Seven Sessions or Just a Letter? Observations on the Structure of the Disputations between Elias, Metropolitan of Nisibis, and the Vizier Abū l-Qāsim al-Maghribī

The following article examines the structure of a remarkable Christian Arabic treatise from the eleventh century, the heyday of Arabic culture: the Book of Sessions (Kitāb al-majālis) of Elias of Nisibis (975-1046), metropolitan of the Church of the East. In this treatise, Elias presents his discussions with his Muslim interlocutor, the vizier Abū l-Qāsim al-Maghribī (981-1027). The article compares the Book of Sessions with Elias’ Epistle to the vizier, taking into consideration some further documents that shed new light on the genesis of the Book of Sessions.

The written heritage of Elias of Nisibis is extensive and multifaceted. His most popular works were the Sessions with the vizier Abū l-Qāsim al-Maghribī and the treatise Dissipation of Sorrow and Elimination of Anguish8 (Kitāb Dafʿ al-hamm wa-muzīl al-ghamm),9 written at this vizier's request.10 In addition to Elias' preoccupation with practical philosophy reflected in the Kitāb Dafʿ alhamm, one can also notice his interest in apologetics attested in the Book of the Proof of the True Faith (Kitāb al-burhān ʿalā ṣaḥīḥ al-īmān)11 and the epistles.12 Besides, he composed treatises on such diverse subjects as history (his aforementioned Chronography -Maktḇānūṯā d-zaḇnē or Kitāb al-azmina13 -written in both Syriac and Arabic), grammar,14 lexicography,15 canon law, 16 and hymnography.17 The literary opponent of Elias, the vizier Abū l-Qāsim al-Ḥusayn ibn ʿAlī al-Maghribī was born in 981 CE. His family had served the Fāṭimids, but most of its members were killed in 1010 on the orders of the mentally unstable caliph al-Ḥākim bi-Amri Llāh.18 Abū l-Qāsim was the only survivor of this massacre. He fled to Palestine and attempted to start a rebellion, but with no success. Praetermissorum libri duo.     the Book of Sessions, the other, in Elias' Epistle to the vizier. The Book of Sessions was first published in an abridged and uncritical edition by Louis Cheikho in 1922.25 Afterwards, several sections of it were published by Samir Khalil Samir.26 A complete critical edition of the Book of Sessions, along with an edition of Elias' Epistle to Abū l-Qāsim and some additional material, has been recently published by the present author.27 It seems appropriate to offer a comparative survey of these texts here.
The first session (majlis) of the Book of Sessions consists of three main parts: a story about the healing that the vizier received in a monastery; theological and philosophical discussion in which Elias asserts that the confession of God as "one substance in three hypostases" contains no contradiction since his Word and Spirit are not accidental; and, finally, the explanation of the Christian doctrine characteristic of the Church of the East which distinguishes two entities in Christ: the divine (eternal, uncreated) and the human (created).
The first part of the first majlis -the vizier's healing story -is missing in the Epistle. One can only find allusions to this story in the following impersonal phrases of Elias: "If something happens to one of them [non-Christians] or he suffers any evil, such as illness or something else, then he appeals to them [Christians] for help and benefits from this" and if he "enters a monastery, he will live."28 The second, theological and philosophical part of the first majlis is presented in the Epistle with the same argument: the confession of God being "one substance in three hypostases" contains no contradiction, because substance (jawhar) ought to be understood as "that which subsists in itself" (qāʾim binafsihi), while hypostases (aqānīm) should be interpreted in the sense that God is "living by a life and speaking by speech," and since "the Creator's self does not admit of accidents," His Word (speech) and Spirit (life) are not accidental. To the vizier's objection that such an imagery is anthropomorphic, Elias responds that, similarly, many Qurʾānic verses contain anthropomorphic imagery.29 muṭrān Nuṣaybīn," al-Mashriq 20 (1922), pp. 34-44, 112-122, 267-272, 366-377, 425-434. 26 See  The third part of the first majlis is presented in the Epistle in an abridged form: the history of the condemnation, by the catholicos of the Church of the East Ṭīmātēʾōs I, of the mystics who argued that the human hypostasis of Christ could see His divine hypostasis is omitted.30 To the mystics, vision of God implied transformation of the visionary into divinity (what one might call "deification"), for only God sees Himself. Paradoxically, based on the same assumption -that vision of God is available only to God Himself -Ṭīmātēʾōs and the mystics' other opponents denied the possibility of a human vision of God, because they rejected as impious the idea that a created being could be transformed so as to become uncreated. In the Epistle, we find only a few quotations from the New Testament pertaining to the invisibility of God (including "No one has ever seen God").31 On the basis of these quotations, Elias argues that Christians do not associate God with "anything but Himself" and are, consequently, entirely committed to monotheism (tawḥīd).
