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

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DOUBTFUL WRITINGS.
2OI
miraculous preservation through them, is not necessary.
Suffice it to say that, at last, when her con
stancy had been fully proved, and the time of her
deliverance was come, her father s sword was per
mitted to drink her life-blood, and she fell
upon the
mountains in the same spot as St. Juliana. Dioscorus,
as he descended, was struck by lightning, and
consumed so utterly by the fire of divine vengeance,
that not so much as a trace of his ashes was to be
found. One account adds that the scene of the
martyrdom was Euchaitee, in Paphlagonia. Accord
ing to the Latin version found in some editions of
the Golden Legend," it was Nicomedia. l
As the object in
setting before the reader an
epitome of the two stories of Barlaam and
"
Joasaph and St.
Barbara," has chiefly been, that
no material portion of the writings ascribed to John
of Damascus might be left unnoticed, it is not re
quisite to add much more in the way of comments
upon them. However gratified some might be to
find convincing evidence that a narrative so por
tentous, in certain respects, as the latter of the two,
was not justly assigned to Damascenus, such a desire
must not be allowed to warp the judgment. The
style
is not unlike that of some of the homilies ad-
1
"Legenda Aurea" (ed. Dr. Th. Graesse), 1846, p. 898.
Later additions are there subjoined, illustrating the office of St.
Barbara as a deliverer of captives. As Bithynia (in which pro
vince Nicomedia was situated), and Paphlagonia were adjacent
countries, there is no material discrepancy in the localities
assigned.