2010

There are two different genealogies of Jesus; one is in the Gospel of Matthew and the other in Luke. Their difference is not of interest for me here, since neither of them was concerned to draw on the family tree of Jesus in precision, rather each of them had a theological treatise, hidden behind the names which had appeared in the history of the Old Testament. Thus, there is a relation between the treatises and the Old Covenant, which implies certain theological meanings associated to the genealogy, and in general are associated with the humanity of Christ. It had not occurred to the early readers of the Gospel to confirm the humanity [of Christ]; however, it had occurred later, as some people had denied the reality of his body, and others had denied his divinity. These two lists had appeared as supportive of the doctrine in this or that time.

The theological difference is clear between Matthew and Luke, because of the difference of the purposes both had. Luke starts with Joseph, who “as was supposed” – these are Luke’s words – was Jesus’ father [see Luke 3:23]. Referring to what was “supposed” at that time, Luke aims at asserting the virginity of Mary, as it was mentioned in the tradition prior to his writing, and was stated clearly in Matthew’s writing. We do not know if Luke had read Matthew, since both, as contemporary scholars assert, had written their gospels between the years eighty to ninety of the first century.

However, Luke had written from the position of the whole humanity, while Matthew [see Matt. 1: 1-17] from the Jewish position. Luke starts with Joseph and closes with Adam, while Matthew starts with Abraham and arrives at Joseph. Matthew’s contention is that Jesus Christ is the anointed one, for whom the prophets had hoped, and who completes the [line of the] descendents of faith, which had started with Abraham. Luke, on the other hand, wanted to show that Jesus Christ is the savior of the world, and thus, he closes the genealogy with Adam. However, after mentioning this, he said about Jesus that he is the Son of God.

In both genealogies Abraham does not belong to Israel. Abraham says about his father: “A wandering Aramean was my father”. (Deut. 26: 5) Thus, Israel had not begun with him. Israel was the name of Jacob, the grandson of Abraham. In the Byzantine Liturgy the day of tomorrow is called the Ancestors’ Sunday [the Sunday of the Holy Genealogy], and Melchizedek is one of them, who was not from Israel and had blessed Abraham. Thus, at least Jesus is associated with two people, who were not Hebrew. He is associated to this Canaanite king, without having a physical bond to him. And here we should search for the Church’s intention, which perceives a kind of affinity for two people who do not belong to Israel. What about this bond [or affinity]?

The Book says about Melchizedek that he was the king of peace, or the king of Jerusalem, before David had made it the capital of his kingdom. Melchizedek is an image or a paradigm of Christ. In today’s language, we say that there is a cultural bond [between the two], not a religious one.

In different terms, Christ is the heir of those with whom He had no blood relationship. By this I do not propose that the Lord has taken over something from the gentiles of Galilee, who used to speak Greek, however, the Church has known Him as open to those who preceded Him, who were outside the Jewish people. This is not limited to those who had preceded Jesus, rather his Church is open to those who were contemporary with her [the Church] after Him, and they are actualized in her, whether they know it or no. Thus, the Gospel puts on itself other religious cultures without betraying itself, and it takes the proper way to express itself whenever it enters different religious and cultural domains.

It is here that Christian mission meets the Greek thought. The Gospel does not include the word ‘essence’ by which we describe divine nature, it also does not include the word ‘hypostases’ [or divine person]. However, this does not mean that Christianity became Greek in the First Ecumenical Council (of Nicaea), which brought about the Creed of Faith, that gathers all Christian churches together. Rather, the Church wanted to enter the Greek civilization in order that it might spread within the Hellenistic educated milieus. The Fathers, who had Greek education, had known that they had not betrayed the Gospel, but they were conveying it through the language of their age.

Is it not possible that the Hellenistic culture becomes a garment for the Gospel, which had put on itself the Hebrew culture, at the times of its writing? It is as well a human culture. In every era Christians were faithful to a Gospel which had put on itself Hebrew robe. Why not, that in a different era, the Gospel puts on itself the garment which it needs?

Why does not the German philosophy, for example, or the philosophies ensuing it, become clothing for the Gospel-revelation, in the sincerity of every generation to the one Revelation?

After the Pentecost, all the apostles had spoken different languages, mentioned in the book of Acts, to tell about whatever had been revealed to them in their own languages. Thus, languages are many but Revelation is one.

Similarly, you have in Christianity different liturgies, however the Church had emerged as one, it had different kinds of worship, yet the core of worship is also one.

We baptize cultures as we baptize the person. Whenever the mature person accepts baptism, he/[she] casts sin off, including all thought that contradicts [the mind of] of Christ, yet, one’s inner nature remains, and also one’s good dispositions, since one discards only the evil dispositions. One does not cast off one’s vocation, languages, national identity, and such a person would not have any proper belonging. In baptism one is not attached to any human identity, rather one is renewed into a new being, though safeguarding the old that is good in him/[her].

Christianity compiles all advantages of cultures and discards only their disadvantages. The human being is renewed in the depth of his/[her] inner soul, and he/[she] is in accordance with the image of God before baptism. The wrongs that one caries were not part of the image of God, by which he/[she] was made. The Christian is renewed by the newness of Christ and is [at the same time] ancient as the ancientness of Adam. He/[she] continues to be the son/[daughter] of Adam, though he/[she] becomes the son/[daughter] of God through faith.

The beauty of the human being is in that which he/[she] has inherited from both his/[her] Lord and Adam. God does not exterminate in us our humanity, and our humanity receives divinity and they unite without division, separation or confusion. In our belief “the Son of God became man so that we might become God.” [St. Athanasius, De inc. 54, 3] God’s move toward us was a descent, while our move toward God was an ascent, and this is what we mean when we say that He “has seated on the right hand of the Father”, i.e., His humanity, because of His death and resurrection, deserved to be the courtier of the Lord on the throne. This is a continuous move toward God through God’s grace, benevolence and gratification, and we remain creatures, nevertheless, new creatures. God, through God’s Word, continues to descend to the end of the ages, and the human being continues to ascend, through the power of the same Word, and the mystery of this lies in God’s love to the human being.

Once, a friend of mine, who was knowledgeable in music, asked me, do we hear the Ninth Symphony in heaven? I answered him, you glean the essence of the Ninth Symphony, without voice or timbre, i.e., the heart continues to carry all the riches of the mind and we do not return to the ignorance in which we were before we receive knowledge.

Heavenly things do not extinguish earthly realities, in which God’s Spirit has dwelt. History, with all its glory, is inscribed in eternity. We were not given eternity, that is in us, at the moment of our acquiring it, since whatever we have acquired has descended upon us from that who has no beginning, that is why there is no end for the human being, whom God has glorified by resurrection. This implies that we are in heaven here, as we have received it through love, and whatever comes to us through love accompanies us after resurrection, and probably itself is the cause of resurrection.

Thus, we are resurrectionists through whatever we derive from goodness and understanding, since they are of the truth which divine favor has poured upon us.

Christ, in His humanity which has inherited all the beauties of history preceding Him, and has embraced the beauties of the history ensuing Him, is an image of our destiny.

Translated by Sylvie Avakian-Maamarbashi

Original Text: “تحدر يسوع البشري وارتقاؤنا” –An Nahar- 11.12.2010

Life, in its plain sense, is the span which extends from the moment of birth to the hour of death. Life has many aspects, and we should become acquainted with some of them in order to have a comprehensive understanding of it. I start with whatever is at the surface of existence, namely the body. This is the clearest proof of our existence. Our body-parts are in it or from it. We feel it healthy or sick. Our mood fluctuates with its changes. Through it we express a lot of our feelings. In it every thought of our reflections, whether we think of good or of evil, is preserved. It is our kin, and sometimes our friend. It astonishes us greatly whenever we realize its functions and the amazing bond between them.

Flesh and bones, blood and air, how do all this correlate and straighten up? This sensible entity contributes to lead the people to God, though material is unable to produce life in its finest sense. How could your deficiency accompany you and you remain in the mystery of your unity and in great or little integrity, until your unity perishes as God recaptures you to God’s mercy.

Maybe the enchantment grows whenever you contemplate on the way two bodies meet and another body is produced, namely a new life. This brings to them both growth, revival, pleasantness and freedom, rather than a detraction. You see and do not understand that the whole of the person is in the embryo, in its biology and complexions, and in its aptness for education.

