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

5& ST. JOHN OF DAMASCUS.
monks was great, and this was thrown into the scale
against the emperor. An insurrection was raised in
the Cyclades. A pretender to the throne was set up
in the person of one Cosmas, and an ill-equipped
fleet was sent against Constantinople.
1
Leo had no
difficulty in suppressing the revolt, and the exaspera
tion it
produced only led him on to take still severer
measures. In 730, or shortly before, he issued a
second edict, in which, not content with forbidding
the worship of images, or ordering them to be placed
in such a position on the walls as not to invite adora
tion, he decreed the absolute unlawfulness of images
in churches. Such as were found there were to be
destroyed, and the vacant spaces where they had
been were to be washed over. Germanus, Patriarch
of Constantinople, an old man of ninety-five, resigned
his office sooner than obey this new edict, and was
succeeded by his syncellus, or secretary, Anastasius.
On hearing of the deposition of Germanus, John
of Damascus ^composed his second address. The
immediate cause of it,
he says at the beginning, was
"
a want of perspicuity in the first on account of
the first discourse being not very intelligible
to the
multitude."
Possibly they found it less difficult to
understand his meaning than to determine at once
what ought to be done. John himself, whether still
at the Caliph s Court in Damascus, or an inmate of
the monastery of St. Sabas, 2 was within Saracen
1
Robertson, ii., p. 94.
2
To this period belongs the story of Leo s attempt to com
pass the ruin of John of Damascus by means of the forged
letter before referred to. If we could trust the author of the