A History of the Christian Church (Part 23) Maximus the Confessor (c. 580 – 662) The Man Who Wouldn't be Silenced

Maximus the Confessor – The Father of Byzantine Theology

[Part 23] Season 2, Episode 2  

👋 Welcome

Welcome back to The History of the Christian Church! In Season Two, we continue our journey through the always vibrant and sometimes violent world of the Eastern Church. In today’s episode, we meet one of the most courageous and influential figures in Christian theology: Maximus the Confessor (c. 580–662). Philosopher, mystic, monk, and martyr in all but name, Maximus dared to defy emperors and resist compromise on one of the most essential truths of the Christian faith—that Jesus Christ is fully God and fully man.

In a time when the unity of the empire seemed to hinge on theological concessions, Maximus chose faithfulness over safety. For this, he was imprisoned, exiled, and brutally mutilated. Yet his unwavering defense of the two wills of Christ would eventually be vindicated at the Sixth Ecumenical Council, shaping Eastern Christian theology for centuries to come.

📜 Episode Summary

In this episode, we explore:

• The dramatic and heroic life of Maximus the Confessor—from imperial court to desert monastery, from scholarly debates to imperial trials.
• The theological controversy of Monothelitism, and why it threatened the heart of the Gospel.
• Maximus’s unwavering belief in the full humanity and divinity of Christ, and why he insisted Christ must have two wills.
• How his theological reflections—on Christ, creation, love, and divine purpose—continue to shape Eastern Christian mysticism and theology.
• The tragic cost of his faithfulness: exile, torture, and silence. And yet, through it all, a lasting legacy that still speaks.

🔑 Key Themes

• Christology: Why the distinction between Jesus’ human and divine wills matters.
• Orthodoxy and Empire: What happens when political unity threatens doctrinal truth.
• Mysticism and Metaphysics: Maximus’s contribution to Christian mysticism and his engagement with Neoplatonic thought.
• Suffering and Witness: What it means to be a Confessor—to suffer for the truth without shedding blood.

📖 Quote of the Episode.

“We know God not in His essence, but by the magnificence of His creation and the action of His Providence, which present to us as in a mirror reflection of His goodness, His wisdom, and His infinite power.”
— Maximus the Confessor, Centuries on Charity 1:96

🙏 Reflection

Maximus’s story is not just about doctrinal precision. It’s about courageous fidelity to the Incarnate Christ. His life challenges us: Do we know what we believe—and are we willing to suffer for it? True theology leads not only to clarity, but to courage, worship, and love.

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Transcript

Maximus the Confessor (c.580 – 662) The Father of Byzantine Theology.

Transcript: 

What does it take to earn the title 'Confessor'? Torture? Exile? A tongue torn out for refusing to stay silent? 

In today’s episode, we meet one of the most courageous voices in early Christian thought—Maximus the Confessor. A man who stood against emperors, a man who shaped the very heart of Eastern theology, and helped define what it means to say that Christ is both God and man. For Maximus personally, it did indeed mean standing firm when the tide of empire turned against him. It meant exile, imprisonment, and the brutal loss of his tongue and right hand—deliberate mutilations intended to silence both his voice and his pen. 

And yet, his theology would go on to shape the very soul of Eastern Christianity.

In this episode, we will journey into the life and mind of Maximus the Confessor: monk, mystic, philosopher, and of course most importantly Christian theologian. He lived in a world caught in the theological crossfire of Christological controversy. As the empire pushed a compromised view of Christ's nature to attain political unity, Maximus stood almost alone to defend the fullness of the Incarnation—insisting that in Jesus Christ, two wills, divine and human, coexisted without confusion, division, or separation.

He wasn’t just an important thinker he was a man of courage, conviction, and spiritual insight—whose reflections on love, creation, and the divine purpose of humanity continue to influence Christian theology to this day.

Join us as we uncover the life, the legacy, and the faith of the Father of Byzantine Theology….

Maximus the Confessor otherwise known as Maximus the Theologian and Maximus of Constantinople was a Christian monk, theologian, and scholar.

