St. John Damascene: Hymn Writer and Defender of Icons

Saint John Damascene, the Syrian Christian monk and priest is a prolific writer and the last Greek father of the Church. In the Eastern Churches, he is revered as one of its greatest poets/hymn-writers. John’s hymns are used till-date in the Eastern Orthodox Church and Eastern Christian Monasteries throughout the world. Appreciating this special gift of John, there are legends in the account of his life. One such legend is the supernatural intervention of Mother Mary acting in favor of John in his monastery. After certain age, John renounced the world to embrace monastic life. The Abbot ordered John, renowned for his intelligence and wisdom, not to write that he might live and labour like any other ordinary monk. One of his duties was to sell baskets in the marketplace. On a particular day, John happened to meet a man who was broken hearted at the loss of his brother in the market. The man aware of the special gift of John, requested him to compose a hymn for the funeral service and for his consolation. 

Mar Saba Monastery

Moved with pity at the persistence of the mourner, John composed a beautiful lament:

‘What sweetness in this life
Does not partake of earthly sadness?
What expectation is not in vain,
And where amongst men is the happy man?
All is changeful, all is paltry
That with difficulty we have gained ­
What glory on earth
Stands firm and unchanging?
All is ashes, a phantom, shadow and smoke,
All vanishes like a whirlwind of dust,
And before death we stand
Unarmed and powerless.
The arm of the mighty man is weak,
Null are the commands of kings ­
Receive thy servant now fallen asleep,
O Lord, into the dwellings of the blessed.’

The hymn is sung, even now in the funeral services of the Eastern Church. Poet Alexei Tolstoi has versified this present form. The legend then continues that the Abbot having learned about the disobedience of John, dismissed him from the monastery. However, at the request of other monks he refrained from it but only under the condition that John clears the filth in the Monastery with his own hands. John, the humble monk, fulfilled the service demanded by the Abbot.

John is however no less a philosopher-theologian. His famous work The Fountain of Wisdom/Knowledge, - a single work summarizing the opinions of great ecclesiastical writer gone before him – is regarded as the precursor of Summa Theologica. He is rightly revered as the first Scholastic and this work as the first work of Scholasticism. The Catholic Church has declared him as the Doctor of the Church. He is specially, respected as the ‘Doctor of the Assumption’, the first one to write on the ‘Assumption of Mary’; and as ‘Doctor of Christian Art’ because of his eloquent defense of the use of images in Christian worship. After this, the Mother of God appeared to the Abbot in his sleep and said: "Do not stop up my well­spring any longer. Grant it to flow unto the glory of God". On awakening, the Abbot understood that it was pleasing to God that John Damascene dedicated himself to the labor of writing.

From that time on, no one hindered John any longer from writing theological compositions and composing liturgical prayers.

In the beginning of 8^th century, Iconoclasm, a movement seeking to prohibit the veneration of the icons in Christianity, was gaining support in the Byzantine court, the Eastern Roman empire with Constantinople as its Capital. They maintained that using image is a violation of the second commandment ‘Thou shall not make a graven image... thou shall not bow down to them”. Arguing so, they opposed the use of images and at times destroyed them. They were called as Iconoclasts (image-breakers).

Tradition, however was against them. The fathers of the Church, Sts. Athanasius, Basil, Gregory of Nyssa and others, defended the use of Images. In 726, the emperor Leo III issued laws against the veneration of images and their exhibition in the public places, despite the protest of St. Germanus the Patriarch of Constantinople

An Image symbolically depicting John as upholding icons

John, as a result set to fight the rise of Iconoclasts. Ironically, under the secure surrounding of the court of caliph, he courageously wrote against iconoclasm. The essence of John’s defense was that the incarnation of Christ has radically changed our understanding of God. God is no more invisible, distant, mystery instead has become visible, concrete, sensible in Jesus Christ. Thus, everything (water, oil, bread, wine, painting, sculpture, music, spoken word, all our daily tasks, pleasures) could be used to glorify God and make him known.

Moreover, he distinguished between two kinds of worship: adoration or worship, honor or veneration. The former is rendered only to God, while the latter is given to respectable people (parents, teachers, flagship etc.), angels, saints and images/icons of Christ and holy wo/men. This classic distinction is his major contribution to Theology.

