John of Damascus > Quotes

“But this is what leads the heretics astray: that they look upon nature and person as the same thing”
― John of Damascus

“evil is nothing else than absence of goodness, just as darkness also is absence of light. For goodness is the light of the mind, and, similarly, evil is the darkness of the mind. Light, therefore, being the work of the Creator and being made good (for God saw all that He made, and behold they were exceeding good(8)) produced darkness at His free-will.”
― John Damascene, An Exact Exposition of the Orthodox Faith

“The first kind is the worship of latreia, which we give to God, who alone is adorable by nature, and this worship is shown in several ways, and first by the worship of servants. All created things worship Him, as servants their master. "All things serve Thee," (Ps. 119.91) the psalm says.”
― John of Damascus, Three Treatises on the Divine Images: Apologia Against Those Who Decry Holy Images

“Of old, God the incorporeal and uncircumscribed was never depicted. Now, however, when God is seen clothed in flesh, and conversing with men, (Bar. 3.38) I make an image of the God whom I see. I do not worship matter, I [16] worship the God of matter, who became matter for my sake, and deigned to inhabit matter, who worked out my salvation through matter. I will not cease from honouring that matter which works my salvation.”
― John of Damascus, Three Treatises on the Divine Images: Apologia Against Those Who Decry Holy Images

“Envy is pain over the good fortune of others.”
― John Damascene, An Exact Exposition of the Orthodox Faith

“The fourth kind is suggested by the need and hope of benefits. Recognising that without Him we can neither do nor possess anything good, we worship Him, asking Him to satisfy [106] our needs and desires, that we may be preserved from evil and arrive at good. The fifth kind is the worship of contrition and confession. As sinners we worship God, and prostrate ourselves before Him, needing His forgiveness, as it becomes servants. This happens in three ways. A man may be sorry out of love, or lest he should lose God's benefits, or for fear of chastisement. The first is prompted by goodness and desire for God himself, and the condition of a son: the second is interested, the third is slavish. What”
― John of Damascus, Three Treatises on the Divine Images: Apologia Against Those Who Decry Holy Images

“the very continuity of the creation, and its preservation and government, teach us that there does exist a Deity, who supports and maintains and preserves and ever provides for this universe.”
― John Damascene, An Exact Exposition of the Orthodox Faith

“It is needless to say that fear, desire, and honour are tokens of worship, as also submission and humiliation. No one should be worshipped as God except the one true God. Whatever is due to all the rest is for God's sake. You”
― John of Damascus, Three Treatises on the Divine Images: Apologia Against Those Who Decry Holy Images

“Yes, O Lord, we adore all that belongs to Thee, and we take to our hearts Thy Godhead, Thy power and goodness, Thy mercy towards us, Thy condescension and Thy Incarnation. And as men fear touching red-hot iron, not because of the iron but because of the heat, so do we worship Thy flesh, not for the nature of flesh, but through the Godhead united to that flesh according to substance. We worship Thy sufferings. Who has ever known death worshipped, or suffering venerated? Yet we [54] truly worship the physical death of our God and His saving sufferings. We adore Thy image and all that is Thine; Thy servants, Thy friends, and most of all Thy Mother, the Mother of God. We beseech, therefore, the people of God, the faithful flock, to hold fast to the ecclesiastical traditions. The gradual taking away of what has been handed down to us would be undermining the foundation stones, and would in no short time overthrow the whole structure.”
― John of Damascus, Three Treatises on the Divine Images: Apologia Against Those Who Decry Holy Images

“The third kind of worship is that of thanksgiving for the goods we have received. We must thank God for all created things, and show Him perpetual worship, as from Him and through Him all creation takes its being and subsists. (Col. 1.16-17)”
― John of Damascus, Three Treatises on the Divine Images: Apologia Against Those Who Decry Holy Images

“Had God kept from being made those who through His goodness were to have existence, but who by their own choice were to become evil, then evil would have prevailed over the goodness of God. Thus, all things which God makes He makes good, but each one becomes good or evil by his own choice. So, even if the Lord did say: 'It were better for him if that man had not been born,' He did not say so in deprecation of His own creature, but in deprecation of that creature's choice and rashness.”
― John of Damascus

“It must not be supposed that the heavens or the luminaries are endowed with life(3). For they are inanimate and insensible(4). So that when the divine Scripture saith, Let the heavens rejoice and the earth be glad(5), it is the angels in heaven and the men on earth that are invited to rejoice.”
― John Damascene, An Exact Exposition of the Orthodox Faith

“all the statements made about God that imply body have some hidden meaning and teach us what is above us by means of something familiar to ourselves, with the exception of any statement concerning the bodily sojourn of the God-Word.”
― John Damascene, An Exact Exposition of the Orthodox Faith

