Who are You? What Spirit Are You Of? (1970)
Source: al-Anwar Magazine, vol. 6, no. 178 (October 14, 1951): 11 (repr. in Mishil Yassa and Ayman Eryan, Bābā Ṣādiq: al-ṭā’ir al-rūḥānī).
This short, striking article reveals Sadiq Rofail’s profound theological conception of what it means to be a human being, comprised of body and soul. It was originally published in Majallat al-Anwar in October of 1951, but it is translated here from the collection of Sadiq Rofail’s writings included in the book by Mishil Yassa and Ayman Eryan on his life and miracles.
Who Are You? And What Spirit Are You Of? (1951)
Perhaps you are the young So-and-So[1]fulān, a generic word substituting for the name of a person., or the elderly Such-and-Such? Perhaps you are the charming So-and-So, who attracts the eyes of all, or So-and-So, from whom all eyes turn away? But what do I care about your youth or your charm, or your old age and your ugliness? Whether you were a once-charming youth who have now become a feeble, unattractive old person? What do I care that you used to overflow with strength, health and beauty, and have now become a lifeless corpse overflowing with decay and corruption?
Perhaps, through all these stages and all these phases, you were not yourself.[2]lam takun anta huwwa anta, lit. “you were not who you are.” So, who are you? You will say, “I am he that commanded knowledge, so that all manner of prestigious forums were convened in my honour;”[3]fa-in‘aqada lī fī kulli maḥfal lahu luwā’ or “I am the rich man to whose authority every authority bends;” or “I am neither this nor that.” I will reply, “But one day you will lay aside knowledge and wealth and the rest. You will go to sleep and wake up as the corpse of someone who had been unoccupied by all these things alike … So, tell me then, who are you? I do not want you to tell me what you once possessed, which has now been taken away, leaving you as bereft of it as you were before. I want the essence[4]jawhar, lit. inner nature, substance. which does not change, not the spectacle that dwindles and then disappears … So then, who are you in your essence? For that alone is who you are.
Now you have begun to strip away all the outward appearances and vain embellishments which worldly wisdom has accustomed you to, and have begun to reach for your human self,[5]dhātak al-insāniyya the origin of every human being like you,[6]ḥaythu manbaththa kullu insān mithlak for you and every one besides you is a human being … You consider your birth, your growth, your prosperity, then your dissolution, then your annihilation, and you stand there gaping, giving no answer, as if to say, “I … who am I? Dust I am, and to dust I shall return! I am nothing then, for what would be the value of a handful of dust if you scattered it in the wind?” Indeed, such is the glory of the body and the glory of the world: dirt, dust, nothing. And such is he who asserts that he is this earthen body, and that
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that his world is this material world, and that his life is the period of his bodily growth in this world of dust, for he and his world and their glory are dust and dirt and nothing.
But you are something else other than that … so, who are you truly? You will say, “Perhaps I am that [thing] by means of which this earthen body lives, the thing which thinks and perceives and wants and works. What is this body apart from that thing’s casing and cloak, or its instrument and its mount? And what is this world apart from this thing’s field and its workshop and the arena of its trials?” What then, should [this thing] be called? How did it come to be? Who created it, and for what purpose? What is its nature? What is its goal? What is its destiny? What are the forces it contends with, and to what extent is it set against them?[7]mā madā mawqif-hu min-hā“
Perhaps, this is what is called the soul or the spirit? I do not know which of these, I the human being, am. Am I a soul or a spirit? Am I a soul and a spirit together within this body? What might they both be? Who is it that can reveal the truth of all this to me? Does the Great Architect of the universe not keep this mystery to Himself? He alone knows the mystery of the universe which He created, and the mystery of the man whom He formed and made master over the world.
What has God not given you, O human being? For whom did He create this universe with all its mysteries and its grandeur? Was it not for you, His beloved? You, whom He was pleased to love and for whom He had prepared it? To whom did He grant His royal image? To an angel or archangel from among His luminous, heavenly creatures? No, but to you alone, that He may redeem you and restore you to your former rank and sonship.
To whom did He send His Spirit — the Lifegiver and Comforter, the Spirit of wisdom, truth and knowledge — which He has poured out upon us, filling us to the brim?
