Development in Theological

Method and Argument in John

of Damascus

SCOTT ABLES
Terminological confusion exacerbated by councils divided the church in late antiquity. John of
Damascus addressed the resultant terminological impasse by providing the reestablished
Jerusalem Patriarchate with theological polemic that reemphasized the preeminence of the
council of Nicaea. John’s early works relied on scripture and patristic argument, but after his
philosophic works, his theological method couched scripture and patristic argument in terms of a
new philosophic acumen. Building on this change in theological method, I argue that John’s
theological argument also underwent development using the term “perichōrēsis” as a case study,
resulting in a provisional date-list of John’s polemical works. I then argue that development in
John appears to have an ecumenical motivation by analyzing his redeployment of the theological
technical term “perichōrēsis” from his Christology to his Trinitarianism. I argue that John
subordinates his Christology to a terminologically clarified Nicene Trinitarianism in order to
address concerns of his local interlocutors by re-casting local christological debate in three ways:
1) he couched his Christology in terms of a specifically Nicene heresiology shifting fifth and
sixth century theologians off-stage, whether Cyril of Alexandria, Severus of Antioch, or
Maximus the Confessor, pushing Gregory of Nazianzus to the fore as universal authority; 2) he
avoided the critique of Aristotelianism by couching his Christology in terms of the Nicene locus
classicus, John 10.30; and finally, 3) he adroitly granted but restated the theological premise of
his interlocutors turning their argument on its head. Thus, John grounds his innovative
theological polemic in the tradition while providing his bishop and the newly reestablished
patriarchate with a more progressive and ecumenical theological method, argument, and polemic.

Copyright © 2021 Johns Hopkins University Press and the North American Patristics Society. This article will first
appear in JOURNAL OF EARLY CHRISTIAN STUDIES, Volume 21, Issue 1 (Spring 2021), pages <#-#>. This is
an early final manuscript version, which will be replaced by the actual final manuscript version when available.
JOURNAL OF EARLY CHRISTIAN STUDIES 2

INTRODUCTION

Today the term “perichōrēsis” primarily stands for the “interpenetration” in one another of the
divine persons in the Trinity, but long before this it was first used for the “interpenetration” of
the divine and human natures in Christ.1 It was not until the eighth century that John of
Damascus first used the term of the Trinity. I will argue here that the rhetorical purpose of
Trinitarian perichōrēsis is a function of John’s local context, the re-established Jerusalem
Patriarchate of the early eighth century.2 In this essay, however, I will focus on John’s rhetorical
use of the term and then broach the subject of his use in theological polemic. Space constraints
prohibit delving into the developing theological content of the concept and any nuanced
understanding of the meaning of the term “perichōrēsis”; however, for the interested reading I
have provided a selected bibliography at the end of footnote 1. I consider this study of the
rhetorical use of the term in John’s theological polemic, however, preparatory to a further study
of the development of the theological content and meaning of the term. As will become apparent
I believe it is John’s local context that drives his rhetoric, whether in theological method or
argument, only after showing development in these two areas, is it appropriate to then move on

This essay started as a means to socialize some of the basic findings of my doctoral thesis on John of
Damascus supervised by Mark Edwards, University of Oxford. It is better for the comments of the anonymous
reviewers, who have my sincere thanks.
1
References to ancient works give section and line numbers from the critical text, which is given as editor,
volume, page. For critical texts of John of Damascus see: P. B. Kotter, et. al., eds. Die Schriften des Johannes von
Damaskos, 13 vols., Patristische Texte und Studien 7, 12, 17, 22, 29, 60 1/2, 61, 68, 74–78 (Berlin and New York:
De Gruyter, 1969–2018). Abbreviations of ancient works follow G. W. H. Lampe, A Patristic Greek Lexicon
(Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1961). Most modern studies of the term “perichōrēsis” start with the two following
works: G. L. Prestige, “‘Perixoreo’ and ‘Perixoresis’ in the Fathers,” Journal of Theological Studies 29 (1928):
242–52, and G. L. Prestige, God in Patristic Thought, 2nd ed. (London: SPCK, 1964, 1952; 1st ed., 1936).
Prestige’s analysis remains important because it is the source of the definition of the term in Lampe’s Lexicon.
However, Prestige has been challenged on two points not often recognized by modern studies that rely on him: 1) he
wrongly defines the term as “reciprocate” and 2) he accepted (the consensus at the time) that Pseudo-Cyril was a
source of John of Damascus. The first is shown not to be the case by investigating the philosophical background of
the term: On this see, Harry A. Wolfson, The Philosophy of the Church Fathers, vol. 1: Faith, Trinity, Incarnation
(Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1956), 418–28. The second was shown not to be a source but a late
compilation based on John of Damascus: On this see, Vassa S. Conticello [now Kontouma], “Pseudo-Cyril’s De SS.
Trinitate: A Compilation of Joseph the Philosopher,” Orientalia Christiana Periodica 61 (1995): 117–29, reprinted
in Vassa Kontouma, John of Damascus: New Studies on His Life and Works (Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 2015), Essay
4: 117–29. On the theological meaning of perichōrēsis, see the following selected works: Charles C. Twombly,
Perichoresis and Personhood (Eugene, OR: Pickwick, 2015); an update to his 1992 Ph.D. Diss. Emmanuel Durand,
La perichorese des personnes divines: Immanence mutuelle reciprocite et communion (Paris: Cerf, 2005). Elena
Vishnevskaya, “Perichoresis in the Context of Divinization: Maximus the Confessor's Vision of a ‘Blessed and Most
Holy Embrace’,” Ph.D. Diss., Drew University, 2004. Richard Cross, “Perichoresis, Deification, and Christological
Predication in John of Damascus,” Mediaeval Studies 62 (2000): 69–124. Verna Harrison, “Perichoresis in the
Greek Fathers,” St. Vladimir's Theological Quarterly 35 (1991): 53–65. August Deneffe, “Perichoresis,
Circumincessio, Circuminsessio. Eine Terminologische Untersuchung,” Zeitschrift fur katholische Theologie 47
(1923): 497–532.
2
Regarding the possible role of John in the re-establishment of the Jerusalem Patriarch, see Scott Ables,
“Was the Reestablishment of the Jerusalem Patriarchate A ‘Proto-Melkite’ Gambit Orchestrated by John of
Damascus—Quid pro quo, Cathedral for Patriarchate?” ARAM Periodical 31 1/2 (2019, Forthcoming).
ABLES/THEOLOGICAL METHOD AND ARGUMENT IN JOHN OF DAMASCUS 3

to analysis of the theological development, which I will undertake separately, but necessarily as a
function of my work here and John’s local context.
Many scholars hold John of Damascus to be no more than a compiler of tradition, having
nothing to contribute, except maybe a genius for selection. If we dig beneath the appropriation of
the Constantinopolitan theological and political agenda that so powerfully shaped the late antique
Orthodox theological tradition, however, and look instead to the local context of John’s
theological output, we find something else entirely. We find a creative theologian, who played a
key role in the survival of Chalcedonian Christianity under the Umayyad Arabs by adapting his
theological polemic to his local context with creative insight. Further, John exhibited a
willingness to engage adversarial interlocutors, both monothelites of his own party and sectarian
miaphysite West and Nestorian East Syrian Christians. Neither of whom could any longer ignore
the small Chalcedonian party, which relocating from Damascus to Jerusalem in order to re-
establish the Jerusalem Patriarchate was now in firm control of the most-holy sites of Christian
pilgrimage, ensuring Chalcedonian polemic and preaching dominated. Consequently, I take a
new approach by initially focusing on John’s polemical corpus, because most studies tend to
treat John synthetically whether theologically or philosophically, failing to see the importance of
his local context for the development of his thought.3
First, I characterize the christological controversy of the early eighth century in terms of
lingering terminological confusion. Starting with the Council of Nicaea, I will briefly highlight
the failure of councils to clarify key terms, resulting in gradual confessional entrenchment.
Second, I will briefly recount my argument that John left caliphal service to support the re-
establishment of the Jerusalem Patriarchate (c. 705), thus putting John in Jerusalem a decade
prior to the typical biographical reconstruction. Third, having contextualized John’s polemical
output in the re-established patriarchate ripe for terminological clarification, I then argue that the
watershed in John’s theological method observed by Kontouma has implications not previously
noticed for John’s rhetorical use of the theological term “perichōrēsis” in such terminological
clarification, resulting in a preliminary date list of his polemical works. Finally, I argue that this
observable rhetorical development hints at actual theological development in John’s thought, by
showing that John recasts his theological use of the term “perichōrēsis” from entrenched neo-
Chalcedonian Christology to an overt Nicene Trinitarianism in order to address certain concerns
of his interlocutors in an ecumenical and systematic manner by deploying the term
“perichōrēsis.”4 Thus, this study proposes to set the stage for future theological investigation into
the development of the concept of perichōrēsis based on the development in the theological
method, argument, and polemic of John of Damascus. This will allow for a more wholistic

3
Previous studies have launched directly into theological analysis by focusing on John’s later De fide
orthodoxa libri quattuor (CPG 8043); Also known as, Expositio fidei. For example, see Twombly, Perichoresis and
Personhood. Others have viewed his theology synthetically, on this see Durand, La perichorese des personnes
divines, or analyzed him synthetically from a philosophical perspective, e.g. Cross, “Perichoresis, Deification, . . . .”
4
On the possibility of ecumenical intent in John, especially with the West Syrian miaphysites, see Zachary
M. Keith, “John of Damascus: Rewriting the Division of Heresy and Schism,” Vox Patrum 68 (2017): 501-512.
JOURNAL OF EARLY CHRISTIAN STUDIES 4

approach to John’s theological thought as a creative response to his sectarian context, rather than
merely in terms of an entrenched Chalcedonian tradition.