In his early life, Maximus was a civil servant, and an aide to the Byzantine Emperor Heraclius. He gave up this life in the political sphere to enter the monastic life. Maximus had studied all the diverse schools of philosophy that were common for his time. The Platonic dialogues, the works of Aristotle, and numerous later Platonic and Neo-Platonic commentators on Aristotle and Plato, people like Plotinus, Porphyry, Iamblichus, and Proclus. 

However, when one of his friends began espousing the Christological position known as Monothelitism, Maximus was drawn into the controversy, because he supported an interpretation of the Chalcedonian formula on the basis of which it was asserted that Jesus had both a human and a divine will. Maximus is held high in both the Catholic and Eastern Orthodox Churches, perhaps less so in the Western Protestant traditions. He was eventually persecuted for his Christological positions and following a trial he was exiled and died.

However, his theology was upheld by the Third Council of Constantinople soon after his death. His title of "Confessor" means that he suffered for the Christian faith but was not directly martyred. 

Biography.

Early life

Very little is known about the details of Maximus' life prior to his involvement in the theological and political conflicts of the Monothelite controversy.

Numerous Maximian scholars call substantial portions of what is called his ‘Maronite’ biography into question, including Maximus' birth in Palestine, which is now believed to have been a seventh century fiction created to discredit an opponent. Many today suggest that the exceptional education Maximus obviously received could not have been had in any other part of the Byzantine Empire during that time except for Constantinople, or possibly Caesarea or Alexandria.

It is also very unlikely that anyone of low social birth, as the Maronite biography describes could have ascended by the age of thirty to be the Protoasekretis of the Emperor Heraclius, one of the most powerful positions in the Empire. It is more likely that Maximus was born into an aristocratic family and thereby received an excellent education in philosophy, mathematics, astronomy, etc. 

It is true, however, that Maximus did not study rhetoric as he himself notes in the prologue of his early letter to John, to which he comments on his lack of stylistic language normally used by Byzantine standards of that day. 

Nevertheless, for reasons not explained in the few autobiographical details to be gleaned from his texts, Maximus left public life and took monastic vows at the monastery of Philippicus in Chrysopolis, a city across the Bosporus from Constantinople. It was whilst there that Maximus was elevated to the position of abbot of the monastery….

When the Persians conquered Anatolia, Maximus was forced to flee to a monastery near Carthage. It was there that he came under the tutelage of Sophronius, and began studying in detail with him the Christological writings of Gregory of Nazianzus and Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite. Probably his main achievement was to set these doctrines into a framework of Aristotelian logic, which both suited the mood of the times and made them less liable to misinterpretation.

Maximus continued his career as a theological and spiritual writer during his lengthy stay in Carthage. He was also held in high esteem by the exarch Gregory and the eparch George.

Involvement in Monothelite controversy. (The Battle for the Truth of Who Jesus Is.)

While Maximus was staying in North Africa, a major theological storm was brewing—one that would shape the future of Christian belief. The big question on the table was this: How do Jesus’ human and divine natures work together? Was He truly and fully both God and man—not just in theory, but in lived experience?

This wasn’t a new debate. Ever since the early church councils, believers had wrestled with how to faithfully understand and articulate the mystery of Christ. But by Maximus’s time, a new idea called Monothelitism was spreading. It taught that Jesus had only one will—a divine will—and not a human one. This was an attempt at a compromise between different groups in the church, but it was a dangerous one. Because if Jesus didn’t have a real human will, how could He be fully human? And if He wasn’t fully human, how could He save us?

Maximus saw the danger and wasn’t willing to stay silent. Even when his friend Pyrrhus, the former Patriarch of Constantinople, began teaching Monothelitism, Maximus stood firm. He debated Pyrrhus publicly—boldly, but graciously, and still clearly explaining why Christ must have both a human and a divine will. And astonishingly, Pyrrhus admitted he was wrong. The truth prevailed—at least for a while.

Maximus took this stand all the way to Rome, where he joined forces with Pope Martin I. Together they defended the biblical understanding of Jesus at the Lateran Council in 649. But speaking the truth came with a cost. The Emperor at the time supported Monothelitism and wasn’t happy with Maximus or the Pope. Both were arrested. Pope Martin was exiled and died in captivity. Maximus was put on trial multiple times. He was slandered, accused of treason, and eventually subjected to horrific torture—his tongue was cut out so he could no longer speak, and his right hand was cut off so he could no longer write. All because he refused to deny that Jesus was fully human.

