(PDF) 'The Integral Arabic Translation of Pseudo-Athanasius of Alexandria’s Quaestiones ad Antiochum Ducem'

This paper deals with Pseudo-Athanasius’ Quaestiones ad Antiochum ducem—an important Late Antique erotapokriseis (questions-and-answers) text, which, though ascribed to Athanasius of Alexandria, is from a later date, its real author having remained anonymous. The Arabic translation of the Greek text, likely produced in one of the monasteries of Palestine or Sinai, is attested from as early as the ninth century in two recensions, one of which contains all 137 questions, and its extant manuscripts are older than those surviving in Greek. The fact that the text was used as a source in three well-known early Melkite treatises indicates its popularity among Arabic-speaking Christians.

Patristic Literature in Arabic Translations Edited by Barbara Roggema Alexander Treiger LEIDEN | BOSTON For use by the Author only | © 2020 Koninklijke Brill NV Contents Preface vii Abbreviations viii Notes on Contributors x Introduction 1 Alexander Treiger and Barbara Roggema 1 The Integral Arabic Translation of Pseudo-Athanasius of Alexandria’s Quaestiones ad Antiochum ducem 15 Barbara Roggema 2 Patristique et hagiographie palestino-sinaïtique des monastères melkites (IXe-Xe siècles) 53 Tamara Pataridze 3 Diversity in the Christian Arabic Reception of Jacob of Serugh (d. 521) 89 Aaron Michael Butts 4 The Arabic Lives of John of Daylam Jonas Karlsson 5 Some Notes on Antonios and His Arabic Translations of John of Damascus 158 Habib Ibrahim 6 Ibrāhīm ibn Yūḥannā and the Translation Projects of Byzantine Antioch 180 Joshua Mugler 7 A Re-translation of Basil’s Hexaemeral Homilies by ʿAbdallāh ibn al-Faḍl of Antioch 198 Alexandre M. Roberts 8 Homiletic Translation in Byzantine Antioch: The Arabic Translation of a Marian Homily of Patriarch Germanos I of Constantinople by Yānī ibn al-Duks, Deacon of Antioch 241 Joe Glynias 129 For use by the Author only | © 2020 Koninklijke Brill NV vi contents 9 L’homélie arabe In Nativitatem Domini (CPG 4290) attribuée à Sévérien de Gabala: Édition, traduction française 276 Sergey Kim 10 The Noetic Paradise (al-Firdaws al-ʿaqlī): Chapter XXIV Alexander Treiger 328 A Bibliographical Guide to Arabic Patristic Translations and Related Texts 377 Index of Manuscripts 419 Index of Names, Texts, and Subjects 425 For use by the Author only | © 2020 Koninklijke Brill NV chapter 1 The Integral Arabic Translation of PseudoAthanasius of Alexandria’s Quaestiones ad Antiochum ducem Barbara Roggema Pseudo-Athanasius of Alexandria’s Quaestiones ad Antiochum ducem (CPG 2257) is in many respects a hidden treasure of late antique Christian thought and controversy.1 This collection of questions and answers on a wide variety of issues of faith, daily life, cosmology, and theodicy was originally composed in Greek sometime between the mid-seventh and the early eighth century AD.2 It falls in the genre of encyclopedic erotapokriseis, which had didactic and cate1 PG 28, col. 597–699. The research presented in this paper was done within the framework of two ERC-projects: DEBIDEM (King’s College London) and JEWSEAST (Ruhr Universität Bochum). I am grateful to the ERC for making this research possible. I also want to express my sincere thanks to the Library of Congress and the National Library of Israel for sending me reproductions and to a number of dear colleagues who have helped me with important aspects of the paper. Ilse De Vos and Peter Hatlie have patiently checked many passages in unedited Greek manuscripts of the Quaestiones to find divergences from the edition in PG. Yannis Papadogiannakis has encouraged me to pursue this project and has kindly shared his draft English translation of the Greek text with me. A special word of thanks is due to Alexander Treiger whose generous practical help in acquiring many of the manuscripts, comments, and encouragement at various stages have been crucial. I would also like to thank André Binggeli, Adam McCollum, and Tamara Pataridze for their suggestions in the early stages of this project. It goes without saying that I bear sole responsibility for any shortcomings of this paper, which is very much a work in progress. 