7.
Defying Chalcedon: Asia and Africa (451-622)
MIAPHYSITE CHRISTIANITY AND ITS MISSIONS.
Modern globalization has produced a dialogue between world religious faiths which in the last century or so has become something of an international industry. But this is a rediscovery for Christians and not a novelty: there were once Christianities which had little choice but to talk to believers in other world religions, because they were surrounded on all sides by them and often at their mercy. These Christians nevertheless travelled thousands of miles east of Jerusalem and brought a Christian message at least as far as the China Sea and the Indian Ocean. One of those encounters produced a tale which went on to unite Christians everywhere in enjoyment of it for something like a millennium, though now it has almost been forgotten in the form which those Christians knew. It is nothing less than the story of Gautama Buddha, turned into a Christian novel about a hermit and a young prince, Barlaam and Josaphat. Barlaam converts the prince to the true faith, but that true faith is no longer Buddha"s revelation, but Christianity - while the Buddha has become a Christian hermit in the desert of Sinai, though his prince is still from a royal house of India.1 How can this extraordinary cultural chameleon have been conceived? What seems to have happened is that a version of the Sanskrit original life of Buddha, probably translated into Arabic in Baghdad, fell into the hands of a Georgian monk some time in the ninth century. He was so charmed by the story that he rewrote it in Georgian in Christian form as Balavariani Balavariani, and fellow monks who spoke different languages also loved it and moved it into their own tongues. When it made its way into Greek, it took on a spurious authorship and plenty of pious quotations from the safely Orthodox giant of theology and philosophy John of Damascus to lend it respectability and increase its selling power, and now it was The Life of Barlaam and Joasaph The Life of Barlaam and Joasaph. The two heroes became saints, with their own feast days, hymns and anthems. Small bony fragments of St Josaphat acquired in the East by Venetian merchants can be seen in a church in Antwerp.
The tale"s travels had by no means ended. It spread from the Byzantine Empire through western Europe and south via Egypt: one could pick up copies of it in Latin, Hebrew, Old Norse, Old Russian, Ethiopic, medieval Catalan, Portuguese, Icelandic, Italian, French and English. The pioneering English printer William Caxton showed his usual commercial good sense when, in 1483, he chose to print it in his new translation of the great collection of saints" lives known as The Golden Legend The Golden Legend, and Shakespeare used an episode from it in The Merchant of Venice The Merchant of Venice. Perhaps we can appreciate just how far the Eastern Christian legacy eventually reached if we join the cultured English Roundhead military commander Thomas Fairfax, third Lord Fairfax of Cameron, in his Yorkshire study in the 1650s. Smarting from the end of his military career after a principled quarrel with Oliver Cromwell, Fairfax pulled his Latin or Greek Barlaam from his bookshelves and whiled away his retirement with his own English translation, some 204 folio pages long. Puritan (and Chalcedonian) Yorkshire was a long way from the home of the Buddha, and Fairfax would have had no idea of his debt to that long-dead Georgian monk.2 All this was thanks to the large number of Eastern Christians who hated the decisions of the Council of Chalcedon and decided to ignore or oppose them. It took a long time for those who felt like this to make a formal break with the Church authorities who had accepted the council"s p.r.o.nouncements. Of the two opposite points of view excluded by Chalcedon, Miaphysitism and Dyophysite "Nestorianism", it was the Miaphysites who most worried the emperors in Constantinople. The Miaphysites" power base, Alexandria, was one of the most important cities in the Eastern Empire, essential to the grain supply which kept the population of Constantinople in compliant mood, and Miaphysites continued to have support in the capital itself. Already at the Council of Chalcedon, the Egyptian bishops present insisted that if they signed its Definition, they faced death back home, and it soon became clear that they were not exaggerating. Alexandria was, after all, the city which had lynched Hypatia forty years before.
The council had infuriated opinion in Alexandria by deposing its bishop, Dioscorus, a punishment for his prominence in the group who had disruptively proclaimed "one-nature" theology as orthodoxy at the previous Council of Ephesus in 449 (see pp. 225-6). The Emperor Marcian and his wife, Pulcheria, were determined to find a pliable successor for Dioscorus. They brought pressure to bear on the Alexandrian clergy, which led to the election of one of Dioscorus"s a.s.sistant clergy, Proterius, but the new bishop found his position steadily eroded. On Marcian"s death in 457, he was left defenceless. A mob who regarded him as a traitor to Dioscorus pursued him into the baptistery of a city church, butchered him and six of his clergy, and paraded the bleeding corpses round the city: all in the name of the mia physis mia physis of Jesus Christ. of Jesus Christ.3 The emperor"s authority in Egypt never fully recovered from this appalling incident: increasingly a majority in the Egyptian Church as well as other strongholds of Miaphysitism denounced Chalcedonian Christians as "Dyophysites" and sneered at them as "the emperor"s people" - Melchites. The emperor"s authority in Egypt never fully recovered from this appalling incident: increasingly a majority in the Egyptian Church as well as other strongholds of Miaphysitism denounced Chalcedonian Christians as "Dyophysites" and sneered at them as "the emperor"s people" - Melchites.4 The word "Melchite" has had a complicated later history, and now various Churches of Orthodox tradition in communion with the pope in Rome are happy to use it to label themselves, but it thus started life as a term of abuse as poisonous as "collaborator" in the aftermath of n.a.z.i occupation in the Europe of the 1940s. The word "Melchite" has had a complicated later history, and now various Churches of Orthodox tradition in communion with the pope in Rome are happy to use it to label themselves, but it thus started life as a term of abuse as poisonous as "collaborator" in the aftermath of n.a.z.i occupation in the Europe of the 1940s.
From now on Egyptian Christianity increasingly worshipped G.o.d in the native language of Egypt, Coptic. The Church had long been ready to use various Coptic dialects, liberally seeded with loanwords from Greek, and already in the third century Coptic was being written in a version of Greek script, developed specifically for translating the Christian scriptures. The prestige of Antony, Pachomius and the ascetic movement sealed the respectability of Coptic in Christian life and worship, and it developed a considerable literature both of translated and original devotional texts, both mainstream Christian and unorthodox.5 Now Coptic language and distinctive culture were becoming badges of difference from the Greek Christianity of the Church in Constantinople. There was a tendency all round the eastern Mediterranean for "Melchites" to be concentrated in urban, affluent outposts of Greek society, while anti-Chalcedonian views on either side increasingly found strength in other communities. Now Coptic language and distinctive culture were becoming badges of difference from the Greek Christianity of the Church in Constantinople. There was a tendency all round the eastern Mediterranean for "Melchites" to be concentrated in urban, affluent outposts of Greek society, while anti-Chalcedonian views on either side increasingly found strength in other communities.
