St John Of Damascus

In AD 726, the Byzantine emperor ordered the destruction of all icons, or religious images, throughout the empire, and icons were subject to an imperial ban that was to last, with a brief remission, until AD 843. A defender of icons, St John of Damascus wrote three treatises against "those who attack the holy images." He differentiates between the veneration of icons, which is a matter of expressing honor, and idolatry, which is offering worship to something other than God.

St. John of Damascus (John Damascene) is the author of the "Exact Exposition of the Orthodox Faith" ("On the Orthodox Faith"), included in this volume. Standing among the greatest of the early Church fathers of the East during the patristic age, he produced his work The Fount of Knowledge as a summary of Christian philosophy and theology. Encompassing "The Philosophical Chapters," "On Heresies," and the justly-famous "Exact Exposition of the Orthodox Faith," it is one of the most important works of the Greek patristic age-a veritable Summa of the doctrine of the Eastern fathers. This Ex Fontibus edition reprints the excellent twentieth-century translation by patristics scholars who contributed to a series published by Catholic University of America press. Published by Ex Fontibus Company.

For more than five hundred years the life and work of John of Damascus (c. 655-c.745) have been the subject of a very extensive literature, scholarly and popular, in which it is often difficult to get one's bearings. Through the studies included here (of which 6 appear in a translation into English made specially for this volume), Vassa Kontouma provides a critical review of this literature and attempts to answer several open questions: the author and date of composition of the official Life of John, the philosophical significance of the Dialectica (a study which has its first publication here), the original structure of the Exposition of the Orthodox faith, the identity of ps.-Cyril, the authenticity of the Letter on Great Lent, and questions of Mariology. She also opens new vistas for research along four main lines: the life of John of Damascus and its sources, Neochalcedonian philosophy, systematic theology in Byzantium, and Christian practices under the Umayyads.

In John of Damascus and Islam, Schadler offers a reassessment of the Christian application of the term heresy to Islam, and the description of the new religion made by John of Damascus in the eighth century C.E.

This text presents an overall account of the life and work of St John Damascene, a one-time senior civil servant in the Umayyad Arab Empire who became a monk near Jerusalem in the early years of the eighth century.

Much of the world today is convulsed in an epic struggle between the Christian West and Islam. Scholars seeking to understand the issues look back in history to unearth the roots of this conflict. Of great value in this effort are the writings of an eyewitness, a devoted Christian who served as chief financial officer of the Umayyad Empire and wrote at the time Islam was developing. John of Damascus (675-750) authored two major works, the Heresy of the Ishmaelites and the Disputation between a Christian and a Saracen, to provide an apologetic response to Islam from a Christian perspective. His writings shed light on many questions that are pertinent today: When was the Qur'an actually written? What was the role of the powerful caliph Abd al-Malik in the making of Muhammad? How did the theological issues related to the deity of Christ and the Trinity develop in the early days of Islam? This book delves into the life of John and studies his apologetic writings in detail, utilizing the first English translation from the critical text. It seeks to address these questions thoughtfully, provide valuable insights from the past, and then equip today's church as it engages with Islam.