the Greek text for the firsttime in vol . iv. of his Anecdota Graeca (Pa ris, he

tanta l iz ed the reader by saying thathe hadmea nt to discuss thisquest ion fully, a s a lso thatof the occurrence of Syria c names ina story of Which the scene i s India or ZEthiopia but postponedhis plan in deference to an expected edition by Schmidta ndKopita r . I cannot lea rn tha t this la tter ha s ever a ppea red .

2Q uoted by Leo Allatiu s in his

“ Prolegomena ” (M igu e’s

cd . , vol . i . , p . Leo Allatiu s concludes, on the whole, infavour both ofthe genuineness and a uthenticity ofthe work .

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1 88 ST . JOHN OF DAMASCUS .

Genesis x . I O . But there seems no reason why itshould not b e the modern Sena a r, b e tween the BlueR iver and the true stream of the N ile . As theMemnones were pla ced not far off, an additionalrea son m ight thus b e given for the blending of Indiaand E thiopia as the scene of the events. I f thescene were thus correctly laid on the confines ofAbyssinia

,a somewhat curious ana logy would b e pre

sented to a modern story,notwholly unlike the one

now before u s — Dr. Johnson’s Rasselas, or thePrince of Abyssinia ,

” It i s said that to this day theAbyssinians call themselves [ tz

'

opj a wam or fEthiopians

,and the ir language i s of Semitic origin .

1 Thislast circumsta nce may help to ex plain the fa ct thatthe names in Ba rla am and Joa saph a re Hebrew orSyriac . Beside s those ofthe two principal characters,we have that of King Ab enner, the fa ther of Joa saph ,Barachias

,named as his successor, Nachor the astro

trologer, Theudas the magicia n, and the l ike . On

the whole,observing also that the names of SS. Ba r

la am and Joa saph, or Josaphat, a re found i n theRoman martyrology

,as wel l as in the Greek M a ma

,

i t might not b e unreasonab le for u s to conclude thatsome such account of the spread of Christ ianityin Abyssinia

,or its confines

,in the days when the

Thebais was peopled with hermits, had reached the

ears of John of Damascus,and tha t b e enlarged it by

the addition of the long discourses between theyoung prince and the monk. There may b e thus thesame basis of historical truth in it that there i s in the

1 See the a rticle “E thiopia in Smi th ’s “D ictionary of

Geography. ”

DOUBTFUL WR IT INGS. 1 89

Cyropaedia of Xenophon or the Utopia of S irThomas More . But it i s t ime tha t we enabled thereader to judge ofthe narrative for himself.The king, then, of this shadowy land of interior

E thiopia wa s named Ab enner. He l ived at a

t ime when the da rkness of idolatry had beenin part dispelled, through the preaching of St.Thomas and his successors, and when Egypt

,in

pa rt icular, ab ounded with holy recluses . But,though

gifted with every bodily endowment, b rave a nd victoriou s in war

,Ab enner had no true greatness of

spirit, but delighted in worldly pleasures, and ha tedand persecuted the religion of Christ. Many of hissubjects were compelled to ab j ure the faith otherswere tortured, or fled to the surrounding deserts .Among those who had so withdrawn to the society ofthe herm its wa s a chief sa trap ,

” by whom the kingsetgreat store . Ca lled by such a defection , Ab ennerhad a close sea rch made after him ; and when thesatrap was at length captured and b rought to hispresence, he indignantly demanded of him how he

could think of exchanging his former honours anddignity for the mean and sordid apparel ofthe monk .

My liege,” replied the other, if you wish to deb ate

the matter with me , bid your enemies depart out ofcourt

,and then I will a nswer you touching a ll things

tha t you wish to enquire .

”On the king asking what

enemies he could mean : “Anger,

” sa id he, andLust ; and letthe ir places b e taken b y two betterassessors

,Discretion and Justice .

” This appea lbeing favourably rece ived, he proceeds to relate thecourse of events which had led him to become a

1 90 ST . JOHN OF DAMASCUS .

Christian . When he finished, the king was so in

flamed with anger as to b e moved to commit hisbody to the flames . But fearing to incense thefriends of one who had been so high in station, hesuppressed his wrath, and, telling him that he owedhis life to the peaceful counsellors whom he hadpromised to call into court, dismissed the once highofficer from his presence.

To complete the worldly prosperity of this king

one thing was wanting, for which he had long pinedin vain . He was childless, and had no he ir to thethrone. Atlast, to his delight, a son is born, whomhe names Joa saph, and the nation is bidden torej oice and offer sa crifices at the event . When thesoothsayers are mettogether to forecast his destiny,they vie with one another in presaging riches andpower. But one a strologer, wiser than all the rest,foretold, l ike another M icaiah , that the infant princeshould indeed attain to great honour, but not in his

earthly father’s kingdom . He would embrace the

faith of Christ, and in His kingdom would he b egr eat . Such a foreboding was ga ll and wormwood toAb enner . In the hope of fa ls ifying the prediction

,

he had a splendid palace raised in a secluded city ofhis dominions . There he had the child kept

,with

the strictest inj unctions to his attendants that nothingshould meet his eyes, as he grew u p, 1ike1y in the

remotest degree to suggest the truths of the rel igion

heabhorred . The royal pages were to b e all youngand beautiful . If one fel l i ll, he was to b e removedimmediately, and another, in all the bloom of health ,substituted in his place . Every sight of s ickness

,or

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1 92 ST . JOHN OF DAMASCUS .

Now it happened that in the sol itudes of Sena a rwas a monk named Ba rla am . There was revealed tohim in a dream the s ta te of mind in which the youngprince was, a ndhe wa s commissioned to repair to him .

