Saint John Damascene

Doctor of the Church (676- 749/780)
Feast – March 27
Saint John, the most remarkable of the writers of the 8th century, was born in Damascus in the third quarter of the 7th century AD to a prominent Damascene Christian family known as “Mansoūr.” The family was named after John’s grandfather, Mansour ibn Sarjun, who had been responsible for the taxes of the region during the reign of Emperor Heraclius.

According to Eutychius, a 10th-century Melkite patriarch, the Mansour played a role in securing favorable conditions of surrender in the capitulation of Damascus to the Muslim troops of Khalid ibn al-Walid in 635. They commanded the respect of the conqueror and were employed in judicial offices of trust and dignity, to administer, no doubt, the Christian law to the Christian subjects of the Sultan.

St. John’s father was Christian amid the Saracens of Damascus, whose caliph made him his minister. Besides this honorable rank, he had amassed great wealth; all this he devoted to the redemption of Christian slaves on whom he bestowed their freedom. St. John was the reward of these pious actions, baptized immediately on his birth, probably by Peter II, bishop of Damascus, afterwards a sufferer for the Faith.

The father was anxious to keep his son aloof from the savage habits of war and piracy, to which the youths of Damascus were addicted, and to devote him to the pursuit of knowledge. The Saracen pirates of the seashore neighboring to Damascus, swept the Mediterranean, and brought in Christian captives from all quarters.

An enlightened man was found in the public square one day, amid a group of sad Christian captives condemned to slavery. He was a monk of Italian origin named Cosmas and had the misfortune to fall into the hands of freebooters. He was set apart for death. When his executioner, a Christian slave, fell at his feet and entreated his intercession with the Redeemer, the Saracens enquired of Cosmas who he was. He replied that he had not the dignity of a priest: he was a simple monk and burst into tears. The father of John was standing by and expressed his surprise at this exhibition of timidity. Cosmas answered, “It is not for the loss of my life, but of my learning, that I weep.”

St. John’s father ransomed him and assigned him to tutor his young son. The pupil made extraordinary progress in grammar, dialectic, mathematics, music, poetry, astronomy, but above all in theology, the discipline imparting knowledge of God. In time he exhausted all the acquirements of his teacher, became famous for his encyclopedic knowledge and theological method, later a source of inspiration to Saint Thomas Aquinas. The monk obtained his dismissal, retired to the monastery of St. Sabas, where he would have closed his days in peace, had he not been compelled to take on himself the bishopric of Majuma, the port of Gaza.

When St. Johns father died, the caliph made of him his principal counselor, his Grand Vizier. Thus, it was through him that the advanced sciences made their apparition among the Arab Muslims. It was not the Muslims, who had burnt the library of Alexandria in Egypt, who instructed the Christians, but instead it was Christians teaching the Muslims.

As the Iconoclastic controversy became more violent, St. John of Damascus entered the field against the Emperor of Constantinople, Leo the Isaurian. He distinguished himself, with Saint Germain, Patriarch of Constantinople and wrote the first of his three treatises on the Veneration due to Images. This was probably composed immediately after the Emperors decree against images, in 730.

The Emperor, irritated, himself conjured up a plot against St. John. A letter was forged, signed with Saint’s name, and addressed to himself, the Emperor of Constantinople, offering to deliver up the city of Damascus to him. That letter was then transmitted by the Emperor to the Caliph of Damascus, advising him as a good neighbor should do, that he had a traitor for minister. Although St. John vigorously defended himself against the charge, he was condemned by the Caliph to have his right hand cut off. The severed hand, by order of the Caliph, was attached to a post in a public square. But St. John obtained the hand afterwards and invoked the Blessed Virgin in a prayer which has been preserved; he prayed to be able to continue to write the praises of Her Son and Herself. The next morning when he awoke, he found his hand joined again to the arm, leaving no trace of pain, but only a fine red line like a bracelet, marking the site of the miracle. In gratitude for this miraculous healing, he attached a silver hand to the icon, which thereafter became known as the “Three-handed”, or Tricheirousa.

The Saint was reinstated afterwards to the favor of the local prince, but he believed that heaven had made it clear he was destined to serve the Church by his writings. He therefore distributed his property and retired soon thereafter to the monastery of Saint Sabas near Jerusalem, where he was ordained as a priest in 735. As ordained priest he wrote the second and third treatises on the Veneration due to Images. The third treatise is a recapitulation of the arguments used in the other two. These three treatises were disseminated with the utmost activity throughout Christianity. St. John spent most of his remaining years in apologetic writings and prayer. He is known also for his religious poetry, which became the heritage of the Eastern Church, and to theological arguments in defense of the doctrines of the Church, and refutation of all heresies. His three great hymns or “canons,” are those on Easter, the Ascension, and Saint Thomas’s Sunday. It is likely that many of the “Idiomela an Stichera” which are scattered about his office – books under the title of “John” and “John the Hermit” are his. Occasionally he left to console the Christians of Syria and Palestine and strengthen them, even going to Constantinople in the hope of obtaining martyrdom there. However, he was able to return to his monastery. There he died in peace in the year 749, but some sources claim that he reached the age of 104 and was buried near the door of the monastery church, in the year 780.

Decades after his death, St. John’s writings would play an important role during the Second Council of Nicaea (787), which convened to settle the icon dispute.

In 1890 he was declared a Doctor of the Church by Pope Leo XIII, often referred to as the Doctor of the Assumption due to his writings on the Assumption of Mary.

References and Excerpts
[1] C. Online, “St. John of Damascus – Saints & Angels,” Catholic Online. [Online]. Available: https://www.catholic.org/saints/saint.php?saint_id=66. [Accessed: 08-Mar-2019].
[2] “Saint John Damascene, Doctor of the Church.” [Online]. Available: http://sanctoral.com/en/saints/saint_john_damascene.html. [Accessed: 08-Mar-2019].
[3] “John of Damascus,” Wikipedia. 11-Feb-2019.