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Dialectica

St John of Damascus, tr. Chase, 1958

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THE FOUNT OF KNOWLEDGE is one of the most important single works produced in the Greek patristic period, of which it marks the end, offering as it does an extensive and lucid synthesis of the Greek theological science of the whole period. It is the first great Summa of theology to appear in either the East or the West. And it is the last work of any theological importance to appear in the East. Of the life of its author, Yanah ibn Mansur ibn Sargun, better known as St. John of Damascus, very little is known. There are a few brief notices to be found in the acts of some Church councils and in some of the Byzantine chronicles,’¹ but beyond such scattered and very limited information there is practically no certain source for the life of this man who was the last of the Fathers of the Church. The traditional source for the life of John of Damascus dates from no earlier than the eleventh century, a biography attributed to a Patriarch John of Jerusalem.² This John might be John VIII, who was Patriarch of Jerusalem toward the end of the eleventh century; or John IX, who came in the middle of the following century; or one of the three Johns who were Patriarchs of Antioch in the eleventh and twelfth centuries. … It was based upon an Arabic Life, probably that composed by Michael, an eleventh-century monk from the Monastery of St. Simeon Stylites near Antioch. Michael wrote the Life as an expression of gratitude to St. John of Damascus, upon whose feast day he had been liberated from Saracen captivity.³ The Arabic Life was based upon oral tradition and some scattered written records.

The Life of John of Jerusalem was so long accepted as genuine that the legend has become almost inseparably associated with the figure of St. John of Damascus. For that reason it will be necessary to give some account of it here. According to the Life, John came of a very pious Christian family of Damascus. His father held a high public office under the Mohammedan Caliph of Damascus. He was very anxious to obtain the best possible Christian education for his son, so, when Cosmas, a monk of extraordinary learning, was found among a group of Christian captives brought to Damascus from Italy, the father begged the caliph to turn him over to him. The request was granted and the monk Cosmas became the tutor of the young John and his adopted brother, also named Cosmas. John made great progress in theology in particular and in all the sciences. His learning and ability were such that, when his father died, he was chosen to succeed to his office and was almost immediately afterward appointed first counselor of the caliph. It was while John held this position that Leo the Isaurian initiated his campaign against the cult of the holy images.⁴ John immediately took up the defense in a series of discourses directed against the Iconoclasts. Leo was greatly angered, but, because John was in Saracen territory well out of his reach, he could do nothing about it. At length he had a letter forged, allegedly addressed to himself by John and in which it appeared that John informed him of the weak state of the defenses of the city of Damascus and begged him to come and liberate it from the Saracens. The letter was then forwarded to the caliph with a letter from Leo, explaining that this was only one of the many such letters that he was constantly receiving from the caliph’s Christian subjects and suggesting that the caliph should know about it. John was summoned before the caliph and, in spite of his protestations of innocence, was judged guilty and punished by having his right hand cut off. The hand was hung in the public square, but at John’s urgent request was restored to him toward the end of the day. He then spent the night in prayer before an ikon of the Mother of God. During the course of the night our Lady appeared to him and cured him. In the morning, when the caliph saw the hand perfectly restored to its proper place, with only a faint line of suture to suggest what had happened, he was so impressed that he became convinced of John’s innocence and restored him to his former position of honor. John, however, requested permission to withdraw to a monastery. The permission was reluctantly granted and at length the former grand vizir entered the Monastery of St. Sabbas near Jerusalem, together with his adopted brother Cosmas. It was hard to find a spiritual father who would undertake the training of such an illustrious and learned man as John, but eventually a holy monk consented and took him into his cell. This spiritual father proved to be a very strict master. Among other things, he sent his pupil into the market place of Damascus to sell baskets at an exorbitant price and thus subject himself to the derision of the city where he had once enjoyed such honor. Naturally, he acquitted himself very well in the performance of this task. Another test of his humility and obedience was the absolute prohibition to write. However, at the urgent request of one of the monks who had just lost his brother, he did finally consent to compose some verses of consolation.⁵ Hearing of this, the spiritual father refused to continue his direction and expelled John from his cell. He was finally persuaded by the community to receive John back, but it was under the condition that he perform the penance of cleaning all the monastery latrines with his bare hands. John’s humble performance of this penance completely won over the old man, who a short time later was advised in a vision by the Blessed Virgin that he was being too hard upon John and should permit him to write. From then on a continuous stream of prose and poetical works flowed from his pen. Eventually, his adopted brother Cosmas was made Bishop of Maiuma and he himself ordained priest for the service of the Church in Jerusalem. He soon returned to the solitude of St. Sabbas, where he resumed his former life of asceticism and writing and so continued until his death. The author of the Life reports that during these last years John went over all his works carefully, correcting and revising them. This fact, at least, seems to be true, because many of the Damascene’s writings do show definite signs of having been revised by the author himself. For instance, the shorter recension of the Dialectica seems to be a revision of the longer, while the treatise, On the Virtues and Vices of the Soul and Body, appears to be a later enlargement of On the Eight Spirits of Evil.

… Even the single hint which it gives by which the chronology of the Damascene’s life may be co-ordinated with known historical events is apparently wrong. For, according to the Life, Leo the Isaurian’s first edict against the holy images must have been published while John was still a civil official; in which case the Apologies in defense of the holy images must have been written before he entered St. Sabbas. However, for reasons which will be explained further on, it is fairly certain that the Apologies were written not only after his entrance into the monastery but after his ordination to the priesthood.

