Elijah of Nisibis

Thank heavens for people in the past who took the time to write down what they knew—although, to be fair, we have very few means to independently verify the truth of what they wrote. The best we can hope for is to compare what they wrote to the records of others, examine as best we can at this remove what political or religious or personal motives they might have had, and then make a case for their truthfulness.

Elijah of Nisibis was a member of the Church of the East, which is also known as the Assyrian Church, or the Nestorian Church, or even the Babylonian Church. It was different from the Chalcedonian Church, from which modern Roman Catholicism (and therefore Protestantism) and Eastern Orthodoxy descend.

He was originally known as Elijah Bar Shinajah, meaning "Elijah, son of Šena." Šena was not his father, but a reference to a town near what is present-day Al-Zab, Iraq. Born in 975, he was ordained a priest in 994, made a bishop in 1002, and became archbishop of Nisibis in 1008.

A fulfilling life for him, certainly, but he is important to us because of his desire to write and explain, and his desire to have intellectual discussion with non-Christians.

His reputation extended not only among Christian scholars and theologians of his era but also Muslim mutakallimūn and intellectuals. This recognition stemmed not only from his profound knowledge spanning medicine, mathematics, philosophy, Arabic and Syriac philology, ethics, Christian theology, and Islamic Kalām, but also from his adeptness at enculturating his philosophical and theological doctrines within the Islamic world through the adoption of Islamic language and terminology. [source]

(The illustration is part of one of his works written in Arabic script.) While at Nisibis, he met with the Muslim vizier Abū al-Qāsim al-Maġribī for discussions on various topics of mutual interest, and to enable both to learn about the other's faith. The two remained in contact, and a few letters between the two from the following year exist.

The visits, from 15 to 29 July 1026, are called the "Seven Sessions." They were initiated by the vizier himself after he experienced a miraculous cure at the hands of a Christian monk. They were written up by Elijah and covered the following topics:

• God's unity (because of the Trinity, Christianity was considered polytheistic and therefore "false")
• Jesus's incarnation of two natures (divine and human)
• Quranic support for considering some forms of Christianity as monotheistic
• Logical and miraculous justifications for various Christian doctrines
• Elijah's own profession of monotheism
• Language, and considerations of its importance in theology
• Christian perspectives on astrology, Islam, and the soul

Tomorrow I'd like to start exploring some of Elijah's writings. See you then.