His chief treatise is entitled _Difficulties and Solutions of First Principles_ ([Greek: 'Aporiai kai chuseis peri tôn prôtôn apxôn]). It examines into the nature and attributes of God and the human soul. This examination is, in two respects, in striking contrast to that of certain other Neoplatonist writers. It is conspicuously free from that Oriental mysticism which stultifies so much of the later pagan philosophy of Europe. Secondly, it contains no polemic against Christianity, to the doctrines of which, in fact, there is no allusion. Hence the charge of impiety which Photius brings against him. His main result is that God is infinite, and as such, incomprehensible; that his attributes of goodness, knowledge and power are credited to him only by inference from their effects; that this inference is logically valid and sufficient for human thought. He insists throughout on the unity and the indivisibility of God, whereas Plotinus and Porphyry had admitted not only a Trinity, but even an Ennead (nine-fold personality).
Interesting as Damascius is in himself, he is still more interesting as the last in the long succession of Greek philosophers. (See NEOPLATONISM.)
BIBLIOGRAPHY.--The [Greek: Aporiai] was partly edited by J. Kopp (1826), and in full by C. E. Ruelle (Paris, 1889). French trans. by Chaignet (1898). See T. Whittaker, _The Neo-platonists_ (Cambridge, 1901); E. Zeller, _History of Greek Philosophy_; C. E. Ruelle, _Le Philosophe Damascius_ (1861); Ch. Levêque, "Damascius" (_Journal des savants_, February 1891). See also works quoted under NEOPLATONISM and ALEXANDRIAN SCHOOL.
DAMASCUS, the chief town of Syria, and the capital of a government province of the same name, 57 m. from Beirut, situated in 33° 30´ N., and 36° 18´ E.
_History._--The origin of the city is unknown, and the popular belief that it is the oldest city in the world still inhabited has much to recommend it. It has been suggested that the ideogram by which it is indicated in Babylonian monuments literally means "fortress of the Amorites"; could this be proved it would be valuable testimony to its antiquity if not its origin. The city is mentioned in the document that describes the battle of the four kings against five, inserted in the book of Genesis (ch. xiv.): Abram (Abraham) is reported to have pursued the routed kings to Hobah _north of Damascus_ (v. 15). The name of the steward of Abram's establishment is given in Genesis xv. 2, as _Dammesek Eliezer_, which is explained in the Aramaic and Syriac versions as "Eliezer of Damascus." This reading is adopted by the authorized version, but the Hebrew, as it stands, will not support it. There is probably here some textual corruption.