First edition of the Latin version edited by Giacomo Billy. Giovanni Damasceno (Damascus 650 ca. - Laura San Saba 749 ca.) already at the beginning of the eighth century embraced the monastic life in the laura of S. Saba near Jerusalem where he acquired great fame for his eloquence and for his writings, mainly polemical, against the Christological heresies widespread in Syria and Palestine and against the iconoclasts of Byzantium. John Damascene has handed down to us numerous dogmatic, polemical, ascetic, exegetical, homiletic and poetic works.