Theodore Abu Qurrah
Posted: Mon Mar 16, 2009 3:58 pm
A nice review of one of the volumes in BYU's Middle Eastern Texts Initiative in the newest issue of the Oxford Journal of Semitic Studies:
JOHN C. LAMOREAUX (translator), Theodore Abu Qurrah (Library of the Christian
East 1). Brigham Young University Press, Provo, Utah 2005. Pp. xxxvii + 278.
Price: $29.95 hardback. ISBN: 0-934893-00-4.
Over the last few years Brigham Young University has begun an ambitious pro-
gramme of publishing critical editions and English translations of a number of
Middle Eastern texts, Jewish, Christian and Islamic. The Islamic series currently
includes seven titles, one by Ibn Sina (Avicenna), two by al-Ghazali, two by Ibn
Rushd (Averroes), one by Suhrawardi and one by Mulla Sadra, and the Jewish
series, which so far concentrates exclusively on the medical works of Moses
Maimonides, has two volumes, one consisting of some of his medical aphorisms
and the other outlining his views on asthma (though it actually addresses a far
wider set of medical issues than simply that disease).
The Christian series also currently includes two volumes, one being a critical edi-
tion and translation by S.H. Griffith of the tenth-century Syrian Orthodox scholar
Yahya b. ¨Adi’s ethical treatise The Reformation of Morals and the other being this
translation of almost the complete works of the eighth–ninth century Chalce-
donian (or Greek Orthodox) bishop of Haran (a town traditionally thought of as
being in northern Syria), but currently, thanks to a 1939 border adjustment, in
Turkey, Theodore Abu Qurrah, by John Lamoreaux of Southern Methodist Univer-
sity. The first volume is part of the ‘Eastern Christian Texts’ series, which includes
the text in the original language as well as a translation, and the second is the first
volume of the ‘Library of the Christian East’, which provides translations for a
wider readership. Given the widespread ignorance in the West today, and perhaps
particularly in the English-speaking world, of the fact that there is such a thing as
living Middle Eastern Christianity, any attempt to make the works of significant
Middle Eastern Christian thinkers more widely known is very welcome.
The Chair of the Advisory Board for the whole project is Sidney Griffith of the
Catholic University of America, and the editor of the Library of the Christian East
series is David Taylor of the University of Oxford. The latter’s editorial introduction
makes it clear that the intention of the series is quite explicitly to complement or
supplement the other existing series of early and medieval Christian texts which
usually concentrate exclusively on authors who wrote in either Latin or Greek, to
indicate that in a Christian context ‘oriental’ does not necessarily mean ‘marginal’,
‘peripheral’ or ‘unsophisticated’ (p. viii), and thus to help ‘all those who are curious
to comprehend the true diversity of the early church’ (p. vii), and to highlight the
fact that since the publication was funded through the support of the U.S. Con-
gress and the Library of Congress this makes very clear the pertinence of the project
to policy-making as well as the academic community.
Theodore Abu Qurrah (d.c. 829 CE) wrote in both Greek and Arabic (and in-
deed Syriac, though none of his works in this language are extant), and it is his role
in this pivotal stage of the development of Middle Eastern Christianity, shifting
from the language of the New Testament to the language of the Qur’an, which
makes this collection of his works in both languages so valuable. Almost all of his
works in both languages are included in this volume, with the translator indicating
clearly (pp. xxvi–xxvii) his rationale for the exclusion of some works, which is nor-
mally on the basis either that the work is not actually by Theodore (e.g. the Summa
Theologiae Arabica), or that a good English translation has recently appeared else-
where (e.g. Sidney Griffith’s translation of his work defending icons), or that the
work is so technical in its language that it is likely to be of interest only to real spe-
cialists (e.g. the Letter to David the Monophysite [in Arabic]) and his discussion (in
Greek) of philosophical names.