However, the macrocosm is not one body. It has now about seven billion persons, of all colors and statures. Every one of them is different from the other, in every part of his/[her] visible or invisible parts. On the lowest level of existence you may know people through their eyes, hands and so forth. This is the first level of knowledge in which no contempt is incorporated to any one, where the strong and the weak, the upright and the disabled are equal. All people, whether they realize or no, are in a state of praise to God. One of our Fathers said that the body with the soul is according to the image of God. The Lord in the New Testament has never talked about beauty that some have, and the reason for this is that all His children, however they appear, are equal for Him and for His love of them. God places within every one of us God’s splendor and this has nothing to do with whatever one considers as distinction in him/[her].

Greater than the body is the mind, by which we delve into the mysteries [of our humanity] and the mysteries of the universe. The ancient ones said that the human being is a talking animal, and by this they referred to the mind, since by it the human being is distinguished from all creatures. This is based on the brain, but [in fact] it is not the brain. The mind in Arabic refers to the correlation, and it is known as logic, and in language it is the space which unifies the thought, namely discovers the vision and makes the human being the master of creation, after God, since he/[she] comprehends it as everything is brought together in his/[her] mind.

Knowledge is composed through us and we seek to bring [its details] together in order that it attains unification. Hence, the work emerges through which we might change the world and mold its parts and this is what God desired when God called us to have dominion over the world. In the language of God our share is not pride but service and through service the universe rises as we bring it to our human reality. In this we become humble. The dominion that we have is about humility, through which the universe becomes greater in us and we become greater in it.

We enter the universe; we do not break through it. And whenever we come with softness we are trained to be tender. The mind might be a path to the heart. Without the heart the mind becomes tyrannic, while through it the mind escapes its own probable arrogance which would make it an instrument for destruction and death for us and others. Thus, we do not agree with the saying of Abul ʿAla Al-Maʿarri that there is no imam other than the mind. The intelligence of our great poet should have held him back from this assurance, through which he wanted to fight superstitions. However, a sound mind is free from superstition. It is [only] in need of blessings from above in order to be liberated from its partiality against the torsion which comes from every aberration in thought.

At the minimum, the mind is adornment, as the public say [in Arabic]. However, it is more important than that. It is our construction in its amplitude and inclusiveness, though the knowledgeable and the ignorant are equal in front of God. Yes, the ignorant might disturb you whenever you were perceptive, nevertheless, you should embrace him/[her] since he/[she] is the beloved of God and he/[she] helps you not to boast about thought. Divine grace descends upon whomever it wills. It is not your achievement, but God’s, that God pours upon you the radiation of your existence. Arrogance is a great sin which distorts the image of God within you. However, you might like the gathering of the intelligent ones. These all might bring growth to you and to them and it might be the start of fraternity, through which God is glorified.

This would bring about talents and their diffusion. Thus, let truth come from wherever it can and to whoever accepts it. The mind which revolves around truth is what the Lord wants for you. You are not the purpose of your intelligence; it is rather God and your companions. Do not look at your mind as in a mirror. Look at only to those whom you serve.

The Orthodox say that the mind has to descend to the heart in order to get purified and then ascend in order to become a good mind. One of the Sufis (Al-Hallaj) said to God: “Your place in my heart is the whole of my heart”. The heart is then, for our elders, not the center of emotional affection, it is the center for understanding whenever God descends to it. As if our elders say that God is the source of understanding.

This takes me to the Gospel of John, the story of the Last Supper. The Evangelist says: “Now there was leaning on Jesus’ bosom one of His disciples, whom Jesus loved. Simon Peter therefore motioned to him to ask who it was of whom He spoke. Then, leaning back on Jesus’ breast, he said to Him, “Lord, who is it?”” (John 13: 23-25, [NKJ]) In Hebrew perceptions the bosom was the place of emotion where the beloved disciple was received. However, as he leaned back on the breast of the Master he reached the heart, namely the place of understanding.

You understand when God speaks to you. And when God embraces you to Godself, you own your heart and God indwells in it. God’s understanding becomes yours. Then, you embrace the universe to yourself and you understand it as the heart and the mind meet.

One transcends the most whenever one loves and accepts the mind in him/[her]self. God within you is the one who understands.

Human formation starts with the body, which is of the earth, and the soul, which God has breathed in it. Thus, we have dust and mind, and the earthly reality transcends to the mind. And whenever the mind rests in the heart and receives love from it, it becomes purified. Then, you take the cover of love, since “Love is patient; love is kind; love is not envious or boastful or arrogant … it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice in wrongdoing, but rejoices in the truth.” (1Cor. 4-6)

The human being is a body which transcends toward the mind, and a mind which rises by the heart. These together form the ascending existence which aspires to perfection, so that whenever God sees it, God knows that you have completed your strive on earth, and nothing befits you, after this, other than heaven.

Translated by Sylvie Avakian-Maamarbashi

Original Text: “الحياة” –An Nahar- 04.12.2010

[Death] seems to be the main issue in life. We are holding on to life since we were not created to die. However the human being was given to choose death, and he/[she] has chosen it. And it came upon him/[her] as a punishment when he/[she] has consented to be overcome by sin. Sin was crawled into his/[her] existence, as if he/[she] has not believed that the question of sin in him/[her] is very serious. He/[she] did not want to think that it might destroy him/[her]. Is, then, the human race blemished? Each one of us is born blemished. This is the reality of our soul and body. This is why Christianity says that there should be a Savior. Can the broken one restore him/[her]self? Does the paralyzed recover and walk by him/[her]self?

We say that there is no human being who lives and does not sin. Freud had discovered that each one of us is afflicted with neurosis, i.e. there is a flexure in every being. However Freud does not say that a person is sinful. The whole matter did not concern him. The huge feeling of guilt is according to Freud a complex. Why does the human being die? Scientists have no problem with this question. The body, for them, is a chemical laboratory, in which salt and potassium might become unbalanced, or, it might not have enough oxygen. Thus, chaos might prevail in its members. Why does all this happen? Those experts of the human body have no answer. We console one another by poems, whenever we remain on the level of life-science. No one knows how we inherit death.

That which we call [in Arabic] death-struggle denotes that we naturally refuse death, since we feel that our departing life is against what we have longed for, during our earthly life. Yes, we have inherited the Jewish thought that God “gives life and He causes death”, since we think that God is the cause of existence and of its vanishing. However, we know that God is pure existence and there is no trace of nullity in God. And also we know from the book of Genesis that God allowed Adam to die, if he would choose that. Hence, God is not the origin of death. Later, Paul had explained it saying, “for the wages of sin is death” [Rom. 6: 23]. Thus, death has crawled to us with the crawling of sin. How was that? We do not know how, unless through the figure of the serpent, which is an outside factor. We do not have any explanation of the origin of sin in the human being or from the human being. Death is a mystery similar to life. Its case, or its way to us is the sin, namely that for which we were not prepared, but it was given freedom.

How freedom has inclined to that which disparages it? How freedom has lost much of its beauty? How has it stumbled? Through its inclination, evil has become a very bastard, troublesome event, unbearable burden, which is the visible or the familiar norm, though it was not there in the origin of creation. Whoever looks at us does not perceive the feature of first creation. The original beauty was lost, and our ways have become ways to the fall and then to total ruin. Thus, our ways adhered to sin and death, until the dawn of new life shines through the Savior.

In all this, what about the death of Christ? Christ has volunteered to die. This has to be emphasized a lot in order that we might understand our death within the journey, which Jesus has inaugurated. If he has died for us, then sin has been eradicated by His death, as if it was not. This is the first meaning of salvation. The essence of this meaning is that love has led Jesus to death. The deeper meaning is that He wanted to accompany us in everything, even in this visible annihilation, which is called death. By this, He has freed us from the fear of death, according to the apostle’s words:  “Since therefore the children share in flesh and blood, he himself likewise partook of the same nature, that through death he might destroy him who has the power of death, …  and deliver all those who through fear of death were subject to lifelong bondage.” (Heb. 2: 14-15)

This is the step, so that we might view ourselves as free from the burden of this terrible atrocity, which is death. The Nazarene has granted us that we do not fear. This is possible for those who have achieved a high stage in faith, as if they have risen from the dead. The death-struggle remains as the climax of pain, whenever we were conscious of it. The death-struggle is the last scene which reflects the paradox of life and death. And it is possible, as you are in the middle of the struggle, that you pass through the physical life to eternal life, and that you rise and become untroubled and taste the beginnings of eternity. Though, the old person might remain in you, which Adam has become after he ate from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.

Each of us is old, yet one does not become aware of one’s oldness unless one comes upon Christ at a great encounter. Very few are those who do not fear the end of the earthly existence.

