Saint John of Damascus

More than one Greek emperor of Constantinople had been seen protecting heresy; there was one who invented a new heresy himself: it was to condemn and break the images of the Saints as idolatry. This was Emperor Leo, ni cknamed the Isaurian, because he was l'empereur Léon, surnommé l'Isaurien Byzantine emperor and initiator of the iconoclast heresy. a native of Isauria, a land and people at least as barbaric as the Huns and Vandals were at that time (730). As he was very ignorant, he got it into his head that by honoring holy images, Catholics were honoring not the saints they represent, but the material and color from which these images are made. He undertook to abolish them, had them removed from churches and burned in public squares. Catholics who opposed this were tormented and put to death. His son, Constantine Copronymus, showed himself to be e ven more furious. Co Constantin Copronyme Byzantine iconoclast emperor and persecutor. nstantinople became a theater of torture: eyes were gouged out, nostrils were cut off from Catholics; they were torn with whips, they were thrown into the sea.

The emperor had a particular grudge against the monks: there was no torment or outrage he did not make them suffer. Their beards were burned with pitch; images of the Saints, painted on wood, were broken over their heads. His greatest pleasure was to preside over these tortures.

The Christians, faithful to their faith, fought heresy, according to custom, through prayer, fasting, and martyrdom endured with heroic constancy. Some defended the truth through eloquent writings; among these were especially Saint Germanus, Bishop of Constantinople, and John Damascene, governor of Damascus and minister to the caliph. The emperor, irritated, could easily exercise his vengeance on Saint Germanus; but how to reach Saint John Damascene in a foreign empire? Having procured an autograph of John, he ordered a skilled copyist to practice imitating this handwriting, and he succeeded, by this means, in fabricating a letter that John was addressing to him, and in which he offered to deliver Damascus to him by treason. The emperor sent this false letter to the caliph, warning him, as a good neighbor, that he had a traitor for a minister. This cowardly and vile imposture had full success. Despite the most energetic denials of John, the caliph had his right hand cut off, and ordered that it be attached to a post in a public square. The victim, having obtained the return of his severed hand, retired to his oratory, and there, this valiant defender of the holy images, kneeling before an image of the Virgin Mary, prayed thus: "Most pure Virgin, who gave birth to my God, you know why my right hand was cut off; you can, if you please, restore it to me and rejoin it to my arm; I ask you with insistence, so that I may henceforth use it to write the praises of your Son and your own." Having said this, he fell asleep, and the Blessed Virgin appeared to him and said: "You are now healed; compose hymns, write my praises, and fulfill your promise." The Saint, having awakened, found his hand perfectly reunited to his arm; nothing indicated that it had ever been separated from it, except for a small red line that surrounded it in the form of a bracelet, as a mark of this miracle. The prince of the Saracens, recognizing by this prodigy the innocence of John, restored him to his former position. But John did not remain long in the service of men: the healing of his hand had undoubtedly appeared to him as an approval from heaven of his theological works. Desiring from then on to devote himself solely to the service of God, he freed his slaves, distributed his goods to his relatives, to the churches, and to the poor, and retired, with his adoptive brother, who was named Cosmas like his tutor, near Jerusalem, in the Lavra of Saint Sabas. This abbot gave him as a directo r an old monk, very laure de saint Sabas Monastery in Palestine where John retired as a monk. experienced in the guidance of souls. Our Saint received from him the following lessons, which he practiced as if Jesus Christ had given them to him from his own mouth: "Never do your own will; — practice dying to yourself in all things, in order to banish all attachment to creatures; — offer to God your actions, your pains, your prayers; — weep unceasingly for the faults of your past life; — do not pride yourself on your knowledge or any advantage whatsoever, but convince yourself strongly that, of your own accord, you are only ignorance and weakness; — renounce all vanity, distrust your own insights, and never desire to have visions and extraordinary favors; — banish from your mind everything that could remind you of the idea of the world, keep silence exactly, and remember that one can sin, even in saying good things, when there is no necessity; — take counsel from others in difficult matters; — turn all your desires toward God; — do not write any letters without the permission of your superiors; — do not contradict anyone; — do not murmur; — do not fear to stray from the path of perfection by following the orders of your superiors."