But Maximus didn’t back down. He remained faithful, even in silence and exile, trusting in the Lord Jesus whom he so dearly loved and defended. He died a few months after his final exile, but his testimony lived on.

Years later, the church would recognize that Maximus had been right all along. The Sixth Ecumenical Council officially declared that Christ had two wills—one human and one divine—and condemned Monothelitism as heresy. Maximus was vindicated, and the truth of Scripture remained firm.

From my perspective, what Maximus defended wasn’t just theology—it was the very heart of the gospel. The Bible teaches that Jesus is fully God and fully man (John 1:14; and Philippians 2:5–11; as well as Hebrews 4:15). That means He didn’t just appear human—He was human. He had a real body, a real mind, and a real will. And in Gethsemane, we see it so clearly: Jesus prays, “Not my will, but Yours be done” (Luke 22:42). That’s the human will of Christ, perfectly submitted to the Father.

Christ was God by nature and made use of a will which was naturally divine and paternal, for He had but one will with his Father He was also. man by nature and made use of a natural human will which was in no way opposed to the Father's will.

(Theological and polemical works - Marginal note.)

Maximus understood what was at stake: if Jesus didn’t have a human will, He couldn’t have obeyed on our behalf. If He didn’t obey as a man, then we don’t have a perfect human substitute. And if we don’t have a perfect substitute, we’re still in our sins. But praise God—we do! Jesus, the God who was and became a man, obeyed fully, suffered willingly, and gave His life to bring us, ordinary men and women back to God. That’s the gospel Maximus fought for.

And he didn’t just fight for it in words—he gave his life for it. His legacy reminds us that true theology leads to worship, obedience, and boldness. He’s a challenge to every one of us: Are we willing to stand for the truth, even when it costs us? Are we rooted deeply enough in Scripture to know the difference between compromise and conviction?

Maximus didn’t live for comfort or popularity. He lived to honour Christ. And because of that, we still remember him—not just as a brilliant thinker, but as a faithful confessor.

Maximus was also renowned as a mystical teacher. He is considered to have drawn together the early teaching of a vagaries of 4th century disciple of Oregon and Dionysus, the Arabagite, thus curbing some of the imbalances of each. The goal of the life of prayer is the vision of God. Here Maximus anticipates the direction that will later be taken by Gregory Palmas Between God's essence and God's Energies.

Quotation. We know God not in His essence, but by the magnificence of His creation and the action of His Providence, which present to us as in a mirror reflection of His goodness, His wisdom, and His infinite power.

Centuries on Charity 1: 96

Summary and Close.

And so, we come to the end of the story of Maximus, a man who dared to defy emperors for the sake of the truth as he saw it. A theologian whose pen ran deeper than politics, and a disciple of Christ whose bodily suffering bore witness to a theological conviction rooted not in speculation, but in a deep desire to preserve the mystery of the Incarnation.

Maximus’s insistence that Christ had both a divine and a human will wasn’t a mere metaphysical curiosity, it was a confession about salvation itself. For if Christ is not fully man, with a human will that submits to the Father, then how can He redeem the fullness of what it means to be human? And if He is not fully God, with a divine will acting in perfect union, then how can He bring us back to God? Maximus saw that the stakes of theology were nothing less than the stakes of the gospel.

From a biblical perspective, Christians rightly honour Maximus’s courage and theological clarity. His Christology resonates with the Scriptures: with the Jesus who says in Gethsemane, “Not my will, but yours be done,” revealing the mystery of two wills in one Person. And his understanding of salvation as the restoration of the human will in loving obedience to God aligns with Paul’s vision of sanctification in Romans 12, that of a renewed mind being conformed to the image of Christ.

At the same time, we must be cautious. Maximus’s mystical writings, beautiful, and contemplative as they are, yet sometimes appear to blur the line between biblical theology and speculative metaphysics. His vision of deification, or theosis, while rooted in the biblical idea of union with Christ, can drift toward language that risks obscuring the Creator-creature distinction so central to evangelical theology. We affirm that in Christ, we partake in the divine nature, as Peter says, but at no point do we believe we become divine ourselves. Rather we are being transformed by grace into a likeness of Christ whilst still remaining always fully human.

