Christian Thought in the Medieval Islamic World

In the dozen years this blog has now been active, it has been an especial joy to watch increased scholarly attention to the Syriac tradition, not a few of whose books have been featured on here. 

Set for release early next month will be another welcome volume aiding in our understanding of this tradition and its wider relations: Christian Thought in the Medieval Islamicate World: Abdisho of Nisibis and the Apologetic Tradition by Salam Rassi (Oxford University Press, April 2022), 400pp.

About this book the publisher tells us this: 

Christian Thought in the Medieval Islamicate World is the first monograph-length study and intellectual biography of Abdisho of Nisibis (d. 1318), bishop and polymath of the Church of the East. Focusing on his works of apologetic theology, it examines the intellectual strategies he employs to justify Christianity against Muslim (and to a lesser extent Jewish) criticisms. Better known to scholars of Syriac literature as a poet, jurist, and cataloguer, Abdisho wrote a considerable number of works in the Arabic language, many of which have only recently come to light. He flourished at a time when Syriac Christian writers were becoming increasingly indebted to Islamic models of intellectual production. Yet many of his writings were composed during mounting religious tensions following the official conversion of the Ilkhanate to Islam in 1295. In the midst of these challenges, Abdisho negotiates a centuries-long tradition of Syriac and Arabic apologetics to remind his readers of the verity of the Christian faith. His engagement with this tradition reveals how anti-Muslim apologetics had long shaped the articulation of Christian identity in the Middle East since the emergence of Islam. Through a selective process of encyclopaedism and systematisation, Abdisho navigates a vast corpus of Syriac and Arabic apologetics to create a synthesis and theological canon that remains authoritative to this day.

Medieval Arabic Commentaries on the Coptic Liturgy

I am very glad to see that the Coptic tradition continues steadily to garner more and more scholarly attention. Our knowledge will only increase with the publication next week of Guides to the Eucharist in Medieval Egypt: Three Arabic Commentaries on the Coptic Liturgy (Fordham University Press, 15 February 2022), 240pp.

Part of Fordham UP's Christian Arabic Texts in Translation series, this book is authored by Yūḥannā ibn Sabbā‘, Abū al-Barakāt ibn Kabar, and Pope Gabriel V of Alexandria and translated by Arsenius Mikhail. About the book the publisher tells us this:

The fourteenth and fifteenth centuries witnessed a rising interest in Arabic texts describing and explaining the rituals of the Coptic Church of Egypt. This book provides readers with an English translation of excerpts from three key texts on the Coptic liturgy by Abū al-Barakāt ibn Kabar, Yūh.annā ibn Sabbā‘, and Pope Gabriel V. With a scholarly introduction to the works, their authors, and the Coptic liturgy, as well as a detailed explanatory apparatus, this volume provides a useful and needed introduction to the worship tradition of Egypt’s Coptic Christians. Presented for the first time in English, these texts provide valuable points of comparison to other liturgical commentaries produced elsewhere in the medieval Christian world.

Arabic Christianity: Between the Ottomans and Europeans

The historical experiences of, and current realities lived by, Arabic Christians continue to fascinate me. Happily a new book further unfolds this world for us: Arabic Christianity between the Ottoman Levant and Eastern Europe, being the third volume in the series Arabic Christianity, eds. Ioana Feodorov, Bernard Heyberger, and Samuel Noble (Brill, 2021), 384pp. 

About this international scholarly collection, the publisher tells us this:

This volume sheds light on the historical background and political circumstances that encouraged the dialogue between Eastern-European Christians and Arabic-speaking Christians of the Middle East in Ottoman times, as well as the means employed in pursuing this dialogue for several centuries. The ties that connected Eastern European Christianity with Arabic-speaking Christians in the 16th-19th centuries are the focus of this book. Contributors address the Arabic-speaking hierarchs’ and scholars’ connections with patriarchs and rulers of Constantinople, the Romanian Principalities, Kyiv, and the Tsardom of Moscow, the circulation of literature, models, iconography, and knowhow between the Middle East and Eastern Europe, and research dedicated to them by Eastern European scholars. 

Medieval Egyptian Euchology

As part of their new series Christian Arabic Texts in Translation, Fordham University Press, early next year, is bringing out Guides to the Eucharist in Medieval Egypt: Three Arabic Commentaries on the Coptic Liturgy by Yūḥannā ibn Sabbā‘, Abū al-Barakāt ibn Kabar, and Pope Gabriel V of Alexandria, trans. Deacon Arsenius Mikhail (FUP, February 2021), 240pp. 

About this book the publisher tells us this:

The fourteenth and fifteenth centuries witnessed a rising interest in Arabic texts describing and explaining the rituals of the Coptic Church of Egypt. This book provides readers with an English translation of excerpts from three key texts on the Coptic liturgy by Abū al-Barakāt ibn Kabar, Yūh.annā ibn Sabbā‘, and Pope Gabriel V. With a scholarly introduction to the works, their authors, and the Coptic liturgy, as well as a detailed explanatory apparatus, this volume provides a useful and needed introduction to the worship tradition of Egypt’s Coptic Christians. Presented for the first time in English, these texts provide valuable points of comparison to other liturgical commentaries produced elsewhere in the medieval Christian world.

Eastern Christianity: a Reader

Justin Coyle, a young and formidably wise scholar whom one should keep an eye on in the years ahead and of whom one continues to expect great things, kindly writes the other day to draw my attention to a book set for release later this year: Eastern Christianity: A Reader by J. Edward Walters (Eerdmans, November 2021), 448pp.

