Author Description

This is the first examination of the whole range of the thought of John Damascene, one-time Arab civil servant, later a Palestinian monk, who thought of himself as a Byzantine churchman. He was one of the most influential of Byzantine theologians, whose work came to provide an essential resource for later Western theology. Many will be surprised by his subtle theology of images, defended against iconoclasts, and manifest in his sermons and sacred poetry. -;John Damascene, one-time senior civil servant in the Umayyad Arab Empire, became a monk near Jerusalem in the early years of the eighth ce.