CHAPTER II.
SOME HYMNS OF GREAT WITNESSES.
JOHN OF DAMASCUS.
Ἔρχεσθε, ὦ πιστοί,
Ἀναστάσεως Ἡμέρα.
John of Damascus, called also St. John of Jerusalem, a theologian and poet, was the last but one of the Christian Fathers of the Greek Church. This eminent man was named by the Arabs “Ibn Mansur,” Son (Servant?) of a Conqueror, either in honor of his father Sergius or because it was a Semitic translation of his family title. He was born in Damascus early in the 8th century, and seems to have been in favor with the Caliph, and served under him many years in some important civil capacity, until, retiring to Palestine, he entered the monastic order, and late in life was ordained a priest of the Jerusalem Church. He died in the Convent of St. Sabas near that city about A.D. 780.
His lifetime appears to have been passed in 80 / 54 comparative peace. Mohammed having died before completing the conquest of Syria, the Moslem rule before whose advance Oriental Christianity was to lose its first field of triumph had not yet asserted its persecuting power in the north. This devout monk, in his meditations at St. Sabas, dwelt much upon the birth and the resurrection of Christ, and made hymns to celebrate them. It was probably four hundred years before Bonaventura (?) wrote the Christmas “Adeste Fideles” of the Latin West that John of Damascus composed his Greek “Adeste Fideles” for a Resurrection song in Jerusalem.
Come ye faithful, raise the strain
Of triumphant gladness.