John of Damascus

I marvel at the depth and profundity of Christmas carols. Take the classic carol, “O Come, All Ye Faithful.” There’s a line in the song, “Very God, begotten not created.” Did you catch that? In a single phrase, we sing that Christ is not a created being. While he was born in human form at Christmas, he exists as God with God from eternity. Hold this thought! We’ll come back to it later. John of Damascus (675-749) was a third-generation civil servant in Damascus, Syria. His grandfather was a high-ranking financial officer when Muslims took control of the city. John followed in his family’s footsteps in government until he switched careers to enter into the priesthood. John was an eyewitness to Islam as it emerged in the Middle East and was the first Christian to write about its expanding influence. He devoted an entire section of his seminal work, Fount of Knowledge, to various heresies threatening the church. He regarded Islam, not as a rival religion but as Christian apostasy. Go back to the line in the carol about Jesus as “not created.” Muhammed taught that “Christ is but a creature” in the Quran. While Jesus is afforded status as a prophet, he’s not considered coeternal with God. John poked fun at the way Muhammed received his revelation, “Since he received his revelation in his sleep and did not have a sense of the activity, then the folk proverb applies, ‘You’re spinning dreams.'” It’s an ironic way of saying, “You’re dreaming, Muhammed.” John of Damascus is honored as one of the great Patriarchs in the Eastern Orthodox Church. We join John of Damascus in praying: