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Stephen of Ramlah and the Christian Kerygma in Arabic in Ninth-Century Palestine

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  25 March 2011

Extract

In the period of time between the Islamic conquest and the coming of the crusaders to Palestine in 1099, Christian pilgrims from East and West continued to visit the Holy Land, and particularly Jerusalem, by the licence of the Islamic government. Among the western visitors during this period at least half a dozen of them published accounts of their journeys. However, these accounts tell one virtually nothing about the life of the local Church, beyond the occasional list of shrines, churches, monasteries and the number of personnel assigned to them. As one modern scholar has remarked, ‘In the Patriarchate of Jerusalem the indigenous element is always half-hidden behind the crowds of pilgrims of every nationality…In the Holy City the resident aliens often outnumbered the Christian natives of Jerusalem, but in Palestine taken as a whole, the Syrians must always have been a majority.’

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Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1985

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References

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24 Griffith, ‘Eutychius of Alexandria’, and, for the earlier period of iconoclasm, Gero, S., Byzantine Iconoclasm during the reign of Leo III, with particular Reference to the Oriental Sources (CSCO, ccclxvi; Louvain, 1973), appendix A, ‘Arab and Syriac accounts of early Iconoclasm', 199205Google Scholar.

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26 Regarding Melkite documents in Syriac, Thompson, R. W., ‘The text of the Syriac Athanasian Corpus“;, in Birdsall, J. N. and Thompson, R. W. (eds.), Biblical and Patristic Studies in Memory of Robert Pierce Casey, Freiburg 1963, 250–64Google Scholar. Melkite liturgical documents have also survived: Brock, S. P., ‘A short Melkite baptismal service in Syriac’, Parole de l'Orient, iii (1972), 119–30Google Scholar. With some documents it is difficult to tell which was their original language, Greek or Syriac. Brock, S. P., ‘A Syriac fragment on the sixth council’, Oriens Christianus, lvii (1973), 6371Google Scholar; idem, ‘An early Syriac life of Maximus the Confessor’, Analecta Bollandiana, xci (1973), 299346Google Scholar. See also Fiey, J. M., ‘“Rūm” à l'est de l'Euphrate’, Le Muséon, xc (1977), 365420Google Scholar, with its rich bibliography. Theodore Abu Qurrah said in one of his Arabic works that he had written some thirty treatises in Syriac. Bacha, C., Les Oeuvres arabes de Théodore Aboucara, évêque d'Haran, Beirut 1904, 60–1Google Scholar.

27 Regarding Palestinian Syriac, see the bibliographic orientation available in Metzger, B. M., The Early Versions of the New Testament, Oxford 1977, 7582CrossRefGoogle Scholar; also the comments and bibliography of Goshen-Gottstein, M., The Bible in the Syro-palestinian Version: Part I: Pentateuch and Prophets, Jerusalem 1973, viiixvGoogle Scholar.

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31 Griffith, ‘Eutychius of Alexandria’.

32 The remarks of Ševčenko, Ihor, ‘Constantinople viewed from the eastern provinces in the middle Byzantine period’, Harvard Ukrainian Studies, iii–iv (1979–80), 735 n. 36Google Scholar.

33 Quoted from Henry, P., ‘Initial eastern assessments of the seventh oecumenical council’, JTS, 2nd ser., xxv (1974), 77CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

34 Ibid., 77 and 78, esp. n. 1.

35 Gouillard, J., ‘Un ‘Quartier’ d'émigrés palestiniens à Constantinople au ixe siècle?’, Revue des Études Sud-Est Européennes, vii (1969), 73–6Google Scholar.

36 Shboul, Ahmad M. H., Al-Mas ‘ūdī and His World; a Muslim Humanist and his Interest in Non-Muslims, London 1979, 227Google Scholar. Cf. also this author's rich documentation for the state of affairs between the caliphate and Byzantium between the years 813 and 959, in his chapter, ‘Al-Mas'ūdī on the Byzantines’, 227–84. Also Gibb, H. A. R., ‘Arab-Byzantine relations under the Umayyad caliphate’, Dumbarton Oaks Papers, xii (1958), 221–33Google Scholar; Vasiliev, A. A., Byzance el les Arabes, 4 vols., Brussels 1935–68Google Scholar; Christides, V., ‘The raids of the Moslems of Crete in the Aegean Sea, piracy and conquest’, Byzantion, li (1981), 76111Google Scholar.

