Venerable John of Damascus
December 4th
He was a devout monk, a great hymnographer, a profoundly influential theologian and a noble warrior who fought against heresy in order to affirm the saving truth of our Lord God, Jesus Christ. In the early history of the Holy Church, Venerable John of Damascus looms as a beloved Father whose inspiring presence helped to spread the Holy Gospel far and wide.
Born in Damascus, today the capital of Syria, St. John was blessed with wealthy parents who were also known for their great Christian piety. His family name – Mansur – ranked among the most aristocratic in the world of Seventh Century Damascus, where John was born around 675 A.D.
Raised alongside his foster-brother, St. Cosmas, by his father Sergius – a high-ranking administrator in the service of the Caliph of Damascus – St. John was educated by a monk (also known as Cosmas) who had earlier been ransomed from an Arab-run slave market in Italy. Under the tutelage of the brilliant Cosmas, St. John would become a great philosopher . . . and after serving as Counselor to the Caliph of Damascus, he would go on to shape a profoundly important legacy of theological ideas for the Holy Church.
The great wisdom of the tutor Cosmas – and the effect he must have had on the youthful St. John – can be seen in an eloquent letter he wrote to the father of his two charges, as they prepared to finish their education and go forth into the world: “My lord, your desire has been fulfilled,” wrote the tutor. “Your children have studied well, surpassing me in knowledge. Thanks to good memories and diligent toil, they have sounded the depths of wisdom. TAKEN FROM “God has granted increase to the gifts bestowed on them, and they can learn nothing more from me. Indeed, they are ready to teach others. Therefore I pray you, my lord, grant me leave to depart for a monastery, where I may become a disciple to monks who have achieved perfection and can instruct me in higher wis¬dom. The external wisdom I have mastered leads me on to spiritual philosophy, a wisdom purer and more honorable than any worldly science, for it profits the soul and leads it to salvation."
A gifted administrator and also a skilled diplomat, St. John enjoyed one triumphant success after the next during his early years as a key figure in Caliph Abdul-Malik’s court (685-705). All too soon, however, the serenity of his early years would end – to be replaced by violent struggle, as the Damascene was swept up in a series of turbulent conflicts within his Holy Church.
At the heart of the religious struggle was a continuing disagreement over the veneration of icons. This hotly disputed issue – in which the opponents of such veneration sought to have it prohibited because they regarded it as a form of idolatry – would become especially violent during the reign of the fiercely Iconoclastic Emperor Leo III the Isaurian (717-741).
From the beginning, the valiant John of Damascus championed the use of the icons in worship, and he paid dearly for doing so. Infuriated by his teachings and his ardent defense of the holy images, the Emperor Leo deceived the Caliph into believing that St. John had betrayed him. As a result, the enraged Caliph ordered that the saint’s right hand should be severed from his arm.
Leo’s scheme was as clever as it was despicable. With the help of forgers, the irate Emperor created a counterfeit letter, supposedly from the Caliph’s own high-ranking minister (St. John) – a missive in which the saint appeared to be inviting the Emperor to attack Damascus . . . because the military forces guarding the city were too weak to successfully defend it!
When he received the forgery, the Caliph was furious. This was nothing less than treason! And the punishment was quickly decided upon: If the traitor had used his right hand to compose the seditious letter, then he would lose that hand to the executioner’s axe. The amputation was speedily carried out. What followed the bloodletting defied rational explanation. After having obtained the severed hand from the brutal Caliph, St. John that evening carried it to one of the sacred icons of the Blessed Theotokos. There he prayed fervently to her. After falling asleep for a few minutes, he awoke to discover that the Blessed Virgin was addressing him: “Your hand has been restored. Do not be troubled any longer, but return to your work and labor diligently, like a swiftly writing scribe, even as you promised me.”
Within a few seconds, the great saint was stunned to see that the missing hand had been rejoined to his wrist, and that the injured tissues had been completely healed. St. John realized that an awesome miracle had just taken place. He rejoiced at great length over the healing, and immediately began to chant a new hymn: “Thy right hand, 0 Lord, is glorious in power. Thy right hand hath healed my severed hand and crushed Thine enemies, who do not revere Thy precious image or that of Thy most pure Mother. It shall destroy those who destroy the icons, and multiply Thy glory!"
The Caliph was soon made aware of this miracle as well. Recognizing the error of his ways, the mighty ruler implored St. John to forgive the unjust punishment and remain a key counselor in his Damascus court. But St. John could not in conscience comply with this request; after surviving his desperate struggles to protect the icons, he yearned only for the serene, tranquil life of a cloistered monk. What he wanted most right then was to be allowed to pray and fast and compose hymns – far from the political intrigues of the crowded court.
