The Apology of Timothy the Patriarch before the Caliph Mahdi
The following is the "transcript" from a two day debate that took place in the year 781 between the Catholicos Timothy I, leader of the Christians in Mesopotamia and Persia, and the Caliph Mahdi, the Muslim ruler of these (and other) regions. Although it is highly unlikely that the transcript records their exchange verbatim, it was nevertheless compiled by Timothy very shortly after the debate took place, and thus very likely represents the gist of what took place. Below is the complete record of the second day of the debate, and the discussion centers around the Christian doctrine of the Trinity, which Islam has often seen as a disturbing violation of the monotheist faith that Christians purport to hold. Here Timothy attempts to explain for the Caliph that this is not the case, and that somehow three "gods" are in fact one. The translation is from A. Mingana, 1. Timothy's Apology for Christianity. 2. The lament of the Virgin. 3. The martyrdom of Pilate ..., Woodbrooke Studies 2 (Cambridge [Eng.]: W. Hefer & Sons, Limited, 1928] . This text was prepared for HTML by Professor John C. Lamoreaux, and I thank him for allowing me to use it for this course.
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PAGE 60
THE QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS OF THE
SECOND DAY.
The next day I had an audience of his Majesty.
Such audiences
had constantly taken place previously, sometimes for
the affairs
of the State, and some other times for the love of wisdom
and
learning which was burning in the soul of his Majesty. He is
a
lovable man, and loves also learning when he finds it in
other
people, and on this account he directed against me the
weight
of his objections, whenever necessary.
After I had
paid to him my usual respects as King of Kings, he
began to address
me and converse with me not in a harsh and haughty
tone, since
harshness and haughtiness are remote from his soul,
but in a sweet
and benevolent way.
And our King of Kings said to me:
"O Catholicos, did you
bring a Gospel with you, as I had asked
you?" -- "And
I replied to his exalted Majesty: "I
Have brought one, O
our victorious and God-loving King." -- And
our victorious
Sovereign said to me: "Who gave you this
Book?" -- And
I replied to him: "It is the Word of God that
gave us the
Gospel, O our God-loving King." -- And our King
said: "Was
it not written by four Apostles?" And I replied
to him: "It
was written by four Apostles, as our King has said,
but not out
of their own heads, but out of what they heard and
learned from
the Word-God. If then the Gospel was written by the
Apostles,
and if the Apostles simply wrote what they heard and
learned from
the Word-God, the Gospel has, therefore, been given in
reality
by the Word-God. Similarly, the Torah was written by Moses,
but
since Moses heard and learned it from an angel, and the
angel
heard and learned it from God, we assert that the Torah was
given
by God and not by Moses.
"In the same way also
the Muslims say that they have received
the Kur'an from Muhammad, but
since Muhammad received knowledge
and writing from an angel, they,
therefore, affirm that the Book
that was divulged through him was not
Muhammad's or the angel's
but God's. So also we Christians believe
that although the Gospel
was given to us by the Apostles, it was not
given as from them
but as from God, His Word and His Spirit. Further,
the letters
PAGE 61
and official documents of your
Majesty are written by the hands
of scribes and clerks, but they are
not said to be those of scribes,
but those of your Majesty, and of
the Commander of the Faithful."
And our gracious and
wise King said to me: "What do you say
about Muhammad?" --
And I replied to his Majesty: "Muhammad
is worthy of all praise,
by all reasonable people, O my Sovereign.
He walked in the path of
the prophets, and trod in the track of
the lovers of God. All the
prophets taught the doctrine of one
God and since Muhammad taught the
doctrine of the unity of God,
he walked, therefore, in the path of
the prophets. Further, all
the prophets drove men away from bad
works, and brought them nearer
to good works, and since Muhammad
drove his people away from bad
works and brought them nearer to the
good ones, he walked, therefore,
in the path of the prophets. Again,
all the prophets separated
men from idolatry and polytheism, and
attached them to God and
to His cult, and since Muhammad separated
his people from idolatry
and polytheism, and attached them to the
cult and the knowledge
of one God, beside whom there is no other God,
it is obvious that
he walked in the path of the prophets. Finally
Muhammad taught
about God, His Word and His Spirit, and since all the
prophets
had prophesied about God, His Word and His Spirit, Muhammad
walked,
therefore, in the path of all the
prophets.
"Who will not praise, honour and exalt the
one who not only
fought for God in words, but showed also his zeal
for Him in the
sword? As Moses did with the Children of Israel when
he saw that
they had fashioned a golden calf which they worshipped,
and killed
all of those who were worshipping it, so also Muhammad
evinced
an ardent zeal towards God, and loved and honoured Him more
than
his own soul, his people and his relatives. He praised,
honoured
and exalted those who worshipped God with him, and promised
them
kingdom, praise and honour from God, both in this world and
in
the world to come in the Garden. But those who worshipped
idols
and not God he fought and opposed, and showed to them the
torments
of hell and of the fire which is never quenched and in which
all
evildoers burn eternally.
"And what Abraham, that
friend and beloved of God, did in
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turning
his face from idols and from his kinsmen, and looking
only towards
one God and becoming the preacher of one God to other
peoples, this
also Muhammad did. He turned his face from idols
and their
worshippers, whether those idols were those of his own
kinsmen or of
strangers, and he honoured and worshipped only one
God. Because of
this God honoured him exceedingly and brought
low before his feet two
powerful kingdoms which roared in the
world like a lion and made the
voice of their authority heard
in all the earth that is below heaven
like thunder, viz: the Kingdom
of the Persians and that of the
Romans. The former kingdom, that
is to say the Kingdom of the
Persians, worshipped the creatures
instead of the Creator, and the
latter, that is to say the Kingdom
of the Romans, attributed
suffering and death in the flesh to
the one who cannot suffer and die
in any way and through any process.
He further extended the power of
his authority through the Commander
of the Faithful and his children
from east to west, and from north
to south. Who will not praise, O
our victorious King, the one
whom God has praised, and will not weave
a crown of glory and
majesty to the one whom God has glorified and
exalted? These and
similar things I and all God-lovers utter about
Muhammad, O my
sovereign."
And our King said to me:
"You should, therefore, accept the
words of the Prophet."
-- And I replied to his gracious Majesty:
"Which words of his
our victorious King believes that I must
accept?" -- And our
King said to me: "That God is one
and that there is no other one
besides Him." -- And I replied:
"This belief in one God, O
my Sovereign, I have learned from
the Torah, from the Prophets and
from the Gospel. I stand by it
and shall die in it." -- And our
victorious King said to
me: "You believe in one God, as you
said, but one in three."
-- And I answered his sentence: "I
do not deny that I believe
in one God in three, and three in one, but
not in three different
Godheads, however, but in the persons of God's
Word and His Spirit.
I believe that these three constitute one God,
not in their person
but in their nature. I have shown how in my
previous words."
And our King asked: "How is it
that these three persons whom
you mention do not constitute three
Gods?" -- And I answered
his
PAGE 63
Majesty:
"Because the three of them constitute one God, O
our victorious
King, and the fact that He is only one God precludes
the hypothesis
that there are three Gods." -- And our King
retorted: "The
fact that there are three precludes the statement
that there is only
one God. If there are three, how can they be
one?" -- And I
replied: "We believe that they are three,
O our Sovereign, not
in Godhead, but in persons, and that they
are one not in persons but
in Godhead." -- And our King retorted:
"The fact that they
are three precludes the statement that
they are one, and the fact
that they are one precludes the statement
that they are three. This
everybody will admit." -- And I
said to him: "The three in
Him are the cause of one, and
the one that of three, O our King.