What remains, therefore, is nineteen works, five (in Part I) originally in Arabic,
grouped under the title ‘Discerning the True Religion’, directed particularly against
Judaism but also including reference to Magians (Zoroastrians), Samaritans,
Manicheans, Marcionites, Muslims and others; six (in Part II), some originally in
Arabic and some in Greek, on ‘Discerning the True Church’, mainly directed
against the Armenians but also including discussion of the views of the Nestorians
and the Jacobites, the main alternative Christian groupings in Haran; five (in Part
III), all originally in Arabic and intended mainly for an internal (i.e. Christian)
readership while also beginning to reflect the beginnings of inter-religious discus-
sion of some of the themes, on ‘Topics in Controversial Theology’, that is, episte-
mology, natural theology, the Trinity, and two texts on free will; and finally two,
both in Greek, linked under the title of ‘The Byzantine Legacy’, which include
guidance for Christians about how to relate to other religious communities, the
‘Refutation of the Saracens’ (as reported by John the Deacon) and the Greek Frag-
ments (which, despite its title, is, the editor suggests, an integral composition prob-
ably compiled within a century of Theodore’s death). The translator’s introduction
consists of a helpful six-page outline of what is known (which is not a lot) of
Theodore’s biography, an eight-page summary of the main arguments found in the
works, and ten pages giving fuller details of the manuscripts, editions, and other
translations of the works included in the volume. There is a full bibliography, index
of scriptural (including twenty Quranic) citations and index. The cover is beauti-
fully illustrated with a picture of the four evangelists from a Syriac lectionary from
Mosul produced in 1499 CE, a timely reminder of the contemporary relevance of
the book in the light of the death, following kidnap, of Paulos Faraj Rahbo, the
Chaldean (Catholic) Archbishop of that city, in March 2008.
Specialists in Christian-Muslim relations will look particularly to Chapter 17,
the short text where Theodore responds to questions from a Muslim enquirer about
the Christian view of free will (pp. 207–8), a theme which is also discussed on
pp. 196–8, Chapter 18, the Refutation of the Saracens, in which Theodore dis-
cusses both Christian beliefs (about God, Christ and Muhammad) and practices
(such as the Eucharist and monogamy), and also pp. 238–41, where Theodore an-
swers the questions in quick succession of the Arabs, of an unbeliever, and of an
Agarene (i.e. Muslim). There is much else of interest, however, not least as evidence
of the thoroughly religiously plural context of Haran around the end of the eighth
century, and it is also very interesting to see which of Theodore’s works were writ-
ten in each language, and therefore primarily for whom, Greek for a primarily
Christian audience both inside and beyond the world of Islam, and then Arabic for
a more mixed, even a multi-religious, audience within the world of Islam.
I have one technical quibble, namely that the arrangement of the footnotes is not
quite as helpful as it might be, since although they are easily accessible at the foot of
each page, they are run together, rather than each note starting on a new line of its
own, and this means that an individual note is not quite as easy to locate as it
might be. But this is a small quibble when put alongside the translator’s achieve-
ment in making available for the first time in book form in English the collected
works of an author who, in the translator’s words, was ‘arguably one of the most
creative and imaginative Christian theologians of the early Middle Ages’ (p. xii).
Put another way, John of Damascus, who is commonly described in a Western con-
text as ‘the last of the Church Fathers’, did not represent the end of Chalcedonian
Christianity, or indeed Christianity as a whole, in the Middle East. Rather it lived
on, even if under radically different circumstances, especially after the transition
from Umayyad rule (with Damascus as capital) to ¨Abbasid rule (with Baghdad as
capital) in 750 CE, and the works of Theodore Abu Qurrah are powerful evidence
of this, both as one of the first Christians to write in Arabic and as one of the first
to undertake a sustained theological defence of Christianity against the rival claims
of Islam. It is therefore excellent to have an English-language collection of most of
his works published in order to help make his name and works much more widely
known.
HUGH GODDARD
UNIVERSITY OF NOTTINGHAM
