Page:Early Christianity in Arabia.djvu/123

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IN ARABIA.
111

of Eutyches were warmly opposed by Flavian, the primate of Constantinople; and, attended by some of his friends, their author was tried before an assembly of thirty bishops. To the question of Flavian, "Dost thou acknowledge that Jesus Christ, the only Son of God, resembles the Father in his godhead, and his mother in his humanity—that he consists of two natures?" he answered—"As I acknowledge him for my God, and for the Lord of heaven and earth, I presume not to define his nature; but that he possesses a human nature like ours, I have not yet acknowledged." "But," said Flavian, "dost thou not believe that he may be like God in his divinity, and like us men in his humanity?" "Hitherto I have never said that the body of the Lord our God is like ours; but I acknowledge that the holy virgin was of the same nature as we, and that our God received

    voluntatibus duabus." Id. p. 59. The creed of the Jacobites as given by Ibn Batrik (Hotting. Topogr. Christiana Orient. p. 16), was طبيعتة واحدة ومشية واحدة وفعل واحد‎ "one nature and one will and one operation." In the Comment. de Ordinat. (Hotting. p. 18), it is expressed thus—"From the womb he had unity personally and naturally, and from that time God was incarnate. And there was one nature in him, as also one person, but not two natures, or in two natures"—ܘܚܕ ܒܝܢܐ ܐܟܡܐ ܕܐܦܚܕ ܩܢܘܡܐ ܘܠܘ ܬܪܝܢ ܟܝܢܐ ܐܘܟܬܪܝܢ ܟܝܢܐ‎ The author of the Syriac work on the Jacobite doctrines cited by Hottinger (p. 27), when speaking of the incarnation uses such phrases as ܥܒ ܦܓܪܐ‎ he put on the body, or he appeared ܒܐܣܟܡܐ ܕܐܢܫܐ‎ in the form of a man, or ܐܬܕܡܝܠܢ‎ he became like us, or ܫܩܠ ܕܡܘܬܢ‎ he bore our image.