Ministering to Muslims: The Dialogue between Timothy I and the Caliph Mahdi

In my PhD program in World Christian Studies, I assessed the first encounters between Christian and Muslim theologians during the beginning of the Islamic expansion. The Arab Christian theologians possessed a remarkable level of theological and apologetic depth. These theologians not only courageously proved the veracity of Christianity as the authentic faith, but also shielded their modest Christian community from Islamic theological attack.¹ Their endeavors exemplify the resolute defense of faith in the face of hardship.

The Chinese church and its partners are invited to the “Asian to Asian theological-missiological” table by someone from the biblical Arab Christian heritage. Here the modern Chinese church will hear contextual suggestions for evangelizing Muslims and discipling believers from a Muslim background (BMB) on Chinese soil and beyond. This someone is Timothy I (AD 728-823), the patriarch of the Church of the East. In this article he invites the Chinese church to listen to missiological and apologetical suggestions from the famous dialogue between him and Caliph Mahdi which took place shortly after Timothy I became the patriarch of the Church of the East in Mesopotamia in AD 780. It is interesting to note that the Church of the East also introduced and spread Christianity in China in AD 635.

Timothy I, patriarch of the Church of the East for forty-three years, is widely considered one of the greatest patriarchs in the history of the church during the Umayyad-Abbasid caliphates. He was a learned man, schooled in Syriac, Greek and Arabic. He translated numerous works of Aristotelian philosophy into Arabic.² In these apologetic letters, Timothy explored, through a dialectical format, standard topics in Muslim-Christian controversies such as the Trinity, the Incarnation, and proofs that Christianity is the true religion.³

In AD 781, during the reign of Mahdi,⁴ the third of the Abbasid caliphs at Baghdad and spiritual and temporal head of the Muslim religion, Timothy and the caliph convened for a two-day dialogue in Arabic with portions in Syriac. The fraternal dialogue format with the caliph was in the form of questions and answers.⁵ This discussion was found in a letter written by Timothy I addressed to a monk friend.⁶ He used the Bible and some Quranic terminology with the caliph in his arguments.⁷

Mahdi had little knowledge of the Bible and accused Christians of changing its content. The caliph attacked the biblical understanding of the Trinity, the duality of the person of Christ, and the veracity of the Word of God. He also accused Christians of neglecting the prophethood of Muhammad. Timothy I said: “Then Christ warned us against accepting the prophets and Christs who may come after his coming.”⁸ Trying to negate the divinity of Jesus and to protect the absolute oneness of God, Mahdi said, “There are, therefore, two distinct beings. The eternal (God from God) and the temporal (man from Mary).”⁹ Timothy I denied this view: “Christ is not two beings, nor two Sons, but Son and Christ are one; there are in Him two natures, one which belongs to the Word and the other one which is from Mary clothed itself with the Word-God.”¹⁰  

The dialogue consisted of twenty-seven questions. The format was simple. The caliph asked questions, and Timothy I responded to them. The first five questions are related to the identity of Jesus. The sixth, the seventh, and the eighth questions are related to the Christian beliefs on the Trinity.¹¹ To evaluate the Trinitarian theology of Timothy I, this article evaluates the first eight question-answer set during the dialogue between the Patriarch Timothy I and the Caliph Mahdi. This first part of this post will deal with the first five questions, while the second part, to be published later, will address the last three.

The First Question: The Spiritual Sonship of Jesus

Al Mahdi said,¹² “It is not fitting for one like you, with what I observe of your understanding, to say that God took for Himself a consort or had a son from her.”

I said, “Who has the audacity to blaspheme against God with such blasphemy?”

He said, “How is your confession of the Messiah?”

I said, “He is the Word of God (kalimatullāh)¹³, who appeared in a human form, one among us, for our salvation.”

He said, “Do you not say that he is the son of God?”

I said, “To this witnessed the Gospel, the Torah and the Prophets. However, it is not corporeal sonship, rather, Divine, eternal and wondrous birth, which cannot be fathomed; for God cannot be comprehended neither in Himself nor in how His attributes are related to Him. Nevertheless, we believe in Him based upon what is in His authenticated books. As for the analogy, it is the birth of the word from the soul and the light from the sun.”

