st. john of damascus (676-749 - Cristo Raul

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T24 ST. JOHN OF DAMASCUS.
have had its name, either because it was meant to
test man s
obedience, and would thus make his good
or evil bias known ;
or because its fruit would impart
to those who partook of it a knowledge of their own
true nature.
The subject of God s
plan for man s redemption,
which is
next discussed, leads to a digression on the
twofold nature and will of Christ, in terms very
similar to those employed in the Fide/ By
c. xix. Damascene comes back more directly to his
subject.
since through man came death, it was
right also that through man should be given the
resurrection from the dead. Seeing that a rational
soul of its own free will wrought the transgression, it
was right that a rational soul, of its natural and own
free will, should work obedience to the Creator ;
and
that Salvation should return through the same
channels whereby Death had banished life, that
Death might not deem himself a despot
over man."
This is followed by a singularly forced :
metaphor
what was the issue of this ? Death, after
baiting for man with the hope of his becoming as
God, was himself caught by the bait of proffered
flesh ;
and after tasting a sinless body, became sick,
and vomited forth, poor wretch, all the food that he
had in his inside (c. xx.).
It is fair to say that such
strained metaphors as this are not often found in our
author, though he often errs in that direction. The
passage which immediately follows, on the Cruci
fixion, is not a bad example of the forced antithesis,
and striving after effect, which marks the decadence
of a literature. who had fashioned man with