John followed, as I have said, these lessons punctually, and advanced with great strides on the path of perfection. His director constantly put the obedience of the illustrious and pious novice to new tests. One day, he ordered him to go and sell palm baskets in Damascus, and forbade him to sell them for less than a certain price he set, which was exorbitant. The Saint obeyed without saying a single word. He went, in poor clothing, to that same city of which he had been the governor. When he had displayed his merchandise and stated the price, he was treated as an eccentric and overwhelmed with insults, which he suffered in silence. In the end, one of his former servants, having recognized him, took pity on him and bought all his baskets at the price he wanted to sell them for.

We shall also recount two victories that his humility allowed him to win. A monk was inconsolable over the death of his brother: John, to stop the flow of his tears, quoted a Greek verse, the meaning of which was that one must expect to see everything that is earthly and mortal perish. Thereupon, his director reproached him for showing off his knowledge: "You have," he said to him, "violated the prohibition I had given you to speak without necessity." Then he condemned him to remain locked in his cell. The Saint humbly confessed himself guilty of disobedience, and, instead of alleging the purity of his intention, he asked the other monks to intercede for him and obtain for him the pardon for the fault he had committed: his grace was granted to him, but on the condition that he would perform an action which, among the ancients, was considered a punishment to which criminals were condemned, and which, in communities, was the most humiliating thing there was, I mean the emptying of the latrines. The former minister of the Caliph discharged this task with an eagerness and humility that filled the oldest of the community, those most advanced in obedience, with admiration.

Such great virtue combined with such remarkable talents led to our Saint being judged worthy of being raised to the priesthood. This dignity increased his fervor. It was then believed that he was sufficiently firmly virtuous and humble enough to write in defense of the faith. We provide below the list of his works. Among them are three d iscourses against the he hérésie des Iconoclastes Religious movement rejecting the veneration of images, which caused the persecution of the two saints. resy of the Iconoclasts, entitled: Discourses on Images. In them, he declares that the prince must content himself with the government of the State, and not interfere in making decisions regarding doctrine. That authority belongs to the Church; the Church cannot err: it cannot, therefore, fall into idolatry.

He demonstrates very well that the Catholic Church adores only God, even though it venerates the Saints. As for images, they serve to instruct us, to awaken our devotion, because, our nature being dual, sensible and intellectual, we need visible things to remind us of the invisible. God made Himself visible by becoming incarnate. Is one an idolater because one has respect for the Holy Scriptures? Yet it is a material thing like images, and images remind us, like the Holy Scriptures, of God and invisible things. John did not content himself with writing against the Iconoclasts; he traveled through Syria and Palestine to strengthen the persecuted Christians; he even went, in the hope of martyrdom, to Constantinople, of which the Emperor Constantine-Copronymus had made the capital of error and persecution. But God had ordained otherwise. Our Saint was able to return to his laura, where he continued his scholarly writings. He died there around the year 780: he had lived one hundred and four years. In the 12th century, his tomb was still shown near the portal of the church of the laura.

## WRITINGS OF SAINT JOHN DAMASCENE.

1° The Book of Dialectics. Although the philosophy of Plato was in vogue in the time of Saint John Damascene, he adopted that of Aristotle, as Boethius had done among the Latins. He dispelled the obscurity that enveloped the physics of this philosopher and brought its principles into full light. He reduced his logic to a body of rules without falling into tedious prolixity; by this means, the art of reasoning became easy to learn. Logic has often been abused by treating useless and even ridiculous questions; thanks to common sense, most of these questions have been proscribed from the schools. One no longer wastes precious time studying futilities; but one must not reflect so as to despise logic when it is confined to its proper limits. It expands the mind and gives it precision and accuracy; it brings order and clarity to ideas; it teaches one to judge things in themselves and according to true principles; finally, it disposes one to the study of other sciences, of which it is, in a way, the key. Under the general term of sciences, we also include theology, which absolutely cannot do without the help of logic. It was all these considerations that determined Saint John Damascene to provide an abridgment of the logic and physics of Aristotle.

2° The Book of Heresies, in which he counts one hundred and four, is an abridgment of Saint Epiphanius. As for the heresies that have only appeared since that Father, Saint John Damascene draws what he says about them from the writings of Theodoret, Timothy of Constantinople, etc. He speaks, however, of several heretics whom no other author mentions; he refutes above all Mahometanism and iconoclasm.