The caliph, in the first question, accuses Christians of violating the oneness of God, similar to the arguments raised by Muslims today. The misunderstanding of Christian beliefs was based on the Quranic teachings. The assertion is found in Sura 6:101, “How should he have a child when he has no consort” (anna yakūnu lahu, waladun wa lam takun llahu ṣaḥibatun), and Sura 72:3, “He has not taken a wife or a son” (rabbina ma ittakhatha ṣahibatan wala walada). The caliph wondered how an intellectual man, someone with education and culture, foolishly believed that God took for himself a woman and had a son form her. No legitimate Christian suggests there was any sexual intercourse between God and Mary. Nowhere does Scripture imply a physical descent from the Godhead.¹⁴

It seems that Muslims and Christians have a common belief in Jesus as the Word of God.¹⁵ Timothy I, contrary to Muslims, believes that Jesus Christ is the eternal Word who incarnated and became flesh and blood. He is the eternal Logos, a divine person who incarnated in Jewish flesh. The patriarch summarized his Christology saying that Jesus is the long-awaited Messiah, announced in the Old Testament. In the Islamic teachings, the title Messiah has no theological implication. For Timothy I, the “Word-God” refers to the Logos, the mystery of redemption, the second Person in the Trinity. He affirmed to the caliph that his beliefs in the sonship of God were not based on his opinions; but rather, on God’s revelation and authenticated in the gospel, Torah, and the prophets. Besides his apologetics role, Timothy I corrected the erroneous notions of the Christian faith: “It is not corporeal sonship, rather, Divine, eternal and wondrous birth… birth does not have to always be physically sexual.”¹⁶

The Second Question: The Two Births of Christ

He said,¹⁷ “Do you not claim that he was born of Mary?”

I said, “As He is the Word, He is born of the Father, eternal birth, without time, and without separation. As for His humanity, He is born of the Virgin Mary, in a specific and known time, without sexual intercourse and without breaking the seal of her virginity.”

He said, “As for conceiving without sexual intercourse, it is written and known. But as for giving birth while remaining a virgin, how can this be?”

We said, “As for the institution of our nature, no woman conceives without sexual intercourse nor gives birth without breaking the seal of her virginity. As for God’s ability both matters are easy. Thus, as it was possible that she conceives without sexual intercourse, it was possible to give birth with the seal of her virginity remaining intact.

And the analogy: From the Book, Eve coming out from the side of Adam without tearing it. And from nature, the birth of the ray from the core of the sun, without tearing it.”

The Muslim caliph believes in the virginal birth of Jesus. The Quran asserts the virgin birth. “Mary, who guarded her chastity…” (allatī aḥṣnat farjaha).¹⁸ To clarify the question raised by the caliph about Jesus, Timothy I first speaks to his divinity saying that his birth was spiritual, eternally of the Father, outside of time, and without separation from the Father. Second, Timothy I explains the humanity of Jesus by asserting that Jesus was born of Mary, without sexual intercourse and without breaking her virginity. Both births are miraculous. The caliph agrees with the virginal birth of Jesus but disagrees that her virginity remained intact. They both believe that Jesus was born miraculously; they both believe in the virginal birth. However, contrary to the caliph, Timothy believes in the Son’s eternal relationship with the Father. As the Logos, Jesus was born of the Father and Mary, and she remained a virgin even after his birth.¹⁹

The Third Question: The Messiah Is One Person of Two Natures

He said,²⁰ “How is it that the eternal One is born in time?”

I said, “He was born of Mary in His human nature, not in His Eternal one.

“The subtle in a dense vessel; therein, the subtle is united to the dense, without separation or mixing. The Lord indicated this to us by His saying, ‘No one ascended to heaven except He who descended from heaven. It is known that the body of the Lord Jesus, the Messiah, was taken from the Lady Chaste Virgin Mary, as witnessed to by the Prophets and the Books.’ David, the prophet, says in the Psalm, ‘You prepared for me a body.’ And Solomon, the wise, says, ‘Wisdom has built for itself a home.’

“And Isaiah says, ‘Behold… The virgin shall be with child, and bear a son, and shall name him Immanuel,’ which means our God is with us (Isaiah 7:14). And the Apostle says the same, quoting what David, the prophet, said. And the three hundred and eighteen fathers proclaimed true that he is ‘born from the father before all ages,’ and that ‘for our salvation, He came down from heaven, and was Incarnate from the Holy Spirit and the Virgin Mary. And according to His will, He accepted suffering on our behalf, and He was crucified and risen from the dead. And he ascended into heaven, and His Divinity does not separate from His humanity. And the humanity ascended united to the Divinity, without separation or mixing.’”

He said, “He is two then!”

