Coptica 15, 2016

4 Lois Farag

provided by the papal representative. 8F 9 Yūsāb’s letter starts by ridiculing the audacious attempts of the Roman Catholic Church and the naive attempt at forcing submission. Yūsāb then launches his theological refutation in the form of question and answer, an erotapokrisis , a classical Greek rhetorical genre 9F 10 often used in epistles and later adopted by Coptic- Arabic writers. 10F 11 Yūsāb starts with a list of the theological disagreements that he plans to discuss. The list includes: the meaning of unity of natures ﻁﺒﻴﻌﺔ( ṭabī c a , φύσις), the meaning of hypostases ( ﺍﻗﻨﻮﻡ uqnūm , ὑπόστασις), Leo of Rome’s use of the term “form” ( ﺻﻮﺭﺓ ṣūra , μορφή) in his famous Letter 28 , additions to the Nicene statement of faith at the time of Chalcedon in violation of Canon One of the Council of Constantinople I (381 AD ), 11F 12 Chalcedon’s not conforming to Cyril’s writings and thus being liable to his fourth anathema in his Third Epistle to Nestorius , 12F 13 and finally, the addition of the filioque to the Nicene Creed in another violation of conciliar canons. Yūsāb concludes his epistle with a short statement of faith. V. Theological Arguments of the Letter Yūsāb begins his refutation with Leo’s use of the term “form” in his famous Letter 28 . Leo introduced the Latin term “forma” rather than the commonly used term “natura” to describe the unity of natures in Christ. 13F 14 According to Leo, “each form [ forma ] performs what is proper to it in communion with the other, the Word achieving what is the Word’s, while the body accomplishes what is the body’s.” 14F 15 Eastern theologians used the term “form” or morphē (μορφή) primarily to express the divine kenosis of 9 Unfortunately, I had no access to Bartholomew’s letter. I could not locate it in St. Macarius’ Monastery or elsewhere. 10 Y. Papadoyannakis, Instruction by Question and Answer: The case of Late Antique and Byzantine Erotapokriseis , in S.F. Johnson, ed., Greek Literature in Late Antiquity: Dynamism, Didacticism, and Classicism (Aldershot and Burlington: Ashgate Publishing, 2006), 91-106. 11 . It was also used in “lectures, dialexeis, treatises, manuals, or dialogues.” This form was “a suitable vehicle for carrying out the wars of sectarian rivalry among Christians and was put to use in apologetic and polemical efforts”, as is the case in this letter. Ibid ., 93. 12 Canon 1 of the Council of Constantinople (381) states that “the profession of faith of the holy fathers who gathered in Nicaea in Bithynia is not to be abrogated, but it is to remain in force.” N.P. Tanner, Decrees of the Ecumenical Councils , vol. 1 (Washington, D.C.: Georgetown University Press, 1990), 31. 13 T.H. Bindley, The Oecumenical Documents of the Faith (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1980), 218. 14 It should be noted that Nestorius chose to speak about the union of “prosopa”, Cyril chose to speak about the union of “natures according to the hypostasis,” while Leo speaks about the union of “forma” or “hypostases”. 15 R. Price and M. Gaddis, eds. and trans., The Acts of the Council of Chalcedon , vol. 2 (Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 2005), 19; Bindley, Oecumenical Documents , 170 and 227.