634 FOURTH PEKIOD. A. D. 590-1049.
immutable, passionless, spiritual, not held in by material limita tion, nor dependent upon food. Otherwise it is the same as the former. The fire of hell is not material, but in what it consists God alone knows.
His remaining works are minor theological treatises, including a brief catechism on the Holy Trinity; controversial writings against Mohammedanism (particularly interesting because of the nearness of their author to the beginnings of that religion), and against Jacobites, Manichseans, Nestorians and Iconoclasts; homilies,1 among them an eulogy upon Ghrysostom; a comment ary on Paul's Epistles, taken almost entirely from Chrysostom's homilies ; the sacred Parallels, Bible sentences with patristic illustrations on doctrinal and moral subjects, arranged in alphabetical order, for which a leading word in the sentence serves as guide. He also wrote a number of hymns which have been noticed in a previous section.2
Besides these, there is a writing attributed to him, TJie Life of B aria am and Joasaph,3 the story of the conversion of the only son of an Indian King by a monk (Barlaam). It is a monastic romance of much interest and not a little beauty. It has been translated into many languages, frequently reprinted, and widely circulated.4 Whether John of Damascus wrote it is a question. Many things about it seem to demand an affirm ative answer.5 His materials were very old, indeed pre-Chris tian, for the story is really a repetition of the Lalita Vistara^ the legendary life of Buddha.6
Another writing of dubious authorship is the Panegyric on
1 Lequien gives thirteen and the fragment of a fourteenth ; but some, if not many, of them are not genuine.
2 See p. 405.
3 Migne, vol. XCVL, col. 860-1240.
* Brunet gives the titles of Latin, French, Italian, Spanish, German, Danish, Norwegian and Bohemian translations. It was abridged in English under the title Saint Josaphat. Lond., 1711. It appears in the Golden Legend. The Greek text was first printed in 1832.
5 So Langen, pp. 251-254. 6 Lupton, p. 217.
$ 144. JOHN OF DAMASCUS. 635
St. Barbara,1 a marvellous tale of a suffering saint. Compe tent judges assign it to him.2 These two are characteristic specimens of monastic legends in which so much pious super stition was handed down from generation to generation.
III. POSITION. John of Damascus considered either as a Christian office-holder under a Mohammedan Saracenic Caliph, as the great defender of image- worship, as a learned though credulous monk, or as a sweet and holy poet, is in every way an interesting and important character. But it is as the summarizer of the theology of the Greek fathers that he is most worthy of attentive study ; for although he seldom ventures upon an ori ginal remark, he is no blind, servile copyist. His great work, the " Fount of Knowledge," was not only the summary of the theological discussions of the ancient Eastern Church, which was then and is to-day accepted as authoritative in that commu nion, but by means of the Latin translation a powerful stimulus to theological study in the West. Peter Lombard, Thomas Aquinas and other schoolmen are greatly indebted to it. The epithets, "Father of Scholasticism" and "Lombard of the Greeks,", have been given to its author. He was not a scho lastic in the proper meaning of that term, but merely applied Aristotelian dialects to the treatment of traditional theology. Yet by so doing he became in truth the forerunner of scholasti cism.
An important but incidental service rendered by this great Father was as conserver of Greek learning. " The numerous quotations, not only from Gregory Nazianzen, but from a multi tude of Greek authors besides would provide a field of Hellenic literature sufficient for the wants of that generation. In having so provided it, and having thus become the initiator of a warlike but ill-taught race into the mysteries of an earlier civilization, Damascenus is entitled to the praise that the elder Lenormant
1 /. c. col. 781-813. s Langen, p. 238.