It is noteworthy that in Louis Cheikho's abridged edition of the Book of Sessions, based on inferior manuscripts, the whole section emphasizing the distinction between the created and the uncreated and the story of Ṭīmātēʾōs' condemnation of the mystics were omitted.32 In the second session (majlis), the theme of Christology is developed further. The main subject is the concept of indwelling (ḥulūl) of divinity in humanity and the special character of God's indwelling in Christ. This section of the disputation with some differences (notably, the presence of Christian apocryphal legends in quotations from Ibn al-Kalbī's Tafsīr33 in the Epistle) is present in both the Book of Sessions and the Epistle. However, the problem of a theologically motivated removal of a part of the text is also manifest in this

case: the discussion of God's indwelling in Christ is omitted both in a number of manuscripts of the Book of Sessions and in Cheikho's edition.34
It is worth mentioning that in Christian theological terminology, the concept of indwelling is based on the following words from the prologue of the Gospel of John: "And the Word became flesh, and dwelt in us" (John 1:14). In some Arabic translations used at that time, the words καὶ ἐσκήνωσεν ἐν ἡμῖν ("and dwelt in us") were translated as wa-ḥalla fīnā. This translation can also be found in the commentary on John 1:14 by Elias of Nisibis' contemporary Abū l-Faraj ʿAbd Allāh ibn al-Ṭayyib al-ʿIrāqī (d. 1043).35 The image of the indwelling of God's Word in mankind similar to His dwelling in the temple (cf. John 2:19) was frequently used by Syrian authors, both in Syriac and in Greek (in particular, Theodore of Mopsuestia).36 Subsequently, opponents of the Antiochene Christological tradition found this indwelling imagery to be "Nestorian" and renounced it.37 Evidence of this can be seen in the text of the second majlis: according to Elias, it is only the Church of the East, but not the other two Christian denominations (the Jacobites and the Melkites) that uses the concept of indwelling (ḥulūl). This is because it is only the Church of the East that draws a consistent distinction between the divinity and the humanity of Christ; for this reason, the concept of indwelling is appropriate for it, while the other two denominations emphasize Christ's divinity to such an extent ("Christ is God") that the concept of indwelling is no longer acceptable for them. There is no doubt that the omission, in some manuscripts of the Book of Sessions and in Cheikho's edition, of precisely this section of the second majlis, in which Elias  Tafsīr al-Mashriqī, ay al-qass Abū [sic] l-Faraj, li-l-arbaʿat  clearly subscribes to the doctrine of indwelling, is due to theologically motivated censorship.
In his emphasis on the duality in Christ -or, in other words, on the total "otherness" of the created in relation to the uncreated -Elias likely pursued two goals at once. First, by drawing an emphatic distinction between the humanity of Christ on the one hand and God the Word on the other, the latter dwelling in the former with an excellent "dignity, contentment, and will" ("and holiness," according to the Epistle), he seeks to justify, in the eyes of his Muslim interlocutor, not only the confession of his Church, but also the very concept of God's indwelling, often deemed suspect in Islamic thought. Second, Elias seeks to present his own denomination in a favorable light as compared to the Christology of his theological opponents: the Jacobites and the Melkites. His polemic with these two Christian communities is, therefore, far from accidental.
The third session (majlis) -"Concerning the Proof of the Monotheism of the Christians from the Qurʾān" -is found, with some discrepancies, both in the Book of Sessions and in the Epistle. In the Epistle, it is preceded by an argument that the Qurʾānic accusation that Christians are polytheists is either meant literally and is, therefore, erroneous (with the implication that the Qurʾān is wrong -something that Elias' Muslim opponent cannot acknowledge) or is meant to be interpreted allegorically.38 Following this argument, New Testament quotations are adduced to confirm the monotheistic belief of the Christians of the Church of the East.39 Both the argument and the quotations are omitted in the Book of Sessions. Also in the Epistle, Elias quotes several statements by Muslim Qurʾān commentators. Elias draws them from Abū Jaʿfar al-Ṭabarī, whose Tafsīr he quotes frequently and at length. The Epistle refers to "readings of Ibn Masʿūd";40 in the Book of Sessions, however, these quotations are omitted. The following two sections in the Epistle concerning the Christians' obedience to Muslims, which exceeds their obedience to other rival communities, and concerning the mutual conformity of the Muslim and Christian laws are present in the Book of Sessions: the section on obedience is placed at the very end of the book, and the section on laws is included in the third majlis in an abbreviated form (in particular, references to three founders of the main schools of Muslim law -al-Shāfiʿī, Mālik and Abū Ḥanīfa -are omitted).41 Anti-Jewish polemical passages, both in this section of the text and in many other places, were removed and are mostly absent from the Book of Sessions. ed. Seleznyov, 39 ed. Seleznyov,.  al-nuqaṭ.44 The second section of the fourth majlis is a story about Elias' teacher Yūḥannā, a clairvoyant elder. This story was evidently designed to show that the events in a Christian's life are governed by God's providence.