BACKGROUND: TERMINOLOGICAL CONFUSION

Despite six ecumenical councils between the early fourth through the late seventh centuries,
eighth-century christological debate remained divided along sectarian lines in part because of
lingering confusion regarding key theological terms. This subject is too large to unpack here.5 I
will briefly recount the role of the Gospel of John because it will become important in the
polemic of John of Damascus. In the fourth century, the Gospel of John became a hotbed of
controversy. The old bogey of (third-century) modalism now competed with Arianism, which
sought to separate Son and Father. John 10.30 was one of the problematic texts and properly
becomes a fourth-century theological watershed, interpreted ideologically by all parties.6 There
was also, however, a decided distaste for philosophic argument in favor of biblical terms. Thus,
the terms ousia and homoousios were actively avoided, while the biblical term hypostasis was
favored in debate and the Nicene homoousios remained challenged as tending to modalism well
beyond the council’s decision in 325 C.E.7 Further and ironically, the term hypostasis is missing
from both versions of the Nicene Creed. The initial Creed of 325 had used hypostasis and ousia
synonymously in its anathemas but these were dropped in the version approved at the Council of
Constantinople in 381 C.E.
Nevertheless in the lead up to the Council of Constantinople, the Cappadocian Fathers
analyzed the concept of hypostasis, appealing “to the analogy of a universal and its particulars,”
in order to address how God could be both one and three.8 This analysis culminated in the so-
called Cappadocian Settlement, i.e. the studied distinction between the sometimes synonymous
ousia and hypostasis. Whatever the role of this distinction in the resolution of the Arian
controversy, it was not enshrined in the Creed. For this reason (and others out of scope here), I

5
Among a large literature the following recent monographs are helpful. Regarding the eclectic
appropriation of Aristotelian thought by Christian theologians in late antiquity, see Mark Edwards, Aristotle and
Early Christian Thought, Studies in Philosophy and Theology in Late Antiquity (New York: Routledge, 2019).
Regarding the philosophical appropriation in John of Damascus, see Smilen Markov, Die metaphysische Synthese
des Johannes von Damaskus (Leiden: Brill, 2015). Markov’s project provides an important way to look into John’s
solution to the terminological impasse though philosophical appropriation primarily through analysis of the Dialect.
and the F.o. looking at key terms especially hypostasis in John. He takes perichōrēsis as presented in those works
and does not delve into its development in the polemical works so it is less germane to this project.
6
R. P. C. Hanson, The Search for the Christian Doctrine of God: the Arian Controversy 318–381
(Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1988), 834–35. See also T. E. Pollard, “The Exegesis of John 10.30 in the Early Trinitarian
Controversies,” New Testament Studies 3 (1957).
7
For hypostasis in the Bible or Apocrypha see the following: Ruth 1.12; 1 Sam 13.21; Pss 38.6, 38.8, 68.3,
88.48, 138.15; Job 22.20; Wis 16.21; Nah 2.8; Ezek 19.5; and Heb 11.1. Hanson, The Search for the Christian
Doctrine of God, 677. See also J. N. D. Kelly, Early Christian Doctrines, 5th ed. (New York: Harper, 1978, 1958),
240, 243.
8
Kelly, Early Christian Doctrines, 265–66.
ABLES/THEOLOGICAL METHOD AND ARGUMENT IN JOHN OF DAMASCUS 5

follow Lewis Ayres, who argues that the concept of three hypostaseis was endorsed, but no
formula appears to have been promulgated.9
Even after resolution at Constantinople, subsequent synodal communications continued
to sideline the term homoousios. Moreover, a variety of terms continued to be used almost
synonymously for the divine nature, including theotēs, ousia, or physis and for the divine
persons, hypostasis, prosōpon, or ideotētes.10 There seemed to be a growing recognition for the
need to distinguish unity and diversity in the Godhead and the Cappadocian Settlement had some
influence in theologia (the doctrine of God) but not more generally in the oikonomia (the
doctrine of providence generally and incarnation specifically), and the new emphasis seemed to
be on a “unity of equality” or “unity of nature” rather than full “numerical identity.”11 In short,
much of the fourth century had been spent arguing for and securing the ontological interpretation
of John 10.30 by ensuring the Father and Son were equal by nature without being identical, but
without clarifying key terms beyond a specialized use in theologia that distinguished otherwise
synonymous ousia and hypostasis vis-à-vis the so called Cappadocian Settlement.
The two councils of the fifth century only exacerbated the problem. Christological
controversy now elevated the terms physis and prosopon already in play but now added to the
terminological mix by conciliar remit. The Council of Chalcedon (451 C.E.) used both terms of
Christ without defining them, although limits were set on their interpretation. This opened the
door wider to further controversy by leaving to each interpreter the precise theological content
and differentiation of each synonymous technical term, which was complicated by the
philosophic background of Aristotelian ontology eclectically appropriated by some, while being
denied by others.12 Andrew Louth summarizes this state of affairs this way, although all accepted
the Cappadocian distinction between hypostasis and ousia in the Persons of the Godhead, even
so there are “those who accepted Chalcedon and its assimilation of christological and Trinitarian
terminology in the distinction between hypostasis/prosopon and physis/ousia, and those who
rejected the synod and its definition,” the non-Chalcedonian Nestorian and miaphysite
churches.13
The terminological confusion exacerbated by the two fifth-century councils resulted in
entrenched sectarian divisions. The East Syrian (Nestorian) church found solace in the arms of
Persia after the ensuing schism resulting from the Council of Ephesus (431 C.E.) and the West

9
Ayres, Nicaea and Its Legacy, 252–59. B. Studer favors the slogan, but I find the notion of a rare slogan
unlikely. Basil Studer, Trinity and Incarnation: The Faith of the Early Church, trans. Matthias Westerhoff
(Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1993), 144.
10
Ayres, Nicaea and Its Legacy, 252–53, 258–59. The respective Greek terms for divine nature were
θεότης, ὀυσία, and φύσις and for divine person, ὑπόστασις, πρόσωπον, and ἰδιοτήτες.
11
Studer, Trinity and Incarnation, 144. Kelly, Early Christian Doctrines, 268.
12
For example, see Mark Edwards discussion of Aristotelian appropriation (or not) in Cyril of Alexandria,
Nemesius of Emesa, Severus of Antioch, and John Philoponus in Edwards, Aristotle in Early Christian Thought,
129–70.
13
Andrew Louth, St John Damascene: Tradition and Originality in Byzantine Theology, Oxford Early
Christian Studies (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002), 112–13.
JOURNAL OF EARLY CHRISTIAN STUDIES 6

Syrian (miaphysite) church found respite under Islam after the similarly schismatic Council of
Chalcedon (451 C.E.). In both cases sectarian divisions resulted in the creation of differing sets
of authorities holding divergent and entrenched terminological viewpoints. Now justified by
differing sets of sectarian authorities appeals to tradition would become less and less effective,
and in direct consequence those authorities shared by all increased in stature. One example
seems to be Gregory of Nazianzus, who was cited as “a major theological authority at the
Council of Ephesus” and then he was “designated ‘Gregory the Theologian’ at the Council of
Chalcedon.”14 Regardless of the outcome of the councils at Ephesus and Chalcedon, Gregory of
Nazianzus remained a key theological authority in common with all interlocutors in Syro-
Palestine: Nestorian, Chalcedonian, and miaphysite.
This became increasingly apparent to theologians of the sixth and seventh centuries, who
attempted to bridge the terminological gap between adversarial interlocutors largely to no avail.
For example, Maximus the Confessor and his party stand out by gathering and defining key
terms useful for christological debate.15 However, it was John of Damascus who took this
practice to its logical end apparently exceeding all others with some two hundred definitions.16
John of Damascus gathered definitions from the church fathers and harmonized these for
theological use. He did this in terms of the philosophical treatises available to him, essentially
putting the definitional problem to rest for Chalcedonians.17 For example, John states early in his
career, possibly prior to his philosophic handbook the Dialectica (CPG 8041) in his Institutio
elementaris (CPG 8040), “Essence, nature, and form, according to the holy fathers, are the same
thing. And, again, hypostasis, prosopon, and individual are the same thing. And, difference,

14
John A. McGuckin, St Gregory of Nazianzus: An Intellectual Biography (Crestwood, NY: St Vladimir’s
Seminary Press, 2001), xi. See The Acts of the Council of Chalcedon, Richard Price and Michael Gaddis, trans., 3
vols., Translated Texts for Historians 45 (Liverpool University Press, 2007, 2005), 1:295, 3:117. Chalcedon
rehearses Ephesus II (The Robber Synod of 449) which shows that the Alexandrians following Dioscorus, bishop of
Alexandria, who later would be termed miaphysite, excepted Gregory as an authority. There is also evidence from
Bar Hebraeus (thirteenth-century), a Syrian Orthodox (miaphysite) who considered Gregory of Nazianzus an
authority accepted by Chalcedonians, Nestorians and miaphysites, on which see Mathunny John Panicker, The
Person of Jesus Christ in the Writings of Juhanon Gregorius Abu’l Faraj Commonly Called Bar Ebraya, Studien
zur orientalischen Kirchengeschichte 4 (Münster: Lit, 2002), 52.
15
For examples of lists attributed to Maximus the Confessor see PG 91.149B–153B (Opusc.14), 213A–
16A (Opusc. 18), 260D–268A (Opusc. 23), and 276B–280B (Opusc. 26b), which fall within the Theological and
Polemical Opuscula. Kotter’s apparatus for the Dialect. did not turn up any reference to these texts. Further,
following Bram Roosen, Jankowiak and Booth reject Opusculum 23 and 26b as spurious. Marek Jankowiak and Phil
Booth, “A New Date-List of the Works of Maximus the Confessor,” in The Oxford Handbook of Maximus the
Confessor, Pauline Allen and Bronwen Neil, eds. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015): 19–83. On these terms in
the Christology of Maximus see the study by Georgios Ag. Siskos, Τὸ ἑρμηνευτικὸ πλαίσιο τῆς Χριστολογίας τοῦ
Ἁγίου Μαξίμου τοῦ Ὁμολογητοῦ [The Hermeneutical Context of Christology in Saint Maximus the Confessor],
Byzantine Texts and Studies 61 (Thessaloniki: Κέντρο Βυζαντινῶν Ἐρευνῶν, 2014).
16
Christiane Furrer-Pilliod, Οροι Και Υπογραφα: Collections alphabétiques de définitions profanes et
sacrées, Studi E Testi (Città del Vaticano: Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, 2000), 34–35, 38–40.
17
On this, see Scott Ables, “John of Damascus on Genus and Species,” in The Ways of Byzantine
Philosophy, Mikonja Knežević, ed. (Alhambra, CA: Sebastian Press, 2015), 271–87.
ABLES/THEOLOGICAL METHOD AND ARGUMENT IN JOHN OF DAMASCUS 7

