John of Damascus (Arabic: يوحنا الدمشقي, romanized: Yūḥana ad-Dimashqī; Greek: Ἰωάννης ὁ Δαμασκηνός, romanized: Ioánnēs ho Damaskēnós, IPA: [ioˈanis o ðamasciˈnos]; Latin: Ioannes Damascenus; born Yūḥana ibn Manṣūr ibn Sarjūn, يوحنا إبن منصور إبن سرجون) or John Damascene was an Arab Christian monk, priest, hymnographer, and apologist. He was born and raised in Damascus c. 675 AD or 676 AD; the precise date and place of his death is not known, though tradition places it at his monastery, Mar Saba, near Jerusalem on 4 December 749 AD.[5]
A polymath whose fields of interest and contribution included law, theology, philosophy, and music, he was given the by-name of Chrysorroas (Χρυσορρόας, literally "streaming with gold", i.e. "the golden speaker"). He wrote works expounding the Christian faith, and composed hymns which are still used both liturgically in Eastern Christian practice throughout the world as well as in western Lutheranism at Easter.[6]
He is one of the Fathers of the Eastern Orthodox Church and is best known for his strong defence of icons.[7] The Catholic Church regards him as a Doctor of the Church, often referred to as the Doctor of the Assumption due to his writings on the Assumption of Mary.[8] He was also a prominent exponent of perichoresis, and employed the concept as a technical term to describe both the interpenetration of the divine and human natures of Christ and the relationship between the hypostases of the Trinity.[9] John is at the end of the Patristic period of dogmatic development, and his contribution is less one of theological innovation than one of a summary of the developments of the centuries before him. In Catholic theology, he is therefore known as the "last of the Greek Fathers".[10]
The main source of information for the life of John of Damascus is a work attributed to one John of Jerusalem, identified therein as the Patriarch of Jerusalem.[11] This is an excerpted translation into Greek of an earlier Arabic text. The Arabic original contains a prologue not found in most other translations, and was written by an Arab monk, Michael, who explained that he decided to write his biography in 1084 because none was available in his day. However, the main Arabic text seems to have been written by an unknown earlier author sometime between the early 9th and late 10th century.[11] Written from a hagiographical point of view and prone to exaggeration and some legendary details, it is not the best historical source for his life, but is widely reproduced and considered to contain elements of some value.[12] The hagiographic novel Barlaam and Josaphat is a work of the 10th century[13] attributed to a monk named John. It was only considerably later that the tradition arose that this was John of Damascus, but most scholars no longer accept this attribution. Instead much evidence points to Euthymius of Athos, a Georgian who died in 1028.[14]
- ^ Byzantine Empire: The age of Iconoclasm: 717–867 – britannica.com
- ^ Mary's Pope: John Paul II, Mary, and the Church by Antoine Nachef (1 September 2000) ISBN 1-58051-077-9 pages 179–180
- ^ On the Aristotelian Heritage of John of Damascus Joseph Koterski, S .J
- ^ O'Connor, J.B. (1910). St. John Damascene. In The Catholic Encyclopedia. New York: Robert Appleton Company. Retrieved 30 July 2019 from New Advent: http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/08459b.htm
- ^ M. Walsh, ed. Butler's Lives of the Saints (HarperCollins Publishers: New York, 1991), p. 403.
- ^ Lutheran Service Book (Concordia Publishing House, St. Louis, 2006), pp. 478, 487.
- ^ Aquilina 1999, p. 222
- ^ Rengers, Christopher (2000). The 33 Doctors of the Church. Tan Books. p. 200. ISBN 978-0-89555-440-6.
- ^ Cross, F.L (1974). "Cicumincession". The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church (2 ed.). Oxford University Press.
- ^ O'Connor, J.B. (1910) "John of Damascus was the last of the Greek Fathers. His genius was not for original theological development, but for compilation of an encyclopedic character. In fact, the state of full development to which theological thought had been brought by the great Greek writers and councils left him little else than the work of an encyclopedist; and this work he performed in such manner as to merit the gratitude of all succeeding ages". In Orthodox Christianity, the concept of "fathers of the Church" is used somewhat more loosely, with no exhaustive list or end date, with a number of theologians younger than John Damascene generally included.
- ^ a b Sahas 1972, p. 32
- ^ Sahas 1972, p. 35
- ^ R. Volk, ed., Historiae animae utilis de Barlaam et Ioasaph (Berlin, 2006)
- ^ Barlaam and Ioasaph, John Damascene, Loeb Classical Library 34, at LOEB CLASSICAL LIBRARY ISBN 978-0-674-99038-8