I said, “Along with our profession that He is One, not two, we do not look at the two natures as two persons. Rather, they constitute One Christ, One Son, as the human being is one, in his composition, his form and person, and he is two due to the distinction between his invisible and spiritual soul and his visible and corporeal body, in the same way the Word of God, together with His humanity, is One Person, without separation or mixing between the two natures.”

As Logos, Jesus was born outside time. In his human nature, Jesus was born in time. It is not the divine that was born in time: “Jesus was born of Mary in His human nature, not in His Eternal one.” Timothy I explains that the nonphysical invisible divinity (the subtle) becomes present in the physical visible body (the dense vessel). He cites prophecies from the Old Testament (David, Solomon, and Isaiah) to explain the incarnation: “His divinity and humanity were in perfect union and without mixing or separation.”²¹ Timothy I declares Jesus to be one person and not two. Following the analogies, the patriarch argues that humans are both body and soul, but he is one. Timothy I argues humans are one in his composition on form and person. Nasry writes:

Yet, one can distinguish his invisible and spiritual soul and his visible and corporeal body. In the same way the Word of God, together with His humanity, is One Person, without separation or mixing between the two natures. The distinction is not separation. Timothy discerns and distinguishes between the two natures, but he does not mix and/or separate the two.²²

The Fourth Question: God is Christ’s Father and God

He said,²³ “Did not the Messiah say, ‘I am going to My Father and your Father, My God and to your God’? If He (God) is his Father, He is not his God, and vice versa, this is a contradiction.”²⁴

I said, “He is His Father by nature of the Word, born of Him from all eternity. As the human being is living and rational by nature of his soul, not by nature of his corporality, for living and rationality are by nature of the soul, and not by nature of the body, rather, it [rationality] is so due to its [the body’s] composition with His soul. In the same way, God by nature is the Father of the Word, and by the union of the Word with the human taken from Mary, He (God) is Father of the human mentioned, and he is His God by nature to the human mentioned, and through the union, and in name to the Word. Thus, He said that God is His Father and His God. He said this to proclaim true His Divinity and His humanity.”

In the dialogue, the caliph just knows of the Islamic Jesus, a powerful prophet supported by the Islamic God and able to perform miracles, but who is vastly different from God’s self-revelation in the Christian faith. Muslims seldom read the gospel, but the caliph knew enough of the gospel to suggest a contradiction, “If God is Jesus’ Father, He is not Jesus’ God, and vice versa.”²⁵ Timothy I’s answers for this and other questions related to the blessed Trinity and incarnation in that:

God is Jesus’ Father by nature of the Word, born of the Father from all eternity. Here again, the patriarch explains that Jesus as a human being, is living and rational by nature of His soul, not by nature of His body, since the body is neither rational nor alive without the soul. It is in the union of the body and the soul that the human being is alive and rational. The human nature is the composition of the body and the soul. With respect to the Logos united to the human nature, taken from Mary, God is Father to the human nature as well by virtue of that union between the two natures. With respect to the human nature, God is Jesus’ God by nature, and, due to the union, nominally God of the Word, for the two natures constitute One Christ. This is the reason, then, that Jesus distinguishes between God’s fatherhood to Himself, in His Divine nature, the Logos, and His God, in His eternity. Due to the union of the two natures, God is the Father of Christ, the One Person. Moreover, due to the union, one can apply Divine as well as human attributes to Jesus.²⁶

The Fifth Question: The Spiritual Birth

He said, “How does He beget, and He is the Subtle Spirit (kaifa yalidu, wa huwa ruḥun laẓīfun), without genital organs or its instruments?”²⁷  

I said, “As He creates without the organs of creation and its instruments. Behold, we see the sun begets its ray, without genital organs. In sum, the birth of the spiritual is spiritual, as the birth of the corporal is corporal.”

The caliph addresses the birth of Jesus by using words such as sexual and physical intercourse. Timothy addresses the question by using a common ground, “God the Creator.” He says that God did not use sexual organs to create the world or give birth. He explains that the sonship of God as well as creation are spiritual occurrences and must be understanding in a spiritual sense. What is born of spirit is spirit (John 3:5-6).

The second half of this post will be published in a few weeks. We hope that this first half has given you food for thought! Find more of Dr. Jeferson Chagas’s posts on ministering to Chinese Muslims by clicking here.

