CHRISTIAN Situally, in his divinity, from God; bodily, in his humanity from Mary;
and had died in his humanity and was revived by virtue of his divinity .95
In 605 the Synod of Gregory reconfirmed the acceptability of all the
commentaries and writings of Theodore as well as the doctrine of the
two natures united in the single prosopon of the Son.^96
During the interregnum in the patriarchate, the representatives of
the monastic party submitted a creed to the monarch at Mada'in in
612 which acknowledged two natures, two substances, and one person
in Christ, and accepted the term "mother of Christ" for Mary instead
of theotokos. On the same occasion, these spokesmen adopted what
amounted to a Monothelite position to explain the unity of Christ,
saying that Christ was one not in the unity of nature and substance
but in a single prosopon of filiation, a single power, a single will, a
single economy. Afterwards, Yazdin convened the church leaders at
Karkh Juddan, where they condemned I;I"nana and his followers once
more.^97 In the same period Babai the Great reiterated the doctrine that
Christ was perfect God and perfect man, with two natures and two
generations-one in divinity from God and one in humanity from
Mary.98
It should be dear that the distinctive doctrinal position of the "Nes-
torian" Church developed in the early seventh century in reaction to
the threat of a compromise with the Monophysites. Once established,
this position provided a continuing basis for a separate "Nestorian"
identity after the conquest, and it tended to become more rigid because
compromising tendencies continued to exist within the church.
At the time of the conquest, Nestorians were preoccupied with the
attempt of Heraklios to win back the eastern provinces of the Byzantine
empire after the great war with the Persians by way of a doctrinal
reconciliation. As part of the peace negotiations, a delegation from
the Eastern church led by the catholicos, Isho 'yahbh 11, met Heraklios
95 Chabot, Synodieon, pp. 197-98,458-59.
96 Chabot, Synodieon, pp. 210, 474-75.
97 Ibid., pp. 565, 571, 575, 582, 591, 592; Scher, "Histoire nestorienne," (2), 529-- By about A.D. 600, the Coptic Church of Egypt had worked out the doctrine of
the unity of the "acting force" in Christ (Stratos, Byzantium, p. 288). See also Duchesne,
L'Eglise, pp. 408-10.
98 B~bai Magni, "Liber de Unione," CSCO, Ser. Syri, 34 (Louvain, 1953),39, 71,
83; Seri. Syri, 35 (Louvain, 1953), 32, 58, 67; Chabot, "Chastete," pp. 260-61. This
matter is complicated by Babai's use of q'nome for the three persons of the Trinity,
where the term must be synonymous with parsopii or at least used in the same sense.
When he referred to Christ, q'nomii meant hypostasis or substance (Babai Magni, "Liber
de Unione," CSCO, Ser. Syri 34:6,26; Ser. Syri 35:5,21).