2 Its terminus post quem is determined by its allusions to Islamic rule (esp. in Question 42, which must refer to Umayyad attempts to introduce coins without crosses), while its terminus ante quem is 730AD, by which time it has been cited twice: in John of Damascus’ Discourse against the Calumniators of Icons and in the anonymous florilegium Doctrina Patrum; Caroline Macé, “Les Quaestiones ad Antiochum ducem d’un Pseudo-Athanase (CPG 2257),” in Marie-Pierre Bussières (ed.), La littérature des questions et réponses dans l’Antiquité profane et chrétienne: de l’enseignement à l’exégèse: actes du séminaire sur le genre des questions et réponses tenu à Ottawa les 27 et 28 septembre 2009, Turnhout, Brepols, 2013, pp. 121–150, at 128–143. Occasional claims of modern readers (for example, Andreas Külzer, Disputationes graecae contra Iudaeos. Untersuchungen zur byzantinischen antijüdischen Dialogliteratur und ihrem Judenbild, Stuttgart and Leipzig, Teubner, 1999, pp. 134–136) that the text must precede Islam are based on very superficial readings. The dating of the text will be discussed in more detail in Barbara Roggema and Ilse De Vos, “Ps. Athanasius of Alexandria’s Quaestiones ad © koninklijke brill nv, leiden, 2020 | doi:10.1163/9789004415041_003 For use by the Author only | © 2020 Koninklijke Brill NV 16 roggema chetical purposes and was widely used in the Christian Greek-speaking world from the sixth century onward.3 The hundreds of surviving manuscripts of the Quaestiones ad Antiochum ducem (henceforth: the Quaestiones) are surely an indication that the text became hugely popular reading material in Byzantium, but also beyond, in the wider Eastern Christian world, where we find it in numerous redactions in Arabic, Slavonic, Armenian, Georgian, and Geʿez.4 The questions which the fictional interlocutor Antiochus poses are 137 in number Antiochum ducem: A Byzantine Window onto the World from the Umayyad period” (forthcoming). 3 Yannis Papadogiannakis, “Didacticism, Exegesis, and Polemics in Pseudo-Kaisarios’ erotapokriseis,” in Bussières, La littérature des questions et réponses dans l’Antiquité profane et chrétienne, pp. 271–290; Yannis Papadogiannakis, “Instruction by Question and Answer: The Case of Late Antique and Byzantine Erotapokriseis,” in Scott F. Johnson (ed.), Greek Literature in Antiquity. Dynamism, Didacticism, Classicism, Aldershot and Burlington, Ashgate, 2006, pp. 91–105, and Yannis Papadogiannakis, “Defining Orthodoxy in Pseudo-Justin’s ‘Quaestiones et responsiones ad orthodoxos’,” in Eduard Iricinschi and Holger Zellentin (ed.), Heresy and Identity in Late Antiquity, Tübingen, Mohr Siebeck, 2008, pp. 115–127; Péter Tóth, “New Questions on Old Answers: Towards a critical edition of The Answers to the Orthodox of PseudoJustin,” Journal of Theological Studies, n.s. 65 (2014), pp. 550–599; Annelie Volgers and Claudio Zamagni (eds.), Erotapokriseis: Early Christian Question and Answer Literature in Context, Louvain, Peeters, 2004. 4 The online survey of manuscripts, “Pinakes,” of the Institut de recherche et d’histoire des textes (pinakes.irht.cnrs.fr) currently (2018) lists 271 manuscripts of the Quaestiones, but many of these contain only a select number of questions, and some are duplicates and misattributions; see Ilse De Vos, “The manuscript tradition of the Quaestiones ad Antiochum Ducem,” in Reinhout Ceulemans and Pieter de Leemans (ed.), On Good Authority. Tradition, Compilation and the Construction of Authority in Literature from Antiquity to the Renaissance, Turnhout, Brepols, 2015, pp. 43–66, p. 43, n. 3. For the textual heritage in the Christian East (besides the Christian Arabic, which will be discussed in this paper), see the following studies: Armenian: Anahit Avagyan, Die Armenische Athanasius-Überlieferung: das auf armenisch unter des