The leaders of the Miaphysite cause across the empire still loudly proclaimed their loyalty to the imperial throne, and there is no reason to doubt that most were sincere. Their loyalty was certainly worth trying to secure. For two centuries and more a succession of emperors in Constantinople desperately tried to devise ever more intricate theological formulae which would reconcile the Miaphysites to the imperial Church, preferably but not necessarily preserving the essence of the Chalcedonian settlement. In doing so, they constantly imperilled their relations with the Western Latin Church. It was only natural that the Eastern emperors had shifted their political priorities away from the western half of the old empire as that disintegrated. In 410 had come the sack of Rome itself by barbarian armies: a deep humiliation for Romans proud of their history, even if the city had long ceased to be the capital for the emperors. In 451 there had still been an emperor in the West - more or less - but in 476 the barbarian rulers who were taking over so much of the former western territories of Rome allowed the last emperor to reign for no more than a few months of his teenage years before consigning to oblivion both the boy and the increasingly wraith-like imperial succession in the West.
Now that the Eastern Empire stood alone, it often paid little attention to the opinions or outraged representations of the leading bishop in the surviving Western Church, the pope in Rome. A series of popes, increasingly a.s.sertive in the Church (see pp. 322-9), took it as axiomatic that their sainted predecessor Leo had said the last word on the subject of the natures in Jesus Christ in his "Tome", delivered to the unreceptive Miaphysite bishops at Ephesus in 449 (see pp. 225-6). Rome measured every turn of policy in Constantinople by how much it seemed to honour the "Tome", and popes could not appreciate the mult.i.tude of political and military considerations preoccupying Eastern emperors when they contemplated questions of Christology. As a result, from 482 until 519, Rome and Constantinople were in formal schism because the Byzantine Emperor Zeno and his bishop, Acacius, in the capital backed a formula of reunion (Henotikon) with the Miaphysites: it contained fresh condemnations of Nestorius (an easy target), praised key doc.u.ments from Cyril"s attack on him, but in a manner deeply offensive to Rome remained silent on the "Tome of Leo", which the Miaphysite party at Ephesus had treated with such contempt.6 It took a change of emperor in 518 to put an end to the It took a change of emperor in 518 to put an end to the Henotikon Henotikon and the "Acacian schism". Justin I was an illiterate Latin-speaking soldier from a Western background who had an instinctive respect for the Bishop of Rome and he abruptly speeded up negotiations for reconciliation which had been languishing for years. and the "Acacian schism". Justin I was an illiterate Latin-speaking soldier from a Western background who had an instinctive respect for the Bishop of Rome and he abruptly speeded up negotiations for reconciliation which had been languishing for years.7 The emperors" preoccupation with the Miaphysites is all the more understandable since, not just in Egypt but throughout the Eastern Empire, there continued to be Miaphysites hostile to the work of the Council of Chalcedon. Western Syria and Asia Minor were full of them.
The Emperor Zeno, himself a native of south-west Asia Minor, tried posthumously to recruit the celebrated pillar-dweller Simeon Stylites (see pp. 207-8) as a champion of the Chalcedonian deal, and he rapidly and vigorously promoted Simeon"s cult. Within a couple of decades of the hermit"s death, Zeno was pouring money and labour into the building of what was then the largest church in the Middle East to shelter the Stylite"s pillar at its heart.8 The church"s magnificent surviving ruins still testify to Zeno"s anxiety to bring back Syrian Miaphysites into the fold of Chalcedon, but although Simeon"s cult flourished in the region, the Chalcedonian cause did not. The most impressive and articulate theologian of the early sixth century was Severus, who came from what is now south-western Turkey. He was so firm in his Miaphysite views that at first he rejected the The church"s magnificent surviving ruins still testify to Zeno"s anxiety to bring back Syrian Miaphysites into the fold of Chalcedon, but although Simeon"s cult flourished in the region, the Chalcedonian cause did not. The most impressive and articulate theologian of the early sixth century was Severus, who came from what is now south-western Turkey. He was so firm in his Miaphysite views that at first he rejected the Henotikon Henotikon as an unsatisfactory compromise, until the prospect of the Bishopric of Antioch changed his mind. His hold on that powerful see ended with the theological revolution of 518, but from his exile among friends in the safety of Egypt, Severus remained a powerful voice as the factions struggled for dominance at the imperial Court. In 527 there came to the throne one of the most significant emperors in the history of Byzantium: Justinian, nephew and adopted son of Justin, who was destined to do so much to transform the former Eastern Roman Empire (see pp. 429-31). He was torn between his wish to preserve the fragile agreement of 519 with Rome and his continuing awareness of Miaphysite partisanship in the East - not least from his energetic and unconventional wife, Theodora, who became an active sympathizer with the Miaphysite cause, very ready to express her own opinions and act on them. as an unsatisfactory compromise, until the prospect of the Bishopric of Antioch changed his mind. His hold on that powerful see ended with the theological revolution of 518, but from his exile among friends in the safety of Egypt, Severus remained a powerful voice as the factions struggled for dominance at the imperial Court. In 527 there came to the throne one of the most significant emperors in the history of Byzantium: Justinian, nephew and adopted son of Justin, who was destined to do so much to transform the former Eastern Roman Empire (see pp. 429-31). He was torn between his wish to preserve the fragile agreement of 519 with Rome and his continuing awareness of Miaphysite partisanship in the East - not least from his energetic and unconventional wife, Theodora, who became an active sympathizer with the Miaphysite cause, very ready to express her own opinions and act on them.
Some extraordinary double messages began emerging from the imperial Court.9 Justinian sought repeatedly to make concessions to the Miaphysites, but also fitfully treated them as dangerous rebels, and remained open to advice or active intervention from the pope. In 535 and 536 there were starkly contrasting choices to fill key bishoprics: following Theodora"s intervention in the episcopal election in Alexandria, an avowed Miaphysite called Theodosius became bishop there. Yet in Constantinople, Bishop Anthimus, a Miaphysite sympathizer, was forced out after Pope Agapetus, who happened to have travelled east on a diplomatic mission to the Emperor, directly lobbied Justinian for his removal. The exiled Bishop Severus was faced with condemnation by a synod of pro-Chalcedonian bishops; against a background of increasing repression and even executions of Miaphysite sympathizers, he made a decision with great significance for the future. He gave his blessing to discreet consecrations of bishops who would be reliable Miaphysites: a complete parallel succession to their rivals backed by the Emperor. When Theodosius was likewise swiftly deprived of the see of Alexandria in 536, the Empress secretly made sure that he had a safe refuge in Constantinople, and, like Severus, Bishop Theodosius began to build up a Miaphysite alternative to the Chalcedonian Church. Justinian sought repeatedly to make concessions to the Miaphysites, but also fitfully treated them as dangerous rebels, and remained open to advice or active intervention from the pope. In 535 and 536 there were starkly contrasting choices to fill key bishoprics: following Theodora"s intervention in the episcopal election in Alexandria, an avowed Miaphysite called Theodosius became bishop there. Yet in Constantinople, Bishop Anthimus, a Miaphysite sympathizer, was forced out after Pope Agapetus, who happened to have travelled east on a diplomatic mission to the Emperor, directly lobbied Justinian for his removal. The exiled Bishop Severus was faced with condemnation by a synod of pro-Chalcedonian bishops; against a background of increasing repression and even executions of Miaphysite sympathizers, he made a decision with great significance for the future. He gave his blessing to discreet consecrations of bishops who would be reliable Miaphysites: a complete parallel succession to their rivals backed by the Emperor. When Theodosius was likewise swiftly deprived of the see of Alexandria in 536, the Empress secretly made sure that he had a safe refuge in Constantinople, and, like Severus, Bishop Theodosius began to build up a Miaphysite alternative to the Chalcedonian Church.
