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With the assistance of God we
will write the debate held by the Patriarch Mar Timothy before Mahdi, the
Commander of the Faithful, by way of question and answer, on the subject of the
Christian religion.
On the one hand I feel repugnance to write to
your Lordship,1 and on the other I am anxious to do so. I feel repugnance, on
account of the futility of the outcome of the work. It is true that I could not
have acquired a mature experience of such a futility from the single discussion
herein mentioned, but I may state that I have acquired such an experience from
discussions that took place before the one involved in the present lucubration.2
I am anxious, in order to confirm and corroborate a traditional habit, inasmuch
as the habit of friendly correspondence has acquired the right of prescription
from very early times, and has thereby received an additional title to
existence; as a matter of fact it is born and grows in us from our childhood,
nay even babyhood, and it is very difficult to shake a habit of such a duration.
For the reason, however, stated at the beginning I sometimes infringe this law,
especially when I am reminded by a wise man who says that it is useless to draw
upon that which is difficult to inherit. This is also due to the fact that the
subject is to me difficult and is even against my nature, but we know that habit
conquers inclination, as a powerful thought conquers a weak one.
We often see that a strong and well rooted
branch goes spontaneously back to its former and congenial state after it has
been violently twisted, and we do find that when powerful torrents are diverted
from their natural channels with violence, they return immediately to their
natural and customary course, without the need of any violence. This happens to
me in relation to your great wisdom; to put a stop to our correspondence we must
needs make use of violence, but after the cessation of this violence, we go back
to our natural state, while love conquers all between us and covers the
weaknesses of the flesh which are full of shame and confusion, and also many
other human proclivities which are known to the mind, but which the speech
conceals and hides under the veil of silence. Such weaknesses are well known to
your great wisdom, as if you were their father and originator, and are also
known to all the members of the Orthodox Church. Love covers and hides all these
weaknesses as the water covers and hides the rocks that are under it. But let us
now embark on our main subject in the way sanctioned by our old habit and
ancient custom.
Let it be known to your wisdom, O God-loving
Lord, that before these days I had an audience of our victorious King, and
according to usage I praised God and his Majesty. When, in the limited space
allowed to me, I had finished the words of my complimentary address, in which I
spake of the nature of God and His Eternity, he did something to me, which he
had never done before; he said to me: "O Catholicos, a man like you who
possesses all this knowledge and utters such sublime words concerning God, is
not justified in saying about God that He married a woman from whom He begat a
son." 3 —And I replied to his Majesty: "And who is, O God-loving King, who has
ever uttered such a blasphemy concerning God?"—And our victorious King said to
me: "What then do you say that Christ is? " —And I replied to his Majesty: "O
King, Christ is the Word-God, who appeared in the flesh for the salvation of the
world."—And our victorious King questioned me: "Do you not say that Christ is
the Son of God?"—And I replied to his Majesty: "O King, Christ is the Son of
God, and I confess Him and worship Him as such. This I learned from Christ
Himself in the Gospel and from the Books of the Torah and of the Prophets, which
know Him and call Him by the name of "Son of God" but not a son in the flesh as
children are born in the carnal way, but an admirable and wonderful Son,4 more
sublime and higher than mind and words, as it fits a divine Son to be."
Our King asked then: "How?"—And I replied to his
Majesty: "O our King, that He is a Son and one that is born, we learn it and
believe in it, but we dare not investigate how He was born before the times, and
we are not able to understand the fact at all, as God is incomprehensible and
inexplicable in all things; but we may say in an imperfect simile that as light
is born of the sun and word of the soul, so also Christ who is Word, is born of
God, high above the times and before all the worlds."—And our King said to me:
"Do you not say that He was born of the Virgin Mary?"—And I said to his Majesty:
"We say it and confess it. The very same Christ is the Word born of the Father,
and a man born of Mary. From the fact that He is Word-God, He is born of the
Father before the times, as light from the sun and word from the soul; and from
the fact that He is man He is born of the Virgin Mary, in time; from the Father
He is, therefore, born eternally, and from the Mother He is born in time,
without a Father, without any marital contact, and without any break in the
seals of the virginity of His Mother."