37 Donner, H., ‘Die Pälastinabeschreibung des Epiphanius Monachus Hagiopolita’, Zeitschnfl des deutschen Palästina-Vereins, lxxxvii (1971), 71Google Scholar; comment in Wilkinson, Jerusalem Pilgrims, 11 and 119.

38 Peeters, P., ‘S. Romain le néomartyr (1 mai 780), d'après un document géorgien’, Analecta Bollandiana, xxx (1911), 393427CrossRefGoogle Scholar, and the remarks of Ševˇenko, Ihor, ‘Hagiography of the Iconoclast period’, in Bryer, A. and Herrin, J. (eds.), Iconoclasm, Birmingham 1977, 114–15Google Scholar.

39 On the terms mutakallim and kalām, Niewöhner, F., ‘Die Diskussion urn den Kalām und die Mutakallimūn in der europäischen Philosophiegeschichtsschreibung’, Archiv für Begriffsgeschichte, xviii (1974), 734Google Scholar; Ess, J. Van, ‘Disputationspraxis in der islamischen Theologie, eine vorläufige Skizze’, Revue des Études Islamiques, xliv (1976), 2360Google Scholar; Cook, M. A., ‘The Origins of Kalam’, Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies, xliii (1980), 3243Google Scholar.

40 Dick, I., ‘Un Continuateur arabe de saint Jean Damascène: Théodore Abuqurra, évêque melkite de Ḥarran’, Proche-Orient Chrétien, xii (1962), 209–23, 319–32; xiii (1963), 114–29Google Scholar.

41 Griffith, S. H., ‘The controversial theology of Theodore Abū Qurrah (c. 750–c. 820 A.D.), a methodological comparative study in Christian Arabic literature’, (Ph.D. dissertation; The Catholic University of America, Washington, D.C., 1978)Google Scholar, Ann Arbor, Michigan University Microfilms International, no. 7819874. Cf. abstract in Dissertation Abstracts International, xxxix, (1978), 2992–3Google Scholar. The influence of the apologetic dimension can also be discerned in early Islamic religious writing. See Wansbrough, J., The Sectarian Milieu, content and composition of Islamic salvation history, Oxford 1978Google Scholar.

42 Bacha, Les Oeuvres arabes de Théodore Aboucara, 60–1.

43 Graf, GCAL, ii. 20–1; Gvaramia, R., ‘Bibliographic du dialogue islamo-chrétien: auteurs chrétiens de langue géorgienne’, Islamochristiana, vi (1980). 290–1Google Scholar.

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45 Ibid., 129, and Graf, GCAL, n, 21.

46 Peeters, ‘S. Romain’, 403–9.

47 The published works of Abū Qurrah in Arabic are: Arendzen, I., Theodori Abu Kurra de Cultu Imaginum Libellus e Codice Arabico nunc Primum Editus Latine Versus Illustratus, Bonn 1897Google Scholar; Bacha, Les Oeuvres arabes de Théodore Aboucara; idem, Un Traité des oeuvres arabes de Théodore Abou-Kurra, évêque de Haran, Tripoli, Syria and Rome 1905Google Scholar; Graf, G., Die arabischen Schriflen des Theodor Ibu Qurra, Bischqfs von Ḥarran (ca. 740–820) (Forschungen zur christlichen Literatur- und Dogmengeschichte, Band X, Heft 3/4, Paderborn 1910)Google Scholar; Cheikho, Louis, ‘Mïmar li Tadürüs Abï Qurrah fï Wuğūd al-Ḫāliq wa d-Dīn al-Qawīm’, al-Machriq, xv (1919), 757–74Google Scholar; 825–42; Graf, G., Des Theodor Abu Kurra Traktat über den Schö'pfer und die wahre Religion (Beiträge zur Geschichte der Philosophic des Mittelalters. Texte und Untersuchungen, Band XIV, Heft 1), Münster, Westphalia 1913Google Scholar; Dick, I., ‘Deux écrits inédits de Théodore Abuqurra’, Le Muséon, Ixxii (1959), 5367Google Scholar; Griffith, S. H., ‘Some unpublished Arabic sayings attributed to Theodore Abū Qurrah’, Le Muséon, xcii (1979), 2935Google Scholar. For Abū Qurrah's works preserved only in Greek, see P.G. xcvii. 1461–610. For the MSS of unpublished works attributed to Abū Qurrah, cf. Graf, GCAL, ii. 7–16 and Nasrallah, J., ‘Dialogue islamo-chrétien à propos de publications récentes’, Revue des Études Islamiques, xlvi (1978), 129–32Google Scholar.