Redemption has not abolished death, in the sense that general resurrection is still hoped for. And after the Lord has forgiven all our sins, we still carry their marks, namely much of inner deep blemish. However, we are still given resurrections through repentances and the anticipation of the light, which dwells in us after death. We articulate this in the creed of faith, saying: “We look for the Resurrection of the dead, and the life of the age to come.” [Nicene-Constantinopolitan Creed]. Why did the creed not continue saying: “We believe in Resurrection of the dead”? Maybe because in what has preceded, the creed has described only faith in God, and there is no faith without God, while the event, and I mean the resurrection of the dead, falls within the words of hope.

Thus, we say that we do not die like the pagans or the atheists, who have no hope. Because of Jesus, death has become not a joy, but an open door to the light, which will not dwell in all its power unless with the second coming of Christ. And when the apostle says, “the last enemy to be destroyed is death” [1 Corinthians 15: 26], death remains an enemy even after our embracing Christ, however, it is a defeated enemy by our hope. “O death, where is thy victory? O death, where is thy sting?” (1Cor, 15: 55)

All these words mean that, through Christ, we are not reconciled with death. [Christ] “Who trampled down death by death”, has reconciled us with resurrection. We die, not as constrained, and the eyes of our heart are open to the Kingdom, which has approached us through Christ, “The Kingdom of heaven is at hand” [Matt.4: 17]. We taste whatever we were promised by. Yes, after the words of sanctification, John Chrysostom, in his Liturgy, says about the offerings that they are “the completion of the Kingdom of heaven”. For me this is an ecstatic utterance, in order to maintain that the flesh and the blood of the Lord here resemble the coming Kingdom with its power, since after that we die. And through the Savior we turn away from trial and condemnation.

It might be that the greatest grace we receive throughout the death-struggle, or before it, is our feeling of being embraced by Jesus, and this embracement is forgiveness and promise. This is the tranquility at which we arrive, as we feel that death is approaching us. It knocks the door and we expect it, and we know that it has been trampled by the resurrection of the Savior. We know that He is the triumphant in us, and that we are detached from the bosom of this world so that we might be thrown into the bosom of the Savior as beloved, and we know that He raises us to His chest in order that we might understand everything.

And understanding is glory. That is why we speak of glorified bodies, namely the bodies which receive the pouring of divine light upon them. We also know that the light of the Savior will descend upon the whole universe, and the dust will fall from it, in order that it might become full light. And as God has said in the beginning, let there be light and there was light, and that was the first day, on the Last Day God will say let light prevail the whole creation. Thus, our Lord will declare to the creatures: This is the eighth day which ends the old times, in order that new heaven and new earth might become, and might be wholly formed by light. “And death shall be no more”. (Rev. 21: 4)

Translated by Sylvie Avakian-Maamarbashi

Original Text: “الموت” –An Nahar- 27-11-2010

It is extremely difficult to talk about the relationship between these two communities in the world because of the confusion of the religious and political levels within them. Starting from this, religion and the world are always joined in the Islamic mind, according to what most religious scholars say. From this reality, Christianity in the eyes of Islam is the Christianity of the West that since the Crusader campaigns is always politicized. For a period of two hundred years there was combat between a West that was conscious of its own Christianity and the East. Then came colonialism, which in part targeted the Dar al-Islam. Since then the West is always in need of an enemy, it replaced enmity for Communism with enmity for the world of Islam and from that time the West was filled with scholarly studies about Islam, some of which are good and some of which are bad.

The scene is that Europe has been more civilizationally advanced than the Dar al-Islam since the fourth century of the Hijra, while before this the Muslims were the ones with philosophy and science. The Arab East, the bearer of Islamic thought, began to retreat and went back to repeating itself and became civilizationally and materially impoverished. This is what partially explains its tumultuous uprising in terrorist groups supplied with weapons bought from America, which has become the heart of the West, or with weapons sent by America. In other words, the West is slaughtering itself with weapons it produces and whose sale and distribution is ostensibly not supervised. That it, the West itself feeds Islamophobia and ignores whether it will meet its consequences. In this picture, who is responsible for the massacre of Christians in an Iraqi church?

This means that the encounter between Christians (who are always Westerners in the mind of Muslims) and Muslims is impossible because what is involved in reality is not Islam and Christianity but Muslim peoples and Western Christian peoples. This is what leads us to the first question, which is the ability of the Islamic mind to break itself from blending religion and the world or the state and the Islamic world, since it is what the Qur’an calls ‘the first things’ in relation to the last things. That is, the question of how to translate in political terms, the inspired statement, “The last things are better for you than the first” (Surat al-Duha 4). Do the first things have complete independence from the last things since the Dar al-Islam is necessarily armed against the West which is arrogant and eager to stomp on the poor? The second questions is are there powers in the Eastern Christian or Western Christian world that are able to put forward a church that is above political desires? I do not have a realistic answer to these two questions. However, my theological and historical conviction is that a Russia that is once again inspired by her Orthodoxy and the Orthodox Balkans after their break from the Ottomans do not harbor enmity to Islam. In the Russian Federation there are no less than twenty million Muslims who live in peace. Ataturk, after ridding himself of the Greek Christians in Anatolia, no longer had the problem of Christians among his people.

Perhaps there is a third question. How can the West, which has effectively adopted the Islamic view of the blending of religion and state, return to the purity of its Christianity which does not know this blending? Can countries be run by saints?

One of the aspects of this delusion is that Muslims, including Muhammad Abduh, Rashid Rida, and perhaps al-Mawdudi, believed that they had only one need, which was to adopt science and technology without changing their understanding of Islam, because within it is the divine view of man and of creation. There is no need for a new view of shari’a or of a new interpretation of the Qur’an or a historical reading of it. Islam is eternally the same and what the first generation of Muslims left us is the truth, since they united laws and jurisprudence and interpretation on the one hand, and the words of God on the other. This is an absolute view of man and of Islamic history, but it is all determined by the word of God. Here we have a problem that is left for Muslim thinkers to solve. Is Protestantism possible in Islam?

In contrast, the countries called “Christian” have become secularized. This means that in European and American life there is no return to God in social life. Of course, it is not true that the West is cut off from faith. Those who say that do not follow Christian thought in the world, however this is separate from political thought.

This brings us back to the meeting of Islamic thought stripped away of all politics with Christian religious thought that looks down on politics and does not mix with them. That is, it brings us back to the purity of spiritual life in both Islam and Christianity and to a dialogue between religious scholars and pious people from the two religions. I mean by this to their true religiosity. This assumes a pure reading of love by Christians of Islam and by Muslims of Christianity. This assumes freedom from worldly benefits and feeling of the domination of one thought over another, free of violence. To expound your faith in peace is to love little or much in the two religions. Those who know their religion do not fear a movement such as this. However, it cannot take place in a country based on political sectarianism. I do not deny Lebanon’s desire to study civilizations in tranquility but that requires significant knowledge of the other and peace is a requirement for dialogue.

If this dialogue is a mask for missionary activity or da’wa, it is not a dialogue. It is a war without weapons. I do not deny the legitimacy of missionary activity and da’wa, but the reality of things leads me to believe that a billion and a half Muslims and two billion Christians will continue to increase in number until the final hour. It is grandiose to think that you can Islamize or Christianize the world.

Any real and sincere encounter between us on the level of the world assumes that we are all free from being fused into any international blocs. This alone ensures us peace in its political sense and so after today there is no conflict because of our liberation from the nightmare of history that divided us and through our detachment from current political factors whose actors desire our division.

It might escape us here that our scholars lived for a time in Baghdad and disputed theology at the Abbasid court with the caliph’s invitation in a spirit of peace and scholarship and refinement. Thoughts were exchanged.

Everyone who studies religions knows that between them there are similarities and distinctions that cannot be surmounted in most cases. However, distinctions can be eliminated or surpassed in some cases and this requires comparative studies that lead to a sound view of the religions.

However, the closeness that I am putting forward is that Christians and Muslims in many countries have lived not only in harmony but also in cooperation. The best example of this is the first period of Umayyad rule when Christians were important functionaries in the Islamic state on account of their knowledge of financial matters, administration, and the navy. They were familiar with Islam and practiced their own religion and wrote Christian theology in Arabic—that is, not in a way that was limited to their own flock. The image of al-Andalus of eight hundred years of convivencia under Arab rule is that mutual social understanding and frequent encounters between scholars was the typical situation.

In sum, the social contract is in principle possible between people of the two religions as long as we are certain that unity of religion is not a necessary condition for social unity under the protection of a secular civil government in each country. To put things more clearly, fusion into a single society and the building up of a single state are possible through good governance for living together. Important basic things in all these fields do not need unity of religious belief. Mutual respect in honesty is sufficient.

