Introduction
In 726, the Roman Emperor Leo III, seated in Constantinople (modern Istanbul), declared that images of Christ and his saints were ‘idolatrous’ and must be scrubbed from all church walls. The ban was sternly enforced, but there were rebels; and the outspoken John Mansur encouraged them with stirring pamphlets written from the safety of the Islamic court of Hisham ibn Abd al-Malik, Caliph of Damascus.
ON the death of his father, John Mansur was sent for to court,* and raised to a yet higher office than his father had occupied, being made protosymbulus, or chief councillor. Meantime the great controversy on image-worship broke out.* The Emperor Leo the Isaurian,* the “roaring lion,”* had issued his first edict against the practice (AD 726). At such a challenge the privy-councillor of Damascus could not remain silent. He girded up his loins to the contest with a zeal like that of Elias in the days of Ahab.* To animate the orthodox in the faith to resistance, he sent out circular letters, to be passed from hand to hand among the Christians. This roused the anger of the emperor.
Unable to crush his opponent by force, as being a subject of a hostile power, he has recourse to stratagem. Having succeeded in intercepting an autograph letter of John of Damascus,* he lays it before some of his scribes, that they may familiarise themselves both with the form of the characters and the turn of expression. He then bids them concoct a letter, in imitation of John’s writing, purporting to be addressed to himself, in which John is made to propose a treasonable surrender of Damascus, if the emperor would send a force thither.
* This was the court of Hisham ibn Abd al-Malik (r. 724-743), Caliph of Damascus in Syria. On the life of John Mansur, see St John Damascene.
* The Iconoclastic Controversy flared up in the 720s when leading churchmen and politicians in the Roman Empire began calling for religious art showing Christ and his saints to be removed from churches. Apparently they were afraid that the Roman Empire’s military defeats were a divine chastisement for the sin of idolatry, a theme to be found throughout the history of the Kings of Judah in the Old Testament. Government edicts and Church councils ordered all sacred art scrubbed clean, and punished those who refused to comply, but a council held in Nicaea in 787 reversed the policy in Church and State after proving that the ‘iconoclasts’ (image-smashers) had gravely misread the Bible. See The Restoration of the Icons.
* Leo III the Isaurian (675-741), Roman Emperor from 717 to his death in 741. Isauria was a region of what is now southwestern Turkey.
* Leo is Latin (and Greek, leon) for lion. The author of this English account of John Mansur and the icon controversy, schoolmaster Joseph Hirst Lupton (1836-1905), is paraphrasing the traditional life of St John Damascene as told by John, Patriarch of Jerusalem, presumably either John VI (838–842) or John VII (964–966). Patriarch John linked Leo to 1 Peter 5:8: “Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, walketh about, seeking whom he may devour: Whom resist stedfast in the faith”.
* Another Biblical allusion courtesy of Patriarch John, referring to Elijah the Tishbite (Elias), the prophet who contended against Ahab, King of Judah: see 1 Kings 17. John also likened John Mansur to their namesake John the Baptist, the prophet whose uncompromising message stirred the wrath of Herod Antipas.
* That is, John Mansur. He is commonly known as St John of Damascus though properly speaking his name is St John Damascene (in Greek Damaskinós), since he was not bishop of Damascus. Damaskinós (Damaskin in Russia) is sometimes taken as a name by Orthodox clergy, and in 1944 Archbishop Damaskinós of Athens (1891-1949) showed a defiance of authority that surely made his namesake proud: see ‘Please Respect our Traditions’.
Précis
In 726, Roman Emperor Leo III ordered a crackdown on religious art in his empire. John Mansur spoke out against the edict, relying on his exalted position in the court of the Caliph of Damascus to protect him. But high office was no protection after Leo’s forgers put a treasonous letter, apparently in John’s handwriting, into the astonished Caliph’s hands. (60 / 60 words)
In 726, Roman Emperor Leo III ordered a crackdown on religious art in his empire. John Mansur spoke out against the edict, relying on his exalted position in the court of the Caliph of Damascus to protect him. But high office was no protection after Leo’s forgers put a treasonous letter, apparently in John’s handwriting, into the astonished Caliph’s hands.
Variations: 1.increase the length of this precis to exactly 65 words. 2.reduce the length of this precis to exactly 55 words. 3.introduce one of the following words into the precis: about, because, just, ought, since, until, whereas, whether.
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