quality, and property are the same thing” (Inst. el. 1.1–6).18 There is no other occurrence of a
similar passage this complete with three sets of three terms prior to this clarifying or defining the
meaning of the words for being, person, and property in the patristic record.19 Therefore, if John
of Damascus is the epitome of the Greek fathers, and he is the first to gather and clarify and/or
define these terms for being, person, and property in application to Trinitarian theology, then
prior to the eighth century, i.e. prior to John of Damascus, there was no terminological
rapprochement across the divergent Christian traditions nor even within the orthodox catholic
tradition. Further, given John’s progress regarding terminological clarification with statements
such as that cited above, it is not until John himself that there can be any appropriate application
of the capstone Trinitarian term “perichōrēsis” within the conciliar Christian tradition, much less
in the wider if divergent, non-conciliar Christian tradition.20 Thus, although there are many
patristic comparisons of two, even three of the above terms, none comes close to systematizing
all nine terms; consequently, any such discussion read as though participating in some wider
theological terminological consensus would be anachronistic.

BACKGROUND: THE CONTEXT OF HIS POLEMIC

Sophronius, Patriarch of Jerusalem, passes from the scene shortly after surrendering the city to
the Arab followers of Muhammad in 638 C.E. Then for nearly seventy years Jerusalem was
without a patriarch, indeed the Umayyad’s apparently forbade any Chalcedonian patriarch in
Antioch, Jerusalem or Alexandria to be resident, but then miraculously the Umayyad caliph
allowed the Jerusalem Patriarchate to be re-established c. 705.21 John V, the new patriarch,
would reign for thirty years, c. 705–35 C.E., and in hindsight his reign, in which the Melkite
identity solidifies, would be viewed as a golden age. The corpus of John of Damascus is arguably
central to both the Melkite identity formation and the efflorescence of Melkite influence,

18
Οὐσία καὶ φύσις καὶ μορφὴ κατὰ τοὺς ἁγίους πατέρας ταὐτόν ἐστιν. Καὶ πάλιν ὑπόστασις καὶ πρόσωπον
καὶ ἄτομον ταὐτόν ἐστιν. Καὶ διαφορὰ καὶ ποιότης καὶ ἰδίωμα ταὐτόν ἐστιν. Περὶ τούτων οὖν καὶ τῶν τοιούτων
σκοπὸς ἡμῖν ἐστιν εἰπεῖν, περὶ ὧν καὶ ἡ ὑμετέρα συγκαταβατικῶς ἠρώτησεν ὁσιότης. John of Damascus, Inst. el.
1.1–6 (Kotter 1:20).
19
I date the Inst. el. before both recensions of John’s Dialect., where for example in Dialect. 31 he
discusses essence, nature, and form. I hope for only provisional acceptance of such an exhaustive statement
regarding the “patristic record.” I make this statement after numerous proximity searches looking for similar
statements within the TLG corpora (accessed on varies dates in 2015). There is a partial parallel in Anastasius of
Sinai, Hodegus sive viae dux, at 2.7.50–51. For this see Ables, “John of Damascus on Genus and Species,” 279n43.
For Anast. S., see Anastasius Sinaita: Viae dux, K.-H. Uthemann, ed., CCG 8 (Turnhout: Brepols, 1981).
20
Out of scope here but a key aspect the theological study of the term “perichōrēsis” to be taken up
subsequently is that previous studies of “perichōrēsis” tend to consider its use in Christology and Trinitarian thought
in contradistinction to each other, rather than as necessarily complementary to each other, which I suspect is John’s
true position, thus the concept itself would also be anachronistic prior to John, but such a claim deserves separate
theological treatment.
21
Papal vicarii appointed to Antioch or Jerusalem were mistrusted by locals as meddling interlopers, and
Constantinople appointed several bishops to Antioch in this period, but none left Constantinople. Regarding papal
vicarii, see Richard Price, The Acts of the Lateran Synod of 649, (Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 2014), 397.
JOURNAL OF EARLY CHRISTIAN STUDIES 8

possibly implementing patriarchal policy by equipping monks with “proto-school” texts to

compete with better educated West and East Syrian interlocutors, who had the benefit of the
schools at Qenneshre and Nisibis, respectively.22

Table 1. The many Lives of John of Damascus

Date (C.E.) Origin Title

By 807 Palestine The Canon of John Damascene and St Barbara.

842–43 Constantinople The Life of the Melodists Cosmas and John. [BHG3 394]
842–43 Constantinople The Brief Life of John of Damascus. Rec. A [BHG3 885b]
Late 9th cent. Constantinople The Brief Life of John of Damascus. Rec. B [BHG3 885c]
10th cent. Antioch A lost Arabic Life.23
976–1025 Antioch Life of our holy Father, John Damascene. [BHG3 884]24
c. 1084–85 Antioch Arabic Life by Michael (al-Sim‛ānī) of St. Symeon’s.25
c. 1156 Constantinople The Life of our holy and god-bearing Fathers, the brothers,
John Damascene and Cosmas. [BHG3 395]
12th cent. Constantinople The Life of John of Damascus Athensiensis. [BHG3 884a]
By 1324 Constantinople Panegyric on John Damascene. [BHG3 885]
13th cent. Constantinople The Life of Cosmas the Hymnographer. [BHG3 394b]
13th–14th cent. Constantinople The Life of Cosmas the Hymnographer. [BHG3 394a]
1665 Antioch The Names and Lives of the Fathers and Doctors of the
Church and the Melodists. [Arabic]

22
On the West Syrian (miaphysite) school at Qenneshre, see Jack Tannous, “Competition, Schools, and
Qenneshre,” in The Making of the Medieval Middle East: Religion, Society, and Simple Believers (Princeton, NJ:
Princeton University Press, 2018): 161–80. On the East Syrian (Nestorian) school at Nisibis, see Adam H. Becker,
Fear of God and the Beginning of Wisdom: The School of Nisibis and the Development of Scholastic Culture in Late
Antique Mesopotamia, (Divinations: Rereading Late Ancient Religion; Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania
Press, 2006).
23
BHG3 884 claims an underlying Arabic source for itself, which is not known.
24
Often termed the “official” Life because it is the basis for the Byzantine cult, and consequently, the
tradition, so most biographers have favored it. For example, Andrew Louth confines his discussion of the biography
of John largely to BHG3 884, while concluding all Lives are “late and unreliable.” Louth, St John Damascene, 3–28.
On authorship and provenance, I continue to tentatively follow Vassa Kontouma, contra Robert Volk, on which see
Vassa Kontouma, “Christianisme orthodoxe,” Annuaire de l’École pratique des hautes études (EPHE), Section des
sciences religieuses [en ligne]125 (2018), mis en ligne le 28 juin 2018, consulté le 04 juillet 2018. URL:
http://journals.openedition.orgt/asr/2002 at 248. Thanks to a reviewer for providing this article. Volk’s misgivings
center on the authorship attributed within the manuscript tradition, which is itself traditional and of which Kontouma
was aware when outlining her position.
25
Edited in Constantine Bacha, Biographie de saint Jean Damascene. Text original arabe (Harisa,
Lebanon: Grecque Melchite de Saint Paul, 1912). It has been shown that this is not in fact the Arabic Life claimed as
the source of BHG3 884, on which and for translations see Kontouma, New Studies, Essay 1:4–5, Essay 2: 22–24.
ABLES/THEOLOGICAL METHOD AND ARGUMENT IN JOHN OF DAMASCUS 9