Athanasius von Alexandrien tradierte Schrifttum, Berlin and Boston, Walter de Gruyter, 2014, pp. 70–75 and her forthcoming study on the Quaestiones; for a partial Geʿez version see: Paris, Ethiopien d’Abbadie 96 (https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/btv1b52500 2774), Veronika Six, “Äthiopische Handschriften der UB Tübingen,” Hamburg, 2000 [unpublished], p. 5, and Heinrich von Ewald, “Über die athiopische Handschriften zu Tübingen,” Zeitschrift für die Kunde des Morgenlandes, 5 (1844), pp. 164–201, at p. 191; from the first, second and last question it is clear that these are the Quaestiones, with the final one being the same as the final one in the “Arabic Translation of 45,” from which it might derive. For the various Slavonic translations see: Ilse De Vos and Olga Grinchenko, “The Quaestiones ad Antiochum ducem: Exploring the Slavonic Tradition,” Byzantion, 84 (2014), pp. 105–143. Parts of a tenthcentury manuscript with a Georgian translation are divided over libraries in Leipzig and Oslo: Julius Assfalg, Georgische Handschriften, Wiesbaden, Franz Steiner Verlag, 1963, pp. 45–47, Tafel II (not identified by cataloguer) and Schøyen 1600. I thank the curators of both collections for sending me images of the Georgian leaves. For use by the Author only | © 2020 Koninklijke Brill NV the arabic translation of quaestiones ad antiochum ducem 17 in the complete manuscripts.5 Most Greek manuscripts, the oldest of which are dated to the tenth century, contain only selected questions. This collection of questions gives us insight into what theological, social, and personal issues Chalcedonian Christian readers were wondering about or expected to be wondering about in the seventh to eighth-century Eastern Mediterranean, how their questions were to be answered authoritatively and where the limits lay of what could be buttressed through argumentation as opposed to what should be accepted in good faith. Although the text has been described by some modern scholars as topically disjointed6 and although the argumentative approaches in the replies are quite varied, the connecting thread in the collection appears to be its purpose to provide believers with a variegated set of tools to cope with issues that provoke a clash between the letter of scripture, Christian doctrine, belief in Divine justice, and common sense. Nowadays the text is most frequently regarded as a work of Adversus Iudaeos.7 Several questions indeed contain open and veiled anti-Jewish polemic, while a small number of passages seem to reflect a non-confrontational attitude towards the Jews and other non-Christians.8 The last question, Question 137, is a testimonia collection which forms the longest answer in the collection.9 However, characterizing the text as a work of Adversus Iudaeos is certainly too restrictive, since the percentage of questions involving Judaism does not even exceed ten percent. Clearly, such a label does not do justice to the rich and varied contents of the work. The text has also received attention in recent years because of its having been composed shortly after the beginning of Islamic rule in Syria-Palestine. The glimpses of the author’s awareness of burgeoning Islam are few but fascinating.10 5 6 7 8 9 10 The invented figure of Antiochus was probably chosen so as to represent the same person as the one to whom two other pseudo-Athanasian works are dedicated: the Doctrina ad Antiochum (PG 28, col. 555–589) and the Sermo ad Antiochum (PG 28, col. 589–598). See for example Andrew Jacobs, Christ Circumcised: A Study in Early Christian History and Difference, Philadelphia, University of Pennsylvania Press, 2012, p. 67. E.g. Külzer, Disputationes graecae contra Iudaeos, pp. 134–136; Shaun O’Sullivan, “AntiJewish Polemic and Early Islam,” in David Thomas (ed.), The Bible in Arab Christianity, Leiden and Boston, Brill, 2007, pp. 49–68, p. 49, n. 3. See also the literature cited in n. 10 and n. 12 below. See Questions 39 and 101. For Question 137, see further at pp. 