The Empress"s proteges even began spreading Miaphysite Christianity beyond the formal boundaries of the empire. To the south of Egypt, the King of n.o.batia (a northern kingdom of Nubia) was converted in the 540s, turning what had previously been a small cult into a Court religion. Christianity eventually spread eastwards through much of what is now Sudan, halfway to the Niger as far as Darfur, and remnants of it survived in one Nubian kingdom into the eighteenth century. Archaeology has revealed the ruins of superb churches, some of which have preserved extensive remains of wall paintings in a tradition created over several centuries depicting biblical scenes, saints or leading bishops.10 Like the Copts, Nubian Christians achieved a blend of Greek culture with their own, using both Greek and their vernacular in their worship. Fragments of ma.n.u.scripts reveal that they shared the common devotion of eastern Mediterranean Christianity to St George, a shadowy figure who may have died in persecutions of the late fourth century, but who gained huge popularity as a Christian martyr who was also a soldier. Like the Copts, Nubian Christians achieved a blend of Greek culture with their own, using both Greek and their vernacular in their worship. Fragments of ma.n.u.scripts reveal that they shared the common devotion of eastern Mediterranean Christianity to St George, a shadowy figure who may have died in persecutions of the late fourth century, but who gained huge popularity as a Christian martyr who was also a soldier.11 In an age when the frontiers of the various great powers were increasingly unstable and life was insecure and frightening, the thought of a military protector in Heaven was a particular comfort. In an age when the frontiers of the various great powers were increasingly unstable and life was insecure and frightening, the thought of a military protector in Heaven was a particular comfort.
A further triumph for the Miaphysites came on the eastern border of the empire in Syria, where an Arab people known as the Gha.s.sanids had migrated from the south of the Arabian peninsula and set up a formidable independent kingdom. This stretched all the way from southern Syria along the borders of the Holy Land to the Gulf of Aqaba (Eilat) at the north-eastern end of the Red Sea, and its military strength made it a crucial buffer state for Byzantium against the Sa.s.sanians, though the relationship was troubled and often fractured, because the Gha.s.sanids, on their initial conversion to Christianity, set their faces firmly against the decrees of Chalcedon.12 When the Gha.s.sanid ruler Arethas demanded bishops to organize a Church for his people, once more the Empress Theodora took an active but clandestine role in supplying clergy ordained by Bishop Theodosius to minister to them. When the Gha.s.sanid ruler Arethas demanded bishops to organize a Church for his people, once more the Empress Theodora took an active but clandestine role in supplying clergy ordained by Bishop Theodosius to minister to them.
One of these clergy was a charismatic eastern Syrian called Jacob Baradeus, who had already achieved spectacular missionary success in remote parts of Asia Minor, and whose Latinized second name comes from a no doubt originally jocular reference to his incessant travelling: it means "the man who has a horse-cloth".13 While the Empress was alive, she contained the threat of Miaphysite confrontation with the imperial authorities. After her death, in 548, despite Justinian"s continuing efforts to find a formula to heal the splits in the Church, Miaphysite defiance of the Court became systematic: Jacob and other Miaphysites sought to create an alternative episcopal hierarchy both among the Gha.s.sanids and elsewhere. While the Empress was alive, she contained the threat of Miaphysite confrontation with the imperial authorities. After her death, in 548, despite Justinian"s continuing efforts to find a formula to heal the splits in the Church, Miaphysite defiance of the Court became systematic: Jacob and other Miaphysites sought to create an alternative episcopal hierarchy both among the Gha.s.sanids and elsewhere.14 Travelling often in disguise, Jacob undertook a prodigious programme of ordinations and consecrations of bishops which extended across the imperial border into Gha.s.sanid territory and further into the Sa.s.sanian Empire. He created a Syrian Miaphysite Church which is often called Jacobite in acknowledgement of his founding energy, but which also insists on Orthodoxy in its official t.i.tle, the Syriac Orthodox Church. Travelling often in disguise, Jacob undertook a prodigious programme of ordinations and consecrations of bishops which extended across the imperial border into Gha.s.sanid territory and further into the Sa.s.sanian Empire. He created a Syrian Miaphysite Church which is often called Jacobite in acknowledgement of his founding energy, but which also insists on Orthodoxy in its official t.i.tle, the Syriac Orthodox Church.15 Its eucharistic liturgy is named after St James of Jerusalem, brother of the Lord, embodying the proud claim of the Church to reach back to the Semitic fountainhead of Christianity. At the heart of the liturgy, the prayer of consecration celebrates the first three General Councils of the Church, Nicaea, Constantinople and Ephesus, and name-checks an impressive array of orthodox Fathers of the Church before the disruption of Chalcedon, with special mention of the "exalted and firm tower", Cyril of Alexandria. Its eucharistic liturgy is named after St James of Jerusalem, brother of the Lord, embodying the proud claim of the Church to reach back to the Semitic fountainhead of Christianity. At the heart of the liturgy, the prayer of consecration celebrates the first three General Councils of the Church, Nicaea, Constantinople and Ephesus, and name-checks an impressive array of orthodox Fathers of the Church before the disruption of Chalcedon, with special mention of the "exalted and firm tower", Cyril of Alexandria.