What we do know with any certainty about the life of St. John of Damascus is very little indeed.⁶ From the Chronography of Theophanes⁷ we learn that John’s father was Sergius, the son of a certain Mansur—an Arabic surname meaning ‘victorious.’ Mansur had evidently been one of the Greek officials of Damascus who were taken into the service of the Caliph Yazid when the city fell to the Arabs in 635. Sergius was ‘a most Christian man’ and Logothete General under the Omayyad Caliph of Damascus, Abimelech.⁸ The logothete, or comptroller, was probably some sort of treasury official or collector of taxes. All such positions requiring some technical skill were usually held by Christians under the more or less benign rule of the Omayyads. However, Theophanes relates that Abimelech’s successor, Al-Walid,⁹ required the Christian public officials to keep their accounts in Arabic rather than in Greek—except for such of the more complicated as exceeded the potentialities of the Arabic language. This same caliph took several other measures against the Christians, such as taking away their permission to share the basilica of St. John the Baptist with the Moslems.¹⁰ There is a strong tradition that John succeeded his father in office, and this would seem to be supported by the Acts of the Second Council of Nicea which compare him to St. Matthew the publican, saying that he considered the following of Christ to be of far more value than the treasures of Araby.¹¹ If the Exposition and Declaration of Faith¹² which has come down to us in an Arabic translation under the name of John of Damascus is authentic, then we have certain precious hints about his life which impugn the accuracy of the account given by the Life.¹³ Thus in this profession of faith obviously made upon the occasion of his ordination to the priesthood he says about himself: ‘Thou hast nourished me with spiritual milk, with the milk of Thy sacred words. Thou hast sustained me with the solid food of the body of our Lord Jesus Christ, Thy only-begotten and most holy Son, and hast intoxicated me with the sacred life-giving chalice which is His blood that He shed for the salvation of the world. Because, O Lord, Thou hast loved us and given Thy beloved only-begotten Son for our redemption, which He willingly undertook and without shrinking . . . So truly, O Christ God didst Thou humble Thyself to bear upon Thy shoulders the straying sheep that was I, and feed me in a verdant place and nourish me with the waters of right doctrine by the hands of Thy shepherds, who, once by Thyself fed, did forthwith feed Thy chosen and noble flock. And now, O Lord, by the hands of Thy pontiff Thou hast called me to minister to Thy children.’¹⁴ Although Damascus was certainly one of the most verdant places in all Syria and Palestine, it is obvious enough that this ‘verdant place’ is of another kind: without any doubt, the Monastery of St. Sabbas. The ‘shepherds’ might well be the Bishop of Jerusalem and the priest of the monastery, but they are more probably the ‘inspired Fathers’¹⁵ teaching through their writings. We may conclude that, while St. John received at Damascus the normal religious training which any child of a devout Christian family would normally get—‘Thou hast nourished me with the milk of Thy sacred words’—it was at Sabbas that he acquired his profound knowledge of the writings of the Fathers. The ‘pontiff’ referred to can only be John V of Jerusalem (706-735), whom John refers to in his letter, On the Thrice Holy Hymn, as one who ‘in theology was in absolute agreement with the holy Fathers’ and of whom he himself was a devoted disciple.¹⁶ In this, as in most professions of faith made upon the occasion of priestly ordination or episcopal consecration, there is the enumeration of the heresies to be anathematized. The iconoclastic heresy, however, is not mentioned at all, which is practically conclusive evidence of the fact that the ordination took place before the publication of Leo the Isaurian’s first edict against the holy images in 726. Furthermore, there is nothing in the whole profession of faith which could be construed as a reference to his receiving instruction from some monk before entrance to the monastery. If there had been a monk Cosmas such as the Life describes, the ‘Thou hast nourished me . . . with the milk of Thy sacred words’ would be a very inadequate expression from such a writer as the Damascene. Had there been such a person, the Damascene would have made more explicit mention of him.

From the foregoing we may conclude that John Mansur, known to us as St. John of Damascus, was the son of Sergius, a Christian tax-collector for the Omayyad Caliph of Damascus, Abd-Al-Malik (685-705), and grandson of an important Christian official who had been given the surname of Mansur. He probably succeeded his father in office at a fairly early age and served under Abd-Al-Malik and his successor, Al-Walid (705-715). Al-Walid was not so lenient with his Christian subjects as his predecessors had been and in particular he imposed restrictions upon the Christian treasury officials. The harsh policy of Al-Walid towards the Christians may well have been the determining factor in John’s decision to embrace the monastic life. Sometime, then, probably before 715, he entered the Monastery of St. Sabbas near Jerusalem. There he devoted himself to the practice of asceticism and the study of the Fathers, becoming a protege of John V, Patriarch of Jerusalem, by whom he was called to the priesthood and ordained sometime before the year 726.

In 726, Leo the Isaurian’s first edict against the Holy Images was published. The enforcement of this edict led to the resignation of the then Patriarch of Constantinople, St. Germanus, in 729. It was of that time that Theophanes relates: ‘At that time John Chrysorrhoas flourished at Damascus in Syria, a priest and monk and a teacher most noble in both life and speech . . . And John together with the bishops of the East anathematized the impious [Leo].’¹⁷ This was in 730 and it was about this time that the three Apologies were composed against the Iconoclasts in general and Leo in particular.¹⁸ From the tone of these discourses and from what Theophanes says, it would seem that John was acting as the mouthpiece not only for John of Jerusalem but for all the bishops of the East beyond the territories of the Greek emperor. In them he spoke very plainly against secular interference in matters ecclesiastical. ‘If an angel,’ he says in the second Apology, ‘if a king preach a gospel to you other than that which you have received, close your ears. For I still hesitate to say, as did the Apostle (Gal. 1:8), let him be anathema, as long as I see any possibility of resipiscence . . . It does not belong to kings to legislate for the Church . . . to kings belongs the maintenance of civil order, but the administration of the Church belongs to the shepherds and teachers.’¹⁹ These Apologetic Discourses furnished such a complete defense of the veneration of sacred images based upon Scripture, tradition, and reason that in subsequent ages and down to the present day there has been no need to add to it. It is no wonder that John incurred the enmity and hatred of the Iconoclast emperors: Leo the Isaurian and his son and successor, Constantine V, Copronymus (741-775). Theophanes tells²⁰ how Constantine Copronymus called him, instead of Mansur, ‘Manzer,’ which in Hebrew means ‘bastard,’ and how he ordered him to be anathematized once a year. The Iconoclastic council, held in 753 in the Palace of the Hieria near Constantinople,²¹ in anathematizing the three great opponents of the Iconoclasts—Germanus of Constantinople, George of Cyprus, and John of Damascus—concludes thus: ‘Anathema to Mansur, the man of evil name and Saracen sentiments! Anathema to Mansur, the worshiper of images and writer of falsehood! Anathema to Mansur, the insulter of Christ and traitor to the Empire. The Trinity has brought them down all three!’²² John was by then already dead, but the impression which he had made upon the Iconoclasts was still very strong. The author of the Life and others have praised him for his courage in opposing the Iconoclastic emperors of Byzantium; others have indicated that John was quite safely beyond the reach of the Byzantine emperors and that it took no courage to oppose them. Nevertheless, it might be pointed out that the Damascene was living among Mohammedans, who themselves execrated every sort of picture or representation of any living creature, and that, furthermore, he wrote just as strongly against the Mohammedans as he did against the Iconoclasts.²³ We also know that Caliph Al-Walid II (743-744) ordered the tongue of Peter, Metropolitan of Damascus, to be cut out because of his preaching against the Moslems and the Manichaeans,²⁴ of which offense the Damascene was equally guilty. There is no doubt but that John of Damascus would have expressed himself just as forcefully against the enemies of the holy images, had he been living within the confines of the Greek Empire.

