Prof. Bishara Ebeid (Ca’ Foscari University, Italy)

Nicaea in the writings of Elias of Nisibis: The Council, its Participants and its Creed

The Council of Nicaea holds significant importance for Elias, the East Syrian Metropolitan of Nisibis and one of the prominent authorities of the Church of the East during the eleventh century. In the first part of my paper, I will present the importance he attributes to the Council of Nicaea in the historical section of his Book of the Demonstration of the Correctness of the Faith, where the focus is on its convocation, the East Syrian bishops who took part in it, and the decisions made. In the second part I will highlight the characteristics of the Syriac text of the Nicene Creed that Elias quotes in his Commentary on the Creed as well as the nature of the Arabic translation he provides to this text. Finally, I will explore briefly the apologetic aspects of the Commentary on the Creed as it is addressed directly to other Christian denominations, namely the Jacobites and Melkites, and indirectly to followers of other religions, particularly Muslims.

Curriculum Vitae

Prof. Bishara Ebeid works as an Assistant Professor at the Ca’ Foscari University in Venice, Italy. He holds a PhD from the Pontifical Oriental Institute in Rome with a dissertation on the Christology of Christian Arabic authors in the 10th and 11th centuries (2014), and a second PhD from the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki with a dissertation on the figure of Pontius Pilate in the New Testament and in apocryphal literature (2019). He specializes in Byzantine, Coptic, Syriac, and Christian Arabic theology and literature. Between 2019 and 2023 he was a Senior Researcher on the ERC-funded FLOS: Florilegia Syriaca project at the Ca’ Foscari University.

Publications and Works

- “The Christology of the Church of the East: An Analysis of the Christological Statements and Professions of Faith of the Official Synods of the Church of the East before A.D. 612,” Orientalia Christiana Periodica 82 (2016): 353–402. - “Christology and Deification in the Church of the East: Mar Gewargis I, His Synod and His Letter to Mina as a Polemic against Martyrius–Sahdona,” in Cristianesimo nella Storia: Studies in History, Theology and Exegesis 38, no. 3 (2017): 729–84. - La tunica di al-Masīḥ: La Cristologia delle grandi confessioni cristiane dell’Oriente nel X e XI secolo, Rome: Pontifical Oriental Institute, 2018; 2nd ed., 2019. - Elias of Nisibis: Commentary on the Creed (Tafsīr al-amānah al-kabīrah), Cordoba: Cordoba Near Eastern Research Unit (CNERU), and Beirut: St. Joseph University Centre for Arab Christian Documentation and Research (CEDRAC-USJ), 2019 (Series Syro-Arabica, 9). - “The Christology of Ḥabīb’s chapters: New considerations,” in Symposium Syriacum XII: Held at St Lawrence College, Rome 19–21 August 2016, organized by the Pontifical Oriental Institute on the occasion of the Centenary Celebration (1917–2017), edited by Emidio Vergani and Sabino Chialà, Rome: Pontifical Oriental Institute, 2022 (Orientalia Christiana Analecta, 311), 479–525. - Elias of Nisibis, The Book of the Demonstration of the Correctness of the Faith (Kitāb al-burhān ‘alā ṣaḥīḥ al-īmān), Cordoba: Cordoba Near Eastern Research Unit (CNERU), and Beirut: St. Joseph University Centre for Arab Christian Documentation and Research (CEDRAC-USJ), 2023 (Series Syro-Arabica, 11). - “Ibn al-Ṭayyib’s Fiqh al-Naṣrāniyyah: Translating and Recalling East Syriac Legal Texts in an Arabo-Muslim Context,” Asiatische Studien/Études Asiatiques 78 (2024): 629–66. - “The Christological Foundation of Human Freedom: Elias of Nisibis on Free Will and Intellect,” Oriens Christianus 107 (2024): 62–85.