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C h A P T e r 1 An Apology for the Christian Faith ‫ةلاسر‬ ‫ةيعافد‬ ‫يف‬ ‫دئاقعلا‬ ‫ةيحيسملا‬ Mark N. Swanson The library of the Monastery of Saint Catherine at Mount Sinai preserves, as Sinai ar. 154, a parchment codex usually dated to around the year 800— making it the oldest (reasonably well preserved) Arabic-language Christian book known to us today. The larger part of the codex is occupied with an Arabic translation of parts of the New Testament (Acts and the Catholic Epistles), but at the end of the manuscript we find an extraordinary work of Christian apologetic theology. This treatise, for which no witnesses besides the Mount Sinai codex are known, is an important starting point for the study of Chalcedonian Orthodox theology in the Arabic language and, indeed, for the study of Arabic Christian literature in general. This Arabic apologetic treatise is by no means a new discovery. Margaret Dunlop Gibson photographed the apology during a visit to the Monastery of Saint Catherine in 1897, and she published a transcription of the manuscript along with an English translation of the apology in 1899.1 A review by J. Rendel Harris in 1901 attempted to bring the work to the attention of the scholarly world.2 However, interest in the apology remained mostly dormant until 1988, when Samir Khalil Samir called the attention of the Third International Congress of Christian Arabic Studies to the significance of the work.3 Samir has prepared a new edition of the work, which will be published along with the present writer’s full English translation, God willing.4 Unfortunately, we know neither the name of the apology’s author nor its title. The author was probably a monk of one of the monasteries of Palestine or Sinai, someone with extensive knowledge of the Bible and of the Qurʾan—and there’s little more that can be said. A working title for the work has to be supplied by its readers. Mrs. Gibson called it Fi tathlith Allah al-wahid or “On the Triune Nature of God,” but this title, while 41 An Apology for the Christian Faith common in present scholarship, fails to describe a wide-ranging apologetic text in which the chapter on the Trinity occupies just four leaves out of forty-one. In his review of Gibson’s book, Rendel Harris suggested the title Contra Muhammedanos (“Against the Muslims”),5 but this too is inadequate since the treatise, although at many points addressed to Muslims, is remarkably free of polemic: it is not really “against” anybody. I prefer to call the work An Apology for the Christian Faith—or simply the Apology for short. We are fortunate in having a date—of sorts—for the Apology. In a passage translated below, the author gives the very precise figure of 746 years as the time passed since God “established” the Christian religion. I have argued that this means 746 years after the death of Christ as calculated in the Alexandrian world era, yielding the date of 788 CE;6 calculating from the birth of Christ it results in the date of 755 CE.7 In any event, our Apology is manifestly a product of the eighth Christian century. The contents of the work are as follows. Invocation and Opening Prayer (fol. 99r)—translated below in full I. On the Trinity and the Incarnation (fol. 99r–111v) A. The Trinity: God and His Word and His Spirit (fol. 99r–102v)— translated below in full B. Christ (fol. 102v–111v) 1. Why the Incarnation? (The story of redemption, from Adam to Christ) (fol. 102v–108r)—translated below in full 2. Christ’s Divinity (fol. 108r–111v)—one excerpt translated below II. Testimonies8 (fol. 111v–139v) A. On the Life of Christ (23 Old Testament witnesses) (fol. 111v– 128v)—four excerpts translated below B. On Baptism (8 Old Testament witnesses) (fol. 128v–137r)—one excerpt translated below C. On the Cross (3 Old Testament witnesses) (fol. 137r–139v)—two excerpts translated below The Apology is a fascinating and significant work for a variety of reasons . Many readers are struck by the way that its Christian author can use the Qurʾan, sometimes quoting entire verses but more frequently weaving short phrases or even single highly resonant words into his discourse. For example, in explaining humanity’s need for redemption, the author makes use of both Biblical and Qurʾanic material as he presents the stories ofAdam [18.188.61.223] Project MUSE (2024-04-16 20...

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