Nevertheless, Maximus leaves us with a powerful legacy: A call to courage in the face of compromise, a vision of Jesus Christ as the centre of all creation, and a reminder that true theology is never abstract, it’s always embodied, always costly, and always deeply personal.

His tongue was cut out, but his voice has never been louder. His hand was severed, but his words continue to shape the Church. Maximus the Confessor teaches us that faithfulness to Christ may demand everything, but in losing all, we gain the One who gave Himself for us.

So, what all Christians of every persuasion can confess together with boldness is what Maximus so bravely proclaimed: that Jesus Christ, fully God and fully man, is the One in whom all things hold together, and the one in whom we are made whole.

John of Damascus

2973

John of Damascus or John Damascene, born Yūḥana ibn Manṣūr ibn Sarjūn, was an Arab Christian monk, priest, hymnwriter, and apologist. He was born and raised in Damascus c. AD 675 or AD 676; the precise date and place of his death is not known, though tradition places it at his monastery, Mar Saba, near Jerusalem. A walking encyclopedia whose fields of interest and contribution included law, theology, philosophy, and music, he was given the by-name of Chrysorroas "streaming with gold", i.e. "the golden speaker"). He wrote works expounding the Christian faith and composed hymns which are still used both liturgically in Eastern Christian practice throughout the world as well as in western Lutheranism at Easter.

He is one of the Fathers of the Eastern Orthodox Church and is best known for his strong defence of icons. The Catholic Church regards him as a Doctor of the Church, often referred to as the Doctor of the Assumption due to his writings on the Assumption of Mary. He was also a prominent early clarifiers of is the relationship of the three persons of the triune God (Father, Son, and Holy Spirit) to one another., and employed the concept as a technical term to describe both the interpenetration of the divine and human natures of Christ and the relationship between the hypostases of the Trinity. John is at the end of the Patristic period of dogmatic development, and his contribution is less one of theological innovation than one of a summary of the developments of the centuries before him. In Catholic theology, he is therefore known as the "last of the Greek Fathers".

The main source of information for the life of John of Damascus is a work attributed to one John of Jerusalem, identified therein as the Patriarch of Jerusalem. This is an excerpted translation into Greek of an earlier Arabic text. The Arabic original contains a prologue not found in most other translations, and was written by an Arab monk, Michael, who explained that he decided to write his biography in 1084 because none was available in his day. However, the main Arabic text seems to have been written by an unknown earlier author sometime between the early 9th and late 10th century. Written from a hagiographical point of view and prone to exaggeration and some legendary details, it is not the best historical source for his life but is widely reproduced and considered to contain elements of some value. The hagiographic novel Barlaam and Josaphat is a work of the 10th century attributed to a monk named John. It was only considerably later that the tradition arose that this was John of Damascus, but most scholars no longer accept this attribution. Instead, much evidence points to Euthymius of Athos, a Georgian who died in 1028,

Family background

John was born in Damascus, to a prominent Damascene Arab Christian family. His father, Sarjun ibn Mansur, served as an official of the early Umayyad Caliphate. His grandfather, Mansur ibn Sarjun, was a prominent Byzantine official of Damascus, who had been responsible for the taxes of the region during the reign of Emperor Heraclius and also served under Emperor Maurice. Mansur seems to have played a role in the capitulation of Damascus to the troops of Khalid ibn al-Walid in 635 after securing favorable conditions of surrender. Eutychius, a 10th-century Melkite patriarch, mentions him as one high-ranking official involved in the surrender of the city to the Muslims.