However, all of this requires serious, continuous effort that takes us to the point of asceticism. In Christian language this is called love, and in the language of Islam it is called mercy or compassion or friendship.

From where do these virtues come to people? We see that they come down upon them when they know divine love or something approaching it. No crusade, no conquest, no colonization, no victory is from God. Without all these things, God has the right to rule His eternal vineyard so that we will be, Muslims and Christians, as one people.

Translated from Arabic

Original Text: “مسلمون ومسيحيون في العالم” – 20.11.2010

“You are the best community that has been created for mankind, enjoining what is right and forbidding what is wrong”.

Are those who killed people praying in Iraq still part of the Muslim community? Who will tell them that they have left this community since they have committed evil? From al-Azhar to Najaf, passing through all the Muslims of the world, who will read to them from their Book: “if anyone kills a person- unless it be for murder or for spreading mischief in the land – it would be as if he killed all mankind (Surat al-Ma’ida 32)”?

I cannot believe that a billion or more Muslims are unable to stop these murderers. A Friday sermon against these butchers of innocent people at prayer is not enough. In the best case, denouncement means that your mind or your conscience does not accept the massacre of people worshiping their Lord during the time of worship. Condemnation is a necessary first step at best, but spilled blood is still blood.

Muslims are a tenacious community who do not accept injustice and do not allow themselves to be humiliated. They have a strong sense of unity and a sense of their power and they reject any injustice that is committed against them. However, this community commits injustice against itself and allows its image to be distorted when it allows those criminals to have control over its reputation. I do not understand why Muslims from Mecca to Indonesia do not move to cut these murderers off from the community, whatever legal term is used for expelling them. The place where the leaders of this terrorist movement live is not unknown. The leaders walk about with complete freedom in some mountainous regions of Asia that are not far from the eyes of the authorities. They do not escape the view of satellites. Who is watching these satellites? Neighboring countries and far-off countries have certain knowledge of their presence, but remain silent and uninvolved. The question is who who had something to gain from the massacre of those people who were praying in the Church of Our Lady of Deliverance? Who benefits from the killing of these martyrs? What are the countries that are overseeing the territory of that church in Baghdad? The martyrs have gone on to heavenly glory, and they join us to the face of the Father and they strengthen the Church because we are joined to their glorious bodies. Their voices went silent in the moments when they were slaughtered and their Savior took them to His breast because they have become beloved.

Their blood sanctified Iraq and lifted its righteous people up to the bosom of God. Iraq is made great through their blood and good, sincere Muslims are made great because the people are united together in their testimony that has placed a certain degree of righteousness in this Arab people who are threatened by the swords of lawless men until the day when God arises and judges the earth and we make our pilgrimage together to the Holy City.

If the sanctuaries of the east sowed righteousness in its land, why must righteous people die? Why must children be trampled? But God, may He be blessed and exalted, sends down His grace upon innocent blood and it speaks the truth.

After my pain, I have pity for those murderers who are commanded by their Book to not clothe truth in falsehood (Surat al-Baqara 42). However, I would like to say to them that they will never be able to put an end to the Christians because they have a secret in their history, and it is that martyrdom, from the time of the Romans increased their numbers, because it is a witness to their love of those who hate them. They are always forgiving and do not hate because hatred is a denial of a person’s humanity and one makes a mistake to think that it ever bears fruit. “He who lives by the sword dies by the sword” (Matthew 26: 52). One who destroys others will be destroyed by God and for one who does not use the sword, God is his only kingdom, and God alone.

We try very hard to convince ourselves that we are not in the minority when we have faith that in this modern era people believe that religion is in the heart and that it is not a tool for domination or division and that people are able, in the company of their Lord, to live together and to truly cooperate, to stand out in all fields of human knowledge and to use them for everyone’s benefit. We see that here in this country and we rejoice in it. The model we have here of national cooperation can be exported to the entire Arab world in which we live together to this day. However, we have an eye on Iraq and an eye on Egypt, where some of our beloved Copts are martyred every year. If you knew them as I myself know them, you would see that there is no one who surpasses them in their love for Egypt and in their intellectual service to that great country. That said, we are certain that Syria, Lebanon, and what remains of Palestine are safe from sectarian hatred and there is no place for fear on the level of citizenship. It is our hope that the sickness of Iraq does not reach here, lest Arabness loses the Christian splendor that it has. But if people fear for the future of their children, then they are liable to emigrate. That is a great illness.

In July or August of 1975, Metropolitan Eliya Saliba, the Orthodox bishop of Beirut, gathered at his residence a group of Lebanese personalities, Muslim and Christian and I was there. Pierre al-Jamil stood up and said, “We Christians are afraid.” Taqi al-Din al-Solh, may God have mercy on them both, responded, “Is it not shameful for a person to be afraid?” Pierre al-Jamil replied, “Is it not shameful for a person to cause fear?” My point now is not to support one or the other, but I will say that fear is shameful for one who uses it and one who receives it because we are all exempt in our citizenship from human fear. In my reckoning, we in Lebanon believe in each other. However I would like to emphasize here that no group governs another group and that the nation is enough to govern us all. Dhimmitude no longer exists because the Ottoman state it in the 19th century abolished it from the law. I hope that it no longer exists in anyone’s mind, because if it did, it would be a danger both to those who remain in the country and those who have emigrated.

I would like to believe that there is not a plan for the Islamization of this land, since it ultimately means that Christians would leave their homes quietly and politely.

I believe that Lebanese Muslims are honest and sincere when they affirm their commitment to Christians’ remaining. Love has grown between us for a very long time, as well as friendships and family relationships.

However, these relationships must be protected politically and economically as we strengthen all aspects of the country.

However, we are brothers with the Christians of Iraq and Egypt and Israel. There there is special fear since the declaration of the Jewish state and I do not in any way exculpate them in any way from being categorized alongside extremist Islamic movements.

As an epilogue, we cling to the bosom of Christ who promised us that He will be with us until the end of the ages. It is He and not us who is the entire age. We are certain that we will remain until His coming, whether we are alive in the body or outside the body. This is a matter of piety for Christians and Muslims until God inherits the earth and all that is in it.

Translated from Arabic

Original Text: “المسيحيون في الشرق” – 13.11.2010

Again mount Athos, which overwhelmed me in terms of my understanding of watching it. The monasteries are covered or concealed by the length of the trees. Does the tree have the spirit of smashing, or, does the monastery’s scent smash? And the ceiling of the monastery conceals all the monks, while their society strikes their individuality.

[Only] whatever is hidden [truly] is, and whenever you come to the fore in order to show your existence, it is not you who comes out, rather your pettiness. The humble person is the one who does not see him/[her]self above the earth, i.e., he/[she] perceives his/[her] soul smashed. He/[she] might feel the smashing, since he/[she] feels his/[her] soul trampled down and because of being the victim of injustice he/[she] delights and rejoices as the Book says in Matthew. When the Lord had said, “learn from me; for I am gentle and lowly in heart”, (Matt. 11: 29) He revealed that the source of this great virtue is the enlightened heart through Chris. This is to say that one might acquire this virtue after immense purification. There is no place for false glory in the heart of the believer and only the Lord, who humbled Himself unto death, death on a cross, dwells in it. (Phil. 2: 8)

Whenever you perceive this, you understand the words of the apostle: “Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners. And I am the foremost of sinners”. (1Tim.1: 15) Paul, who had exceeded many in virtues, even was caught up to the third heaven, was thinking of himself as the last of all people. And St. John Climacus [of the Ladder] had said, “Humility is a blessing for the soul, it does not have a name which expresses it, other than the one that those who had learned it through experience have.” Then, the great monk elaborated his speech on the beauty of humility, saying: “whoever unites him/[her]self with humility in a similar way as the unity of the bridegroom with the bride, he/[she] would be always kind,  ardent, thrilled, quite, cheerful, does not sadden anyone, and in a word free of caprices.” Caprice is a term used by the ascetic Fathers and it refers to the source of sin, and it is our irritability that creates it. As if the monk is saying that whoever reaches at the virtue of humility, he/[she] had reached the peak of purity, this would be a person for whom heaven has been opened, while on earth. He/[she] trusts the gifts of heaven and does not trust oneself, rather he/[she] awaits God’s judgment upon him/[her]self. Thus, he/[she] does not pride him/[her]self on any good thing that he/[she] has. A person like this has attained resurrection before the general resurrection.

