not even an instant passed without its being united with Him.

If, then, it is conceivable that the creature should remain alongside its Creator—and, according to them, He stayed in the womb for 9 months like other human beings, as this Saʿīd ibn al-Baṭrīq reports—then it follows that the Lord was united with a tiny lump of flesh, mere inanimate matter devoid of any spirit.

If such a thing is admissible for Him, it must likewise be admissible for Him to unite with every other lifeless object. This is the position of the majority who maintain that the spirit was breathed into him only after 4 months. As for those who say that it was breathed into him from the very moment he took on a body from Mary, that view resembles the stance adopted by most Christians, who claim that the Messiah died and was crucified, that the rational soul breathed into him departed from him, yet that the God who had united with him never abandoned him.

Indeed, they state that from the moment the Godhead united with the humanity of the Messiah it has never been separated from it; even now, they say, He is united with it while seated in heaven at the right hand of His Father. The one who is seated, they contend, is the eternal Creator, while the Father is the same everlasting, primordial God-Creator—and despite that, the two of them together constitute but one God.

The point here is that they affirm the union of the divinity with a body void of spirit both before the infusion of life and, once again, after death until he rose from the grave and the soul returned to him; and at that moment