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St. John of Damascus
Arabic YOHANNA IBN-MANSUR IBN-SARGUN AL-DIMASHQI;
English/French/Latin DAMASCENE
VI/VII Centuries
Called the last Greek father and the first Christian Aristotelian, St.
John Damascene was born c. 676 into
a wealthy Christian family. His father was a logothelete, an
advisor to the vizier, and John took over the post when his father
retired. C. 716 John
resigned from his position and retired to the Mar Saba monastery, where
he eventually became a monk. He wrote three treatises in defense of the
use of icons and opposed the iconoclasm of Emperor Leo III the Isaurian.
These works led to John's condemnation at the Council of Hieria in 754.
John had been dead for five years at the time of his condemnation, and
the Second Council of Nicaea in 787
restored his good name. John also wrote poetry and revised the
Octoechoes, the cycle of eight weekly tones around which
Byzantine worship centers.
Of John's 150 works, the most famous is The Source of Knowledge
(also translated as The Fount of Wisdom), which some consider to
have been the first summa since it was taken as a model of
systematic theology. The three parts of the work cover philosophy,
history, and theology.
| Section | Subject | Sources |
| Dialecta | philosophy | Isagogue of
Porphyry
logic of Aristotle |
| Section II | history | Panarion of
Epiphanius |
| Ekthesis | theology | writings of the
Cappadocian fathers |
The Ekthesis is often published as The Exact Exposition of the
Orthodox Faith, and the work as a whole is considered a compendium
of both philosophic and theological ideas.
Karen Rae Keck
- ABOUT:
- ASSOCIATED PEOPLE:
- WORKS:
- Canon for St. Thomas Sunday:
- Deute teleutaion aspasmon domen, from the Funeral Service.
-
On the Dormition: Three Sermons.
Allies translation, 1898.
--- S. Shoemaker
- The Fount of Wisdom.
- Part Two: Concerning Heresies:
Emphasis is on what St. John's writings shew about
early Islamic beliefs, which if he reported them correctly
seem to deviate from modern views. Said to be from Muslim World,
41(392), 1951, but the bibliography refers to
an article which appeared in 1954.
--- Answering Islam
Part Three: The Ekthesis:
Idiomela for All Saints' Day:
On the Virtues and the Vices.
From Volume II of the Philokalia.
--- SGPM
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