John of Damascus

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John of Damascus, Greek icon

John of Damascus (around 650 in Damascus - 4th December before 754 in Mar Saba ) with the surname Chrysorrhoas (Χρυσορρόας "the gold pouring out"), Greek Ἰωάννης ὁ Δαμασκηνός , Syrian ܝܘܚܢܢ ܕܪܡܣܘܩܝܐ, Arabic يوحنا الدمشقي, DMG Yūḥanā ad-Dimašqī orيحيى بن سرجون بن منصور Yaḥyā ibn Sarjun ibn Manṣūr , Latin Ioannes Damascenus or Johannes Damascenus ( John the Damascus ), was a famous theologian and church father . In the Roman Catholic Church, he is the last of the Church Fathers and is also called since 1890 Doctor of the Church worshiped. He is said to have grown up in a distinguished Christian family in Damascus. He spent the second half of his life as a monk in the Mar Saba monastery southeast of Jerusalem .

Life

John of Damascus, Arabic icon from Damascus, 19th century

The most important source for his life is a biography that the Patriarch John VII of Jerusalem wrote in the 10th century on the basis of an Arabic biography. It already shows strong legendary traits. Little can be learned about his person from Johannes' own writings.

At the time of Johannes' birth, his hometown was already part of the Islamic empire ; under Caliph Muawiya I (661–680) Damascus became the capital. John's father Sarjun ibn Mansur held a high hereditary position as treasurer of Muawiyas, and Johannes was a playmate of the son of the caliph, the later caliph Yazid I. Yazid was born between 642 and 647, Johannes was probably not much younger. This corresponds to the tradition that he died at the age of 104. When John was twenty-three years old, his father looked for a scholar who could provide his son's further education. According to tradition, Sargun met a learned Italian-Greek prisoner of war, a monk named Kosmas. He bought him free and made him his son's teacher. Under the guidance of Kosmas, John made great strides in the fields of music, astronomy, theology and also studied the metaphysics and logic of Aristotle . He is said to have studied and understood such greats as Diophantine of Alexandria in algebra and Euclid in geometry .

After the death of his father, John took over the office of Protosymboulos (main council) of Damascus . An anti-Christian tendency at court that began under Caliph Abd al-Malik (685–705) led to John leaving the civil service. Together with his adoptive brother Kosmas, he entered the Mar Saba monastery near Jerusalem before 700. The monks there, however, were very little interested in education; various legends tell that John, who was a well-known scholar when he entered the monastery, was initially prevented from writing. Later, however, numerous works were created, in particular hymns, prayers and other liturgical texts that are still in use today in the Orthodox Church. The Patriarch John V of Jerusalem ordained him a priest.

In 726 the so-called iconoclasm began in the Byzantine Empire . The anti- iconic policy of the iconoclastic Emperor Leo III. (717–741) and Constantine V (741–775), at least according to the (image-friendly) sources that have been preserved, subjected the imperial church to an acid test. In modern research, however, many older assumptions have been revised. The sources received report only from the perspective of the victorious, image-friendly side and apparently distort the perspective. According to recent research, the first phase of the picture dispute was not conducted with the harshness that the picture-friendly side suggests. Accordingly, there was no downright ban on images under Leo and Konstantin was not a merciless iconoclast either. The opposition, which was friendly to images, was mainly supported by monks, especially those who, like John, lived outside the Byzantine sphere of influence in Islamic territory. John became one of the most prominent advocates of image worship .

Works

John of Damascus wrote a number of theological works. His writings deal primarily with dogmatics and apologetics ; Sermons, hagiographic and spiritual poetry have also come down to us . A number of works ascribed to him are doubtful or inauthentic. His most famous works include:

  • Source of knowledge ( Greek pege gnoseos ), a three-part work that comprehensively presents the ecclesiastical dogmatics of the time. The first part ( dialectic ) deals with the non-Christian ancient philosophy; the second ( De Haeresibus [ On Heresies ]) describes 100 heresies . In the last place, "the Ishmaelite belief that has ruled until now [...] as the forerunner of the Antichrist " is presented without naming Islam . It also says there that the Ishmaelites were idolaters until the time of Emperor Herakleios and were then misled by a false prophet " Mamed ", who in turn was influenced by a heretical monk. This monk is Bahira , adorned with legends , who is portrayed partly as a Nestorian and partly as an Arian . The third part, the Ekdosis ( Exact Explanation of the Right Faith ), explains the church doctrine in detail, with John arranging the contents of faith in the order of the creed .
  • Three speeches against the calumniators of sacred images , the most important work in defense of the worship of images
  • Special writings against individual heresies ( Nestorians , Jacobites , Manicheans )
  • Oktoechos (church service book of eight notes ); John's part is not clear; only part of the canons of the Liturgy of the Hours contained thereincan be assigned with certainty.
  • The story of Barlaam and Josaphat , d. H. the Greek version of this famous legend of Indian origin, traditionally attributed to John; the authorship is controversial.

theology

Johannes was mainly a compiler . Following a way of thinking that was very widespread at the time, he attached great importance to presenting nothing of his own, nothing original, but only systematically presenting the traditional church dogmatics, in particular the teachings of the Council of Chalcedon , and defending them against heresies . He orientated himself strongly to the views of the church fathers and took over a lot - also literally - from foreign works. Wherever he was confronted with questions that had not been clarified in patristic literature , such as in the iconoclasm, he also developed independent thoughts. He describes his work in the source of knowledge as follows: “Like a bee I will collect everything that is in accordance with the truth, and even receive help from the writings of our opponents. ... I am not offering you my own conclusions, but those that have been worked out by the most eminent theologians, while I have only collected them and summarized them as much as possible in a treatise. "