Theophanes refers to the Damascene as ‘our holy father John, who has well been called Chrysorrhoas because of the golden grace of the Spirit that is reflected in his speech.’²⁵ Chrysorrhoas, ‘golden-flowing,’ was the name of the river which irrigated the gardens of Damascus.²⁶ That this epithet was most fittingly applied to St. John has been well born out by his extant writings, particularly his sermons. The best example of his eloquence is to be found in the three homilies on the Dormition of our Lady. Internal evidence would indicate that these were delivered on the same day at the tomb of our Lady in Jerusalem, on the feast of her Dormition. They exemplify all that tradition has attributed to the Damascene—his eloquence, his theology, and his devotion to the Virgin Mother of God. … There are others of his sermons extant, but unfortunately very few. What there is is sufficient to show that his traditional reputation as an eloquent, learned, and devout preacher is fully justified. They also show that his life was not spent entirely in the monastery, but that he was frequently called upon to serve in the churches of Jerusalem.

The monastery to which St. John retired from civil life was the famous Laura of St. Sabbas, the Great Laura, which is generally known as Mar Saba. It is situated in a wild and inaccessible spot by the valley of the torrent of Cedron some ten miles southeast of Jerusalem. Here the anchorite St. Sabbas the Sanctified was living in solitude, when, in 483, a group of hermits attracted by his reputation for sanctity began to gather about him.²⁷ The group so grew that three years later the Bishop of Jerusalem, Salustius, ordained Sabbas a priest and appointed him abbot of the monastery. In his list of the monasteries in the Jerusalem district restored by Justinian, Procopius names the monastery ‘of the Lazians in the desert of Jerusalem.’²⁸ This was undoubtedly the monastery of St. Sabbas, who was still living at the time, and the restoration was probably not so much a restoration as a grandiose enlargement—the beginnings of the fortress-like structure which is the monastery today. The name ‘of the Lazians’ is accounted for by the large number of Armenian monks in St. Sabbas’s community.²⁹ The Lazians were a people who lived just to the southeast of the Black Sea and who could easily be confused with their neighbors the Armenians. The monastery grew rapidly and soon became a very important center of Christian spirituality and learning. Among the monks were such figures as St. John the Silentiary, a bishop who retired to live as an unknown recluse at Mar Saba, where he died in the middle of the sixth century, and Cyril of Scythopolis, who came afterwards and composed the biographies of seven Palestinian monks including that of St. Sabbas.³⁰ Contemporaries or near contemporaries of St. John Damascene at Mar Saba were: St. Theodore of Edessa, an ascetic writer who later became Bishop of Edessa; St. Stephen the Wonder-worker, who is said to have been the Damascene’s nephew; and Stephen Melodus, who composed many canons and hymns and who also wrote the acts of the twenty Sabaite monks slain by the Saracens in the raid of 796, of which Stephen himself was an eye-witness. Also contemporary was Cosmas of Maiuma, called Melodus because of the beautiful ecclesiastical poetry which he composed. He became Bishop of Maiuma, the port of Gaza in southern Palestine, in 743. The Life calls him the adopted brother of St. John, but there is no evidence to support this contention; the most that can be said with any degree of certainty is that John and Cosmas were fellow monks and friends and that John composed his Fount of Knowledge at the request of Cosmas when this latter had become Bishop of Maiuma. In spite of many raids and massacres at the hands of marauding Bedouins (the last of which was as late as 1834), Mar Saba has survived to this day; one may still see the cell of St. John of Damascus where he lived and wrote for so many years and in or near which he was buried after his death.

It would seem that St. John spent the rest of his life at Mar Saba studying and writing and practicing the most strict asceticism. There were occasional short excursions to Jerusalem in the service of the Church, as when he preached the homilies on the Dormition of Mary. He was certainly alive in 743, when Cosmas was made Bishop of Maiuma, because, as has been noted, the Fount of Knowledge is dedicated to Cosmas as bishop. He was no longer living by 753, as the past tense used in the anathema of the iconoclastic council of the Hieria shows. Leontius, a Sabaite monk, in his life of Stephen the Wonderworker written about the beginning of the ninth century says that Stephen was brought to the monastery by his uncle, St. John of Damascus, in 735 and was under his guidance for fifteen years;³¹ this would mean until 749 or 750, and may imply that John died at that time. The generally accepted date of his death is December 4, 749.³² He was buried in the monastery. The relics were still there in the twelfth century, but by the fourteenth they had been translated to Constantinople.³³ As to the date of the Damascene’s birth, nothing is known. Tradition, however, has it that he lived to old age and in the second Homily on the Dormition he refers to himself as having already arrived at the winter of his life,³⁴ so it may be assumed that he lived past seventy. If he reached seventy-five, then he would have been born in 674.

