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

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12 ST. JOHN OF DAMASCUS.
recent times expressed it,
"the
image of our life." It
was here that St. Sabas, nearly two centuries before,
had fixed his dwelling a famous anchorite of ;
Cappadocian
origin, whose character for sanctity stood so
high, that when, about the year 483, he made a
journey to Constantinople to intercede with the
Emperor for the anchorites of Jerusalem, Justinian
went outside the city to meet him, and fell on his
knees before him. Round the cave chosen by Sabas
for his cell in this lonely wilderness, a cave from which
tradition says that he had first to eject the previous oc
cupant, a lion, other hermits quickly settled, and thus
was formed the Laura l of St. Sabas. The founder is
said to have survived to the age of 94 years, dying in
532 and his
; tomb, gilded and adorned in the usual
tawdry manner of the Greeks," is still shown under a
dome, in the middle of a small paved court in the
monastery. 2 Here lived those three hermits of the
sixth century, Xenophon, and his sons Arcadius and
who
"
John, every day saluted each other from the
threshold of their caves, not being able to speak
because of the distance." 3 And here, in due time,
came John Damascene and his foster-brother Cosmas.
But before we speak of the events which led him to
take this step, and to exchange Damascus with its
1
"The societies of the Anachorets, who lived in a certain
union with each other in single cells, were called /aura; a
term which, derived from the ancient Greek adjective lauros,
denoted properly a large open place, a street." Neander s
Church History,"
Bohn s edn., iv., p. 334.
2 Carne, ubi. sup., p. 87.
3 "
Voices from the East," p. 156.