630 FOUKTH PEEIOD. A.D. 590-1049.
term was meant not sculptures, but in the Greek Church pic tures exclusively ; the second 1 after Leo's edict of 730 ordering the destruction of the images; and the third2 at some later time. In the first of these three letters John advanced these argu ments : the Mosaic prohibitions of idolatry were directed against representations of God, not of men, and against the service of images, not their honor. Cherubim made by human hands were above the mercy-seat. Since the Incarnation it is allowable to represent God himself. The picture is to the ignorant what the book is to the learned. In the Old Testament there are signs to quicken the memory and promote devotion (the ark, the rod of Aaron, the brazen serpent). Why should the suffer ings and miracles of Christ not be portrayed for the same pur poses ? And if Christ and the Virgin have their images, why should not the saints have theirs ? Since the Old Testament Temple contained cherubim and other images, churches may be adorned with images of the saints. If one must not worship an image, then one must not worship Christ, for he is the image of the Father. If the shadows a,nd handkerchiefs of apostles had healing properties, why c#n one not honor the representations of the saints ? It is true there is nothing about such worship in the Holy Scriptures, but Church ordinances depend for authority on tradition no less than on Scripture. The passages against images refer to idols. "The heathens dedicate their images to demons, whom they call gods ; we dedicate ours to the incarnate God and his friends, through whom we exorcise demons." He ends his letter with a num ber of patristic quotations of greater or less relevancy, to each of which he appends a comment. The second letter, which is substantially a repetition of the first, is characterized by a violent attack upon the Emperor, because of his deposition and banishment of Germanus, the patriarch of Constantinople. It
1 L c. col. 1284-1317. « I. c. col. 1317-1420.
2 144. JOHN OF DAMASCUS. 631
closes with the same patristic quotations, and a few new ones. The third letter is almost necessarily a repetition of the prece ding, since it goes over the same ground. It likewise looks upon the iconoclasts as the servants of the devil. But it bears marks of more care in preparation, and its proofs are more sys tematically arranged and its quotations more numerous.1
For his writings in favor of images he was enthusiastically lauded by the second Nicene Council (787).2
But the fame of John of Damascus as one of the greatest the ologians of history rests chiefly on his work entitled the Fount of Knowledge:1 It is made up of three separate and complete books, which yet were designed to go together and constitute in outline a cyclopaedia of Christian theology and of all other kinds of knowledge.4 It is dedicated to Cosmas, bishop of Maiuma, his foster-brother and fellow-student under the old monk. Its date is after 743, the year of Cosmas's consecration. In it the author avows that he has introduced nothing which had not been previously said, and herein is its value : it epito mizes Greek theology.
The first part of the trilogy, "Heads of Philosophy,"5 com monly called, by the Latin title, Dialectica, is a series of short chapters upon the Categories of Aristotle and the Universals of Porphyry, applied to Christian doctrines. The Dialectica is found in two forms, one with sixty-eight, and the other with only fifteen chapters. The explanation is probably the wellknown fact that the author carefully revised his works before his death.6 The longer form is therefore probably the later. Its principal value is the light it throws upon the Church ter-
1 Langen, p. 141. 'Page 461.
3 \lriyfi yvuaeue, in Migne, I. c. col. 521-1228.
4 This is his own statement, /. c. col. 533.
5 Kf^dAam (t>iloaodiKd, I. c. col. 521-676. Lupton, pp. 67, 68 ; Langen, pp. 46-52. There is a special essay by Kenoux, entitled, De Dialectica Sancti Joannis Damasceni (1863).
' Langen, p. 46.