Timothée Ier de Bagdad
vers 740-823 8th century
Giving an account of one's faith before someone who does not share it, without raising one's voice.
Who was Timothée Ier de Bagdad?
Patriarch of the Church of the East in Baghdad, he governed a church scattered from the Tigris to China, sending monks toward Central Asia. In 781 the Caliph al-Mahdi summoned him for two days of questioning about his faith: the account of that exchange, written by Timothy himself, is one of the oldest dialogues between a Christian and a Muslim.
In their own words
He who divests God of His Word and His Spirit resembles the one who would divest the sun of its light and its heat, and the soul of its reason and its mind, and the pearl of its beauty and its lustre.
God is incomprehensible and inexplicable in all things.
There is nothing impossible with God, who can do everything.