3° The four Books of the Orthodox Faith, in one hundred chapters. It is a body of doctrine that contains everything one must believe, as well as the principal articles of Church discipline. The holy doctor treats, in the first, of God and His attributes; in the second, of the creation of angels, of man, of freedom, and of predestination; in the third, of the mystery of the Incarnation; in the fourth, of the Sacraments, etc.

The three works above can be considered as parts of a whole; as making but one. It is, in effect, a set of doctrine which, under the name of The Fount of Knowledge, embraces everything from the first elements of language and scientific reasoning to the highest elevati ons of the Christian Source de la Science Major encyclopedic work comprising the Dialectica, the Heresies, and the Orthodox Faith. faith. The holy doctor addressed these three treatises to his former tutor, who had, as it were, obliged him to write them.

"Science," he says, "is the true knowledge of what is. Our mind, not having it in itself, any more than the eye has light, needs a master. This master is truth itself, the Christ, who is wisdom and truth in person, and in whom are hidden all the treasures of science. One can learn everything through application and work, but above all and after all, through the grace of God. As the Apostle warns us to test all things and hold fast to what is good, we shall consult the writings of the sages of the gentiles; perhaps we shall find there something useful to our soul. Any craftsman, to do his work, needs instruments; it is fitting, moreover, that the queen be served by some handmaidens. The purely human sciences are the handmaidens of truth, instruments and weapons to defend it.

"Philosophy is the natural science of what is, insofar as it is; the science of divine and human things; the meditation on death; the imitation of God; the art of arts, the science of sciences; finally, the love of wisdom. Now, true wisdom is God; therefore, the love of God is true philosophy. Philosophy is divided into speculative and practical; the speculative is subdivided into theology, physiology, and mathematics; the practical, into ethics, economics, and politics. The proper task of theology is to consider immaterial beings, God, the angels, and souls. Physiology is the science of material things, such as animals, plants, stones; everything that is called natural history today. Mathematical science considers things which, although without bodies in themselves, are nevertheless considered within bodies; such as numbers, chords, figures, the movements of the stars. The theory of numbers constitutes arithmetic; the theory of sounds, music; the theory of figures, geometry; the theory of stars, astronomy. Practical philosophy treats of virtues, governs morals and conduct; if it gives rules to the individual, it is called ethics; to an entire house, it is called economics; to cities and countries, it is called politics.

"As philosophy is the science of what is, we shall speak of being. We shall begin with logic or the art of reasoning, which is less a part of philosophy than the instrument it uses for all demonstrations. We shall first treat of simple words that express simple ideas, and we shall then come to reasoning. Being is a name common to everything that is; and it is divided into substance and accident. Substance is that which exists in itself, and not in another, for example, a body; accident is that which cannot exist in itself, but which one considers in another, for example, a color."

It is with this precision and clarity that Saint John Damascene specifies the words and ideas that constitute scientific language and reason. When one notes that the philosophical discordances among the pagans, and the great heresies among the Christians, all came from a more or less voluntary obscurity and confusion regarding the words and ideas of being, substance, nature, form, hypostasis, and person, one sees that Saint John Damascene could not have begun better than by defining them well, and that whoever seeks the truth in conscience, or wishes to defend it sincerely, must do the same.

4° The three Discourses on Images. We spoke of them when treating of the life of the Saint.

5° The Book of the Holy Doctrine. It is, strictly speaking, only a reasoned profession of faith. The Saint distinguishes therein in Jesus Christ two natural wills and two natural operations.

6° The Book against the Monophysites, that is to say, against those who admitted only one nature in Jesus Christ after the hypostatic union. This work is written with much force and solidity.

7° The Book or Dialogue against the Manichaeans. The errors of these heretics are very well refuted therein. Cardinal Mai published a second dispute of the first.

8° The Dispute against a Saracen, which is only in Latin in the old editions. It has been given for the most part in Greek with the dialogues of Theodore Abucaras, Bishop of Carame, in Syria.

9° The Opuscula on dragons and witches, of which we have only a fragment left. The purpose of these works was to show the ridiculousness of certain fabulous stories that were current among the Saracens.