Finally, he argued that for the simple people who did not know to read, could never afford the leisure of reading, images/icons were the manuals, the Gospels. Therefore to remove icons/images is to deprive the simple people of the Gospel stories. The latter served a powerful argument that gathered greater support from common people against emperor.

In the second council of Nicaea (787 CE), the Church settled the issue justifying the use of images in Christian worship. His writings played an important role to explain the use of images, in this council.

One of the ancient pictures of Jesus

Picture of our lady - Eastern Church

Another contribution of John was his defense of the veneration of saints, as an important aspect of the Christian worship. John is also nicknamed as ‘the golden stream’, for his oratorical gifts.

Life

Surprisingly, there is little authentic information about the life of John Damascene, since the account of his life is admixed with legendary matter. John lived in the middle of 8^th century CE, 645/676 – 754/787. He was born into a Greek speaking Syrian family of Damascus, known as Mansur (righteous). He was the son of Christian official at the court of the caliph Abdul Malek. John enjoyed a full course of instruction as a youth including mathematics, geometry, music, astronomy, rhetoric, logic, philosophy (Plato and Aristotle) and theology. He is supposed to have learnt them from a certain monk Cosmos from Sicily. At the death of his father, the caliph chose John for the office. However, after some years he became a monk and was ordained a priest at Saint Sabbas/Sava, a monastery near Jerusalem. He lived there till his death.

Works in their Context

John has two major works.

                                i.            Apologetic Treatises against those Decrying the Holy Images. 

It is his defence of the holy images in three separate treatises, as a talented writer in the secure surrounding of Caliph. It is characterized with direct and simple style. Thus, it introduced the controversy to simple people, mobilizing them against the emperor. It gained popularity more that the edict of the emperor. It contains three letters.

                             ii.            Fountain of Knowledge/Wisdom 

It is the most important work of John. One of its kinds, in the patristic period. The Church, after centuries of serious thinking, arguments and clarification of its faith, beliefs and practices through the writings of its holy men, priests and bishops and the documents of varied councils, wanted an encyclopedic presentation of its theology. John accomplished this task in this work, collecting and summarizing the theological development of the great Greek writers and councils.

It is divided into three parts: “Philosophical Chapters”, “Concerning Heresy”, “An Exact Exposition of the Orthodox Faith”. The first part consists of a treatment of the foundations of theology, the basic principles and notions to understand the orthodox theology.

The second part presented the various false teachings until his time. It is mostly a compilation and exposition of anti-heretical writings with sections on Islam, Iconoclasm and aposchiti (wandering monks who rejected sacraments) by John.

The most important part of his work is the third part. It gives an outline of the orthodox theology in 100 short chapters. It covers topics from doctrine of God, cosmology, demonology, anthropology to Christology, Mariology and saints. This is his most important work. It is regarded as the precursor of Summa-theologia, an opening to scholasticism.

Other than these, many polemical works, exegetical works and sermons                                                    are attributed to him. It is however, difficult to determine their authenticity.

Generally, John is noted for his humble saintly life in the monastery. The church remembers him for his insightful writings in defence of the use of icons and for the systematic presentation of the dogmatic theology until his time. We celebrate his feast on 4 December. 

Bibliography

“Righteous Saint John of Damascus.”  http://www.balamand.edu.lb/theology/live_of_saint_john_of_damascus.html  accessed October 20, 2011.

“St. John of Damascus.” http://www.catholic.org/saints/saint.php?saint_id=66  accessed October 20, 2011.

Aquilina, Mike. The Fathers of Church: An Introduction to the First Christian Teachers. Expanded Edition. Huntington: Our Sunday Visitor, 2006. 

Fitzgerald, Thomas. “John of Damascus”. The Encyclopedia of Christianity. Edited by Erwin Fahlbusch et al. Translated and Edited in English by Geoffrey W. Bromiley. Michigan: Grand Rapids, 2003. 3: 70-71.

Harakas, Stanley Samuel. “John of Damascus”. Encyclopedia of Religion. Edited by Lindsay Jonas. London: Gale, 2005. 7: 4940-4941.

Kiefer, James. “John of Damascus: Hymn Writer, Defender of Icons (4 Dec 750).” http://elvis.rowan.edu/~kilroy/JEK/  accessed October 20, 2011..

O'Connor, John Bonaventure. "St. John Damascene." The Catholic Encyclopedia. Vol. 8. New York: Robert Appleton Company, 1910. http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/08459b.html accessed October 20, 2011.