Coptica 15, 2016

6 Lois Farag

the question, With what did the divine nature unite? Did it unite with the general essence of humanity ( ﺟﻮﻫﺮﻋﺎﻡ jawhar c ām ) or with a particular essence ( ﺟﻮﻫﺮ ﺧﺎﺹ jawhar khāṣ )? If divine nature united with the general essence, it united with human nature in its totality; if it united with a particular essence, then it united with a human hypostasis, that is, a particular human being, for hypostasis is particularity. Yūsāb elaborates on the understanding of general and particular essence within the Trinity. If one speaks about the general essence of God, then one is addressing the Trinity, but if one speaks about the particular essence of fatherhood, then one is addressing the Father; if one addresses the particularity of life, we have specifically addressed the Holy Spirit. Particularity is hypostasis. Therefore, essence or nature encompasses or comprises hypostases but a hypostasis does not comprise natures because hypostasis is the particular. Therefore, a hypostasis cannot consist of two natures. General nature comprises one or more hypostases, but a particular nature comprises only one hypostasis. Hypostasis is particularity, and with particularity there is one particular nature. 24F 25 With this clarification about the meaning of terms, Yūsāb returns to Hebrews 1:3 and inquires about the hypostasis on the cross: Was it that of God or human? If the hypostasis on the cross bled from its wounds and suffered then it must have been a human hypostasis. But this contradicts Hebrews 1:3, which asserts that this hypostasis purified us of our sins, upheld the universe by its power, and sat on the right hand of the Majesty on high. It also contradicts 1 Cor. 2:8: “They would not have crucified the Lord of glory.” If it is a human hypostasis, how can we accept that simple ﺫﺝﺳﺎ ( sādhij ) human blood is capable of our salvation? Yūsāb is arguing that if it is a human hypostasis, its simple blood cannot complete salvation, but if it is a divine hypostasis capable of saving, then this implies the divinity suffers. Neither of these possibilities is acceptable. And since a hypostasis does not consist of two natures, as he has just proven, the crucified hypostasis is that of the “one nature” Incarnate Son. Yūsāb, as many of the pre-modern theologians, does not mention his sources. It is possible that he knew the two fourteenth-century Coptic scholars, Ibn Kabar and Ibn al-Makīn the Younger, who also clarified the term hypostasis by referring to Hebrews 1:3. For them, there is no division in the hypostasis of the Incarnate Son who purified us from our sins and who sat in glory on the right hand of the majesty. 25F 26 It is not clear if Ibn Kabar and Ibn al-Makīn reached this conclusion on their own or were dependent on St. Basil’s Letter 38, with the title “To his Brother Gregory, Concerning the Difference between Substance ( ousia ) and Person 25 Ms. Theol. 5 , 172r. 26 S.Kh. Samir, Miṣbāḥ al-ẓulmah fī īḍāḥ al-khidmah li-l-qiss Shams al-Riyāsa Abū al- Barakāt al-maʿrūf b-ibn Kabar (Cairo: Maktabat kārūz, 1971), 256.