Church of the East theology

وضع نسطور أثناء وجوده بالمنفى رسالة قام فيها بتبرير نفسه ونسبها إلى هيراقليدس الدمشقي، احتراساً من إحراقها. فعرف ايفاغريوس سكولاستيكوس (594–536) بوجودها14. فلم يسلم الكتاب على أصله اليوناني الى أيامنا هذه. بيد ان جاثليق كنيسة المشرق مار أبا الاول الذي ذكره كوزماس انديكوبليفتس باسم باتريكيوس، ساح في رحاب بيزنطية كثيراً في أعوام 525-533 وجلب منها مؤلفات نسطور الى بلاد فارس. وفي اعوام539 -540 تمت ترجمة »كتاب هيراقليدس «الى السريانية فأصبح قسماً من تراث كنيسة المشرق على حين نسيه الغرب نسياناً مطلقا. ...

Joseph Hazzaya's Romanian translation by Hieromonk Agapie Corbu. The Introduction represents a very comprehensive and synthetic view on the theology and the age of this great spiritual author, being followed by the translation of ten writings, including a bilingual one.
  An English Review here: http://revistateologia.ro/downloads/Teologia/3_2019/BR1_Tang.pdf

In 1917, Guiseppe Furlani introduced the Syriac world to an otherwise unknown sixth century document composed by Mar 'Īšō'yahb I the Arzōnite, catholicos-patriarch of the Assyrian Church of the East from 581 to 595. Furlani provided the Syriac text of the memrā of 'Īšō'yahb I, which was an apology for the liturgical and theological use of the Trisagion by the Church of the East. It was accompanied by a study of the text and the sole manuscript which contains it. The importance of this document is manifold. First, it is not mentioned by Mar 'Abdīšō' of Nisibis in his famous 'Catalogue', and therefore seems to be an anomaly. Second, this memrā gives us the terminus ante quem for the insertion of the Trisagion in the rite of the Church of the East in the greater framework of the development of this rite. Third, and of great import, the memrā provides a springboard for the author to express and defend the christological position of the School of Nisibis, his alma mater and the center of Church of the East orthodoxy in the mid-sixth century. The Mar Awa Royel 86 English translation of this important memrā is offered here for the first time, along with a study of the historical and theological contexts of the tractate at the time of its composition sometime in the latter half of the sixth century.

The present study examines the social history of the Graeco-Arabic translation movement from the perspective of the Christian communities that participated in it. Special attention is given to Melkite and Nestorian translators active in ʿAbbāsid Baghdad from the late eighth-century Melkite translator al-Biṭrīq to the famous ninth-century Nestorian translator Ḥunayn ibn Isḥāq and to the complex interactions between Melkites and Nestorians, which involved both competition and scholarly collaboration.

Item ВДсэ-524 in the State Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg is an amulet scroll written in Syriac which was discovered by the Second German Turfan Expedition (1904-1905) and kept afterwards in the Museum of Ethnology (Museum für Völkerkunde) in Berlin. The artifact originates in the Turkic-speaking Christian milieu of the Turfan Oasis, probably from the Mongol period. The text, however, reflects a long tradition of magical literature that goes back to ancient Mesopotamia and can be categorised as a piece of apotropaic (protective) magic. The article contains an edition of the Syriac text with translation and a discussion of its place of discovery, its overall composition and specific words and expressions found in the text. The authors point out likely connections between the Hermitage amulet and the Turfan fragments SyrHT 274-276 kept in the Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin-Preußischer Kulturbesitz and briefly discuss its similarity with amulet H彩101 discovered in Qara Qoto by the 1983-1984 expedition of the Institute of Cultural Relics, Inner Mongolia Academy of Social Sciences.

This article offers a historical analysis of different attitudes toward Nestorius of Constantinople which became "traditional" and which formed opposing tendencies in various branches of Christianity. The main focus of the article is on the origins of veneration of Nestorius in the East-Syriac tradition as well as on the frequent attempts of those who condemn Nestorius to erase his name from the books of the Church of the East.

本文章以对聂斯脱利不同的态度为研究对象。随着时间所有的态度成了“传统的”， 而在不同的基督教的宗派里形成了互相对立的立场。文章关注聂斯脱利在东方亚述教会里的所给予的尊敬、经常责备聂斯脱利的人士 怎样试图在东方亚述教会的课文上取消他的名字的问题。

The “Book of Sessions” (Kitāb al-majālis) of Elias of Nisibis, Metropolitan of the Church of the East (975–1046), with his Muslim vis-à-vis, vizier Abū ʾl-Qāsim al-Maghribī (981–1027), is a remarkable example of the Christian Arabic literature of the 11th c.—the time of the flowering of the Arabic culture. In the present edition, it is compared with the “Epistle” of Elias to the vizier and some documents that reveal the history of the creation of the “Book” are also taken into consideration.