The tribal background of Mansur ibn Sarjun, John's grandfather, is unknown, but biographer Daniel Sahas has speculated that the name Mansur could have implied descent from the Arab Christian tribes of Kalb or Taghlib. The name was common among Syrian Christians of Arab origins, and Eutychius noted that the governor of Damascus, who was likely Mansur ibn Sarjun, was an Arab. However, Sahas also asserts that the name does not necessarily imply an Arab background and could have been used by non-Arab, Semitic Syrians. While Sahas and biographers F. H. Chase and Andrew Louth assert that Mansūr was an Arabic name, Raymond le Coz asserts that the "family was without doubt of Syrian origin"; indeed, according to historian Daniel J. Janosik, "Both aspects could be true, for if his family ancestry were indeed Syrian, his grandfather [Mansur] could have been given an Arabic name when the Arabs took over the government." When Syria was conquered by the Muslim Arabs in the 630s, the court at Damascus retained its large complement of Christian civil servants, John's grandfather among them. John's father, Sarjun (Sergius), went on to serve the Umayyad caliphs. John of Jerusalem claims that he also served as a senior official in the fiscal administration of the Umayyad Caliphate under Abd al-Malik before leaving Damascus and his position around 705 to go to Jerusalem and become a monk. However, this point is debated within the academic community as there is no trace of him in the Umayyad archives, unlike his father and grandfather. Some researchers, such as Robert G. Hoyland, deny such an affiliation, while others, like Daniel Sahas or the Orthodox historian Jean Meyendorff, suppose that he might have been a lower-level tax administrator, a local tax collector who would not have needed to be mentioned in the archives, but who might not have necessarily been part of the court either. In addition, John's own writings never refer to any experience in a Muslim court. It is believed that John became a monk at Mar Saba, and that he was ordained as a priest in 735.

Biography.

John was raised in Damascus, and Arab Christian folklore holds that during his adolescence, John associated with the future Umayyad caliph Yazid I and the Taghlibi Christian court poet al-Akhtal.

One of the vitae describes his father's desire for him to "learn not only the books of the Muslims, but those of the Greeks as well." From this it has been suggested that John may have grown up bilingual. John does indeed show some knowledge of the Quran, which he criticizes harshly.

Other sources describe his education in Damascus as having been conducted in accordance with the principles of Hellenic education, termed "secular" by one source and "classical Christian" by another.One account identifies his tutor as a monk by the name of Cosmas, who had been kidnapped by Arabs from his home in Sicily, and for whom John's father paid a great price. As a refugee from Italy, Cosmas brought with him the scholarly traditions of Latin Christianity. Cosmas was said to have rivaled Pythagoras in arithmetic and Euclid in geometry. He also taught John's orphan friend, Cosmas of Maiuma.

John possibly had a career as a civil servant for the Caliph in Damascus before his ordination.[33]

He then became a priest and monk at the Mar Saba monastery near Jerusalem. One source suggests John left Damascus to become a monk around 706, when al-Walid I increased the Islamification of the Caliphate's administration. This is uncertain, as Muslim sources only mention that his father Sarjun (Sergius) left the administration around this time, and fail to name John at all. During the next two decades, culminating in the Siege of Constantinople (717-718), the Umayyad Caliphate progressively occupied the borderlands of the Byzantine Empire. An editor of John's works, Father Le Quien, has shown that John was already a monk at Mar Saba before the dispute over iconoclasm, explained below.

In the early 8th century, iconoclasm, a movement opposed to the veneration of icons, gained acceptance in the Byzantine court. In 726, despite the protests of Germanus, Patriarch of Constantinople, Emperor Leo III (who had forced his predecessor, Theodosius III, to abdicate and himself assumed the throne in 717 immediately before the great siege) issued his first edict against the veneration of images and their exhibition in public places.

All agree that John of Damascus undertook a spirited defence of holy images in three separate publications. The earliest of these works, his Apologetic Treatises against those Decrying the Holy Images, secured his reputation. He not only attacked the Byzantine emperor, but adopted a simplified style that allowed the controversy to be followed by the common people, stirring rebellion among the iconoclasts. Decades after his death, John's writings would play an important role during the Second Council of Nicaea (787), which convened to settle the icon dispute.

Leo III reportedly sent forged documents to the caliph which implicated John in a plot to attack Damascus. The caliph then ordered John's right hand be cut off and hung up in public view. Some days afterwards, John asked for the restitution of his hand, and prayed fervently to the Theotokos before her icon: thereupon, his hand is said to have been miraculously restored. In gratitude for this miraculous healing, he attached a silver hand to the icon, which thereafter became known as the "Three-handed", or Tricherousa. That icon is now located in the Hilandar monastery of the Holy Mountain.