Those three have always been
the cause of one, and that one of
three." -- And our King
said to me: "How can one be the cause
of three and three
of one? What is this?" -- And I answered his
question: "One
is the cause of three, O our King, because this
number one is
the cause of the number two, and the number two that of
the number
three. This is, how, one is the cause of three, as I said,
O King.
On the other hand the number three is also the cause of the
number
one because since the number three is caused by the number
two
and this number two by the number one, the number three is
therefore
the cause of number one."
And our King said
to me: "In this process the number four
would also he the cause
of number five and so on, and the question
of one Godhead would
resolve itself into many Godheads, which,
as you say, is the doctrine
not of the Christians but of the Magians."
-- And I replied to
our King: "In every comparison there
is a time at which one must
stop, because it does not resemble
reality in everything. We should
remember that all numbers are
included in number three. Indeed the
number three is both complete
and perfect and all numbers are
included in a complete and perfect
number. In this number three all
other numbers are included, O
our victorious King. Above three all
other numbers are simply
numbers added to themselves, by means of
that complete and perfect
number, as it is said. It follows from all
this that one is the
cause of three and three of one, as we
suggested." -- And
our King said to me: "Neither three nor
two can possibly
be said of God." -- And I replied to his
Majesty: "Neither,
therefore,
PAGE
64
one." -- And our King asked: "How?" -- And
I answered:
"If the cause of three is two, the cause of two
would be
one, and in this case the cause of three would also be one.
If
then God cannot be said to be three, and the cause of three is
two
and that of two one, God cannot, therefore be called one
either.
Indeed this number one being the cause and the beginning, of
all
numbers, and there being no number in God, we should not
have
applied it to Him. As, however, we do apply this number to
God
without any reference to the beginning of an arithmetical
number,
we apply to Him also the number three without any
implication
of multiplication or division of Gods, but with a
particular reference
to the Word and the Spirit of God, through which
heaven and earth
have been created, as we have demonstrated in our
previous colloquy.
If the number three cannot be applied to God,
since it is caused
by the number one, the latter could not by
inference be applied
to God either, but if the number one can be
applied to God, since
this number one is the cause of the number
three, the last number
can therefore be applied also to
God."
And our victorious King said: "The number
three denotes plurality,
and since there cannot be plurality in
Godhead, this number three
has no room at all in Godhead." --
And I replied to his Majesty:
"The number one is also the cause
and the beginning of all
number, O our King, and number is the cause
of plurality. Since
there cannot be any kind of plurality in God,
even the number
one would have no room in Him." -- And our King
said: "The
number one as applied to God is attested in the
Book." --
And I said: "So also is the case, O our King,
with a number
implying plurality. We find often such a number in the
Torah,
in the Prophets and in the Gospel, and as I hear, in your
Book
also, not, however, in connection with Godhead but in
relation
to humanity."
"So far as the Torah is
concerned it is written in it, 'Let
us make man in our image, after
our likeness;' and 'The man is
become as
PAGE
65
one of us;' and, 'Let us go down, and there confound
their language.'
As to the Prophets, it is written in them, 'Holy,
holy, holy,
is the Lord of Hosts;' and 'The Lord God and his Spirit
hath sent
me;' and 'By the Word of the Lord were the heavens made,
and all
His hosts by the Spirit of His mouth.' As to the Gospel, it
is
written in it, 'Go yeand teach all nations, baptising them in
the
name of the Father, and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost.'
As to your
Book, it is written in it, 'And we sent to her our
Spirit,' and 'We
breathed into her from our Spirit,' and 'We fashioned,'
'We said,'
'We did,' and all such expressions which are said of
God in a plural
form. If the Holy Books refer these words to God
in a plural form,
what the Books say concerning God we have to
say and admit. Since we
had to preserve without change the number
one as applied to God, we
had also by inference to preserve without
modification the number
three, that is to say plurality, as applied
to Him. The number one
refers to nature and Godhead, and the number
three to God, His Word
and His Spirit, because God has never been,
is not, and will never
be, without Word and Spirit."
And our wise Sovereign
said: "The plural form in connection
with God, in the
expressions 'We sent,' 'We breathed,' 'We said'
etc., has been used
in the Books not as a sign of persons or of
Trinity, but as a mark of
Divine majesty and power. It is even
the habit of the kings and
governors of the earth to use such
a mode of speech." -- And I
replied to the wealth of his
intelligence: "What your glorious
Majesty has said is true.
To you God gave knowledge and understanding
along with power and
greatness, more than to all other countries and
kings. The community
of all mankind, whether composed of freemen or
of subjected races
is personified in the kings, and the
PAGE
66
community of mankind being composed of innumerable
persons, the
kings rightly make use of the plural form in expressions
such
as, 'We ordered,' 'We said,' 'We did,' etc. Indeed the kings
represent
collectively all the community of mankind individually. If
all
men are one with the king, and the king orders, says and
does,
all men order, say and do in the king, and he says and does
in
the name of all.
"Further, the kings are human
beings, and human beings are
composed of body and soul, and the body
is in its turn composed
of the power of the four elements. Because a
human being is composed
of many elements, the kings make use not
unjustly of the plural
form of speech, such as 'We did,' 'We
ordered,' etc. As to God
who is simple in His nature and one in His
essence and remote
from all division and bodily composition, what
greatness and honour
can possibly come to Him when He, who is one and
undivided against
Himself, says in the plural form, 'We ordered,'
and, 'We did?'
The greatest honour that can be offered to God is that
He should
be believed in by all as He is. In His essence He is one,
but
He is three because of His Word and His Spirit. This Word
and
this Spirit are living beings and are of His nature, as the
word
and the spirit of our victorious King are of his nature, and
he
is one King with his word and spirit, which are constantly
with
him without cessation, without division and without
displacement.
"When, therefore, expressions such as,
'We spoke,' 'We said,'
'We did,' and 'Our image and likeness,' are
said to refer to God,
His Word and His Spirit, they are referred in
the way just described,
O King of Kings. Who is more closely united
to God than His Word
through which He created all, governs all and
directs all? Or
who is nearer to Him than His Spirit through which He
vivifies,
sanctifies and renews all? David spoke thus: 'By the Word
of the
Lord were the heavens made, and all His hosts by the Spirit
of
His mouth;' and, 'He sent His Word and healed them, and
delivered
them from destruction;' and 'Thou sendest forth Thy Spirit
and
they are created, and Thou renewest the face of the
earth.'
"If one asserts that the expressions, 'Our
image' and 'Our
like-
PAGE 67
ness' used by Moses
and the expressions, 'We made,' and 'We breathed,'
used by Muhammad,
do not refer to God but to the angels, how disgraceful
it would be to
believe that the image and the likeness of God
and those of the
angels, that is of the creator and the created,
are one! How
dishonourable it would be to affirm that God says,
orders and does
with the angels and His creatures! God orders
and does like the Lord
and the creator, and orders and does in
a way that transcends that of
all others; but the angels being
creatures and servants, do not order
with God, but are under the
order of God; they do not create with
God, but are very much created
by God. The angels are what David said
about them, 'Who maketh
His angels spirits and His ministers a
flaming fire.' In this
he shows that they are made and
created.