10° The Book of the Trinity, by questions and answers. If it does not have Saint John Damascene as its author, it is, at least, a compilation of his works.

11° The Letter to Jordan on the Trisagion, where it is proven that the triple repetition of the word Saint is addressed to the divinity subsisting in three persons, and not to the Son alone. The Saint rejects the additions of the Monophysite Syrians, showing that, in regard to these kinds of rites, one must stick to what is practiced in the Church.

12° The Letter on the Lenten fast. Saint John Damascene praises the discipline that was observed in the church of Jerusalem. The fast lasted seven weeks in this Church, and one ate every day only after sunset, except on Saturdays and Sundays. During the first week, one abstained only from meat: but one did not fail to fast until evening: this was what was called the preparation for Lent. The other six weeks, besides meat, one also abstained from eggs, cheese, and dairy products. During Passion Week, one fed only on xerophagy or dry foods. The Saint did not condemn those who added an eighth week to Lent; but he gave preference, in his esteem, to those who followed the common usage; and he was accustomed to repeat on this subject his favorite maxim: "Good is not even good, if it is not well done."

45° The Book of the eight capital vices. The holy doctor counted eight capital vices, because he distinguished vainglory from pride, with the ancient ascetic authors. After having shown in what they consist, he gives the means to fight and destroy them, which he does with much more precision than Cassian and Saint Nilus, who had treated the same subject.

44° The Book of virtue and vice. One finds there a short description of virtues and vices.

45° The Treatise on the composite nature, against the Acephali or Monophysites; the Treatise on the two wills, against the Monothelites; the Book against the Nestorians. These are refutations of the errors of these different heretics on the mystery of the Incarnation.

46° The Discourse on those who have died in the faith is not by Saint John Damascene, nor are several other opuscula that are in the second volume of the edition of Father Le Quien.

47° A Profession of faith, which some authors contest as belonging to the Saint.

48° A Commentary on the epistles of Saint Paul.

49° Several Proses, odes, and hymns for Christmas, Epiphany, Easter, Pentecost, Ascension, Transfiguration, Annunciation. It is not certain, according to Dom Coillier, that they are all by Saint John Damascene: they are believed to be mixed with those of Anatolius and Metaphrastes. The Bollandists incline to believe that he was the first author of the Synaxarion of the Greeks, a collection of lives of the Saints, which corresponds to our Breviaries. Giles of Rome cites the Martyrology of Saint John Damascene, and it has been remarked that, never before him, had there been any question in the East of an abbreviation and an abbreviator of the lives of the Saints.

20° Homilies, including one on the Transfiguration pronounced in the church of Mount Tabor itself; one on the Parable of the Fig Tree; one on the Passion of Jesus Christ; two on the Annunciation; two on the Nativity of the holy Virgin; and three on the death of the holy Virgin: it is known that Saint John Damascene did not let any occasion escape to testify to Mary his tenderness and devotion; one in honor of Saint John Chrysostom; the last is in praise of Saint Barbara.

21° The passion of Saint Artemius, the History of Barlaam, hermit, and of Josaphat, king of the Indies. The Ballet school has cast doubt on the veracity of this history. The most moderate do not dare to reject the substance of it, but suspect Saint John Damascene of having clothed it in a form that would have weakened its authenticity. Be that as it may, Baronius, Surius, the Abbot of Billy, other hagiographers, and other historians mention this account and raise no doubt about its veracity. We reproduce the judgment that Huet makes of it, while protesting against the word novel: "It is a novel," he says, "but a spiritual one; it treats of love, but it is divine love; one sees much blood shed there, but it is the blood of martyrs. Not that I wish to maintain that everything in it is supposed: it would be rash to disavow that there ever was a Barlaam or a Josaphat. The testimony of the Roman Martyrology, which puts them in the number of the Saints, does not allow one to doubt it... This work, whether for the manner in which it is written, for the charm of its invention, or for its piety, was so much to the taste of the Christians of Egypt that they translated it into the Coptic language, and it is today quite common in their libraries." De l'origine des Romans, p. 87; Paris, 1685.

22° An Etymologicon, which provides important corrections for the dictionaries of Hesychius and Suidas.

