identity'). It is essential to use the Syrian terms here and not any translations, because the same words mean different things to different people, and the words must be accepted in the particular sense of each. In Greek Christology, is used specifically to refer to what would correspond to Babai's , and would correspond to . In the period in which Babai and others formulated their respective Christological models, words such as and had less specifically fixed definitions. Thus, it was possible for two individuals to honestly use a single term to mean two distinctly different things. According to Jaroslav Pelikan, "Syriac was a richer and more complex language than either Greek or Arabic, and it allowed for more precise distinction". To Babai, Christ is both God and man. But he could not tolerate any form of Theopaschism (the belief that God suffered), be it the divinity itself, the Trinity, or one of the hypostases of the Trinity. According to Babai, Cyril of Alexandria stood at the root of simple Theopaschism as professed by the Miaphysites, and the Emperor Justinian I at the root of composite Theopaschism. The Church of the East could accept expressions like 'Christ died', 'the Son died', but not 'the Word died', even not 'the Word died in the flesh'. In the sixth century AD, Mar Babai wrote the Teshbokhta or (Hymn of Praise) explaining the theology of the Church of the East He writes: One is Christ the Son of God, Worshiped by all in two natures; In His Godhead begotten of the Father, Without beginning before all time; In His humanity born of Mary, In the fullness of time, in a body united; Neither His Godhead is of the nature of the mother, Nor His humanity of the nature of the Father; The natures are preserved in their Qnumas (substance), In one person of one Sonship. And as the Godhead is three substances in one nature, Likewise the Sonship of the Son is in two natures, one person. So the Holy Church has taught. References Sources Babai Magnus, Liber de Unione, Corpus Scriptorum Christianorum Orientalium, tomi 79/80, syri 34/35, Louvain 1915. (The first figures correspond to the Syriac edition, the second to a Latin translation). 550s births 628 deaths Christians in the Sasanian Empire Syriac writers Year of birth uncertain Assyrian writers Assyrian Church of the East saints Nestorians 7th-century Christian theologians Church of