“The second kind is the worship of admiration and desire which we give to God on account of His essential glory. He alone is worthy of praise, who receives it from no one, being Himself the cause of all glory and all good, [105] He is light, incomprehensible sweetness, incomparable, immeasurable perfection, an ocean of goodness, boundless wisdom, and power, who alone is worthy of Himself to excite admiration, to be worshipped, glorified, and desired.”
― John of Damascus, Three Treatises on the Divine Images: Apologia Against Those Who Decry Holy Images

“since the wickedness of the Evil One has prevailed so mightily against man’s nature as even to drive some into denying the existence of God, that most foolish and woe-fulest pit of destruction (whose folly David, revealer of the Divine meaning, exposed when he said(9), The fool said in his heart, There is no God),”
― John Damascene, An Exact Exposition of the Orthodox Faith

“It is not susceptible of repentance because it is incorporeal. For it is owing to the weakness of his body that man comes to have repentance.”
― John Damascene, An Exact Exposition of the Orthodox Faith

“One must know that operation (energia) is one thing, what is operative (energetikon) another, that which is operated (energema) another, and yet another the operator (energon). Operation, then, is the efficient and essential (ousiodes) motion of the nature (physeos). And that which is operative is the nature (physis) from which the operation proceeds. The operated is the effect of the operation. And the operator is the person (hypostasis) who performs the operation.”
― John of Damascus, An Exact Exposition of the Orthodox Faith

“He brought all things out of nothing into being and created them, both what is invisible and what is visible. Yea, even man, who is a compound of the visible and the invisible. And it is by thought that He creates, and thought is the basis of the work, the Word filling it and the Spirit perfecting it(2).”
― John Damascene, An Exact Exposition of the Orthodox Faith

“Worship is the symbol of veneration and of honour. Let us understand that there are different degrees of worship. First of all the worship of latreia, which we show to God, who alone by nature is worthy of worship.”
― John of Damascus, Three Treatises on the Divine Images: Apologia Against Those Who Decry Holy Images

“The Creator, then, being uncreated, is also wholly immutable. And what could this be other than Deity?”
― John Damascene, An Exact Exposition of the Orthodox Faith

“He who longs alway after God, he seeth Him: for God is in all things. Existing things are dependent on that which is, and nothing can be unless it is in that which is. God then is mingled with everything, maintaining their nature: and in His holy flesh the God-Word is made one in subsistence and is mixed with our nature, yet without confusion.”
― John Damascene, An Exact Exposition of the Orthodox Faith

“For generation means that the begetter produces out of his essence offspring similar in essence. But creation and making mean that the creator and maker produces from that which is external, and not out of his own essence, a creation of an absolutely dissimilar nature(3).”
― John Damascene, An Exact Exposition of the Orthodox Faith

“it is quite impossible for us men clothed about with this dense covering of flesh to understand or speak of the divine and lofty and immaterial energies of the Godhead, except by the use of images and types and symbols derived from our own life(7).”
― John Damascene, An Exact Exposition of the Orthodox Faith

“The Son is the counsel and wisdom and power of the Father.”
― John Damascene, An Exact Exposition of the Orthodox Faith

“the Deity is undivided amongst things divided, to put it concisely: and it is just like three suns cleaving to each other without separation and giving out light mingled and conjoined into one.”
― John Damascene, An Exact Exposition of the Orthodox Faith

“goodness is existence and the cause of existence, but wickedness is the negation of goodness, that is, of existence.”
― John Damascene, An Exact Exposition of the Orthodox Faith

“he did not sustain the brightness and the honour which the Creator had bestowed(5) on him, and of his free choice was changed from what was in harmony to what was at variance with his nature, and became roused against God Who created him, and determined to rise in rebellion against Him(6): and he was the first to depart from good and become evil(7).”
― John Damascene, An Exact Exposition of the Orthodox Faith

“The angel energises in different places by the quickness of his nature and the promptness and speed by which he can change his place: but the Deity, Who is everywhere and above all, energises at the same time in diverse ways with one simple energy.”
― John Damascene, An Exact Exposition of the Orthodox Faith

“the term ‘Only-begotten’(1) because He alone was begotten alone of the Father alone.”
― John Damascene, An Exact Exposition of the Orthodox Faith

“The angel’s nature then is rational, and intelligent, and endowed with free-will, change. able in will, or fickle. For all that is created is changeable, and only that which is un-created is unchangeable. Also all that is rational is endowed with free-will. As it is, then, rational and intelligent, it is endowed with free-will: and as it is created, it is changeable, having power either to abide or progress in goodness, or to turn towards evil.”
― John Damascene, An Exact Exposition of the Orthodox Faith