My
studies into the Church Fathers began in the early 1980's with my purchase of
the Schaff-Roberts 38 volume set. This set begins with the Apostolic Fathers
and ends with Second Council of Nicaea in 787 (also known as the Seventh
Ecumenical Council). Though I have read the entire set, my main focus has been
on the period between Justin Martyr and Augustine; supplementing the 38 volumes
with hundreds of germane books, articles, essays, theses and dissertations. I
would like to shift that focus—at least for now—to the period that followed the
advent of Muhammad and the rise of Islam. This shift has been prompted by my
recent reading of the book, The Orthodox Church in the Arab World 700 - 1700
(Google
Books). I
purchased this book after some online research revealed that a number of the
anthologies included apologetic treatments on the doctrine of the Trinity. I
wanted to see how Trinitarian Christians—in lands of early Islamic
rule—defended the Christian view of God.
Now,
though the above book is a collection of anthologies from Christians who wrote
in Arabic, this post is going to focus on a Christian whose corpus was written
in Greek—John of Damascus (b. John Mansur ca. 650 [or 675?] - ca. 749). I am
starting this shift in studies with John Damascene, for as the introduction of
book points out his apologetic works on Islam, "represent the earliest
direct Orthodox responses to Islam" (p. 19). Though John Damascene was
fluent in Arabic, he wrote in Greek, and this because the Muslim conquerors of
Damascus, the Umayyad's, "maintained the Byzantine administrative system
and even for a time kept Greek as the language of bureaucracy" (p. 16).
John of
Damascus occupies a unique position among the Church Fathers, and this for a
number of reasons: first, as mentioned above, he produced "the earliest
direct Orthodox responses to Islam"; second, his works influenced the
subsequent Christian apologists who wrote in Arabic, works that were being
produced a mere generation after those of John Damascene; and third, not only
was he held in high esteem among Arab Christians, but also among Eastern
Orthodox and Latin Christians—quoted by such Latin notables as Peter Lombard
and Thomas Aquinas—he was even elevated to the position of "Doctor of the
Church" by Pope Leo XIII in 1890.
Rather
than start with John Damascene's apologetic works that are directed to Muslims,
I think it best to begin with his elucidations on the Trinity that are found in
his rather extensive Expositio Fidei Orthodoxæ (Exposition of the
Orthodox Faith) [1]. Though written after his apologetic treatments on Islam, I
am convinced that the insights gleaned from this later work are essential for
one to obtain a good understanding of his theology. The following selections
are from S. D. F. Salmond's English translation in volume IX of The Nicene
and Post-Nicene Fathers -second series (PDF copy HERE):
We have, then, adequately demonstrated that there is a God, and that His
essence is incomprehensible. But that God is one and not many is no matter of
doubt to those who believe in the Holy Scriptures. For the Lord says in the
beginning of the Law: I am the Lord thy God, which have brought thee out of
the land of Egypt. Thou shall have no other Gods before Me. And again He
says, Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God is one Lord. And in Isaiah the
prophet we read, For I am the first God and I am the last and beside Me
there is no God. Before Me there was not any God, nor after Me will there be
any God, and beside Me there is no God. And the Lord, too, in the holy
gospels speaketh these words to His Father, And this is life eternal, that
they may know Thee the only true God. (Book I, Chapter V - p. 4.)
So then this one and only God is not Wordless. And possessing the Word, He
will have it not as without a subsistence [2], nor as having had a beginning, nor
as destined to cease to be. For there never was a time when God was not Word:
but He ever possesses His own Word, begotten of Himself, not, as our word is,
without a subsistence and dissolving into air, but having a subsistence in Him
and life and perfection, not proceeding out of Himself but ever existing within
Himself. For where could it be, if it were to go outside Him? For inasmuch as
our nature is perishable and easily dissolved, our word is also without
subsistence. But since God is everlasting and perfect, He will have His Word subsistent
in Him, and everlasting and living, and possessed of all the attributes of the
Begetter. For just as our word, proceeding as it floes out of the mind, is
neither wholly identical with the mind nor utterly diverse from it (for so far as it proceeds out of the mind it is
different from it, while so far as it reveals the mind, it is no longer
absolutely diverse from the mind, but being one in nature with the mind, it is
yet to the subject diverse from it), so in the same manner also
the Word of Gods in its independent subsistence is differentiated from Him from
Whom it derives its subsistence : but inasmuch as it displays in itself the
same attributes as are seen in God, it is of the same nature as God. For just
as absolute perfection is contemplated in the Father, so also is it
contemplated in the Word that is begotten of Him. (Book I, Chapter VI - pp. 4,
5.)
