CHAPTER 5 John of Damascus and Theodore Abu Qurrah on

A greater understanding of the quality of knowledge about Islam and how that knowledge of Islam advanced among the Chalcedonian communities of Syro- Palestine can be acquired by comparing John of Damascus’ work on Islam with a corpus of writings on Islam usually attributed to Theodore Abu Qurrah (c. 750– 830), a theologian bishop working approximately fifty to seventy years after John. Although there is much still unknown about Theodore, certain parts of his biography have been improved upon, and we now possess a better understand- ing of which works are ascribable to him.1 For my purposes here, I shall restrict myself to the Greek corpus as much as possible, making reference to an English translation of his works when requisite, as at present we are in some ways in more certain territory with the current English translation than we are with the poor editions of his Arabic works, on which there is ongoing research.2 It is generally agreed that Theodore was a native of , born at the be- ginning of Abbasid rule (750–1258), and spent much of his life as the bishop of . Theodore took a great deal of his theological knowledge from John, and until recently he was even thought to have been John’s immediate spiritual descendent, in that the one was thought to have immediately preceded the

1 See S. H. Griffith, Theodore Abu Qurrah: The Intellectual Profile of an Arab Christian writer of the First Abbasid century (Tel Aviv University, 1992) and especially J. C. Lamoreaux, ‘The Biography of Theodore Abu Qurrah Revisited’, DOP 56 (2002), pp. 25–40, for Theodore’s biography. Lamoreaux, however, removes as many answers that scholars had given about Theodore’s life as he provides answers to questions posed. For a survey of Theodore’s Arabic works, see S. H. Griffith, ‘Theodore Abu Qurrah’s Arabic Tract on the Christian Practice of Venerating Images’, JAOS 105.1 (1985), pp. 53–73. For the Greek corpus, see Lamoreaux, ‘Theodore Abu Qurrah and John the Deacon’. By Abu Qurrah’s own statement he also wrote in Syriac, but the work(s) have yet to be discovered. See K. Samir, ‘Le traité sur les icônes d’Abū Qurrah mentionné par Eutychius’, OCP 58 (1992), pp. 461–74, who argues that there is perhaps only one work in thirty chapters, rather than 30 works as has usually been thought. 2 Perhaps unusually, we are in the position today of probably having a better English version of Theodore’s works than we do Arabic, thanks to John Lamoreaux’s invaluable translation, which takes into account a number of manuscript witnesses for the Greek and Arabic works. Lamoreaux himself admits that we are still lacking good critical editions of Theodore’s works, the Arabic on which he is working. Lamoreaux (trans.), Theodore Abu Qurrah, pp. xxv–xxxv.

© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, ���8 | doi ��.��63/9789004356054_007 John of Damascus and Theodore Abu Qurrah on Islam 183 other at the monastery of St. Sabas.3 I have already discussed the limits of the evidence regarding John of Damascus’ life and the probability that he retired to St. Sabas. It has also been argued that Theodore was not connected with St. Sabas, but was confused in the manuscript tradition with Theodore of Edessa.4 Yet even if it can be shown that neither spent time as monks at St. Sabas, severing John’s influence on Theodore entirely is not possible, as the two were the product of the same environment, and there is evidence that demonstrates the bishop was familiar with John’s works. Both theologians were clearly well educated representatives of Chalcedonian orthodoxy and both appear to have had strong ties to and the patriarch there. Several of Theodore’s works have him visiting Jerusalem, and at least one of his Arabic works ap- pears to have been translated into Greek at the order of Patriarch Thomas of Jerusalem (807–820) during Theodore’s lifetime.5 Further, the earliest refer- ence to John of Damascus’ Fount of Knowledge is found in a letter probably dat- ing from the eighth century, written to one Leo, none other than the Syncellus of the Melkite bishop of Harran, “the position Theodore came to hold.”6 Van Roey has studied this apologetic letter, written in Syriac to the Syncellus, which mentions the Fount of Knowledge in what Louth has determined was its earli- est form.7 While it is not clear when exactly this syncellus lived, he lived in the

3 See for example, Griffith, Theodore Abu Qurrah. To some extent the idea that Theodore was either at, or closely associated with, St. Sabas has not been fully overturned, but scholars have taken aim at the claims that either John or Theodore was attached to St. Sabas. For the stan- dard work linking the two, and for an analysis of John’s influence over Theodore, see Dick, ‘Un continuateur arabe de saint Jean Damascène’. 4 Lamoreaux, ‘The Biography of Theodore’. Dr. Lamoreaux has informed me that there are a few dissenting voices to his piece, but little yet in writing. Lamoreaux has gone far in his assertions that evidence for all links between Theodore and St. Sabas have, as a result of his work, been severed, and suggests in his article that perhaps so might also be the case for his relationship with John. As discussed below, I regard such a divorce as unlikely given other evidence, and the similarity in their theological vision and the topics on which they wrote. For one such recent dissent arguing that Theodore was at St. Sabas, see D. Bertaina, ‘An Arabic Account of Theodore Abu Qurra in Debate at the Court of Caliph al-Ma’mun: A Study in Early Christian and Muslim Literary Dialogues’, unpublished Ph.D. dissertation (Catholic University of America, 2007), pp. 201–21. 5 PG 97.1504, Lamoreaux (trans.), Theodore Abu Qurrah, p. 83. 6 The text does not make clear who the bishop was, although Theodore himself should not be precluded. 7 A. Van Roey, ‘La Lettre apologétique d’Elie à Léon, syncelle l’évêque de chalcédonien de Harran; une apologie monophysite du VIIe–IXe siècle’, Le Muséon 57 (1944), pp. 1–52. Van Roey, working under a false assumption, dated the letter to after 743, the date he associated with John’s writing of the Fount. But as Louth has shown, and as I have addressed earlier, this