John of Damascus (d. ca. 750)

Greek theologian and poet.brief

Greek theologian and poet. After an early administrative career he became a monk of the monastery of Mar Saba, near Jerusalem . The only traces of his theological works in Syriac are citations in the Letter of Eliya to Leon , the Melkite bp. of Ḥarran (ed. A. Van Roey, CSCO 469–70; 1985). By contrast, his poetry fared better and several of his liturgical canons were soon translated into Syriac, along with ones by Cosmas of Jerusalem and other Palestinian poets (cf. ms. Sinai Syr. Fragment 39 of 8th cent.). Some of these texts were taken over into Syr. Orth. liturgical tradition (noted by Bar ʿEbroyo , ‘Ethicon’, I.5.4). John’s canon for the Resurrection features, almost in full, in the Syrian Catholic edition of the Fenqitho (vol. 5, Mosul, 1892, 342–6).