This essay offers a concise overview of the attempts to develop our understanding of East-Syrian Christianity known as the Church of the East, and of studies concerning its history and theological concepts. Beginning with early contacts between Persian Christians and their 'Roman' neighbours, the author further deals with the research that has taken place in modern times. He demonstrates how various aspects became known to the Western academic community, including the East-Syriac version of the Antiochene theological heritage, the Christological controversies which challenge conventional views, and the extensive growth of this Church to the East. The most important authors and publications are listed and a description is given of the distinctive characteristics of the stages of this history of studies.

This paper aims to discuss the philological ‘mechanisms’ used in translating Christian texts into Sogdian. In particular, it focuses on how different Christian theological and ecclesiological vocabularies were translated from Syriac. Particular emphasis will be given to showing how the Sogdian Church linguistically contextualized its theological and ecclesiological concepts. Section 1 offers introductory review of the composition of the texts focusing on the physical organization and philological structure of the texts, including short survey of research history on individual vocabularies. Section 2 discusses the translation mechanisms observed in structure of the texts. Section 3 provides examples of the 'Christian' vocabularies related to a selected major theological ecclesiological concepts and expressions.
Keywords:  Christian texts, Sogdian Christianity, Central Asia, The Church of the East, linguistic contextualization.

The Church of the East, even if it was outside the Byzantine Empire and did not take part in the Christological discussions and controversies there, could not be silent. Our analysis of the Christological statements and professions of faith shows the reaction of this Church to the Christological controversies. These statements demonstrate this Church’s own progress in Christological thought, its way of responding to the most important Christological questions, in two different Christological currents: the qnomâ-parúopâ current and the two-qnomê current. This analysis could help scholars understand better the development of the Christology of this Church before the assembly of bishops in 612 and her “Nestorianization,” namely, the doctrine of two kyanê (natures) and two qnomê (hypostases) in the one parsopâ (persona) of Christ. This analysis could also assist scholars who study the Christology of the Church of the East after the year 612, since the controversy between the two different Christological currents did not stop with the victory of the two-qnomê movement in 612.

Table of Contents

Foreword

Heraclius and Ishōʿyahb II: An Eastern Episode in the ‘Ecumenical’ Project of the Byzantine Emperor

The Age of the Caliphate

The Epistle on the Unity by a Baghdadi Melkite in a Coptic Encyclopaedist’s Arabic Theological Summa

A West-Syrian Clerk from Arfād and the Metropolitan of Jerusalem of the Church of the East: The Book of the Concordance in Faith and Its Recension in Garshūnī

A Nestorian Philosopher in the Copto-Arabic Literature: Ibn aṭ-Ṭayyib Retold by Ibn al-ʿAssāl

Ḥunayn ibn Isḥāq. “The Most Honorable, the Only One, Knowledgeable, Respectable, Wise Man, Philosopher, and Physician”

A Chronicle or A Historical Romance? The Reign of Zeno and the Events in the East According to The Blessed Compendium of al-Makīn ibn al-ʿAmīd

Interpretations of the Origins of the Designation “Jacobites” by Medieval Egyptian Arabic Authors

Christian Communities in the East as Witnessed to by Leonhart Rauwolf

Ibn Ḥazm on the Incarnation of God and Confessional Divisions in Christianity

Franks to Nubians: Arabic Treatise on Peculiarities of Different Christian Denominations by a Coptic Author (Mingana Chr. Arab. 71)

Bibliography

Index of Personal Names


Summary

By the time of the Muslim conquests of the Middle East, Eastern Christianity had experienced numerous divisions caused by ideological and political confrontations. Controversies over the union of the divinity and the humanity of Christ, perceived as an essential point of Christian doctrine, as well as the Byzantine imperial policy, aiming at strengthening Byzantium’s influence in Syria, Arabia, the Caucasus, and Egypt, had resulted in the separation of the ethno-religious communities of these provinces from Byzantium. The controversies remained unsettled, and the divisions, created by them, continued. To a Muslim observer, Eastern Christianity looked as a hodgepodge of various denominations among which the following three were the most influential: the Syro-Persian Christianity, the Graeco-Roman Orthodoxy, and the anti-Chalcedonian faction, insisting on “one nature” of Christ. Interactions between various communities of Eastern Christianity are witnessed by many sources. The relationships among them were further strengthened in the wake of the Muslim conquests of the Middle East, when the widespread use of Arabic and frequent migrations contributed to the intensification of contacts. When the Franks arrived in the Middle East, they became a part of this extraordinarily diverse milieu and attracted the attention of Eastern Christian communities. The cultural heritage of Middle-Eastern Christianity was so influential in the rest of the Christian world that it frequently attracted the attention of scholars studying particular church traditions. The present book provides a series of interesting examples of how the relationships among various Christian communities developed in the context of Christian-Muslim contacts in the medieval Middle East.