Accordingly, laying aside his monk’s dress andassuming the garb of a merchant

,he went on board

ship 1 and came to the kingdom of the Indians .There, watching his opportunity

,he accosted the

same attendant in whom the prince had before confided, and professed to have a precious stone ofexceeding value —the “ pea rl of great price ” of themerchant in the parable— which he would g i ve to the

prince if allowed to come into his presence . Aftersome parley he was a dmitted a nd j oyfully rece ived by

Joa saph, who divined the errand on which he wa s

come . The monk , to confirm him in this mood,

related the following parable — There was once agrea t and renowned king, who, when riding abroad inhis golden chariot, attended by a gorgeous retinue,came upon two men in squalid attire . The ir wanface s and emacia ted frame s attracted his attention .

When he learnt that it was in the austerities of a lifedevoted to God tha t they had become thus wa stedaway, he leapt down from his chariot, and fl inginghimself on the ground at their feet, did obe isance tothem and then sa luted them most lov i ngly . The

proud courtiers,offended at the s ight of the royal

diadem thus trailing in the dust, as they regarded it,

This, i t will b e noticed , does not a ccord with the suggest ion made above, tha t Sena a r might b e the country still soca lled ; i f atlea st, this “ kingdom of the Indi ans ” is to b esought in the interior ofAfrica .

DOUBTFUL WR IT INGS. [ 9 3

but not daring to letthe ir murmurs be openly heardby the king, applied to his b rother and urged him to

expostulate with the ir sovereign . The king’s brotherdid so, and the king answered him ; but what themeaning of that answer was could not b e understood.

But when evening was come the meaning of theanswer seemed to b e made but too pla in . It was thecustom of tha t country, when any ma n wa s sentencedto dea th , for a messenger to b e sent to b low a certaintrumpe t before his door, thence ca lled the trumpet ofdea th . When the fatal sound was heard,the inmatesknew what was meant, and the victim hastened tomake his last prepara t ion . On this night, therefore ,the king sent a messenger to blowthe trumpet beforethe door of his brother. He

,pa le and terrified,

thought that h is hour was come, and at early mornhastened

,with wife and children clad in mourning, to

su e for mercy at the hands of the king. The kingsethim free from his ala rm

,and read for him the

meaning of this riddle . If he, foolish suppliant, thusdreaded the messenger of an earthly king, one butl ittle higher in rank a nd honour than himself, howcould he blame his brother for attending w ith awfulreverence to any message that came to him from theKing of Kings

,even though brought by envoys in

such humble guise as those at whom he had ta kenoffenceSuch was the parable by which Ba rlaam encouraged

and rewarded the condescension of the young princetowards himself. T he conversation of the two

,and

the systematic instruction given by Ba rla am , a re thenrelated, -itmust b e admitted , at almost interminable

o

1 94 ST. JOHN or DAMASCUS .

length though the introduction of apologues everynow and then may have made it almost as interestingto readers of a bygone genera tion as Pilgrim’s Progress has been since . In brief, Joa saph is baptiz edand led to rega rd the monastic life as the highest ofa ll patterns . Ba rlaam

,when his task is done

,returns

to his distant hermitage,and Joa saph i s left to face

the king’s anger as best he may . The secret cannot

b e long kept from him ,and his rage and fury know

no bounds . But by the counsel of his chief ministerAraches he resorts to stratagem . He rai ses the hu eand cry far and wide in pursuit ofthe monk who hascaused the mischief, and in du e t ime gives out that

the chase has been successful . Nachor,the astro

loger,i s to b e disguised so as to resemble the missing

Barla am 3 a solemn assembly is to b e proclaimed ;there the advocates of the old religion shall disputewith the supposed Christian monk and when thelatter gradually succumbs, as it is arranged that he .

shall,the prince will feel that his new teacher is

u nable to give a good reason for the faith that is inhim . The plot is an artful one, but is b atfled by thepenetration of Joa saph . He discerns at the outsetwho it is that stands before him under the semblanceof Barlaam . Turning to the assumed monk, he thusaddresses him Ba rlaam,

thou hast not forgotten inwhat Splendour and luxury thou didst find me. Be

l ieving thy words, I renounced all my prospects ofworldly glory

,and braved the anger of my fa ther, to

worship an invisible king, and earn the recompencethat He has promised . Now thou art on thy trial .It thou dost make good the truth of what I learnt

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1 96 ST . JOHN o r DAMASCUS .

emergency, he was recommended by Araches toshare his kingdom with his son . If the cares ofsta te should withdraw the prince’s thoughts fromre l igion

,the i r endwould b e gained . If not

,i t would

b e a fina l token tha t Christianity was from God, andtha t they must not fightagainst it. The counsel wasfollowed

,and the kingdom shared with Joa saph . A

sepa rate capital was assigned him, and a full share ofroyal magnificence. But this last temptat ion wasfoiled . The young sovereign acted like a secondJosiah . He cleared his city from its idolatries he

protected and encouraged the Christians within hisrea lm and by his justice and clemency made settlersfrom all parts to flock to his jurisdiction

,so that his

government prospered beyond example . Yieldingat last to this overwhelming evidence, the old king

Ab enner comes as a humble disciple to h is son ; i sb y him instructed in the faith, and dies a Christian .

Then Joa saph, resigning the sovereignty to Barachias

,a Christian also, lays aside for ever his royal

robes and starts on foot,a humble pilgrim ,

to seek

his beloved instructor, Ba rla am . After a wearysearch of two years, he finds him in a desert cave,and there abides with him till his death, which theGolden Legend places about the year 3 80 . The

bodies of the two a re afterwards found reposing side

bys ide, and conveyed by Barachias with all honourto the capital .

