Syriac Christology and Christian Community in the Fifteenth-Century Church of the East (original) (raw)

Abstract

Syriac Christology has largely been investigated from a Western European perspective to determine whether it is heretical or not. Such investigations have typically focused on a small number of doctrinal formulae and the terminology of philosophical theology. My study starts from a different position, trying to understand how the Church of the East (the so-called “Nestorian Church”) understood the nature of its collective social life in the fifteenth century. Since “Christian” was their most specific primary term of identification, one would expect their self-conception to be related to their concept of Christ. Contrary to what many have expected, it seems that doctrinal distinction was not the most important factor of Christology for East Syrian self-understanding. By exploring not only the terms of abstract doctrines but also the more common liturgical and literary images of Christ in this period, this study argues that dogmatic theology is not the center of Syriac Christians’ understanding either of Christ or of themselves; rather than what they believed about Christ, they were most concerned with what they received from Christ, especially protection in this world and salvation to come. On the other hand, Christ’s roles as Lord and Savior not only of his community but of all creation, simultaneously reinforced and called into question the notion that the Church of the East could be defined by a special status as beneficiaries of Christ’s salvation. Primarily drawing from the texts for dominical feasts in a fifteenth-century Ḥūdrā manuscript (BL Add. 7177) and the Īsḥāq Shbadnāyā’s unedited masterpiece, “The Poem on God’s Economy from ‘In the Beginning’ until Eternity,” my paper presents convergences and divergences in how each source presents Christ, and how each aspect of their Christology correlates to notions of Christian community. The paper reveals a nuanced notion of what Christianity meant in the fifteenth century.

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