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

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32 ST. JOHN OF DAMASCUS.
would listen to no entreaties. At last he consented
to name a penance as the condition of receiving the
offender back; but one so humiliating, involving
a menial labour so base, that the very monks them
selves stood aghast. John, however, had no scruples.
He had felt as one driven from Paradise, and no
servile labour should count with him, if only he might
find the gate of entrance open again. Thus he won
the admiration even of his severe teacher.
And now the time came when the probation might
cease.
The old monk was warned by the Virgin, in a
dream, to check no longer the outpouring of a spirit
of song in his gifted pupil. The hymns of John
Damascene were to be a joy of the whole Church,
surpassing even the Song of Moses and the choral
minstrelsy of Miriam. His exposition of the Faith,
his refutation of heresies, would be as pillars of
support on which the Church might lean. Thus
admonished, the monk calls John to him, and bids him
give free course to the inspiration by which he was
moved. Thus set free at last, and with those pursuits
now sanctioned to which he was by nature inclined,
Now
John gave full play to his voice and to his pen.
were composed the great works on which his fame as
a writer will rest his Fans Scienttce, his sermons, his
hymns. In all of these he had a friend and adviser
in his old companion, the younger Cosmas, 1 himself
1
There is still extant a number of hymns, canons, and the
like bearing the name of Cosmas ;
but it is difficult to deter
mine which of them belong to the younger one of the name
(made bishop of Maiuma about A.D. 743), and which to the
elder Cosmas, the tutor. According to Dr. Neale, Hymns