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

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202 ST. JOHN OF DAMASCUS.
mitted to be his 1 ; and, as has been remarked, his
frequent insertion of tis said,"
or so runs the
story," while it does not relieve him from the respon
sibility of adopting the account given, frees him, at
any rate, from the charge of originating
it. And to
one living, as he did, in an age of desolating wars,
when the sword of Mahomet s successors seemed to
promise the extirpation of Christianity from the earth,
the mind of a monk at St. Saba s convent must have
been ready to receive such stories of constancy under
persecution, and less critical than we can now afford
to be in discriminating the true from the false.
1
The fondness, before noticed, for Homeric or poetical forms
is equally marked. Some of the terms used are striking and
effective in their metaphorical application. Such are ytwpyav
for "cultivating" thoughts,
for
wypa<f>uv
"depicting"
to the
imagination, and the like.