This anti-Chalcedonian version of Orthodoxy came to dominate a centre of monastic life in the mountainous region of Tur "Abdin, in what is now south-east Turkey. Tur "Abdin contained (and, against formidable odds, still contains) monasteries of comparable importance to those which later emerged for Greek Orthodoxy on Mount Athos (see p. 470). Monastic life flourished generally among both Syrian and Arab Christians; their monks built settlements which were as much fortresses as monasteries, complete with towers, as elaborate and impressive structures as those being built at the same time inside the Byzantine Empire. The commentator most familiar with the Gha.s.sanids has seen their Christianity as a "religion of monks", yet with the coming of Islam, this chapter of Christian monasticism and its buildings has been almost entirely lost. Archaeology may still recover a great deal.16 The warrior traditions of the Gha.s.sanids attracted them to yet another soldier-martyr like George: his name was Sergius and he had been killed in Syria during Diocletian"s Great Persecution. They developed a fierce devotion to him and he became patron saint among the Arabs. His cult spread through the Byzantine Empire as well, encouraged by patronage from Justinian, who was only too ready to win esteem among his Eastern subjects by judicious investment in church-building in honour of this popular martyr. Sergius came habitually to be a.s.sociated in partnership and iconography with his fellow soldier-martyr Bacchus, in a union so close as to be described as that of "lovers", which has bequeathed an interesting image of same-s.e.x love to Eastern Christianity, even though it has rarely felt able fully to explore the possible implications.17 Even a Zoroastrian monarch, the brutal Sa.s.sanian Shah Khusrau II (reigned 590-628), realized the strategic advantage of showing respect to St Sergius when he began expanding his conquests westwards into Byzantine Christian territories. Khusrau is reported as having twice made offerings at Sergius"s shrine at the Gha.s.sanid city of Sergiopolis (Resafa in Syria), first after winning back his throne from a rival with Byzantine military help in 591 and then in thanksgiving for his Byzantine wife"s successful childbirth; he also rebuilt the shrine after it had been burned down by Christians opposed to the Miaphysites. Even a Zoroastrian monarch, the brutal Sa.s.sanian Shah Khusrau II (reigned 590-628), realized the strategic advantage of showing respect to St Sergius when he began expanding his conquests westwards into Byzantine Christian territories. Khusrau is reported as having twice made offerings at Sergius"s shrine at the Gha.s.sanid city of Sergiopolis (Resafa in Syria), first after winning back his throne from a rival with Byzantine military help in 591 and then in thanksgiving for his Byzantine wife"s successful childbirth; he also rebuilt the shrine after it had been burned down by Christians opposed to the Miaphysites.18 Across the imperial border to the north, there was also suspicion of the work of the Council of Chalcedon in the various kingdoms of Georgia and Armenia, none of which had been represented in the council"s discussions. One monarchy among those which ruled Georgia, K"art"li, which the Romans called Georgian Iberia, officially converted to Christianity not long after the Armenians in the early fourth century. A century later, a member of that same royal house of K"art"li proved to be a major force in prompting hostility to Chalcedon among the Georgians. In his teenage years, the prince was sent to Constantinople as an official hostage for K"art"li"s alliance with the Roman Empire, and he was brought up at the imperial Court in the turbulent years which witnessed the abrupt twists and turns in theological supremacy around the Council of Ephesus in 431 (see pp. 225-6). He took the name Peter when he turned to the monastic life in Palestine, where, despite extensive travels around the Middle East, he spent most of his life. He briefly became a bishop in Maiuma in what is now the Gaza Strip, as well as founding the first Georgian monastery in the city of Jerusalem. A great admirer of Cyril of Alexandria, Peter was infuriated when Juvenal, Bishop of Jerusalem, abandoned his support for Alexandrian theology (Juvenal literally crossed the floor from one party to another at the Council of Chalcedon); Peter"s reputation as an ascetic lent authority to his bitter denunciations of Chalcedon.19 His uncompromising Miaphysite views have been problematic for the later Georgian Church to square with its devotion to Peter the Iberian as one of the premier national saints - for the Georgians eventually agreed to recognize the Chalcedonian Definition, although it took until the beginning of the seventh century, long after Peter"s time. His uncompromising Miaphysite views have been problematic for the later Georgian Church to square with its devotion to Peter the Iberian as one of the premier national saints - for the Georgians eventually agreed to recognize the Chalcedonian Definition, although it took until the beginning of the seventh century, long after Peter"s time.20 By contrast, the Armenians specifically declared themselves against Chalcedon in the sixth century and have never been reconciled to its formulae since. They saw its language as expressing unacceptable novelties, partly because, like the Georgians, their normal word for "nature" was closely related to the Iranian root-word for "foundation", "root" or "origin" - so any description of Christ as having two natures, even the qualified definition of Chalcedon, sounded like blasphemous nonsense to them. They took care to construct their own Armenian theological vocabulary on the basis of Greek writings from an impeccable succession of theologians from the Cappadocian Fathers to Cyril of Alexandria - all dating before the taint of Chalcedon.21 In fact, the Armenian Church was so concerned to build up an a.r.s.enal of Christian literature to guarantee its own view of orthodoxy that it undertook a sustained programme of translating cla.s.sic Greek and Syriac theological ma.n.u.scripts. This has proved an immense service to modern students of the ancient Church, because thanks to accidental destruction or deliberate censorship of the originals, often these Armenian translations are the only texts surviving. In fact, the Armenian Church was so concerned to build up an a.r.s.enal of Christian literature to guarantee its own view of orthodoxy that it undertook a sustained programme of translating cla.s.sic Greek and Syriac theological ma.n.u.scripts. This has proved an immense service to modern students of the ancient Church, because thanks to accidental destruction or deliberate censorship of the originals, often these Armenian translations are the only texts surviving.22 Armenian liturgy came to incorporate a distinctive feature which was a permanent reminder of the conflicts of the fifth and sixth centuries. Characteristic of Eastern Christian worship generally, used in every service, is the chanting of a plea for mercy, "Holy G.o.d, Holy and Strong, Holy and Immortal, have mercy upon us" - the Trisagion Trisagion ("Thrice-Holy"). ("Thrice-Holy"). 23 23 There is no common consent among the wide spectrum of Christians who use this chant as to whether it is addressed to the whole Trinity of the G.o.dhead, as its threefold shape might suggest, or to Christ alone. Peter the Fuller, a late-fifth-century Miaphysite monk from Constantinople, made the latter a.s.sumption. That led him to express his theology in liturgical form by adding to the There is no common consent among the wide spectrum of Christians who use this chant as to whether it is addressed to the whole Trinity of the G.o.dhead, as its threefold shape might suggest, or to Christ alone. Peter the Fuller, a late-fifth-century Miaphysite monk from Constantinople, made the latter a.s.sumption. That led him to express his theology in liturgical form by adding to the Trisagion Trisagion the phrase "crucified for us" - so the Second Person of the triune G.o.d is liturgically acclaimed as having been crucified. the phrase "crucified for us" - so the Second Person of the triune G.o.d is liturgically acclaimed as having been crucified.
This central statement of a theological movement known as "Theopaschism" was controversial even among Miaphysites, causing major divisions in their ranks, although it is pleasing to note that around the time of Peter the Fuller the Miaphysite poet Isaac of Antioch wrote eloquently and at epic length celebrating a parrot who had learned to sing the Trisagion Trisagion with Peter"s additional phrase. with Peter"s additional phrase.24 The imperial Church in Constantinople eventually rejected the addition, but the Armenians defiantly adopted it into their liturgical practice; so every congregation in the Armenian Church continues in this solemn prayer to affirm the intimacy of relationship of divine and human in Christ. As the Church"s season of liturgical year moves round, they replace the phrase with others commemorating Christ"s human birth and resurrection, still addressing these commemorations to "Holy G.o.d". With Peter the Fuller"s phrase in mind, devotion, literature and art in both Armenia and Georgia a.s.signed a special significance to the Cross. In Armenia, one of the most familiar monuments of sculpture is a quadrilateral stone bearing carvings of the Cross in forms of extreme elaboration and variety in treatment. The imperial Church in Constantinople eventually rejected the addition, but the Armenians defiantly adopted it into their liturgical practice; so every congregation in the Armenian Church continues in this solemn prayer to affirm the intimacy of relationship of divine and human in Christ. As the Church"s season of liturgical year moves round, they replace the phrase with others commemorating Christ"s human birth and resurrection, still addressing these commemorations to "Holy G.o.d". With Peter the Fuller"s phrase in mind, devotion, literature and art in both Armenia and Georgia a.s.signed a special significance to the Cross. In Armenia, one of the most familiar monuments of sculpture is a quadrilateral stone bearing carvings of the Cross in forms of extreme elaboration and variety in treatment.25
ETHIOPIA: THE CHRISTIANITY OF "UNION".
