St. John of Damascus, also known as John Damascene, was a monk and theologian whose writings were crucially important in staunchly defending the value of visual art in communicating the Christian faith and in worship.

John was born into an Arabic Christian family around the year 676 in Damascus, in present-day Syria, in the period following the Muslim Caliphs conquering of the city. Most of the Christians who had lived in Damascus were either displaced or forced to convert. John’s family, however, had worked with the Muslim rulers once they took over the city and John’s father had a position in the court of the Caliphate, thus their family had been allowed to remain Christian. John’s father ensured that his son received the best education possible. John’s father provided his son with a Christian monk as a tutor, and the brilliant young John became a scholar of astronomy, mathematics, and classical Greek and Arabic texts.

Some sources claim that John himself became the Chief Administrator of the Caliph’s court. Eventually, John gave up life at the court and made his way to Jerusalem, to become a priest and monk at the monastery of Mar Saba, outside Jerusalem.

When John was getting settled into his new vocation as monk and priest at the monastery of Mar Saba, a great debate, known as the Iconoclast Controversy, continued to divide the Church. Emperor Leo III issued an edict forbidding the use of images. John wrote vehemently in favor of the use of images and encouraged lay Christians to continue using them, in defiance of the emperor’s edict. John’s treatises are beautiful defenses of an incarnation theology and of the importance of the imagination in developing faith in Christ.

John wrote that art is appropriate for depicting a God who became human: “I do not draw an image of the immortal Godhead: I paint the visible flesh of God, for it is impossible to represent a spirit, how much more God who gives breath to the spirit. When the Invisible One becomes visible o the flesh, you may then draw a likeness of His form.” Indeed, “I do not worship matter,” wrote John, “I worship the God of matter, who became matter for my sake. Do not despise matter, for it is not despicable.”

John continues on to discuss the human imagination, “the mind, which is set upon getting beyond corporeal things, is incapable of doing it. For the invisible things of God since the creation of the world are made visible through images.” The imagination reaches towards God, but needs faith, needs grace, to receive the image of God’s own self which God brings to the human being. And images are important for igniting the imagination, for “Image speaks to the sight as words to the ear, it brings understanding.”

John’s writings were essential arguments that were used when the Iconoclast Controversy was finally settled in favor of the iconophiles—those who advocated the use of images in Christian life—at the Second Council of Nicaea, in 787, forty years after his death in 749.

John wrote and adapted many biblical texts for musical use in the liturgy—these texts still survive and are used in some of the liturgies of Eastern Rite Christian Churches.

Known as the last of the Greek Fathers of the Church in the Roman Catholic Church, John of Damascus was proclaimed a Doctor of the Church in 1890 by Pope Leo XIII for his defense of art. This is a title given to thirty-seven saints who are honored for elucidating the faith through their prolific words, wisdom, and example. Some of John’s relics rest in the reliquary chapel in the Basilica of the Sacred Heart on Notre Dame’s campus. John’s image shown above was created by a 2006 graduate of the school of architecture, Matthew Alderman.

St. John of Damascus, saint who defended art’s power to move the heart and mind to God—pray for us!

Image credit:
Illustration by Matthew Alderman, and used with permission.