John of Damascus

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John of Damascus : biography

676 – 749

Education

One of the vitae describes his father’s desire for him to "learn not only the books of the Muslims, but those of the Greeks as well." From this it has been suggested that John may have grown up bilingual.Valantasis, p. 455 John does indeed show some knowledge of the Quran, which he criticizes harshly.Hoyland,Seeing Islam as Others Saw It, 487-489.

Other sources describes his education in Damascus as having been conducted in accordance with the principles of Hellenic education, termed "secular" by one source and "Classical Christian" by another.Louth, 2002, p. 284. One account identifies his tutor as a monk by the name of Cosmas, who had been kidnapped by Arabs from his home in Sicily, and for whom John’s father paid a great price. Under the instruction of Cosmas, who also taught John’s orphan friend (the future St. Cosmas of Maiuma), John is said to have made great advances in music, astronomy and theology, soon rivalling Pythagoras in arithmetic and Euclid in geometry.Butler et al., 2000, p. 36. As a refugee from Italy, Cosmas brought with him the scholarly traditions of Western Christianity.

Defence of holy images

In the early 8th century AD, iconoclasm, a movement opposed to the veneration of icons, gained some acceptance in the Byzantine court. In 726, despite the protests of St. Germanus, Patriarch of Constantinople, Emperor Leo III issued his first edict against the veneration of images and their exhibition in public places. A talented writer in the secure surroundings of the caliph’s court, John of Damascus undertook a spirited defence of holy images in three separate publications. The earliest of these works, his "Apologetic Treatises against those Decrying the Holy Images", secured his reputation. He not only attacked the emperor, but adopted a simplified style that allowed the controversy to be followed by the common people, stirring rebellion among those of Christian faith. Later, his writings would play an important role during the Second Council of Nicaea, which convened to settle the icon dispute.

The biography of John of Damascus recounts at least one episode deemed to be improbable or legendary.Jameson, 2008, p. 24. It reports that Leo III sent forged documents to the caliph which implicated John in a plot to attack Damascus. The caliph then ordered John’s right hand be cut off and hung up in public view. Some days afterwards, John asked for the restitution of his hand, and prayed fervently to the Theotokos before her icon: thereupon, his hand is said to have been miraculously restored.http://www.catholic.org/saints/saint.php?saint_id=66 In gratitude for this miraculous healing, he attached a silver hand to the icon, which thereafter became known as the "Three-handed", or Tricheirousa.Andrew Louth, St. John Damascene: tradition and originality in Byzantine theology, Oxford University Press, 2002 pp.17,19. The biography adds that after this event John retired to the Mar Saba monastery near Jerusalem; however, an editor of his works, Father Lequien, has shown that John was already a monk at Mar Saba before the dispute over iconoclasm, which renders the story all the more improbable. It has been argued that John left Damascus to become a monk around 706, when al-Walid I increased the islamicisation of the Caliphate’s administration. Muslim sources only mention that his father Sarjun (Sergius) left the administration around this time, and fail to name John at all.Robert Hoyland, Seeing Islam (Princeton, 1996) 481.

Last days

John died in 749 as a revered Father of the Church, and is recognized as a saint. He is sometimes called the last of the Church Fathers by the Roman Catholic Church. In 1883 he was declared a Doctor of the Church by Pope Leo XIII.

Veneration

When the name of Saint John of Damascus was inserted in the General Roman Calendar in 1890, it was assigned to 27 March. This date always falls within Lent, a period during which there are no obligatory Memorials. The feast day was therefore moved in 1969 to the day of the saint’s death, 4 December, the day on which his feast day is celebrated also in the Byzantine Rite calendar.Calendarium Romanum (Libreria Editrice Vaticana 1969), pp. 109 and 119; cf.