The most remarkable and exotic triumph of the Miaphysite cause around the Byzantine Empire was far to the south even beyond Nubia, in Ethiopia. The origins of Christianity in this remote and mountainous area are not clear, beyond a mysterious self-contained story in the Book of Acts of an encounter in Judaea between Philip, one of the first Christian leaders in Jerusalem, and a eunuch servant of the "Queen of Ethiopia", who was fascinated to hear that Jewish prophecy had been fulfilled in the coming of Christ.26 The first historical accounts are from the fourth century, and make it clear that Christian approaches came not southwards from Egypt but from the east across the Red Sea, via Ethiopia"s long-standing trade contacts with Arabia and ultimately Syria. It was a Syrian merchant, Frumentius, who is credited with converting Ezana, the Negus (king or emperor) of the powerful northern Ethiopian state of Aksum. Certainly Ezana"s coins witness to a conversion no less dramatic and personal than Constantine"s: they change motifs from traditional symbols of a crescent and two stars to a cross. Ezana has left a surviving inscription in Greek announcing his renunciation of his status as son of the Ethiopian war G.o.d, putting himself instead under the care of the Trinity. The first historical accounts are from the fourth century, and make it clear that Christian approaches came not southwards from Egypt but from the east across the Red Sea, via Ethiopia"s long-standing trade contacts with Arabia and ultimately Syria. It was a Syrian merchant, Frumentius, who is credited with converting Ezana, the Negus (king or emperor) of the powerful northern Ethiopian state of Aksum. Certainly Ezana"s coins witness to a conversion no less dramatic and personal than Constantine"s: they change motifs from traditional symbols of a crescent and two stars to a cross. Ezana has left a surviving inscription in Greek announcing his renunciation of his status as son of the Ethiopian war G.o.d, putting himself instead under the care of the Trinity.
An energetic monarch determined to secure immortal memory in this world as in the next, Ezana was responsible for beginning a tradition of monumental religious sculpture in the city of Aksum which is breath-taking, though now difficult to interpret: scores of monolithic stelae (upright monoliths) imitating tower-like buildings with multiple doors and windows. Some of them are immense: one, probably originally more than a hundred feet high and which may have fallen down almost as soon as it was put up, is among the biggest single stones ever quarried in the ancient world.27 There is no good reason to doubt the story that it was also Ezana who made contact with the Church in Alexandria, asking no less a divine than Bishop Athanasius to supply his people with a bishop. Thus from a very early date comes that peculiar Ethiopian arrangement which persisted for sixteen hundred years, as late as 1951: the presiding bishop ( There is no good reason to doubt the story that it was also Ezana who made contact with the Church in Alexandria, asking no less a divine than Bishop Athanasius to supply his people with a bishop. Thus from a very early date comes that peculiar Ethiopian arrangement which persisted for sixteen hundred years, as late as 1951: the presiding bishop (abun) in the Church of Ethiopia was never a native Ethiopian, but an import from the Coptic Church hundreds of miles to the north, and there was rarely any other bishop present in the whole country.28
6. Ethiopia, Eastern Arabia, Red Sea and Egypt This has meant that the abun abun rarely had much real power or initiative in a Church to which he came usually as an elderly stranger with a different native language. Authority was displaced elsewhere, to monarchs and to abbots of monasteries; monasticism seems to have arrived early in the Church in Ethiopia and quickly gained royal patronage. Around these leaders are still numerous hereditary dynasties of non-monastic clergy who, over the centuries, might swarm in their thousands to seek ordination on the rarely had much real power or initiative in a Church to which he came usually as an elderly stranger with a different native language. Authority was displaced elsewhere, to monarchs and to abbots of monasteries; monasticism seems to have arrived early in the Church in Ethiopia and quickly gained royal patronage. Around these leaders are still numerous hereditary dynasties of non-monastic clergy who, over the centuries, might swarm in their thousands to seek ordination on the abun abun"s rare visits to their area. The education of these priests, deacons and cantors might not extend far beyond a detailed knowledge of how to perform the liturgy, but that was a formidable intellectual acquisition in itself. They were ordinary folk who thus shaped their religion into that of a whole people rather than simply the property of a royal elite. Over the centuries of trials and bizarre disasters to afflict the Ethiopian Church, they are the constant underlying force which has preserved its unique life against the odds.
King Ezana may have renounced traditional G.o.ds, but the worship of the Church over which he first presided has remained unique and unmistakably African in character. Since church buildings are often temple-like in character rather than congregational s.p.a.ces, much of the liturgy is conducted in the open air, accompanied by a variety of drums and percussive and stringed instruments, and with the princ.i.p.al clergy and musicians shaded from the weather by elaborately decorated umbrellas. Instead of church bells, sonorous echoes struck on stones hanging from trees summon worshippers to prayer (see Plate 20). The Church"s liturgical chant, inseparable from its worship, is attributed to the sixth-century Court musician Yared. According to legend, his genius rather backfired on him when Gabra Maskel, the then king of Aksum, was so entranced by Yared"s singing that he failed to notice that the spear on which he was leaning had pierced the singer"s foot. Yared himself was (perhaps diplomatically) too absorbed in his own art to comment.29 It was not surprising that during the controversies of the fifth and sixth centuries, this Church, which derived its fragile link to the wider episcopal succession via Alexandria, followed the Egyptian Church into the Miaphysite camp. One of the concepts which remain central in Ethiopian theology is tawahedo tawahedo, "union" of humanity and divinity in the Saviour who took flesh. Nevertheless, despite the crucial role of the abun abun, the Ethiopian Church did not become Coptic in character. Far more all-pervasive were its links with the Semitic world, already evident before the coming of Christianity in Ethiopian language and even place names in the coastal regions of Tigray and Eritrea.30 It was one of those Semitic languages, Ge"ez, which became the liturgical and theological language of the Ethiopian Church, and remains so, even though it is not otherwise in current use. The arrival of Miaphysite faith is also connected to the Semitic world, because in legend it is a.s.sociated with "Nine Saints" of mostly Syriac background, who are said to have arrived as refugees from Chalcedonian persecution in the late fifth century and to have been instrumental in establishing the Ethiopian monastic system. It was one of those Semitic languages, Ge"ez, which became the liturgical and theological language of the Ethiopian Church, and remains so, even though it is not otherwise in current use. The arrival of Miaphysite faith is also connected to the Semitic world, because in legend it is a.s.sociated with "Nine Saints" of mostly Syriac background, who are said to have arrived as refugees from Chalcedonian persecution in the late fifth century and to have been instrumental in establishing the Ethiopian monastic system.