48 Dick, , ‘Un Continuateur arabe, xiii (1963), 121–2Google Scholar.

49 Graf, Die arabischen Schriften, 20–5.

50 Chabot, J.-B., Chnnique de Michel le syrien; patriarche Jacobite d'Antioche (1166–1199) (4 vols.), Paris 1899–1910, iii. 32Google Scholar (French), iv. 495–6 (Syriac).

51 P.G. xcvii. 1504D.

52 Vailhé, ‘Saint Michel le syncelle’; Ševčenko, ‘Hagiography of the Iconoclast period’, 116, esp. n. 19.

53 Griffith, ‘Some unpublished sayings’.

54 P.G. xcvii. 1601–10.

55 Grafs analysis, Die arabischen Schriften, 67–77.

56 Ibid., esp. 71.

57 Khoury, A. T., Les Thiologitns byzantins et l'Islam, Louvain and Paris 1969, 86–7Google Scholar.

58 Graf, Die arabischen Schriftm, 71–7. Regarding the ‘debate’ reports preserved in Arabic MSS, concerning which Graf had doubts about their authenticity, cf. Graf, GCAL, ii. 21–3.

59 British Library Oriental MS 4950, fo. 119r–119v. On this MS see below.

60 Khoury, Les Théologiens byzantins, 83–105; idem, Polémique byzantine contre l'Islam, Leiden 1972Google Scholar; idem, ‘Apologétique byzantine contre islam (viiie–xiiie siècle)’, Proche Orient Chétien, xxix (1979), 242–300Google Scholar; xxx (1980), 132–74; xxxii (1981), 14–47.

61 Vailhé, S., ‘Le Monastère de saint-Sabas’, Echos d'Onent, iii (1899–1900), 22Google Scholar. Cf. also Every, ‘Syrian Christians in Palestine’.

62 Dick, ‘Un Continuateur arabe', 328–30; Vasiliev, ‘St. Theodore of Edessa’.

63 Nn. 8 and 38 above. The original, Arabic vita of John Damascene was also written in this period, cf. Sahas, John of Damascus, 32–5. Peeters and Sahas ascribe the author's motive for using Arabic to his presumed fear of the iconoclastic authorities in Byzantium.

64 Cf. the passage quoted and discussed in Sahas, op. cit., 47 n. 1.

65 E.g., Abel, A., ‘La Portée apologyétique de la “vie” de St. Théodore d'Edesse’, Byzantinoslavica, x (1949), 229–40Google Scholar.

66 Atiya, A. S., The Arabic Manuscripts of Mount Sinai; a handlist of the Arabic manuscripts and scrolls microfilmed at the library of the monastery of St. Catherine, Mount Sinai, Baltimore 1955Google Scholar.

67 Blau, J., A Grammar of Christian Arabic, based mainly on South Palestinian texts from the first millennium, CSCO, cclxvii, cclxxvi, cclxxix, Lou vain 1966–7Google Scholar.