Due to his commitment to iconodulism, he was condemned by anathema by the iconoclastic Council of Hieria in 754. He was later rehabilitated by the Second Council of Nicaea in 787.

List of works.

Besides his purely textual works, many of which are listed below, John of Damascus also composed hymns, perfecting the canon, a structured hymn form used in Byzantine Rite liturgies.

Early works.

Three Apologetic Treatises against those Decrying the Holy Images – These treatises were among his earliest expositions in response to the edict by the Byzantine Emperor Leo III, banning the veneration or exhibition of holy images.

Teachings and dogmatic works.

The Fountain of Knowledge, also known by other titles such as: The Fountain of Wisdom or The Fount of Knowledge, literally meaning “The Source of Knowledge”), is described as a synthesis and unification of Christian philosophy, ideas and doctrine that was influential in directing the course of medieval Latin thought and that became the principal textbook of Greek Orthodox theology. Divided into three parts the chapters are:

Philosophical Chapters – commonly called "The Dialectic", it deals mostly with logic, its primary purpose being to prepare the reader for a better understanding of the rest of the book. Based on the previous work of the late 3rd-century Neoplatonist Porphyry’s Isagoge, an introduction to the logic of Aristotle. The work was notable in that it allowed John of Damascus with information to explain the basic concepts of logic and the rationalisation of God.

Concerning Heresy, literally meaning “About Heresies”) – Based on the previous work of the Panarion, derived from Latin panarium, meaning "bread basket") by Epiphanius of Salamis.was 4th-century heresiology that provided John with a structural model and descriptions of 80 earlier heresies. Through Epiphanius, John likely drew indirectly on earlier works by St. Irenaeus (Against Heresies) and Justin Martyr, whose anti-heretical writings influenced Patristic heresiology. The 20 heresies John added, numbered 81 through 100, address theological developments from the mid-5th century onward, including Nestorianism, Monophysitism, and other Christological disputes that emerged after Epiphanius’s time.

Unlike the first 80 heresies, which are directly sourced from the Panarion, the origins of these additional entries are less certain. Scholars propose that John likely drew on a variety of contemporary or near-contemporary materials, such as ecclesiastical histories, synodal records, or other heresiological texts available in the 8th century. Some scholars suggest that the 20 heresies John added may have been influenced by works such as Sophronius of Jerusalem’s Synodic Letter and Leontius of Byzantium’s On Sects, a claim rooted in a manuscript note referenced by 18th-century editor Michel Lequien. Lequien posited that John drew from authors including Theodoret, Timothy of Constantinople, Sophronius, and Leontius. However, this remains uncertain, as modern scholarship, including the 1958 introduction to John’s translated works, finds no concrete evidence to substantiate these influences, stating that “there is apparently no foundation for it.”Thus, while the idea of such contributions persists, it lacks definitive support and remains speculative. Regardless, the work was notable it allowed John with information about different heresies as well as a model for how to organize a catalogue of heresies. In the original 80 religious sects which either classed as organized groups or philosophies, from the time of Adam to the latter part of the fourth century according to Epiphanius. John added twenty heresies that had occurred during his time. The last chapter of Concerning Heresy (Chapter 101) deals with the Heresy of the Ishmaelites. Unlike earlier sections devoted to other heresies, which are disposed of succinctly in just a few lines, this chapter runs into several pages. It constitutes one of the first Christian refutations of Islam. In treating of Heresy of the Ishmaelites he vigorously assails the immoral practices of Muhammad and the corrupt teachings inserted in the Quran to legalize the delinquencies of the prophet. Concerning Heresy was frequently translated from Greek into Latin. His manuscript is one of the first Orthodox Christian refutations of Islam which has influenced the Western Catholic Church's attitude on Islam. It was among the first sources representing Muhammad to the West as a "false prophet" and "Antichrist".