Ethiopia"s Semitic links are also apparent in the unique fascination with Judaism which has developed in its Christianity. This is reminiscent of the distinctively close relationship with Judaism in early Syriac Christianity (see pp. 178-9), but over a much longer period the character has become much more p.r.o.nounced in Ethiopia. This may not originally have arisen so much from direct contacts with Jews as from Ethiopian pride in that foundation episode in the Book of Acts, in which Christianity"s Jewish heritage already lies at the heart of the story of Philip and the eunuch. Meditation on this during the pa.s.sing of centuries in the isolation of Africa has made that seed grow into a major theme in a Church which honours the Jewish Sabbath, practises circ.u.mcision (female as well as male, unlike the Jews), and makes its members obey Jewish dietary laws. External sources as early as the thirteenth century record the Church as treasuring an object which was claimed to be the Ark of the Covenant once housed in the Temple in Jerusalem. The report that the Ark was decorated with crosses does present problems for this provenance, given that, if genuine, it had been constructed a millennium before the Crucifixion.31 At its extreme, the preoccupation with the Hebrew past in Ethiopian Christianity has produced a grouping of peoples first attested in Ethiopia in the fourteenth century, who have been styled by other Ethiopians At its extreme, the preoccupation with the Hebrew past in Ethiopian Christianity has produced a grouping of peoples first attested in Ethiopia in the fourteenth century, who have been styled by other Ethiopians Falasha Falasha, "Strangers", but who call themselves Beta Israel Beta Israel ("House of Israel") because they claim full Jewish ident.i.ty. In recent years, most of the ("House of Israel") because they claim full Jewish ident.i.ty. In recent years, most of the Beta Israel Beta Israel have emigrated to the State of Israel. have emigrated to the State of Israel.32 Central to the complex of a.s.sociations with Israel and Judaism is a foundational work of Ethiopian literature, the Kebra Nagast Kebra Nagast, the "Book of the Glory of Kings". It is this work, difficult to date and composite in character, which sets out the origins of the Ethiopian monarchy in the union of King Solomon of Israel and the Queen of Sheba, that legendary ruler of a Yemeni kingdom whom the Tanakh had recorded as visiting Jerusalem in great splendour. What is now considered to be a late addition to the accounts in the Kebra Nagast Kebra Nagast is the story that their son Menelik, the first Ethiopian king, brought the Ark, or is the story that their son Menelik, the first Ethiopian king, brought the Ark, or tabot tabot, back to Ethiopia, where it is kept to this day in a chapel in Aksum. Every Ethiopian church has a much-venerated representation of the tabot tabot in its sanctuary. Quite when the in its sanctuary. Quite when the tabot tabot at Aksum became so important in Ethiopian devotion is controversial. The latest historian to consider the confused and partial evidence places it as late as the end of the sixteenth century, when recent Islamic destruction and bruising contacts with the wider Christian world made the Ethiopian Church particularly concerned to a.s.sert its special character and enrich its existing Jewish traditions (see pp. 711-12). at Aksum became so important in Ethiopian devotion is controversial. The latest historian to consider the confused and partial evidence places it as late as the end of the sixteenth century, when recent Islamic destruction and bruising contacts with the wider Christian world made the Ethiopian Church particularly concerned to a.s.sert its special character and enrich its existing Jewish traditions (see pp. 711-12).33 The original form of the Kebra Nagast Kebra Nagast is certainly much older, and it may relate to a period in the sixth century when Aksum was at one of its peaks of power. This formidable Christian empire under King Kaleb then had an intimate concern with the land of the Queen of Sheba, the Yemen. The active role which Ethiopia now seized in the politics of Yemen and Arabia was one of the great might-have-beens of history, and would certainly explain the later fascination in Ethiopia with Solomon and the Queen of Sheba. In the early years of the sixth century, Miaphysite Christian refugees from the Byzantine Empire gathered in the Yemeni city of Najran (now in south-west Saudi Arabia), attracted by an existing Christian community, and the city became a major centre for Miaphysite Christianity. In 523 or 524 its population suffered a horrific ma.s.sacre at the hands of their overlord, Yusuf as"ar Yath"ar of the Yemeni kingdom of Himyar; in the previous century, his family had converted to Judaism and his campaigns were expressions of his own militant zeal for recreating Israel in Arabia. King Kaleb of Ethiopia, already provoked by Yusuf"s killing of Ethiopian soldiers, forcefully intervened across the Red Sea after this outrage and defeated and killed Yusuf. is certainly much older, and it may relate to a period in the sixth century when Aksum was at one of its peaks of power. This formidable Christian empire under King Kaleb then had an intimate concern with the land of the Queen of Sheba, the Yemen. The active role which Ethiopia now seized in the politics of Yemen and Arabia was one of the great might-have-beens of history, and would certainly explain the later fascination in Ethiopia with Solomon and the Queen of Sheba. In the early years of the sixth century, Miaphysite Christian refugees from the Byzantine Empire gathered in the Yemeni city of Najran (now in south-west Saudi Arabia), attracted by an existing Christian community, and the city became a major centre for Miaphysite Christianity. In 523 or 524 its population suffered a horrific ma.s.sacre at the hands of their overlord, Yusuf as"ar Yath"ar of the Yemeni kingdom of Himyar; in the previous century, his family had converted to Judaism and his campaigns were expressions of his own militant zeal for recreating Israel in Arabia. King Kaleb of Ethiopia, already provoked by Yusuf"s killing of Ethiopian soldiers, forcefully intervened across the Red Sea after this outrage and defeated and killed Yusuf.34 With Ethiopian backing, a local Miaphysite ruler, Abraha, now came to establish a kingdom in southern Arabia which had Miaphysite Christianity as its state religion. This might have become the future of the Arabian peninsula, had it not been for a major disaster of engineering: in the 570s, the ancient and famous Marib dam, on which the agricultural prosperity of the region depended, and which had undergone thorough repair under King Abraha, nevertheless suffered a catastrophic failure. After more than a thousand years of existence, it was never rebuilt until modern times. A complex and wealthy society which had flourished on the irrigation provided by the dam was ruined for ever, and with the collapsing dam must have perished much of the credibility of Christianity throughout Arabia. Five hundred miles to the north, in the same decade that the dam failed, there was born an Arab destined to be a new prophet: Muhammad (see pp. 255-9). The memory of the end of the Marib dam, when Sheba"s gardens were replaced "with others that yielded bitter fruit", was still traumatic enough to win a mention in Muhammad"s revelations in the Qur"an, where the disaster was described as a punishment from G.o.d for Sheba"s faithlessness.35 But before we meet the new prophet and the impact of his faith on the world, we must turn to the other dissidence against Chalcedon: the Church of the East, the Dyophysite heirs of Theodore of Mopsuestia. But before we meet the new prophet and the impact of his faith on the world, we must turn to the other dissidence against Chalcedon: the Church of the East, the Dyophysite heirs of Theodore of Mopsuestia.