"As to the Word and Spirit of God the prophet
David says
that they are not created and made, but creators and
makers: 'By
the Word of the Lord were the heavens made,' and not His
Word
alone; and 'the heavenly hosts were created by His Spirit'
and
not His Spirit alone; and, 'Because He said and they were
made,
and He commanded and they were created.' It is obvious that
one
who 'says,' 'says' and 'commands' by word, and that the word
precedes
the action, and the thought precedes the deed. Since God is
one
without any other before Him, with Him and after Him, and
since
all the above expressions which denote plurality cannot be
ascribed
to angels, and since the nature of God is absolutely free
from
all compositions - to whom could we ascribe then all such
expressions?
I believe, O our victorious King, that they refer to the
Word
and the Spirit of God. If it is right that the expression
'One
God' is true, it is also right that the expression 'We
ordered,'
'We said' and 'We breathed from our Spirit' are without
doubt
true and not false. It is also possible that the three
letters
placed before some Surahs in the Kur'an, as I have learned,
such
as A.L.R and T.S.M. and Y.S.M. and others,
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68
which are three in number, refer also in your Book to
God, His
Word and His Spirit."
And our victorious King
said: "And what did impede the Prophet
from saying that this was
so, that is that these letters clearly
referred to God, His Word and
His Spirit?" -- And I replied
to his Majesty: "The obstacle
might have come from the weakness
of those people who would be
listening to such a thing. People
whose ears were accustomed to the
multiplicity of idols and false
gods could not have listened to the
doctrine of Father, Son, and
Holy Spirit, or to that of one God, His
Word, and His Spirit.
They would have believed that this also was
polytheism. This is
the reason why your Prophet proclaimed openly the
doctrine of
one God, but that of the Trinity he only showed it in a
somewhat
veiled and mysterious way, that is to say through his
mention
of God, and of His Spirit and through the expressions 'We
sent
our Spirit' and 'We fashioned a complete man.' He did not
teach
it openly in order that his hearers may not be scandalised
by
it and think of polytheism, and he did not hide it completely
in
order that he may not deviate from the path followed by
Moses,
Isaiah, and other prophets, but he showed it symbolically by
means
of the three letters that precede the
Surahs.
"The ancient prophets had also spoken of the
unity of the
nature of God and used words referring to this unity in
an open
and clear way, but the words which referred to His three
persons
they used them in a somewhat veiled and symbolical way. They
did
so not for any other reason than that of the weakness of men
whose
mind was bound up in idolatry and polytheism. When, however,
Christ
appeared to us in the flesh, He proclaimed openly and
clearly
what the prophets had said in a veiled and symbolical way,
'Go
ye,' said
PAGE 69
He to His Disciples, 'and
baptise all nations in the name of the
Father, and of the Son and of
the Holy Ghost.' Moses also uttered
the same thing in a way that
means both one and three, 'Hear,
O Israel,' said he, 'The Lord your
God is one Lord.' In saying
He 'is one,' he refers to the one nature
of Godhead, and in saying
the three words, 'Lord, God, and Lord' he
refers to the three
persons of that Godhead, as if one was saying
that God, His Word
and His Spirit were one eternal God. Job also said, 'The Lord
gave,
and the Lord hath taken; blessed be the name of the Lord.'
In
blessing the single name of the Lord, Job used it three times,
in
reference to one in three."
And our King said to me:
"If He is one, He is not three;
and if He is three, He is not
one; what is this contradiction?"
-- And I answered: "The
sun is also one, O our victorious
King, in its spheric globe, its
light and its heat, and the very
same sun is also three, one sun in
three powers. In the same way
the soul has the powers of reason and
intelligence, and the very
same soul is one in one thing and three in
another thing. In the
same way also a piece of three gold denarii, is
called one and
three, one in its gold that is to say in its nature,
and three
in its persons that is to say in the number of denarii. The
fact
that the above objects are one does not contradict and annul
the
other fact - that they are also three, and the fact that they
are
three does not contradict and annul the fact that they are
also one.
"In the very same way the fact that God is one does
not annul
the other fact that He is in three persons, and the fact
that
He is in three persons does not annul the other fact that He
is
one God. Man is a being which is living, rational and mortal,
and
he is one and three, one in being one man and three in being
living,
rational and mortal, and this idea gives rise to three
notions not
contradictory but rather confirmatory to one another.
By the fact
that man is one, he is by necessity living, rational
and mortal, and
by the fact that he is living, rational and mortal,
he is by
necessity one man. This applies also to God in whom the
fact of His
being three does not annul the other fact that He
is one and vice
versa, but these two facts confirm and corroborate
each other. If He
is one God, He is the Father, the Son, and the
Holy Spirit; and if He
is the Father, the Son, and the Holy
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70
Spirit, He is one God, because the eternal nature of God
consists
in Fatherhood, Filiation, and Procession, and in the three
of
them He is one God, and in being one God He is the three of
them."
And our King said to me: "Do you say that
the nature of God
is composed of the above three, as the human nature
is composed
of its being living, rational, and mortal, and as the sun
is composed
of light, heat, and sphericity, and as the soul is
composed of
reason and intelligence, and as gold is composed of
height, depth,
and width?" -- And I denied this and said:
"No, this
is not so." -- And our King said to me: "Why
then do
you wish to demonstrate with bodily demonstrations One who
has
no body and is not composed?" -- And I answered his
Majesty:
"Because there is no other God like Him, from whom I
might
draw a demonstration at to what is a being that has no
beginning
and no end." -- And our King said to me: "It is
never
allowed to draw a demonstration from the creatures
concerning
the Creator." -- And I said to Him: "We will
then be
in complete ignorance of God, O King of
Kings."
And our King said: "Why?" -- And I
answered: "Because
all that we say about God is deducted from
natural things that
we have with us; as such are the adjectives: King
of all Kings,
Lord of all Lords, Mighty, Powerful, Omnipotent, Light,
Wisdom,
and judge. We call God by these and similar adjectives from
things
that are with us, and it is from them that we take our
demonstration
concerning God. If we remove Him from such
demonstrations and
do not speak of Him through them, with what and
through what could
we figure in our mind Him who is higher than all
image and likeness?"
And our victorious King said to
me: "We call God by these
names, not because we understand Him
to resemble things that we
have with us, but in order to show that He
is far above them,
without comparison. In this way, we do not
attribute to God things
that are with us, we rather ascribe toourselves
things that are
His, with great mercy from Him and great imperfection
from us.
Words such as: kingdom, life, power, greatness, honour,
wisdom,
sight, knowledge, and justice, etc., belong truly, naturally
and
eternally to God, and they only belong to us in an
unnatural,
imperfect, and temporal way. With God they have not begun
and
they will not end, but with us children of men they began
and
they will end."
And I replied to his Majesty:
"All that your Majesty said
on
PAGE 71
this
subject, O our victorious King, has been said with perfect
wisdom and
great knowledge; this is especially true of what you
have just now
said. It was not indeed with the intention of lowering
God to a
comparison with His creatures, that from the latter I
drew a
comparison concerning Him who in reality, has no comparison
with the
created beings at all. I made use of such similes solely
for the
purpose of uplifting my mind from the created things to
God. All the
things that we have with us compare very imperfectly
with the things
of God. Even in saying of God that He is one,
we introduce in our
mind division concerning Him, because when
we say for instance one
man, one angel, one denarius, one pearl,
we immediately think of a
division that singles out and separates
one denarius from many
denarii, one pearl from many pearls, one
angel from many angels, and
one man from many men.
"A man would not be counting
rightly but promiscuously if
He were to say: one man and two angels,
one horse and two asses,
one denarius and two pence, one pearl and
two emeralds. Every
entity is counted with the entities of its own
species, and we
say: one, two, or three men; one, two, or three
angels; one, two,
or three denarii; one, two, or three pearls, as the
case may be.