Is not all this for you? For your sake He became food for eating and drink for drinking, and a spirit to abide and dwell in you. It was to you that He was pleased to give the key to the Kingdom of Heaven, through His Holy Spirit in the Holy Bible. After this, do you lack any knowledge? Are you deprived of any of the Father’s mysteries? Through the Son, you have become a son to Him, and everything you ask, the Father is pleased to give you. Come then, with the Holy Spirit, for a little journey between the two testaments of the Book of Eternal Life, that Christ may illumine for you the way to the self-knowledge you seek,[8]ṭarīq ma‘rifat mā tu-rīd bi-shā’n dhātak, lit. the way to what you want to know [knowledge] of who you are, and what spirit you are of. The Holy Spirit stands with you at the Book of Genesis in chapter 2 verse 7 and says to you, “And the Lord God formed Adam of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and Adam became a living soul.”[9]Modern English translations like the NKJV and RSV translate Genesis 2:7 as saying that after receiving the breath of life, man became “a living being.” But in older English translations (like the KJV or ASV), and more importantly, in the Septuagint which St Paul quotes in 1 Corinthians 15:45, we read that: “the man became a living soul (psychēn zōsan).” Arabic translations, like the one Rofail uses here, also preserve this important detail (Adam is said to become nafsān ḥayya, a living soul). This is essential to Rofail’s interpretation of the verse: as he states below, “living soul” refers not only to Adam’s soul as distinct from his body, but to the whole human being, both body and soul. Here the incarnation of the God the Word is declared from the beginning, a declaration of the limitless love of God for humanity.
Everything He created — all things in heaven above, on earth below, in the sea beneath the earth, and in the whole universe — He created by saying, “Let it be,” and it was as He willed.
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However, when He created you, it pleased Him to make you the object of His love; it was for your sake that He created what He created. He formed you with His own hands from the dust of the earth. From [the dust] He created a body for you and breathed into its nostrils so that you became a living soul. Thus, this thing formed out of dust became a body of exquisite composition, because the hand of the Almighty had formed it. This body, however, remained lifeless until the Almighty breathed into its nostrils and so, through His breath, it became a living soul … a living being comprised of soul and body. This body formed from dust life was not called living until the soul came to it.[10]illā ba‘d ḥulūl al-nafs fīh “ It is therefore the soul that lives, and at its coming into the body its nature — which is life — shone forth therein. Thus Adam, that is the dust formed into a body, became a living soul.
For this reason, this living soul, comprised of body and soul, was named after the living and more supreme element, namely, the soul … Therefore you, O human being, are a soul.[11]Again, Rofail relies on the ancient reading of Genesis 2:7 where Adam is referred to as a “living soul”, referring to his whole being, including his body. See note 9 above.
Hear then what the Holy Trinity says about how the image of this soul is composed and what its nature is: “Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness” (Gen 1:26): according to the image of God in righteousness and the holiness of truth; and according to His likeness in absolute free will, authority, and eternal life. God, to Whom be the glory, is a timeless and eternal Spirit. Likewise, the essence of this soul is spiritual, according to the image of God. It is spiritual, which is to say immaterial. Because it differs from the Spirit of God in that it is created, it is newly created[12]mustaḥdatha even though it is eternal, for it did not exist until its creation. And since it is created, it is limited in its constitution, that is limited in form. Therefore this soul is beautiful in its composition, spiritual in its essence, luminous in its will, awareness, understanding and feelings. And thus the body which it inhabits has become an instrument that declares its attributes and its brightness.
Now the Holy Spirit takes you to the Book of Hebrews and stands with you at Chapter 1, verses 7 and 14, where He says, “Who makes His angels spirits and His ministers a flame of fire … Are they not all ministering spirits sent forth to minister for those who will inherit salvation?” Then He says to you, “Behold the angel, a living being the Almighty created as a spirit out of light; it has a spiritual body, limited in form and constitution, luminous and fiery in appearance. Likewise, the soul is a spiritual being that differs from [the angel] only in this: that where the angel was created from light, the soul was is from the breath of the Almighty. They are both spiritual in constitution, luminous in appearance, eternal from the moment of existence. But the Almighty has given the soul a body to dwell in, which He has formed from the dust of the earth, and which is illumined by [the soul’s] light and shines with its splendour. All this declares the glory of God in all He has created.”
By this, you have come to to know that you are a soul. You have come to know the nature of your soul, its form and how it came to be, and who it was who formed it. All that remains is for you to know what will be its life and what will be its death …
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The soul, because it is eternal, either exists in a state of life, or in a state of death. The soul was created in Adam, that is your own soul was created in the core of your father Adam[13]ṣulb abīk Ādam, lit. the crux, core, heart of your father Adam. Ṣulb is cognate with ṣalīb, cross (in the sense of crux). In Biblical contexts, however, ṣulb is often used to mean “loins”, as in Hebrews 7:10: “for [Levi] was yet in the loins (fī ṣulb) of his father [Abraham], when Melchizedek met him.” in the day the Almighty created him in a state of life, for it was created in the image of God and His likeness in righteousness and in the sanctity of the truth, and this through the indwelling of His Holy Spirit. Thus the Holy Spirit became for it spirit and life. For this reason it is said, “Adam became a living soul,” and this soul would not have died if it had remained steadfast in what it possessed of absolute free in accomplishing the will of the Holy Spirit who dwelt in it.
