repudiates both Nestorianism and Monophysitism, and teaches that each nature in Christ possessed its peculiar attributes and was not mixed with the other. But the divine in Christ strongly predominated over the human. The Logos was bound to the flesh through the Spirit, which stands between the purely divine and the materiality of the flesh. The human nature of Jesus was incorporated in the one divine personality of the Logos (Enhypostasia). John recognizes only two sacraments, properly so called, i. e. mysteries instituted by Christ-Baptism and the Lord's Supper. In the latter the elements are at the moment when the Holy Ghost is called upon, changed into the Body and Blood of Christ, but how is not known. He does not therefore teach transubstantiation exactly, yet his doctrine is very near to it. About the remaining five so-called sacraments he is either silent or vague. He holds to the perpetual virginity of Mary, the Mother of our Lord, and that her conception of Christ took place through the ear. He recognizes the Hebrew canon of twenty-two books, corresponding to the twenty-two Hebrew letters, or rather twenty-seven, since five of these letters have double forms Of the Apocrypha he mentions only Ecclesiasticus and Wisdom, and these as uncanonical. To the New Testament canon he adds the Apostolical Canons of Clement. The Sabbath was made for the fleshly Jews— Christians dedicate their whole time to God. The true Sabbath is the rest from sin. He extols virginity, for as high as angels are above men so high is virginity above marriage. Yet marriage is a good as preventive of unchastity and for the sake of propagation. At the end of the world comes Antichrist, who is a man in whom the devil lives. He persecutes the Church, kills Enoch and Elijah, who are supposed to appear again upon the earth, but is destroyed by Christ at his second coming. The resurrection body is like Christ's, in that it is

1 Migne, l. c. col. 1217.

immutable, passionless, spiritual, not held in by material limitation, 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, Manichæans, Nestorians and Iconoclasts; homilies,' among them an eulogy upon Chrysostom; a commentary 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, The Life of Barlaam and Joasaph, 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. Whether John of Damascus wrote it is a question. Many things about it seem to demand an affirmative answer. His materials were very old, indeed pre-Christian, for the story is really a repetition of the Lalita Vistara, the legendary life of Buddha.

Another writing of dubious authorship is the Panegyric on

'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. XCVI., 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.

So Langen, pp. 251-254.

6

* Lupton, p. 217.

St. Barbara, a marvellous tale of a suffering saint. Competent judges assign it to him. These two are characteristic specimens of monastic legends in which so much pious superstition 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 original 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 communion, 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 scholastic 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 scholasticism.

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 multitude 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 l. c. col. 781-813.

8 Langen, p. 238.

awarded him of being in the front rank of the master spirits from whom the genius of the Arabs drew its inspiration."

One other interesting fact deserves mention. It was to John of Damascus that the Old Catholics and Oriental and AngloCatholics turned for a definition of the relation of the Holy Spirit to the Father and Son which should afford a solid basis of union." He restored unity to the Triad, by following the ancient theory of the Greek church, representing God the Father as the dp, and in this view, the being of the Holy Spirit no less than the being of the Son, as grounded in and derived from the Father. The Holy Spirit is from the Father, and the Spirit of the Father; not from the Son, but still the Spirit of the Son. He proceeds from the Father, the one dozy of all being, and he is communicated through the Son; through the Son the whole creation shares in the Spirit's work; by himself he creates, moulds, sanctifies all and binds all together."3

§ 145. Photius, Patriarch of Constantinople.

I. PHOTIUS: Opera omnia, in Migne, "Patrol. Gr." Tom. CI.-CIV. (1860). Also Monumenta Græca ad Photium ejusque historiam pertinentia, ed. Hergenröther. Regensburg, 1869.

II. DAVID NICETAS: Vita Ignatii, in Migne, CV., 488-573. The part which relates to Photius begins with col. 509; partly quoted in CI. iii. P. DE H. E. (anonymous): Histoire de Photius. Paris, 1772. JAGER: Histoire de Photius. Paris, 1845, 2d ed., 1854. L. TOSTI: Storia dell' origine dello scisma greco. Florence, 1856, 2 vols. A. PICHLER: Geschichte der kirchlichen Trennung zwischen Orient und Occident. Munich, 1864-65, 2 vols. J. HERGENRÖTHER: Photius, Patriarch von Constantinopel. Sein Leben, seine Schriften und das griechische Schisma. Regensburg, 1867-69, 3 vols. (The Monumenta mentioned above forms part of the third vol.) Cf. DU PIN, VII., 105-110; CEILLIER, XII., 719–734.

PHOTIUS was born in Constantinople in the first decade of the ninth century. He belonged to a rich and distinguished family. He had an insatiable thirst for learning, and included theology

Lupton, p. 212.

2 Schaff, Creeds, vol. ii., pp. 552-54. * Neander, vol. iii., p. 554. Comp. above, p. 307 sqq.

among his studies, but he was not originally a theologian. Rather he was a courtier and a diplomate. When Bardas chose him to succeed Ignatius as Patriarch of Constantinople he was captain of the Emperor's body-guard. Gregory of Syracuse, a bitter enemy of Ignatius, in five days hurried him through the five orders of monk, lector, sub-deacon, deacon, and presbyter, and on the sixth consecrated him patriarch. He died an exile in an Armenian monastery, 891.

As the history of Photius after his elevation to the patriarchate has been already treated,' this section will be confined to a brief recital of his services to literature, sacred and secular.2

The greatest of these was his so-called Library,3 which is a unique work, being nothing less than notices, critiques and extracts of two hundred and eighty works of the most diverse kinds, which he had read. Of the authors quoted about eighty are known to us only through this work. The Library was the response to the wish of his brother Tarasius, and was composed while Photius was a layman. The majority of the works mentioned are theological, the rest are grammatical, lexical, rhetorical, imaginative, historical, philosophical, scientific and medical. No poets are mentioned or quoted, except the authors of three or four metrical paraphrases of portions of Scripture. The works are all in Greek, either as originals or, as in the case of a few, Latin translations. Gregory the Great and Cassian are the only Latin ecclesiastical writers with whom Photius betrays any intimate acquaintance. As far as profane literature is concerned, the Library makes the best exhibit in history, and the poorest in grammar. Romances are mentioned, also miscellanies. In the religious part of his work Chrysostom and Athanasius are most prominent. Of the now lost works mentioned by Photius the 1 Cf. chapter V. pp. 312–317.

in

2 Cf. the exhaustive analysis of his works by Hergenröther (vol. iii. pp. 3260.

3 Bibliotheca or Mupioßißhov, Migne, CIII., CIV. col. 9-356; Hergenrother, III. pp. 13–31.