Does this mean that the humble person does not perceive in him/[her]self merits? Socrates had recommended that the person should know oneself, in order that he/[she] might know his/[her] abilities and serve. And the Lord had said, “you are the light of the world”, and ordered us to enlighten others, and not to put the lamp under a bushel. [Matt.5: 14-15] Your ability of speech e.g., or your ability to manage the public affairs, these could not be hidden to you. Nevertheless, the apostle orders you not to think of yourself as higher than what you ought to, since then you will become nothing. You would not acquire humility, unless you realize that whatever lofty and true within you comes from God. You have been entrusted the above virtues and you are not their owner. You enlighten people by divine light, which owner you are not. You are a channel for compassion, which you give, and you are not the Compassionate one, similar to the canal of water which is not the water. Whenever you are in a state of constant thanksgiving to your Lord, people trace the lights of the Lord which are delineated on your face, and praise God because of you.

Thus, humility does not come to us by the way of nature that we inherit. To be kind, quite, shrewd and humble does not mean, according to St. Isaac the Syriac, that you have reached the height of humility. If once, or at some occasion, you have regretted a wicked thing, do not think that you have attained humility. One cannot attain humility unless one ascends the whole ladder of virtues. The virtues succeed each other and humility is the culmination of the ascent.

It might be that only those who have been the victim of boastfulness, and have got rid of it, the ones who can truly perceive the meaning of humility. Boastfulness is when you consider certain details in your nature, and you think that you have obtained them as the outcome of some works, which you think have honored you. You feel that you have surpassed your measure and you might not know that you have puffed yourself up. Each one of us is a frog, who aspires to be as big as an ox, as La Fontaine’s fable maintained, asserting to him/[her]self that it might be realized, while it won’t, until life strikes him/[her] and then he/[she] blows up.

This prides him/[her]self on his/[her] money and that prides on his/[her] authority, while neither your money nor your authority is you. You perceive yourself through whatever you gain, while you are [truly] the way God sees you, namely that which you have not gained. At a true repentance you shall be stripped from whatever you have gained, and you shall understand that God, through God’s love, fashions you. Hence, you carry your belovedness and become splendid, guiding [others] by it. Why have our masters thought that arrogance is the greatest sin? Since through it you divinize yourself, i.e. you apostatize. Arrogance is apostasy in its density. On the other hand the humble person, who thinks of him/[her]self as nothing, reveals that it is God who shed’s light upon him/[her]. Therefore, he/[she] prides on God and excludes apostasy fully, and thus, becomes of a deified nature, entering the state of deification and carrying out within him/[her]self the characteristics of God.

Humility is the complete tranquility and the complete certitude, since it is the vision of God’s face. [In this state] the person enters the glamor of freedom, i.e. the freedom from the ‘I’. Yes, no one reaches at putting the ‘I’ to death unless at his/[her] death, since the death of the righteous one is the Holy Saturday, on which Christ has rested in the tomb. No one attains the complete rest unless in the tomb, since it is the final baptism.

The ‘I’ does not die completely in this world, since as long as we are in flesh, sin or its delights, i.e., the wavering between righteousness and perversity, attack us. Complete repentance is a yearning, until God takes us to Godself. Great humility brings the yearning to an end and gives us the vision, which we might be given through the vigilance of the soul and the Kingdom, which has started to dwell in us.

In Byzantine Liturgy, we call the communion of the Lord’s body “the Completion of the Kingdom of heaven”, though its author, John Chrysostom, was aware that we might be given completion only after our resurrection. As if he says that if on Sunday morning you unite yourself with Christ, do not expect any other thing yet to come. Whenever God acknowledges you as a humble person in accordance with the image of the crucified one, nothing is required from you other than the completion of love, which John the apostle had made the true name of the Lord, saying, “God is Love.” The humble one loves, since nothing has remained in him/[her] other than God.

Whenever we believe in this, there would be no difference whether you are a minister, a doctor, a carpenter, or a shoeblack. What matters is that you accomplish your duties with obedience to God, and that you do not consider yourself as great if you were from the elite of your community, and do not belittle yourself whenever you were from the little ones. I know people who had gained important status in the society and have not become arrogant. They have not prided themselves neither on the properties in their houses, nor on their wealth. They remained on the humility that they previously had. The inner soul does not fall always by the beauties of the lower world. Nothing corrupts you, whenever you determine to keep the Lord in your heart, since you know that nothing can add one cubit unto your span of life. You might rub out whatever your friends think that you may pride yourself on. You pass through all worldly splendor, you pass through your intelligence, or your beauty, as if they are nothing. The brilliance of your mind, or any other created thing, cannot attract you. Only God’s glory and the glamor of the saints, of which some are alive, arouse your attention. So you live to receive from them, since you believe that you come into being through them, without knowing that you were fashioned through them. You leave your own judgment to your Lord and wait for His compassion. You fear that you might not attain the heaven, since you think of yourself as a sinner. You live with this awe and come closer, “with the fear of God, faith and love”, to the table of salvation on the Sunday morning. Through that you become wholly a new person, and only the Lord knows that you have become new.

Translated by Sylvie Avakian-Maamarbashi

Original Text: “التواضع” –An Nahar- 23-01-2010

Whom should I write? [I write] to the one who can read, the one who wants to free him/herself from an erroneous thought, or mostly erroneous. [This would make him/her] transcend in spirit to God, who is disseminated to the reader through his/her readings. He/she might transcend to Christ, who did not write, so that he/she aligns him/herself with those who had understood. Thus, he/she would be able to leap to the spirit of the writer and from him to the minds that come from their hearts, since the heart is the true source of the minds and the imaginary. The assemblages of the minds of all welded cultures with truth and through truth are the abode of divine mind, which is love. I say this in compliance to what is written in the First Epistle of John, in the New Testament, that God is Love. It is my presentiment, concerning this Johannine statement, that love is not an attribute of God’s attributes, which our Holy books contain, rather it is the name of God, the complete name, above which there is no other name. Since God shapes you out of God’s love, and before God’s inclination to you, you receive your knowledge through contemplation. As to God’s knowledge of Godself, God loves you and endows you with [feelings of] belovedness. The human consciousness of yourself comes from feeling your belovedness; thus, you become one with the whole humanity, which views itself as forming the sphere of divine descent.

No matter how different people’s faces, religions and languages are, it is certain that, howsoever existence has been rationalized, [all people] are one. Christ has not died for a faction or for some scattered factions, but for the mass of the whole human race. The Savior has wedded Himself to the one humanity, whatsoever was its affiliation, in its own knowledge of Him. Since Truth is in God’s act toward humanity, in that God associates humanity to Godself and to God’s works, while God’s works are the light of humanity. Humanity has no other light than the light that God radiates over it. Once, it had attracted my attention that Jesus had said to His followers, “You are the light of the world.” (Matthew 5:14) However, He said it since He said somewhere else, “I am the light of the world” (John 8: 12). Every one of us comes from a gleam of Him, [that radiates] over you and me.

From this unity between Him, and us I write, to arouse the readers to the truth that is in them, so as they know that they are deific or deified. This is a dialogue, since the reader receives the truth pronounced by the writer and becomes it, whenever the writer has become it. That is to say, that the reader writes him/herself whatever he/she reads, and that is only possible whenever he/she humbles him/herself to receive that which has descended upon him/her. At the end of this explanation, the writer, the written text and whatever proceeds from their interaction is one and the same thing.

Loving the one reading me, I give myself to him/her, but I try not to give my sins. Thus, you are not a true writer unless you free yourself from the burden that your self puts upon you, whenever this burden is from the world. However, if God seizes your fingers as you put down a line or a paragraph, then God is the author and you are the written thing. In other words, do not put a letter on paper, a sacred letter, unless freedom from your burdened or impure self descends upon you. Since [this burden] does not free the one who reads you, rather it imprisons you in the impurity that is in you. Hence, art is not for art; plane art does not have a language or an ornament. Beauty is not about popular aesthetics. It is the beauty of the truth, which knows always how to select from within you what purifies you and others. Beauty is sublimity and splendor from above, so that you may not fall into worshipping beauty, or worshipping your own self and destructing yourself in it. Whenever beauty, that you consider it literary, fails to move as splendor to the others’ souls, then, it becomes an enticement in which both the writer and the reader fall.