""Inhaltsverzeichnis

Miscellanea Orientalia Christiana

Von den Herausgebern

SYRIACA

Yulia Furman
Der erste Schöpfungstag und die „ersten Naturen“ in der „Geschichte der zeitlichen Welt“ von Johannes bar Penkaye

Evgeny Barsky, Maksim Kalinin
„Werdet nicht wie die Kinder“: Adam im dritten Band von Isaak dem Syrer

Grigory Kessel
Isaak von Ninive. Zwei Traktate aus der neugefundenen Sammlung

Yury Arzhanov
Aristotelische Naturphilosophie in der syrischen Schule

Nikolai Seleznyov
Sieben Kanones und neun Zeichen: Der doktrinäre Teil des liturgischen Poems „Deutung der Geheimnisse“ von Johannes bar Zoʿbi

Mikhail Tolstoluzhenko
„Hier ist die Stiftshütte des Gottes des Jakobus“: Spitznamen als Argument in der interkonfessionellen Polemik

CAUCASIANA

Igor Dorfmann-Lazarev
Rückkehr zur Geburtshöhle: das Gedächtnis der erstgeschaffenen Menschheit in der armenischen „Schrift über die Kindheit des Herrn“ und in den verwandten Quellen

Tamara Pataridze
Gibt es Übersetzungen aus der syrischen in die georgische Sprache?

Dmitri Korobeinikov
Am Vorabend von Manzikert: Ein armenisches Kolophon aus dem Jahr 1067

COPTICA & AETHIOPICA

Anton Voytenko
Eine koptische Legende über Eudoxia als eine „alternative Geschichte“ der Regierung von Konstantin dem Großen

Dmitri Bumazhnov
Unbekannte christliche Parallelen zum Gespräch Jesu mit einem Schädel

Alexey Gudkov
Der äthiopische Buchschreiber (anhand der Miniaturmalerei von 14.–18. Jh. und der Feldforschungen vom Ende des 20.–Anfang des 21. Jh.)

TURCICA

Anton Pritula
Syroturcica: Ein zweisprachiges Strophengedicht aus der Mongolenzeit

ARABICA

Alexander Treiger
Die Christologie des „Briefes von den Christen Zyperns“

Nikolai Seleznyov
„Passio secundum Ibn al-Akfānī“: Die Lehre der christlichen Konfessionen über die Kreuzesleiden in der traditionellen arabisch-islamischen Religionswissenschaft

Konstantin Pantschenko
Gedenken an die Vergangenheit: Der antiochenische Patriarch Makarius III. az-Zaʿīm als Historiker

Dmitry Morozov
Eine neue Arbeit zur Frühgeschichte der Bibeltexte in der arabischen Sprache

Unsere Autoren
"

Table of Contents :: Editorial :: SYRIACA :: Yulia Furman, The first day of the Creation and "the first natures" in the History of the Temporal World of John bar Penkaye :: Evgeny Barsky, Maksim Kalinin, "Do not be like children": Adam in the Third volume of Isaac the Syrian :: Grigory Kessel, Two treatises from the newly discovered collection of Isaac of Nineveh :: Yury Arzhanov, Physica of Aristotle in the Syriac school :: Nikolai Seleznyov, Seven canons and nine signs: Doctrinal part of the liturgical poem of John bar Zo'bi Explanation of the Mysteries :: Mikhail Tolstoluzhenko, "Here is the tabernacle of God of Jacob": the nickname as argument in the inter-denominational polemics :: CAUCASIANA :: Igor Dorfmann-Lazarev, Return to the Cave of the Nativity: the memory of the first created humanity in the Armenian "Writing about the Childhood of the Lord" and the related sources :: Tamara Pataridze, Do the translations from Syriac into Georgian exist? :: Dimitri Korobeinikov, Before Mantzikert: An Armenian Colophon of 1067 :: COPTICA et AETHIOPICA :: Anton Voytenko, The Coptic legend on Eudoxia as an "alternative history" of the reign of Constantine the Great :: Dmitrij Bumazhnov, Unknown Christian parallels to the Muslim legend on the dialog between Jesus and the skull :: Alexey Gudkov, The Ethiopian Scribe (with reference to the miniature painting of the 14th-18th century and the field research from the late 20th-early 21st century) :: TURCICA :: Anton Pritula, Syroturcica: Bilingual poem from the Mongol time :: ARABICA :: Alexander Treiger, The Christology of the Letter from the People of Cyprus :: Nikolai Seleznyov, Passio secundum Ibn al-Akfani: the doctrine of Christ’s Passions on the Cross in the traditional Muslim religious studies :: Constantin Panchenko, To recall the past: Patriarch Macarius of Antioch as historian :: Dmitry Morozov, A new book on the early history of the text of the Arabic Bible. [Review of Sidney H. Griffith, The Bible in Arabic: The Scriptures of the "People of the Book" in the Language of Islam]."