Such,in a very meagre and curta i led outline, i s

the once famous story of “ Ba rla am and Joa saph.

”

Whether it b e j udged to b e from the pen of Damas

cenu s or not— and there is mu ch in the Greek that

DOUBTFUL WR IT INGS. 1 9 7

ha s an alien look about itl— the reader may notgrudge the spa ce devoted to wha t must have b eenread with eager interest (a nd, we need not scruple tosay

,with profit) by many a lonely recluse.

(2) — If in the foregoing profitab le history therewas matter for doubt as to the authorship , or theactual occurrence of the events related

,there was yet

nothing which absolutely exceeded the bounds ofprobab il ity . The second piece which I have chosenas a specimen of the writings whose genuineness isdoub tful— the “ Panegyric on St. Ba rba ra ”— is of a

very different description . The m an ner fa bzzlce tha tit conta ins would tax a credulity the most u n

b ounded . Atthe same time,though I should b e

glad to believe that John of Damascus had no handin it

,and though it may read in some re spects l ike a

distorted imitation of Ba rlaam and Joa saph,” i t did

not seem right to leave it out of sight . Lequ ien hadso little doubt of its be ing a genuine work of ourauthor’s

,that in the short prefa ce with which he

introduces it, he says tha t“a b solutely nothing ca n

b e discovered in the trea tise, at variance with thediction

,style

,and manner ” of John of Damascus .

And a la ter writer,2 not likely to b e uncritica l, isdisposed to admit tha t the panegyric was rea llydel ivered by him . The pre limina ry section is cer

n r a

Such expressions a s flu 7 17 14 13 0w for éyiv mce,ceca me for

Zdwx e,a nd the l ike, strike one as unfamilia r . On the other

hand some pa ssages, such as the prayer of Joa sa ph, for example,(p . a re not unworthy ofthe John surnamed Chrysorroa s.

Langen “ Johannes von Dama skus,

”

p. 2 3 8.

1 98 ST . JOHN O F DAMASCUS .

ta inly in a style not unworthy of Dama scenu s ; andwhen the narrative of the saint’s l ife begins, i t i s introdu cedwith a ’tis said

,

” which might b e construedas exempting the preacher from being he ld respon

sible for the historical truth of the events he goes onto relate . The question whether this is so or not

,

would open up a discussion of some interest, werethis the proper place for it, on a certain habi t ofmind

,by no means unknown even at the present

day. I mean that of those who a re conscious of noscruple , no shock to their sense of historical accuracy,in reading

,letu s suppose, some of the l ives of the

saints in the Legenda aurea.

” While a scholar and

theologian like Vives; the tutor to our Princess MaryTudor, could declare that such a collection deservedrather to b e called “Legenda plumbea ” tha n “aurea ”

— a Leaden,rather than a Golden

,Legend— there a re

many who read and repeat and draw inferences fromthe prodigious stories there metwith, till i t becomes

difficu ltto ascertain whether they ever think of theliteral occurrence or non-occurrence of what theyappear to accept as fa cts . In the minds of somesuch persons it would seem as if the moral truth, theSpiritual reality conveyed, had entirely obliterated, or

made, at any rate, to vanish into very dim outline,the dist inction be tween what wa s and what was not.And thus it i s qu ite possible that what i s hererecorded of St. Barbara may to some minds presentno difficu lty at all 3 and that, not because they e itherconsciously accept

,or consciously deny, the l iteral

truth of the occurrences related, but because the

quest ion of it does not occur to them at all, and

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z oo ST. JOHN or DAMASCUS.

advances with scorn . Thus b affled, Dioscoru s departs, after leaving orders for a chamber to b e constructed for her, having two windows . She directsthe workmen to make three in it

,with a religious

symbolism that can easily b e divined . Her fa ther,

on his return, at once ob serves the change, anddemands the rea son of it. She Openly avows hermotive, and seeks to convince him of the truth of

the Christian fa ith . Then,transported with fury

,he

rushes upon her with drawn sword to slay her . But

10 l a neighbouring rock, less stony-hearted than thisunnatural sire

,opens its bosom to receive her. She

passes out, through the way thus provided, to theother side of the mounta in . But even here her

relentless father pursues her, unmoved by the

miracle displayed. Having secured his victim,he

has her imprisoned yetmore strictly than before,and applies to Marcia nu s, the presiding governor ofhis province, to u se tortu re, or any means he thinks

fit,to quell the spirit of the Christian maiden . The

reader of martyrologies can now anticipate thecourse of the story. AtfirstMarcianus, struck by

her beauty, tries to ingratiate himself with her. Whenhis advances a re rej ected wi th contempt, his admiration turns to hate, and he tries threats and thentortures . She i s scourged, and her lacerated fleshrubbed with horse-hair cloth

,ti ll she i s one mass of

blood . But when brought aga in before his tribuna l,

on the following day, her wounds have been healed,and nota scar i s to b e seen ! The governor onlyhardens his heart at the sight, and still more dreadfultortures follow. The recital of them all, and of her

DOUBTFU L WR ITINGS. 20 1

m ira culous preservation through them,is not meces

sa ry . Su ffice . i t to say tha t, atlast,when her con

stamey had b een fully proved,and the time of her

del ivera nce wa s come, her fa ther’s sword was per

m itted to drink her l ife-b lood,and she fell upon the

mounta ins in the same spot a s St. Juliana . Dios ‘

corus,a s he descended , was struck by lightning, and

consumed so utterly by the fire of divine vengeance,

that not so much a s a tra ce of his ashes was to b efound . One account a dds tha t the scene of themartyrdom was Eu cha itae, in Pa phlagonia . According to the La tin version found in some editions ofthe Golden Legend ,

” it wa s N icomedia .

