Posted on 06/11/2015 5:43:59 PM PDT by dila813
The Fount of Knowledge is divided into three categories: 1. “Philosophical Chapters” (Kephalaia philosophika) – “With the exception of the fifteen chapters that deal exclusively with logic, it has mostly to do with the ontology of Aristotle. It is largely a summary of the Categories of Aristotle with Porphyry’s “Isagoge” (Eisagoge eis tas kategorias). It seems to have been John Damascene’s purpose to give his readers only such philosophical knowledge as was necessary for understanding the subsequent parts of the “Fountain of Wisdom”. 2. “Concerning Heresy” (Peri aipeseon) – “Little more than a copy of a similar work by Epiphanius, brought up to date by John Damascene. The author indeed expressly disclaims originality except in the chapters devoted to Islamism, Iconoclasm, and Aposchitae. To the list of eighty heresies that constitute the “Panarion” of Epiphanius, he added twenty heresies that had sprung up since his time. In treating of Islamism he vigorously assails the immoral practices of Mohammed and the corrupt teachings inserted in the Koran to legalize the delinquencies of the prophet.” 3. “An Exact Exposition of the Orthodox Faith” (Ikdosis akribes tes orthodoxou pisteos) – “The third book of the “Fountain of Wisdom”, is the most important of John Damascene’s writings and one of the most notable works of Christian antiquity. Its authority has always been great among the theologians of the East and West. Here, again, the author modestly disavows any claim of originality — any purpose to essay a new exposition of doctrinal truth. He assigns himself the less pretentious task of collecting in a single work the opinions of the ancient writers scattered through many volumes, and of systematizing and connecting them in a logical whole.2
(Excerpt) Read more at stpeterslist.com ...
I find this disturbing.
Much of what it contains is offensive to the Modern Politically Correct sensibilities.
I am interested in finding scholarly works on this work or a work I lost track of....
I recall a work that I can't locate anymore that referenced this Saint and others descriptions of Islam being a creation of the Persian Empire to combat Christianity that was perceived Roman conspiracy to gain influence over their population. Constructed to be a firewall against Rome, it was conceived for strategic political purposes.
.
I recall 30 years ago reading a work that claimed Muhammad was a Persian General that went to a monastery in Syria and studied there with the monks till they threw him out.
The story was related to the ancient author through a letter describing the encounter years after the encounter and the rise of Islam.
I would love to find this again.
Great read, bookmark.
My friend was saying something about Dante talking about Mohammed.
I know you can buy it on Amazon, you can even download it in places.
But I am not a scholar though, and to get a full understanding of it ...it really needs a through breakdown to get the full ancient context.
Dante?
"As shown by the artwork above, the Middle Ages also viewed Islam has a heresy. In Dante’s Inferno, Canto XXVIII, Muhammad is depicted as “twixt the legs, Dangling his entrails hung, the midriff lay Open to view…” Muhammad suffers the punishment of the schismatics: having his body rent from chin to anus for how he rent the Body of Christ. ..."
He was saying something about this and to read Dante.
oh, yes, sorry
I was so focused on trying to find the reference to the apparent reference to the letters from the Abbey around 625 about Muhammad I wasn’t thinking about those inspired by this Saint.
I am really interested in these first hand accounts of this Persian General that became Muhammad.
I know St. John is the only strong link to these first hand accounts I can remember.
We have some really good Christian Historians on FreeRepublic, if I catch one of them, I think they will educate and guide us to some really juicy information on the Anti-Church movement of the Persian Empire.
“Muhammad was a Persian General that went to a monastery in Syria”
That makes NO sense. Muhammad then would not know Arabic since neither Persians nor Syrians spoke it.
Bkmrk.
Maybe, but again, I don’t have the text that I read...memory is flawed.
But I believe I am remembering the description of the letter correctly.
Remember, before the rise of the Roman Empire, the Persian Empire ruled a huge piece of the world. Their Empire included hundreds if not thousands of languages.
