Christians in Early Muslim Society

Wilken's ch. 32 is on early Arabic-speaking Christians in the Middle East. Near the end of the chapter, Wilken offers this evaluation. 

The Christian scholars and thinkers who wrote in Arabic were engaged in a major intellectual project that stretched over three hundred years, from the middle of the eighth century up to the Crusades at the end of the eleventh century. They were faced with the challenge of making Christian faith intelligible in the emerging Arabic Muslim culture. What made their situation unique is that the language they translated Christian writings into and the idiom they explained Christian beliefs and practices in was the language of another religion with universal ambitions. (Wilken p. 315)

This issue of translating Christianity into the language of Islam (if I may thus loosely characterize what Wilken describes) is the subject of a recent book, which has been recognized for an award by Christianity Today, which is how the book came to my attention.  But from my brief perusal of the book on Google, it seems to be about very recent Arabic translations of Christian Scripture. 

Back to Wilken: he first discusses the language situation for Christians in Muslim lands. Not everyone adopted Arabic, of course. Wilken focuses his chapter on the Middle East and especially Mesopotamia (Baghdad), where Christians did come to write important Arabic works. But in other Arabic speaking lands, Christians did not necessarily adopt the dominant language. In Spain (the subject of ch. 34), some Christians embraced Arabic, others held onto Latin. Arabic was never adopted by the Christians of Armenia or Ethiopia. And in Egypt (a subject in ch. 33), Christians early on retained Coptic but eventually adopted Arabic. We have no substantial Arabic literature from Egyptian Christians until the late tenth century (see wikipedia). An early example of a Christian in Egypt writing in Arabic is Severus ibn al-Muqaffa (d. 987), Coptic Orthodox patriarch of Hermopolis (wikipedia). 

For the rest of the chapter, Wilken discusses three prominent Christians in the Middle East (see below: John, Timothy, Theodore) who wrote their major works in three different languages (Greek, Syriac, Arabic), and then he discusses the Arabic Bible, and concludes with a brief nod to Christian philosophers writing in Arabic. 

Mar Saba Monastery; Wikimedia Commons

John of Damascus (655–750; wikipedia; Wilken pp. 308–9). He has come up in the previous two chapters, as well. He lived at Mar Saba Monastery in the Judean Desert east of Bethlehem.

His major work: Fount of Knowledge, the first summa theologica in Christian history. It is written in Greek. The 1958 translation in the Fathers of the Church series is available for borrowing at archive.org. The third part of the Fount of Knowledge, called On the Orthodox Faith, has more recently been translated in the Popular Patristics series issued by St. Vladimir's Seminary Press. 

The second part of the Fount of Knowledge is on "Heresies," and John treats 103 different heresies (including defunct Jewish sects, like Sadducees, etc.). The 101st heresy he treats is Islam, which he calls "Ishmaelites," and he interacts with specific passages from the Quran. Wilken notes that John comments on Muhammad, but this is not the earliest preserved Christian appraisal of Muslim prophet (which is documented at wikipedia). 

Timothy I (728–823, wikipedia, Wilken pp. 309–10), patriarch of the Church of the East. Timothy was mentioned in an earlier chapter by Wilken due to his interest in evangelism in places like China. (A book on this topic was also recognized in the recent Christianity Today book awards.) All of his works are in Syriac. He lived in Baghdad, founded in 762 to be the home of the Abbasid caliphate. At the request of the caliph, Timothy translated a portion of Aristotle from Greek into Arabic. 

In 781, Timothy had a discussion in Baghdad with al-Mahdi (wikipedia), the third Abbasid caliph.

The caliph asked, for example, how someone so learned could say that God married a woman and begot a son. Timothy replied that no Christian would say that. But, said the caliph, did you not say that Christ is the son of God? True, Timothy answered, but how this could be is beyond our grasp; we can only speak in analogies. As light is born of the sun and the word of the soul, so Christ who is Word is born of God before all worlds. (Wilken p. 310)

A translation of this exchange by A. Mingana and introduced by J. Rendel Harris is available at tertullian.org. A recent essay on the dialogue is here. "The debate was very cordial, and each side knew a great deal about the other. The caliph could cite the Scriptures and argue about how texts were to be interpreted, and the patriarch knew the Qur'an and used passages fromt eh Muslim sacred book to buttress his arguments" (Wilken, p. 310). 

As Timothy wrote in Syriac, Wilken also mentions other Christians who were still writing in Syriac: Ishodad of Merv, Michael the Syrian (twelfth century, Antioch), Bar Hebraeus (thirteenth century, Aleppo). "Each writer bears witness to the vitality of Syriac as a Christian language long after the Muslim conquest" (p. 310). 

Theodore Abu Qurrah (755–825, wikipedia, Wilken pp. 311–12), bishop of Harran. His major writings are in Arabic. 

Wilken describes a treatise by Theodore on the veneration of images. This treatise has been translated by Sidney Griffith. It was written at the request of a member of the church at Edessa, which possessed a well-known icon of Christ "made without hands" (wikipedia). "Theodore's aim in the treatise was to convince wavering and conflicted Christians that the traditional practice of venerating images is supported by the Christian Scriptures and can be defended against Muslim critics on the basis of their holy book" (Wilken p. 312). 

Arabic Bible (Wilken pp. 312–14). Principal places of translation: monasteries at Mar Saba and Mar Chariton and Saint Catherine. 

Anthony David of Baghdad. (See the article by Griffith.) The colophon of two manuscripts copied at Mar Saba in 885–886. One manuscript contains patristic works. Wilken (pp. 312–13) quotes the colophon. 

Stephen of Ramla at Mar Chariton. (See the article by Griffith.) We again have two manuscripts with Stephen's name in the colophon, one in the British Museum and dated to 877, others at Saint Catherine's and dated to 897. One is a translation of the four Gospels from Greek to Arabic. The other manuscript contains Christian treatises. 

Christian philosophers writing in Arabic. Wilken singles out Hunayn ibn Ishaq (808–873, wikipedia), who became a court physician to Caliph al-Mutawakkil. "While at the court he oversaw a workshop of translators, but he wrote original philosophical works in defense of Christianity, a treatise of proofs for the existence of God, and another on criteria for determining whether a religion is true" (Wilken p. 315).