With all these calculations in saying one we introduce,
as I said,
the element of division, but in speaking of God we cannot
do the
same thing, because there are no other entities of the same
species
as Himself which would introduce division in Him in the same
sense
as in our saying: one angel or one man. He is one, single
and
unique in His nature. Likewise when we say three we do not
think
of bodies or numbers, and when we say: Father, Son, and Holy
Spirit,
we do not say it in a way that implies division, separation,
or
promiscuity, but we think of it as something high above us in
a
divine, incomprehensible, and indescribable way.
"Our
fathers and our children were born from marital union
and
intercourse, and their fatherhood and filiation have a beginning
and
an end. Further, a father was a son before becoming a father,
and all
relationships are liable to natural dissolution and cessation.
As to
Fatherhood, Filiation, and Procession in God they are not
in a way
similar to those of our humanity, but in a divine way
that mind
cannot comprehend. They do not arise from any intercourse
between
them, nor are they from time or in the time but eternally
without
beginning and without end. Since the above three attributes
are of
the nature
PAGE 72
of God, and the nature of God
has no beginning and no end, they
also are without a beginning and
without an end. And since He
who is without a beginning and without
an end is also unchangeable,
that Fatherhood, therefore, that
Filiation and that Procession
are immutable and will remain without
any modification. The things
that are with us give but an imperfect
comparison with the things
that are above, because things that are
God's are above comparison
and likeness, as we have already
demonstrated."
And our victorious King said: "The
mind of rational beings
will not agree to speak of God who is
eternally one in Himself
in terms of Trinity." -- And I
answered: "Since the
mind of the rational beings is created, and
no created being can
comprehend God, you have rightly affirmed, O
King of Kings, that
the mind of the rational beings will not agree to
speak of one
God in terms of Trinity. The mind, however, of the
rational beings
can only extend to theacts of God, and even then in
an imperfect
and partial manner; as to the nature of God we learn
things that
belong to it not so much from our rational mind as from
the Books
of Revelation, i.e. from what God Himself has revealed and
taught
about Himself through His Word and Spirit:
"The
Word of God said, 'No one knoweth the Father but the
Son, and no one
knoweth the Son but the Father,' and, 'The Spirit
searcheth all
things even the deep things of God.' No one knows
what there is in
man except man's own spirit that is in him, so
also no one knows what
is in God except the Spirit of God. The
Word and the Spirit of God,
being eternally from His own nature
- as heat and light from the sun,
and as reason and mind from
the soul - alone see and know the Divine
nature, and it is they
who have revealed and taught us in the sacred
Books that God is
one and three, as I have already shown in my above
words from
the Torah, the Prophets, the Gospel, and the Kur'an
according
to what I have learned from those who are versed in the
knowledge
of your Book.
"Were it not for the fact that
His Word and His Spirit were
eternally from His own nature God would
not have spoken of Himself
in the Torah, as, 'Our image and Our
likeness;' and 'Behold
PAGE 73
the man is become as
one of us;' and 'Let us go down and there
confound their language;'
and the Kur'an would not have said,
'And we sent to her our Spirit'
and 'We breathed into her from
our Spirit;' and 'We did,' 'We said,'
and so on. By such expressions
(The Kur'an) refers to God and His
Word and His Spirit as we have
said above. Has not the mind of the
rational beings, O our victorious
Sovereign, to follow, the words of
God rather than its own fanciful
conceptions? The inspired Books are
surely right, and since we
find in them that one and the same prophet
speaks of God as one
and as three, we are compelled by the nature of
the subject to
believe it."
And our powerful Sovereign
said to me: "How does the nature
of the subject compel us to
believe it?" -- And I answered:
"Because my Sovereign and
my King granted full freedom to
his obedient servant to speak before
him, may I further implore
your Majesty to be willing that I ask more
questions?" --
And our King said: "Ask anything you
want." -- And I
then said: "Is not God a simple and
uncircumscribed Spirit?"
-- And our King said "Yes."
-- And I asked his Majesty:
"Does He perceive in an
uncircumscribed way with all His
being, or does He perceive like us
with one part only and not
with another?" -- And our King
answered: "He perceives
with all its nature without any
circumscription." -- And
I asked: "Was there any other
thing with Him from eternity,
or not?" -- And our King answered
"Surely not."
-- And I asked: "Does not a perceiver
perceive a perceived
object?" -- And our King answered:
"Yes."
And I then asked: "If God is a
perceiver and knower from
the beginning and from eternity, a
perceiver and a knower perceives
and knows a perceived and known
object, and because there was
no created thing that was eternally
with God - since He created
afterwards when He wished - in case there
was no other being with
Him, whom He might perceive and know
eternally, how could He be
called a perceiver and a knower in a
Divine and eternal sense,
and before the creation of the
world?"
And our victorious King answered: "What
you have said is
true.
PAGE 74
It is indeed
necessary that a perceiver should perceive a perceived
object, and
the knower a known one, but it is possible to say
that He perceived
and knew His own self." -- And I asked:
"If He is all a
perceiver without any circumscription, so
that He does not perceive
and know with one part and is perceived
and known with another part,
how can a perceiver of this kind
perceive Himself? The eye of man is
the perceiver and it perceives
the other objects, but it can never
perceiveits own self except
with another eye like itself, because the
sight of the eye is
unable to perceive itself. If the sight of the
composed eye cannot
be divided into parts so that a part of it
perceives itself, and
the other part is perceived by itself, how can
we think of God
who is a Spirit without body, without division, and
without parts
that He perceives Himself and is perceived by
Himself?"
And our intelligent Sovereign asked:
"Which of the two do
you admit: does God perceive Himself or
not?" -- And I answered:
"Yes; He perceives and knows
Himself with a sight that has
no limits and a knowledge that has no
bounds." -- And our
King asked: "How is it that your
argumentation and reasoning
concerning divisions, separations, and
partitions do not rebound
against you?" -- And I replied to him:
"God perceives
and knows Himself through His Word and the Spirit
that proceeds
from Him. The Word and the Spirit are a clear mirror of
the Father,
a mirror that is not foreign to Him but of the same
essence and
nature as Himself, without any limits and bounds. He was
perceiving
His Word, His Spirit, and His creatures, divinely,
eternally,
and before the worlds, with this difference, however, that
He
was perceiving and knowing His Word and His Spirit as His
nature,
His very nature, and He was eternally perceiving and knowing
His
creatures not as His nature but as His creatures. He was
perceiving
and knowing His Word and His Spirit as existing divinely
and eternally,
and His creatures not as existing then but as going to
exist in
the future. Through His Word and His Spirit He perceives and
knows
the beauty, the splendour, and the infiniteness of His own
nature,
and through His creatures the beauty of His wisdom, of His
power,
and of His goodness, now, before now, and before all times,
movements,
and beginnings."
And our King asked
philosophically: "Are they parts of one
another, and placed at a
distance from one another, so that one
part
PAGE
75
perceives and the other is perceived?" -- And I
replied to
his Majesty: "No, not so, O King of Kings. They are
not parts
of one another, because a simple being has no parts and no
composition;
nor are they placed at a distance one from the other,
because
the infiniteness of God, of His Word, and of His Spirit is
one.
The Father is in the Son, and the Son in the Spirit, without
any
break, distance, and confusion of any kind, as the soul is in
the
reason and the reason in the mind, without break and confusion;
and
as the spheric globe of the sun is in its light, and this
light in
its heat; and as the colour, scent, and taste are in
the apple,
without any break, confusion, and promiscuity. All
figures,
comparisons, and images, are far below that adorable
and ineffable
nature of God, so there is fear that we may be falsely
held to
believe in the plurality of Godhead."