Then our God-loving King said to me: "That He
was born of Mary without marital intercourse is found in the Book,5 and is well
known, but is it possible that He was born without breaking the seals of the
virginity of His mother?"—And I replied to him: "O King, if we consider both
facts in the light of natural law, they are impossible, because it is impossible
that a man should be born without breaking the seals of his mother's virginity,
and is equally impossible that He should be conceived without a man's
intercourse. But if we consider not nature but God, the Lord of nature, as the
Virgin was able to conceive without marital relations, so was she able to be
delivered of her child without any break in her virginal seals. There is nothing
impossible with God,6 who can do everything."—Then the King said: "That a man
can be born withour marital intercourse is borne out by the example of Adam, who
was fashioned by God from earth without any marital intercourse, but that a man
can be born without breaking his mother's virginal seals we have no proof,
either from Book nor from nature."
And I replied to his Majesty in the following
manner: "That He was born without breaking the virginal seals of His mother we
have evidence from Book and nature. From Book there is the example of Eve who
was born from the side of Adam without having rent it or fractured it, and the
example of Jesus Christ who ascended to Heaven without having torn and breached
the firmament. In this way He was born of Mary without having broken her
virginal seals or fractured them. This can also be illustrated from nature: all
fruits are born of trees without breaking or tearing them, and sight is born of
the eye while the latter is not broken or torn, and the perfume of apples and
all aromatic substances is bora of their respective trees or plants without
breaking and tearing them, and the rays are bora of the sun without tearing or
breaking its spheric form. As all these are bora of their generators without
tearing them or rending them, so also Christ was born of Mary without breaking
her virginal seals; as His eternal birth from the Father is wonderful, so also
is His temporal birth from Mary."
And our King said to me: "How was that Eternal
One born in time?"—And I answered: "It is not in His eternity that He was born
of Mary, O our King, but in His temporalness and humanity." —And our King said
to me: "There are, therefore, two distinct beings: if one is eternal and God
from God as you said, and the other temporal, the latter is therefore a pure man
from Mary."—And I retorted: "Christ is not two beings, O King, nor two Sons, but
Son and Christ are one; there are in Him two natures, one of which belongs to
the Word and the other one which is from Mary, clothed itself 7 with the
Word-God."—And the King said: "They are, therefore, two, one of whom created and
fashioned, and the other uncreated and unfashioned."—And I said to him: "We do
not deny the duality of natures, O King, nor their mutual relations, but we
profess that both of them constitute one Christ and Son."
And the King retorted: "If He is one He is not
two; and if He is two, He is not one."—And I replied to him: "A man is one,
while in reality he is two: one in his composition and individuality, and two in
the distinction found between his soul and his body; the former is invisible and
spiritual, and the latter visible and corporeal Our King, together with the
insignia of his Kingdom is also one King and not two, however great may be the
difference that separates him from his dresses. In the same way the Word of God,
together with the clothings of humanity which He put on from Mary, is one and
the same Christ, and not two, although there is in Him the natural difference
between the Word-God and His humanity; and the fact that He is one does not
preclude the fact that He is also two. The very same Christ and Son is indeed
known and confessed as one, and the fact that He is also two does not imply
confusion or mixture, because the known attributes of His natures are kept in
one person8 of the Son and Christ."
And our King retorted to me: "Even in this you
cannot save yourself from duality in Christ"—And I demonstrated the fact to him
through another illustration and said: "The tongue and the word are one with the
voice in which they are clothed, in a way that the two are not two words nor two
tongues, but one word, together with the tongue and the voice, so that they are
called by all one tongue with the word and the voice, and in them one does not
expel two. This is also the case with the Word-God; He is one with His humanity,
while preserving the distinction between His invisibility and His visibility,
and between His Divinity and His humanity. Christ is one in His son-ship, and
two in the attributes of His natures."
And our King said to me: "Did not Jesus Christ
say, I am going to My God and to your God?" 9—And I said: "It is true that this
sentence has been said by our Saviour, but there is another sentence which
precedes it and which is worthy of mention."—And the King asked: "Which is
it?"—And I said: "Our Lord said to His Disciples 'I am going to My Father and to
your Father, and to My God and your God.'"—And our King said: "How can this be?
If He says that He is His Father, He is not His God, and if He is His God, He is
not His Father; what is this contradiction?" 10—And I replied to him: "There is
no contradiction here, O God-loving King. The fact that He is His Father by
nature does not carry with it that He is also His God by nature, and the fact
that He is His God by nature does not imply that He is His Father by nature. He
is, however, from His Father by the nature of the Word, born of Him from
eternity, as light from the sun and word from the soul; and God is His God by
the nature of the humanity of the Word born of Mary. Man is living and rational
only by the nature of his soul, which has indeed received from God a living and
rational nature, but he is said to be living and rational in his body also,
through its association with this living and rational soul. In reality what be
is by nature when his body and soul are separated, is not what he is in its
composite state when his body and soul are united. In spite of all this however,
he is called one living and rational man and not two. In the same way God is
called, and is, the Christ's Father by the nature of the union of Word-God with
our human nature, and on the other hand He is called His God by the nature of
His humanity that He took from us in union with the Word-God.