1. Jeferson F. Chagas, “An Assessment of the Transformation of Contemporary Arab Believers from a Muslim Background through an Arab Christian Defense of the Trinity from Early Islamic Periods” (PhD thesis, Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, 2019).
2. Zachary Karabell, Peace Be Upon You: Fourteen Centuries of Muslim, Christian, and Jewish Conflict and Cooperation (New York: Vintage Books, 2008), 58. Timothy I was born in a Christian village called Hazza in the province of Hadyab (Iraq). He was educated by a well-known monk, Mar Abraham bar Dāshandād. Timothy I was honored by the caliphs for his ability to answer questions related to the Christian faith. Muhammad al-Mahdī, who destroyed many churches and tortured many Christians, appreciated Timothy I and invited him for philosophical and religious discussions. Since the Christians were better educated than many Muslims, many served in various capacities in the government. Timothy I discussed topics on Christology through the weapons of Greek rhetoric and logic.
3. Thomas Hurst, “The Syriac Letters of Timothy I (727-823): A Study in Christian Muslim Controversy” (PhD thesis, The Catholic University of America, 1986), 34.
4. Muhammad al-Mahdī, the third Abbasid caliph, was a descendent of al-‘Abbas ibn ‘Abd al-Muṭṭalib, a paternal uncle of the prophet Muhammad. He was born in AD 744/745. He was ten years old when his father, Abū Ja’far al-Mansūr, became the second caliph. He became the caliph when his father died in AD 775 until he died in AD 785. The caliph attracted intellectuals and nobles and developed industry and scholarship. He was an educated man, who appreciated philosophy, music, poetry, and science. He defined some religious roles to protect Islamic orthodoxy. He was the first caliph to produce specific literature to refute the heretics and atheists. He was benevolent to Christians and one reason for this was the high intellectuality of the Church of the East community (doctors, scientists, translators, philosophers, and so on).
5. S. K. Samir, “The Prophet Muhammad as Seen by Timothy I and Other Arab Christian Authors,” in Syrian Christians under Islam: The First Thousand Years, ed. David Tomas (Leiden: Brill, 2001), 91.
6. Ibid., 92.
7. N. A. Newman, ed. The Early Christian-Muslim Dialogue: A Collection of Documents from the First Three Islamic Centuries, A.D. 632-900: Translations with Commentary (Hatfield, PA: Interdisciplinary Biblical Research Institute, 1993), 172.
8. Samir, “The Prophet Muhammad as Seen by Timothy I and Other Arab Christian Authors,” 92.
9. Newman, ed. The Early Christian-Muslim Dialogue, 177.
10. Ibid.
11. It is important to emphasize that the doctrine of the Trinity has been and continues to be a critical point in the evangelization of Muslims and in the discipleship of believers from a muslim background.
12. Alphonse Mingana, The Apology of Timothy the Patriarch before the Caliph Mahdi, 17. Each question is composed by answer-question format. The reference for each set of “I said-He said” is in the beginning of the question only. For example, see the reference in “The First Question.”
13. The texts in parentheses and in italics are in the transliterated form of Standard Arabic.
14. Wafik Nasry, The Caliph and The Patriarch, Al-Mahdi and Timothy I: An 8^th Century Interreligious Dialogue (North Charleston, SC: 2015), 60.
15. See Sura 3:45, “Jesus, son of Mary (not son of God), who will be the Messiah, Jesus, held in honor in this world and the next.” For Muslims, God is only one God. He is far above having a son.
16. S. K. Samir and Wafik Nasry, The Patriarch and the Caliph: An Eighth Century Dialogue between Timothy I and Al-Mahdi (Provo, UT: Brigham Young University Press, 2018), 76-77.
17. Nasry, The Caliph and The Patriarch, Al-Mahdi and Timothy I, 62-63.
18. See Suras 3:45-47; 19:19-23; 21:91; and 66:12.
19. Samir and Nasry, The Patriarch and the Caliph, 78-79.
20. Nasry, The Caliph and The Patriarch, Al-Mahdi and Timothy I, 64.
21. Samir and Nasry, The Patriarch and the Caliph, 80.
22. Ibid.
23. Nasry, The Caliph and The Patriarch, Al-Mahdi and Timothy I, 67.
24. It seems that the caliph pointed to John 20:17.
25. Samir and Nasry, The Patriarch and the Caliph, 81-82.
26. Ibid.
27. Nasry, The Caliph and The Patriarch, Al-Mahdi and Timothy I, 68. It seems that Timothy followed the instructions of Jesus registered in the Gospel of John (John 3:5-6).

Jeferson Chagas

Dr. Jeferson Chagas has served among Muslims since 1996 and served in China from 2005 to 2015, including among the Hui. He also has over 20 years of experience working with gospel workers to equip them in the areas of intercultural communication and understanding Christianity in the majority world. Dr. …View Full Bio

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