And our powerful
and wise King said: "There is such a fear
indeed." -- And I
said: "O King of Kings, this would
arise in case we diminished
something from Godhead, just as well
as if we added something to it.
As it is a blasphemy to add something
to Godhead, it is also a
blasphemy to diminish something from
it in our belief, and as it is
not allowed to add anything to
the sun or to the pearl, so it is not
allowed to diminish anything
from them. He who divests God of His
Word and His Spirit, resembles
the one who would divest the sun of
its light and its heat, and
the soul of its reason and its mind, and
the pearl of its beauty
and its lustre. As it is impossible to
conceive a pearl without
lustre, or a sun without light, or a soul
without reason and mind,
so it is never possible that God should be
without Word and Spirit.
If, therefore, Word and Spirit are God's by
nature, and God is
eternal, it follows that the Word and the Spirit
of God are also
eternal. They are not added to Him from outside that
one might
think of the plurality of Godhead, but it is of the essence
of
God to possess both Word and Spirit."
And our
victorious King said: "In your previous words you
said that the
perceiver perceives the one that is perceived, and
the one that is
perceived perceives also the one that perceives;
and that if they be
near a thing they are all there at the same
time, because the Word
and the Spirit of God are the object that
is perceived by God and are
eternal like the perceiver; and if
there is no perceiver there is no
perceived object either, and
if there is no perceived object there is
no perceiver. Did you
say these things, or not?" -- And I
answered:
PAGE 76
"I did say them, O our
victorious King." -- And the
King of Kings said: "But it is
possible that God was perceiving
His creatures before He created
them." -- And I said: "O
our victorious King, we cannot
think or say otherwise. God perceived
and knew eternally His
creatures, before He brought them into
being."
And our
King said: "The nature of the subject will not compel
us,
therefore, to believe that if the perceiver is eternal, the
perceived
should also be eternal, because the fact that God is
an eternal
perceiver of the creature does not carry with it the
necessity that
the creature which is perceived by Him is also
eternal, and the fact
that the creature is perceived does not
carry with it the necessity
that He also is the perceived object
like it. As such a necessity as
that you were mentioning in the
case of the creature has been
vitiated, so also is the case with
regard to the Word and the
Spirit."
And I said: "O our King, it is not the
same kind of perception
that affects the creature on the one hand,
and the Word and the
Spirit on the other. This may be known and
demonstrated as follows:
it is true that God was perceiving the
creature eternally, but
the creature is not infinite, and God is
infinite, the creature
has a limited perceptibility, and the
perception of God has no
limits. Further, the nature of God having no
limits, His knowledge
also has no limits, as the divine David says,
'His understanding
is infinite.' If God, therefore, has any
perception, and if He
is infinite and unlimited, that perception must
by necessity be
infinite and unlimited, and if His perception is
infinite, it
perceives a perceived object that is likewise infinite;
but the
perceived object that is infinite being only the nature of
God,
it follows that His Word and His Spirit are from His nature,
in
the same way as the word and the spirit of a man are from
human
nature. It is, therefore, obvious that if God is an infinite
perceiver,
the Word and the Spirit that are from Him are also
infinite.
"God knows His Word and His Spirit in an
infinite way as
His Knowledge and His perception are infinite, but He
perceives
and knows His creature not in the same infinite way as are
His
perception and His Knowledge, but in a finite way according
to
the limits of the creature and of the human nature. He
perceived
His creature only
PAGE 77
through His
prescience, and not as a substance that is of the
same nature as
Himself, and, on the contrary, He perceived the
Word and the Spirit
not through His prescience but as a substance
that is of the same
nature as Himself. This is the reason why
the prophet David said,
'For ever, art thou O Lord, and Thy Word
is settled in heaven;' and
likewise the prophet Isaiah, 'The grass
withereth and the flower
fadeth, but the Word of our Lord shall
stand forever.' In this
passage Isaiah counts all the world as
grass and flower, and the Word
and the Spirit of God as something
imperishable, immortal, and
eternal.
"If, therefore, God is an infinite perceiver,
the object
that is perceived by Him has also to be infinite, in order
that
His perception of the perceived should not be incomplete in
places.
And who is this infinite-perceived except the Word and the
Spirit
of God? God indeed was not without perception and a
perceived
object of the same nature as Himself till He brought His
creature
into being, but He possessed along with His eternal
perception
and eternal knowledge a perceived object that was eternal
and
a known object that was also eternal. It is not permissible
to
say of God that He was not a perceiver and a knower, till the
time
in which He created. And if God is eternally a perceiver
and a
knower, and if a perceiver of the perceived and a knower
of the known
is truly a perceiver and a knower, and if His Word
and His Spirit
were perceived by Him divinely and eternally, it
follows that these
same Word and Spirit were eternally with Him.
As to His creatures, He
created them afterwards, when He wished,
by means of His Word and His
Spirit."
And our King said to me: "O Catholicos,
if this is your religion
and that of the Christians, I will say this,
that the Word and
the Spirit are also creatures of God, and there is
no one who
is uncreated except one God." -- And I replied:
"If
the Word and the Spirit are also creatures of God like the
rest,
by means of whom did God create the heaven and the earth and
all
that they contain? The Books teach us that He created the
world
by means of His Word and His Spirit, by means of whom did He
then
create this Word and this Spirit? If He created them by means
of
another word and another spirit, the same conclusion would
also be
applied to them: will they
PAGE 78
be created or
uncreated? If uncreated, the religion of the Catholicos
and of the
Christians is vindicated; and if created, by means
of whom did God
create them? And this process of gibberish argumentation
will go on
indefinitely until we stop at that Word and that Spirit
hidden
eternally in God, by means of whom we assert that the worlds
were
created."
And the King said: "You appear to
believe in three heads,
O Catholicos." -- And I said "This
is certainly not
so, O our victorious King. I believe in one head,
the eternal
God the Father, from whom the Word shone and the Spirit
radiated
eternally, together, and before all times, the former by way
of
filiation and the latter by way of procession, not in a bodily
but
in a divine way that befits God. This is the reason why they
are not
three separate Gods. The Word and the Spirit are eternally
from the
single nature of God, who is not one person divested
of word and
spirit as the weakness of the Jewish belief has it.
He shines and
emits rays eternally with the light of His Word
and the radiation of
His Spirit, and He is one head with His Word
and His Spirit. I do not
believe in God as stripped of His Word
and Spirit, in the case of the
former without mind and reason,
and in the case of the latter without
spirit and life. It is only
the idolaters who believe in false gods
or idols who have neither
reason nor life."
And our
victorious King said: "It seems to me that you believe
in a
vacuous God. since you believe that He has a child."
-- And I
answered: "O King, I do not believe that God is
either vacuous
or solid, because both these adjectives denote
bodies. If vacuity and
solidity belong to bodies, and God is a
Spirit without a body,
neither of the two qualifications can be
ascribed to Him." --
And the King said: "What then do
you believe that God is if He
is neither vacuous nor solid?"
-- And I replied to His Majesty:
"God is a Spirit and an
incorporeal light, from whom shine and
radiate eternally and divinely
His Word and His Spirit. The soul
begets the mind and causes reason
to proceed from it, and the fire
begets the light and
PAGE 79
causes heat to proceed
from its nature, and we do not say that
either the soul or fire are
hollow or solid. So also is the case
with regard to God, about Whom
we never say that He is vacuous
or solid when He makes His Word shine
and His Spirit radiate from
His essence eternally."