"In this way He is then one Son and Christ, and
not two. He was not born of Mary in the same way as He was born of God, nor was
He born of God in the same way as He was born of Mary. So the Son and the Christ
are really one, in spite of His births being two, and the same Christ has God as
Father by nature, and as God: Father by the fact that He is Word-God, and God by
the fact of His birth from Mary."
Our King showed here marks of doubt as to the
possibility of all the above explanations, and I removed his doubt through
another illustration, and said: "The letter of the Commander of the Faithful is
one, both in the words that are written in it and in the papyrus on which the
words are written, and our King, the King of Kings, is called both the father
and the owner of his letter. He is called its father through the words born of
his soul, which have been impressed on the papyrus, and he is called its owner
through his being the owner of the papyrus on which the words have been written.
Neither the papyrus, however, is, by nature, from the soul of the King, nor the
words are by nature from the papyrus-reed, but the words are by nature born of
the soul of the King, and the papyrus is by nature made of the papyrus-reed,
i.e., from πάπυρος. 11 In this same way Christ is one, both in His being
Word-God and in His humanity taken from us, but the very same God of Christ is
both His Father and His God: His Father, from the fact that He was born before
the times of the Father, and His God from the fact that He was born in time of
Mary. By nature, however, He is not a man from the Father, nor is the Word by
nature from Mary, but He is the very same Christ both from the Father and from
Mary, in the first case as God, and in the second case as man."
Then our God-loving King said to me: "How can
the spirit who has no genital organs beget?"—And I replied to him: "O God-loving
King, how can the spirit then do things and create without possessing organs of
creation. As He created the worlds without instruments of creation, so He was
born without the medium of the genital organs. If He could not be bora without
the intermediary of the genital organs, He could not by inference have created
without the intermediary of the instruments of creation. If He created without
any instruments of creation, He was, therefore, born without the genital organs.
Lo, the sun also begets the rays of light without any genital organs. God is
therefore able to beget and create, although He is a simple and not a composite
spirit; and without any genital organs and instruments of creation He begets the
Son and makes the Spirit proceed from the essence of His person as the sun does
for the light and the heat."
And our King said to me: "Do you believe in
Father, Son and Holy Spirit?"—And I answered: "I worship them and believe in
them."—Then our King said: "You, therefore, believe in three Gods?"—And I
replied to our King: "The belief in the above three names, consists in the
belief in three Persons, and the belief in these three Persons consists in the
belief in one God. The belief in the above three names, consists therefore in
the belief in one God. We believe in Father, Son and Holy Spirit as one God. So
Jesus Christ taught us, and so we have learnt from the revelation of the books
of the prophets. As our God-loving King is one King with his word and his
spirit, and not three Kings, and as no one is able to distinguish him, his word
and his spirit from himself and no one calls him King independently of his word
and his spirit, so also God is one God with His Word and His Spirit, and not
three Gods, because the Word and the Spirit of God are inseparable from Him. And
as the sun with its light and its heat is not called three suns but one sun, so
also God with His Word and His Spirit is not three Gods but is and is called one
God."
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1. 5 The correspondent of the Patriarch. He was
possibly either Sergius priest, monk and teacher of the monastery of Mar
Abraham, or Sergius, Metropolitan of Elam.
2. 1 These sentences amplify a little the
original.
3. 1 The Christian apologist Kindi refutes an
objection of his adversary, `Abdallah b. Isma`il al-Hashimi, which was in almost
identical terms: "We never say about the Most High God that He married a woman
from whom He begat a son," Risalah, p. 37.
4. 2 Cf. Is. ix. 6.
5. 1 Kur'an, iii. 41; xxi. 91.
6. 2 Luke i. 37. Kur'an iii. 41, etc.
7. 1 Note the semi-Nestorian expression of
"putting on, clothing oneself with" as applied to the union of God with man in
the Incarnation. In the following pages we shall not attempt to render this
expression into English at every time.
8. 2 Parsopa = πρόσωπον.
9. 1 John xx. 17.
10. 2 The Arabic muhal.
11. 1 There is no doubt therefore that the
official letters and documents of the early Abbasids were written on papyrus and
not on parchment. The Arabic word Kirtas seems by inference to indicate papyrus
in the majority of cases, if not always.
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