1

As the ob ject in setting before the rea der anepitome of the two stories of Ba rla am and

Joa saph” and “ St. Barba ra,

” has chiefly b een, tha tno materia l portion of the writings a scrib ed to Johnof Damascus might b e left unnoticed

,i t i s not re

qu isite to add much more in the way of commentsupon them . However gratified some might b e tofind convincing evidence that a narrative so portentons

,in certa in respects, a s the la tter of the two,

wa s not j ustly assigned to Dama scenu s, such a desiremust not b e allowed to wa rp the j udgment. The

style is not unlike tha t of some of the homilies ad

“ Legenda Aurea (cd. Dr. Th . Gra esse), 184 6, p . 898 .

La ter a dditions a re there subjoined , il lustra ting the office of St.

Ba rba ra a s a del iverer of captives . A s B ithynia ( in which prov ince N icomedia was situa ted ), and Paphlagonia were adj a centcountries, there is no ma teria l discrepancy in the loca l itiesa ssigned .

ST . JOHN OF DAMASCUS .

m itted to b e his 1 5 and, as has been remarked, hisfrequ ent insert ion of ’tis said, or so runs thestory

,

” while it does not relieve him from the respon

sib ility of adopting the account given, frees him,at

any rate, from the charge of originating it. And to

one l iving, as he did, in an age of desolating wars,when the sword of Mahomet’s successors seemed toprom i se the extirpation of Christianity from the earth,the mind of a monk at Sr. Saba’s convent must havebeen ready to rece ive such stories of constancy underpersecution , and less critical than we can now affordto b e in discriminating the true from the false .

1 The fondness, before noticed, for Homeric or poetica l formsis equa lly ma rked . Some of the terms used a re striking and

effective in the ir metaphorica l a pplica tion . Such a re yewpye'

i v

for “cultivating ” thoughts, Zwypa cpe

’

t‘

v for “depicting to theimagination, andthe l ike.

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204 ST. JOHN OF DAMASCUS.

i t i s pla in that,until some scholar has arisen, with

the a bility and patience to give the world a criticaland exhaustive edition of the works of this Father,any estima te of his position must b e to some degreetentative . If this allowance b e made

,one or two

reflections seem to suggest themselves as j ust andn atu raL

The one which may firstoccur to the reader, if hehas followed the review ofthe writings of Dama scenu s

given above, i s that l ikely to arise from the latestimpression on his mind— the impression producedby what have been called the doubtful writings . Ifdisposed to agree with those critics who think thePanegyric on St. Barbara

,for example

,to b e genuine,

he ca n hardly help rega rding him,with Voss

,

1 asi n plerisqu e credu lu s .

” And this charge of credulitywill

,I fear

,under any circumstances, have to b e

'

admitted . The degree of it will of course vary con

siderab ly, according to the verdict fina lly pronouncedupon this or that particular treatise in respect ofgenuineness . One such treatise, for example (I meanthat Concern ing Mose w/zo flaw diedin Me fa z

’

tfzfi) isrejected by writers like Suare z , Bellarmine, andLequ ien himself, not only from its want of accordance

in doctrine with admitted works of Dama scenu s, butfrom the monstrous fables it contains . The generalsubject of i t is the b enefitwhich the departed mayreceive from the prayers of the living. And, as

“ De Hist . Graec. c . 24 .

2 “ De his qui in fide dorm ieru nt,” Migne

’

s cd . ,vol . pp .

24 8—27 7 .

CONCLUS ION . 205

instances, we read in it ofthe del iverance from Hadesof Fa lconilla by the prayers of Thecla, of the l ikedeliverance ofthe Emperor Trajan by the intercessionof Pope Gregory, and of the oracular skull whichMa ca riu s used to consult. Now, if even theologianswho acceptthe doctrine of purgatory, obj ect to sucha treatise a s this on account of its “ enormes tabulae,and on that ground

,at least in part, would refuse its

cla im to b e genuine,i t must obviously make a great

difference in our opinion of Dama scenu s,whether we

accept works like this as h is real production, or not .But when every ab atement is made that can fairly b emade on this score, I think enough still remains tob ear out the charge of over-credulity, which is one ofthe firstand most obvious faults to b e found withhim . Admitting this , some considerations arise whichmay help in a certain degree to modify our j udgment .If we be lieve that miraculous powers did once existin the Church of Christ, and were gradually withdrawn as the need of them grew less, it will always b ea question requiring great caution in the answer, atwhat period this withdrawal became fina l. Unlesswe a re prepared to cut the knot summa rily by discarding all historical evidence which it does not suitour inclination to rece ive, we must admit that whenJustin Martyr

,Iren ze u s, Origen , Tertullian, and many

more,distinctly assert the fact of such supernatural

power, and point to its effects in healing the sick, a ndthe like, as an evidence patent to a ll— they werea ffi rm ing wha t came legitimately within their ownprovince to decide upon , and knew what the ir s tate

06 ST. JOHN or DAMASCUS .

ments meant . 1 If then we atthe present time thinkthat we see reasons for limiting the continuance ofsuch phenomena to the middle of the third century

,

or to any given period still later,it will b e the result

of a preponderance of evidence, or of our own conceptions ofthe likely and probable . Whatever l ibertywe thus claim

, we must b e prepared to extend toothers and hence we need not j udge too severely amonk of Palestine in the seventh or eighth century,if he should seem to have no doubts or misgivingsabout the existence of miraculous powers in theChurch in his own day. Moreover, i t is in seasons

of great and exciting changes that we findthe exerciseof such powers chiefly recorded . The miracles ofthe O ld Testament

,as all a re awa re, cluster round

the epochs of change and convulsion in Isra el’shistory . So i t was with the second Exodu s and with

the greater Joshua . And the days in which the lotof John of Damascus was cast were undoubtedlydays of convulsion

,of a moral upheaving such as

the world had not seen since the foundation ofChristianity. Before the advancing surge of Mahometanism,

what ancient fabric could remain and notb e overthrown ? Hence a need of sudden andvisible interposition would b e felt,

'

which we in

peaceful t imes cannot realise. Hence the mindsof men would b e predisposed to bel ieve it and

1 See the rema rks in Nea nder, a wr i ter notinclined to theside of superstition — “ H istory of the Chri stian Church ”

(Bohn’s vol . i . , pp . 100— 104 .

