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

"
JOHN MANSOUR. 25
And as the father of John Baptist had been a faithful
servant of God, so the father l of this second John
was not unworthy of such a son. He was a man in
high station, being appointed to administer the public
affairs through the whole country. He had in con
sequence great wealth. But all his riches he devoted,
not to rioting and drunkenness, but to the good work
of ransoming Christian captives, and enabling them
to find subsistence in the land to which they had
been brought as slaves.
When a son had been born to him, and baptised
at the risk of incurring the displeasure of the ruling
powers, his education was cared for as beseemed his
birth. As John grew up he was taught, not to hunt,
or shoot with the bow, or ride, or throw the spear, but
accomplishments more fitted for his future calling.
To this end there was nothing so much longed for
by his father as a good tutor. And Providence in
due time brought him what he desired. Among the
1
It will be observed that the writer does not give his name.
Assemanus says that John s father was named Mansur, and
Eastern
finds fault with Pagi for making Mansur the grandfather
Biblioth.
(" Orient.," it., p. 97). This opinion is followed by
Dr. Littledale, in a note to the Hymns of the
Church." Assemanus even thinks it was this Mansur who
helped to betray Damascus to the Saracens in 634. But the
dates make this improbable, as the birth of John of Damascus
was later.
is
commonly fixed at 676, and in all probability
Theophanes ("Chronographia," 1863, p. 841) seems to imply
that Mansur was his grandfather s name ;
and Lequien con
cludes in favour of Sergius being his father, who is
spoken of by
Theophanes, under A.D. 691, as being a good Christian, and
logothete to the Caliph Abd al Malek, by whom he was highly
esteemed.