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

"
THE ICONOCLASTIC CONTROVERSY. 57
jurisdiction, and out of the emperor s reach; and in
his boldness therefore there was not of necessity any
thing very heroic. But those who were more exposed
to the imperial displeasure must often have felt them
selves in a strait. As an instance of the height to
which popular passions were roused, may be mentioned
the destruction of the great statue of Christ standing
over the Bronze Gate of the palace in Constantinople,
and known by the name of the Surety, from a legend
of its
having once been a surety for a Christian sailor
when forced to borrow money. This image, obnoxious
to Leo from its
prominent position and the super
stitious veneration with which it was regarded, was
doomed to destruction, and a soldier of the imperial
guard mounted a ladder to remove it. A crowd of
women thronged about him, with entreaties to spare
it. When he struck his axe against the face of the
image, they dragged down the ladder in fury, and the
soldier was either killed by the fall, like a second
Pentheus, torn in pieces by
or,
the infuriated women.
1
Life," John was then at Damascus. But Lequien conjec
tures that he must have been ordained before this controversy
broke out (Opp.
\.
452). His reason for thinking so is, that
in his sermon on the Annunciation, delivered after his ordina
tion, he speaks of the Roman Empire as at peace. This, in
Lequien s judgment, would not have been said after the icono
clastic storm had begun to rage. Whatever the argument is
xlix. not.
worth, it will hardly bear Gibbon out in saying (Ch.
in loc.) "the
legend [of the amputated hand] is famous but his
;
learned editor, father Lequien, has unluckily proved that St.
John Damascenus was already a monk before the Iconoclast
dispute."
1
See an article in the Christian Observer for 1877, where
Baronius s commendation of these
"
"
harridans
is discussed.