Great Theologians: John of Damascus
by Ethan McCarter
The apologetics of the early church sought to answer the questions of the period in biblical, logical, and clear ways. There were many within the early church who sought to defend the orthodox faith from threats within and without the church. By and large the fathers were debating with heresies using Scripture, reason, tradition, and philosophy. Early Christian apologetics wasn’t reserved for the intelligentsia of the day, but protected all the people of the church from heretical threats. Amongst those great defenders of the faith stands the “last of the Greek fathers” John of Damascus.
The Damascene lived in a turbulent time. The Eastern Roman Empire received resounding defeats in the late 630s at the hands of the Arabic Rashidun Caliphate and lost major swathes of territory that had been held by the Romans since the time of Christ. The Christian world had drastically changed. John’s birthplace Damascus was widely considered one of the most prosperous and important cities of the Levant. It had fallen into the hands of the Caliphate and been subjected to Islamic rule. John’s family was a prominent Melkite family; a Melkite was a Christian under the jurisdiction of the church in Constantinople though outside of imperial control. He received a thorough education, was thoroughly versed in Greek and Arabic, and, possibly, served in the bureaucracy of the Caliphate before taking ordination vows and moving outside of Jerusalem to a monastery. Since John lived his entire life as a Christian under the rule of the Umayyad Caliphate, while serving as a priest under the authority of the bishop of Constantinople, it gives his apologetics a unique flavour, unlike many other theologians of the era.
In his major work The Fount of Knowledge, John spends the entire second portion of the first book critiquing heresies. The section Concerning Heresies is where his work as an apologist shines. Many of the heresies he summarizes and writes against are readily known by Christians of today, including the heresies of the Monophysites, the Nestorians, the Sabellians and so on. He also adds Islam to the heresies he addresses. Many of his refutations are repeats of earlier works or well established points that the church agreed upon in previous years. However, his refutation of Islam contains many original thoughts. John is the earliest surviving Christian theologian to write on Islam.
John titles their heretical religion the “superstition of the Ishmaelites,”1 drawing the reader’s attention to the division established in Genesis between the people of Isaac and the people of Ishmael. One of the emphases of John, along with contemporary arguments against Islam, is that there are markers of Arianism in Islam. John sees so much overlap that he believes that Mohammed must have conversed with an Arian monk and had a knowledge of the Old and New Testaments.2 Regarding the claimed reception of the Quaran from angelic revelation John asks, “Although you do possess both wives and property and asses and so on through witnesses, yet it is only your faith and your scriptures that you hold unsubstantiated by witnesses.”3 This forms another major part of John’s apologetic against Islam. If everything requires eyewitness testimony in Arabic practice, then why does Mohammed get a free pass? John knew the Quaran and alluded to various Suras in his writings. He also charges them with logical fallacies since Islam claims to believe that the prophets foretold the coming of Jesus Christ but disregard the Christian understanding that the divinity of Christ is established from the prophets as well.4 John formulates numerous other apologetic arguments against all sorts of heresies, but it is his writings on Islam that are most intriguing due to his originality and the fact that he lived under the rule of the Caliphate.
John of Damascus lived in a world that had underwent major changes. The Eastern Empire wasn’t returning to the Levant anytime soon, and the crescent of the Caliphate was rising ever higher. Though Reformed Christians will not agree with his defense of iconography or some of his eastern distinctives regarding the doctrine of the Trinity, nobody can deny that the man was a courageous Christian seeking to defend the true faith. In a place ruled by the Caliph, John continued to speak boldly for the truth of Christianity and against those who sought to bury the claims of Christ.
Ethan McCarter is the pastor of Crosscollyer Street Evangelical Presbyterian Church in Belfast, Northern Ireland. Though he originally hails from the US state of Alabama he and his family serve in Northern Ireland with the Evangelical Presbyterian Church of Ireland.
