Page 32 - Demo

28It will be noticed that the Greek form of the genitive case “Theou,” i.e. “God’s” [1] was corrupted into “Theos”;[1] 1. Concerning the Logos, ever since the second century a very fiercecontroversy about it arose among the “Fathers” of the Church, especially in the East, and it continued until the Unitarians were utterly crushed and their literature destroyed. To-day, unfortunately, there remains hardly any portion intact or an unaltered fragment from the “Gospels” and ‘Commentaries” as well as the controversial writings belonging to the Unitarians, except what has been quoted from them in the writings of their opponents, such as the learned Greek Patriarch Photius and those before him.Among the “Fathers” of the Eastern Christians, one of the most distinguished is St. Ephraim the Syrian. He is the author of many works, chiefly of a commentary on the Bible, which is published both in Syriac and in Latin, which latter edition I had carefully read in Rome. He has also homilies, dissertations called “mādrāshi” and “contra Haeretici,” etc. Then there is a famous Syrian, author Bār Dīsān (generally Written Bardisanes) whoflourished in the latter end of the second and the first of the third century A.D. From the writings of Bār Dīsān, nothing in the Syriac is extant except what Ephraim, Jacob of Nesibin and other Nestorians and Jacobites have quoted for refutation, and except what most of the Greek Fathers employed in their own language. Bār Dīsān maintained that Jesus (pbuh) Christ was the seat of the temple of the Word of God, but both he and the word were created. St. Ephraim, in combating the “heresy” of Bār Dīsān, says:(Syriac):“Wai lakh O, dovya at Bār Dīsān Dagreit I’Milta eithrov d’ Āllāhā. Baram Kthabha la kthabh d’akh hākhān Illa d’Miltha eithov Āllāhā.”(Arabic):“Wailu ’I-laka yá anta’ s-Safil Bār Disān Lianna fara’aita kána ’I-kalámo li ’I-Láhi Lákina ’l-kitábo má kataba kazáIlla ’l-kalámo kána ’l-Láh.”(English translation):“Woe unto thee O miserable Bár Dísán, That thou didst read the “word was God’s”!But the Book [Gospel] did not write likewise, Except that, “the Word was God.”Almost in all the controversies on the Logos the Unitarians are “branded” with the heresy of denying the eternality and divine personality of it by having “corrupted” the Gospel of John (pbuh), etc. these imputations were returned to the Trinitarians by the true Nasára -Unitarians. So one can deduct from the patristic literature that the Trinitarians were always reproached with having corrupted the Scriptures.