After explaining in chapter VII (pp. 5, 6) that in addition to the Word,
God also has His Spirit, John Damascene goes on to expound his understanding of the doctrine of
the Trinity:
Concerning
the Holy Trinity
We believe, then, in One God, one beginning, having no beginning, uncreate,
unbegotten, imperishable and immortal, everlasting, infinite, uncircumscribed,
boundless, of infinite power, simple, uncompound, incorporeal, without flux,
passionless, unchangeable, unalterable, unseen, the fountain of goodness and
justice, the light of the mind, inaccessible; a power known by no measure,
measurable only by His own will alone (for
all things that He wills He can), creator of all created things, seen or unseen,
of all the maintainer and preserver, for all the provider, master and lord and
king over all, with an endless and immortal kingdom: having no contrary,
filling all, by nothing encompassed, but rather Himself the encompasser and
maintainer and original possessor of the universe, occupying all essences
intact and extending beyond all things, and being separate from all essence as
being super-essential and above all things and absolute God, absolute goodness,
and absolute fulness : determining all
sovereignties and ranks, being placed above all sovereignty and rank, above
essence and life and word and thought: being Himself very light and goodness
and life and essence, inasmuch as He does not derive His being from another,
that is to say, of those things that exist: but being Himself the fountain of
being to all that is, of life to the living, of reason to those that have
reason; to all the cause of all good: perceiving all things even before they have
become: one essence, one divinity, one power, one will, one energy, one
beginning, one authority, one dominion, one sovereignty, made known in three
perfect subsistences and adored with one adoration, believed in and ministered
to by all rational creation, united without confusion and divided without
separation (which indeed transcends thought). (We believe) in Father and Son and Holy Spirit whereinto also
we have been baptized. For so our Lord commanded the Apostles to baptize,
saying, Baptizing them in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
(We believe) in one Father, the
beginning, and cause of all: begotten of no one: without cause or generation,
alone subsisting: creator of all: but Father of one only by nature, His
Only-begotten Son and our Lord and God and Saviour Jesus Christ, and Producer
of the most Holy Spirit. And in one Son of God, the Only-begotten, our Lord,
Jesus Christ: begotten of the Father, before all the ages: Light of Light, true
God of true God: begotten, not made, consubstantial with the Father, through
Whom all things are made: and when we say He was before all the ages we shew
that His birth is without time or beginning: for the Son of God was not brought
into being out of nothing, He that is the effulgence of the glory, the impress
of the Father's subsistence, the living wisdom and power, the Word possessing
interior subsistence, the essential and perfect and living image of the unseen
God. But always He was with the Father and in Him, everlastingly and without
beginning begotten of Him. For there never was a time when the Father was and
the Son was not, but always the Father and always the Son, Who was begotten of
Him, existed together. For He could not have received the name Father apart
from the Son: for if He were without the Son, He could not be the Father: and
if He thereafter had the Son, thereafter He became the Father, not having been
the Father prior to this, and He was changed from that which was not the Father
and became the Father. This is the worst form of blasphemy. For we may not
speak of God as destitute of natural generative power: and generative power
means, the power of producing from one's self, that is to say, from one's own
proper essence, that which is like in nature to one's self. (Book I, Chapter 8 -
pp. 6, 7.)
A bit later, from the same chapter, we read:
Accordingly the everlasting God generates His own Word which is perfect,
without beginning and without end, that God, Whose nature and existence are
above time, may not engender in time. But with man clearly it is otherwise, for
generation is with him a matter of sex, and destruction and flux and increase
and body clothe him round about, and he possesses a nature which is male or
female. For the male requires the assistance of the female. But may He Who
surpasses all, and transcends all thought and comprehension, be gracious to us.
The holy catholic and apostolic Church, then, teaches the existence at once
of a Father: and of His Only-begotten Son, born of Him without time and flux
and passion, in a manner incomprehensible and perceived by the God of the
universe alone: just as we recognise the existence at once of fire and the
light which proceeds from it: for there is not first fire and thereafter light,
but they exist together. And just as light is ever the product of fire, and
ever is in it and at no time is separate from it, so in like manner also the
Son is begotten of the Father and is never in any way separate from Him, but
ever is in Him. But whereas the light which is produced from fire without
separation, and abideth ever in it, has no proper subsistence of its own
distinct from that of fire (for
it is a natural quality of fire), the Only-begotten Son of God, begotten of the
Father without separation and difference and ever abiding in Him, has a proper
subsistence of its own distinct froth that of the Father.