Literary writing is not preaching, i.e. religious teaching repeated in different expressions. A sermon might be literarily beautiful; since you need that the text crosses to the heart, while the insipid form does not do that. It is possible to master a sermon, nevertheless, it is with the truth, which it holds that both the one who declares it and the one who receives it live. The threat in preaching is to worship the old repeated words, while the old does not descend on the person who lives in his/her own age. You change the words for him/her, in order that he/she might receive the eternal truth latent in the transmitted Word. Yet, the truth would not become a spirit unless it meets the spirit of the listener. The Word is the experienced truth, so that it might create a soul that tastes [the truth] and is transformed [by it].

The people of God, or the Church as Christians call it, are the community of the transformed ones, and in its religious term it is the community of repentants. Those know that they are sinners and that they are nothing unless they eat the divine words poured out for them through living human beings, who have attempted to convert in order to become mediators of the old word, since not only their manner but also their person has been transformed. The style is a skill, namely, it is an instrument in the hand of the one giving the new words, but he is to remain faithful. Whoever has not become the child of grace brings to you dead words, and this is not something eloquent. God would not use you whatsoever you borrow from language-sciences, unless you serve God by turning to Him. You are not a mediator except in your obedience to God. Whoever listens to you remains dead, since he/she receives dead words. However, if you become a new person you can make new people. The new [person] is old, whenever he/she is carried by a soul renewed through love and humility.

Then, why do I write?  The more correct answer is that I write so that I might be purified, that I might approach God who urges me to write, that I might speak God’s word, not a word emerging from human desires. I write to recount whatever God has placed on my pen, and I do not have a thing in it. Whenever I do not become one with the written thing I break my pen, and whenever I do not seek to be one with the person who reads me, the one whom I think is receiving God, then I would be doing wrong to him/her. I would be accepting his/her sins, colluding with him/her against my Lord, forming with him/her an [assumedly] educated clique. These words would be “the flowers of evil” as Baudelaire had called it, i.e. poisonous flowers.

This brings upon me my own judgment, and silence in this case is my rescue from the poison. I am a Christian writer, and whenever I feel myself mature in Christianity I would have something to say to all people, since Christ touches all hearts, and the hearts take whatever it can take. The human soul is prepared for Christ. However, this does not mean that I am completely purified. Thus, the wholeness of Christ would not pass across the writing that I employ. The saints live the life of God, though many of them could not write. They have enlightened us and we were illuminated by their light. The writer has always some of his human nature and whenever he is a believer, he is afflicted because of that. Nonetheless, he attempts to be an apostle and the forgiving [God] forgives him when he makes wrong, and whatever passes through [the writing] would pass through. However, the one who is given to write is burdened with the yoke, and he writes since he obeys. And whoever does not obey would have eliminated the talent which he had to utilize in order that God might be glorified through it.

The perfect writer, then, is the one who has been completely purified, the one who has achieved divine enjoyment, since one in both enjoyment and suffering writes. However, suffering sometimes is caused by sin, or by the difficulty of dispensing with sin. There is always a turmoil in the soul that occurs to us as the result of our stumbles, or our attempt to repent from them.

Both rejoicing and suffering write. At any rate, writing takes place as the outcome of astonishment, and with the saints, it is the outcome of amazement [bewilderment], your being amazed [or bewildered] in the presence of divine glory. This means that you have surpassed the pain of transgression. Whoever sinks in it would not have a pen anymore, since he would not be a witness or a spectator of the glory. As for the one who still has a little of love, he necessarily loves a reader whom he does not know.

Whoever writes does not know his readers. He writes the way he writes, the way his pen moves, since this is how he lives and becomes united. [Once] Abi Tammam had been asked, “Why do you write what is not understandable?” He had answered: “Why do you not understand what I write?” You write in your way, in the way you like, to arrive at those who strive to understand. And whenever they feel you they reach at that which you wanted to convey to them. Your consolation in this is that some people have become from the people of God.

Translated by Sylvie Avakian-Maamarbashi

Original Text: “لماذا أكتب؟” –An Nahar- 31-07-2010

When it comes to society, you are known by your family which you belong to because one’s life is a relationship or relationships. This is so because naturally you tend to associate with others and build relations with them; or else you would become entombed in your own shell as an isolated individual that cannot be broken into by others, or be open to others. It is well known that if you long for another person, that other person would become part of your world. Thus you become one with him. Life is a belonging, but not to your father and mother; it is a belonging to those whom Grace brings in to you.

And if you get into a relationship with another person, you will not be really one because each of you lacks something. And he who is lacking cannot complete the other who also is lacking. God, who is said to be complete in himself, has made Himself in a relationship with others through the incarnation of the Son; thus establishing a reciprocal relationship between Him and Man.  Your identity is that link between you and God; and I think that the word identity – “hawiyya” in Arabic – is derived from the word “houwa” indicating the third person. Thus you know who you are through the Sole Other who is God. You acquire an identity when He knows you, as such you will be “from Him” and formed by Him.

In the absolute, Man is because God loves him. All else that has been said concerning Man’s being is of this world.  Your identity card is to distinguish between you and citizens of other countries. But you do not come from the mountains and sea of a piece of land even though you might have acquired the prevailing temperaments in the culture of that land. But all this is relative in the sense that you belong to this humanity which everybody else belongs to with all what they have of “createdness”.

But when you realize that you are one loved by God, you become one with those you love because they do not receive that love from flesh and blood and what is created. As such the reality of the love they receive making them who they are, has descended on them from above.

What I said above is based on the Scriptures. God tells Moses on Mount Sinai: “…….for you have found grace in My sight, and I know you by name.” (EX 33: 17) So his name that was known by God was his identity. And when Moses wanted to see God’s glory meaning to know God’s essence, God said:”But my face you cannot see.” Thus God did not reveal His name to Moses; but He said:”… I will take you as My people, and I will be your God.” (Ex 7:6). As such God reveals Himself through the moves He makes towards His people. In the desert of Sinai, God does not reveal His identity as one Who is self-existent, but in how He sees the People and relates to them.

This supports the scene of the burning bush when Moses told God: –“Suppose I go to the Israelites and say to them, ‘The God of your fathers has sent me to you,’ and they ask me, ‘What is his name?’ Then what shall I tell them?” God said to Moses, “I AM WHO I AM….” (Ex 3:13,14) This is not a name in the literal sense of the word. This is an act. God introduces Himself as one who does acts of mercy towards His people.

Afterwards, God tells Jeremiah: “I will be their God and they will be my people”. (Jer 7: 23). And those words are repeated by him and by other prophets. And St. Peter explains in his first epistle that the people are those that receive mercy (1Peter 2: 10). A people, then, is not an ethnic group or social grouping. It is that community which God has chosen for Himself and they have accepted to obey Him so that He will be God to them and they would belong to Him. So when we say “the people of God, we mean to say that God is the subject doing the action; that is it is He who makes a human group become a divine people, that is a kingdom of priests according to the Old Testament and  a royal priesthood according to the New Testament. God and Man are in motion, one towards the other.

When you are a believer, God will bestow on you an identity. Even if you were of little faith, He gives you your identity because He loves you though He knows that you will not respond to Him. The Father has made you his son; and that is your identity. You have been named such since eternity. And that identity has fulfilled itself in you when God created you in His image and likeness. Through the Sonship of Christ to God (which He gives us), the Lord elevates you from the state of limited “createdness” to that of unlimited “createdness” which is moved by the Spirit.

Thus the “houwa” (the third person) makes you the “ana” (‘I’ in Arabic) that is what you are; and when He(God) becomes related to you, you become related to Him and you live His life; all other relations and identities  are of this world and are limited in themselves;  that is why Amin Maalouf gave his book the title “Al Hawiyyat al Qatila” (The Identities that Destroy); it is because he has realized the destruction that can result from the limitation of “identities” like one being from a certain village, or belonging to a certain confession or other qualities. The aforementioned, when considered each by itself, he thinks, can destroy. But when good things come together they can produce a refined and civilized humane human being. At its best, what is good remains something given by God. And it is common that we use the good in us in clubs, or charity institutes which are not necessarily from God who moves towards us with His love and implants in us the love that moves us towards Him and towards those who love Him.

At that we see the limitation of nations and families whether in bringing people close to each other or in making them distant from each other. All what there is in this world has ups and downs; and all that is in it is in transit either from glory to shame or vice versa. But both the glory and shame of this world remain delusory until you receive your inner being from the One who beholds it; and you are bestowed a name from Him, a name of your righteousness. But here in this world, you might have no name except that which is imposed on you through some social genre.

When Divine Love weaves our identity for us, then we would not make distinctions among others because Love creates them through itself. You can distinguish between them, but Love which enfolds them all, makes them all children of God whether they believe in that Sonship or not.

