Spiritual Teaching
Beyond the dogmatician and the hymnographer stands St. John of Damascus the ascetic and pastor of souls — though here, more than anywhere in his corpus, the question of attribution must be handled with care, since some of the most influential “Damascene” spiritual works are of disputed authorship. This section treats his ascetic-spiritual teaching (the On the Virtues and Vices, the great florilegium Sacra Parallela, his definition of prayer) and his theology of death (the funeral idiomela, the disputed treatise on those who have died in faith, and death as dormition), throughout distinguishing the secure from the attributed.
Tradition: Pan-Orthodox (Church Father)
John of Damascus was a monk of the Lavra of Mar Saba near Jerusalem, and the ascetic and devotional dimension of his work belongs to that desert setting. But the transmission of spiritual literature under a famous name is notoriously loose, and the Damascene corpus is a textbook case: works printed among his writings, read for centuries as his, are in several instances of contested or unknown authorship. This collection’s method requires that such cases be named honestly rather than smoothed over (cf. METHODOLOGY.md §3, §5), and these files do so at every disputed point.
The first file treats the ascetic and prayerful John: the On the Virtues and Vices read in The Philokalia under his name (attribution status noted), the florilegium Sacra Parallela (attribution questioned, value for preserving lost texts immense), his definition of prayer from the Exact Exposition, and his teaching on fasting and the passions. The second treats death and consolation: the funeral idiomela he composed for the Octoechos, the disputed treatise On Those Who Have Fallen Asleep in the Faith, and death as dormition — falling asleep in hope of resurrection. The Barlaam and Ioasaph attribution question is deferred to Section 09.
Navigation
| File | Subject |
|---|---|
| On Virtue and Prayer | On the Virtues and Vices (Philokalia II; attribution noted); the Sacra Parallela florilegium; prayer as “the ascent of the mind to God” (Exposition III.24); fasting and the passions |
| On Death and Consolation | The funeral idiomela (“I weep and I wail”); vanity and the image of God; the disputed De his qui in fide dormierunt; death as dormition |
See Also
- The Prayer Rule — the structured practice of prayer his definition undergirds
- Prayers for the Departed — the verified treatment of the disputed funeral treatise this section follows
References
- John of Damascus. An Exact Exposition of the Orthodox Faith. Trans. NPNF II/9; trans. Chase, FOTC 37.
- The Philokalia, vol. 2. Trans. G. E. H. Palmer, Philip Sherrard, and Kallistos Ware. London: Faber and Faber, 1981.
- Louth, Andrew. St John Damascene: Tradition and Originality in Byzantine Theology. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002.