23° To complete this encyclopedia of Saint John Damascene, one must add his great work of the Parallels. It is a comparison of the sentences of the Fathers with those of Scripture, on almost all moral truths. They are arranged by subject and with great care, following the order of the Greek alphabet. The holy doctor had first distributed them into three books, the first of which treated of God and divine things; the second, of the state and condition of human things; the third, of virtues and vices; but he judged later that his work would be more convenient for readers if he divided the titles in alphabetical order. What is advantageous in this collection is that Saint John Damascene has preserved for us many fragments of ancient authors, of whom we have no knowledge except through him.

24° Cardinal Mai has rediscovered, by Saint John Damascene, several hymns or odes in honor of Saint Basil, Saint Chrysostom, Saint Nicholas of Myra, Saint George, and Saint Blaise. These hymns are in poetic prose. There are eight in honor of Saint Basil, seven in honor of Saint Chrysostom: one sees celebrated there the virtues and actions that we know of one and the other. In the nine odes in honor of Saint Nicholas, but of which the first two are missing, the poet of Damascus summarizes the common tradition of the Greeks and Latins on the illustrious pontiff of Myra: "Neither the sand that is on the seashore," he tells him, "nor the multitude of the waves, nor the pearls of the dew and the flakes of snow, nor the choir of the stars, nor the drops of rain and the currents of the rivers, nor the bubbling of the fountains, will equal, O Father! the number of your miracles! The whole universe has had in you a prompt help in afflictions, an encouragement in sadness, a consolation in calamities, a defender in temptations, a salutary remedy in illnesses." Damascene celebrates particularly his power to deliver prisoners who invoke him in chains; his appearance to the Emperor Constantine in the middle of the night to save three generals from the unjust death to which they had been condemned; his zeal to confess the faith in persecution, to fight the heresy of Arius to preserve his flock; his incomparable charity, which hides from the knowledge of the unfortunate the hand that relieves him, which thus saves from dishonor a father and his three daughters whom the excess of misery was going to deliver to crime. In the seven or eight hymns in honor of Saint George, Damascene sings of the same torments and the same miracles that we see celebrated by his compatriot Andrew, Archbishop of Crete: the wheel, the fires, the iron boots, the poisoned drink, the resurrection of the dead, the conversion of the magician Athanasius, the demons forced to confess their impotence and the divinity of Jesus Christ.

In the nine hymns in honor of Saint Blaise, but which present some gaps, he recalls all the principal facts that we read in the four or five lives of the same Saint. Let us hope that this agreement will no longer leave room for any doubt. — How then could Godescard say: "The history of the life of this holy bishop is unknown to us?" One was very wrong to believe him on his word; for if it is true to say that the publication of the hymns of Saint John Damascene, by Cardinal Mai, is relatively recent, it is no less true that there existed four other biographies of Saint Blaise to which these hymns add nothing in terms of details.

As for the hymns of Saint John Damascene on Saint Peter, whom he calls the coryphaeus, there remain to us only four with a part of the fifth. One reads these words to the Prince of the Apostles: "Having received from Christ the Church, which the Lord himself formed, and not man, you have governed it like a ship. Guardian of Rome, treasurer of the heavenly kingdom, rock of faith, unshakable foundation of the Catholic faith, be celebrated in holy canticles." In the first stanza of the second hymn, Saint Damascene speaks of the instantaneous journey of Saint Peter, from Rome to the mountain of Sion, to attend the funeral of the holy Virgin, whom he calls the living cloud of God. In the first stanza of the fifth, he speaks of the triumph of the apostle over Simon the Magician.

