John of Damascus

Lore & Background

John was born in Damascus in 675 or 676 to a prominent Damascene Syrian Christian family. His father, Sarjun ibn Mansur, served as an official of the early Umayyad Caliphate. His grandfather, Mansur ibn Sarjun, was a prominent Byzantine official of Damascus who had been responsible for the taxes of the region during the reign of Emperor Heraclius and also served under Emperor Maurice. Mansur seems to have played a role in the capitulation of Damascus to the troops of Khalid ibn al-Walid in 635 after securing favorable conditions of surrender. Christian folklore holds that during his adolescence, John associated with the future Umayyad caliph Yazid I and the Taghlibi Christian court poet al-Akhtal. One of the vitae describes his father's desire for him to 'learn not only the books of the Muslims, but those of the Greeks as well.' One account identifies his tutor as a monk by the name of Cosmas, who had been kidnapped by Arabs from his home in Sicily, and for whom John's father paid a great price. Cosmas was said to have rivaled Pythagoras in arithmetic and Euclid in geometry. John possibly had a career as a civil servant for the Caliph in Damascus before his ordination. He then became a priest and monk at the Mar Saba monastery near Jerusalem. In the early 8th century, iconoclasm gained acceptance in the Byzantine court. In 726, Emperor Leo III issued his first edict against the veneration of images. John of Damascus undertook a spirited defence of holy images in three separate publications. The earliest, his Apologetic Treatises against those Decrying the Holy Images, secured his reputation. He not only attacked the Byzantine emperor, but adopted a simplified style that allowed the controversy to be followed by the common people. Leo III reportedly sent forged documents to the caliph which implicated John in a plot to attack Damascus. The caliph then ordered John's right hand be cut off and hung up in public view. Some days afterwards, John asked for the restitution of his hand, and prayed fervently to the Theotokos before her icon: thereupon, his hand is said to have been miraculously restored. In gratitude, he attached a silver hand to the icon, which thereafter became known as the 'Three-handed', or Tricherousa. Due to his commitment to iconodulism, he was condemned by anathema by the iconoclastic Council of Hieria in 754. He was later rehabilitated by the Second Council of Nicaea in 787.

Reader's Guide

John of Damascus is at the end of the Patristic period of dogmatic development, and his contributions are the last ones in the series of theological developments before the medieval period. In Catholic theology, he is therefore known as the 'last of the Greek Fathers'. He was 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. His defense of icons was foundational for the Second Council of Nicaea in 787, which affirmed the veneration of images. His writings on the Assumption of Mary earned him the title Doctor of the Assumption in the Catholic Church. He also composed hymns, perfecting the canon, a structured hymn form used in Byzantine Rite liturgies. The main source of information for his life is a work attributed to one John of Jerusalem, identified therein as the Patriarch of Jerusalem. This is an excerpted translation into Greek of an earlier Arabic text. 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. John was born in Damascus, in 675 or 676, to a prominent Damascene Syrian Christian family. His father, Sarjun ibn Mansur, served as an official of the early Umayyad Caliphate. His grandfather, Mansur ibn Sarjun, was a prominent Byzantine official of Damascus. When Syria was conquered by the Muslim Arabs in the 630s, the court at Damascus retained its large complement of Christian civil servants, John's grandfather among them. John's father, Sarjun, went on to serve the Umayyad caliphs. John of Jerusalem claims that he also served as a senior official in the fiscal administration of the Umayyad Caliphate under Abd al-Malik before leaving Damascus and his position around 705 to go to Jerusalem and become a monk. However, this point is debated within the academic community as there is no trace of him in the Umayyad archives, unlike his father and grandfather. It is believed that John became a monk at Mar Saba, and that he was ordained as a priest in 735.

Did You Know?

• John of Damascus was given the by-name Chrysorroas, literally 'streaming with gold', meaning 'the golden speaker'.
• His grandfather, Mansur ibn Sarjun, played a role in the capitulation of Damascus to the troops of Khalid ibn al-Walid in 635 after securing favorable conditions of surrender.
• According to tradition, after his right hand was cut off by order of the caliph, John prayed before an icon of the Theotokos and his hand was miraculously restored; he then attached a silver hand to the icon, which became known as the 'Three-handed' or Tricherousa icon.
• John of Damascus was condemned by anathema by the iconoclastic Council of Hieria in 754, but was later rehabilitated by the Second Council of Nicaea in 787.
• The hagiographic novel Barlaam and Josaphat was long attributed to John of Damascus, but most scholars now attribute it to Euthymius of Athos, a Georgian who died in 1028.