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God's Love for Human Nature In Journal of Eastern Christian Studies 71(3-4), 269-282. doi: 10.2143/JECS.71.3.3286901 © 2019 by Journal of Eastern Christian Studies. All rights reserved. ‘HE LOVES NOT THE PERSON BUT THE NATURE’ GOD’S LOVE FOR HUMAN NATURE IN ISAAC OF NINEVEH DMITRII F. BUMAZHNOV INTROdUCTION: NEW FINdINGS AbOUT ISAAC’S ANTHROPOLOGY St Isaac of Nineveh – also known as Isaac the Syrian – for several reasons can be regarded as one of the most remarkable holy fathers of the early Church.1 The first fact to be mentioned is that Isaac (ca. 640-700, floruit about 680) belonged to the Church of the East, more commonly known as the Nestorian Church.2 Recent discoveries of hitherto neglected writings allow some new light to be shed on his theology. Isaac’s popularity in – both Eastern and Western – Europe as well as his canonization in the Eastern Orthodox Church is still due to the 9th century Greek translation of the First Part of his writings.3 1 About Isaac’s life see Sabino Chialà, Dall’ascesi eremitica alla misericordia infinita. Ricerche su Isacco di Ninive e la sua fortuna (Florence, 2002), pp. 53-63. 2 The self-designation of this church in the past was “The Church of the East”. After a schism in 1968 there are two successor churches: the “Assyrian Church of the East” and the “Ancient Church of the East”. The name “Nestorians” given to it by its opponents in the Christological controversies of the 5th and 6th centuries was designed in order to put the Eastern Syriac Christians into disrepute since Nestorius had been condemned as a heretic at the Council of Ephesus in 431, cf. S. P. Brock, ‘The ‘Nestorian’ Church: A Lamentable Misnomer’, Bul- letin of the John Rylands Library, 78 (1996), pp. 23-35. Interestingly, the Eastern Syriac Christians sometimes called themselves “Nestorians”, cf. e.g. ‘Chronicle of Seert’, Patrologia Orientalis, 4, 3, p. 295, 9. General background information: W. Baum and D. Winkler, Die apostolische Kirche des Ostens: Geschichte der sogenannten Nestorianer (Klagenfurt, 2000). 3 See Θεοτόκης, Νικηφόρος, Τοῦ ὁσίου πατρὸς ἡμῶν Ἰσαὰκ ἐπισκόπου Νινευῒ τοῦ Σύρου τὰ εὑρεθέντα ἀσκητικά (Λειψία, 1770) [The Transmitted Ascetic Writings of Our Holy Father Isaac the Syrian, the Bishop of Nineveh, ed. Nikiphoros Theotokis (Leipzig, 1770)]; Ἀββᾶ Ἰσαὰκ τοῦ Σύρου, Λόγοι ἀσκητικοί, Κρητικὴ ἔκδοσι, ed. M. Pirar (Ἱερὰ Μονὴ Ἰβήρων, Ἅγιον Ὅρος, 2012) [The Ascetical Works by Abba Isaac the Syrian, A Critical Edition, ed. M. Pirar (Holy Monastery of Iviron, Mount Athos, 2012)]; and M. Pirar, ‘Kriticheskoe izdanie perevoda ‘podvinicheskikh slov’ prepodobnogo Isaaka Sirina’ [M. Pirar, ‘A Critical Edition of the “Ascetical Works” by St. Isaac the Syrian’], in Proceedings of the First International Patristic Conference of Ss. Cyril and Methodius Theological Institute for Postgraduate Studies “Saint Isaac the Syrian and His Spiritual Legacy,” October 10th–11th, 2013, Moscow, ed. Metropolitan Hilarion of Volokolamsk, Patristic Studies and Translations (Moscow, 2014), pp. 80-88. 270 DMITRII F. BUMAZHNOV This translation was based upon a West Syriac miaphysite4 redaction which thoroughly expurgated all major traces of the East Syrian “Nestorian” theo- logical thinking in those texts.5 It was only after 1909, when Paul Bedjan edited the original version of the First Part according to some East Syrian manuscripts, that the interested public gained access to the genuine Isaac.6 In 1995 and 2011 there followed the editions of the Second and the Third Syriac Parts which were completely unknown before the 1970s.7 In 2013, Sabino Chialà published longer fragments of the Fifth Part.8 4 Like “Nestorians”, the Syriac “Miaphysites” are members of another Syrian non-Chal- cedonian church which rejects the Council of Chalcedon (modern Kadıköy, Turkey) held in 451. Today this church is known as the Syrian Orthodox Church. For its early history see V. L. Menze, Justinian and the Making of the Syrian Orthodox Church, The Oxford Early Christian Studies (Oxford, 2008). Since the “Nestorians” lived in the Sasanian Empire and later in the Caliphate east of the Roman and Byzantine Empire, they are also referred to as East Syrians; the term “West Syrians” is mostly used as an alternative desig- nation of the Syriac Miaphysites. 5 About the translation history cf. Chialà, Misericordia (see n. 1), pp. 325-364. 6 See Mar Isaacus Ninivita, De perfectione religiosa, ed. Paul Bedjan (Paris, 1909). For an English translation of Bedjan’s edition of the Syriac text see Mystic Treatises by Isaac of Nineveh Translated from Bedjan’s Syriac Text with an Introduction and Registers, transl. Arend Wensinck, Verhandelingen der Koninklijke Akademie van Wetenschappen te Amsterdam, Afdeeling Letterkunde, Nieuwe Reeks, Deel 23,1 (Amsterdam, 1923). 