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208 ST . JOHN OF DAMASCUS .

when that of the other was still condemned .

“The

ancients,” says a writer quoted by Bingham

,1 did

not approve of massy images, or statues of wood, ormetal

,or stone, but only pictures or . pa intings, to b e

used in churches .” And this shews, adds Bingham ,

that massy images or statues were thought to looktoo much like idols,

”even so late as the se cond

Council of N icaea,in 7 8 7 , which reversed the decrees

ofthe iconoclastic emperors . But when.we have thus

defined ou r terms, and so reduced the danger of importing modern ideas and prej udices into ancient con~

troversies’

, the question still remains whether Damascenu s, by throwing the weight of his eloquence and

energetic pleading into the scale against the imperialcause

,did more good or harm to the Christian faith .

There a re those, as we know, even in our own branchof the Church , who a re deeply and honestly gratefulto him

,and to others who fought on the same s ide

,for

preserving, as they think , truths in imminent danger

of be ing letgo. To them it seems that John ofDamascus and his party

,even if they did not see

clearly the ultimate issues ofthe fight, had yeta consciou sness that in struggling aga inst the abolition ofpictures of Christ and his sa ints in their churches,they were contending forthe truth of His incarnation,and for the whole mystery of the Godhead manifestin

‘

the flesh . To give up these “ laymen’

s books ,”

these pictured illustrations of Bib lical and Christianhistory

,by which the walls of the Church became so

many stone pages, preaching sermons to the s imple

1 Antiquities , bk . viii . , 0. viii . , 1 1 .

CONCLUS ION . 209

a nd illiterate, would have been to abandon a preciousmeans of fostering devotion and instructing theignoran t . More than that, i t would have helped toforward the spread of a bare theism in Christendom ,

to deaden the belief in a Saviour who took our likeness upon Him and so glorified human nature . I tmay b e so . But, having regard to the undoubtedrepudiation of everything approaching image-worship

(even in the most qu a lified sense of worship inthe early Church, and bearing in mind also thedevelopment of the practice in later times, and theabuses that have flowed from it, I for one cannot butregret that the eloquence and enthusiasm of Damascenu s were enlisted in this cause. No doub t therewas much to provoke such a course of action, and tomake it natural and intelligible to u s, in the highhanded a nd arbitrary conduct of Leo the Isaurian .

If Leo thought it wel l to leti t b e known to the worldthat what most offended Mahometans in Christianitywas not ofthe essence of that rel igion, but only a falsegrowth that had become attached to it, his opponentsmay have been equally s incere in b el ieving that theprophet’s followers were not to b e won over by suchmeans. We may see these two lines of conductact ively followed in our own day. Some would conciliate opponents, or remove the causes of their opposition

,by keeping in the background what most

offends them in the ir own principles . O thers thinkthatthe truest wisdom is to hold fa s t what they bel ieveto b e true, and letthe contrast strike as sharply aspossible on the minds of their antagonists, with suchresults as Providence shall determine . I t is not

2 1 0 ST . JOHN OF DAMASCUS .

meant here to repeat the arguments that were broughtforward in the chapter specially devoted to thissubject. The reader will form his own j udgment of

the character of Dama scenu s by help ofthe materialsbefore him . I am not aware of any more seriouscharge that can b e brought against him than whathas been adverted to— a tendency to over-credulityand superstition and having given its full prominence to these traits in his character, i t is a morepleasing task to recapitulate b riefly the services hehas rendered to religion and learning.

As a preserver of ancient learning, in an age andcountry when all the monuments of i t seemed inperi l of destruction before the advancing host ofIslam

,the world will ever b e indebted to him . As

has been seen, i t i s not certain what amount of

Aristotle he wa s acquainted with .

1 But he has left

one treatise distinctly based on the “ Categoriesand the t itle of another, De Virtute etVitio,

” aswell as the general nature of it,2 seem to point to the“De Virtutib u s etVitiis,

” formerly ascribed to thesame author. In what he has left on the subject of

natural science, i f we may dignify it by this nowambitious title, he may possibly have derived his

'

knowledge from the De caelo, or the Almagest

See on this subj ec t the essa y of M . Renou x De

dialectica Santi Joannis Dama sceni, 1863 , p . 3 0, a nd thereferences there given .

2 This, and the companion piece, “De octo Spiritib u s

nequ itiae, a ppea r to b e only fragments of a connected trea tise .

In their presentform they possess no grea t merit . See Perrier’sessay “ Jea n Dama scene, sa vie etses écrits,

”1862

, p . 14 .