And
our victorious King said: "What is the difference in
God between
shining and radiating?" -- And I replied: "There
is the
same difference between shining and radiating in God as
that found in
the illustration furnished by the fire and the apple:
the fire begets
the light and causes heat to proceed from it,
and the apple begets
the scent and causes the taste and savour
to proceed from it.
Although both the fire and the apple give
rise, the former to light
and heat, and the latter to scent and
savour, yet they do not do it
in the same manner and with an identical
effect on the one and the
same sense of our body. We receive the
heat of the fire with the
sense of feeling, the light with the
eyes, the scent of the apple
with the sense of smell, and the
sweetness of its savour with the
palate. From this it becomes
clear that the mode of filiation is
different from that of procession.
This is as far as one can go from
bodily comparisons and similes
to the realities and to
God."
And the King said: "You will not go very far
with God in
your bodily comparisons and similes." -- And I said:
"O
King, because I am a bodily man I made use of bodily
metaphors,
and not of those that are without any body and any
composition.
Because I am a bodily man, and not a spiritual being, I
make use
of bodily comparisons in speaking of God. How could I or any
other
human being speak of God as He is with a tongue of flesh,
with
lips fashioned of mud, and with a soul and mind closely
united
to a body? This is far beyond the power of men and angels to
do.
God. Himself speaks with the prophets about Himself not as He
is,
because they cannot know and hear about Him as He is, but
simply in
the way that fits in with their own nature, a way they
are able to
understand. In His revelations to the ancient prophets
sometimes He
revealed Himself as man, sometimes as fire, sometimes
as wind, and
some other times in some other ways and
similitudes.
"The divine David said, 'He then spoke in
visions to His
holy ones;' and the Prophet Hosea said on behalf of
God, 'I have
PAGE 80
multiplied my visions and used
similitudes by the ministry of
the prophets;' and one of the Apostles
of Christ said, 'God at
sundry times and in divers manners spake in
time past unto our
fathers by the prophets.' If God appeared and
spake to the ancient
in bodily similitudes and symbols, we with
stronger reason find
ourselves completely unable to speak of God and
to understand
anything concerning Him except through bodily
similitudes and
metaphors. I shall here make bold and assert that I
hope I shall
not deserve any blame from your Majesty if I say that
you are
in the earth the representative of God for the earthly
people;
now God maketh His sun to rise on the evil and on the good,
and
sendeth His rain on the just and the unjust. Your Majesty also
in
the similitude of God will make us worthy of forgiveness, if
in the
fact of being earthly beings we speak of God in an earthly
way and
not in a spiritual way like spiritual beings."
And our
victorious King said: "You are right in what you
said before and
say now on the subject that God is above all the
thoughts and minds
of created beings, and that all the thoughts
and minds of created
beings are lower not only than God Himself
but also His work. The
fact, however, that you put the servant
and the Lord on the same
footing you make the creator equal with
the created, and in this you
fall into error and falsehood."
And I replied: "O
my Sovereign, that the Word and the Spirit
of God should be called
servants and created I considered and
consider not far from unbelief.
If the Word and the Spirit are
believed to be from God, and God is
conceived to be a Lord and
not a servant, His Word and Spirit are
also, by inference lords
and not servants. It is one and the same
freedom that belongs
to God and to His Word and Spirit, and they are
called Word and
Spirit of God not in an unreal, but in a true, sense.
The kingdom
which my victorious Sovereign possesses is the same as
that held
by his word and his spirit, so that no one separates his
word
and his spirit from his kingdom, and he shines in the diadem
of
kingdom together with his word and his spirit in a way that they
are
not three Kings, and in a way that he does not shine in the
diadem of
kingdom apart from his word and his spirit.
PAGE
81
"If it please your Majesty, O my powerful Sovereign,
I will
also say this: the splendour and the glory of the kingdom
shine
in one and the same way in the Commander of the Faithful and
in
his sons Musa and Harun, and in spite of the fact that kingdom
and
lordship in them are one, their personalities are different.
For this
reason no one would venture to consider, without the
splendour of
kingdom not only the Commander of the Faithful but
also the beautiful
flowers and majestic blossoms that budded and
blossomed out of him;
indeed the three of them blossom in an identical
kingdom, and this
one and the same kingdom shines and radiates
in each one of them, so
that no one dares to ascribe servitude
to any of them. In a small and
partial way the same light of kingdom,
lordship, and divinity shines
and radiates eternally in the Father,
the Son and the Holy Spirit, or
if one prefers to put it, in God,
His Word, and His Spirit, and no
one is allowed to give to any
of them the name of a I servant. If the
Word and the Spirit are
servants of God, while they are from God
Himself, the logical
conclusion to be drawn I leave to a tongue other
than mine to
utter."
And the King said: "It is
very easy for your tongue, O Catholicos,
to prove the existence of
that Lord and God, and the existence
also of that consubstantial
servant, and to draw conclusions sometimes
or to abstain from them
some other times, but the minds and the
will of rational beings are
induced to follow not your mind which
is visible in your conclusions,
but the law of nature and the
inspired Books."
And I
replied: "O our victorious King, I have proved my words
that I
have uttered in the first day and today both from nature
and from
Book. So far as arguments from nature are concerned,
I argued,
confirmed, and corroborated my words sometimes from
the soul with its
mind and its reason; sometimes from the fire
with its light and its
heat; sometimes from the apple with its
scent and its savour; and
some other times from your Majesty and
from the rational and royal
flowers that grew from it: Musa and
Harun, the sons of your Majesty.
As to the inspired Books, I proved
the object under
PAGE
82
discussion sometimes from Moses, sometimes from David,
and some
other times I appealed to the Kur'an, as a witness to prove
my
statement.
"God said to the prophet David and caused
him further to
prophesy in the following manner concerning His Word
and His Spirit,
'I have set up my King on my holy hill of Zion.'
Before this He
had called Him His Christ, 'Against the Lord and
against His Christ.'
If the Christ of God is a King, it follows that
the Christ is
not a servant but a King. Afterwards David called Him
twice Son,
'Thou art my Son and this day I have begotten Thee,' and,
'Kiss
the Son lest the Lord be angry and ye perish from His way.'
If
the Christ, therefore, is a Son, as God called Him through
the
prophet David, and if no son is a servant, it follows, O
King,
that the Christ is not a servant. In another passage the
same
prophet David called the Christ 'Lord,' 'Son,' and 'A priest
for
ever,' because he said, 'The Lord said unto my Lord, Sit Thou
at
my right hand.' And in order to show that Christ is of the
same
nature and power as God, he said on behalf of the Father
as follows,
'In the beauties of holiness from the womb I have
begotten Thee from
the beginning.' God, therefore, called Christ
'a Lord' through the
prophet David, and since no true Lord is
a servant, it follows that
Christ is not a servant.
"Further, Christ has been
called through David one 'begotten
of God' both 'from eternity' and
'In the beauties of holiness
from the womb.' Since no one begotten of
God is a servant, the
Christ, therefore, O King of Kings, is not a
servant and created,
but He is uncreated and a Lord. God said also
through the prophet
Isaiah to Ahaz, King of Israel, 'Behold a virgin
shall conceive
and bear a Son, and His name shall he called-not a
servant-but
Emmanuel, which being interpreted is, God with us.' The
same Isaiah
said, 'For unto
PAGE 83
us a Child -
and not a servant - is born, and unto us a Son -
not a servant and a
created being - is given, and His name has
been called Wonderful,
Counsellor, the Mighty God of the Worlds.'