In the fifth majlis of the Book of Sessions Elias outlines his creed as well as lists theological views rejected by the Christian community that he represents. Both elements are found also in the Epistle, except that Elias' emphatically monotheistic creed is located at the very beginning of the Epistle, whereas the list of rejected views is provided considerably later, approximately in the middle of the text.
The sixth majlis, containing a comparative analysis of syntax, lexicography, calligraphy, kalām (ʿilm al-kalām), i.e., the art of argumentation, and logic among the Arabs and the Syrians, is completely absent from the text of the Epistle. This "debate" looks like an artificial addition -the vizier would have hardly endorsed a conversation about the Syriac language, especially given that Elias insists on the superiority of Syriac over Arabic.45 In the seventh majlis of the Book of Sessions, Elias refutes the validity of the "decrees of the stars" (aḥkām al-nujūm, i.e., astrology), examines the issue of Christian-Muslim relations, and offers an account of the nature of the soul. In the Epistle, the anti-astrological section is expanded, and the discussion of Christian-Muslim relations is incorporated in the third majlis, in the section on the obedience of Christians to Muslims and the mutual conformity of Muslim and Christian laws. The Epistle contains no detailed discussion of the soul; it mentions only that the view that the soul is an accident and not a substance is characteristic of the Jews, whereas the opposite view is characteristic of the Sabians.46 Finally, at the end of the Book of Sessions, the vizier asks Elias to call on the monks to pray for him. Subsequently, an account of subsequent meetings and communications between the metropolitan and the vizier is provided. It also includes details of a conversation between Elias and his brother (who was a doctor who looked after Abū l-Qāsim) and of the vizier's death (on 15 October 1027). It is mentioned that the Book of Sessions was approved (effectively, given the "nihil obstat") by Abū l-Faraj ʿAbd Allāh ibn al-Ṭayyib.47 None of this, of course, is found in the text of the Epistle. they held several meetings, "up to seven sessions." "Then," he continues, "the aforementioned vizier left Nisibis for his residence and pondered over what he had talked about with the aforementioned metropolitan; and [because] some things from the discussion were difficult for him [to accept], he sent him a letter,"51 asking for clarification. In response, Elias sent him the detailed Epistle.
This purported reconstruction, however, proves to be inadequate, since large sections of the Epistle and the Book of Sessions are identical. Given that the Epistle repeats sections of the Book of Sessions verbatim, it was certainly not intended as a clarification of the Book of Sessions. Moreover, it is evident from the vizier's first letter to the metropolitan that the vizier was dissatisfied with what he had previously heard about Christianity from some (other) learned Christians, whereas from Elias, on the contrary, he expects to receive satisfactory responses to his perplexities; he also expresses his desire that these responses be as brief as possible. It is obvious that by the time of writing he had already communicated with Elias. For example, he asks Elias to send him "what he had written in refutation of al-Jāḥiẓ" (mā ʿamilahu fī l-radd ʿalā l-Jāḥiẓ) and expresses a desire to read Elias' Dissipation of Sorrow,52 which Elias had promised to send the vizier because of the latter's anguished state of mind, as becomes clear from the vizier's subsequent letter.53 It seems more plausible that after Elias' initial meeting with Abū l-Qāsim, they did not have the kind of long and sophisticated discussions of theological and ethical matters that we find in the Book of Sessions, but rather touched on a number of topics of interest to the vizier. Subsequently, the metropolitan would have promised to respond to the vizier in writing in further detail.54 The vizier must have departed to his residence in Mayyāfāriqīn. Soon thereafter, he would have received a gift from Elias -a kind of "calculator of feast days and the beginning of years and months."55 Intrigued by this and wishing to hear more, the vizier replied by expressing gratitude and requesting both additional information about the calculation system and answers to the questions previously touched upon.56 This was followed by Elias' Epistle with the promised answers. Neither the treatise on the dissipation of sorrow nor the "refutation of al-Jāḥiẓ" seems to have been ready at the time.57 Nevertheless, as can be seen