Description: For more than five hundred years John of Damascus (c. 655-c.745) has been the subject of an extensive literature, both scholarly and popular. Through the studies included here (of which six have been translated into English for this volume), Vassa Kontouma provides a critical review of this literature and opens new vistas for research along four main lines: the life of John of Damascus and its sources, Neochalcedonian philosophy, systematic theology in Byzantium, and Christian practices under the Umayyads.
