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

178 ST. JOHN OF DAMASCUS.
1
Greek numerical letters; for, taking the usual
measurement of 202 yards for a stade, we should
thus arrive at the prodigious result of nearly 70,000
miles, as the length of the southern coast-line of
Europe. It will be observed that the shores of the
Mediterranean, and of the land-locked seas connected
with it,
are alone comprised in this survey.
In what follows, on earth, paradise, and the tree of
knowledge, to the twelfth chapter, which treats of
man, there is little but inferences or reflections from
Scripture ;
and hence nothing further need be said
on these subjects here.
Besides the above, there are extant a few short frag
ments in which Damascenus treats of matters more or
less connected with natural history ; though his mode
of treatment will hardly be thought scientific. The
2
first two of these are on dragons and ghouls. In
these he appears as the opponent of popular super
stitions.
Dragons, he tells us, were vulgarly supposed
to be huge snakes capable of assuming human form,
of entering houses under that disguise, and doing
harm of various kinds to the inmates. Moreover,
they were especially a mark for thunderbolts, being
1
I do not understand the principle on which the first of these
letters (stait, or the digamma) is made by the Latin translator to
stand for 600,000. According to Herodianus, De Numeris y
a
different symbol would be used. Neither do the three amounts
above given make up the total which follows of 1,309,072 stades
for all the coast line round the Mediterranean and up to the
Sea of Azov. If we read 69,709, 29,252, and 4,111 stades
respectively, we should be nearer the mark ; though these would
not give the total, reduced on the same principle, of 139,072.
2
Migne s ed., vol. i., p. 1599.