The Lord might chastise or coddle a person yet we do not comprehend how the Lord will reward him. God always forgives and grants mercy so that we are found before Him in great brightness which is a reflection of His brightness.

Our purity is a legacy from the Lord. Such purity that descends from above is

What fashions one’s identity.

When it comes to society, you are known by your family which you belong to because one’s life is a relationship or relationships. This is so because naturally you tend to associate with others and build relations with them; or else you would become entombed in your own shell as an isolated individual that cannot be broken into by others, or be open to others. It is well known that if you long for another person, that other person would become part of your world. Thus you become one with him. Life is a belonging, but not to your father and mother; it is a belonging to those whom Grace brings in to you.

And if you get into a relationship with another person, you will not be really one because each of you lacks something. And he who is lacking cannot complete the other who also is lacking. God, who is said to be complete in himself, has made Himself in a relationship with others through the incarnation of the Son; thus establishing a reciprocal relationship between Him and Man.  Your identity is that link between you and God; and I think that the word identity – “hawiyya” in Arabic – is derived from the word “houwa” indicating the third person. Thus you know who you are through the Sole Other who is God. You acquire an identity when He knows you, as such you will be “from Him” and formed by Him.

In the absolute, Man is because God loves him. All else that has been said concerning Man’s being is of this world.  Your identity card is to distinguish between you and citizens of other countries. But you do not come from the mountains and sea of a piece of land even though you might have acquired the prevailing temperaments in the culture of that land. But all this is relative in the sense that you belong to this humanity which everybody else belongs to with all what they have of “createdness”.

But when you realize that you are one loved by God, you become one with those you love because they do not receive that love from flesh and blood and what is created. As such the reality of the love they receive making them who they are, has descended on them from above.

What I said above is based on the Scriptures. God tells Moses on Mount Sinai: “…….for you have found grace in My sight, and I know you by name.” (EX 33: 17) So his name that was known by God was his identity. And when Moses wanted to see God’s glory meaning to know God’s essence, God said:”But my face you cannot see.” Thus God did not reveal His name to Moses; but He said:”… I will take you as My people, and I will be your God.” (Ex 7:6). As such God reveals Himself through the moves He makes towards His people. In the desert of Sinai, God does not reveal His identity as one Who is self-existent, but in how He sees the People and relates to them.

This supports the scene of the burning bush when Moses told God: –“Suppose I go to the Israelites and say to them, ‘The God of your fathers has sent me to you,’ and they ask me, ‘What is his name?’ Then what shall I tell them?” God said to Moses, “I AM WHO I AM….” (Ex 3:13,14) This is not a name in the literal sense of the word. This is an act. God introduces Himself as one who does acts of mercy towards His people.

Afterwards, God tells Jeremiah: “I will be their God and they will be my people”. (Jer 7: 23). And those words are repeated by him and by other prophets. And St. Peter explains in his first epistle that the people are those that receive mercy (1Peter 2: 10). A people, then, is not an ethnic group or social grouping. It is that community which God has chosen for Himself and they have accepted to obey Him so that He will be God to them and they would belong to Him. So when we say “the people of God, we mean to say that God is the subject doing the action; that is it is He who makes a human group become a divine people, that is a kingdom of priests according to the Old Testament and  a royal priesthood according to the New Testament. God and Man are in motion, one towards the other.

When you are a believer, God will bestow on you an identity. Even if you were of little faith, He gives you your identity because He loves you though He knows that you will not respond to Him. The Father has made you his son; and that is your identity. You have been named such since eternity. And that identity has fulfilled itself in you when God created you in His image and likeness. Through the Sonship of Christ to God (which He gives us), the Lord elevates you from the state of limited “createdness” to that of unlimited “createdness” which is moved by the Spirit.

Thus the “houwa” (the third person) makes you the “ana” (‘I’ in Arabic) that is what you are; and when He(God) becomes related to you, you become related to Him and you live His life; all other relations and identities  are of this world and are limited in themselves;  that is why Amin Maalouf gave his book the title “Al Hawiyyat al Qatila” (The Identities that Destroy); it is because he has realized the destruction that can result from the limitation of “identities” like one being from a certain village, or belonging to a certain confession or other qualities. The aforementioned, when considered each by itself, he thinks, can destroy. But when good things come together they can produce a refined and civilized humane human being. At its best, what is good remains something given by God. And it is common that we use the good in us in clubs, or charity institutes which are not necessarily from God who moves towards us with His love and implants in us the love that moves us towards Him and towards those who love Him.

At that we see the limitation of nations and families whether in bringing people close to each other or in making them distant from each other. All what there is in this world has ups and downs; and all that is in it is in transit either from glory to shame or vice versa. But both the glory and shame of this world remain delusory until you receive your inner being from the One who beholds it; and you are bestowed a name from Him, a name of your righteousness. But here in this world, you might have no name except that which is imposed on you through some social genre.

When Divine Love weaves our identity for us, then we would not make distinctions among others because Love creates them through itself. You can distinguish between them, but Love which enfolds them all, makes them all children of God whether they believe in that Sonship or not.

The Lord might chastise or coddle a person yet we do not comprehend how the Lord will reward him. God always forgives and grants mercy so that we are found before Him in great brightness which is a reflection of His brightness.

Our purity is a legacy from the Lord. Such purity that descends from above is

What fashions one’s identity.

Translated by Riad Moufarrij

Original Text: “الهوية” –An Nahar- 17.07.2010

I would not care if my name would become rubbed out of the soul of the earth.

I would not care if the world would move along forgetting me.

Hanan ʻAd

How could I define humility as it is a virtue that does not tell about itself. Thus, it does not speak. It does not have an ‘I’. [However,] its existence speaks and creates worlds in the souls. It cries since it is wounded as it is the victim of injustice. It does not admit glory for itself. It is intoxicated by divine beauty, which hides it. It sees only that beauty without seeing itself within it, since, like Mary, it has fallen into utter oblivion. Hiddenness has dwelt in it. [Nevertheless,] no one eradicated it. No one could do that.

People come to God through the gate of humility. It is thrilled by them all. It sees them as figures of light and it is unconscious that it reflects them. They pass through it and it does not stop them, and whenever they pause, they marvel its sublimity. Then [God] their Lord recognizes them and assumes that they are aiming at God. God carries them to the glory, since they have passed beside it, they have perceived the marvelous, they have dwelt in the marvelous’ poetry and played on the marvelous’ harp, as the angels have envied them and have kept silence. Did they ascend to heaven or heaven has descended? The Compassionate [God] has made this excellence, among the virtues of your Lord, a throne and [God] has sat [became on the same level] on it. Whatever you have in your world is nothing if humility does not shine on a surface that God has chosen it for its radiance. Whenever science disappears transfiguration becomes essential. Transfiguration becomes the utterance, or the language between a glory and another. Those who attain this language will dwell in the coming age, in which God will condemn those arrogant ones, who thought of themselves as gods and thus they died since they have not known that the Lord is God and that they are to fall into oblivion.

Once, a prince in Balkan had written to the crown prince (and he was going to succeed his father’s rule on the emirate): “Do not desire to become a bishop, an abbot or a prince. Do not desire, since all this is the glory of the world.” Contrary to that, whenever you desire the glory of God you partake in it. Nothing brings this and that together, since either you come from heaven and you conduct the earth through that or you come from the earth and die in it. The people of heaven are buried in earth; however, they are not from the earth. They have ascended.

“Father, glorify thou me in thy own presence with the glory which I had with thee before the world was made.” [John 17: 5] When Jesus said this he was on the way to his unjust death. To be subject to injustice is the condition of humility. People are subduers of one another. Few are those who accept injustice and love their subduers. Whenever the mercy of the subdued ones falls upon the subduers they might understand and repent. Thus, we do not attain understanding unless we are loved by someone. And no one loves unless he/[she] hides him/[her]self. Only the one hidden admits the Other. He/[she] admits that the Other, any Other, is better than him/[her]. This is a condition for the spread of humility. This is a condition for the establishment of the Kingdom of God.

When Mary has said, “He has put down the mighty from their thrones, and exalted those of low degree.” [Luke 1:52], she was referring to those powerful in the earth, whom she had seen magnifying themselves for their things. Belongings are not beings. But whenever God raises the humble ones, God grants them eminence from God, namely that which is not created. And according to our Book [the Bible] God makes them gods, and God knows while they do not know. In this they become deified.