The details of the biography of John of Damascus, however, are in short supply.26 A
tradition mired in numerous and conflicting hagiographical accounts (Table 1) has perhaps over
relied on the supposed “official Life” [BHG3 884]. Scholars have also repeatedly attempted to
harmonize John’s life with the timeline of Byzantine Iconoclasm and/or Islamic persecution
primarily based on this Life. This approach has generally come to hold that John left
administrative service because of persecution during the reign of ‘Umar II (717–20) or possibly
of Hisham (724–43).27 For example, recently in 2016 Daniel Janosik proposed that John left
office and entered monastic life around 716, because “Umar II was so intolerant of Christians
serving in administrative posts, even if they knew Arabic,” and more recently (2018) Najib
George Awad has suggested that John probably left the administration under Hisham although he
acknowledges the Vitae (BHG3 884 and the Arabic Life by Michael (al-Sim‛ānī) of St. Symeon’s
edited by C. Bacha) are probably not historical.28 Thus, there is no consensus with the traditional
approach.
Consequently, Vassa Kontouma has termed this approach the “legendary portrait,” and
concludes that “there was simply no reason for John to remain in Damascus after the re-founding
of the Patriarchate c. 705.”29 Further, building on Kontouma’s position, I have argued elsewhere
that there was most likely a quid pro quo between the “proto-Melkite” pro-Chalcedonian party in
Damascus and the caliph, entailing the secret trade of the cathedral of St. John the Baptist in
Damascus for the re-establishment of the Jerusalem Patriarchate, thus accounting for the
coincident timing and transferal of leadership from the cathedral of St. John the Baptist in
Damascus to that in Jerusalem, the Anastasis (Holy Sepulcher, in the West).30
If this is right, this places John in Jerusalem from c. 705, thus providing the context in
which John produces his polemical works (if not his entire corpus), apparently then in support of
patriarchal policy as something like “proto-school” texts. Without obviating the influence of
either tradition or Jerusalem’s interests in Constantinopolitan theological controversy, John’s
local context in the newly re-established Jerusalem Patriarchate is important for my argument
because if accepted it decouples John’s biography from both the timeline of Byzantine
Iconoclasm and Islamic persecution, making his primary intellectual motivation something other
26
Robert Volk at the Commission for Greek and Byzantine Studies of the Bavarian Academy of Sciences
in personal correspondence (dated 17 Oct 2014 and 5 Oct 2015) indicates he and a small team are working on
critical texts of John’s Greek Vitae (BHG3 884 and others) and Arabic Vita. He anticipates publication of this
research in DeGruyter’s series: Patristische Texte und Studien.
27
For example, see the following, Vassa Kontouma-Conticello, “Vie de Jean Damascène,” in Jean
Damascène: La foi orthodoxe (Paris: Cerf, 2010): 11–30 at 12. Joseph Nasrallah, Saint Jean de Damas: Son époque,
sa vie, son œuvre. vol. 2, His souvenirs Chrétiens de Damas (Harissa, Lebanon: Imp. Saint Paul, 1950), 74–75.
Martin Jugie, “Une nouvelle vie et un nouvel écrit de saint Jean Damascène,” Échos d’Orient 28/153 (1929): 35–41
at 38.
28
Daniel J. Janosik, John of Damascus, First Apologist to the Muslims: The Trinity and Christian
Apologetics in the Early Islamic Period (Eugene, OR: Pickwick, 2016), 31. Najib George Awad, Umayyad
Christianity: John of Damascus as a Contextual Example of Identity Formation in Early Islam (Piscataway, NJ:
Gorgias, 2018), 141, 185–86, 188, 190.
29
Kontouma, New Studies, Essay 1:2, 24.
30
See Ables, “Reestablishment of the Jerusalem Patriarchate.”
JOURNAL OF EARLY CHRISTIAN STUDIES 10

than Islamic persecution or Constantinopolitan theological concerns over images. On the

contrary, John’s thought would be primarily motivated by his positive support of John V,
Patriarch of Jerusalem, to whom he was very close, while re-establishing the Jerusalem
Patriarchate, providing an opportunity to clarify the entrenched terminological confusion through
constructive theological engagement with local sectarian interlocutors.31

DEVELOPMENT IN THEOLOGICAL METHOD

Thus, to address his local interlocutors, John adopted the term “perichōrēsis” from Maximus the
Confessor, who had adopted it from a single theological occurrence in Gregory of Nazianzus.32
Gregory used it of the names of Christ, and Maximus took him to mean that the underlying
divine and human natures in Christ “interpenetrated.”33 Maximus not only develops the
christological use of the term but broadens it to stand for how the uncreated divinity is present
within and sustains creation, reveals revelation, and divinizes human beings, i.e. from
incarnation to providence, God’s work in Christ to that in the world, the oikonomia both
narrowly and broadly conceived.34 John of Damascus adopts the term from Maximus, but drops
all but the narrow application in Christ (the oikonomia proper). I will argue below that John is
limiting his use to that in Gregory of Nazianzus for polemical reasons.

31
On John’s relationship with John V, see also note 49 below.
32
See the following note for the theological usage reference. Gregory used the term on three other
occasions, which were non-theological in meaning: 1) Oration 18.42: Funebris oratio in patrem, PG 35.1041A; 2)
Oration 22.4: De pace 2, PG 35.1136B (SC 270:226); 3) Oration 17.4: Ad cives Nazianzenos, PG 35.972A. For
critical text of Orations 17 and 18, see C. Moreschini, ed., Gregorio di Nazianzo: Tutte le orazioni [All the
Orations], C. Sani and M. Vincelli, trans., (Milano: Bompiani, 2000). For critical text of Oration 22, see J. Mossay,
ed., Grégoire de Nazianze: Discours 20-23. SC 270 (1980).
33
Gregory of Nazianzus, Epistle 101, 31.5–6 (SC 208:48). Grégoire de Nazianze: Lettres théologiques. P.
Gallay, ed., SC 208 (2013, 1998: réimpr. de la 1re éd. rev. et corr., 1974). Maximus interprets Gregory in Max.
Scholia in Dionysius Areopagite, Ep. 4; PG 4.445C. Although scholarship has shown that many of Maximus’s
scholia on the Areopagite are actually by John of Scythopolis, this passage, however, seems to be by Maximus
according to Rorem and Lamoreux. See their Appendix Collation of the Scholia, which gives only “533.1 S/G [2–
4],” and not paragraphs 533.2–3, which may be a mistake, because Rorem and Lamoreaux offer translations of
533.2 and 533.3 suggesting it belongs to John of Scythopolis. Nevertheless, the bit I rely on (PG 4.445C) as
Maximus falls within the omitted section of their translation indicating it is not by John of Scythopolis and thus
retained to Maximus. Paul Rorem and John C. Lamoreaux, John of Scythopolis and the Dionysian Corpus:
Annotating the Areopagite (Oxford: Clarendon, 1998), 253, 264.
34
All created reality for Maximus participates in a “mutual exchange (περιχώρησις).” On this see, Hans
Urs von Balthasar, Cosmic Liturgy, Brian E. Daley, trans. (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2003 [German]1988),
172–74. The paradigm of deification (salvation) for Maximus is the περιχώρησις of the natures in the incarnation, on
this see Lars Thunberg, Microcosm and Mediator: The Theological Anthropology of Maximus the Confessor, 2nd ed.
(Chicago: Open Court, 1995), 31–32. On the “mutual exchange” of Balthasar or the “paradigm of reciprocity” in
deification as Thunberg elaborated as God at work in creation via the logoi see Melchisedec Törönen, Union and
Distinction in the Thought of St Maximus the Confessor, Oxford Early Christian Studies (Oxford: Oxford University
Press, 2007), 127–35.
ABLES/THEOLOGICAL METHOD AND ARGUMENT IN JOHN OF DAMASCUS 11

Table 2. Occurrences of the term “perichōrēsis” in each theologian

Type Maximus the John of Damascus
Confessor

1. In theologia, i.e. Trinitarian 0 9

2. In the oikonomia narrowly, i.e. christological 8 25

3. In the oikonomia broadly, i.e. providence, etc. 11 5

The table above shows nineteen occurrences of the term “perichōrēsis” in Maximus of
which eight are christological while the bulk deal with divine participation generally or
deification specifically, but none are Trinitarian, i.e. Maximus used the term within the
oikonomia but not in theologia. Turning to John, we find that none of John’s five type three uses
appear to follow Maximus. One can be ignored as not being used theologically and its attribution
to John is disputed anyway.35 The other four occur in the recensions of John’s Dialect. in
reference to the definition of union generally. Thus, none represent John’s theological
appropriation of the Maximian cosmological use for the oikonomia broadly; consequently,
John’s appropriation from Maximus is limited to his use of the term in the narrow sense of
oikonomia, the incarnation, i.e. in Christology.
Vassa Kontouma has argued that John’s philosophic works, the Inst. el. and the Dialect.,
act as a watershed in John’s theological argument. Prior to these texts John relies exclusively on
scripture and patristic argument, but after them philosophical speculation assumes a central role
in John’s theological argument. Scripture and patristic argument are subsequently still important
but are now couched within a philosophically reasoned approach.36 Table 3 below summarizes
John’s polemical corpus in terms of this change in theological method.

Table 3. John’s polemical works before and after his philosophical works
Polemical works “before” use Philosophical works Polemical works “after” use scripture
Scripture and patristic argument create a theological- and patristic argument now couched in
w/o reference to philosophy methodological terms of philosophical argument
watershed in John

35
Sacra parallela (recensiones secundum alphabeti litteras dispositae, quae tres libros conflant) (fragmenta
e cod. Vat. gr. 1236) PG 95.1124.7. For critical text see Die Schriften des Johannes von Damaskos 8, Tobias Thum
and José Declerck, eds., 4 vols. Patristische Texte und Studien 74–77 (Berlin and New York: De Gruyter, 2018).
Thum and Declerck dispute the attribution to John of Damascus, preferring an early seventh-century author. On this
see also José Declerck, “Les Sacra Parallela nettement antérieurs à Jean Damascène. Retour à la datation de Michel
le Quien,” Byzantion 85 (2015): 27–65, and José Declerck, “Le Parisinus gr. 923. Un manuscrit destiné à l’empereur
Basile Ier (867–86),” Byzantion 87 (2017): 181–206.
36
Kontouma, New Studies, Essay 1:38–39.
JOURNAL OF EARLY CHRISTIAN STUDIES 12

