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

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THE ICONOCLASTIC CONTROVERSY. 6 1
Christ, and disloyal to the empire ! Anathema
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Mansour, teacher of impiety, and bad interpreter of
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Scripture An additional insult was devised, by the
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emperor s causing his name to be written Manzer,"
bastard^ instead of Mansour; a species of affront
very popular at the time, and hardly less so since.
It is difficult to believe that the bigotry of Constantine
could carry him so far, as to ordain that, in place of
the religious paintings removed from church walls,
there should be substituted pictures of birds and
fruits, or scenes from the chase, the theatre, and the
circus." Yet it is not easy to say what bounds a
ruler of such a disposition would set to his imperious
will, when provoked by the fanatical obstinacy of the
opposing party. Even his ablest apologist cannot
deny that in following out his purpose he was guilty
of violent excesses, and that when either policy or
passion prompted him to order punishment to be
inflicted, it was done with fearful 2
seventy."
"Instead of his grandfather s name, Mansour" (says
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Theophanes, Chronographia," ed. Migne, p. 841), "which is
by interpretation ransomed^ he called the new doctor of the
Church Manzer ;
with a Jewish meaning."
The word is used
in this form in the Vulgate of Deut. xxiii., 2, and in the Douay
version taken from it : A mamzer, that is to say, one born of
a prostitute,
shall not enter into the church of the Lord." In
a like spirit John had been nicknamed Sarabaita for Sabaita,
and Jannes for Joannes ;
while he himself was not backward
to miscall the iconoclastic bishops episcotoi (obscurantists) for
episcofoi. Readers of Dr. Maitland will call to mind the
many instances he brings of the fondness of the earlier Puritans
for the same kind of thing.
2 Finlay, Byzantine Empire," i., p. 72. How difficult it is
to discern the true character of the great actors in these times