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Chalcedon has very kindly provided some of the background for what I want to write about. In his post today (and when he found the time to whip that one off, I don’t know) he outlined the debate which took place between the Nestorian Catholicos, Timothy I (780-823) and the Abbassid Caliph al-Mahdi in 781. As he says, it is well worth reading in full.
At the end, the Caliph says what he was bound to say, that the Christians (whose disagreements among themselves he had highlighted as one of the signs that Christianity was a false religion) have it wrong about Jesus being the Son of God. Mar Timothy, who was obviously something of a diplomat, responds in a way which deserves full quotation:
”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.
This is certainly not (as some have suggested) a statement that all faiths are in some way equally valid – quite the opposite. Mar Timothy clearly thought that he was right and the Caliph was wrong, so the idea that somehow the ‘lost Christianity’ of the East was more open to syncretism than its Western counterpart, is not sustained by such quotations.
But what does come through the discussion is a tone of mutual respect. The Caliph had, after all, power of life and death over the Catholicos, as they both knew, but the freedom of discussion was not curtailed by it. The two men were immensely tolerant with each other, and where they were intolerant of the principles of the other, they were so in a manner which commanded mutual respect.
In 781 Mar Timothy, had he known anything of it, would have thought little of the Christianity of the West, with the Pagan Norsemen decimating Anglo-Saxon and French Christianity, and the Saracens doing the same in Spain. By contrast, he presided over 80 bishoprics and a Christianity which had already reached China. It is as well that the future is hidden from us.
I obviously haven’t made it all the way through it yet-but I have far enough to say it is indeed fascinating and yes, the respect between the two is quite obvious. I thank Chalcedon for his and now I thank you.
And I find your final paragraph very apt as well.
Thank you – it is a fascinating – if long – read.
It is- I finally downloaded it into my word processor, the way it displayed was causing me eye problems but then I can turn it into a PDF or Epub and put it on my reader as well. It’s that good.
I am glad you think so. Quite fascinating isn’t it?
It is. Very interesting to see the faiths, both young at the time, interacting civilly and with respect.
Yes, it is hard to imagine that happening in the West at that time.
Yes, and by the time the west had cause for discourse with Islam, both had to some extent become militarized, which does not lend itself to civil discourse.
Very true.
Thank you.
In 781 Mar Timothy, had he known anything of it, would have thought little of the Christianity of the West
I wonder why you should think this, Jess?
The early Assyrian Church, under Persian rule, knew so much about the Church in Roman territory that they tried to convince their Persian masters that they weren’t like the Romans (for obvious reasons).After the Abbasids set up, the Assyrians would also have been mixing with Jacobite and Byzantine Christians (from Syria, Egypt, Arabia, Armenia) if they hadn’t been already.
Good points. I just wondered how much someone living in Baghdad would have known.