THE CHURCH OF THE EAST (451-622).
At the time of the Council of Chalcedon, with Nestorius declared a non-person despite the council"s quiet acceptance of much of his theology, matters looked dire for defiant Dyophysites. They had no power base in the Byzantine Empire comparable to Miaphysite Alexandria, and even eastwards beyond the imperial frontier there was no secure refuge for them among Syrian Christians in the Sa.s.sanian Empire. The mid-fifth century saw renewed pogroms of Christians by the Zoroastrian authorities. In the worst sequence under Shah Yazdgerd II, what is now the Iraqi city of Kirkuk witnessed the slaughter of ten bishops and reputedly 153,000 Christians (a biblically symbolic number for a figure which was clearly still grotesquely large). Nevertheless, persecution was not a consistent Sa.s.sanian policy, and the Church survived and consolidated; because the Byzantine Empire reaffirmed Chalcedonian Christianity or tried to woo the Miaphysites, it was not surprising that east Syrian Christianity took on an increasingly explicit commitment to the Dyophysite cause.
A significant shift took place in 489, when the Byzantine Emperor Zeno in his drive to placate Miaphysites finally closed the School of the Persians in the city of Edessa (now Urfa in Turkey). This had been the major centre of higher education for Christians throughout the East, both within and beyond the empire, but now a school was established little more than 150 miles eastwards in Sa.s.sanian territory, in the city of Nisibis (now Nusaybin in the extreme south-east of Turkey), ready to take on the duty of training Dyophysite clergy. In Nisibis Greek works could be translated and expounded to Syriac-speakers: the Church was concerned to preserve even the works of pre-Christian Greek philosophy so that they could be used as intellectual tools for arguments with Chalcedonian and Miaphysite Christians. This was of huge importance for a wider future (see pp. 266-7). Moreover, the flow of knowledge to Nisibis was not just from the west. It was a Christian scholar from Nisibis, Severus, with a Persian surname, Sebokht, abbot and bishop of a monastery on the Euphrates, who in the mid-seventh century first described a system of mathematical signs invented by Indians, which were then absorbed into Islamic culture and are therefore known to us as Arabic numerals.36 The scholars of Nisibis did not have a monopoly of Christian higher education; the most important other centre was far to the south, in the settler city of Gondeshapur. In the time of the unusually tolerant and cultured Shah Khusrau I (reigned 531-79), a contemporary of the Byzantine Emperor Justinian, the Christian school in Gondeshapur was promoted into a centre of general learning, with a richly augmented library whose holdings united such widely separated cultures as Greece and India. Syriac remained the chief medium of instruction in this school. If anything helped to integrate Syriac Christianity into Sa.s.sanian elite life after its traumatic sufferings, it was the role of Gondeshapur in providing a series of skilled physicians who were Dyophysite Christians, and who became doctors first to the shahs and later to Islamic rulers in Seleucia-Ctesiphon. It was only the founding of Baghdad and its schools two centuries later which outshone the importance of Gondeshapur for learning and the preservation of ancient culture; but now Baghdad"s predecessor, the once-famous centre of power and scholarship, has been utterly eclipsed, and its scanty visible ruins near a little Iranian village have never even been excavated.37 Dyophysite Christianity also spread south of the great empires, into the peninsula of Arabia, where there had long been tribes embracing Christianity. There were strong contrary influences here to turn the existing Christian presence towards Miaphysite belief, thanks to external powers like the Miaphysite Ethiopians and Gha.s.sanids, and we have seen those having an effect on local rulers in Sheba (see pp. 244-5). Yet political rivalries meant that by no means all Arab Christians were going to follow suit; in fact, some embraced Dyophysite Christianity precisely because the Gha.s.sanids believed the opposite. What was significant about this dual character of Christian activity in Arabia was how little Arabian Christians were inclined to identify with the imperial Church of Chalcedon: they set their sights on Semitic versions of the faith. The trade routes to Syria, southwards to Arabia and the Red Sea, which Gha.s.sanid power kept open and secure, brought Syrian theology and worship into the peninsula. One paradoxical trace of that is the presence of a substantial number of Syriac loanwords in the text of Arabian Christianity"s nemesis, the Qur"an; these probably derive from Muhammad"s knowledge of Jewish and Christian sacred texts in that language. This is a hint that, as elsewhere in the Christianity which had Syriac roots, the liturgical and scriptural language of Arabian Christianity remained Syriac rather than the Arabian vernacular of the region.38 By the sixth century, therefore, the Church of the East was fully established, both in its independence of any bishop in the Byzantine Empire and in its firm adherence to the theology condemned at Chalcedon. Its princ.i.p.al bishop or patriarch, normally resident in one of the great cities of the Sa.s.sanian Empire, was known as the Catholicos, "universal bishop" - a t.i.tle as reasonable as the high claims of the Bishops of Rome or Constantinople, considering the wide areas and increasing numbers of Christians who looked to this bishop as their chief pastor. As much as the "Melchite" Chalcedonians or the Miaphysites, its spiritual life was sustained by a rapid expansion of monastic life. Many monasteries in the East had fallen into disarray during the troubles of the later fifth century, and in 571 one powerful monastic personality, Abraham of Kashkar, created a set of rules to restore discipline to their life. When his successor in the Great Monastery in the Izla Mountains above Nisibis, Abbot Dadisho, augmented Abraham"s rule seventeen years later, he firmly stated a test of doctrinal purity: anyone who "does not accept the Orthodox fathers Mar Diodore [of Tarsus], Mar Theodore [of Mopsuestia] and Mar Nestorius shall be unknown to our community".39 Monasteries among the Dyophysites were strengthened through the military success of the Sa.s.sanian Shah Khusrau II in areas of the Byzantine Empire along the eastern Mediterranean. For a couple of decades from 605 the Shah had control of the hills of Tur "Abdin, where the monasteries had previously been divided between Melchite and Miaphysite communities (see p. 237). From this date, some monastic communities of Dyophysites held on to their places in Tur "Abdin, and it was not until after 1838 that the last monks from the Church of the East left this enclave of extraordinary Christian sanct.i.ty. Monasteries among the Dyophysites were strengthened through the military success of the Sa.s.sanian Shah Khusrau II in areas of the Byzantine Empire along the eastern Mediterranean. For a couple of decades from 605 the Shah had control of the hills of Tur "Abdin, where the monasteries had previously been divided between Melchite and Miaphysite communities (see p. 237). From this date, some monastic communities of Dyophysites held on to their places in Tur "Abdin, and it was not until after 1838 that the last monks from the Church of the East left this enclave of extraordinary Christian sanct.i.ty.40 The Church of the East was now travelling astonishing distances away from the heartlands of the previous Christian centuries: eastwards along land and sea routes which connected the Roman and Sa.s.sanian worlds with China and India - and noticeably without any political support. To begin with, it must have been something like a chaplaincy for expatriates, but it was also a mission which could draw on the natural articulacy and propensity