03 — The Fount of Knowledge and the Exact Exposition
This section covers St. John of Damascus’s great encyclopaedic work, the Fount of Knowledge (Pege gnoseos) — its tripartite design and method — and its crowning third part, the Exact Exposition of the Orthodox Faith (De Fide Orthodoxa), the first systematic dogmatics of the Christian East and the single most influential patristic handbook in both Byzantium and the medieval West.
Tradition: Pan-Orthodox (Church Father)
Overview
Around 743, from the monastery of Mar Saba in the Judaean desert, John composed for his foster-brother Cosmas — newly consecrated Bishop of Maiuma — a three-part summa gathering the inheritance of the Fathers into a single ordered work (Louth, St John Damascene, 2002, ch. 2). Its plan was deliberate: philosophy as a tool (the Dialectica); error catalogued (On Heresies); truth expounded (the Exact Exposition). John’s stated aim was faithful synthesis, not originality — “I shall say nothing of my own” (Preface; trans. Chase, FOTC 37). This section treats the first and third parts; the philosophical and heresiological parts have their own section.
The Exact Exposition became the dogmatics handbook of the East and, through Burgundio of Pisa’s 1153/54 Latin translation, a foundational source for Peter Lombard’s Sentences and the whole scholastic enterprise. The files here keep consistent the chapter citations the repository’s pan-Orthodox core already anchors.
Files in This Section
| File | Description |
|---|---|
| The Fount of Knowledge | The work as a whole — the tripartite plan, the preface to Cosmas, the dating, and the method of patristic synthesis |
| The Exact Exposition of the Orthodox Faith | The four-book / hundred-chapter dogmatic summa — its contents, key chapters, and its enormous influence East and West |
See Also
- 04 — Philosophy and Heresies — the Dialectica and On Heresies, the first two parts of the Fount
- 07 — Christology Refinements: Perichoresis and Enhypostaton — the technical Christology of Book III
- Orthodoxy Guide: Christology — where the Exact Exposition is already cited as the patristic synthesis of Chalcedon
- Orthodoxy Guide: The Holy Trinity — for the essence/attributes framework Book I expounds
References
- John of Damascus. Saint John of Damascus: Writings (the Fount of Knowledge: Philosophical Chapters, On Heresies, The Orthodox Faith). Translated by Frederic H. Chase, Jr. Fathers of the Church 37. Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press, 1958.
- John of Damascus. Exposition of the Orthodox Faith. Translated by S. D. F. Salmond. Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Second Series, vol. 9. 1899.
- Louth, Andrew. St John Damascene: Tradition and Originality in Byzantine Theology. Oxford Early Christian Studies. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002.
- Kotter, Bonifatius, ed. Die Schriften des Johannes von Damaskos. Patristische Texte und Studien. Berlin: De Gruyter, 1969–1988.