St John Damascene

John’s enduring influence is evident today in the rich sights and sounds of Christian liturgy.

676-749

Roman Empire (Byzantine Era) 330 - 1453

Via Wikimedia Commons. Licence: Public domain.

An eleventh century icon showing St John Damascene (left) and his adopted brother Cosmas, working on the ordering of Byzantine chant in the eight tones we know today. Without St John, such images would be forbidden to Christians.

Introduction

St John Damascene (676-749) was Syrian monk and a contemporary of our own St Bede, both of them highly respected scholars with a deep love for Church music. John left us an exposition of Christian theology of enduring importance throughout east and west; he compiled a wealth of hymns, collects and prayers; and he saved Christian iconography everywhere from the hands of extremists.

by Clay Lane

MANSUR Bin Sarjun was a Christian in the Syrian court of the Roman Emperor Heraclius the Great, who ruled in Constantinople from 610 to 641. After the Muslims captured Syria in 634, Mansur’s son Sarjun served the new Caliph in the same capacity.

Sarjun liberated a Sicilian slave named Cosmas, and engaged him to tutor his son John, together with an orphan (also named Cosmas) whom Sarjun had adopted. In the Roman way, they studied Christian and secular subjects from music to astronomy and mathematics, as well as virtues such as prayer and humility. But John decided against the civil service, and both he and Cosmas became monks.

Islamic rule in Syria was comparatively liberal, for which John was doubly grateful: not only was he allowed to resign such a prestigious post to pursue his Christian calling, but he was also protected from the wrath of Roman Emperor Leo III when in 730 the Church of Constantinople, capital of the Roman Empire, strictly forbade the making of religious images.*

❰

1 2

❱

* Icons were banned throughout the Roman Empire in 730, and restored at the Council of Nicaea in 787; the ban was revived in 815 and abolished in 843. The restoration of the icons is commemorated on the first Sunday of Lent each year, as ‘The Triumph of Orthodoxy’. See our post The Restoration of the Icons.

Précis

John Damascene was the son of a seventh-century Syrian civil servant, early in the Islamic era. John and his brother Cosmas, an adopted orphan, were thoroughly educated, and later renounced their secular careers to become monks. Far from inhibiting their calling, living among Muslims actually helped when in 730 John was embroiled in a controversy over Christian art.

Clay Lane The Copybook

Donate

Buy Me a Coffee is a crowdfunding website, used by over a million people. It is designed to help content creators like me make a living from their work. ‘Buy Me a Coffee’ prides itself on its security, and there is no need to register.