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

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JOHN MANSOUR. 33
a poet and composer of hymns, till his promotion to
the see of Maiuma, near Gaza, in Palestine, removed
him from the convent. Some years before, if the
chronology can be reconciled, 1 the same Patriarch of
Jerusalem who had raised Cosmas to the bishopric,
had ordained John to the priesthood. But while
thus enabled to "praise God in the seat of the
presbyters" (Ps. cvii. 32), he did not forsake the
monastery of St. Sabas. And considering the "double
of the Eastern Church," third ed., p. 63, Cosmas "is the
most learned of the Greek Church poets ;
and his fondness for
types, boldness in their application, and love of aggregating
them, make him the oriental Adam of S. Victor." Several of
his compositions have been translated by Dr. Neale, of which
the following may serve as a specimen :
Rod of the Root of Jesse,
Thou, Flower of Mary born,
From that thick shady mountain
Cam st glorious forth this morn ;
Of her, the Ever Virgin,
Incarnate wast Thou made,
The immaterial Essence,
The God by all obeyed !
Glory, Lord, Thy servants pay
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To Thy wondrous might to-day
!
The reference in the third line is to Habakkuk ii., 3.
1
The
date of the consecration of Cosmas is
commonly given
as about A.D. 743 that ; being the year in which Theophanes
places the mutilation and death of Peter, metropolitan of
Damascus, while he adds that at the same time his name
sake Peter of Maiuma (Cosmas s predecessor) glorified God by
a voluntary martyrdom. On the other hand, the same chronologer
places the death of John IV., Patriarch of Jerusalem
(who is said in the text to have both promoted Cosmas and
ordained Damascenus), in the year 735.
D