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2 1 2 ST . JOHN or DAMASCUS.

thus rendered . Those to whom systematic theology,

as such, i s distasteful, and who obj ect to doctrinesbecoming, in their phrase, crystallised into dogmas,

”

will b e l ittle disposed to thank Dama scenu s for what

he has done . But even they wil l hardly dispute thereality of the service performed by one who, whenCaliphs were striving to impose the Arab ic tongue onSyria and other Asiatic conquests, helped so materia lly to keep the lamp of Greek learning from extinct ion . Gregory of Na z ia nz u s wrote Greek ~with considerab le purity. His iamb i cs a re often of an almostclassic elegance. And he wa s the great master ofJohn Damascene. The numerous quotations, notonly from him but from a multitude of Greek authorsbesides , found both in the Fons Scientiae and theSacra Parallela

,

” would provide a field of Hellenicl iterature, su ffi cientfor the wants of that generation .

In having so provided it, and having thus become theinitiator of a warl ike but ill-taught race into the

mysteries of an earlier civi lisation,Dama scenu s i s

entitled to the praise that the elder Lenormantawarded him,

of being in the front rank ofthe masterspirits from whom the genius of the Arabs drew its

inspiration .

What bearing the doctrinal writings of John o fDamascus have on modern controversies, especiallythat with the Church of Rome, has been partiallydiscussed in an earlier chapter

,and i t would b e

beside our purpose to enter upon it at any lengthhere . A minister of a Scottish Presbyterian Churchin Holland

,in the reign of Charles would not b e

l ikely to read with too favourable eyes the works of a

CONCLUS ION. 2 1 3

Greek Father of the eighth century. But one such 1

has recorded that, setting aside his maintenance of

images, he was in many other things an a dversa ryto the present doctrine of Rome As evidence

,he

cites such passages as the follow ing aga inst theauthority of tradition All that is given unto u s

by the Law and Prophets , Apostle s a nd Evangelists,we embrace, acknowledge , a nd reverence, seeking nofurther ” De Fide Orthodox a ,

”i,c . Or aga in ,

as against the admission ofthe a pocryphal books“ After he bath at length recommended the rea dingof the Scriptures, he reckoneth the b ooks of the O ldTestamentaccording to the Heb rew ; and then hesaith

,

‘ The Wisdom of Solomon,a nd of Jesus the

Son of S irach , a re pleasant a nd good ; but a re notnumbe red among the prophetica l books, nor wereput into the a rk

’ ”

(Id, iv.,0. Or once more '

“ In cap . 2 5 he commendeth virginity, a nd then headdeth ,

‘ This we say, not deroga ting from marria ge ,God forb id for we know that God blessed ma rriageby his presence and it is sa id

,ma r r iage is fionou r

a ble amongsta ll men .

’ I t will be remembered howpla in and outspoken were his words on the culpableneglect of those— even soldiers and husba ndmenwho did not read the Scriptures, a nd, for la ck of

the sound knowledge they would thus have ga ined ,fell into such foolish superst itions as those he

censures about dragons and evil fairies .

Alexander Petrie A compendious History of the Cathol ick fol . 1662, part i . , p . 88 . The passage re la t ing totransubstantia ti on has been quoted before, p . 128.

2 1 4 ST . JOHN OF DAMASCUS .

One more topic remains to b e noticed, a ndonthiswe may speak with perhaps the least reservation or

qu a lification of all . That is, the merit of John ofDamascus as the author of hymns still used in theservices of the Church . I t is one testimony to hisgreatness in this respect

,that many hymns a re attri

bu ted to him,which in all probability were not his,

and that the whole system of modern church musicis sometimes referred to him as well . A sort of haz esurrounds him,

from this point of view, which it is noteasy to penetrate . Gerb ert, in his

“History of SacredMusic

,

”1 makes him perform the same service for theEastern Church that Gregory the Great had done forthe Western 5 that is, as far as I understand it, employwhat we call notes, instead of letters ofthe alphabet, toindica te musical sounds, and certain marks or charac

ters to betoken the intervals of the ascending or descending scale. Whi le in Latin service books

,adds

this authority,musical notes a re not found before the

1 “De Cantu etMu sica sa cra , a u ctoreMa rtinoGerb erto, 1 774 ,vol . p . 1 . He describes the invention a s

“ novum facilio

remque canta ndi modum per nota s musica s, loco Graecorumcha ra cteru rn onum [sz

'

e,lege tommz]seu chordam indicantium .

”

The invention of ma rks to denote interva ls (the sca le Gerb erta ssigns to Dama scene on the a uthority of Za rlino . But theme ri t of this invention is denied him by F étis, “ Biographieuniverselle des Musiciens,

”1862, t. i ii . , p . 4 3 3 , a lthough he

a dmits thatDama scene “ doi t etre considéré comme le reforma teur da chantde I’Eglise grecque, c

’est a dire, comme ayant

atta ché son 110111 a l’un des fa its les plus importants de l ’histoirede l’a rt . ” The second volume

'

of Mr . Chappell’s H istory ofMusic,

” which would cover this period, ha s not yet, I bel ieve,been published .

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2 16 ST . JOHN or DAMASCUS .

Doctor of Christian art . But while some may b efound to doubt the b enefic ia l nature of his work inone or more of these departments, though nonewould dispute his distinction in them,

in one conclu sion al l must agree . There can b e no greaterglory to a Christ ian poet than to have fu rnished thewords in which the devotion of a Church finds utter f

ance . That in his strains,more than in any other,

the triumphant j oy of Easter, and the solemn farewell s ofthe graves ide, should alike find expression, i s

surely one of the highest tributes that can b e -paidhim . And this tribute, this high prerogative, has

been for ages awarded to John of Damascus by theEa stern Church .

A P P END I X.

P . 1 9 1 .—THE STOR I ES OF JOSAPHAT AND BUDDHA .