The illustrious Patriarch of the Church of the East in the late 8 th Century, Timothy I, is well-known for his debate on the Christian Faith with the Islamic Caliph of Baghdad, Al Mahdi. His letters have received comparatively little attention. This essay presents the first English translation of his 26 th Letter along with commentary. This Letter addresses controversial themes such as ecumenism, Christological controversies (including the much-debated term "qnoma"), the proper ordering of the ancient Christian Patriarchates, and the ethnic designation of members of the Church of the East.

We should like, with our paper, to highlight another aspect of the Christological controversy that took place immediately after the ‘nestorianization’ of the Church of the East in 612 AD. We mean the controversy of Martyrius-Sahdona and the reaction of the catholicos Gewargis I. In Martyrius’ Christology, the ‘divinization’ of the mystic is seen as a consequence of the ‘divinization’ of the human nature in Christ because of the union of the two natures that occurred in the one hypostasis and person of the Word, refuting in this way, the official doctrine of his Church, i.e. the two natures and hypostases united in the one person of Christ. Against this Christology, the catholicos Gewargis I attempted to intervene on two levels: canonical, through a synod convoked in Qatar in 676, and doctrinal, through a letter written in 679/680 and sent to Mina, a Corepiscope in Persia. In the synod, there was a controversy against certain ‘false monks’ and a focus on the importance of the Orthodox faith to counteract heretics; his letter, on
the other hand, expressed a true controversy against those who taught the hypostatic union, i.e., Martyrius and his followers. In the letter, moreover, the catholicos proposes a doctrine of ‘divinization’, based, however, on the official Christological doctrine of his Church. Their Christologies will be studied and compared so we can illustrate better this important period of the history of this church. We will see also how the catholicos developed the Christology of the two-qnomē so that the doctrine of ‘divinization’ could be applicable in its metaphysical system.

This article considers the involvement of the East Syriac churches— Chaldean Catholic and Church of the East—in the modern ecumenical movement, in particular Chaldean Patriarch Louis Raphael I Sako's efforts to further ecumenical discussion and encourage a policy for the sustainable development of Christianity in Iraq. The importance of recent ecumenical activity derives partly from re-engagement with Christological and ecclesiological beliefs of over 1500 years standing dating from the Council of Ephesus, and partly from massive demographic changes which Christians of the East Syriac traditions have undergone in the last 100 years: currently as much as 60 percent of their populations reside outside of Iraq particularly in North America, Europe, the Levant and Australasia.

The purpose of the present study is to examine echoes of East-Syriac Messalianism -- particularly the teachings of the eighth-century mystic John of Dalyatha -- in Jewish and Muslim heresiography. I shall focus on two testimonies: the Jewish scholar Saʿadia Gaon's (d. 942) discussion of Christianity in his famous treatise "Beliefs and Opinions" (Kitāb al-Amānāt wa-l-iʿtiqādāt) and the Muslim scholar al-Šahrastānī's (d. 1153) account of Nestorian beliefs in his heresiographical work "Religions and Sects (Kitāb al-Milal wa-l-niḥal).