“Their Empire included hundreds if not thousands of languages.”
And Arabic was not really one of them. Certainly the chances of an untrained (and supposedly unlettered) Arab from SOUTHERN Arabia becoming a Persian general in the 7th century BEFORE the Muslim Arab invasion of Persia is ZERO.
St. John of Damascus, for instance, makes it clear that Muhammad was an ARAB and that he was from Arabia and developed his history there borrowing from Arianism. It’s doubtful that there were any Arians in Persia or Syria in the 7th century.
http://orthodoxinfo.com/general/stjohn_islam.aspx
do you know about the visit of Muhammad to the abbey?
That detail I am certain is correct, I can’t remember for certain the other details.
That portion I am certain is correct.
Bookmarking
“do you know about the visit of Muhammad to the abbey?”
I have no reason to believe any such visit took place since there were no “abbeys” in Arabia to speak of. There is no credible evidence at all that Muhammad ever left Arabia.
What you are thinking of - I bet - is this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ashtiname_of_Muhammad
It’s a forgery.
1) Muhammad never went to Egypt.
2) After the Hegira, Muhammad was constantly at war. Going on a trip to Egypt was unlikely as all get out.
3) There is no reason to believe Christian monks in a country not yet conquered by Muslims would feel the need to get a promise of protection from someone who was not even in their country and who they had probably never even heard of at that time.
4) Such forged charters granting protection to monasteries were not uncommon in the Middle Ages.
As Robert Spencer wrote:
The document to which Considine is referring, the Achtiname, is of even more doubtful authenticity than everything else about Muhammad’s life. Muhammad is supposed to have died in 632; the Muslims conquered Egypt between 639 and 641. The document says of the Christians, “No one shall bear arms against them.” So were the conquerors transgressing against Muhammad’s command for, as Considine puts it, “no Muslim to fight against his Christian brother or sister”? Did Muhammad draw up this document because he foresaw the Muslim invasion of Egypt? There is no mention of this document in any remotely contemporary Islamic sources; among other anomalies, it bears a drawing of a mosque with a minaret, although minarets weren’t put on mosques until long after the time Muhammad is supposed to have lived, which is why Muslim hardliners consider them unacceptable innovation (bid’a).
The document exempts the monks of St. Catherine’s monastery from paying the jizya. While it is conceivable that Muhammad, believing he bore the authority of Allah, would exempt them from an obligation specified by Allah himself in the Qur’an (9:29), the Achtiname specifies that Christians of Egypt are to pay a jizya only of twelve drachmas.
Yet according to the seventh-century Coptic bishop John of Nikiou, Christians in Egypt “came to the point of offering their children in exchange for the enormous sums that they had to pay each month.”
The Achtiname, in short, bears all the earmarks of being an early medieval Christian forgery, perhaps developed by the monks themselves in order to protect the monastery and Egyptian Christians from the depredations of zealous Muslims.
I have never heard that claim. There is, however, a firm tradition among Arab Christians that Mohammed started as a Christian missionary from the Nestorian Church of the East, then went rogue and set up as a warlord. There is some support for this view to be found in recent textual criticism of the Qu’ran, some passages of which are nonsense in Arabic, but perfectly good East Syriac, with specific textual parallels in Assyrian Christian texts.
It is my own observation on the matter, and in support of this tradition, that the bishop of what is now Kirkuk at the time Mohammed began his activities was named Mar Gabriel. There was an ancient custom, still preserved in one of the titles of the Orthodox Bishop of Bosra-Haran, the “Angel of Haran”, and found in the Apocalypse of St. John, of referring to the bishop as the “angel” of his local church. It is quite possible that when he began composing the Qu’ran, Mohammed’s assertions that “the angel Gabriel” told him things, were not delusional claims that the bodiless one who had made the Annunciation to the Theotokos and Ever-Virgin Mary was speaking to him, but simply reporting that he got what he was writing from his bishop, Mar Gabriel.
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