for salesmanship which made Syrian merchants so successful across Asia. During the fourth and fifth centuries the east Syrians reached out beyond the Sa.s.sanian Empire and established Christian outposts among the peoples of Central Asia, and over the next centuries they moved steadily onwards in their activities, which means that in such unexpected places as the mountains and plains around Samarqand, so long the territory of Islam, it is possible to have the shock of encountering the sight of carved medieval crosses or inscriptions in Syriac.41 One of the Syrians" earliest extensions of the Christian faith was to India. The "Mar Thoma" Church there treasures a claim to have been founded by the Apostle Thomas, which is not beyond the bounds of possibility, given the evidence that archaeology has revealed of vigorous trade between the Roman Empire and India in the first century CE. Traditions about Thomas certainly already triggered an early-third-century apocryphal Syrian account of his deeds in the subcontinent (see p. 202). By the fourth century there was a sufficiently organized Church in the Malabar Coast in south-west India (what is now Kerala) that arrangements were made to put it under the authority of the bishop in one of the main trading ports in the Sa.s.sanian Empire, Rew Ardashir (now Bushehr on the Persian Gulf).42 A century later, a Christian writer from Alexandria called Cosmas took a nickname from his extraordinary travels around India - A century later, a Christian writer from Alexandria called Cosmas took a nickname from his extraordinary travels around India - Indicopleustes Indicopleustes, "voyager to India" - though the traveller was also an eyewitness of King Kaleb of Ethiopia"s momentous campaign in the Yemen in the 520s (see pp. 244-5). Despite coming from Egypt, Cosmas Indicopleustes was a Dyophysite, steeped in the writings of Theodore of Mopsuestia and Diodore of Tarsus, and he sneered at the recent "schismatical Father", the exiled Bishop Theodosius of Alexandria. He was proud of the Church of the East, which had spread its faith from Persia to Churches in India and even Sri Lanka, rejoicing that his travels had shown him how the whole earth was "still being filled, and that the gospel is preached throughout all the world". It is a pity from the point of view of modern historians that his one surviving work devotes itself primarily to cosmological questions centring on the failed proposition that the world is flat, but we still need to be grateful for its incidental remarks on the world that Cosmas actually knew; we have so little other evidence.43 The "Thomas Christians" settled down to a comfortable relationship with the non-Christian elites and society round them. Besides a number of carved stone crosses, the earliest datable artefacts of their history are five copper plates which record tax privileges and corporate rights granted them by local monarchs and rulers in the eighth and ninth centuries.44 Their lifestyle, despite various individual customs, became very similar to that of their Hindu neighbours; they found a rather respectable niche in Indian society. They were never totally cut off either from their Dyophysite co-religionists in the Middle East or indeed from the Church further west. One of the most remarkable contacts may have been with ninth-century England, where several versions of Their lifestyle, despite various individual customs, became very similar to that of their Hindu neighbours; they found a rather respectable niche in Indian society. They were never totally cut off either from their Dyophysite co-religionists in the Middle East or indeed from the Church further west. One of the most remarkable contacts may have been with ninth-century England, where several versions of The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle report that a prominent Anglo-Saxon courtier called Sigehelm was sent by the great King Alfred of Wess.e.x on a pilgrimage to the tomb of St Thomas in India. report that a prominent Anglo-Saxon courtier called Sigehelm was sent by the great King Alfred of Wess.e.x on a pilgrimage to the tomb of St Thomas in India.45 It was only in the sixteenth century that the Thomas Christians" ancient place in Indian society became a disadvantage, when they re-encountered armed and aggressive Western Catholic Christians, who were unsympathetic both to their cultural compromises and to their "Nestorian" heresies, and who then did much to destroy their distinctive way of life and the records of their history (see pp. 704-5). It was only in the sixteenth century that the Thomas Christians" ancient place in Indian society became a disadvantage, when they re-encountered armed and aggressive Western Catholic Christians, who were unsympathetic both to their cultural compromises and to their "Nestorian" heresies, and who then did much to destroy their distinctive way of life and the records of their history (see pp. 704-5).
Consistently, the Church of the East remained united by adhering to its Syrian roots, displaying the vigorous individuality which Syriac Christianity had exhibited from its earliest years. It gloried in its difference from the misguided Christianities further west. Everywhere it went, it treasured the memory of the prophet Jonah (one of the Bible"s most entertaining explicit fictions). Most Christians honoured him as a symbol of the Resurrection because of his three days spent in the belly of the great fish, but the Church of the East remembered that the point of his sojourn in the fish was that Jonah had been unsuccessfully trying to avoid G.o.d"s call to preach salvation to the a.s.syrians" hated city Nineveh - and now there was a Christian bishop of the Church of the East in Nineveh, to complete Jonah"s work! A theology of two natures in Christ kept the Church of the East faithful to the emphasis in Theodore of Mopsuestia"s teaching that Christ in his human nature was the Second Adam. As such, he was a true pattern for all sons and daughters of Adam, so that human beings could do their best to imitate the holiness of Christ. Such belief did lead monks in the Syrian tradition into their extraordinary self-punishments to achieve such imitation, but it also represents an optimistic pole of the Christian spectrum of beliefs in human worth, potential and capacity, because if Jesus had a whole human nature, it must by definition be good, and logically all human nature began by being good, whatever its subsequent corruptions. This was a contrast with the savage pessimism that has often emerged from Latin Western Christianity, following Augustine of Hippo"s emphasis on original sin (see pp. 306-9).
That outlook continued to illuminate the theology of the Church of the East. It was unimpressed and uninhibited by the condemnations which such teachings had received in the imperial Church around 400, and equally unimpressed by the imperial Church"s later condemnation of the monk and spiritual writer Evagrius Ponticus (see pp. 209-10). Much of Evagrius"s work is now preserved only in Syriac translation, the Greek originals having been deliberately destroyed.46 Isaac, a seventh-century monk from Qatar who briefly held the resonant t.i.tle Bishop of Nineveh, took up the notion which Evagrius had derived from the writings of that audacious Alexandrian Origen that in the end all will be saved. He saw divine love even in the fire of h.e.l.l, which prepared humanity for a future ecstasy: Isaac, a seventh-century monk from Qatar who briefly held the resonant t.i.tle Bishop of Nineveh, took up the notion which Evagrius had derived from the writings of that audacious Alexandrian Origen that in the end all will be saved. He saw divine love even in the fire of h.e.l.l, which prepared humanity for a future ecstasy: out of it the wealth of His love and power and wisdom will become known all the more - and so will the insistent might of the waves of His goodness. It is not [the way of] the compa.s.sionate Maker to crea