Orthodoxy in Arabic Terms:: A Study of Theodore Abu Qurrah’s Theology in Its Islamic Context

480 Pages·2015·2.925 MB·English

by  Najib George Awad

Najib George Awad
Orthodoxy in Arabic Terms
Judaism, Christianity, and
Islam – Tension, Transmission,
Transformation
Edited by Patrice Brodeur, Carlos Fraenkel,
Assaad Elias Kattan, and Georges Tamer
Volume 3
Najib George Awad
Orthodoxy
in Arabic Terms
A Study of Theodore Abu Qurrah’s Theology
in Its Islamic Context
DE GRUYTER
ISBN978-1-61451-567-8
e-ISBN(PDF)978-1-61451-396-4
e-ISBN(EPUB)978-1-61451-953-9
ISSN2196-405X
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Contents
Preface IX
Introduction 1
I. On Theodore Abū Qurrah, the Melkite Bishop of Ḥarrān 1
II. Abū Qurrah in this Study: Going beyond Mere Apologetics 8
III. Outline of the Volumeand Abū Qurrah’s Works 14
Part One:The Historical and Religious Settings
Chapter One. “If Indeed They Were Known At All”: Christians’ Attitudes to-
wards Islam 23
I. The Dawn of the Arabs’ ‘Invasion’ in the Eyes of Christians 23
II. Between Social and Cultural Appraisal and Simply Seeking to
Survive 31
III. From Social Indifference to Apologetic Reaction 49
IV. Conclusion 57
Chapter Two. Abū Qurrah and the Christian Apologetics of the Melkite
Church 58
I. From Emperor to Caliph: The End of Christian Triumphalism 58
II. The Christian Response to Islam and the Beginning of
Apologetics 64
III. The Melkite Church in the Land of Islam: The Birth of Arabic
Theology 74
IV. Theodore Abū Qurrah asan Apologetic Mutakallim: Remarks on
Style 88
V. Towards a ‘Positive’ Orthodox Apologetic: On Being a Mutakallimafter
Abū Qurrah 103
Part Two:The Dogmatic Framework of Abū Qurrah’s
Orthodoxy
Chapter Three. From Nicene Trinitarian Trends to Chalcedonian Christological
Terminology 115
I. Introduction 115
VI Contents
II. On Hypostasis in Greek Trinitarian Terminology 118
III. On Qnoma in Syriac Trinitarian Terminology 140
IV. Using Trinitarian Ontology in Re-reading Christological
Terminology 150
V. Conclusion 161
Chapter Four. Theodore Abū Qurrah’s Trinitarian Theology, or Orthodoxyin
Dialogue with Muslim Monotheism 163
I. Introduction 163
II. Abū Qurrah’s Trinitarian Theology in al-Mujādalah 164
A. On Shirk and the Allegory of ‘Intellect’ 165
B. When Oneness Prevails over Trinitarian Unity 183
III. Abū Qurrah’s Trinitarian Theology in His Maymar on the
Trinity 192
A. The Theological Argument of the Maymar 193
B. Some Remarks on the Trinitarian Terminology 212
IV. Abū Qurrah and the Melkites’ Trinitarian Legacy 234
A. John of Damascus and the Trinity 235
B. Maximus the Confessor and the Trinity 245
C. Abū Qurrah’s Trinitarian Theology: Confession or Innovation? 259
V. Conclusion 266
Chapter Five. Theodore Abū Qurrah’s Christological Discourse and the Mus-
lims’ Jesus 267
I. When ‘Jesus the Son of God’ and ‘ʿĪsā Ibn Maryam’ Collided 267
II. On Jesus as Kalimat Allāh’ and Rūḥ Minhu 284
A. On Using the Terms ‘God’s Word’ and ‘Spirit’ in Christian and Muslim
Kalām 284
B. Abū Qurrah’s Use of ‘God’s Word’ and ‘Spirit’ in al-Mujādalah and
Other Maymars 292
III. Jesus’ Divine Sonship and the Muslim God, Who ‘Lam Yalid Wa-Lam
Yūlad’ 314
A. God’s Taking a Child unto Himself in the Qurʼan and Kalām 314
B. Abū Qurrah’s Defense of Jesus’ Divine Sonship before the
Muslims 328
IV. The Incarnation in Abū Qurrah’s Christology 359
A. The Incarnation between Tajassud/Taʾnnus and Ḥulūl 359
B. On the Incarnation as Ḥulūl in Abū Qurrah’s Apologies 369
Contents VII
V. Abū Qurrah and Melkite/Chalcedonian Christological
Orthodoxy 380
A. Some Christological Views from John of Damascus 380
B. Some Christological Views from Maximus the Confessor 389
C. Abū Qurrah’s Christology and the Melkite Tradition: Concurrence or
Divergence? 398
VI. Conclusion 408
Concluding Postscript. Theodore Abū Qurrah: A Melkite Orthodox Mutakallim
in Dār al-Islām 411
Bibliography 430
Name Index 460
Subject Index 465

Preface
Itwas Beirut, Lebanon, in the fall of 2007.The Near East School of Theologyin
Beirutwascelebratingits75thanniversary.Theschoolorganizedaseriesofmeet-
ings,worship services, public lectures, and panels to celebrate the history and
legacy of the oldest Protestant theological school in the Near East. One of the
keynote speakers who were invited by NEST to speak on that occasion was the
author of The Cross and the Prodigal and Poet & Peasant: Through Peasant
Eyes, Kenneth E. Baily, the long-serving ex-Professor of New Testament at the
school.Bailey wasinvitedtogivetwokeypubliclecturesrelatedtohisscholar-
shiponNearEasterninterpretationoftheScripturesanditsrelationtohislifein
theMiddleEastandworkexperienceinNEST.Themain,unforgettablepreludeof
Bailey’sfirstlecturewasactuallyacritiqueconveyedinaninvitation-likeaccent.
Bailey stated that during his decades of service in the school he had the great
chance of acquainting himself with the theological and biblical heritage of the
Arab and Syrian Christian fathers who produced their intellectual discourses
inthemidstoftheIslamicmilieuanddevelopedtheirunderstandingofChristian
faithinvivid,consistent,andmulti-faceteddialoguewithIslam.Bailey’sinvita-
tionalcritiquelayinhis(ratherembarrassinglytruthful) realizationthatamong
theProtestantsofSyriaandLebanon,onecanhardlydetectanyseriousinterest
instudyingthisaforementioned‘theologicallyveryprecioustreasure’(thusBai-
leydescribedit)oranytangibleencouragementoftheyounggenerationofProt-
estanttheologystudentsandministerstoproduceanyeducationorresearchon
it. Among those Arab-speaking church fathers,whose heritage he said that he
had to read for the first time in his scholarly career in the Near East, Bailey
named people like Theodore Abū Qurrah, ‛Ammār al-Baṣrī, Abū Rā᾽iṭah at-
TakrītīandYaḥyāibn‛Adī.Baileyendedhiscritique-invitationstatementbysay-
ing: “I was puzzled and saddened to see that the Protestants of the Near East
spend all their time studying western theologians,while they hardly know any
one of these names which I mentioned or hardly read any of their writings.”
In thatyear,andon thatoccasion,ithappenedthat Iwasin theregion,re-
sidinginBeirutandworkingatmyAlmaMater(NEST),andIwasoneoftheau-
dience members who were listening to Kenneth Bailey’s lectures with closed
mouths and embarrassed, red-cheeked faces. Bailey was absolutely right in
his critique of the Protestant theological education that day. For all the time I
spent at NEST between 1992 and 1997 to earn my BA in Theology, I do not re-
member at all any of my professors mentioning one of the above-mentioned
names of the Arab-speaking fathers, which Bailey invited us to read and
study. Bailey’s words have been anchored deeply within my mind since that
X Preface
day, and the names of the Arab church fathers he mentioned never vanished
frommymemory.SincethenIneverstoppedaskingmyself:“Whoarethesefig-
ures?HowcomeIknownothingaboutthem?Howcomenoonetaughtmeabout
them in my entire theological education?” For the first time in my professional
academic life, I realized how ignorant I was of my own oriental-Arab culture,
its theological and historical background, and how alienated my professional
training as a Systematic Theologian (by that time I had earned my first PhD in
Systematic Theology from King’s College University of London) could actually
be since it did not equip me with the necessary knowledge, learnedness, and
training to contribute to scholarly education and research on Arab Christianity
and on the relation of its theological discourse to Islam. No theologian can
teach theology in the Arab world, if not around the globe nowadays, without
touchingupon these dimensions.
During the following academic year, 2008–2009, I was privileged to be of-
feredascholarshipfromtheLanghamTrusttospendanacademicyearasaRe-
search Fellow in the Centre for Faith and Culture at Yale University Divinity
School. My plan in that year was to work toward finishing writing my second
book (my first book was God Without a Face? On the Personal Individuation of
theHolySpirit)inSystematicTheologyontheTrinityandthenotionsof ‘person-
hood’and‘relationality’indialoguewithmodernistandpostmodernistformsof
intellectualinquiry(thiswouldbecomemysecondbook,PersonsinRelation:An
EssayontheTrinityandOntology).Yet,duringthatresearchtimeinYaleDivinity
School’slibrary,IstumbleduponSidneyGriffith’sbook,TheChurchintheShad-
owoftheMosque.ItwastheveryfirstseriousandcompletebookIreadonArab
Christianity and Christian theology in the shadow of Islam.Griffith’s book was
like a profound, transformative theophany experience for me. It was the first
timeIrealizedhowrich,sophisticated,andstimulatingweretheChristian-Mus-
lim encounters during the 7th–10th centuries CE. In that fascinatingbook, I met
again the names of these Arab Christian mutakallimun, which Kenneth Bailey
had uttered before me a little bit more than a year earlier in his public lecture
onNEST’s75thanniversary:thesamenamesandthesamefiguresandtheirtheo-
logicalheritage,aboutwhichIknewalmostnothinguntilthemomentofreading
Griffith’s book.
ReadingSidneyGriffith’sbookwasamomentofconversionthatinaugurated
thestartofapivotaltransformationinmyscholarlytrackeversincethesummer
of 2009. It was at that moment that I decided to seriously pursue a paradigm
shift in my academic and scholarly career. I decided to move from being a
crudeSystematicTheologian(intheclassicalWesternsense),whostrictlystudies
andcontributesscholarshiponChristiandoctrines,philosophicalandmethodo-
logical aspects of western Christian (mostly Protestant) theological heritage