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 LibraryofCongressCataloging-in-PublicationData ACIPcatalogrecordforthisbookhasbeenappliedforattheLibraryofCongress. BibliographicinformationpublishedbytheDeutscheNationalbibliothek TheDeutscheNationalbibliothekliststhispublicationintheDeutscheNationalbibliografie; detailedbibliographicdataareavailableontheInternetathttp://dnb.dnb.de. ©2015WalterdeGruyter,Inc.,Boston/Berlin Printingandbinding:CPIbooksGmbH,Leck ♾Printedonacid-freepaper PrintedinGermany www.degruyter.com 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