68 Cf. his recent discussion of his linguistic concerns in Blau, J., ‘The state of research in the field of the linguistic study of middle Arabic’, Arabica, xxviii (1981), 187203CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

69 Blau, Grammar, eclxvii. 21–36.

70 On the so-called ‘Christian Arabic’, see the remarks of Kh. Samir, Le Traitidé l'unité de Yahyā ibn ‘Adī (893–974), étude et édition critique, Jounieh and Rome 1980, pp. xvxvii, 72–91Google Scholar; idem (ed.), Actes du Premier Congres International d'Études Arabes Chrétiennes–Goslar, septembre, 1980 (Orientalia Christiana Analecta, 218), Rome 1982, 52–9Google Scholar.

71 Violet, B., ‘Ein zweisprachiges Psalmfragment aus Damaskus’, Berichliger Sonderabzug aus der orientalistischen Litteratur-Zeitung, 1901, Berlin 1902, cols. 1–52Google Scholar. Melkites seem never to have used Karšūnī/Garšūnī, i.e. the system of writing Arabic in Syriac characters. Cf. G. Troupeau, ‘Karsbūnī, El, iv, 671–2.

72 Another such scholar-monk of the ninth century is Bišr ibn Sirrī, who wrote the earliest dated MS of the period, Sinai Arabic MS 151, written in A.D. 867. Nasrallah, J., ‘Deux versions melchites partielles de la Bible du ixe et du xe siècles’, Oriens Christianus, lxiv (1980), 203–6Google Scholar.

73 The year A.D. 772 is actually the earliest date mentioned in a documentary source with reference to a Christian text in Arabic, although the MS itself has not yet come to light. Blau, Grammar, eclxvii. n. 7.

74 The colophon of Sinai Arabic MS 72 (fo. 118v) is published in Padwick, C. E., ‘Al-Ghazali and the Arabic versions of the Gospels, an unsolved problem’, The Moslem World, xxix (1939), betw. pp. 134Google Scholar and 135; and in Atiya, The Arabic Manuscripts of Mount Sinai, pi. vi. A re-cataloguing of the Sinai MSS has changed their traditional numbers. According to the new system, MS 72 is MS 65. Cf. Kamil, Murad, Catalogue of all Manuscripts in the Monastery of St. Catherine on Mount Sinai, Wiesbaden 1970, 14Google Scholar. The two colophons in British Library MS 4950, one following each of the two works contained in the manuscript, are published in the following places: (fo. 197v), in Lewis, A. S. and Gibson, M. D., Forty-one facsimiles of dated Christian Arabic Manuscripts(Studia Sinaitica, no. 12), Cambridge 1907, 24Google Scholar, including a photograph, a transcription and an English version; also in Arendzen, Theodori Abu Kurra, the photograph as a frontispiece for the volume and the transcription and commentary on p. xv; (fo. 237r), in Arendzen, op. cit., 50 (Arabic), 52 (Latin version).

75 Fo. 197V, cf. Lewis and Gibson, op. cit. p. 3. The second two ellipses in the quotation indicate the omission of honorific adjectives. The first one marks the omission of the date, which will be supplied below.

76 Pad wick, ‘Al-Ghazali’.

77 The method of reckoning the years of the world which Stephen used is the one called ‘Alexandrian’, Grumel, V., La Chronologie, Paris 1958, 252Google Scholar.

78 Ibid., 285.

79 Lewis and Gibson, Forty-one Facsimiles, 3.

80 Grumel, op. cit., 251.

81 Ibid., 284.

82 Ibid., 124–8.

83 Ibid., 95–7, 126.

84 Cf. the Greek text cited in the anonymous article, ‘Les Premiers Monastères de la Palestine’, Bessarione, iii (1897–8), 54Google Scholar.

85 For a sketch of the history of the monastery, anon. ‘Les Premiers Monastères, 50–8; and Vailhé, S., ‘Repertoire alphabétique des monistères de Palestine’, Revue d l'Orient Chrétien, iv (1899), 524–5Google Scholar; Leclercq, H., ‘Laures palestiniennes’, DACL, viii, 2, cols. 1970–73Google Scholar. On St Charitōn himself, the brief sketch and bibliography in G. Garitte, ‘Charitōn (Saint)', DHGE, xii, cols. 421–3.

