Tag: John Damascene

Life of John Damascene by John, Patriarch of Jerusalem (BHG 884) – Part 1

Posted on by Roger Pearse

A couple of weeks ago, I made a translation of the first four chapters of BHG 884, the Life of John Damascene.  This text is attributed in the manuscripts, and also in the text printed in the Patrologia Graeca 94, cols. 429-490, to a certain “John, Patriarch of Jerusalem.”  Apparently this is John VII (964-966); but a case has been made that it should instead be attributed to the patriarch John III of Antioch (996-1021), also referenced in some manuscripts.[1] The text is apparently known as the “Jerusalem Vita” because other hagiographical Lives exist.

The text was first printed by Michel Lequien in 1712, with a parallel modern Latin translation.  This is the text reprinted in the PG, and the PG text  is that included in the Thesaurus Linguae Graecae (TLG 5273.1).

Initially I began by translating the early modern Latin translation, but then I gained access to the Greek, and reworked it somewhat.  Curiously I found that the Latin is sometimes less easy to follow than the Greek.

The chapter division is that of Lequien, found in the Greek and his Latin translation.  The chapter numbering in Lequien is confused, and also in the PG (but not in the same way!)  I will deal with this when I come to it.  But the truth is that there are 40 chapters.  The chapter headings below are not in the Greek, and appear to have been created by Lequien.  They’re useful, so I have included them.

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1. The deeds of holy men should be passed down to future generations, especially those of the doctors of the Church.

It has become customary among men, as a mark of honour, to make godly likenesses of those who have kept the image of God pure from all stain and blemish; whether they preserved it in its original integrity and grace, or restored it, when it was tarnished and defiled.  Indeed, those who are eager to show their reverence more zealously – their wealthy hands being inclined toward magnificence – employ superior materials in which to sculpt their likenesses, thinking that they thereby show greater honour to the holy men.

If then they display such magnificence and grandeur in depicting the outward likenesses of these saints, is it right for us to leave in a crude state the words recounting their deeds?  Certainly not.  The rougher people, being what they are, are excused for recounting simply the deeds of those who were pleasing to Christ; but those who have dedicated themselves to the study of eloquence will not at all be pardoned for devoting themselves to literature if they have allowed the lives of the saints to be written in a haphazard way; above all [the lives] of men whose spirit and life were here, immediately after they were purifying the mind from ignorance and forgetfulness and the soul from every disordered motion; of men, I say, by whom the world has been honoured, and whose books have enlightened the minds of all, not merely with the empty elegance of worldly wisdom, but also by pouring forth abundantly the light of the Holy Spirit.

2.  John Damascene must be considered among the foremost Doctors of the Church.  He flourished when the heresy of Iconoclasm emerged.  Leo the Isaurian was the author of the heresy.

One of these men, who indeed must be counted among the foremost, is the great and illustrious John, who was named after his homeland, Damascus.  For he was no small star in the firmament of the Church, but rather one of the greatest and most brilliant, so that he not only shone when heresy spread darkness everywhere, but he also dispelled the night of every false doctrine with the radiant clarity of his thoughts.  For darkness had indeed settled upon the whole world, by which the brilliant figures of the venerable images were obscured, and there was a profound and utter gloom; yet he who was spreading it and making it happen was not some man of the common people, sowing evil in one portion of the world, but it was he who, so to speak, held the ends of the earth in his hands, because he held the sceptre of the Roman empire.  Whereupon it came to pass that, storming in every direction, with tremendous force he overthrew the venerable images; some of those who venerated them Leo devoured, just like a lion capturing and roaring—as he was by name and disposition of mind; while others who were  holding fast to the true faith, he scattered to one place or another, and compelled them to hide in underground retreats.  And indeed many preferred to dwell with lions and dragons, rather than remain with him and his ministers: but others, who were overcome with fear, rushed to the remotest ends of the world (for who is not afraid when a lion roars?) and fled from him as from the face of a serpent.

3.  The name “John” in Hebrew signifies the grace of God.  The Life of St. John of Damascus originally written in Arabic.

But indeed this man, filled with the spiritual grace which his name signified, was boiling with anger against the serpent alone, such that his feelings of anger turned into the pursuit of goodness and courage.  He did not flee from Thrace, where he then resided, to the Sarmatians.  He did not hurry away from Byzantium to the columns of Hercules for the sake of his safety.  He did not go from the court into solitude because of the roaring of the lion.  Rather, when he was living, first in Damascus and later in Palestine, leading a monastic life in solitude, he valiantly fought against Leo.  For although this thrice-mighty athlete of mine was distant from him by a great distance, yet by means of his books, crafted with the fire of the Paraclete and tempered and hardened by a flood of life, he pierced his heart as if with a triple lance.  However, a fuller account of these matters will be given in its proper place.  Should we then neglect with contempt the life of such a man, because it is written in a rustic manner, or worse, in Arabic language and letters?  Certainly not.  Wherefore it is necessary to tell, from where and from what noble root this most flourishing shoot has sprung, which country is proud to have produced him.