Besides the Fount of Knowledge, there are a great many other writings which bear the name of St. John of Damascus. Although many are of doubtful authenticity or definitely spurious, the number of extant writings attributed to him which are certainly authentic is considerable. Among the most important, after the Fount of Knowledge, are the three Apologetic Discourses against the Attackers of the Holy Images (PG 94.1231-1420). Internal evidence shows the first to have been written before 729, and the second and third not earlier than 729 or later than 730. These contain a sound dogmatic defense of the veneration of the holy images, each concluding with an impressive series of patristic testimonies. The last two are to some extent repetitions of the first. Besides these apologies against the Iconoclasts, the Damascene found it necessary to write other works against still other heresies. Monophysism, which had been suppressed under the imperial rule, was now free to flourish in Syria under the Arabs. The Monophysites of the time were known by several names: Jacobites, after the founder of their hierarchy;³⁵ Severians, from their great theologian;³⁶ and Acephali, or the headless, from the name of an originally extreme but very small group, which by the eighth century had become the dominating Monophysite party. The Nestorians had long been safely established in Persia, well out of the reach of the Greek emperors. Now, with the Arabs in Syria and Palestine, there was nothing to prevent them from penetrating into these former imperial territories. In the mountains of northern Syria there were still some Monothelites.³⁷ Finally, a dangerous revival of Manichaeism existed in Armenia, and these Neo-Manichaeans, known in history as Paulicians, were infiltrating all Asia Minor and the East. And there were always the Mohammedans and Jews to be contended with. Against these various sects the Damascene composed a number of works. The short Disputation with a Manichaean (PG 96.1319-1336) and the much longer Dialogue against the Manichaeans (PG 94,1505-1584) were directed against the Paulicians. Among other things they contain important discussions on the nature of God, the problem of evil, and the conciliation of God’s foreknowledge with the freedom of the human will. Both are in the popular dialogue form. There also are two works against the Nestorians. The first is A Most Exact Dissertation against the Heresy of the Nestorians (PG 95.187-224), a very clear discussion and proof of the Catholic doctrine of the duality of natures and unity of person in Christ, based upon Scripture and the Creed. The second, On the Faith against the Nestorians, has only fairly recently been brought to light and published.³⁸ Against the Monophysites there is On the Composite Nature against the Acephali (PG 95.111-125), which shows how in Christ there is not one composite nature but one person in two natures. Also against the Monophysites is the Letter on the Thrice Holy Hymn (PG 9.21-61), protesting the addition which the Monophysites had made to the Trisagion;³⁹ and the Tome against the Jacobites (PG 94.1435-1502), a long letter written by John Damascene in the name of Peter, Bishop of Damascus, to a certain Jacobite bishop in view of his conversion. It contains a clear demonstration of the truth of the Catholic doctrine of the two distinct natures in Christ and the absurdity of the Monophysite doctrine of one nature after the union. On the Two Wills and Operations (PG 95.127-186) is an outstanding work against the Monothelites, those who while admitting two natures in Christ, would not admit more than one will and operation; it is a concise and lucid discussion of person and nature and of the consequences of two natures in one person all upon purely philosophical grounds but with confirmation from Scripture. Finally, there is the Disputation between a Saracen and a Christian (PG 96.1335-1348), which is principally concerned with the refutation of fatalism and the defense of the doctrine of the Incarnation. There is another recension of this (PG 94.1585-1598) which is much shorter and of which the first may well be a revision made by the author himself.⁴⁰ Before leaving the works of a polemical nature it is necessary to mention two short but interesting fragments: On Dragons and On Witches (PG 94.1599-1604), …. In these he appeals in a very natural way to ordinary common sense.

Dogmatic writings besides the Fount of Knowledge include an Elementary Introduction to Dogma (PG 95.99-112), ten short chapters on such terms as substance, nature, hypostasis, genus, species, and the like. It much resembles the Dialectica, or Philosophical Chapters, of the Fount of Knowledge, but in an abridged and imperfect form. According to its full title it was dictated to one of John’s disciples. The Libellus on the Right Opinion (PG 94.1421-1432) is a profession of faith composed at the request of Peter of Damascus for a Monothelite bishop who was returning to orthodoxy. Particular stress is laid upon the twofold nature and operation in Christ. The Exposition and Profession of Faith (PG 95.417-438) has come down to us only in an Arabic translation, of which Migne reproduces the Latin version given in Lequien’s edition of the Works. The Arabic translation was made by a certain Anthony who was superior of the Monastery of St. Simeon Stylites near Antioch sometime during the twelfth century and who translated many of the Damascene’s works into Arabic.⁴¹ The authenticity of the Exposition has been questioned, but there seems to be no good reason for doubt. Internal evidence alone would seem to offer sufficient proof of the genuineness of its authorship. If it is genuine, then it is the profession of faith made by John of Damascus upon the occasion of his ordination to the priesthood. Its importance for determining the chronology of the Damascene’s life has already been discussed. On the Holy Trinity (PG 95.9-18) is a concise summary of the Damascene’s teaching on the Trinity, including that of the procession of the Holy Ghost from the Father through the Son. It is given in question and answer form.

Of a moral rather than of a dogmatic nature is the work which has come down to us in two recensions under the title of Sacred Parallels.⁴² This was originally an immense and carefully arranged and indexed collection of scriptural and patristic texts illustrating almost every aspect of Christian moral and ascetic teaching. It may well have been composed as a moral companion to the dogmatic Fount of Knowledge. The patristic texts are drawn from almost all the Greek Fathers, both ante- and post-Nicene. Even the two great Jews, Philo and Josephus, are utilized. The two recensions which we have of this work do not represent the original work of the Damascene, but only that of compilers who have drawn upon the original as they saw fit; however, even in its present reduced and mutilated form, the work still has great practical value. Fortunately, we have the original introduction (PG 95.1041-1044) and from this we know the original plan of the whole work. It was divided into three books, of which the first treated of God, One and Triune; the second, of man and the human state; and the third, of the virtues and vices. The title given by the author himself was Sacred Things, that is, Sacred Sayings, but because of manner of presenting the virtues in Book 3, each with its parallel vice, the work came to be known as Sacred Parallels. Another moral work is the Eight Spirits of Evil (PG 95.79-84) which is addressed to monks and treats of the eight vices which so particularly beset them and with which the Greek ascetic writers have always been so particularly preoccupied. The Virtues and Vices of the Soul and Body (PG 95.85-98) seems to be an enlargement of the preceding work. It may be the result of the Damascene’s practice of revising his works in later life. Still another work of a moral nature is the Holy Fasts (PG 95.63-78), written to a brother monk on the subject of the keeping of the Lenten fast.

The only extant exegetical work of John is an extensive commentary on the Pauline epistles, entitled Chosen Selections from the Universal Commentary of John Chrysostom (PG 95.439-1034). As its title indicates, the material for this is drawn principally from the homilies of St. John Chrysostom and, consequently, has little to offer which is the author’s own.

Far more important than the moral and exegetical writings are his homilies. There are extant thirteen homilies which are attributed to him, but of these only nine are certainly authentic. The one authentic Homily on the Nativity of Our Lady (PG 96.661-680) and the three Homilies on the Dormition (PG 96.697-762) give most precious testimonies on the fundamental points of Mariological doctrine. They alone would merit for the Damascene the title of Doctor of Mary. On our Lord there are two authentic homilies, on the Transfiguration (PG 96.545-576) and on Holy Saturday (PG 96.601-644). In both of these the Damascene appears at his best as an eloquent preacher and profound theologian. The first, for instance, abounds in such happy turns of phrase as ‘He had no father on earth who had no mother in heaven’ and ‘solitude is the mother of prayer.’⁴³ Of Peter it says: ‘Not over tabernacles did the Lord appoint thee head, but over the universal Church.’⁴⁴ In the second he pauses, as it were, between the Passion and the Resurrection to review the whole field of theology: the Trinity, the Creation, the Fall, the Incarnation, and the Redemption. Of the other three definitely authentic homilies, two are encomia of saints, on St. John Chrysostom (PG 96.761-782) and on St. Barbara (PG 96.781-814), while the third is on the withered fig tree (PG 96.575-588). John of Damascus was a preacher of the first order and, although his style is at times more effusive and exalted, he may be said to rank with the great Chrysostom. His sermons have not only great literary value, but dogmatic as well. In them we find under a different form the same teachings on the Trinity, the Incarnation, and the Virgin Mother of God as we find in the more sober and didactic Fount of Knowledge.

The Damascene has been called ‘golden-flowing’ because of the elegance and eloquent beauty of his writings. The epithet is particularly suitable to him as the composer of some of the finest Greek liturgical poetry. This is to be found scattered through the various liturgical books of the Byzantine rite; a small portion has been reproduced in Migne (PG 96.817-856).⁴⁵ The Damascene was not the originator of Greek liturgical poetry, but he is one of its greatest exponents. Tradition has attributed to him the composition of the entire Oktoikhos, or Book of the Eight Tones, which is an immense collection containing the ordinary office of the Byzantine rite from the end of the Easter season to the beginning of Lent. He is probably not responsible for the entire Oktoikhos, but there is no doubt that he composed a large part of it. There are also many hymns and canons⁴⁶ which can be definitely attributed to him. Some of these hymns are metric, that is, with the meter based upon quantity according to the old classical style; others have the meter based upon accent, and are called rhythmic.⁴⁷

There are many other writings which have been attributed to the Damascene, of which some are doubtful and some definitely spurious. Most of these are in Migne (PG 94-96). There is no need to mention any except, perhaps, the Life of Barlaam and Joasaph (PG 96.859-1246), which has been traditionally ascribed to John of Damascus. The legend in its present form was certainly composed at the Monastery of St. Sabbas by a monk named John. It cannot be proved that this John was or was not the Damascene, so there is no reason why we should not continue to consider the Damascene as the author of this edifying christianized version of the story of Buddha.

The Fount of Knowledge (PG 94.521-1228) is one of the last works of John of Damascus and surely his greatest. It was written at the request of his good friend and former fellow monk at Mar Saba, Cosmas of Maiuma. Cosmas had been made Bishop of Maiuma in 743 and consequently, since the work is dedicated to him as bishop, it could not have been composed before 743. In his introduction the author explains what he intends to do: first, to give the best that Greek philosophy has had to offer; then, to describe the various aberrations from the truth during the course of the world’s history, ‘so that by recognizing the lie we may more closely follow the truth’; finally, to set forth the truth itself as contained in Scripture and tradition. ‘I shall add nothing of my own,’ he adds, ‘but shall gather together those things which have been worked out by the most eminent teachers and make a compendium of them.’⁴⁸ Thus, he intended the entire work to consist of three parts: a philosophical introduction, an historical introduction, and an exposition of traditional Catholic teaching. Most authorities⁴⁹ are of the opinion that the Damascene succeeded quite well in keeping his promise to add nothing of his own, but this is not entirely true. The Fount of Knowledge not only contains much that is original and a fresh viewpoint on many things, but it is in itself something new. It is the first real Summa Theologica.⁵⁰ Even the philosophical introduction is new, being the first attempt to present a complete manual of philosophy to serve as a basis for the study of Christian theology. The whole work is not a mere compilation; it is a new synthesis. It may be said, then, that although John of Damascus was undoubtedly sincere in his promise to add nothing of his own, he could not help injecting so much of himself as to be visible on almost every page.

