The Orthodox Church in the Arab World, 700-1700: An Anthology of Sources

385 Pages·2014·1.4 MB·English

by  Samuel Noble and Alexander Treiger (eds.)

The OrThOdOx ChurCh in The ArAb WOrld
700–1700

T O
he rThOdOx
C
h u r C h i n T h e
A W
rAb Orld
700–1700
An Anthology of Sources
ediTed by
Samuel Noble and Alexander Treiger
FOreWOrd by
Metropolitan Ephrem (Kyriakos)
A PubliCATiOn in The OrThOdOx ChrisTiAn series
NIU Press, DeKalb, IL
© 2014 by Northern Illinois University Press
Published by the Northern Illinois University Press, DeKalb, Illinois 60115
Manufactured in the United States using acid-free paper.
All Rights Reserved
Design by Shaun Allshouse
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
The Orthodox church in the Arab world, 700–1700 : an anthology of sources / edited by
Samuel Noble and Alexander Treiger ; foreword by Metropolitan Ephrem (Kyriakos).
pages cm
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-0-87580-701-0 (pbk.) — ISBN 978-1-60909-155-2 (e-book)
1. Orthodox Eastern Church—Arab countries—History—Sources. 2. Orthodox Eastern
Church—Doctrines. I. Noble, Samuel, editor of compilation. II.
Treiger, Alexander, editor of compilation.
BX250.O674 2014
281.90917’4927—dc23
2013041734
C
O n T e n T s
Foreword vii
Metropolitan Ephrem (Kyriakos)
Acknowledgments ix
Introduction 3
Samuel Noble and Alexander Treiger
ChAPTer 1
An Apology for the Christian Faith
(رسالة دفاعية في العقائد المسيحية) 40
Mark N. Swanson
ChAPTer 2
Theodore Abu Qurra
(ثاودورس أبو قرة) 60
John C. Lamoreaux
ChAPTer 3
The Disputation of the Monk Abraham of Tiberias
(مجادلة الراهب إبراهيم الطبراني) 90
Krisztina Szilágyi
ChAPTer 4
Hagiography
(سير القديسين) 112
John C. Lamoreaux
ChAPTer 5
Agapius of Manbij
(محبوب المنبجي) 136
John C. Lamoreaux
ChAPTer 6
Sulayman al-Ghazzi
(سليمان الغزي) 160
Samuel Noble
vi Contents
ChAPTer 7
ʿAbdallah ibn al-Fadl al-Antaki
(عبد الله بن الفضل الأنطاكي) 171
Samuel Noble
ChAPTer 8
The Noetic Paradise
(كتاب الفردوس العقلي) 188
Alexander Treiger
ChAPTer 9
Agathon of Homs
(أغاثن مطران حمص) 201
Alexander Treiger
ChAPTer 10
Paul of Antioch
(بولس الأنطاكي) 216
Sidney H. Griffith
ChAPTer 11
Patriarch Macarius Ibn al-Zaʿim
(البطريرك مكاريوس ابن الزعيم) 236
Nikolaj Serikoff
ChAPTer 12
Paul of Aleppo
(بولس الحلبي) 252
Ioana Feodorov
Notes 277
A Bibliographical Guide to Arab Orthodox Christianity 339
About the Contributors 351
Indexes 353
F
O r e W O r d
This book offers you a testimony of the faith of the Orthodox Church in
the Arab world in the historical period between 700 and 1700. It weaves
together an anthology of many previously unpublished works, unknown in
Arabic and even more so in English.
This is a good initiative by Samuel Noble and Dr. Alexander Treiger,
who strive to show the entire world how much the Lord has spoken
through the mouth of authors devoted to Him, amidst major histori-
cal events from the rise of Islam, through the Umayyad, ʿAbbasid, and
Fatimid periods, the Crusaders, the Mongols, and the Mamluks, down to
the Ottoman era.
All this bears witness to the fact that the Christian Church is nourished
by the ongoing revelation of the Holy Spirit, the Divine Spirit who in-
spires and acts within individuals dedicating themselves to witnessing to
the Truth—that Truth that became incarnate in Him who has overcome all
kinds of death and corruption throughout human history: our Lord Jesus
Christ. In both their life and their society, people of the Middle East can
feel, in a great number of ways, the effects of this Truth, and so the Lord
inspires those who love Him to find ways to express His ongoing pres-
ence and His continuous operation within human history.
It is true that in the period under discussion there were times of blood-
shed and tragic historical events, and so these writings, published in the
selections below, bear special witness to the ever-present Divine Light that
shines forth through the tribulations of this world. The Arab Middle East
remains a place where heavenly messages are heard, for the sake of hu-
man beings’ salvation from temptations, sins, suffering, and ultimately from
death. This fulfills the Lord’s promise of granting us humans eternal life and
taking us back into the everlasting presence of God which is realized within
His creation from the very beginning.
This book is suitable for both the specialist and the general public.
We ought to be thankful to Dr. Alexander Treiger and Samuel Noble
who worked joyfully on publishing these rich selections from our holy
Antiochian heritage. We ask God to reward their efforts and also en-
courage others to conduct similar research so that we can publish the
viii Foreword
rest of our great heritage in the two languages, Arabic and English, at
the very least.
With the blessing of the Lord Jesus our God and our Savior, who has
come in the flesh.
Christmas 2012
+Ephrem (Kyriakos)
Metropolitan of Tripoli, al-Koura, and Dependencies
A
C k n O W l e d g m e n T s
This anthology has been four years in the making. We wish to thank all those
who made it a reality. We are deeply grateful, first of all, to His Eminence
Metropolitan Ephrem Kyriakos of Tripoli, al-Koura, and Dependencies,
who gave his blessing to the project and wrote a foreword to the volume.
The contributors—Ioana Feodorov, Sidney H. Griffith, John C. Lamor-
eaux, Nikolaj Serikoff, Mark N. Swanson, and Krisztina Szilágyi—deserve
the highest credit for the careful research they have done for each chapter.
We are particularly thankful for their patience with multiple rounds of cor-
rections, queries, and editorial interventions, which were necessary to make
this volume as accurate and at the same time as uniform as possible.
We thank Stephen Shoemaker and the anonymous reviewer assigned by
the Northern Illinois University Press for their insightful comments and ad-
vice and James Montgomery and Jonathan Goossen for their kind help with
some points of proofreading and editing.
Our thanks go also to Brigham Young University Press, and personally
to Joseph Bonyata and Kristian Heal, for gracious permission to reprint
(with minor changes) John Lamoreaux’s translation of Theodore Abu Qur-
ra’s text, originally published by Brigham Young University Press in 2005.
We also gratefully acknowledge permissions by Dr. Adel Theodor Khoury
(Germany), Father Nagi Edelby (Lebanon), and Gregorian & Biblical Press
(Italy) to have Arabic texts translated into English.
Special thanks go to Amy Farranto and Susan Bean at Northern Illinois
University Press, who guided us, carefully and wisely, through the edito-
rial process from the very beginning, to Shaun Allshouse for designing the
cover, and to many others at the Press who read the volume and offered
useful comments and corrections.
Last but not least, we are grateful to the Research Development Commit-
tee at Dalhousie University in Halifax, Nova Scotia, for a grant that helped
to subsidize publication.
Annunciation and Sunday of the Cross 2013
Samuel Noble and Alexander Treiger