If the Christ, therefore,
is the Son of God, this Son of God,
as God Himself spoke through the
prophet Isaiah, is the 'mighty
God of the worlds,' and not a servant
in subjection, but a Lord
and a Prince. It follows, O our victorious
King, that the Christ
is surely a Lord and a Prince, and not a
servant in subjection.
"As your Majesty would wax angry
if your children were called
servants, so also God will be wrathful
if anybody called His Word
and His Spirit servants. As the honour and
dishonour of the children
of your Majesty redound on you, so also and
in a higher degree
the honour and dishonour of God's Word and Spirit
redound on Him.
It is for this reason that Christ said in the Gospel,
'He that
honoureth not the Son, honoureth not the Father who hath
sent
Him,' and, 'He who honoureth not the Son shall not see life,
but
the wrath of God shall abide on him.'
"The above is
written in the Gospel. I heard also that it
is written in the Kur'an
that Christ is the Word and the Spirit
of God, and not a servant. If
Christ is the Word and the Spirit
of God, as the Kur'an testifies, He
is not a servant but a Lord,
because the Word and the Spirit of God
are Lords. It is by this
method, O our God-loving King, based on the
law of nature and
on divinely inspired words, and not on purely human
argumentation,
word, and thought, that I both in the present and in
the first
conversation have demonstrated the lordship and the sonship
of
Christ, and the Divine Trinity."
Our victorious
King said: "Has not the Christ been called
also several times a
servant by the prophets?"-- And I said:
"I am aware, O my
Sovereign, of the fact that the Christ
has also been called a
servant, but that this appellation does
not imply a real servitude is
borne out by the illustration that
may be taken from the status of
Harun, the blossom and the flower
of your Majesty. He is
now
PAGE 84
called by everybody 'Heir Presumptive,'
but after your long reign,
he will he proclaimed King and Sovereign
by all. He served his
military service through the mission entrusted
to him by your
Majesty to repair to Constantinople against the
rebellious and
tyrannical Byzantines. Through this service and
mission he will
not lose his royal sonship and his freedom, nor his
princely honour
and glory, and acquire the simple name of servitude
and subjection,
like any other individual. So also is the case with
the Christ,
the Son of the heavenly King. He fulfilled the will of
His Father
in His coming on His military mission to mankind, and in
His victory
over sin, death, and Satan. He did not by this act lose
His royal
Sonship, and did not become a stranger to Divinity,
Lordship,
and Kingdom, nor did He put on the dishonour of servitude
and
subjection like any other individual.
"Further, the
prophets called Him not by what He was, but
by what He was believed
by the Jews to be. In one place the prophets
called Him, according to
the belief of the Jews, 'A Servant, a
Rejected one, one without form
or comeliness, a Stricken one,
a Smitten one, a man of many sorrows.'
In another place, however,
it has been said of Him that, He is the
fairest of the children
of men, the Mighty God of the worlds, the
Father of the future
world, the Messenger of the Great Counsel of
God, Prince of Peace,
a Son, and a Child, as we demonstrated in our
former replies.
The last adjectives refer to His nature, and He has
been spoken
of through the first adjectives on account of the mission
that
He performed to His father for the salvation of all, and in
compliance
with the belief of the Jews who only looked at Him in His
humanity,
and were totally incapable of considering Him in the nature
of
His divinity that clothed itself completely with
humanity.
PAGE 85
"Some ignorant Byzantines
who know nothing of the kingship
and sonship of your son Harun, may
consider him and call him a
simple soldier and not a Prince and a
King, but those who know
him with certainty will not call him a
simple soldier, but will
consider him and call him King and Prince.
In this way the prophets
considered the Christ our Lord as God, King,
and Son, but the
unbelieving Jews believed Him to be a servant and a
mere man under
subjection. He has indeed been called not only a
servant, on account
of His service, but also a stone, a door, the
way, and a lamb.
He was called a stone, not because He was a stone by
nature, but
because of the truth of His teaching; and a door, because
it is
through Him that we entered into the knowledge of God: and
the
way, because it is He who in His person opened to us the way
of
immortality; and a lamb, because He was immolated for the life
of
the world. In this same way He was called also a servant, not
because
He was a servant by nature, but on account of the service
which He
performed for our salvation, and on account of the belief
of the
Jews,
"I heard also that it is written in your Book
that the Christ
was sent not as a servant, but as a son, 'I swear by
this mountain
and by the begetter and His Child.' A child is like his
father,
'whether the latter be a servant or a freeman, and if it is
written,
'The Christ doth surely not disdain to be a servant of God,'
it
is also written that God doth not disdain to be a Father to
Christ
because He said through the prophet about the Christ, 'He
will
be to Me a Son' - and not a servant - and, also 'I will make
Him
a first-born - not a servant - and will raise Him up above
the
Kings of the earth.' If Christ has been raised by God above
the
Kings of the earth, He who is above the Kings cannot be a
servant,
Christ is, therefore, O King, not a servant and one
under
PAGE 86
subjection, but a King of Kings and a
Lord. It is not possible
that a servant should be above angels and
kings.
"God said also about the Christ through the same
prophet
David, 'His name shall endure for ever, and His name is
before
the sun. All men shall be blessed by Him, and all shall
glorify
Him.' How can the name of a servant endure for ever, and how
can
the name of a servant be before the sun and other creatures,
and
how can all nations be blessed by a servant, and how can all
nations
glorify a servant? God said to His Word and His Spirit, 'Ask
of
me, and I shall give Thee the nations for Thine inheritance
and
the uttermost parts of the earth for Thy possession. Thou
shalt
shepherd them with a rod of iron. Be wise now, O ye Kings,
and
be instructed, ye judges of the earth. Serve the Lord with
fear,
and hold to Him with trembling. Kiss the Son, lest He be
angry,
and ye stray from His way, when His wrath is kindled but a
little.
Blessed are all they that put their trust in Him.' If all
the
nations and the uttermost parts of the earth are the
inheritance
and the possession of the Christ, and if he who has under
his
authority all the nations and the uttermost parts of the earth
is
not a servant, the Christ, therefore, O our victorious Sovereign,
is
not a servant, but a Lord and Master; and if the Kings and
the judges
of the earth have been ordered by God to serve the
Christ with fear
and hold to Him with trembling, it is impossible
that this same
Christ who is served, held to, and kissed by the
Kings and judges of
the earth should be a servant.
"It follows, O our
victorious Sovereign, that the Christ
is a King of Kings, since Kings
worshipped and worship Him; and
a Lord and judge of judges, since
judges served and serve Him
with fear. If He were a servant, what
kind of a wrath and destruction
could He bring on the unbelievers,
and what kind of a blessing
could He bestow on those who put their
trust in Him? That He is
a Lord over all and a Master over all, He
testifies about Himself,
and His testimony is true. Indeed He said to
His disciples when
He was about to ascend to heaven, and mount on the
Cherubim and
fly on the spiritual wings of the Seraphim, 'All power
is given
unto me in heaven and in earth.' If Christ has been given
all
the power of heaven and earth, He who
PAGE
87
is constituted in this way in heaven and in earth is God
over
all, and Christ, therefore, is God over all. If He is not a
true
God, how can He have power in heaven and in earth; and if He
has
power in heaven and in earth, how can He not be true God?
Indeed
He has power in heaven and in earth because He is God, since
any
one who has power in heaven and in earth is
God.