Gratefully, the humble saint entered the famed Monastery of St. Sabas (located only a few miles from Jerusalem) and there became a model of asceticism, self-denial and obedience. While celebrating his new life as a solitary devotee of Jesus, the pious Damascene would spend many years writing some of the most profoundly important musical works in the history of the Holy Church. Among his compositions were the Major Funeral Hymns; the Octoechos (or Book of Eight Tones); the Irmologion and also the Paschal Canon. But this gifted writer also assembled numerous works of theology that would soon become classics of inspiration and guidance for the entire world.
A new life was beginning for the venerable monk. But that new existence would also be marked by intense struggles at times. Soon after entering the cloister, in fact, St. John’s compassion for suffering humanity would lead him into yet another conflict that threatened to shatter his world.
It happened when one of the saint’s fellow monks, overwhelmed by grief at the recent death of his own brother, asked the former court counselor to compose the Funeral Hymn for the deceased. St. John instantly agreed . . . in spite of the fact that his monastic superior – a stern and demanding figure of great humility – had ordered the Damascene to avoid writing to or speaking with anyone about world affairs. When St. John’s spiritual mentor learned of the Funeral Hymn, he barred the disobedient monk from inhabiting his cell at the monastery.
Desperate for re-admittance, St. John willingly humbled himself . . . and agreed to clean all the latrines in the monastery as the price of reinstatement. (Interestingly enough, the elder was later upbraided for this action by none other than the Blessed Theotokos, who appeared to him and commanded that he henceforth should allow the holy man to compose his hymns in peace!)
As a writer and thinker, St. John was a formidable presence, indeed. Not only did he refute the Iconoclasts with such epic works as his magisterial essay On The Divine Images, but he also composed powerful theological arguments against the validity of Islam. Perhaps the greatest gift of all from St. John, however, was his precise and crystal-clear rendering of the Holy Orthodox creed – a theological tour de force of inestimable value that helped to shape and then sustain the One True Faith against heresy.
During the centuries that have followed these writings by St. John, they were used again and again to combat false ideas about the Holy Gospel, and also to keep the faithful firmly anchored to the basic tenets of their God-inspired religion.
Ordained a presbyter later in his life by the Patriarch of Jerusalem, this hugely radiant figure would die peacefully around 760, not long after his foster-brother Cosmas had been appointed Bishop of Maiuma. He was 75 at the time of his death, according to most historians of the period.
Armed with an instantly recognizable banner that read, “Shall I not make images of friends,” St. John the Damascene fought throughout his lifetime to defend the sacred nature of the holy images – and his enormously influential essay, Against The Revilers of Holy Icons, remains a classic of theology to this day.
In spite of his richly deserved fame as a writer and thinker, however, the Damascene was first and foremost a humble monk who dreamed only of worshipping God in some forgotten backwater of the Empire, where he could pray and write his hymns in blessed peace. The depth of St. John’s humility can be seen clearly in one incident that beautifully reveals his attitude toward himself. Ordered by his spiritual mentor to sell woven baskets in the Jerusalem marketplace as an ordinary peddler, St. John not only obeyed. He relished the task and strove to sell his pedestrian straw baskets with unbridled energy!
As difficult as it may be to imagine the author of De Fide Orthodoxa (Exposition On The Orthodox Faith) selling baskets at the top of his lungs, St. John did not hesitate to do so. For this down-to-earth and unpretentious monk – whose theology would later inspire such important medieval thinkers as Thomas Aquinas and the Scholastics – no task was too low or too humble to be performed in the service of Almighty God.
The life of the venerable John of Damascus offers us many valuable lessons about the grace that God sends us every moment – whether we are composing priceless poems or essays, or cleaning latrines and scrubbing floors. One of the greatest thinkers in the history of the Holy Church, St. John was nonetheless a simple monk who wanted nothing more than the opportunity to praise God from the center of his austere and self-denying life.
While John often borrowed from the writings of others to explain Christian theology and to refute the iconoclastic heresy, his zeal for truth and his love for God helped him to shape these earlier sources into powerful messages that would bring the Word of Truth to the peoples of his own time.
Apolytikion in the Third Tone
Ye faithful, come let us honour with songs of praise the comely sounding and sweet-spoken nightingale, who doth adorn and captivate the Church of Christ with his sweet songs: John, the all-wise Damascene, let us honour resplendently, the divine and eloquent, and the chief of hymnographers; who verily was filled to the utmost with every divine and earthly wisdom.
Kontakion in the Fourth Tone
Come, O ye faithful, let us praise the hymn-writer, the Church's luminary and wise instructor, the hallowed John, who cast down all her enemies; for since he took up the Cross of the Lord as a weapon, he drove off the heresies, with their every delusion. And as our fervent champion with God, he granteth all the forgiveness of trespasses.