4.  Damascus.

This city is none other than Damascus.  For just as it takes great pride in Paul — because it was indeed the first to witness him traversing the heavens[2] when he had renounced impiety, and becoming, instead of Christ-hating, Christ-loving—, so also it also fittingly and reverently takes pride in this man [John], not as if he came from elsewhere or converted from some other religion to the true one, but because it grew him from its own root, and beyond giving him physical existence, it nurtured him in godliness and raised him in learning, and it takes great pride in its offshoot.  And it feels pride and rejoices more in him, than in any other of the ornaments which give it splendour— whether you speak of the mild climate or the many streams of sweet and clear waters with which it is irrigated.  It is not the abundance of noble fruits that exalts and elevates this city, but rather that from it sprouted this beautiful and noble tree, which was nourished by these streams of water, and in due time produced the fruits of the Spirit.  Its fruits are always fresh among us, lovely to look at, sweet to taste, and those who touch and partake of them are not only delighted but are also nourished, growing, and brought to spiritual maturity, leading them to perfection in the Spirit.  Thus has the city of Damascus been made glorious more by this offspring of hers, than by all the other good and delightful things with which she has been enriched. This is the city that brought forth this man.

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I hope to do some more in due course.

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  1. [1]Vassa Kontouma, “John III of Antioch (996–1021) and the Life of John of Damascus (BHG 884)” in: V. Kontouma, John of Damascus: New Studies on his Life and Works. Ashgate (2015). ISBN 9781409446378.↩
  2. [2]The Greek word here is οὐρανοδρόμος; which is quoted in Lampe p.978 from this passage.↩

From My Diary

Posted on by Roger Pearse

I’m afraid that I am easily distracted.  I still need to write another post on the Sacra Parallela of John Damascene (d. 745).  But while looking at Lequien’s 1712 edition, I found at the start of volume 1, on p.i-xxiv, a “Vita”: a hagiographical “Life” of John Damascene.  This was ascribed to a certain “John, Patriarch of Jerusalem.”  The Vita is listed in the Bibliographica Hagiographica Graeca – the big index created by the Bollandists of all the hagiographical texts – where its number is BHG 884.  This text is reprinted in PG 94, cols. 429-490, and in the Acta Sanctorum  for May, vol. 2, 723-730.

There does not seem to be any translation into a modern language.  However Lequien printed the Life with parallel Latin translation.  This is fortunate, for the Greek text in Lequien is somewhat abbreviated and hard to read, at least by me.  And these days we have quite decent Latin translation, from Google Translate, and also, less accurate but more readable, from ChatGPT.

Out of curiosity, I scanned the Latin text and ran it through ChatGPT 4.  The result was rather amazing – a terribly readable and useful output.

Encouraged by this, I tried to discover whether an electronic Greek text was in the Thesaurus Linguae Graeca collection.  It has; but finding it in the “canon” was really quite difficult.  At least, as someone who rarely uses the TLG, I found it difficult.  There are three different “Lives” in the TLG, together given the index number TLG 5273, and the title is “Vitae Sancti Joannis Damasceni”.  It’s the “vitAE” rather than “vitA” that gets you.  Our text is TLG 5273.2.

Unfortunately this text is not in the elderly CDROM versions that circulate online.  However a kind correspondent sent me the electronic Greek, and I fed this into ChatGPT as well.  This also produced a fairly readable output.

Let’s compare them.  First the translation of the Latin:

I. [The deeds of holy men should be passed down to future generations, especially those of the Doctors of the Church.]

It has become customary among men to honour with representations the image of God in those who have kept it pure from all stain and blemish. Whether they preserved it in its original integrity and grace, or, when it was tarnished and defiled, they restored it, a divine likeness is made for them as a mark of honour. Indeed, those who desire to be seen as lovers of a more exalted reverence, often spare no expense in this endeavour; their generous hands, inclined toward magnificence, employ superior materials in which they engrave their images, thinking that they thereby show greater honour to the holy men.