The division of the Fount of Knowledge is as follows. First there is a short introduction to the entire work addressed to Cosmas of Maiuma. Then follows the philosophical introduction, entitled Philosophical Chapters; the historical introduction, called On Heresies in Epitome; finally, the main part of the work, of which the full title is An Exact Exposition of the Orthodox Faith.

In the West, the Philosophical Chapters (PG 94.525-676) are commonly called the Dialectica and are always so cited. This part contains sixty-eight chapters followed by an Explanation of Expressions. This last is probably the work of the Damascene—that is to say, he probably collected the various explanations—but it is entirely out of place, because the terms explained are not philosophical at all, but refer to purely natural phenomena such as the elements, the seasons, meteors, and so forth. It would be much more logically placed, were it inserted in Book 2 of the Orthodox Faith just after Chapter 11, that is, after the treatment of inanimate creation. In the Philosophical Chapters there is a collection of explanations of dialectical terms, but this appears in Chapter 65.

In accordance with his avowed intention of ‘setting forth the best contributions of the philosophers of the Greeks,’⁵¹ the author devotes himself in this philosophical part to a careful treatment of the Five Universals and Ten Categories of the Aristotelian system. His sources for what is Aristotelian are principally Porphyry’s Introduction to the Categories of Aristotle⁵² and Ammonius Hermeae, Commentary on the Isagoge of Porphyry. Actually, of the Philosophical Chapters, 10, 12-14, and 18-27 are taken directly from Porphyry with but little modification; 3, 5, 6, and 8 are taken from Ammonius’ Commentary on the Isagoge. A few other chapters depend to some extent upon this work of Ammonius, but there are still others which may have drawn upon another work of Ammonius, his own Commentary on the Categories of Aristotle. The chapters depending upon Porphyry and Ammonius are chiefly concerned with the Five Universals and the dialectic method. But when it comes to the Categories themselves and such concepts as prior, simultaneous, motion, having, and the like, there is no dependence upon these two commentators. It is even probable that the Damascene used the Categories of Aristotle directly for these. At least, the first part of Chapter 62 reproduces Categories 15 almost verbatim.

All of the Philosophical Chapters, however, do not depend upon Aristotle and his commentators. Many of them are concerned with philosophical terms which had come to acquire very special meanings in theology and terms which had been used in various senses—terms which had played an important part in the development of the Christian dogmatic tradition. Such are hypostasis, person, enhypostaton, union, nature, and so on. Here the source is not Aristotle and his commentators, but Christian tradition, which John calls ‘the holy Fathers.’ These, although not cited by name, are the Greek Fathers from Athanasius the Great to Anastasius the Sinaite. Naturally, he has presented nothing absolutely new here; what he has done is to give a concise and clear explanation of just what the Greek theological writers mean when they use certain fundamental but controverted terms. For instance, the term enhypostaton had long been used by the Greek theologians. At first it was used as meaning simply something that had existed as opposed to that which did not, but by the time of Leontius of Byzance it had acquired a very special meaning. Leontius defines it as something between the accident and the hypostasis. It is a substance which does not subsist in itself.⁵³ The Damascene not only explains the meaning given the term by Leontius, doing so even more clearly than Leontius had done, but he gives all the other shades of meaning, too.⁵⁴

In the Philosophical Chapters, or Dialectica, we have the first example of a manual of philosophy especially composed as an aid to the study of theology. It is more than a curiosity. Useful in its own time and useful in the succeeding centuries, it has remained to the present day indispensable for a proper understanding of Greek theology. It is also interesting as showing to what extent Aristotle was known and used by the eight-century Christians under Arab rule and suggesting how Aristotle may have first been introduced to the Arabs. John of Damascus was not the first to put Aristotelian dialectic to the service of Christian theology. The first, or at least the one who is generally considered to have been the first, was Leontius of Byzance, the Damascene’s predecessor by two centuries.⁵⁵ Leontius, however, merely used Aristotelian dialectic. He did not compose any special manual devoted to philosophy and dialectic alone.

The Philosophical Chapters exist in two recensions, a longer and a shorter. It is only in Chapters 6 and 9-14 that the longer differs radically from the shorter. The shorter is more concise and is apparently the result of a revision made by the author himself. The Life tells us that he put much effort into going over and revising the books which he had written.⁵⁶ Both recensions are given by Lequien, whose text has been reproduced by Migne and serves as basis for the present translation.

The full title of the second part of the Fount of Knowledge is Heresies in Epitome: How They Began and Whence They Drew Their Origin (PG 94.677.780). It is usually cited as Heresies or De haeresibus. This part contains notices of varying length on 103 heresies, followed by an epilogue in the form of a profession of faith. The first eighty are taken verbatim from the Panarion of St. Epiphanius.⁵⁷ They are not, however, from the main text of the Panarion, but from the summaries which precede each of its seven parts and serve as tables of contents. The last notice taken from St. Epiphanius is that on the Massalians, or Euchites. To this short notice the Damascene has added from another source considerable material on the beliefs and practices of this sect. This is now one of the principal sources for our knowledge of the Massalians. He also added a chapter on the same sect taken from the Ecclesiastical History of Theodoret.⁵⁸ The next twenty notices, 81-100, begin with the Nestorians and cover the heresies from the time of Emperor Marcian (450-457) on. Lequien, in his introductory note to the Heresies, repeats a note which he found in one of the manuscripts to the effect that these twenty notices have been taken from Theodoret, Timothy of Constantinople, Sophronius of Jerusalem, and Leontius of Byzance.⁵⁹ Almost all subsequent writers on the subject have repeated this statement, but there is apparently no foundation for it. There is no evidence to show that any of the extant writings of those authors mentioned by Lequien has been utilized at all. Theodoret wrote a Compendium of Heresies (PG 83.335-556) which ends with the heresies of Nestorius and Eutyches. These heresies are the only two which the Compendium and the Heresies have in common and even a cursory examination will show that there is absolutely no interdependence. Under the name of Timothy of Constantinople there has come down a treatise on The Reception of Heretics (PG 86.11-68) in which a number of the twenty heresies in question are described, but here again there is no sign of interdependence. The same is true of the Synodic Letter of Sophronius of Jerusalem (PG 87.3147-3200) and On Sects by Leontius of Byzance (PG 86.1193-1268), which are the only two works of these authors which could have any possible bearing upon the matter. However, internal evidence indicates that these twenty notices are not the work of John of Damascus. In all probability they were taken from some work of an author who as yet remains unknown. At any rate, they are of value to us as containing information on a number of obscure sects about which very little or nothing would otherwise be known. The even number of one hundred suggests that this unknown work had also included the eighty heresies from the Panarion, so that it was its author and not the Damascene who was the original borrower from Epiphanius.⁶⁰ It would seem, then, that all the Damascene is responsible for in the first hundred heresies is the addition of material on the Massalians to Heresy 80 and the inclusion of two important fragments of the Arbiter of John Philoponus in Heresy 83.⁶¹ These fragments of the Arbiter are all that exists of the original Greek text, although the whole work is extant in a Syriac translation.

