JOANNES DAMASCENUS, son of Sergius, a Christian who for many years was treasurer to the khalif Mansur. Sergius had a son, to whom he gave the best education, his chief tutor being Cosmos, an Italian monk who had been taken prisoner by the Saracens and sold as a slave at Baghdad. After the death of Sergius, his son succeeded as chief councillor (protosumbaulos) to the khalif Al Mansur. Such, however, had been the influence of the Italian monk on his pupil's mind, that ho suddenly resolved to retire from the world and to devote himself to study, meditation, and pious works. From the monastery of St. Saba, near Jerusalem, he sent forth the most learned works on theology, particularly his Exposition of the Orthodox Faith. He soon became the highest authority on matters of dogma in the Eastern Church, and he still holds his place among the saints both of the eastern and western churches. His name is Joannes Damascenus, or St. John of Damascus. His knowledge of Greek earned him in after life the title of Chrysorrhoas or gold flowing. He boldly opposed the iconoclastic policy of the emperor Leo. Among the works ascribed to him was that of Barlaam and Josaphat.
lie wrote a separate work discussing the merits of Christianity and Muhammadanism. In his Barlaam and Josaphat he introduced a number of eastern fables, and took his principal hero Josaphat from the Lalita-vistara, the life of the Buddha or enlightened, a portion of the sacred canon of Buddhists. The story of Barlaam is, in its most striking points, a mere repetition of the story of the Buddha, but Josaphat, the hero of the story, has been raised to the rank of a saint, both in the eastern and western churches. And thus, though under a differexit name, the sage of Kapela-vastu, the founder of a religion, which in the purity of its morals is nearer to Christianity than any other religion, and counts even now, after an existence of 2400 years, 455,000,000 of believers, has received the highest honours which the Christian church can bestow. If Buddha lived the life which is there described, few saints in the Greek or Roinan churches are the equals of St. Josaphat, the prince, the hermit, and the Proc. Roy. Inst. Gr. Brit., June 1870. See Jataka ; Josaphat.