at Bagdad), the Masalians and Henanians (p. 89). He wrote to the Maronites, then Monotheletes, and invited them to accept his own faith. This faith is, of course, Nestorianism in the mild form in which his sect held it. He repeats to the Maronites the regular formula, "two natural hypostases in one prosopon of the Son"; they are to accept Nestorius, Theodore, Diodore, and to renounce "that heretic Cyril." He agrees to their Monotheletism.[1] He settled questions of canon law and discipline, and advanced still further the power of the Katholikos over his suffragans. It is sometimes said that it was this Timothy who stopped the scandalous practice of bishops and monks with wives, and brought the discipline of the Nestorian Church to its present state (p. 134).[2] He was a person of much culture and zeal for scholarship. He was well versed in the Bible, theology and philosophy. He read Aristotle in a Syriac version, and caused other of his works to be translated in Syriac or Arabic.[3] Labourt gives a very respectable list of Greek and Latin Fathers quoted by Timothy from Syriac translations.[4] He was zealous about schools. He writes to a monk who became a bishop: "Take care of the schools with all your heart. Remember that the school is the mother and nurse of sons of the Church." And again: "Watch over scholars as the apple of your eye."[5] Our Timothy was on friendly terms with the Khalifs Al-Mahdi and Hārūn Ar-rashīd. He is said to have settled an unpleasant question of divorce to the great advantage of Hārūn's wife Zubaidah. He advised her to turn Christian, be baptized, and so deserve death, then to go back to Islam; in this way Hārūn could retake her without further trouble.[6] Strange advice for a Christian bishop to give, but it brought him great favour with the lady. He
- ↑ Labourt: op. cit. 18–19. It is curious that many Nestorians professed themselves Monotheletes, when that question came up. It seems at first like joining two opposite heresies. But Nestorians found the unity of Christ not in one hypostasis but in one operation, ἐνέργεια, though they must have meant only one operation morally. Anyhow, they were very civil to the Monotheletes, who thus held the unique position of pleasing both Nestorians and Monophysites.
- ↑ So G. D. Malech: History of the Syrian Nation, 269–270.
- ↑ We have seen that Arabic knowledge of Greek philosophy came through the Nestorians. Averroes and Avicenna, and through them St. Thomas Aquinas, may owe their knowledge of Aristotle to this very Timothy.
- ↑ Op. cit. 27–28.
- ↑ Ib. 29.
- ↑ Ib. 35.