The only really original part of the Heresies is to be found in the last three heresies, 101-103: the Ishmaelites, or Mohammedans; the Christianocategori, or Iconoclasts; and the Aposchistae, a sect which rejected the sacraments and the priesthood, and for which this is our only source of information. Most important is the relatively long (four and one half columns of text in Migne) notice on the Mohammedans. Here the Damascene shows a thorough knowledge of the Koran, which he cites verbatim, and of the Hadith, or Moslem tradition. He bases his argument against Islam on the lack of authority of Mohammed, the inconsistency of the Mohammedans’ beliefs and traditions, and their unnatural attitude toward women.

All in all On Heresies in Epitome deserves more attention than is usually granted. If one excepts the part borrowed from Epiphanius, which amounts to less than half of the whole text, we have in the Heresies much that is new, much that is original, and a great deal of information which otherwise we should not have had. Including the part taken from Epiphanius, the whole work represents the most complete listing of heresies that had been made up to the time.

The most important and best known part of the Fount of Knowledge is the Exact Exposition of the Orthodox Faith (PG 94.789-1228), which is usually cited as De fide orthodoxa. This consists of one hundred dogmatic chapters, which in the West are customarily divided into four books: Chapters 1-14; 15-44; 45-73; and 74-100. This division was probably made originally to correspond with that of the Sentences of Peter Lombard into four books. Book 1 of The Orthodox Faith treats of God in unity and trinity (De Deo uno et trino). The second treats of God’s creation, both invisible and visible, with special attention given to man and his faculties. A large part of this book is no more than a presentation of the natural science of the time and for that reason is interesting only as a curiosity. However, the parts devoted to angels, providence, foreknowledge, and predestination are of considerable dogmatic importance. To a certain extent, Book 2 corresponds to the dogmatic tract De Deo creante et elevante. Book 3 is devoted entirely to Christology (De Verbo Incarnato). The division between Book 3 and 4 is purely arbitrary, for Chapters 1-8 of Book 4 are merely a continuation of the Christology of the third. The rest of Book 4 considers faith, baptism, the Eucharist, the genealogy of our Lord and our Lady, the veneration of saints and their relics, the cult of the holy images, and a number of other disparate subjects. It concludes with a chapter on the Resurrection. As can be seen, the general order of the work is that of the Nicene Creed, although two important articles have been omitted—those on the Holy Ghost and the Church. The Holy Ghost is given particular treatment in chapters 7-8 of Book 1, in connection with the Holy Trinity, but the Church is entirely omitted. Indeed, the Church is mentioned only once in the entire work.⁶² The whole is a surprisingly successful synthesis of traditional Catholic teaching as handed down by the Greek Fathers and the ecumenical councils. It represents an attempt to give a complete dogmatic exposition of the Catholic faith. Of course, it is not the first such attempt. There were the De Principiis of Origen and the Catechetical Discourse of Gregory of Nyssa; even the Catecheses of Cyril of Jerusalem might be included. The only other previous attempt at a dogmatic summa was that of Theodoret. To the four books of his Compendium of the Evil Fictions of the Heretics Theodoret added a fifth book entitled Compendium of Divine Teachings. It covers much the same ground as The Orthodox Faith and in much the same order. In fact, the whole Compendium of Theodoret with its dogmatic summa in Book 5 and its historical introduction on heresies in Books 1-4 may well have served as a model for the Fount of Knowledge, or at least have suggested it. However, all these works of the Damascene’s predecessors were limited by the state of the theological development of their times. Furthermore, none of them pretended to the completeness of The Orthodox Faith. And their authors, great theologians though they were, did not possess the peculiar quality that made the Damascene such an apt synthesist. John Damascene’s talent for synthesizing, together with his clear understanding of the great Christological controversies and his extensive acquaintance with the writings of the Greek Fathers made him eminently fit for the task which he had set for himself. Nevertheless, his acquaintance with the Fathers was apparently limited to the Greeks, because the only Western writing which he uses is the letter of Pope St. Leo the Great to Flavian of Constantinople. This is the letter commonly known as the Tome of Leo, which was read at the Council of Chalcedon and acclaimed by the Fathers of the Council as expressing the traditional teachings of the Church on the Incarnation.⁶³ His chief authority, whom he frequently cites by name, is Gregory of Nazianzus. He depends particularly upon this theologian for the doctrine of God and the Trinity, although for the divine nature he draws considerably upon the Pseudo-Dionysius. In Book 1 he also uses to some extent the writings of Basil the Great, Cyril of Alexandria, and Athanasius. In Book 2 he depends for the creation much upon all three Cappadocians; and for the nature of man, upon Nemesius.⁶⁴ For Christology, in Book 3 and the first part of Book 4, besides Gregory of Nazianzus he principally utilizes his more immediate predecessors: Leontius of Byzance (d. 543), Maximus the Confessor (d. 662), and Anastasius the Sinaite (d. 700); but he also uses Basil the Great, Gregory of Nyssa, Cyril of Alexandria, Athanasius, John Chrysostom, and others. For the various other questions treated in Book 4 his main sources are the three Cappadocians and Cyril of Jerusalem. Conspicuously absent from The Orthodox Faith are the ante-Nicene writers. None seems to be used directly and only Origen is mentioned by name, but then only to be attacked. This does not mean that the Damascene was not acquainted with the earlier writers, because he certainly made abundant use of their writings in compiling the Sacred Parallels.

