SSCN Voumes 1-10, 1994-2004

St. Shenouda Coptic Newsletter

Father in his Substance, that he is eterousios…..It is sufficient to the wise and faithful to know that the Son is with the Father and the Holy Ghost before all creation, even before the creation the archangels and of all the angels, and of all powers and principalities. 29 The Church historian Cardinal Grillmeier believes that Shenoute was familiar with the Cappadocian application of the term homoousios to the Holy Spirit and accepted it along with the formula of the three hypostases in the union of nature or essence in the Trinity, and this at a time when the Council fathers at Constantinople were not in agreement. 30 Eucharist and Prayer Flowing from these Christological ideas of Shenoute are the strong views he has on the Eucharist and Prayer. He saves some of his most pointed criticism for those who do not accept the mystery of the Eucharist. He does not go into a long discourse on how the Eucharist is confected nor does he, as do Western theologians, attempt to explain the mystery in philosophical categories. He states the mystery from the Scripture that the Eucharist is the body and blood of Christ and expects that those who are believers will maintain this doctrine. Of those who do not uphold this doctrine he writes: Besides others uphold that bread and the chalice are of the body and blood of Christ but only a symbol. As if they have fainted from this. I tremble for all this impiety…The Lord Himself personally said: who will eat my body and drink my blood will live forever" (Jn 6:55) and also "This is my body and my blood" (Mt 26:28)….They have said instead that it is not his body nor his blood. Enough from them, enough from those that received their word. How can he scorn the bread and the chalice without scorning Jesus even more. Besides they mock the Holy Spirit that descends on these at the command of God so that they may become the body and blood of Christ. Truly whoever says it is neither his body nor his blood and even mores some of them are ours, they are not only pagans but even more wicked, they are dogs and pigs. Are they perhaps saying it is bread we are eating? Maybe it is not the mystery according to Scripture? 31 Finally Shenoute highlights the role of Christ in prayer in this treatise. Shenoute envisions prayer as one of the means that one does to receive

feet of a man" but he said "my own feet and my own hands" in the Gospel of Luke without separating the body from the divinity. 23 And again: they said of Him: They shall look upon Him whom they pierced (in John's Gospel) and they did not separate the divinity from the body." 24 "But the works of the apostles confutes his [Nestorius] foolishness: in I Cor we read the Lord of glory is the one who was crucified, in Acts of the Apostles we read "The Author of Life, you have killed." They did not say: 'He is a man united with a God" 25 The Theotokos Of course the controversy over the use of the title Theotokos generated considerable theological heat at the Council of Ephesus. To disallow its use was to imply that Christ was not God. In fact Cyril and the council Bishops who followed him felt it was important enough to include it in the list of Council anathemas for those who did not subscribe to it. Although Shenoute did not use the term Theotokos he ascribed to it and wrote: Then it is a God the one that the Virgin generated, and thus it is impossible not to agree on the fact that Mary gave birth to God, as our ancestors said. 26 He makes a number of references in the treatise " to Mary the Virgin Mother of God become man." Behold a virgin will conceive and bear a son and he will be named Immanuel which means God is with us…If he was not conceived then neither was he brought forth. If he was not brought forth he did not become man, he was not crucified; if not crucified, he did not rise on the third day and did not go up to his first holy residence as the Father command him in the beginning. 27 That after He, Christ was generated by the Virgin according to the flesh he became like us liable to all things, except sin: he was hungry and thirsty, he wept, and he suffered for the hardness of those who would not believe. 28 The Holy Trinity

St. Shenouda Coptic Newsletter In line with the Council of Constantinople, which some authors maintain Shenoute attended while the majority do not find sufficient evidence for his attendance, we find Shenoute writing

"It is clear that by saying Jesus we name the consubstantial Trinity. But the heretics say show us this omoousios, where it is written in the scriptures" Shenoute replies: show me from which scriptures you have learned that the Son is different from the

7