Dialogus contra Manichaeos Inst. el. De duabus in Christo voluntatibus37

(CPG 8048) (CPG 8052)
Dialect.
De hymno trisagio ad Jordanem Contra Jacobitas (CPG8047)
(CPG 8049)
De fide contra Nestorianos (CPG 8054)
Adversus Nestorianorum
haeresim (CPG 8053) De natura composita contra Acephalos
(CPG 8051)
Kontouma highlights a telling test case. John wrote two separate and distinct polemics against
the East Syrian Nestorians: Haer. Nest. was written without reference to philosophic argument,
making use exclusively of scripture and patristic argument. However, John wrote Fid. Nest., now
couching his scripture and patristic argument in sophisticated philosophic reasoning. The
difference between the two separate and distinct works is so pronounced that P. B. Kotter, John’s
editor, gave them separate critical texts. In support of Kontouma I argue that this is especially
noteworthy because Kotter had on three other occasions collated related but separate texts into
one critical text: 1) the Dialect., known in a shorter and longer recension, recensio brevior and
recensio fusior, respectively; 2) the De sacris imaginibus orationes (CPG 8045), known in three
separate treatises, and 3) the Volunt., known in two recensions. As John writes his philosophic
works, his theological method changes such that his second polemic against the East Syrian
position is rewritten, not merely edited to incorporate philosophic insights, but reconsidered in
the light of his maturing theological method.38

DEVELOPMENT IN THEOLOGICAL ARGUMENT

37
Placement is provisional pending further research.
38
On this theory I further solicited the opinion of Habib Ibrahim, whose recent doctoral thesis was on the
Arabic versions of both of John’s texts against the Nestorians: Jean Damascène arabe.Édition critique des deux
traités contre les Nestoriens (Paris: EPHE, 2016). He finds the theory very “interesting” and writes further:
I have just checked two other writings of JD [John of Damascus]: Expositio et declaratio
fide [CPG 8078] and Libellus de recta sententia, est confessio fidei dicata a Damasceno et ab Elia
episcopo tradita Petro Damasci metropolitae [CPG 8046] both translated into Arabic. The first
was translated by Antony abbot of St. Simon, the latter, probably by Ibn al-Fadl. The Libellus does
not contain any perichōrēsis (‫)نفوذ‬. The Expositio [et declaratio fide] considered as the declaration
of faith of JD the day of his consecration [as] priest of the Anastasis has both Trinitarian and
christological perichōrēsis. This work is lost in Greek but can be found [in] a Latin translation
from Arabic by Abraham Excellencis in the PG. (Habib Ibrahim, personal correspondence, 24
March 2019.)
He wonders if the Expositio et declaratio fide should thus be considered later than 705 when John’s
consecration is traditionally dated since it contains both Trinitarian and christological perichōrēsis. Further, he finds
no perichōrēsis in the Arabic translation of Rect. sent., but the Greek has, what I would hypothesize pending further
analysis, an early form (perhaps Maximian) of Trinitarian perichōrēsis at PG 94.1424A.
ABLES/THEOLOGICAL METHOD AND ARGUMENT IN JOHN OF DAMASCUS 13

In addition to changes in his theological method, I propose that John’s theological argument
itself matures, showing interrelated development in both his christological and Trinitarian
argument, as he responds to local interlocutors in his polemic. I will show below how John’s use
of perichōrēsis further differentiates four stages of development in his thought. The table below
gives the first three stages: as “Maximian,” the earliest stage; “Trinitarian,” where John’s
philosophical and theological acumen takes him beyond Maximus; and “Coordinated,” where
John subordinates his Christology to his Trinitarianism specifically to contravene certain
interlocutors.

Table 4. Three stages in the development of John’s theological use of perichōrēsis39

Audience Maximian (earlier) Trinitarian Coordinated (later)

Liturgical Hom. 1.2.49

Hom. 4.18.10
Monothelites Rect. sent. PG 94.1424A
Miaphysites Jacob. 78.38 Nat. 4.12
Nestorians Fid. Nest. 36.2

The first two occurrences of christological perichōrēsis are in two of John’s liturgical
sermons, and these constructions look Maximian. Next, is the Trinitarian use in Rect. sent. and
Jacob., which shows John moving perichōrēsis into theologia.40 This advance decidedly
distinguishes John from Maximus, who never uses perichōrēsis outside the oikonomia in
theologia. The designation “Coordinated,” however, gives two more examples where John now
closely coordinates his Christology with his Trinitarianism by subordinating his theology of the
oikonomia to that of his theologia.41 These two passages clearly claim that a dyophysite
Christology results from a properly understood theologia, and it is this usage, subordinating
perichōrēsis in the oikonomia by making it a function of that in theologia, which finally
anticipates John’s use in his mature dogmatic work, F.o. (On the Orthodox Faith).42 Thus, this
evidence suggests that John’s local situation engendered a constructive theology beyond the
mere genius of selective compilation of past church fathers, rather his response to local polemic

39
John of Damascus, Hom. 1.2.49. (Kotter 5:438; CPG 8057). Also known as, Homilia in
transfigurationem salvatoris nostri Jesu Christi; Hom. 4.18.10 (Kotter 5:129; CPG 8059). Also known as, Oratio in
sabbatum sanctum; Jacob. 78.38 (Kotter 4:135); Nat. 4.12 (Kotter 4:413); Fid. Nest. 36.2 (Kotter 4:249).
40
There is another dogmatic Trinitarian use dating to around the same time in Rect. sent. (CPG 8046), PG
94.1424AB.
41
Aceph. is as Jacob. also an anti-miaphysite polemic. Usually taken to be indicative of certain Egyptian
miaphysites, Michael the Syrian indicates that these held influence among West Syrians as well, although this may
be a fine point. It suffices that Aceph. as anti-miaphysite seems to be an advance on Jacob. On Egyptian miaphysite
influence north of Syria, see J. -B. Chabot, ed. Chronique de Michel le Syrien, Patriarche Jacobite d’Antioche
(1166–1199). 5 vols., vol. 2 (Paris: Ernest Leroux, 1901, 1899–1910), 493.
42
Of the four Trinitarian uses in F.o., the one fully coordinated use is at 49.1–30.
JOURNAL OF EARLY CHRISTIAN STUDIES 14

and debate showed real development in his theological method (non-philosophical to

philosophical) and argument (rhetorical development in the use of perichōrēsis).
Below I provide three examples, one from each phase of development, showing
respectively early Maximian use, then the Trinitarian leap, and finally his fully developed
coordinated usage. Early use in liturgical sermons appears to follow that of Maximus, who also
mentions the antidosis, what will later be termed the communicatio idiomatum, when using the
term.43
Example 1
Καὶ θεοῦ μὲν τὰ ἀνθρώπινα γίνεται, By way of exchange and unconfused
ἀνθρώπου δὲ τὰ θεῖα τῷ τρόπῳ τῆς interpenetration in one another and the
ἀντιδόσεως καὶ τῆς ἐν ἀλλήλοις extreme union according to hypostasis,
ἀσυγχύτου περιχωρήσεως καὶ τῆς human things belong to God and divine
καθ’ ὑπόστασιν ἄκρας ἑνώσεως· things to a man.
Hom. 1.2.47–49 (Kotter 5:438)

In this next example, John makes the Trinitarian leap going beyond Maximus. If my
dating proposal is correct, then the two passages from Rect. sent. (example two below) and
Jacob. are the first examples in the patristic record of Trinitarian perichōrēsis clearly antedating
the mature use in the F.o.
Example 2
Οὔτε γὰρ χρόνῳ τέμνεται, οὐ τρὁπῳ, For neither is He [God] divided in time
οὐ δυνἀμει μερίζεται, ἀλλ’ ἐν or place nor is His power divided-up,
ἀλλήλοις τὴν περιχώρησιν ἔχουσι δίχα but without any coalescence or
πάσης συναλοιφῆς καὶ συγχύσεως. confusion They have their
Rect. sent. PG 94.1424A. interpenetration in one another.

Finally, in the third example, John coordinates his Trinitarian with his christological use
of perichōrēsis by sourcing his Christology from his Trinitarianism and thus subordinating it,
making his oikonomia directly dependent on his theologia, which anticipates his mature use in
the F.o.
Example 3
Ὥσπερ ἐπὶ τῆς ἁγίας τριάδος αἱ Just as with the holy Trinity, the
τρεῖς ὑποστάσεις διὰ τὴν φυσικὴν three Hypostaseis, because of both their
ταυτότητα καὶ τὴν ἐν ἀλλήλαις identity of nature and their interpenetration
περιχώρησιν εἷς θεός εἰσί τε καὶ in one another, are called and are one God,

43
Compare, Maximus the Confessor, Opusc. 16 [CPG 7697.16] PG 91.189D.
ABLES/THEOLOGICAL METHOD AND ARGUMENT IN JOHN OF DAMASCUS 15

λέγονται, οὕτως ἐπὶ τοῦ κυρίου in the same way with regard to our Lord,
ἡμῶν Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ αἱ δύο Jesus Christ, the two natures, because of
φύσεις διὰ τὴν ὑποστατικὴν both their identity of hypostasis and their
ταυτότητα καὶ τὴν ἐν ἀλλήλαις interpenetration in one another, are called
περιχώρησιν εἷς υἱός εἰσι·τὸ γὰρ and are one Son, for the term “Son” is of
υἱὸς ὑποστάσεώς ἐστι καὶ οὐ the hypostasis and not the nature.
φύσεως.
Fid. Nest. 36.1–5
(Kotter 4:249).