The one raising oneself is unable to reach at God, since God does not love the arrogant ones, thus they blow up from their own exaggeration. However, those who make themselves to the same level of the soil, their Lord will raise them and will sculpture them a new and will appreciate them, while they do not appreciate their own selves, since the essence of their virtue is that know that they do not have any virtue. On this matter Basil had said, “we have not done any good work on earth.” This echoes the words of the Savior: “No one is good but God alone.” [Mark 10: 18] That is why we remain in ignorance of our virtues till the day when “God judges the secrets of men”. [Rom. 2: 16] Then, when God declares the righteousness of those righteous ones, they refer their righteousness to God and are glorified on their own.

The whole thing is that you recognize God as the sole and the only giver, and you humble yourself to God for this knowledge and be thankful. Humility is an admission about the centrality of God, that is to say that God alone becomes the object of your sanctification. Sanctification within you lies in your confession that you are a sinner. That is the beginning of your trust on God, which is a plea for divine giving.

Whatever has been said so far does not invalidate the word of Socrates: “Know yourself”, since you have to know your abilities in order that you might work, contact people and build relationships with them. This is not limited to your rational abilities and your qualification for this or that activity. Civilized life requires competence, sciences and experiences. Thus, the human being should appreciate the talents he/[she] has in order that one does not undertake that for which he/[she] is not prepared, rather commit him/[her]self to the society, of which he/[she] is a member and has his/[her] political deliberation, and maybe commit him/[her]self to the political work. In this, one should not underestimate oneself and should not be inattentive to the development of one’s talents. And in this there is no arrogance.

Where does the merit of humility come in the human being’s awareness of his/[her] scientific and vocational talents? It is possible that a person is great in his/[her] academic or vocational mind and at the same time he/[she] is aware that the Lord is his/[her] help in this. And if he/[she] perceives his/[her] long struggle, it remains that he/[she] should thank God for these natural and vocational talents. We know that it is common among scholars their love of the truth and their acceptance of each other, whenever they disagree theoretically. The Quran had expressed this through the saying: “Of His servants, only the learned fear Allah.” (Fatir [The Originator of Creation], 28)

You might be very brilliant and at the same time poor to God. Whoever denies his/[her] rational or vocational talents and abilities ignores God’s gifts to him/[her]. If you pretend that you have knowledge, while you don’t, or that you are ignorant, while you are not, then this is false humility close to arrogance.

People perceive humility directly and at once. However we should not conceive that the humble person accepts whatever you say, without challenging or discussing with you. He/[she] might be a person of confrontation and struggle to the extent of intellectual contention. Yet, others love him/[her] since they perceive his/[her] honesty and faithfulness to the truth.

To be rubbed out for God does not mean to rub out your intellect in front of another person, regardless whether that was in a social setting or personal life. The beauty of the humble person is that he/[she] accepts the truth from whatever side it came. It does not matter here if there was a strong confrontation and his/her convictions were different than yours. The humble person thinks that whenever truth comes from you, then it is a message from God that reaches him/[her] sometimes through his/[her] opponent. Thus, it must be said that since the humble person asks God for inspiration, he/[she] does not take sides in his/[her] choices; and he/[she] does not have a package of boxed-in thoughts. He/[she] does not live through whatever he/[she] has collected from his/[her] memories or friends. In this sense the humble person is always a new, or a renewed, person. He/[she] encounters you through the dawn, and comes upon you through the light, by which he/[she] has been enlightened, and frees you from the trivialities and prompts you not to puff up, since he[she] dislikes the vanities. The humble person reminds you that your salvation comes from that which is true, in order that you might dwell in it through the blessings. Humility rubs out all the sins of the person.

Whoever opposes boasting and pretention provides with integrity whomever he/[she] befriends with, and whoever inclines to serenity. And God dwells in serenity.

Translated by Sylvie Avakian-Maamarbashi

Original Text: “التواضع” –An Nahar- 26-06-2010

There is no point of meeting between love and desire, as one of our great poets has claimed. They might be identical linguistically, but when you follow the Bible and the writings of the Fathers, I notice that a similarity exists between the Divine Love or the love that God pours down and the yearning or the passion flowing from one human heart to another, which was spoken of by the Greeks in Antiquity and by those who adopted the use of the word “Eros” in Christian writings. The expression “Eros” is not confined in its meaning to a physical denotation but always denotes an affective or emotive meaning. It is an automatic spontaneous feeling similar to water gushing out from a spring. Though it is usually said of the depth of the soul, but it could be said, though only slightly, of God. And when said that He is its source, then that feeling –which is void of emotions – the source of which is God, is called love.

So the love that God in His generosity and grace pours down in someone’s heart – as we Christians say – can also be poured into another person’s heart and as such the human being loves in the same way God loves.

Only the Old Testament speaks about the passion that exists between a man and a woman when God tells Eve that “your desire shall be to your husband” (Genesis 3: 16). And in the Septuagint (the Greek translation of the Old Testament) the word “desire” implies desire and lust.

But The New Testament does not have in it even one word denoting desire or even the word “love” in its simple meaning. It does not speak of a sentimental relationship between a man and a woman. It only speaks about marriage, which might focus much, or only a little, on emotions or it might even not do so. Marriage is related to God in one way or another even when it is done on familial or social basis. As a result of that, it is not true that in marriage, Christianity requires love in its popular modern understanding or in the romantic sense. There is nothing in the New Testament that is similar to what one finds in the Song of Songs or to what Hosea mentions in the beginning of his book about fawning and fondling.

This avoidance of talking about passion in the New Testament is so, in my opinion, because the Gospel does not describe natural life for us, and the believer does not need to be taught by God about matters existing in his psychological and physiological make up – what Paul calls the natural man according to his creation; then the natural man, without losing his attributes according to nature, becomes a spiritual man born of the Holy Spirit. One becomes God bound. St. Paul did not show disfavor towards the good human desires that are practiced according to the commandments of God which keeps Man from perdition and helps in his spiritual ascent. In the believer, both his body and soul are together walking in the Holy Spirit. This Man who is renewed by the Divine Spirit receives from God the love that supersedes passion in the sense that it “supervises” desire, domesticates it and purifies it. The beginning of all beginnings is that God is love; and when we “herald” from love, we would be “descending” from God. We would live His Deity in the “frame” of a nature which is always called to behold the Divine Energies that make us holy. And through holiness, you would be freeing yourself from the yoke of this world while still on Earth; thus you ascend, since the ascension is not a geographical ascending to heaven.

This leads me to what St. Paul says in his letter to the Ephesians as he speaks of marriage. “Husbands love your wives as Christ loved the Church”. (Eph 5: 25). The Arabic word for love “ahebbou”, is phonetically like the word “aghebbou”(for love) in Greek; and that means love your wives with the love that you inherit from God. Such a love is not related to natural passion and also not related to the physical relations in a marriage. St. Paul does not call the Christians to a blaze of emotions since he knows that that does not need a commandment from him; but he calls Christians to lay down their lives for their wives as Christ has given himself for the Church, that is till death, and such love comes down upon you from above.

St Paul calls you to become a spiritual person in marriage, such that you remain in the natural marriage relationship, but you elevate it through love – not through passion and emotion – so that you become self-giving, like Christ. You become one body with your wife, as St. Paul says. Such unity is impossible for passions to accomplish, since passions go up and down. With emotions, you find coldness, warmth and lukewarmness, while the goal is for one to become a spiritual person within the limitations of his nature. And St. Paul continues saying: “this is a great mystery, but I speak concerning Christ and the Church.” (Eph 5: 32)

This is not a reference here to marriage as being one of the sacraments of the Church; what he means to say is that all your life becomes a Divine sacrament when you live it according to the relationship between Christ and the Church; that is in the maximum of largesse.

Giving is the keyword here. In Greek culture, love is a kind of a takeover, a domination of the other. That is Plato. But in Christ, love between man and woman is an oblation so great that the argument as to who is the head in the family, fades away. He who has authority in the family, or in any management, is the one who loves and not the one who orders. In giving orders, there is the desire for authority to the point of passion. The one who loves is obeyed without him having to give orders; because the one who loves dies so that both, he and the one who is loved, will have life.

Passions go and come back as they wish; if you are able to guide them with the light of the love of the Gospel, you will save them. And if you do not, they will destroy you. The desire of one does not embrace the other person. Only through love God has embraced us and adopted us, and love adopts all people, because it is shed for the sake of the one who has commanded love – and I mean God. Love embraces all existence, the whole human condition, and makes it a dwelling for God. As such love abolishes the distinction between Heaven and Earth.

Translated by Riad Moufarrij

Original Text: “المحبة والشوق” –An Nahar- 12.06.2010