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

THE "FONS SCIENTLE." 73
(ti)
Our Lord s passion, death, and burial (Ixx.-
Ixxii.).
(i) The descent into hell : the resurrection, ascen
sion, and session at the right hand of the Father
(Ixxiii.-lxxv.).
(k) Answers to objections, chiefly on the double
nature of Christ (Ixxvi.-lxxxi.).
(/)
On faith :
baptism praying to the east : : the
holy images the Holy Scriptures, and other mis
:
cellaneous subjects (lxxxii.-c.).
The above synopsis may enable the reader to form
some slight idea of the course taken by the author in
this gneat work, and of the extent of ground gone
over. It would far exceed our present limits to
attempt any detailed analysis of it. A few indica
tions of his mode of treatment must suffice.
In what he says at the beginning on the existence
and attributes of God, we may readily trace the influence
of writings like those ascribed to Dionysius. That
is to say, he proceeds by way of negation rather than
of affirmation. God is uncreate, unchangeable, incor
poreal, invisible, incomprehensible, and so on. Hence
there is
nothing that we can affirm of God beyond^
what has been revealed to us in Holy Scripture (c. ii.).
As evidence of the existence of God, he points to the
concurrent testimony of those who have had a reve
lation to guide them, in the Old and New Testament,
and of those who have had but the light of nature, as
we call it. Reason comes to the same conclusion.
For all things that are, are either created or uncreated.
If created, there must have been a Creator, that is,