The terms, 'Word' and 'effulgence,' then, are used because He is begotten
of the Father without the union of two, or passion, or time, or flux, or
separation : and the terms 'Son' and
'impress of the Father's subsistence,' because He is perfect and has
subsistence s and is in all respects similar to the Father, save that the
Father is not begotten : and the term 'Only-begotten'
because He alone was begotten alone of the Father alone. For no other
generation is like to the generation of the Son of God, since no other is Son
of God. For though the Holy Spirit proceedeth from the Father, yet this is not
generative in character but processional. This is a different mode of
existence, alike incomprehensible and unknown, just as is the generation of the
Son. Wherefore all the qualities the Father has are the Son's, save that the
Father is unbegotten, and this exception involves no difference in essence nor
dignity, but only a different mode of coming into existence. We have an analogy
in Adam, who was not begotten (for
God Himself moulded him), and Seth, who was begotten (for he is Adam's son), and Eve, who proceeded out of Adam's rib (for she was not begotten). These do not differ from
each other in nature, for they are human beings: but they differ in the mode of
coming into existence. (Book I, Chapter 8 - pp. 7, 8.)
After explaining the difference between ἀγένητον and ἀγέννητον, John then writes:
For the Father alone is ingenerate (ἀγέννητον), no other
subsistence having given Him being. And the Son alone is generate, for He was
begotten of the Father's essence without beginning and without time. And only the
Holy Spirit proceedeth from the Father's essence, not having been generated but
simply proceeding. For this is the doctrine of Holy Scripture. But the nature
of the generation and the procession is quite beyond comprehension. (Book I,
Chapter 8 - p. 8.)
And in the next paragraph we read his interpretation of John 14:28:
So then, whenever we hear it said that the Father is the origin of the Son
and greater than the Son, let us understand it to mean in respect of causation. Book I, Chapter 8 -
p. 9 - bold emphasis mine.)
He ends the chapter with the following:
The subsistences then we say are perfect, that we may not conceive of the
divine nature as compound. For compoundness is the beginning of separation. And
again we speak of the three subsistences as being in each other, that we may
not introduce a crowd and multitude of Gods. Owing to the three subsistences,
there is no compoundness or confusion: while, owing to their having the same
essence and dwelling in one another, and being the same in will, and energy,
and power, and authority, and movement, so to speak, we recognise the
indivisibility and the unity of God. For verily there is one God, and His word
and Spirit. (Book I,
Chapter 8 - p. 10.)
I shall
end my quotations from Salmond's translation here—with the hope that interested
readers will take the time to read the entire work—and will move on to my own
thoughts on what we have read.
Clearly,
John Damascene stands firmly within Nicene and post-Nicene Byzantine/Eastern
Orthodox traditon. He quotes from the Nicene Creed and follows suit with a
number of earlier Greek Church Fathers (e.g. Athanasius, Basil, Gregory of
Nazianzus, Gregory of Nyssa) by placing an emphasis on the Father as, "the
beginning and cause of all : begotten of no one : without cause or
generation", while maintaining the full equality of the nature that he
shares with the Son and Spirit; as such, we can add John Damascene to our list
of Church Fathers who support the Monarchy of God the Father.
Grace and
peace,
David
Notes:
1. Expositio Fidei
Orthodoxæ (Exposition of the Orthodox Faith) is actually part 3 of a larger
work titled The Fount of Knowledge (Πηγὴ γνώσεως). Part 1 deals with
philosophical issues; and part 2 with heresies. (For the Greek texts, see
Migne's, Patrologia Graeca vol. 94 - PDF copy here.)
2. The Greek word that Salmond
consistently translates as subsistence/s is ὑπόστασις. John provides the
following definition for this term in part 1 of his The Fount of Knowledge:
The term hypostasis has two meanings.
Sometimes
it
means
simple
existence.
In
this
sense, substance and hypostasis are the same thing, which is why certain of the holy
Fathers have said: 'the natures, that is to say, hypostases.'
At
other
times,
it
means
the
existence
of an individual substance in itself. In this
sense, it signifies the individual, that which is numerically
different,
which
is
to
say, Peter and Paul, or that certain horse...
One should know that the holy Fathers used
the
term
hypostasis and
person and
individual for
the
same
thing,
namely,
that
which
by its
own subsistence
subsists
of itself
from
substance
and
accidents,
is numerically
different,
and
signifies
a certain
one, as,
for
example,
Peter,
and
Paul,
and
this
horse.
Hypostasis
has been
so called
from
its
ὑφεστάναι, or subsisting.
(Saint John of Damascus - Writings, trans. by Frederic H. Chase, Jr. -
Vol. 37 of the Fathers of the Church series, pp. 66-68 - Google Books preview
here.)
