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

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212 ST. JOHN OF DAMASCUS.
thus rendered. Those to whom systematic theology,
as such, is distasteful, and who object to doctrines
"
becoming, in their phrase, crystallised into dogmas,"
will be little
disposed to thank Damascenus for what
he has done. But even they will hardly dispute the
reality of the service performed by one who, when
Caliphs were striving to impose the Arabic tongue on
Syria and other Asiatic conquests, helped so mate
rially to keep the lamp of Greek learning from extinc
tion. Gregory of Nazianzus wrote Greek -with con
siderable purity. His iambics are often of an almost
classic elegance. And he was the gr,eat master of
John Damascene. The numerous quotations, not
only from him but from a multitude of Greek authors
besides, found both in the "Fons Scientiae" and the
Sacra Parallela," would provide a field of Hellenic
literature, sufficient for the wants of that generation.
In having so provided it,
and having thus become the
initiator of a warlike but ill-taught race into the
mysteries of an earlier civilisation, Damascenus is
entitled to the praise that the elder Lenormant
awarded him, of being in the front rank of the master
spirits from whom the genius
of the Arabs drew its
inspiration.
What bearing the doctrinal writings of John of
Damascus have on modern controversies, especially
that with the Church of Rome, has been partially
and it would be
discussed in an earlier chapter,
beside our purpose to enter upon it at any length
here. A minister of a Scottish Presbyterian Church
in Holland, in the reign of Charles II., would not be
likely to read with too favourable eyes the works of a