I am especially gratified to see that "Eastern" here actually means (as it too rarely does) "east of Byzantium." Thus we see a wonderful array from some of the richest, oldest, but frequently overlooked traditions often grouped under the heading of "Oriental" or "non-Chalcedonian" Orthodox. This will certainly be the kind of book useful in survey courses, and required in every serious library devoted to the Christian East. 

This volume offers, the publisher tells us,

English translations of Syriac, Armenian, Georgian, Arabic, Coptic, and Ethiopic Christian texts from late antiquity to the early modern period 

In order to make the writings of Eastern Christianity more widely accessible this volume offers a collection of significant texts from various Eastern Christian traditions, many of which are appearing in English for the first time. The internationally renowned scholars behind these translations begin each section with an informative historical introduction, so that anyone interested in learning more about these understudied groups can more easily traverse their diverse linguistic, cultural, and literary traditions. A boon to scholars, students, and general readers, this ample resource expands the scope of Christian history so that communities beyond Western Christendom can no longer be ignored.

We are also given the table of contents:

Introduction

Chapter One: Syriac

Introduction to Syriac Christianity

     General Bibliography for Syriac Christianity

     1. The Doctrina Addai

     2. Ephrem the Syrian, Hymns against Heresies 3 and 53

     3. Martyrdom of Mīles, Abursam, and Sinay

     4. Jacob of Serug, The Fourth Homily on Cain and Abel

     5. Narsai, On the Canaanite Woman

     6. Simeon of Beth Arsham, Letter on the Ḥimyarite Martyrs

     7. The Syriac Life of Mary of Egypt

     8. Timothy I, Letter 47

     9. Theodore bar Koni, Scholion, Mēmrā 10 (selection)

Chapter Two: Armenian

     Introduction to Armenian Christianity

     General Bibliography for Armenian Christianity

     1. Koriwn, The Life of Mashtotsʿ

     2. Eznik of Koghb, Refutation of the Sects (or, On God)

     3. The Teaching of Saint Grigor

     4. Anania of Narek, On This Transitory World

     5. Grigor of Narek, Book of Lamentation, Discourse 1, Discourse 88

     6. Nersēs Shnorhali, Hymn for the Sunrise Hour, Instructional Preface to a Prayer of Nersēs, Prayer of Nersēs

Chapter Three: Georgian

     Introduction to Georgian Christianity

     General Bibliography for Georgian Christianity

     1. Martyrdom of St. Shushanik

     2. John Sabanisże, Martyrdom of Habo, the Perfumer from Baghdad

     3. The Lives of John the Iberian, Euthymios the Athonite, and George the Athonite

     4. The Life of Porphyry of Gaza

Chapter Four: Arabic

     Introduction to Arabic Christianity

     General Bibliography for Arabic Christianity

     1. Homilies on the Gospel Readings for Holy Week

     2. Theodore Abū Qurrah, That God Is Not Weak

     3. The Disputation of Abraham of Tiberias

     4. Ḥunayn Ibn Isḥāq, How to Discern the True Religion

     5. Miracles of Saint George

     6. Commentary on the Pentateuch

Chapter Five: Coptic

     Introduction to Coptic Christianity

     General Bibliography for Coptic Christianity

     1. Life of Pachomius

     2. Shenoute of Atripe, I Have Been Reading the Holy Gospels

     3. Pseudo-Dioscorus of Alexandria, Encomium on Macarius of Tkōou

     4. The Anaphora of Saint Thomas the Apostle

     5. Christophoria, Letter to the Comes Mena

     6. John of Paralos, Homily on the Archangel Michael and the Blasphemous Books of the Heretics

     7. Pseudo-Cyril of Alexandria, Encomium Interpreting Part of the Apocalypse of John the Apostle of Christ Jesus

Chapter Six: Ethiopic

     Introduction to Ethiopic Christianity

     General Bibliography for Ethiopic Christianity

     1. Select Inscriptions of ˁEzana

     2. Homily on Frumentius

     3. Synaxarion on Yared

     4. Glory of the Kings (Kǝbrä Nägäśt) (selection)

     5. Hildephonsus, Bishop of Toledo, Miracles of Mary

     6. Zärˀä Yaˁəqob, Book of the Trinity

     7. Prayer Amulet: MS Duke Ethiopic 15

Arabic Christian Texts in Translation

The other day I received a welcome announcement from the Orthodox Christian Studies Center of Fordham University telling us of the publication of the first volume in a new series that Fordham UP is putting out, "Christian Arabic Texts in Translation."

The inaugural text in this important series is Revelation 1-3 in Christian Arabic Commentary: John's First Vision and the Letters to the Seven Churches by Būlus al-Būshī and Ibn Kātib Qayṣar and edited by Stephen J. Davis, T.C. Schmidt and Shawqi Talia (Fordham UP, 2019), 192pp.

About this book the publisher tells us the following:

The first publication in a new series―Christian Arabic Texts in Translation, edited by Stephen Davis―this book presents English-language excerpts from thirteenth-century commentaries on the Apocalypse of John by two Egyptian authors, Būlus al-Būshī and Ibn Kātib Qas.ar. Accompanied by scholarly introductions and critical annotations, this edition will provide a valuable entry-point to important but understudied theological work taking place at the at the meeting-points of the medieval Christian and Muslim worlds.