JOHN OF DAMASCUS, Saint; also known as JOHN DAMASCENE and JOHN CHRY SORRHOAS — eloquent), the last of the Greek fathers: b. Damascus toward the end of the 7th century; d. about 753. The son of a Syrian Christian bearing the Arabic name of Mansur, who held a government office in Damascus under the Saracen Caliph Abdul Malek, John received an excellent education in theology and philosophy from an Italian monk named Cosmas, a prisoner of war in Saracen hands. All that is known of the life of John is derived from a scanty biography written in the 10th century by the patriarch John IV of Jerusalem, who culled his material from an earlier Arabic biography. The "life" is embroidered with some fabulous details, in cluding the famous legend of his right hand being cut off by order of the' Greek emperor, and afterward miraculously restored. About 730 A.D. John sold his property, gave the pro ceeds to the poor and buried himself in the monastery of Mar Saba (Saint Sabas), be tween Jerusalem and the Dead Sea. His great est theological work is the (Fountain of Knowledge,) a systematical theology founded on Aristotelian metaphysics and the writings of Leontius of Byzantium. For a short time he
officiated as priest in the church at Jerusalem, but returned to the monastery to devote him self to writing. His zeal for image-worship brought him into conflict with the iconoclasts, against whom he indited three essays or dia tribes, between 726 and 736. These excited much discussion and criticism. Included in his works is an essay in defense of image-worship, addressed all Christians and to the Em peror Constantine Caballinos and to all Here which is not regarded as genuine. He died in the monastery and was buried there; the body is said to have been removed to Con stantinople in the 14th century. The most au thoritative theologian of the Eastern Church, he is honored as a saint in both the Greek and Latin churches. The biography referred to above was published in Rome 1553, and an edi tion of his works — in Greek and Latin — by Father Lequin, appeared in Paris in 1712 and was reprinted in Verona in 1748.