In the controversy on images, John argued that the Old Testament's ban on images was only enacted to prevent idolatry, to which some Jews tended at the time; it lost its validity with the appearance of Christ. Much in the Old Testament is figurative, and the sense of images is to point to the archetypes. God is invisible, but he made a visible image of himself through the incarnation of his son. This should therefore also be painted. The images of saints are also legitimate; It is true that adoring veneration is due only to God, but simple veneration should also be shown to one's servants. The reverence shown in front of the images of saints does not apply to the depicted object, but always to the person depicted.

reception

Because of his stance in the iconoclasm, Johannes was excommunicated soon after his death at the iconoclastic council of Hiereia (754). The anger of Emperor Constantine V was expressed in the fact that he insulted Johannes as Mánzeros ( bastard , from the Hebrew Mamser ) (an allusion to the name of Johannes' grandfather Mansur). After the victory of the admirers of images, John was rehabilitated in 787 at the Second Council of Nicaea , the decisions of Hiereia were annulled. The Second Council of Nicaea is recognized in both East and West as the Seventh Ecumenical Council .

The handwritten tradition of the works is very rich. Above all, the Ekdosis , of which 237 complete manuscripts and hundreds of manuscripts with excerpts and fragments have been preserved, and the Dialectic (218 manuscripts) have been copied. St. John's sermons to Mary and the Barlaam and Josaphat ascribed to him were also widespread. The source of knowledge has been translated into several languages ​​( Georgian , Armenian , Church Slavonic , Arabic ). The Ekdosis was in the Eastern churches, especially in the Russian, at the material representation of dogma.

The Ekdosis was partially translated into Latin by the Hungarian monk Cerbanus before 1145; Burgundio of Pisa made the first complete translation around 1153/1154 (Latin De fide orthodoxa ; however, this term is now out of date, in more recent scientific works the Latin name is now Expositio fidei ). Petrus Lombardus knew the translation of Burgundy and used it when writing his set of sentences . Around 1235/1240 Robert Grosseteste revised Burgundio's text and also translated the dialectic . The dialectic and the Ekdosis were among the few medieval Greek works that were available in the Middle Ages in Latin translation and the thinking of the scholastics influenced; with Thomas Aquinas in the “ Summa Theologica ” he is the most cited church father . In the late Middle Ages, ecdosis was divided into four books, following the example of the sentences of Petrus Lombardus, and referred to as Sententiae Damasceni (Sentences of the Damascus).

John of Damascus is venerated as a saint both in the Roman Catholic Church and in the churches united with it, as well as in the churches of Orthodoxy. He was in 1890 by Pope Leo XIII. appointed Doctor of the Church and Patron of theology students in the East.

The Church of St. John of Damascus , built in Damascus in 1850, is dedicated to him. The street on which this church stands also bears his name (شارع يوحنا الدمشقي, DMG Šāriʿ Yūḥanā ad-Dimašqī ).

Remembrance day

In the old Roman Catholic liturgical calendar (until 1969) it was celebrated on March 27th; today it is December 4th in both the Roman Catholic and Orthodox churches . This memorial day also applies to the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America , the Lutheran Church - Missouri Synod , the Anglican and Armenian Churches.

Fonts

Ioannis Damasceni Opera, 1603
  • Bonifatius Kotter / Robert Volk (ed.): The writings of John of Damascus. 7 volumes. Berlin 1969–2013. (Relevant critical complete edition)
  • Frederic H. Chase Jr. (Ed.): Saint John of Damascus: Writings. (Fathers of the Church. Volume 37.) Washington, DC 1958. (English translation of the source of knowledge. )
  • Raymond LeCoz (Ed.): Écrits sur l'Islam. With commentary ( Sources chrétiennes 383), Éd. du Cerf, Paris 1992, ISBN 2-204-04676-0 .
German translations
  • Gerhard Richter (Ed.): Philosophical Chapter. Hiersemann, Stuttgart 1982, ISBN 3-7772-8203-0 . (Translation of the dialectic. )
  • Reinhold Glei and Adel Theodor Khoury (eds.): Writings on Islam. by Johannes Damaskenos and Theodor Abu Qurra. Annotated Greek-German Text edition ( Corpus Islamo-Christianum , Series Graeca 3). Echter, Würzburg; Oros, Altenberge 1995, ISBN 3-429-01511-1 .
Medieval Latin translations
  • Saint John Damascene: De fide orthodoxa. Versions of Burgundio and Cerbanus. Ed. Eligius M. Buytaert. Paderborn 1955.
  • Saint John Damascene: Dialectica. Version of Robert Grosseteste. Ed. Owen A. Colligan. Paderborn 1953.

literature

Web links

Commons : John of Damascus  - Collection of images, videos and audio files
Works

Remarks

  1. ^ Leslie Brubaker: Inventing Byzantine Iconoclasm . London 2012. p. 22ff.
  2. ↑ Critique of Islam by St. John of Damascus
  3. ↑ De Haresibus , cap. 100
  4. ↑ Not applicable in the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Cologne in favor of Adolph Kolping .
personal data
SURNAME John of Damascus
BRIEF DESCRIPTION orthodox christian church father
DATE OF BIRTH around 650
PLACE OF BIRTH Damascus
DATE OF DEATH 4th December 749
Place of death Mar Saba