7 See Isaac of Nineveh (Isaac the Syrian), The Second Part: Chapters XV-XLI, ed., transl. Sebastian Brock, CSCO 554-555 (Leuven, 1995) (works II, 4-41, Syriac text and English translation); transl. id., ‘St Isaac the Syrian: Two Unpublished Texts’, Sobornost: Incorporat- ing Eastern Churches Review, 19 (1997), pp. 7-33 (works II,1-2, English translation). Καβ- βαδᾶς, Νέστωρ, Ισαακ του Συρου, Ἀσκητικὰ Β3: Λόγοι ΙΒ´ - ΜΑ´ (Θήρα, 2005) [Isaac the Syrian, Ascetic Treatises B3: Parts 12-41, transl. Nestor Kavvadas (Thira, 2005)], Καββαδᾶς, Νέστωρ, Ισαακ του Συρου, Ἀσκητικὰ 2α: Λόγοι Α´ - Γ´ (Θήρα, 22006) [Isaac the Syrian, Ascetic Treatises 2α: Parts 1-3, transl. Nestor Kavvadas (Thira, 22006)], Καββαδᾶς, Νέστωρ, Ισαακ του Συρου, Ἀσκητικὰ Β2: Λόγοι Γ´ - ΙΑ´ (Θήρα: Θεσβίτης, 2006) [Isaac the Syrian, Ascetic Treatises B2: Parts 3-11, transl. Nestor Kavvadas (Thira, 2006)] (works II,1-41, modern Greek translation); Isacco di Ninive, Terza collezione, ed., transl. Sabino Chialà, CSCO 637-638 (Leuven, 2011); Isaac le Syrien, Œuvres spirituelles 2: 41 discours récemment découverts, transl. André Louf (Bégrolles-en-Mauges, 2003); Isaac le Syrien, Œuvres spirituelles 3: d’après un manuscrit récemment découvert, transl. André Louf (Bégrolles-en- Mauges, 2009) (works II,1-41; III, French translation); Isacco di Ninive, Terza collezione, ed., transl. Sabino Chialà, CSCO 637-638 (Leuven, 2011) (Part III, Syriac text and Italian transla- tion); Ilarion (Alfeev), Prepodobnyi Isaak Sirin, O Bozhestvennykh tainakh i o dukhovnoi zhizni (Saint-Petersburg, 72013)] (works II,1-2, II,4-41 and parts from II,3, Russian translation). 8 See transl. Sabino Chialà, ‘Due discorsi ritrovati delle Quinta parte di Isacco di Ninive?’, Orientalia Christiana Periodica, 79 (2013), pp. 61-112. Chialà himself was not quite sure about the authorship of these fragments. ‘HE LOVES NOT THE PERSON bUT THE NATURE’ 271 These findings as well as some further, hitherto unpublished texts of Isaac9 confronted scholars with a huge amount of new material which considerably enlarges our knowledge of Isaac’s theological thinking. Simultaneously, the non-expurgated Isaac to a certain degree provides a challenge for modern Eastern Christian theology, as he is, as a “Nestorian” writer, both an expo- nent of a theological tradition other than Byzantine Orthodoxy and a saint of just this part of Orthodoxy (i.e. of the modern Orthodox Greek, Romanians, Russians etc.). The purpose of this paper is, first, to offer glimpses into several funda- mental theological ideas Isaac had received from the tradition of his church. Then the reader shall be introduced to one of the newly discovered texts in which Isaac says that God loves not the human person but human nature – which is, against his time and background, a fairly astonishing turn. Using what we know today about Isaac’s theological system, I will then try to explain what this statement is supposed to have meant according to its author. I conclude with an attempt to assess whether Isaac’s view could contribute to, or at least be related to current debates about human dignity and human rights. SOME THEOLOGICAL IdEAS PECULIAR fOR THE CHURCH Of THE EAST ANd AdAPTEd bY ISAAC Of NINEVEH The Church of the East to which Isaac belonged was established in its “Nestorian” identity on the eve of the 6th century on the basis of Christian communities which had existed in the Sasanian Empire probably from the early second century onwards.10 Its main theological and especially exegetical 9 Still unpublished are the writings 1–3 from the Second Part (II,1-3). For their translation see Isacco di Ninive, Discorsi Spirituali: Capitoli sulla Conoscenza, Preghiere, Contemplazione sull’Argomento della Gehenna, Altri Opuscoli, transl. Paolo Bettiolo (Magnano, 1990), pp. 49-197 (work II, 3); Brock, ‘Two Unpublished Texts’ (see n. 7) (works II,1-2), Louf, Œuvres spirituelles 2, Louf, Œuvres spirituelles 3 (see n. 7) (works II,1-3, III); Kavvadas, Askitika B2, Kavvadas, Askitika 2α (see n. 7) (works II,1-3), and Alfeev, Divine Mysteries, 35-86 (see n. 7) (works II, 1-2 and parts from II, 3). 10 The community most probably was situated in today’s Iraq and Iran. For the early history of Christianity in Mesopotamia see Marie-Louise Chaumont, La christianisation de l’Empire Iranien: des origines aux grandes persécutions du IVe siècle, CSCO 499, Subsidia 80 (Leuven, 1988); and Baum and Winkler, Kirche des Ostens (see n. 2). 272 DMITRII F. BUMAZHNOV authority was the teacher of Nestorius, Theodore, bishop of Mopsuestia (†428), a city situated in the south of modern Turkey. Theodore was later officially condemned at the 5th Ecumenical Council in 553 for his Christo- logical views. He nonetheless remained an influential teacher. The fact that his exegetical writings were used as textbooks at the famous “Nestorian” theological school of Nisibis sufficiently testifies to the continuing importance of Theodore for the “Nestorian” tradition.11 One of the most unusual features of Theodore’s theological system is his teaching about two orders or, in Greek, katastases of God’s plan concerning the salvation of humankind.
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