An Exact Exposition of the Orthodox Faith” is a summary of the teachings and dogmatic writings of the early Church Fathers and more specifically the Cappadocian Fathers (Saint Basil, Saint Gregory of Nazianzus and Saint Gregory of Nyssa) from the 4th century. It incorporates Aristotelian language and demonstrates originality through John's selection of texts and annotations influenced by Antiochene analytical theology. This work, when translated into Oriental languages and Latin, became a valuable resource for both Eastern and Western thinkers, offering logical and theological concepts. Additionally, its systematic style served as a model for subsequent theological syntheses composed by medieval Scholastics. The "Exposition" delves into speculations about the nature and existence of God, giving rise to points of debate among later theologians. This writing was the first work of systematic theology in Eastern Christianity and an important influence on later Scholastic works.

Views on Islam

In the final chapter of Concerning Heresy, John mentions Islam as the Heresy of the Ishmaelites. He is one of the first known Christian critics of Islam. John claims that Muslims were once worshipers of Aphrodite who followed after Muhammad because of his "seeming show of piety," and that Muhammad himself read the Bible and, "likewise, it seems," spoke to an Arian monk that taught him Arianism instead of Christianity. John also claims to have read the Quran, or at least parts of it, as he criticizes the Quran for saying that the Virgin Mary was the sister of Moses and Aaron and that Jesus was not crucified but brought alive into heaven. John further claims to have spoken to Muslims about Muhammad. He uses the plural "we", whether in reference to himself, or to a group of Christians that he belonged to who spoke to the Muslims, or in reference to Christians in general.

Regardless, John claims that he asked the Muslims what witnesses can testify that Muhammad received the Quran from God – since, John says, Moses received the Torah from God in the presence of the Israelites, and since Islamic law mandates that a Muslim can only marry and do trade in the presence of witnesses – and what biblical prophets and verses foretold Muhammad 's coming – since, John says, Jesus was foretold by the prophets and whole Old Testament. John claims that the Muslims answered that Muhammad received the Quran in his sleep. John claims that he jokingly answered, "You're spinning my dreams."

Some of the Muslims, John says, claimed that the Old Testament that Christians believe foretells Jesus' coming is misinterpreted, while other Muslims claimed that the Jews edited the Old Testament so as to deceive Christians (possibly into believing Jesus is God, but John does not say).

While recounting his alleged dialogue with Muslims, John claims that they have accused him of idol worship for venerating the Cross and worshipping Jesus. John claims that he told the Muslims that the black stone in Mecca was the head of a statue of Aphrodite. Moreover, he claims, the Muslims would be better off to associate Jesus with God if they say Jesus is the Word of God and Spirit. John claims that the word and the spirit are inseparable from that in which they exist and if the Word of God has always existed in God, then the Word must be God.

John ends the chapter by claiming that Islam permits polygamy, that Muhammad committed adultery with a companion's wife before outlawing adultery, and that the Quran is filled with stories, such as the She-Camel of God and God giving Jesus an "incorruptible table."

Other works

·         Against the Jacobites

·         Against the Nestorians

·         Dialogue against the Manichees

·         Elementary Introduction into Dogmas

·         Letter on the Thrice-Holy Hymn

·         On Right Thinking

·         On the Faith, Against the Nestorians

·         On the Two Wills in Christ (Against the Monothelites)

·         Sacred Parallels (dubious)

·         Octoechos (the church's liturgical book of eight tones)

·         On Dragons and Ghosts

Arabic translation.

It is believed that the homily on the Annunciation was the first work to be translated into Arabic. Much of this text is found in Manuscript 4226 of the Library of Strasbourg (France), dating to AD 885.

Later in the 10th century, Antony, superior of the monastery of St. Simon (near Antioch) translated a corpus of John Damascene. In his introduction to John's work, Sylvestre patriarch of Antioch (1724–1766) said that Antony was monk at Saint Saba. This could be a misunderstanding of the title Superior of Saint Simon probably because Saint Simon's monastery was in ruins in the 18th century.

Most manuscripts give the text of the letter to Cosmas, the philosophical chapters, the theological chapters and five other small works.

In 1085, Mikhael, a monk from Antioch, wrote the Arabic life of the Chrysorrhoas. This work was first edited by Bacha in 1912 and then translated into many languages (German, Russian and English).