So, if they display such splendour and grandeur in depicting the forms of these saints, should we leave the words recounting their deeds in a rough and ornament-less style? By no means! The less polished writers are worthy of pardon when, according to the capacity they possess, they narrate in a simple style the deeds of those who pleased Christ. But for those who have dedicated themselves to the pursuit of eloquence, it will not be forgiven if they compile hastily assembled accounts of the lives of the saints—especially of those men whose very spirit and life was devoted to learning, who laboured to free both the mind from ignorance and forgetfulness and the soul from all disorderly passions. These men, who have brought honour to the world and whose books have enlightened the minds of all, did not simply adorn themselves with the external elegance of worldly wisdom, but poured forth abundantly the light of the Holy Spirit.

Now the Greek:

1. To those who have preserved the image unsullied and uncorrupted, well-ordered, and in good condition as from the beginning—or even to those who have often let it be scattered or stained but have restored it—people customarily give honor to the divine forms of these individuals. And those who show their reverence more zealously, and whose hand, along with their wealth, is more magnificent and splendid, use more radiant and noble materials and imprint their forms upon them, believing they thereby dedicate greater honor to the saints.

If, then, they are so eager to adorn their outward form, how could they be expected to neglect and leave in a crude state the words concerning the history of their deeds? Certainly not. For the rougher people, as they are, are excused for simply recounting the deeds of those who were pleasing to Christ; but for those who take study of words seriously, it is not excusable to neglect the lives of saints, recording them hastily and carelessly—especially of men whose very breath and life is to be vigilant in words, and who, by means of words, have purified their minds from ignorance and forgetfulness and their souls from all passionate impulses.

And from those by whom the earthly realm has been adorned, and every mind illuminated, the words upon which they labored not only possess the grace of worldly wisdom but also abundantly emit the light of the Paraclete [Holy Spirit].

There’s no question as to which is more readable.  You have to struggle with the output from the Greek, and mentally retranslate it, merely to understand what is being said.  It probably does reflect the wordiness of the Byzantine text, to be fair. But it’s not very usable.

Likewise Lequien’s Latin translator probably paraphrased and simplified.  He wrote so that people with little Greek could understand the text.  They might not have great Latin either!  Best keep it simple.

I started to work on a translation myself, taking account of both of these and the original Greek and Latin.  But then I found that the ChatGPT output is not reliable, in either version.  Additional words and clauses appear, with no justification in the original, and  going some way beyond the acceptable for paraphrase.  I was tempted just to post both outputs, with a cautionary note, and move on.  But I have resisted doing this.

What I am doing now is to produce a translation from the Latin version, therefore.  It’s not ideal.  But it’s going to be more useful than struggling through 40 chapters of the Greek, which I would anyway have to paraphrase in order that anybody could understand it.

Oh well.  The Sacra Parallela will have to wait.

The start of the autumn term has brought a rash of emails, many of them asking me to do something for somebody.  I try to be sympathetic to such people, many of whom plainly have been thrown in the deep end of a subject about which they do not know even the basics.  But of course I am also wary of the email which reads “please mistuh can you do my homework for me huh” or similar.  There is also the type of researcher for a TV programme who writes and wants you to do the research – which they are paid to do – for them.  The unwary are flattered.  But after a while, you get wise to the scam.

Recently I had one lady write to me asking me to research the background to a medieval quote.  My first thought was “why me?”  But I was lying on the sofa with my smartphone in hand when it arrived.  A simple google search revealed that the very volume that she wanted to find was online, a couple of clicks away.  A second google search revealed the Latin text, and that the quotation in question was from Solinus, the 3rd century pagan medical writer.  It took all of five minutes, and she could perfectly well have done this herself and answered her own question, in the time that it took her to write to a perfect stranger with his own life to lead on the other side of the world.  I confess that I felt very impatient with this.  Indeed I found that she had written to me six times in two years with similar requests.  This time, her request was in vain.

There are those who contribute to the internet, as I do, and spend their days uploading, researching, publishing, purely for the love of it.  There are also those people in this world who, on seeing someone being generous, see only a mug, and an opportunity to help themselves.  I am reminded of the story of a monastery of Benedictine monks in England who decided to serve free steak dinners to any who came.  Their intended guests were the homeless.  But it was not long before men in expensive cars started to drive down all the way from Birmingham in order to get a free lunch at someone else’s expense.  Likewise other religious houses in England have found that there is a certain constituency of vagrants who see them as prey for free board and lodging.

Indeed while writing these words, my phone rang, and woman with a thick Indian accent spoke, telling me that she was from a mobile phone company, in order to offer me a discount for being such a good customer.  “No, you aren’t,” I replied, somewhat curtly, for I have had this scam before.  “No, I suppose I’m not,” came the response in a sad voice.

It can be a sad world, if we let it.  But actually it’s a jolly good world for the most part, and we are extremely fortunate and blessed, all of us, beyond our deserts.  Let’s remember it!

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