But having resisted Him, it surrendered its will to the will of the prince of darkness. Thus the Holy Spirit departed from it — that is, life departed from it — and the anti-spirit[14]al-rūḥ al-muḍādd fastened on to it and so death reigned over it and man became a child of Satan, and through the spirit of his father, he accomplished the will of his father who dwells in him. This is the death of the soul, or spiritual death, of which it was said, “in the day that you eat of it (this tree) you shall surely die.” If the Holy Spirit abandons a soul, then life, with its light, its holiness and its perfection also abandons it, and death reigns over it through the indwelling of the spirit of Satan, the spirit of darkness, evil and corruption. Corruption penetrates even the body, condemning it to decay and to reverting to the dust from which it was taken.
The Second Adam, however, became for us a life-giving Spirit[15]cf. 1 Cor 15:45, “The first man Adam became a living soul. The last Adam became a life-giving spirit.” … the first man, dust from the earth, gave us a spirit of bondage unto death; the Second Man, the Lord from heaven, gave us the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of the liberty of the sons of God unto life.
Consider then, O believing soul, who are now estranged from the Lord in the body: what spirit are you of? Do you live for the Lord by the Holy Spirit, so that the Holy Spirit becomes for you the Spirit of life unto life? Or by the spirit of the world, acting for the sake of the body and of the world, so that the spirit of the prince of the world becomes for you death unto death?
Only know that the Spirit of the Beloved is in you. And He, despite your callousness and your stubbornness, does not want you to be one of those who perish. Arise then, and for the sake of His love and patience, do not be one of the scoffers! To Him be the glory and the praise always and forever, Amen.
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Notes:
| ↑1 | fulān, a generic word substituting for the name of a person. |
|---|---|
| ↑2 | lam takun anta huwwa anta, lit. “you were not who you are.” |
| ↑3 | fa-in‘aqada lī fī kulli maḥfal lahu luwā’ |
| ↑4 | jawhar, lit. inner nature, substance. |
| ↑5 | dhātak al-insāniyya |
| ↑6 | ḥaythu manbaththa kullu insān mithlak |
| ↑7 | mā madā mawqif-hu min-hā“ |
| ↑8 | ṭarīq ma‘rifat mā tu-rīd bi-shā’n dhātak, lit. the way to what you want to know |
| ↑9 | Modern English translations like the NKJV and RSV translate Genesis 2:7 as saying that after receiving the breath of life, man became “a living being.” But in older English translations (like the KJV or ASV), and more importantly, in the Septuagint which St Paul quotes in 1 Corinthians 15:45, we read that: “the man became a living soul (psychēn zōsan).” Arabic translations, like the one Rofail uses here, also preserve this important detail (Adam is said to become nafsān ḥayya, a living soul). This is essential to Rofail’s interpretation of the verse: as he states below, “living soul” refers not only to Adam’s soul as distinct from his body, but to the whole human being, both body and soul. |
| ↑10 | illā ba‘d ḥulūl al-nafs fīh “ |
| ↑11 | Again, Rofail relies on the ancient reading of Genesis 2:7 where Adam is referred to as a “living soul”, referring to his whole being, including his body. See note 9 above. |
| ↑12 | mustaḥdatha |
| ↑13 | ṣulb abīk Ādam, lit. the crux, core, heart of your father Adam. Ṣulb is cognate with ṣalīb, cross (in the sense of crux). In Biblical contexts, however, ṣulb is often used to mean “loins”, as in Hebrews 7:10: “for [Levi] was yet in the loins (fī ṣulb) of his father [Abraham], when Melchizedek met him.” |
| ↑14 | al-rūḥ al-muḍādd |
| ↑15 | cf. 1 Cor 15:45, “The first man Adam became a living soul. The last Adam became a life-giving spirit.” |
How to cite this text (Chicago/Turabian):
Rofail, Sadiq. “Who Are You? And What Spirit Are You Of?” [Man anta? Wa min ayy rūḥ anta?] (al-Anwar 6, vol. 178, October 1951). Reprinted in Mishil Yassa & Ayman Eryan (eds). Baba Sadiq: The Spiritual Bird. His Life, Miracles and Teachings [Bābā Ṣādiq: al-ṭā’ir al-rūḥānī. Sīrat-hu, mu‘jizāt-hu, ta‘ālīm-hu], 71–74. Living Gospel Series, Volume 6. Khidmat Yulyus al-Aqfihasi li-nashr al-siyar al-mu‘asira, 2000. Translated by Mervat Hanna in Archive of Contemporary Coptic Orthodox Theology. Sydney, NSW: St Cyril’s Coptic Orthodox Theological College. https://accot.stcyrils.edu.au/sr-who1951/.
(For more information, see Citation Guidelines)
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