"The Archangel Gabriel testified to this when he
announced
His conception to the always virgin Mary, 'And He shall
reign
over the house of Jacob, and of His Kingdom there shall he
no
end.' If the Christ reigns for ever, and if the one who reigns
for
ever there is no end to his kingdom, it follows, O our
Sovereign,
that Christ is a Lord and God over all. The prophet Daniel
testified
also to this in saying, 'I saw one like the son of men
coming
on the clouds of heaven, and they brought Him near before
the
Ancient of days, who gave Him dominion and glory and a
kingdom,
that all nations should serve Him and worship Him. His
dominion
is an everlasting dominion, and His kingdom shall not pass
away
and be destroyed.' If the kingdom of Christ shall not pass
away
and be destroyed, He is God over all, and Christ is,
therefore,
God over all, O our King: over the prophets and the
angels.
"If Christ has been called by the prophets God
and Lord,
and if it has been said by some people that God suffered
and died
in the flesh, it is evident that it is the human nature
which
the Word-God took from us that suffered and died, because in
no
Book, neither in the prophets nor in the Gospel, do we find
that
God Himself died in the flesh, but we do find in all of them
that
the Son and Jesus Christ died in the flesh. The expression
that
God suffered and died in the flesh is not
right."
And our victorious King asked: "And who
are those who say
that God suffered and died in the flesh." --
And I answered:
"The Jacobites and Melchites say that God
suffered and died
in the flesh, as to us we not only do not assert
that God suffered
and died in our nature, but that He even removed
the passibility
of our human nature that He put on from Mary by His
impassibility,
and its mortality by His immortality, and He made it
to resemble
divinity, to the extent that a created being is capable
of resembling
his Creator. A created
PAGE 88
being
cannot make himself resemble his Creator, but the Creator
is able to
bring His creature to His own resemblance. It is not
the picture that
makes the painter paint a picture in its own
resemblance, but it is
the painter that paints the picture to
his own resemblance; it is not
the wood that works and fashions
a carpenter in its resemblance, but
it is the carpenter that fashions
the wood in his resemblance. In
this same way it is not the mortal
and passible nature that renders
God passible and mortal like
itself, but it is by necessity God that
renders the passible and
mortal human nature impassible and immortal
like Himself. On the
one hand, this is what the Jacobites and
Melchites say, and, on
the other, this is what we say. It behoves
your Majesty to decide
who are those who believe rightly and those
who believe wrongly."
And our victorious King said:
"In this matter you believe
more rightly than the others. Who
dares to assert that God dies?
I think that even demons do not say
such a thing. In what, however,
you say concerning one Word and Son
of God, all of you are wrong."
-- And I replied to his Majesty:
"O our victorious King,
in this world we are all of us as in a
dark house in the middle
of the night. If at night and in a dark
house a precious pearl
happens to fall in the midst of people, and
all become aware of
its existence, every one would strive to pick up
the pearl, which
will not fall to the lot of all but to the lot of
one only, while
one will get hold of the pearl itself, another one of
a piece
of glass, a third one of a stone or of a bit of earth, but
every
one will be happy and proud that he is the real possessor of
the
pearl. When, however, night and darkness disappear, and light
and
day arise, then every one of those men who had believed that
they had
the pearl, would extend and stretch his hand towards
the light, which
alone can show what every one has in hand. He
who possesses the pearl
will rejoice and be happy and pleased
with it, while those who had in
hand pieces of glass and bits
of stone only will weep and be sad, and
will sigh and shed tears.
"In this same way we children
of men are in this perishable
world as in darkness. The pearl of the
true faith fell in the
midst of all of us, and it is undoubtedly in
the hand of one of
us, while all of us believe that we possess the
precious object.
In the world to come, however, the darkness of
mortality passes,
and the fog of ignorance dissolves, since it is the
true and the
real light to which the fog of ignorance
is
PAGE 89
absolutely foreign. In it the possessors
of the pearl will rejoice,
be happy and pleased, and the possessors
of mere pieces of stone
will weep, sigh, and shed tears, as we said
above."
And our victorious King said: "The
possessors of the pearl
are not known in this world, O
Catholicos." -- And I answered:
"They are partially known,
O our victorious King." --
And our victorious and very wise King
said: "What do you
mean by partially known, and by what are they
known as such?"
-- And I answered: "By good works, O our
victorious King,
and pious deeds, and by the wonders and miracles
that God performs
through those who possess the true faith. As the
lustre of a pearl
is somewhat visible even in the darkness of the
night, so also
the rays of the true faith shine to some extent even
in the darkness
and the fog of the present world. God indeed has not
left the
pure pearl of the faith completely without testimony and
evidence,
first in the prophets and then in the Gospel. He first
confirmed
the true faith in Him through Moses, once by means of the
prodigies
and miracles that He wrought in Egypt, and another time
when He
divided the waters of the Red Sea into two and allowed the
Israelites
to cross it safely, but drowned the Egyptians in its
depths. He
also split and divided the Jordan into two through Joshua,
son
of Nun, and allowed the Israelites to cross it without any
harm
to themselves, and tied the sun and the moon to their own
places
until the Jewish people were well avenged upon their
enemies.
He acted in the same way through the prophets who rose in
different
generations, viz. through David, Elijah, and
Elisha.
"Afterwards He confirmed the faith through
Christ our Lord
by the miracles and prodigies which He wrought for
the help of
the children of men. In this way the Disciples performed
miracles
greater even than those wrought by Christ. These signs,
miracles,
and prodigies wrought in the name of Jesus Christ are the
bright
rays and the shining lustre of the precious pearl of the
faith,
and it is by the brightness of such rays that the possessors
of
this pearl which is so full of lustre and so precious that
it
outweighs all the world in the balance, are
known."
And our victorious King said: "We have
hope in God that we
are the possessors of this pearl, and that we
hold it in our hands."
-- And I replied: "Amen, O King. But
may God grant us that
we too may share it with you, and rejoice in
the shining and beaming
PAGE 90
lustre of the
pearl! God has placed the pearl of His faith before
all of us like
the shining rays of the sun, and every one who
wishes can enjoy the
light of the sun.
"We pray God, who is King of Kings,
and Lord of Lords, to
preserve the crown of the kingdom and the
throne of the Commander
of the Faithful for multitudinous days and
numerous years! May
He also raise after him Musa and Harun and Ali to
the throne of
his kingdom for ever and ever! May He subjugate before
them and
before their descendants after them all the barbarous
nations,
and may all the kings and governors of the world serve our
Sovereign
and his sons after him till the day in which the Kingdom of
Heaven
is revealed from heaven to earth!"
And our
victorious King said: "Miracles have been and are
sometimes
performed even by unbelievers." -- And I replied
to his Majesty:
"These, O our victorious King, are not miracles
but deception of
the demons, and are performed not by the prophets
of God and by holy
men, but by idolaters and wicked men. This
is the reason why I said
that good works and miracles are the
lustre of the pearl of the
faith. Indeed, Moses performed miracles
in Egypt, and the sorcerers
Jannes and Jambres performed them
also there, but Moses performed
them by the power of God, and
the sorcerers through the deceptions of
the demons. The power
of God, however, prevailed, and that of the
demons was defeated.
"In Rome also Simon Cephas and
Simon Magus performed miracles,
but the former performed them by the
power of God, and the latter
by the power of the demons, and for this
reason Simon Cephas was
honoured and Simon Magus was laughed at and
despised by every
one, and his deception was exposed before the eyes
of all celestial
and terrestrial beings."
At this our
victorious King rose up and entered his audience chamber,
and I left
him and returned in peace to my patriarchal residence.
Here
ends the controversy of the Patriarch Mar Timothy I with
Mahdi, the
Caliph of the Muslims. May eternal praise be to
God!