Bishop Solomon: The Book of the Bee

Explanation and Analysis of the Document

The Book of the Bee contains an introduction with an apology and sixty chapters, most of which are twenty-five lines or fewer in length. The purpose of the book, as noted by the author, is to provide information gleaned from the Old and New Testaments “concerning God’s dispensation in the two worlds.” The chapters generally follow the chronology of the Christian Bible with some diversions as well as theological discussions concerning the nature of the afterlife and Judgment Day. As a trained scholar, Bishop Solomon uses many sources outside the Christian Bible in constructing his arguments. The excerpted chapters provide a sense of the Nestorian viewpoint at a time when Christian theological discussion was mature with centuries of discourse, not only within the Church of the East but also with the Roman and Greek churches, Judaism, Islam, and to a lesser extent Asian religions. Wording in parentheses are the editor’s clarifications of the text.

Introduction and Apology

The apology to The Book of the Bee contains information regarding the author and the book’s purpose and a discussion of why and how religious texts are studied. The author, Bishop Solomon, indicates that he is writing to a lifelong friend as a means of summarizing their theological discussions. Solomon uses both the Christian Bible and the teachings of “the Fathers and the Doctors” to formulate his discourses. In a fascinating metaphor, he describes the process of building religious arguments as equivalent to the life of a bee. Just as the bee goes from source to source to gather pollen and then turns it into honey and wax, so, too, has Bishop Solomon drawn on various sources to form a worldly foundation and a spiritual roof for his arguments. He then shifts the metaphor to relate theological research to the work of a gardener who plants and tends his garden. The author warns that if the fruits of his garden are too few, then the visitor should seek out the roots to be further satisfied, thus enjoining the reader to go to the source material to inquire further if his explanations seem inadequate. As a final warning, Solomon notes that just as eating too much honey can cause one to vomit, delving too far into the meaning of sacred texts robs them of their sweetness, implying that one can also “vomit” up one’s beliefs.

Creation

Bishop Solomon’s initial commentaries expound upon elements of the creation story found in Genesis. In chapter 1, he notes that there was no single time when God thought of creating the universe, that it was always in his mind, an image reinforcing the eternal nature of God. Humans have seniority over the other species of the world because the idea of the human being was thought of first in the mind of God, even though the other creatures were created first. And while the other creatures were created by God in the silence of the universe with a spoken word, Adam was formed directly by God’s hands, and it was the actual breath of God that infused life into him, making Adam a living soul with knowledge of good and evil. This makes the human body a temple for God to dwell in, a position very close to other religious views that the soul or spark of the human being’s nature is part of the divine. When Adam perceived that he was a created being and that there was a creator, the idea of God formed in his mind—an awareness very similar to what the angels experienced (as noted in chapter 7).

In chapters 2 and 3, the bishop comments on the nature of the divine power to create the universe. The original substances from which the universe is formed were created strictly through the will of God; heaven, the elements, the angels, and darkness came into being from nothingness. Each of these substances was separate, with unformed earth under the waters, air above the waters, and fire above the atmosphere, and with each described using the fundamental concepts of hot, cold, moist, and dry. The bishop refutes the notion that the “Spirit” mentioned in Genesis 1:2 refers to the Holy Spirit, insisting it refers only to the air.

Where Genesis does not mention angelic beings in its opening chapters, chapters 5 and 7 of The Book of the Bee, discussing angels, are based on tradition and learning carried down through the centuries since even before the birth of Jesus. Bishop Solomon’s discourse mirrors the angelic hierarchies of the Catholic Church and can be compared to discussions of angels found in Judaism, Islam, and Zoroastrianism, of which the author would have been well aware. The angels are in the presence of God and perform services for God based on their class. The lower order, the Principalities, Archangels, and Angels, are “ministers who wait upon created things,” essentially supernatural guides for humanity, including the guardian angels, who are assigned to a person from birth through to the final resurrection. Angels are above humankind in that they have a greater intellect, allowing them to understand more of the nature and design of the universe. Human beings, however, have stronger desires; this inclination is both negative and positive, in that desires, which tie people to the material world, lead them to sin but also to want to be more godlike. The demons, on the other hand, have greater anger than that of other rational beings, which by the nature of emotion—selfish and introspective—leaves them constantly in a sinful state.

Because the angels were not spoken into being but were created directly from the will of God, they believed that they were self-sufficient, that is, godlike. When God created light by not only willing it but also commanding it vocally, the angels became aware of the presence of God, and through their knowledge of his power they began eternal praise and worship of him. The bishop notes that light has no warmth, light being disassociated from fire and established as a separate element. Like philosophers from the Greeks on, Solomon speculates on the nature of light and its association with the divine; unlike the Platonists or Neoplatonists, he sees light as a created thing separate from God and not as emanations of God.

Concerning the Afterlife

The last five chapters of The Book of the Bee deal with the afterlife. Chapters 56, 59, and 60 are of interest because of the manner in which the bishop discusses various beliefs concerning the soul, God’s mercy, the afterlife, and resurrection. To begin, the bishop states one of the core beliefs of the Church of the East even today: that death is God’s gift to humankind. While on the surface this would seem a contradiction, the majority religions today—Hinduism, Buddhism, Judaism, Christianity, and Islam—view the physical time the human being spends on earth as only a temporary state, one that contains conditions for distraction from the divine will (sin, karma, and so on). Thus the end of life, if one has lived in accordance with God’s will, leads one not to dismay but instead to a state in which one is in the divine presence. In discussing this end state, the bishop is compiling both church thought and traditional speculations, so the text sometimes seems contradictory.

