John of Damascus was the son of a Christian government official for the Muslim Caliph of Damascus. At an early age, he succeeded his father in this office, but in about 715, he entered the monastery of St. Sabas near Jerusalem. There he devoted himself to an ascetic life and to the study of theology.

In the same year that John was ordained as a priest, 726, the Byzantine Emperor Leo the Isaurian published his first edict against the Holy Images, which signaled the formal outbreak of the iconoclastic controversy. The edict forbade the veneration of sacred images, or icons, and ordered their destruction. In 729-730, John wrote three “Apologies (or Treatises) against the Iconoclasts and in Defense ofthe Holy Images.” He argued that such images were not idols, for they represented neither false gods nor even the true God in his divine nature; but only saints, or our Lord as a man. He further distinguished between the respect, or veneration (proskynesis), that is properly paid to created beings, and the worship (latreia), that is properly given only to God.

The Seventh Ecumenical Council, in 787, decreed that crosses, icons, the book of the gospels, and other sacred objects were to receive reverence or veneration, expressed by salutations, incense, and lights, because the honor paid to them passed on to that which they represented. True worship (latreia), however, was due to God alone.

John also wrote a great synthesis of theology, The Fount of Knowledge, of which the last part, “On the Orthodox Faith,” is best known. To Anglicans, John is perhaps best known as the author of the Easter hymns “Thou hallowed chosen morn of praise” (The Hymnal 1982, #198) “Come, ye faithful, raise the strain” (#199; #200), and “The day of resurrection” (#210).