In spite of the imposing list of authorities used by St. John of Damascus for The Orthodox Faith—those already mentioned plus many more—he is much more than a simple compiler. The Orthodox Faith is, as has already been pointed out, not a compilation, but a synthesis, of Greek theology. It is a statement in very clear language of the teaching of the Greek Fathers in its most developed form. Of course, there is nothing new or original in the matter of doctrine, but there is something original in the treatment and in the clarity of this treatment. For instance, the chapters on psychology, providence, predestination, the divine Maternity, the Eucharist, and the cult of saints and sacred images show a fresh point of view clearly stated in a language that anyone can understand. This is also noticeable throughout the entire treatment of Christology, which makes for an extraordinarily complete and understandable exposition of the doctrine of the Incarnation. … These lacunae, however, are not entirely due to any failing on the part of the Damascene, for they are to a great extent the lacunae of Greek theology itself. Whatever defects The Orthodox Faith may have, it still remains an incomparable summa of theology and an indispensable aid to the study of the Greek Christian tradition.⁶⁵ And the Fount of Knowledge as a whole remains a fitting monument and landmark to mark the close of the patristic age, of which it is one of the greatest single achievements.

The earliest translations of the Fount of Knowledge were made in the East. The first was that of the Dialectica and The Orthodox Faith into Old Slavonic by John, Exarch of Bulgaria in the time of the Tsar Simeon, probably made at some time in the early part of the tenth century. The next translation of these same divisions was into Arabic by Anthony, superior of the Monastery of St. Simeon Stylites near Antioch, in the second half of the tenth century. The only other translations made in the East were a series of Russian translations which have appeared comparatively recently. Prince Andrew Kurbsky (d. 1583) made a new translation into Church Slavonic of the two. Another translation of The Orthodox Faith was made into Church Slavonic by the learned Kievan monk, Epiphanius Slavinetzky (d. 1676), and still another in the next century (Moscow 1765-81) by Ambrose (Zertis-Kamensky), Archbishop of Moscow. Then came a Russian translation published by the Moscow Theological Academy under the direction of P. S. Delitzyn (Moscow 1840). In 1877, a new edition of the Old Slavonic version of John the Exarch was brought out at Moscow by A. N. Popov. Finally, a Russian translation of The Orthodox Faith was published at Moscow in 1894 by Alexander Bronzov. In 1913 the publication of a new translation of the Works was started by the St. Petersburg Theological Academy. Only the first volume appeared, presumably containing the Fount of Knowledge.

In the West, a long series of Latin translations began with a twelfth-century Latin version of Chapters 1-8 of Book 3 of The Orthodox Faith. This was made in Hungary (c. 1134-1138) by a monk named Cerbanus. It was recently published by R. L. Szigeti (Budapest 1940). The entire Orthodox Faith was translated at the request of Pope Eugene III into Latin (c. 1148-1150) by Burgundio, a judge in Pisa. Burgundio may also be responsible for an abbreviated Latin version of the Dialectica, which was included with most of the early Latin editions of The Orthodox Faith. Another Latin translation of these was made by Robert Grosseteste, Bishop of Lincoln (1235-1253). The next in chronological order was by a Carmelite, J. B. Panetius (d. 1497). During the sixteenth century two more appeared: the first of The Orthodox Faith, by Jacques Lefèvre d’Etaples (Paris 1507); the second of the Fount of Knowledge by Jacques de Billy O.S.B. (Paris 1577). In the seventeenth century, François Combefis, O. P., produced another version of The Fount of Knowledge in Latin (Paris 1672). Finally, there appeared at Paris in 1712 a completely new Latin translation of the Fount of Knowledge made by the learned Michel Lequien, O. P. This accompanied his new critical edition of the Greek text and is by far the best of any of the Latin translations.

After the Lequien version no more Latin translations appeared, but a number of translations of the Fount of Knowledge or parts of it have been made into several modern languages. The Russian translations have already been mentioned. An English one of The Orthodox Faith by S. D. F. Salmond was published in the Oxford edition of the Nicene and Post Nicene Fathers, 2nd ser., 9 (Oxford 1899), and a German by D. Stiefenhofer, Bibliothek der Kirchenväter 44 (Munich 1923). Excerpts from St. John of Damascus have been published in French in V. Ermoni’s Saint Jean Damascène (Collection La Pensée Chrétienne, Paris 1904). And an English translation of the chapter on the Mohammedans (Heresies 101) by J. W. Voorhis appeared in Moslem World (October 1934) 391-398. At the present time a new critical edition of the Greek text is being worked upon at the Byzantine Institute of the Benedictine Abbey of Scheyern in Bavaria.

The Greek text of Lequien is the best available at the present time. For this he utilized not only the work of his predecessors, but twenty-four of the best manuscripts then available to him. This text, together with Lequien’s Latin version, is reproduced in Migne (PG 94.521-1228), but because of some printer’s omissions it must be controlled by the original Paris edition of the text. For the present translation the Migne text has been used, emendated, where necessary, from the Paris edition. Biblical citations are made from the Challoner revision of the Rheims-Douay version, with such changes and variations as have been occasionally necessary to make the English correspond with the Greek of the Damascene’s text.

For valuable criticism and suggestions I wish to express my thanks to Rev. Francis X. Meehan and Rev. J. Joseph Ryan of the faculty of St. John’s Seminary, Boston, Mass., and to Rev. Frederick J. Adelmann, S. J., of the faculty of the Graduate School of Boston College.

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