He [Christ] … taught us how one might acquire the ability to refrain from evil and be perfectly good. This takes place in four different ways: first, abandon and reject the things of the world; secondly, love God and put Him above the world; thirdly, love other people and put them above the world; and fourthly, forgo retaliation, cling to forgiveness, reward evil with good, and imitate God.
~ Theodore Abu Qurra, Theologus Autodidactus
I am working on writing my second book, this one on the topic of Orthodox Christian social thought and for Ancient Faith Publishing, and I decided that I should add a chapter on Middle Eastern Orthodox Christians after the Arab conquests of Syria, Palestine, and Egypt.
Theodore Abu Qurra was a late-eight and early-ninth century Orthodox theologian and sometime bishop of Harran, near Edessa, and he is one of the first to write in Arabic (in addition to Greek and Syriac). Edessa was religiously pluralistic, and in the work quoted above, Theodore developed an intriguing thought experiment for trying to discern which religion is the truest.
The thought experiment goes like this: Imagine a man who lives on top of a mountain with his father, a king, whom he knows but has never seen. His father sends him to a village in his kingdom with a physician to care for him. Unfortunately, the son ignores the physician and falls ill. The physician notifies the king, and so the king writes his son a letter telling him what has caused his illness and how to get better, sending it with a messenger. Unfortunately, the king’s enemies hear of this. The king is too powerful for them to harm directly, but they devise a plan to send false messengers with counterfeit letters that will lead the son to poison himself and die. As it happens, all the messengers arrive at the same time, and the son does not know who to believe. How can he figure it out?
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Everyday Asceticism 