In the opening paragraph of chapter 56, the bishop notes that humans die in five ways: naturally, voluntarily, accidentally, through violence, and through divine punishment (such as the Flood). Of these, only the first is “natural.” The others involve some act of will—even accidents, which are caused by an agency connected with the person’s actions. However, all of these reasons for dying are interwoven into God’s will, which cannot be understood by either humans or angels until resurrection, when all rational beings will understand it. When a person dies, the soul goes out of the body, and angels escort it. The angels do not defend the soul as devils examine it; the deeds a person performed in life become the determinant for whether the devils seize the soul and take it to Gehenna (Hell) or whether the soul proceeds on its way to the divine presence. In God’s presence, the soul forgets its earthly existence—although in the very next sentence the bishop notes that “the soul knows everything that it has done whether of good or evil.”

In the next paragraph, five different viewpoints on where the soul goes are listed, including to heaven or Paradise if good or to the “abyss of Eden outside Paradise” (Gehenna) if bad, while various traditions indicate that the soul somehow remains with or near the body. Souls, and hence humankind, may have knowledge of the truth, but it is a baby’s knowledge; true knowledge will come only with resurrection. As with other Catholic faiths, the Nestorians believe in the power of prayer and the intercession of saints. The prayers of the righteous, both living and deceased, are heard by God and can affect the living. Moreover, the souls of those who lived good lives “hold spiritual conversation with each other,” implying an afterlife that is engaging and active.

Chapter 59 concerns the consequences in the afterlife for both sinners and the righteous. In the first paragraph, Bishop Solomon uses a short logical discussion to argue that there must be punishment for sinners in order for there to be happiness for the godly. However, unlike the usual vision of hell as fire, molten rock, and physically agonizing torments, the bishop explains that the real torment of sinners is mental. The punishment of the sinner is tied to human intelligence, which is refined and made more acute at resurrection. Thus, the joy of the righteous and the anguish of the sinner are beyond anything the living can comprehend. The importance of intelligence is a consistent theme in The Book of the Bee. From the angels to the human soul, the bishop believes that rationality is the foundation of what the world is all about. Intelligence allows humankind to make decisions in earthly life, and intelligence continues into the afterlife to one’s great joy or torment depending upon what kind of decisions were made in life.

The second paragraph of chapter 59 describes the afterlife for the godly. The “light” of the righteous is not the elemental light but is instead some of the “light” of God, continuing the argument that as temples of God, humans share God’s light. There follows a note about the proportionality of that light for the righteous and of torment for the sinners, each according to how they lived. For the righteous, the more holy they were in life, the brighter the light. Yet in the next part of the chapter, the bishop makes the argument that all will be resurrected equally in the sight of God. There will be no names and no social distinctions, whether gender, class, nationality, ethnicity, age, or any other condition. All will arise as did Jesus, as a perfectly formed human, thirty-three years of age. Presumably, the proportional light distinguishing the most righteous ceases to be so after the final resurrection.

Chapter 60 provides a further interesting, though somewhat contradictory, look at the afterlife. In this chapter, Bishop Solomon argues for the mercy of God, but the arguments are not complete; he never truly answers the questions of whether torment for sinners is eternal or whether God’s mercy is complete. The bishop draws on the lost Book of Memorials and on the writings of three early Christian scholars in this chapter: Isaac, bishop of Nineveh, Assyria (in modern-day Iraq), in the late seventh century, a prolific ascetic author whose works were a foundation of Nestorian piety for several centuries; Theodore the Expositor, bishop of Mopsuestia (now Yakapinar, Turkey) from about 392 to 428 and author of The Book of Pearls (also since lost); and Diodorus, or Diodore (ca. 330–390), bishop of Tarsus (in modern-day Turkey) and teacher of Theodore of Mopsuestia.

Solomon begins the chapter with an observation about religious teaching, noting that those teachers who preach warnings of fire and brimstone terrify and cause despair—which is good for those who cannot think for themselves or control their lives—while other teachers encourage by expounding on God’s mercy. As quoted, The Book of Memorials indicates that humans should repent of sins in this world or suffer retribution in the next, which will be exacted “to the uttermost farthing.” To exact punishment to such a degree indicates there will be nothing left to exact, which means that there will be an end to punishment. Thus, once that retribution is carried out, the soul will be purified, and God will be satisfied.

The quotations cited by the bishop illustrate the universalist position that God’s intent is to dispense grace, not justice, which is a human motive. Divine punishment makes no sense without eventual divine mercy because, as the bishop indicates, what would be the point of eternal torment if the purpose behind the agony is to elicit understanding of one’s mistakes and sins and regret for them? If immortality is humankind’s eventual reward, it makes more sense for punishment to conclude, so that the immortal life of the soul is one of unending joy in the presence of God. In closing, Bishop Solomon quotes Diodorus’s Book of the Dispensation at length, affirming that God allots punishments and rewards according to what each soul deserves. The cited text reiterates that the punishment for sinners is really the mental anguish of having failed in life. Punishment for the body is “perhaps in proportion to the degree of sin,” and God shows mercy by lessening it according to his will, but punishment of the mind is forever, and “the judgment is for ever.” In keeping with the sense of recording the flavor of his philosophical and theological conversations with his friend from long before, the bishop leaves several thoughts open-ended. For example, punishment of the mind is said to be forever, but since intelligence is what defines humanity in this life and the afterlife and God intends to show mercy to humankind, then does God’s mercy extend even to mental punishment or not? Or will perhaps the greater truth to be revealed at resurrection allow the soul to fully understand and forgive itself?