In this third stage of development John finally coordinates oikonomia as a function of

theologia, contravening both his miaphysite and Nestorian interlocutors. Against miaphysitism
John asserts the two natures interpenetrate one another in an identity of hypostasis, and against
Nestorianism this identity of hypostasis is one Son. Here John has not only gone beyond
Maximus with Trinitarian perichōrēsis but he has consciously subordinated the christological
perichōrēsis directly to his own Trinitarian perichōrēsis within a coordinated rhetorical structure.
Thus, John has sourced his christological perichoresis within the theologia of Nicaea and the
terminology of the Cappadocian Settlement. Further, John addresses his interlocutors, who were
theologically miaphysite or Nestorian with two polemical works each. These polemics, based on
an analysis of the use of perichōrēsis, show an advance from less sophisticated to more
sophisticated usage.44 From Table 4 above Fid. Nest. advances on Hear. Nest. by using
perichōrēsis in a coordinated fashion, and Nat. advances on Jacob., moving from Trinitarian use
to coordinated use.
I would argue that he limits the Maximian use to the incarnation, the oikonomia proper,
in order to mirror the use in Gregory of Nazianzus, who John with strategic insight perceives to
be the universal authority accepted by all of his interlocutors.45 Thus, John is working in these
later works to position the Jerusalem Patriarchate on common ground acceptable to all pilgrims
no matter their sectarian commitments undermining the ability of sectarian leadership to limit the
patronage of various holy sites. The non-Chalcedonian sectarians considered sharing the liturgy

44
The two miaphysite polemical works may be targeted to two different groups, the longer Jacob. at the
West Syrians and the shorter Aceph. at the Copts; however, there were supporters of the Coptic position in Syria so
John may have those holding the Coptic position and/or actual Egyptian Copts in and around Jerusalem in mind. See
also the note above referencing Michael the Syrian. The two contra East Syrian polemical works appear to be
directed at the same group, although they are early and simple (Haer. Nest.) and later and complex (Fid. Nest.) in
theological method.
45
For miaphysites, see Iain R. Torrance, Christology after Chalcedon: Severus of Antioch and Sergius the
Monophysite (Norwich: Canterbury Press, 1988), 104, 157, and John M. Panicker, The Person of Jesus Christ in the
Writings of Juhanon Gregorius Abu'l Faraj Commonly Called Bar Ebraya, Studien zur Orientalischen
Kirchengeschichte 4 (Hamburg: Lit, 2002), 52. For Nestorians, see G. R. Driver and Leonard Hodgson, ed. and
trans., Nestorius: The Bazaar of Heracleides (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1925), 194, 200, 205, 215, 220–21, 333.
JOURNAL OF EARLY CHRISTIAN STUDIES 16

(the Eucharist) or just communing with the holy martyrs in the presence of Chalcedonians a
spiritual taint, and thus counseled against pilgrimage but to no avail, in part, I would suggest,
because of John’s efforts in moderating the Chalcedonian rhetoric in Nicene terms.46
Finally, we turn to a fourth stage of development, which I term “coordinated+” in the
table below. It is evident in perhaps the most mature use of perichōrēsis that John uses to
conceptualize the two wills in Christ in the F.o. Surprisingly, John’s polemical work Volunt.
does not employ perichōrēsis, even though it is John’s longest christological polemic and is
known in two recensions, showing evidence of being edited, perhaps by John himself.47 Further,
although John’s work De recta sententia (CPG 8046), ostensibly a statement of faith to be
required of a repentant monothelite, and thus focused on the two wills of Christ, uses Trinitarian
perichōrēsis once, it makes no use of christological perichōrēsis, much less coordinate the two.
This is important because shortly after a passage in the F.o. that coordinates christological and
Trinitarian perichōrēsis, John goes on to speak of a perichōrēsis of the two wills, which neither
he nor Maximus had done previously and is conspicuously absent from either recension of
John’s Volunt. or Rect. sent. This is one of the reasons I date the Volunt. early after John’s
philosophical watershed, but more importantly it shows that John’s thought even in the mature
dogmatic F.o. advances beyond that of the polemical works, showing that even later in his
theological career he refines his position by continued systematization. Consequently, John of
Damascus appears to exhibit four stages of development in his theological argument with
evolving uses of perichōrēsis. Thus, John’s creative response to local interlocutors has him
continually developing his insights even in his later, mature, dogmatic F.o.
If John’s philosophic works neatly divide his corpus based on his theological method as
Kontouma suggests, and if John’s theological and rhetorical use of the term “perichōrēsis,”
shows development as I argue, then I would propose the following provisional and partial date
list based on these two criteria. I cannot take the space here to look at the relevant historical and
prosopographical markers, however slight, so I offer the following table based on the dual
criteria outlined above provisionally as an impetus to further research. Thus, my proposed date-
list is based on mutually informing observations in the development of John’s theological
method and argument.
The principle importance of a provisional date-list is to enable future theological analysis,
which will be able then to focus more on the internal theological thought rather than on the
external factors focused on here, markers of theological method and argument in John’s rhetoric.

46
Cornelia B. Horn, Asceticism and Christological Controversy in Fifth-Century Palestine: The Career of
Peter the Iberian (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006), 244, 322. See also on the centrality of Jerusalem
pilgrimage, Jan-Eric Steppa, ed., (2002), John Rufus and the World Vision of Anti-Chalcedonian Culture
(Piscataway, NJ: Gorgias Press), 244.
47
See Kotter 4:177–89. Sections 4–8 are given in two columns. See also Louth, St John Damascene, 167.
Only John’s Manich. exceeds his Volunt. in length.
ABLES/THEOLOGICAL METHOD AND ARGUMENT IN JOHN OF DAMASCUS 17

Table 5. Provisional and partial date list of the works of John of Damascus
Events and Texts Audience Perichōrēsis

In Damascus (c. 685–705) Manichaeans None

Man. 1 East Syrians (Nestorian) None
Haer. Nest.
In the Anastasis, c. 705 Internal to his own party None
Inst. el. Internal to his own party Defines union
Dialect. (brevior) Internal to his own party None
Volunt.48 Liturgical Sermon Christological
Hom. 4 Liturgical Sermon Christological
Hom. 1 West Syrians (miaphysite) Trinitarian
Jacob. Internal to his own party Trinitarian
Rect. sent. East Syrians (Nestorian) Coordinated
Fid. Nest. Copts (miaphysite) Coordinated
Nat.
After c. 720 Internal to his own party Defines union
Dialect. (fusior) Internal to his own party None
Liber de haeresibus (CPG 8044) Internal to his own party Coordinated+
F.o.
After c. 726 Iconoclasts Christological
Imag. 1–3
After c. 735 Internal to his own party None
49
Trisag.

48
Another possible impetus for the Volunt. would be the imperial policy of Philippicus (711–13), who
briefly reinstates monothelitism, which may have emboldened monothelites in Syro-Palestine, possibly within
John’s own party.
49
One might read Trisag. 1.41–44 to indicate that John V is dead but against this the perfect infinitive
γεγενῆσθαι may only indicate that John V held and still does the views in question (Kotter 4:306); however, Trisag.
26.13–17 cannot be read with such generosity: “Who knows the mind of the most blessed Patriarch John more than I
do? No one. He—surely I speak the truth!—never uttered a word of doctrine that he did not impart to me as his
disciple. Why didn’t they say all that about him when the holy man was still alive and able to talk?” Τίς γὰρ οἶδε τοῦ
μακαριωτάτου Ἰωάννου τοῦ πατριάρχου νόημα ἐμοῦ πλέον; Οὐδείς. Ὅς, ἵνα τἀληθὲς εἴπω, οὐκ ἀνέπνευσε πνοὴν
δογματικὴν πώποτε, ἣν ἐμοὶ ὡς μαθητῇ οὐκ ἀνέθετο. Τί μὴ ζῶντος καὶ φθεγγομένου τοῦ ἱεροῦ ἀνδρὸς ταῦτα περὶ
αὐτοῦ λέλεκτο; (Kotter 4:329). Consequently, if John V is dead, Trisag. must be written after 735. See also
Kontouma, New Studies, Essay 1:24–25. However, the content may still be based on earlier material. First, the
theological argument relies on scripture and patristic argument exclusive of reference to John’s philosophic works,
as his earliest works do; second, there are discussions of the Trinity and Christ that do not use the rhetorical
constructions employing perichōrēsis that became routine in the later works of John; third, a query on the Trisagion
hymn coming after the death of John V suggesting his position and that of John of Damascus were in doubt seems
unlikely, because the chroniclers note that John’s father persecuted West Syrians even of his own party on this issue.
So, it seems more likely that John’s position would be well known early, rather than unknown late. Further, the
question would be most apropos during the initial consolidation phase of the reign of John V as he established
liturgical norms throughout his patriarchate, thus in my view, the dating of this text remains in question.
JOURNAL OF EARLY CHRISTIAN STUDIES 18

JOHN’S ECUMENICAL RHETORICAL STRATEGY

Having delineated examples of development in John’s theological method and argument, can we
discern how his response to his local interlocutors may have shaped his polemic? I have
suggested that it was John’s local situation and his constructive response to it that fueled his
theological creativity that inspired changes in both theological method and argument,
highlighting his use of the term “perichōrēsis.” Now I would like to propose that John engaged
in a simple but clever rhetorical strategy in order to more effectively engage his interlocutors. I
suspect that John’s strategy was to migrate perichōrēsis from his Christology to his Trinitarian
theology in an attempt to coax his interlocutors on to Nicene common ground.
Leonard Prestige in his classic work God in Patristic Thought, thinking it a source of John that
moved perichōrēsis from Christology to Trinitarian thought, described the anonymous
theologian as an “accomplished and truly profound thinker,” but we now know that this is none
other than John of Damascus.50 But why did John do it? Building on Prestige and others, Charles
Twombly unpacked the importance of Trinitarian perichōrēsis specifically for John’s
Chalcedonian thought. Twombly writes:
We have noted John’s use of Chalcedonian concepts, if not always the
exact language, in describing how the hypostaseis of the Trinity are
related. To say that they are united and inseparable without merging,
blending, or being confused is to move within the thought world of the
Fourth Council. A clearer way now existed for stating how the elements of
the Trinity fit together without swallowing each other up.
Perichōrēsis functions then as a summing up, a condensation, of an
important aspect of the doctrine of the Trinity expressed in Chalcedonian
terms. . . . What perichōrēsis contributes is a further step in concision, in
which the Chalcedonian conceptuality could be gathered up and uttered in
a single term. That term . . . is of course not self-explanatory: it requires to
be funded by the classical delineations of the Trinity (and incarnation). In
light of that larger context, perichōrēsis provides increased intelligibility
to the notion of union-without-absorption.51
Both Prestige and Twombly are right but I think there is more to say about John’s
achievement; the nuance and fullness of which only comes to light once the centrality of the
local context and interlocutors is recognized. Prestige hinted at it when he prefaced his remarks
above on John’s brilliance by acknowledging the “assimilation of Christology and Theology”

