I am pleased to offer these brief words of introduction in this preface to the present work of the renowned theologian of the Assyrian Church of the East, Mar Babai the Great; this work is his magnum opus, the Book of Union. It is undoubtedly one of the most important christological texts of the Assyrian Church ever penned by any theologian of this Church, and it is as relevant today as it was when it first was authored in the late sixth/early seventh century.
It would not at all be an overstatement to say that Babai the Great is indeed one of the greatest theologians of the Church of the East par excellence. He was born in the middle of the sixth century, around the year 550/551, in the village of Beth ʿAynāthā of Beth Zabdai, what is now the region of Çizre in modern Turkey. As an alumnus of the great institution of theology-philosophy-medicine of its time, the School of Nisibis, he was well-versed in philosophical as well as theological matters. His tutor, Mar Abraham of Beth Rabban, was a nephew of the great Church of the East poet-theologian Narsai of Nisibis (d. 502). He imparted to Babai the tradition of the masters and scholars of the School of Nisibis who forged the theology of the Church of the East for all time in the crucible of theology and piety. Having Theodore of Mopsuestia, “the Interpreter” (d. 428), as one of the main theological luminaries who was formative for the school’s christological position, Babai was steeped in the tradition of the Syriac fathers and those of the exegetical school of Antioch. As such, Babai became an ardent defender of the dyophysite Christology of the Church of the East, whose primate resided in the Persian capital of Seleucia-Ctesiphon, modern-day Salman Pak near Baghdad. He died in 628, after having served as the head of the Great Monastery of Mar Abraham of Kaškar on Mt. Izla, succeeding the celebrated ascetic Mar Dādīšōʿ for a period of 24 years.
Writing in the period which spanned about a century or so after the great christological controversies and the ecumenical councils which dealt with these issues – namely Ephesus (431) and Chalcedon (451) – the contributions of Babai the Great became formative for the position of the Church of the East down to this very day. His work, the Book of Union (also known as On the Union) is the standard Church of the East textbook on Christology, and has come to enshrine the christological teaching of the Church up to the present. In this seven-Memre prose masterpiece, Mar Babai has effectively crystalized for all time the Assyrian Church’s understanding and explanation of the mystery of the Incarnation. He does so through a profound understanding of the philosophical discourse which often dominated the christological discussions in the theological milieu of Late-Antique Upper Mesopotamia.
The present text contains the full English translation of the Book of Union made by the late Very Reverend Cor-bishop Michael J. Birnie (1940–2013). This is the first time the text of Mar Babai is being presented in English in a scholarly manner. The late Fr. Birnie was the rector of the St. Thomas the Apostle parish of the Assyrian Church of the East, in Seattle, Washington. Having been ordained a priest of the Assyrian Church in 1968 by the late Catholicos-Patriarch Mar Eshai Shimun XXIII (patriarch 1920–1975), Fr. Birnie was self-taught in Syriac. He engaged in the translation of numerous patristic and liturgical texts of the Assyrian Church, a number of which remain unpublished. He had completed the present translation just a few years before his passing, and I had begun the general editing of this text during my tenure as Bishop of the Diocese of California. The Syriac text is based on the 1915 publication of Arthur Vaschalde, who also provided a Latin translation in the series CSCO. I have checked the Syriac text against the Ms. Or. Quart. 1168 of 1895 (ff. 1–207), which was written in Urmia by the late Qashisha (Reverend) Yosip Kelaita, while he was yet a deacon.1 The English translation remains wholly that of the late Fr. Birnie, with very minor edits by myself. I am grateful to the widow of the late Fr. Birnie, Mrs. Patricia Birnie, for having provided the manuscript and electronic files of the same translation. I am also indebted to the Reverend Deacon Rony Israel for providing the copy of the Syriac text found in the Berlin manuscript.
I would like to offer special thanks to Dr. Sebastian P. Brock, Emeritus Reader in Syriac Studies and Emeritus Fellow of Wolfson College, Oxford, for his Foreword to this volume. In addition, the extended Introduction by Prof. em. Dr. Theresia Hainthaler, Honorary Professor Emeritus of Christology of the Early Church and Theology of the Christian East at the Sankt Georgen Philosophisch-Theologische Hochschule, is a highly appreciated overview of Babai’s treatise and its theology. A word of thanks is also due to Dr. Ken Parry, Honorary Senior Research Fellow in the Department of History and Archaeology at Macquarie University, Sydney, for his guidance in the entire process of publication, in his capacity as Chief Editor of the series Texts and Studies in Eastern Christianity, published by Brill Publishers, Leiden.
It is my ultimate hope and desire that this English translation of the Book of Union will serve both theologians and scholars alike, and will prove fruitful in contributing to the continued dialogue between our Syriac-speaking Churches concerning Christology. May the prayers of the blessed saint and abbot Mar Babai the Great accompany the reader, as well as all those who labored for its publication.
† Mar Awa III
Catholicos-Patriarch of the Assyrian Church of the East
See J. Assfalg, ed., Verzeichnis der orientalischen Handschriften in Deutschland, Band 5: Syrische Handschriften, (Franz Steiner Verlag: Wiesbaden, 1963) 36–38.