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

36 ST. JOHN OF DAMASCUS.
in the Greek Church at the time.
That alone need not
have disqualified the author for obtaining credence,
when he wrote simply of the ordinary events of a
man s life. Our complaint is that, instead of anything
definite and tangible, we have the inflated declamation
of one who seems chiefly
concerned to extol certain
favourite doctrines of the Greek Church. For it
must be remembered that in the above abstract the
outlines only have been given, the framework so far
as there is
any of the composition. To gain any
adequate idea of the style, the reader must suppose
these dry bones clothed with a body of swelling
verbiage. Still, as it is the only biography of any
pretensions we it possess, has seemed desirable to
present such a summary of it as the above. It will
be a more satisfactory task to endeavour to fill
up
some portions at least of this shadowy outline by a
study of Damascene s extant works. But before pro
ceeding to this portion of our subject, it may clear
the way a little to survey the state of the Greek
Church at the time, and in particular the long con
troversy about image-worship, in which John of
Damascus played so conspicuous a part.