86 Cf. the passages cited in anon. ‘Les Premiers Monastères’, 54–5.

87 Ibid., 56.

88 E. Honigmann, ‘Al-Ramla’, El, 1st edn, iii. 1193–5. For a selection of passages in translation from the works of Arab geographers and travellers, pertaining to ar-Ramlah, Strange, Guy Le, Palestine under the Moslems. A description of Syria and the Holy Land from A.D. 650 to 1500, Boston 1890, 303–8Google Scholar; and Marmardji, A. S., Textes géographiques arabes sur la Palestine, Paris 1951, 81–6.Google Scholar

89 Ahmed ibn Abî Jakub ibn Wâdhih al-Kâtib al-Jakûbî, Kitāb al-Boldân, in Goeje, M. J. De (ed.), Bibliotheca Geographorum Arabicorum, Leiden 1892, viii. 328Google Scholar. Le Strange presumes too much in translating al-'ağam as ‘Greeks’, op. cit., 303. In the colophon to Sinai Arabic MS 72, Stephen of Ramlah used the term to refer to the usage of Aramaic speakers. Cf. n. 76 above. Al-Ya'qūbī probably means ‘Muslims and non-Muslims’.

90 Zayat, H., ‘Šuhadā’ an-Naṣrāniyyah fī l-Islām’, al-Machriq, xxxvi (1938), 459–65Google Scholar.

91 For bibliography and discussion, S. H. Griffith, ‘The Gospel in Arabic: an inquiry into its appearance in the first Abbasid century’, Oriens Christianus, forthcoming.

92 Metzger, Early Versions of the Mew Testament 75–82.

93 Cf. the remark made by the pilgrim Egeria (c. 384), quoted in Metzger, op. cit., 77.

94 Baumstark, A., ‘Die sonntägliche Evangelienlesung in vorbysantinischen Jerusalem’, Byzantinishe Zeitschrift, xxx (1929–30), 350–9Google Scholar.

95 Griffith, ‘The Gospel in Arabic’; Blau, J., ‘Über einige christlich-arabische Manuscripte aus dem 9. und 10. Jahrhundert’, Le Muséon, lxxv (1962), 101–8Google Scholar; Garland, Amy Galli, ‘An Arabic translation of the Gospel according to Mark’, unpublished M.A. thesis, The Catholic University of America; Washington, D.C., 1979Google Scholar.

96 S. H. Griffith, ‘Some unpublished sayings’.

97 Above, n. 75.

98 British Library Oriental MS 4950, fo. 2r.

99 Cf. the discussion in Graf, GCAL, ii. 16–19, including a table of contents of the entire Summa.

100 Nasrallah, ‘Dialogue islamo-chrétien’, 131–2.

101 Samir, Kh., ‘Notes sur Ies citations bibliques chez Abū Qurrah’, Orientalia Christiana Periodica, xliv (1983), 184–91Google Scholar.

102 Blau, J., ‘The importance of Middle Arabic dialects for the history of Arabic’, in Heyd, U. (ed.), Studies in Islamic History and Civilization (Scripta Hierosolymitana, ix), Jerusalem 1961, 208 n. 9Google Scholar; idem, ‘Über einige christlich-arabische Manuscripte’, 102.

103 Ma'lūf, L., ‘Aqdam al-Maḫṭūṭāt an-Naṣrāniyyah al-'Arabiyyah’, al-Machriq, vi (1903), 1011–23Google Scholar. The present writer is now preparing Graf's edition of this important treatise for publication.

104 Cf. Griffith, ‘The controversial theology’, 7–10. I no longer think that the term al-bašar hints at a Monophysite writer. It is simply a lexical difference from Abū Qurrah's usual vocabulary.

105 Above, n. 59.

106 Blau, ‘Über einige christlich-arabische Manuscripte’, 102.

107 Arendzen, Theodori Abu Kurra.

108 Cheikho et al., Eutychii Patriarchae Alexandrini Annales, li. 64; Griffith, ‘Eutychius of Alexandria’.

109 S. H. Griffith, ‘Theodore Abū Qurrah's Arabic tract’, forthcoming.

110 British Library Oriental MS 4950, fo. 237v.