St. John Damascene's Defense of Holy Icons & Sermons on Mary's Assumption

St. John of Damascus (676-749), Syrian monk, bishop, and last of the Eastern Fathers of the Church, was the great defender of the Church’s immemorial tradition of the veneration of icons. i.e. holy images. Byzantine Emperor Leo the Isaurian in defiance of the Church’s practice, banned the veneration of holy images, began destroying them and persecuted and even executed those who held to the truth. St. John, living in neighboring Syria, wrote a defense of the Church’s veneration of images that is now considered a foundational part of Catholic doctrine. [1] His early work, “On Holy Images” explains why the Church is so adamant in her holding onto images of Christ, the Holy Cross, Our Lady, the saints, and angels. Also included here are his “Three Sermons on the Assumption” of the Blessed Virgin Mary given around AD 727. He is an early witness to the truth of the Mary’s Assumption into Heaven, body and soul. The preface of the book points out the strong personal devotion St. John had toward the Mother of God; one reason being the miraculous restoration of the use of his right hand. St. John taught that if you take Mary out of the picture, you lose the link uniting Heaven and earth.

The sermons begin with St. John saying that he should have remained silent due to his own unworthiness and shortcomings, but, he felt obligated to speak out against those currently attacking the veneration of holy images, seeing the Church in such a state of disarray. Any traditions, even the smallest that have been received as the patrimony handed down by the tradition of the Church are no small matters, but must be safeguarded. St. John then asks the Lord to bless his words and continues in making a profession of faith of orthodox Catholic doctrine.

St. John then brings up the first main objection of the iconoclasts (those against holy images). He quotes them as saying that God, already in the Old Testament, forbade the making and worshipping of any image in the first commandment. St. John counters this by saying that in forbidding the making of an image, God was only forbidding the making of an image to worship it as God. He continues by saying that not all “worship” is the same and gives various examples of this from the Old Testament: Abraham worshipping the sons of Emmor, Jacob his brother Esau, Joshua and Daniel an angel, etc…This “worship” is not the adoration given to God alone, described by the Greek word latreia, but only a veneration of great respect.

St. John goes on to say that images were created by God to remind us, ultimately, of higher realities. The Lord in the Old Covenant was not forbidding the making of images altogether. If such were the case, continues St. John, why did God command that golden cherubim be made and placed over the Ark of the Covenant, or, images of angels, animals, and plants, in the Temple of Jerusalem? In the New Covenant, God has become man. God has now become visible, and thus, according to St. John, an image can now be made, “of the God whom I see. I do not worship matter, I worship the God of matter, who became matter for my sake, and deigned to inhabit matter, who worked out my salvation through matter. I will not cease from honoring that matter which works my salvation.” [2] St. John teaches that by God taking matter and uniting it to himself for our salvation, he has now made matter a transmitter of grace and sanctification. Matter is not evil, for God has used it to save us. Christ, by taking visible form using matter, allows us now to use matter to depict him, and this image also becomes a channel of grace. Saints, firstly the Mother of God, and angels are also to be depicted since, in the case of the saints, their flesh has participated in the grace of God which dwells in them. They are meant to be honored as they are the friends of God, and, being united to him are, as St. John quoting Scripture says, “co-heirs” with Christ. They are also instruments of God’s grace.

St. John goes on to say how we cannot reject what has been handed down to us from the Apostles; the veneration of images being a part of that sacred Tradition. He then recalls several early Christian witnesses to the veneration of holy images, Sts. John Chrysostom, Basil the Great, and Gregory of Nyssa among others. Those who teach otherwise, St. John says, not receiving what has been handed down from the Apostles, Fathers, and Councils are deceivers under the power of the devil, and should not be listened to. Physical bodies may be depicted as they have form, but even immaterial bodies as well (angels and demons) for they are intellectual beings. God is the original creator of images as he made all things and man in his own image and likeness.

In the sermons on the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary into Heaven, St. John starts by saying that, “neither human tongue or angelic mind is able worthily to praise her…” [3] St. John says that even if we have so little to offer Mary, just our good intentions suffice for her, as she loves us so much. St. John goes on to speak Mary’s praises, and what has been accomplished in her, the Incarnation, and through her, our salvation. He witnesses to the ancient tradition that the parents of Mary are named Joachim and Anna and then speaks of Mary’s conception, “a child whose equal had never been created and never can be.” [4] Continuing, he gives the history of the Annunciation and Incarnation.

St. John then explains the tradition of Mary’s Assumption. Mary sensing death approaching, gives word to the Apostles and disciples. They gather around her deathbed on Mt. Sion and Christ receives the soul of his mother, who, like her Son, chose to die, to be more like him. The Apostles take Mary’s body to a tomb in the Garden of Gethsemane. While on the journey, a certain Jew, out of hatred for the new followers of Christ, rushes to the bier holding Our Lady and tries to disrupt it. The Jew’s then loses the use of his hands, in punishment for his sin. Repenting for his deed, the man then touches the garment of the Mother of God and he is healed. The Apostles continue their journey and place Mary in the tomb. After three days says St. John, Mary’s body is taken into Heaven and reunited with her soul, where she now reigns with her Son. In death she experienced no corruption, as it was not fitting that the Mother of Life should be tainted in any way. St. John says, “Why do seek in the tomb one who has been assumed to the heavenly courts?” [5] St. John ends with a plea for us to imitate Mary.

1 Misleh, Jenna, Remembering St. John of Damascus, December 4, http://www.antiochian.org/node/16825

2 St. John Damascene. On Holy Images & Three Sermons on the Assumption. trans. by Mary Allies (London: Thomas Baker, 1898), p. 15-16.

3 Ibid. p. 148.

4 Ibid. p. 156.

5 Ibid. p. 196.