50
Prestige, God in Patristic Thought, 280. On Pseudo-Cyril being a late compilation of John see note 1.
51
Twombly, Perichoresis and Personhood, 42.
ABLES/THEOLOGICAL METHOD AND ARGUMENT IN JOHN OF DAMASCUS 19

and Twombly also caught a glimpse when he refers in the above quote to “Trinity (and
incarnation).” Both saw that in John theologia and oikonomia come together as they do at
Chalcedon, but both saw the specific significance in John only for his doctrine of God. For
Prestige it lay in the invention of Trinitarian perichōrēsis itself, resolving terminological
abstraction detrimental to the concrete reality of the single substance of the Godhead by binding
the Trinitarian Persons together and for Twombly in the terminological clarification of the
doctrine of God in Chalcedonian terms, with which Louth agrees terming it John’s
“Chalcedonian logic,” with the developing conceptuality of the union-without-absorption being
“gathered up and uttered in a single term.”52
However, building on these insights I will argue rather that John had polemical reasons
for migrating perichōrēsis from his Christology to his Trinitarianism that encompassed both his
Christology and his Trinitarianism, systematizing both in terms of the other. Unlike Prestige and
Twombly I do not think John was merely restating his doctrine of God in Chalcedonian terms,
which would be only to further entrench his party’s position, risking the isolation of the
Anastasis and alienating many of its pilgrims. Rather I think John was systematizing the neo-
Chalcedonian position in order to de-emphasize the entrenched terminological impasse by
recasting it as a Nicene position in an attempt to court his interlocutors onto common ground.
John was not abandoning the Chalcedonianism of his party, rather he was providing an olive
branch such that pilgrims at least if not sectarian theologians would be sanguine regarding
sectarian differences and thus able to participate in the liturgy in Chalcedonian controlled holy
sites.
John’s interlocutors insisted their position was “a logical deduction from the doctrine of
the Trinity.”53 John did not entirely disagree, but he turns their argument on its head. To address
his interlocutors, using what I call Nicene markers, John re-casts christological debate in three
important ways: 1) he couches his Christology in terms of Nicene heresiology noticeably
backing off polemical statements targeted at specific West and East Syrian interlocutors; 2) he
carefully avoids the critique of Aristotelianism (death by logic) by embedding his Christology in
the interpretation of the Nicene locus classicus of John 10.30.54 And, 3) he adroitly grants but
restates the theological premise of his interlocutors shifting the basis for it from Chalcedon to
Nicaea, turning the christological positions of both West and East Syrians on their heads.55
Regarding the first marker, there are twenty-one occurrences of perichōrēsis in John’s
mature dogmatic work the F.o., four of these are Trinitarian, the rest christological. Early in the

52
Prestige, God in Patristic Thought, 265–81. Twombly, Perichoresis and Personhood, 40–46. Louth, St
John Damascene, 114.
53
W. H. C. Frend, The Rise of the Monophysite Movement: Chapters in the Histories of the Church in the
Fifth and Sixth Centuries (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1972), 288.
54
F.o. 8.255–65, 14.11–16, and 91.11–13 (Kotter 2:29, 42, 212). On the “in-ness” language of the Gospel
of John, see John 10.38, 14.10, 14.11, 14.20, 17.21, and 17.23.
55
My third marker is adapted from Scott Ables, “The Rhetoric of Persuasion in the Polemic of John of
Damascus,” Studia Patristica 96/22 (2017): 457–68 at 467–68.
JOURNAL OF EARLY CHRISTIAN STUDIES 20

one hundred chapters of the F.o., chapters 8 and 14, John states his Trinitarian position, and we
see where his developed use of perichōrēsis will lead us. Both passages invoke Sabellius and
Arius situating John’s innovative Trinitarian perichōrēsis between them as the middle way of
Nicene orthodoxy. John had previously invoked Arius and Sabellius in the polemical Jacob.,
where he discussed their error as a function of their equating ousia and hypostasis. In that earlier
work he then further discussed how both Nestorius (an authority and interlocutor for the East
Syrian position) and Severus of Antioch (an authority and interlocutor for the West Syrian
position) made the same mistake.56 In these first two passages in the F.o., however, he
strategically drops the anti-Nestorian and Severan rhetoric, which in the past no doubt raised the
ire of both East and West Syrian sectarians respectively, centering his argument on the
perichōrēsis of the divine persons as the Nicene middle way, now focused entirely on avoiding
the heresy of both Arius and Sabellius, Nicene arch-heretics for all of John’s interlocutors.
Further, Maximus used perichōrēsis at least nineteen times and yet I can find no record in
his voluminous correspondence of anyone asking him to define, justify, or elaborate on the term
itself. Thus, John may be confident that his interlocutors would have no problem with the term. It
seems likely that John realized this and hiding his dependence on Maximus, highlighted his
dependence on Gregory of Nazianzus termed “the Theologian,” a clearly pro-Nicene theologian
and bishop, and thus an orthodox (read neutral) theological authority accepted by all of John’s
interlocutors (monothelite, Nestorian, and miaphysite).
Second, in the next marker, three of the four Trinitarian passages in the F.o. invoke John
14.10 situating John’s use of perichōrēsis in the “in-ness” language of the Gospel of John; this
couched it in terms of a clear Nicene tradition of interpretation. T. E. Pollard and more recently
Mark DelCogliano writing on the interpretation of John 10.30, “I and the Father are one,” in the
early Trinitarian controversies show this verse was interpreted in light of the other “in-ness”
passages in the Gospel of John, with John 14.10 being arguably the foremost of these.57 Further,
this was also evident in Cyril of Alexandria’s commentary on the Gospel of John [CPG 5208],
and John of Damascus may have had Cyril’s analysis in mind, explicitly tying this verse in the
F.o. to the Arian controversy’s locus classicus, John 10.30 as well as Cyril’s later interpretation
of it.58 Evoking the early Cyril would again be to invoke an authority to which all miaphysites

56
Jacob. 2 (Kotter 4:110-11). In this early passage John pejoratively names Arius, Eunomius of Cyzicus,
Sabellius, Nestorius, Diodore of Tarsus, Theodore of Mopsuestia, Dioscorus, and Severus of Antioch, criticizing
their doctrine of God, while not mentioning perichōrēsis. However, he does use Trinitarian perichōrēsis later once,
at Jacob. 77.37 (Kotter 4:135), and Christological perichōrēsis with two occurrences at Jacob. 52.35 (Kotter 4:127)
and one at Jacob. 81.32 (Kotter 4:139).
57
See Pollard, “The Exegesis of John 10.30 in the Early Trinitarian Controversies.” See also, Mark
DelCogliano, “The Interpretation of John 10.30 in the Third Century: Antimonarchian Polemics and the Rise of
Grammatical Reading Techniques,” Journal of Theological Interpretation 6/1 (2012): 117–38.
58
F.o. 91:71–72 (Kotter 2:214). For a modern English translation see Cyril of Alexandria, Commentary on
John, in David R. Maxwell, trans., Joel C. Elowsky, ed. Ancient Christian Texts, 2 vols. (Downers Grove, IL: IVP
Academic, 2012, 2015). The Greek text is found in Cyril of Alexandria, Commentary on John, P. E. Pusey, ed., 3
vols. (Oxford: Clarendon, 1872; reprint Bruxelles: Culture et civilization, 1965).
ABLES/THEOLOGICAL METHOD AND ARGUMENT IN JOHN OF DAMASCUS 21

appealed, and which his Nestorian interlocutors might overlook if Cyril remained unnamed. Sure
enough John does not name him, although elsewhere in his corpus he had. Cyril’s commentary
on John was an early work (425–28) prior to the Nestorian controversy, so John’s strategy seems
to be to invoke the early Cyril as a Nicene commentator highlighting a well warn complex of
passages that would evoke Nicene common ground. These deny numerical identity while
promoting distinction-within-unity, thus preparing the ground in order to invoke this same idea
in his Christology, denying that number equates to division, which remained a key contention of
his most important external interlocutors, the miaphysites (West Syrian and Coptic), based on a
common understanding of Aristotle, but John did not want to argue with interpretations of
Aristotle. In sum, John knows all his interlocutors accepted the ontological interpretation of John
10.30, exploiting this he exegetes the “in-ness” language of the Gospel of John showing that it
must be perichoretic since the oikonomia mirrors theologia; thus, overriding Aristotelian
concerns with scripture, number need not equate to division because it does not in the Godhead
according to the biblical witness of the Gospel of John.
Finally, in the third marker, John routinely employs John 14.10 in relation to his
Trinitarian perichōrēsis, but in one key passage he does not. Deep in the christological section of
the F.o., John gives his “coordinated” doctrine, subordinating the oikonomia to theologia. In this
passage, F.o. 49.1–30 (Kotter 2:118–19), John re-introduces christological perichōrēsis not as
following from Chalcedon per se, but now as following from a properly understood Nicene
theologia. This is the peak of John’s doctrine, stating his Christology in terms of his
Trinitarianism contravening the positions of both East and West Syrian sectarian interlocutors in
systematic fashion, not by beating them over the head with Chalcedon, but by reminding them of
the common ground they share at Nicaea, accepting the ontological interpretation of John 10.30,
while offering a theological vision of “in-ness” meant to disarm their concerns over Chalcedon
by recasting it in terms of Nicene common ground. Thus, he restates, not his theologia in terms
of a Chalcedonian Christology, but rather restates his Christology, re-imagining a Chalcedonian
oikonomia as a function of a Nicene Trinitarianism attempting to move beyond terminological
impasse.59
Both West Syrians (miaphysite) and East Syrians (Nestorian), although accepting
Nicaea’s distinction between ousia (as the common Divinity) from hypostasis (as the particular
Persons) in the Godhead, did not maintain this distinction beyond the Nicene Creed, rather
eclectically following the late antique Aristotelianism that had become common cultural
property—thus, my assertion above that the so-called Cappadocian Settlement did not in fact
settle the terminological confusion. John’s interlocutors argued that oikonomia mirrored
theologia, and consequently that a monotheistic, unitary theologia required a unitary Christ. For
the West Syrians this meant that the single hypostasis of Christ required a single physis in