Following the Islamic conquests of the Middle East, Christians living in Iraq and the surrounding region found themselves under a new socio-political system which was organised around the religious principles of Islam. Falling under Islamic rule had a constant impact on the social and intellectual lives of the Middle Eastern Christians. While benefiting from the religious tolerance which was granted by Muslim rulers of the time, they contributed to the economic and intellectual development of the Islamic caliphate in various ways. Living in an environment which was dominated by Islamic social and political norms also provided them an opportunity to express and define their theology in a new style and language.
Kitāb al-Majdal is the fruit of this fascinating period. It is composed by a member of the Church of the East called ‘Amr ibn Mattā around the end of the tenth century. It is subdivided into seven chapters dealing with different aspects of Christian theology, morality and history. The fourth division of the Kitāb al-Majdal is devoted to explain certain Christian practices and virtues in order to provide spiritual and moral guidance for the readers. Along with Yahya ibn ‘Adi’s Tahdhīb al-Akhlāq from the same time period, it stands as one of the earliest examples of Christian writings on morality in Arabic language.
This study investigates how Christian morality is developed and presented in al-Maṣābīh chapter and the ways in which the surrounding Islamic culture influenced the text in terms of its language, style and structure as well as the content. The key conclusion reached at the end is that Christian morality is defined in a very creative way in al-Maṣābīh chapter using both traditional Christian and Islamic sources. The moral teachings of al-Maṣābīh chapter have its roots in the rich Syriac tradition while shaped and conditioned by the Islamic culture in which the text was produced.

In the histories of ecumenism, its initial formation is usually dated the early 20th century. The World Missionary Conference held in Edinburgh in 1910 is referred to as its «symbolic beginning». A quest for the origins of the ecumenical thought led researchers to find some early voices in the previous centuries, even as early as in the 15th—16th c. However, there are Oriental sources which witness to a much earlier formation of the ecumenical paradigm of the ecclesiological thought, typologically corresponding to that developed in the 20th c. In the Golden Age of Medieval Muslim culture under the Abbasid caliphate, an ecumenical position is witnessed to by some Middle Eastern Christian authors. In their works, the main Christian denominations are not polemically presented as opposed to each other, but on the contrary, the essential unity of various Christian beliefs is emphasized, and the ways the main Christian communities follow are claimed to be equal in value. The present study uses the Medieval Arabic sources to demonstrate that the history of the ecumenical thought should be corrected by supplying a chapter on the Medieval Eastern period of the history.

The Church of the East describes an institutional form of Christianity rooted in the Syriac tradition that formed in late antique Persia. Christian communities must have been present in Persia before the rise of the Sasanian Empire (224–651 CE). Persian Christians did not believe that the churches of the Roman Empire had authority over them and clearly defined their autonomy in the course of the fifth century. The Church of the East and other Christian communities put distance between themselves because of conflicts over Christology from the fifth century onwards. The church flourished throughout the first millennium, especially in its educational, monastic, and missionary efforts. Its good fortunes continued into the second millennium, as it adapted to new rulers and spread to new regions. The disintegration of the Mongol Empire and the conquest of the church’s historical heartland in the fourteenth and early fifteenth centuries greatly reduced its size, although it would be reinvigorated in the sixteenth century. Several contemporary Christian communities are the heirs of the Church of the East.  This chapter traces the history of this community and its enduring literary culture through the fifteenth century.

Philip Michael Forness, “The Rise of the Church of the East,” in The Rowman & Littlefield Handbook of Christianity in the Middle East, ed. Mitri Raheb and Mark A. Lamport (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 2020), 27–43.

The History of East Syriac Christianity in modern times is not least the history of migration and resettlement. One of the main landmarks of the history of transnational mobility of the East Syriac Christians in modern times was the establishment of contacts with the Russia Empire. In the course of the nineteenth and the early twentieth century, imperial Russia did not only actively engage – both politically and militarily – in northwestern Iran and the eastern Ottoman Empire, the region inhabited by the adherents of the Church of the East, but also become one of the principal destinations of migration of the East Syriac Christians. Thus, the nineteenth century witnessed the beginning of East Syrian migration from their ancestral regions as well as the advent of the idea of resettlement of the entire community, a precursor of the mass movement that would occur during and after World War I.
The contribution begins with a discussion of the first encounters between East Syriac Christianity and imperial Russia in the late eighteenth century and highlights its importance for the ongoing debate about the emergence of modern Assyrianism, a concept that perceives the East Syriac Christians (or even all Syriac Christians) as descendants of the Assyrians of the ancient Near East. It then looks at the emergence of the vision of resettlement of the East Syriac community to imperial Russia in the early nineteenth century and analyzes how the competing ideas of belonging had been negotiated in this context. Special attention is given to the historical sources, namely the letters of Pavel Cicianov (1754–1806),  the imperial Governor General of Georgia, addressed to the Head of the Church of the East, Mar Shemʿon XVI Yoḥannan (r. 1780–1820), and bishop of Urmia Mar Yoḥannan. These letters, written in 1805, are of considerable interest not least because they give a glimpse of the life of the Church of the East in a period about which information is very scarce.  Therefore, one of the aims of this contribution is to make these historical documents available by publishing them along with an English translation.