by fsiefken | 2026-02-16 11:27:54+00:00
The rise of Islam in light of the christological debates and power struggles is a fascinating topic to me, and I am glad the discovery of this Maronite document sheds more light on this.

It records the death of the last Sasanian king, Yazdegerd, in 651 AD and notes that the "Persian kingdom was completely destroyed" and its people became "slaves paying tribute to the Arabs." It describes the Romans being driven out of Syria and Egypt, noting that "no foreign people had inhabited it" since the time of Christ until now.

At the same time, there were fierce theological debates about the nature of Jesus Christ. He was seen as a human, a rabbi, a prophet, and God incarnate—but how could one reconcile these different views into a consistent christology? The document lists a few positions:

Chalcedonian: 2 natures, 2 wills (Marcian, Pulcheria). Deemed positive.

Miaphysite: 1 united nature (Dioscorus, Severus). Deemed tyranny.

Monothelite: 2 natures, 1 will (Macarius, Theodore of Pharan). Deemed sympathetic.

Eutychian: 1 divine nature (Eutyches). Deemed misguided.

Severus of Antioch, the preeminent Miaphysite theologian, was called a "leader of sectarianism". Theodoret of Cyrus was mentioned as a Greek teacher and a defender of the 2-nature Christology, but was often accused of Nestorianism by his enemies.

The Romans (and by that century fellow Christians) condemned the Maronite-specific theology of Monothelitism. The Chalcedonians (Rome/Byzantium) said Christ had 2 natures (Divine and human), while the Miaphysites (Egypt/Syria) said he had one united nature. In the 630s Emperor Heraclius and Patriarch Sergius proposed a middle ground: "Christ has 2 natures, but he only has one single divine Will.

The Western Church (Rome) and later Byzantine emperors eventually decided this view was a heresy, arguing:

If Christ doesn't have a human will, he isn't fully human.
If he isn't fully human, he couldn't have truly suffered or saved humanity.
Therefore, Christ must have two wills (Divine and Human) perfectly in sync.

At the 3rd Council of Constantinople (680-681 AD), the 2 wills (dyothelitism) view was made official. Monothelitism was banned and its leaders were "excommunicated, deposed, and banished," including Pope Honorius of Rome, Sergius of Constantinople, and Macarius of Antioch. Sympathy for these people and Theodore of Pharan highlights the Maronite origins of the chronicle, as the Maronites originally held to the Monothelite view and resisted the 681 AD council.

The Arabs, the new rulers, offered a form of stability but demanded tribute. In section [148b], the author describes the Roman defeat at the Battle of Jabiya as a "wondrous sign... revealing the wrath that would befall the land."

In section [154a], after describing the Council of 681, the author notes a great military defeat and says: "This great calamity befell them because they had corrupted and defiled the sacred trust they were supposed to uphold." Furthermore, in section [149a], the text claims that King Heraclius sought peace with the Arabs to stop the bloodshed, but they did not respond because they were "the very embodiment of justice" (if this is the correct translation).

In his work, Gabriel Reynolds discusses the influence of the Church of the East (the Nestorian Church) as a major presence in the 7th-century Near East and a key part of the Quran's original audience.

Reynolds notes that some critical scholars find the East Syrian (Nestorian) Christology congenial to a docetic view of the crucifixion - the idea that Christ only appeared to suffer. See "The Muslim Jesus, Dead or Alive" (2009): https://web.archive.org/web/20220925142210/https://www3.nd.e...)

Classical Muslim commentators sometimes used Nestorianism as a heresiographical foil, anachronistically attributing certain beliefs - like Jesus being the "Son of God" - to this specific sect to contrast them with the original 'Muslim' followers of Jesus.

Reynolds critiques the common scholarly practice of searching for obscure Christian heresies to explain the Quran's views on Jesus. Instead, he highlights the presence of mainline late-antique Churches: the Melkite Church (imperial Roman), the Syrian Orthodox Church (Jacobite/Monophysite), and the Church of the East (Nestorian) as the predominant influences. He notes how the Quran reshapes these Christian narratives to serve it's own theology:

The Quran's charge of shirk (associating partners with one God) mirrors late antique Christian disputes where different sects accused one another of tritheism (three Gods: The Father, The Son, The Spirit - as a millenium later is exemplified by Joseph Smith Mormon visions).

He argues the Quran's crucifixion pericope is in "close conversation" with the New Testament and the Syriac topos of the risen Christ acting as an apocalyptic witness against his murderers, not in opposition.

Reynolds also argues that the Quran does not deny Jesus' mortality but rather alludes to it in passages like 19:33 where Jesus speaks of the "day I die". He highlights the verb tawaffa (often translated as "to take"), arguing its standard Quranic meaning is "to make die" or "separating the soul from the body".

Reynolds interprets "they did not kill him" (4:157) not as a denial of the crucifixion and death itself, but as a denial of Jewish power over death. The Jews arrogated to themselves God's power over life and death, but in reality, God was in control the Quran says. The prophets are under God's rule.
The popular "substitution theory" is a product of later Islamic tafsir and is not explicitly stated in the Quran itself.

Another noteworthy article on the christological and theological debate between christianity and islam:
https://churchlifejournal.nd.edu/articles/is-the-quranic-god...)

As for my own answer as someone who has been raised Catholic (and still is in a way), having made a tour through Eastern Orthodoxy, humanism, Sufism, shamanism, and buddhism: I noticed that Gene Wolfe, a Catholic SF writer well-versed in church history, has a main character in his Solar Cycle series called Severian.

Severian's name could be an allusion to these one-nature theology debates (. He absorbs the memories and consciousness of countless people, most notably the previous Autarchs, becoming a singular being with a unified nature composed of many. Like the 7th-century church debates, Wolfe describes Severian as a figure of turmoil and schism (severing) - a Christ figure who divides the world, acting as both a bringer of death (a torturer) and life (the New Sun).

As both a Christian and Vajrayana practitioner, I relate to the nature of Christ as a form of Tibetan guru yoga (Bon or Buddhist) and Eucharistic adoration. Guru Yoga is a process of identifying with the lineage and universal wisdom, the teacher, God or Sunyata. Severian’s fate is to become the Autarch, a role that is not an individual office but a literal lineage lived out in one body.

At the heart of Guru Yoga is the "transmission that occurs through the meeting of two minds," making them inseparable. Severian undergoes this literally when he, like the Eucharist, consumes the remains of the previous Autarch and Thecla. In this state Severian, perhaps like Jesus, is no longer a separate ego; he is a manifestation of a 'unified nature' where human and divine (or cosmic) minds are inseparable. Theosis.

In his book Rainbow Body and Resurrection, Francis Tiso follows the Christological splits of the 5th century and the Syro-Oriental (Nestorian) Church. Tiso writes that during the early 7th century, the Persian Sassanid dynasty began persecuting these Christians. Babai the Great managed to guide the church through this, allowing for theological studies independent of the Byzantine empire.

Because these ongoing Christological divides (and the subsequent Arab/Muslim conquests) isolated the Syro-Oriental Church from Europe and Asia Minor, the church there was forced into a life of its own. This theological and political isolation is what pushed their missionary expansion eastward along the Silk Road - eventually reaching China and Tibet, where they engaged in the cross-cultural dialogues that Tiso suggests influenced the development of the Dzogchen "rainbow body" phenomenon through the mystical practices of the desert fathers.