THE points of resemblance be tween the B a r la am a nd

[ osap/zatand the La lz’

ta Vz’

sta r a,or legenda ry Life of

Buddha, a re so interesting as to deserve more thana passing allusion in a note . Attention was ca lled tothe subject by Professor Max M illler

,in a Lecture

on the M igration of Fab les delivered at theRoyal Institution, June 3 rd, 1 8 70, and a fterwa rdspublished in the Contemporam R evie w for the fo llowing July . It had been before rema rked Upon

,

as Max Muller observes, by M . Lab oolaye (in theD ébats, by Dr. F . Liebrecht (in the j a /zrbu clzfz

’

i r romam'

sc/ze zmd englz'

scfze [ z?er atu r,Berlin,

and by Mr . Beal (in his tra nsla tion of the Tr a z 'els ofF 2 M 2171

, I t is also discussed by Dr. Langen,

in his j o/za rzfl es van Dama sku s, 1 8 79, p . 2 5 1 .

The s imilari ty ofthe stories is especially seen in theaccounts of the bringing up of the young princes,and, above all, in what b efel ea ch of them during hisexcursions from the palace where he had been confined. After reading wha t ha s been sta ted above (p .

in the abstract given from John of Damascus,

letany one turn to the companion picture, and hewill see what a resemblance there is b etween them .

In the La lz'

ta Vz'

sta ra,

” says Professor Max M ij ller,the Life, though no doubt the legendary Life, of

Buddha,

-the father of Buddha is a king. When hisson is born, the Brahman Asita predicts that he willrise to great glory, and become e ither a powerful

2 1 8 ST . JOHN OF DAMASCUS .

king, or, renouncing the throne and emb ra cmg thelife of a hermit, become a Buddha. The greatobject of his father is to prevent this . He thereforekeeps the young prince, when he grows u p, in hisgarden and palaces, surrounded by all pleasureswhich might turn his mind from contemplation toenjoyment. More especially, he is to know nothingof illness, old age, and death, which might open hiseyes to the misery and unreality of l ife . After a time,however, the prince rece ives permission to drive out ;and then follow the three drives so famous in Buddhisthl story — Wi thout following out the paralleli n all its details, i t may b e added, i n brief, that onhis firstdrive, through the Eastern gate, the youthfulBuddha is metby a decrepit old man, and turns back .

On his second drive , through the Southern gate, heis metby a sick man 3 on his third through theWestern, by a corpse ; and on his fourth, through theNorthern gate, by a religious mendicant, or devotee,whose example he resolves to follow. The towerscommemorating these drives a re said to have beenstanding as late as the seventh century .

No doubt there a re minor discrepancies . Josaphatis described as meeting two men on his firstexcursion

,one blind, the other maimed (or, as it is in the

Latin version, a leper) and as notmaking any thirdj ourney. The monk Ba rlaam is sent, instead, tovisit him . S till, the general similarity remains . Eachends by converting his royal father, and each dies asaint. And

,if it should come to b e regarded as

certain, that in this“ Profitab le History, brought

from the interior region of the Ethiopians, calledIndia

,

”we have indeed only another version of the

Life of Buddha,i t will furnish matter (as Max Mii ller

points out) for very instructive reflection, that Barlaam and Josaphat should have been canoniz ed bothin the Eastern and Western Church .

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2 20 ST . JOHN or DAMASCUS .

Constantinople, image at, 5 7Continents, mea surements of,177

Controversies, in GreekChurch , 4 2 ; with Rome,2 12

C0pronymu s, origin of name,62 n .

Cosma s, the elder, 26, 3 2 n .

Cosma s,the younger

,2 7, 3 0 ,

3 3 n . , 66

Crea tion, described, 122, 1 72Cross, inscription on a , 58 ;images of the, 8 1 emblemofthe, 126

DAMASCIUS, 24Dama scus , history of, 2—5rivers of, 5 situa tion of, 7capture of, 1 7 ; Church o f,18 ; fana tic ism of moderninhabitants oi , 5

D ionys ius, Pseudo-Areopagita ,3 7 : 3 9 » 7 1, 109, 1 3 z n .

D iophantus, 2 7Docet ism , 92

D ragons, superstitions about,

1 78

Dyothelete, doctrines ca lled ,40

EAST , turning to the, 8 1Easter Day, Observances ou ,

14 7 ; hymn for, 148

Ea ster Eve— see Holy Sa turday

Ea stern Church,hymns ofthe,

14 1 see a lso u nder Church,the Greek

Edessa , 184 ; bishop of, 5 3Ep iphaniu s, 68

Era smus, 79 , 1 72 n .

Eucha ris t,the Holy

, 82, 127

F A IR IES, evil , 1 79F ide ort/zoa’ox a

,Liber de, 65 ,

70, 1 70, 182 n .,2 1 1 ; a na

lysis of, 72

F ig-tree

, the withered , sermonon

, 1 1 3F z

’

l z'

ogu e, the clause, 122 11 .

F an: the , 65F ra nciscusCoventr iensis

,1 70 11 .

F unera l hymn,150

G.

GEORGIUS Cedrenu s, 54 n .

Germanns, pa tria rch , 5 3 , 56,60

Germ a nu s I I . , pope, letter 01,59

Gh é vond, 4 7 n .

Gibbon, 1 7 n . , 4 9 n . , 5 7 11 .

Golden Legend, the, 186, 198,20 1 11 .

Good F rida y, sermon on, 1 1 7Gregory , the Grea t, 5 2Gregory, N a z ia nz en

,108, 144 ,

186 , 2 12 ; quoted, 162, 164

HARAN, 7 n .

Ha’ren'

ém, Liber ale, 65 , 68, 98

Hea ven, physica l theories of,

Hera clius, 16 , 40, 92Hermon, Mount, 105Hetaerists, 94H irmos, 14 5 , 14 8H isham , ca l iph, 20Holy Sa turda y, sermon on, 12 1Humours

,the four, 182

INDEX .

