A short hard to find treatise about the iconoclast controversy in Byzantium by one of the champions of catholic orthodoxy.

Saint John of Damascus, also known as St.John Damascene (c. 676 - 4 December 749) was a Syrian Christian monk and priest. A polymath whose fields of interest and contribution included law, theology, philosophy, and music, before being ordained, he served as a Chief Administrator for the Islamic caliphate in Damascus, wrote works expounding the Christian faith, and composed hymns which are still in everyday use in Eastern Christian monasteries throughout the world. 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. In the early 8th century AD, iconoclasm, a movement seeking to prohibit the veneration of the icons, gained some acceptance in the Byzantine empire. In 726, over the protests of the Patriarch of Constantinople, Emperor Leo III issued his first edict against the veneration of images and their exhibition in public places. A talented writer in the secure surroundings of the caliph's court, St. John Damascene initiated a defense of holy images in three separate publications. "Apologetic Treatises against those Decrying the Holy Images," the earliest of these works gained him a reputation. Not only did he attack the emperor, but the use of a simpler literary style brought the controversy to the common people, inciting revolt among those of Christian faith. His writings later played an important role during the Second Council of Nicaea which met to settle the icon dispute.

Saint John of Damascus(c. 676 - 4 December 749) was an Arab Christian monk and priest. Born and raised in Damascus, he died at his monastery, Mar Saba, near Jerusalem. A polymath whose fields of interest and contribution included law, theology, philosophy, and music, before being ordained, he served as a Chief Administrator to the Muslim caliph of Damascus, wrote works expounding the Christian faith, and composed hymns which are still in everyday use in Eastern Christian monasteries throughout the world. In the early 8th century AD, iconoclasm, a movement seeking to prohibit the veneration of the icons, gained some acceptance in the Byzantine court. In 726, despite the protests of St. Germanus, Patriarch of Constantinople, Emperor Leo III issued his first edict against the veneration of images and their exhibition in public places. A talented writer in the secure surroundings of the caliph's court, John of Damascus initiated a defense of holy images in three separate publications. "Apologetic Treatises against those Decrying the Holy Images," the earliest of these works gained him a reputation. Not only did he attack the emperor, but the use of a simpler literary style brought the controversy to the common people, inciting revolt among those of Christian faith. His writings later played an important role during the Second Council of Nicaea which met to settle the icon dispute.

In AD 726, the Byzantine emperor ordered the destruction of all icons, or religious images, throughout the empire, and icons were subject to an imperial ban that was to last, with a brief remission, until AD 843. A defender of icons, St John of Damascus wrote three treatises against "those who attack the holy images." He differentiates between the veneration of icons, which is a matter of expressing honor, and idolatry, which is offering worship to something other than God.

212 pages. Imprimatur. Translator's Preface 4PART I. APOLOGIA OF ST JOHN DAMASCENE AGAINST THOSE WHO DECRY HOLY IMAGES 8PART II. THE SAME 62PART III. THE SAME 92SERMON I. ON THE ASSUMPTION 148SERMON II. THE SAME 172SERMON III. THE SAME 200Excerpt: A Treatise on Images will not be out of place in a public, which is confusing the making of images with the making of idols. A great Christian of the eighth century found himself called upon to face an imperial Iconoclast. He would willingly have remained silent, but he would not bury his talent of eloquence. He brought it forth and witnessed to the teaching of the Church in language which present 'exciting scenes' in Anglican churches brings home in the most forcible way. Our English image breakers are in the camp of Leo the Isaurian, who in the eighth century waged war against holy images, on the plausible pretext that they withdrew honour from God. The seventh General Council condemned his assault, and it determined the different kinds of worship, using the Greek terms of latreia and douleia. The special champion of holy Images is St John Damascene, whose treatise is now published for the first time in English. Every article in the creed has its special defender. St John Damascene proclaims the Communion of Saints and the honour of God through His chosen and favoured servants. No part of Catholic belief is a vain word, nor can the true children of the Church say with their lips what they do not hold in their hearts. I believe in the Communion of Saints follows upon I believe in God, so that the enemies of the Saints are the enemies of God. This is the doctrine which St John Damascene traces back to the eternal ages before time was, in the divine ἐικων of the Father in the Person of the Son. God, the Son, is the Image by essence, and then He becomes a visible image or form in time, clothed in flesh and blood, showing us by His own example that our worship of God is through corporeal things. Again and again the Saint repeats that as we must not make an image of the Invisible God, so neither must we refuse to look upon the Son, His Image, first in eternity, and then Incarnate.

This collection documents examples of distinctively Catholic theological beliefs or doctrines in the Eastern Church fathers; that is, ones in harmony with historic Catholic teaching but differing in some way from one or more strains of Protestant theology or Eastern Orthodox views. Quotations will be drawn from the Three Holy Hierarchs of Eastern Christian Tradition: St. Basil the Great (c. 330-379), St. John Chrysostom (c. 345-407), and St. Gregory Nazianzen (c. 330-c. 390). St. Athanasius (c. 297-373) is usually added to this list, and these are the Four Great Eastern Doctors of the Church. Additionally, the following four fathers are included: St. Cyril of Alexandria (c. 376-444), St. Ephraim (c. 306-373), St. Cyril of Jerusalem (c. 315-387), and St. John Damascene (c. 676-749). All eight men are Doctors of the Catholic Church. Quotations are drawn from public domain works and are found online at the Christian Classics Ethereal Library website.

Immaculate Conceptions examines devotional writings, religious and literary texts, and visual art that feature the mystery of the immaculacy of the Virgin Mary in the culture of early modern Spain. The author’s analysis is motivated by the complexity and multivalent capacity of the doctrine and its icon at a time when the debates around Mary’s conception imbued all levels of religious and social life. She considers the many interests – political, doctrinal, artistic, and gender-driven – that intersect and compete in the exegesis and textual and visual representations of the Immaculate Conception. She argues that the Immaculate Conception of Mary proved to be a fertile conceptual and ideological field wherein the identities of the Spanish state, local communities, and individuals were negotiated, variously defined, and contested. The study’s broader aim is to delineate a speculative category, the religious imagination, defined as a spiritual, intellectual, or artistic pursuit in which the individual is committed to sacred truth yet articulates this truth through contingent, partial, and contextually determined theological propositions. The representational status of the image and its relationship to theories of physical sight and spiritual vision are central to the author’s formulation of this category.