59
Possibly even conciliar schism, moving beyond the disagreement over Chalcedon itself by focusing on
potential theological rapprochement, but here I speculate, because John no doubt is sensitive to his remit to
implement patriarchal policy.
JOURNAL OF EARLY CHRISTIAN STUDIES 22

hypostatic union and thus a unitary miaphysite Christ,60 while the East Syrians rather argued that
two physeis of humanity and Divinity required two hypostaseis, divine and human, in prosopic
union.61
John conceded that the oikonomia mirrored theologia, nevertheless, for John, a unitary
theologia was not the end of the story, rather John realized that the inevitable result of Nicaea
was not the mere preservation of monotheism but the acknowledgement of an orthodox
Trinitarianism. Not theologia alone but revealed theologia controlled. Monotheism is the given
preserved, nevertheless revealed theologia presents the divine ousia in three hypostaseis in unity
and diversity.
Whereas Maximus saw that the interpenetration of divinity and humanity had
implications for all creation, so he extended it from the incarnation to providence, John,
however, reflecting on the Nicene homoousios, realized this idea had implications for the divine
persons themselves. Thus, the intra-Trinitarian Persons interpenetrate one another, and this
relation becomes the paradigm for the divine interpenetration of the oikonomia broadly in
providence and narrowly in the incarnation. Thus, oikonomia does mirror theologia, just not in
the way his interlocutors claimed, and much more than Maximus had envisioned.62 For John a
properly subordinate oikonomia must be perichoretic, because it follows from a perichoretic
theologia. Thus, the focus of this passage (F.o. 49.1–30; Kotter 2:118–19) is John’s
christological presentation as a function of his Chalcedonian theology recast to emphasize its
Nicene theological roots.63
In sum, I have argued that John deployed three Nicene markers in order to re-situate
christological debate in terms of Nicaea. Neither Chalcedon nor Cyril of Alexandria nor even
Maximus the Confessor retained center stage, rather John has taken an irenic turn, focusing
instead on situating his position more directly in the Nicene tradition itself in order to bypass the

60
On miaphysite Christology, see for example Torrance, Christology after Chalcedon, 59–74. Aloys
Grillmeier and Theresia Hainthaler, Christ in Christian Tradition. Vol. 2: From the Council of Chalcedon (451) to
Gregory the Great (590–604), Part 2, The Church of Constantinople in the Sixth Century, trans. Pauline Allen and
John Cawte (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox, 1995, 1989 German), 21-175. Joseph Lebon, “La christologie
du monophysisme syrien,” in Aloys Grillmeier and Heinrich Bacht, eds., Das Konzil von Chalkedon (Würzburg:
Echter-Verlag, 1951), 1:425–580. Panicker, The Person of Jesus Christ, 131–153.
61
On Nestorian Christology, see for example Driver and Hodgson, Nestorius: The Bazaar of Heracleides,
xxxi–xxxv. J. F. Bethune-Baker, Nestorius and his Teaching: A Fresh Examination of the Evidence (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 1908), 148–170. L. Abramowski and A. E. Goodman, A Nestorian Collection of
Christological Texts, 2 vols., vol. 2: Introduction, Translation, and Indexes, University of Cambridge Oriental
Publications 19 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1972).
62
John’s actual theological appropriation from Maximus bears deeper scrutiny; I have only skimmed the
surface to facilitate my argument regarding John’s rhetoric.
63
John’s constructive theology unfolds a key Nicene insight perhaps anticipating in part by Karl Rahner’s
thesis—known as “Rahner’s Rule”—Rahner claims, “The ‘economic’ Trinity is the ‘immanent’ Trinity and the
‘immanent’ Trinity is the ‘economic’ Trinity,” in Karl Rahner, The Trinity, Joseph Donceel, trans. (New York:
Crossroad, 2005; [English] 1970; [German] 1967), 22. “Economic”=oikonomia and “immanent”=theologia. Thus,
he argues that in salvation history, God’s self-revelation in Christ truly reveals Godself, although many have pointed
out that it cannot exhaust it either. In my view John of Damascus seems to understand and anticipate this.
ABLES/THEOLOGICAL METHOD AND ARGUMENT IN JOHN OF DAMASCUS 23

terminological impasse and acrimony over Chalcedon, while crafting a theological position
worthy of the re-established Jerusalem Patriarchate, as the conservator of the “mother of all
churches” and the center of Christian pilgrimage.64 John’s wisdom would eventually earn him
the nickname “Chrysorrhoas, Streaming with Gold” probably in Constantinople for his
eloquence, but I would like to think that for his constructive and practical theology in pastoral
service to the Jerusalem Patriarchate he had already earned such a name.65

CONCLUSION

Terminological confusion exacerbated by councils divided the church in late antiquity. This
confusion remained a live issue for Maximus the Confessor, who compiled definitions in the
seventh century for use in christological debate, and in this process he appropriated the one
christological use of perichōrēsis by Gregory of Nazianzus for exploitation in his theologizing
on various aspects of the oikonomia. John of Damascus followed suite by exceeding Maximus on
definitions with a philosophical handbook, which became a watershed in his own theological
method.
First, we exploited Vassa Kontouma’s contention that there was a shift in John’s
theological method as he completed and then relied on his philosophic works. John’s early works
relied on scripture and patristic argument, but after his philosophic works, his theological method
couches scripture and patristic argument in terms of a new philosophic acumen. Second, we
moved beyond Kontouma’s insight to explore John’s adoption and developing use of
perichōrēsis especially in his polemical works to demonstrate development in John’s theological
argument. John restricts the Maximian perichōrēsis to the incarnation from the oikonomia
broadly and then exports it into his Trinitarian theology, a decided advance on Maximus.
Realizing the rhetorical power of this construction, he later “coordinates” his christological use
in terms of his Trinitarian, making his oikonomia a function of his theologia. A fourth phase in
development is then noted that improves once more on Maximus by speaking of a perichōrēsis
of wills in the F.o., something neither Maximus nor the early John had done. Third, based on
these new observations regarding John’s theological method and argument and in preparation for
future theological analysis sensitive to development in John’s thought I then proposed a
provisional and partial date-list of John’s polemical works.

64
There may be indirect evidence for my argument in the thesis of Julian Stead, who argues that the
christological application of perichōrēsis in John of Damascus “is to be rejected as positively tending to
Monophysitism.” Julian Stead, “Perichoresis in the Christological Chapters of the De Trinitate of Pseudo-Cyril of
Alexandria,” Dominican Studies 6 (1953): 12–20 at 16. I suggest that Stead may simply be sensing John’s irenic
turn to Nicaea as I have argued, not an actual naïve capitulation however unintentional to miaphysitism.
65
The eastern source of Theophanes preserves “Golden Stream” at AM6234. Cyril Mango and Roger Scott,
eds., The Chronicle of Theophanes Confessor: Byzantine and Near Eastern History AD 284–813, Roger Scott, trans.
(Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1997), 578.
JOURNAL OF EARLY CHRISTIAN STUDIES 24

Fourth and finally I proposed that John’s theological argument advanced in order to
address the concerns of local interlocutors. Thinking creatively, John grows as a theologian
perhaps in a desire to welcome pilgrims to the Jerusalem Patriarchate from all sectarian
communities. He eventually sees the strategic advantage of recasting his argument in terms of
Nicaea attempting to bypass the acrimony over Chalcedon. He shifts Cyril and Maximus from
center stage, pushing Gregory of Nazianzus to the fore as universal authority. While dropping his
overtly anti Severan and Nestorian polemic, he both encapsulates his Trinitarian perichōrēsis as
the middle way between Sabellian and Arian error and situates it within the interpretation of the
locus classicus of the Arian controversy, John 10.30. Thus, John provides a dual definition,
defining perichōrēsis both in terms of Aristotelian ontology and in terms of the “in-ness”
language of the Gospel of John, thereby grounding his theological interpretation in the tradition
based on his new theological method, while also providing the necessary theoretical background
with his developing theological argument.
Finally, we explored what happened when John admitted that his interlocutors were right:
oikonomia should mirror theologia. Nevertheless, he argued that a truly Nicene theologia
required a proper oikonomia, that is a “perichoretic” theologia requires a “perichoretic”
oikonomia. Consequently, John is not attempting to merely recapitulate Maximus the Confessor,
neo-Chalcedonianism, nor the Greek church fathers. He is doing something new and creative,
both constructive and practical in its pastoral intent, addressing local sectarian interlocutors, not
only compiling tradition, but synthesizing and systematizing it, in the service of his patriarch,
providing not just “proto-school” texts, but bringing together his Christology and Trinitarian
theology in terms of Nicaea attempting to transcend the terminological impasse, giving his
sectarian interlocutors or at least the diverse pilgrims entering Jerusalem every day some Nicene
common ground so that they might worship together regardless of their confessional
commitments.

Scott Ables is Instructor in the School of History, Philosophy, and Religion

at Oregon State University