Hymns, meaning of the term,

14 1 na ture of ea rly, 14 2 ;versions of Creek, 3 1, 3 3 n . ,

3 4 n . , 148, 150—4

Hyposta s is, 7 7

I .

ICONOCLASTICthe, 4 6, 5 1Icons

,the sa cred , 5 1, 207

Idiomela, 14 2 n . tra nsla t ionof, 150Image , destruct ion of a n , 5 7Image-worship, defin ition of,

5 3 n . ,85 , 207 ; a rguments

for, 54, 5 5 n . , 18 1, 208 ;growth of, 52, 85 n . ,

208

I ndia,confused with Ethio

p ia , 187I rene, the empress, 62

J .

JOACH IM andAnna , SS. ,1 3 3

Joa nnes Philoponu s , 22Joasa ph, or Josa pha t, 190, 2 1 7John

, St. , of Dama scus, birthof, 19 ; biography of, 2 3 ,203 ; opponent of Mahometa nism, 90 Apologi esof, 54 , 58 ; F ans Scz

’

entz'

w of,64 ; sermons of, 102 ; Bibl ica l commenta ries of, 156hymns of, 3 2, 14 1, 2 15 ;doubtful writ ings of, 185 ;style of, 1 3 7 , 1 3 9 n . , 19 7 n . ,

202 n . imbued with B iblephra seology, 1 3 4 sta te of

text of, 106 n . ,17 3 n . ; im

prover of Church music,1 55 n . scientific knowledge of, 166 , 1 78, 183 ,2 1 1 credulity of, 207 ser

vices of, to lea rning, 2 10

systema t iz er of theology,2 1 1 ; genera l estima te of, 203

controversy,

2 2 1

John, pa tria rch , 23 , 27 n. 3 n.

Josapha t— see Joa saph3

K.

KAABA, the— see Chab athaled, 18

Korg

an, the, 9 1 ; legends in ,9Kura ish, or Kote1sh, tribe of

the , 14

LAURA, 12Leo the Isaurian , 24 , 209

edicts of,28, 56 ; letter o i ,

4 7 n . cha ra cter of, 4 9 n . ,

54Lequ ien ,

editor ofDamascenu s,65 n . , 203Lomba rd, Peter, 70

MAHOMET, 14 , 100, 207 n

doc trines of, 92Mahome tan controversy, the,

93 , 99Mahometamsm, spread of, 14Man, na ture of, 182

Mansour, name of, 25 n . , 6 1 n .

Ma nz er, 6 1 n .

Ma r Saba , the, 8Ma rcianus, 200Ma rriage, 87 , 2 1 3Ma x im ianu s II . , 199Ma ximus, St. , 4 1Mea surements, geographica l ,

I 7 7Medina , 15Metaphor, forced, 124Metre of hymns , 14 3 , 154 n .

M icrocosm,the, 1 18

2 2 2

M ira culous powers, 205 , 207 n .

Moawyah, 19Monks, Greek, 10Monophysite , doctrines so

ca lled , 3 9 , 4 5Musa ,M ahommedBen , 167 11 .

Music, in Ea stern Church , 155

N .

NAT IV ITY, of St. Ma ry, ser

mons on the 129Nature , 7 7N ea le , Dr . J. M . , 14 2 n .

N estorians, 15 , 169Nestorius, 78N icaea , council at, 62Nicephoru s P hoca s , 23N icknames, 6 1 n .

N ilus, quoted, 164Numbers, mysteries of, 108

0 .

OCEAN , the, 17 7Ockley, Simon, 17 n. , 96 n .

Octoechos , the, 1 54Oma r I I. , ca l iph, 4 7 n .

Omeiyah, or Moaw iyah , 19, 20Opposites, cured by opposites,

1 15

P .

PALLADIUS, bishop, 1 3 8 n .

Pa ra dise , rivers of, 76 , 17 7P a ra llela Sa cr a

,the, 159

Pa ssion, da rkness atthe, 125Pe ter, the F uller, 7 7Petrie, A lexander, 2 12—3Pha rpa r

,the, 7

Philo Judaeu s, 163Plane ts, the, 17 3 , 1 76Plotinus

, 3 7 , 76

Prayer, the Lord’s, 79 tra ns

l a t ion of a , 152

ST . JOHN OF DAMASCUS .

Problem,a peripatet ic, 172 n .

Ptolemy, A lmagest of, 183 ,

2 10

Purga tory, 205

RAIN, formation of, 17 7R

'

a ssela s, 188

R edemption, man’s, 124

Robber, the cru cified, 120

Rochefoucauld, ca rdina l, 1 56m.

SABAS, St. , 12 ; monastery of,8, 27

Sabba th, ordinance ofthe, 86Sa craments, 8 1Sal adin, tomb of, 18Sa ra cens , the, name of

, 69,

90 ; influ ence of, on lea rning, 2 1

Sa turnian metre, the, 144Schola st icism, 2 1 1

Science, na tura l , 166Scripture, Holy— see BibleSena a r, land of

,187

Septuagint version, 1 3 4Sepulchre, Church of theHoly

,14 7

Sergius, fa ther of John of

Dama scus, 25 n .

Sergius, patria rch, 40Sermons, ofDama scenu s, 102

Sicily, conquest of, 26 11.Sound

, and sight, 180

Stephen , St. , the Sa b a ite, 3 4 n .

Stephanus, the monk, 59Sticheron , 14 9 11.Stra ight, the street ca lled, 3Superstitions, 179, 2 13Syria , ea rly sta te of

,1 5 ser

vices of, to lea rning, 168

Syria c la nguage, the, 68

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