But what is especially piously remarkable is that the last stanza of each hymn is a praise and an invocation to the divine maternity of the holy Virgin Mary. He says to her, for example, in the two last hymns to Saint Basil: "He who has no body came forth with a body from your womb; He who, by the word, formed the incorporeal nature, He who gave essence to every created essence, reasonable and unreasonable, He the word of God the Father: that is why, Mother of life, put to death in me the passions of the body, which put my spirit to death. It is you, all-holy Virgin, whom I present, unanswerable advocate and benevolent mediatrix, to Him who was born of you; and I beseech you to erase entirely, by your maternal intercession, the multitude of my faults." — In the first and second to Saint Peter: "It is by your immaculate childbirth that the ancient paradise, closed by our first mother, was reopened, and that the ancient homeland was returned to the human race. — It is you, august Sovereign, powerful refuge, Patroness always ready to save, whom I implore and beseech ardently: protect my soul, when it will leave this tent and will move away from the earth for another world." — In the first, the second, and the fourth to Saint George: "The dragging tongue and the shrill voice, the mouth with the unpleasant sound, fear to intone hymns to you, O sovereign Lady! for you are sung by the tongues of angels, tongues of fire and flame, and by the mouth of those who have no body. — The storm of sins, the waves of iniquity, the frequent reefs of malice, push me together into the gaping abyss of despair: give me your hand, O Virgin! for fear that the waves will bury me alive. — The roaring lion turns around, seeking to devour me: do not abandon me as prey to his teeth, O you immaculate one, who gave birth to Him who, with His divinely powerful hand, broke the molar teeth of the lions."

It is above all in his dogmatic writings that Saint John reveals the extent of his genius. His style is full of strength and clarity; his reasoning is solid and conclusive. The author shows everywhere a singular penetration of mind and a marvelous sagacity in explaining the mysteries of the faith. In his Book of the Orthodox Faith, he has linked all truths so closely that a complete body of theology results. He is regarded as the inventor of the method that has since been adopted in theological schools, and which Saint Anselm later introduced among the Latins. Cave refuses the title of a judicious man to anyone who does not admire, in the writings of Saint John Damascene, an extraordinary erudition, a great accuracy and precision in ideas, and an uncommon strength in reasoning. John IV, Patriarch of Jerusalem, praises the profound knowledge that the holy doctor had of mathematics. According to Baronius, Saint John Damascene was sometimes mistaken regarding historical facts; but this came only from the unfaithfulness of his memory.

Father Le Quien, a Dominican, provided a good edition of the works of Saint John Damascene, with notes and dissertations. Paris, 1712, 2 vols. in-fol. This edition reappeared in Verona in 1748, with improvements.

This noble enterprise was begun by Jean Aubert, continued by Combétis, and completed by Le Quien. It was done by order of the assemblies of the clergy of France (1635-1636). Until then, one had only parts of the works of Saint John Damascene, mostly in Latin, not in the original text.

One will find the complete works of Saint John Damascene in the Greek Patrology of M. Migne, volumes XCIV, XCV, XCVI.

Cf. A.A. SS., vol. II of May, and the Itinerary of the Holy Places, by John Phocas, which is found at the beginning of this volume (new ed.); D. Celliter (new ed.); Rohrbacher.

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We see, in the life of Saint Aubert, that this pontiff had begun the construction of the Abbey of Saint-Vaast in Arras on the site of the oratory where this apostle of the Atrebates was accustomed to retire to pray, and where his body was subsequently transported. It was Saint Vindicien, his successor, who governed it for some years; but in 685, this prelate, in concert with Theuderic III, King of the Franks, called upon the blessed Hatta, whose virtue and wisdom they had heard praised, to ent rust him with the bienheureux Hatta Abbot of Saint-Vaast in Arras mentioned in the second part of the text. direction of this important abbey.

Hatta was then living in the monastery of Blandinberg, near Ghent, built by Saint Amand; this holy missionary placed great hopes in him and esteemed him highly because of the wisdom of his conduct. The fervent disciple strove to walk in the footsteps of his master, and authors say in his praise that he faithfully reproduced all the virtues he had noticed and studied in him.

Nothing is known in detail about the works of the blessed Hatta during his administration of the Abbey of Saint-Vaast; but the excellent direction imparted to this community and the spirit of discipline and fervor that reigned there for a long time sufficiently praise this holy abbot.

In 686, he accompanied Saint Vindicien to Hamage, who had been invited by Gertrude II, abbess of that monastery, to consecrate a new church, raised to the glory of God, under the invocation of Saint Mary.

The authors of the Gallia Christiana, vol. III, p. 374, also speak of a privilege that would have been granted by this holy bishop to the blessed Hatta, and in which were guaranteed the entire freedom of his religious and the permission to follow the Rule of Saint Benedict.

Some authors give him the title of Saint in their writings, although usually only that of blessed is applied to him; his name has always been held in veneration in the Abbey of Saint-Vaast. It is believed that he died around the year 699.

M. the Abbé Destombes.