45–46 below. See, for example, Patricia Crone, “Islam, Judeo-Christianity and Byzantine Iconoclasm,” Jerusalem Studies in Arabic and Islam, 2 (1980), pp. 59–95, at pp. 68–69, n. 41, and p. 91; Robert Hoyland, Seeing Islam As Others Saw It: A Survey and Evaluation of Christian, Jewish and Zoroastrian Writings On early Islam, Princeton, Darwin Press, 1997, pp. 82–83; David Olster, Roman Defeat, Christian Response, and the Literary Construction of the Jews, For use by the Author only | © 2020 Koninklijke Brill NV 18 roggema Renewed interest in late antique Christian literature in general and erotapokriseis in particular has led scholars to explore some of the individual questions and intriguing topics in the Quaestiones, such as the question of whether people will recognize each other after the general resurrection, whether the hour of one’s death is predetermined regardless of one’s virtues and prayers to the saints, and how ancient philosophers foretold the Incarnation.11 The search for sources of the Quaestiones and for texts closely related to it has borne some fruit. There are overlaps with several anti-Jewish works of the same period such as Leontius of Neapolis’ Apology, the Trophies of Damascus, and the Disputation of the Jews Papiscus and Philo with a Monk.12 A connection was also found with the Greek First Apocryphal Apocalypse of St John,13 while the clearest thematic and most extensive textual overlaps are with the better researched Questions 11 12 13 Philadelphia, University of Pennsylvania Press, 1994; Roggema and De Vos, “Ps. Athanasius of Alexandria’s Quaestiones ad Antiochum ducem” (see n. 2 above). Dirk Krausmüller, “ ‘At the Resurrection We Will Not Recognize One Another’: Radical Devaluation of Social Relations in the Lost Model of Anastasius’ and Pseudo-Athanasius’ Questions and Answers,” Byzantion, 83 (2013), pp. 1–27; Dirk Krausmüller, “Affirming Divine Providence and Limiting the Powers of Saints: The Byzantine Debate about the Term of Life (6th–11th Centuries),” Scrinium, 14 (2018), pp. 392–433; Gilbert Dagron, “L’ombre d’un doute: l’hagiographie en question, VIe–XIe siècle,”Dumbarton Oaks Papers, 46 (1992), pp. 59–68, pp. 61–62; Joseph Munitiz, “The Predetermination of Death: The Contribution of Anastasios of Sinai and Nikephoros Blemmydes to a Perennial Byzantine Problem,” Dumbarton Oaks Papers, 55 (2001), pp. 9–20; Caroline Macé and Ilse De Vos, “Pseudo-Athanasius, Quaestio ad Antiochum 136 and the Theosophia,” Studia Patristica, 66 (2013), pp. 319–332. Hans Georg Thümmel, Die Frühgeschichte der Ostkirchlichen Bilderlehre: Texte und Untersuchungen zur Zeit von dem Bilderstreit, Berlin, Akademie Verlag, 1992, pp. 246–252; Vincent Déroche, “L’Apologie contre les Juifs de Léontius de Néapolis,” Travaux et Mémoires, 12 (1993), pp. 45–104 [repr. in: Gilbert Dagron and Vincent Déroche, Juifs et Chrétiens en Orient Byzantin, Paris, ACHCByz, 2010, pp. 381–443] and Vincent Déroche, “Les Dialogues adversus Iudaeos face aux genres parallèles,” in Sébastien Morlet, Olivier Munnich, and Bernard Pouderon (ed.), Les Dialogues Adversus Iudaeos: Permanences et mutations d’une tradition polémique, Paris, Institut d’Études Augustiniennes, 2013, pp. 257–266; Gustave Bardy, “Les Trophées de Damas. Controverse judéo-chrétienne du VIIe siècle,” Patrologia Orientalis, 15 (1927), pp. 169–292, at pp. 185–188; Macé, “Les Quaestiones ad Antiochum ducem d’un Pseudo-Athanase (CPG 2257),” pp. 121–150. Laurence Vianès, “Les citations bibliques dans la Première Apocalypse Apocryphe de saint Jean et dans les Quaestiones ad Antiochum Ducem,” in Gabriella Aragione and Rémi Gounelle, «Soyez des changeurs avisés»: Controverses exégétiques dans la littérature apocryphe chrétienne, Strasbourg, Université de Strasbourg, 2012, pp. 145–161; Péter Tóth, “New Wine in Old Wineskin: Byzantine Reuses of the Apocryphal Revelation Dialogue,” in Averil Cameron and Niels Gaul (eds.), Dialogues and Debates from Late Antiquity to Byzantium, London and New York, Routledge, 2017, pp. 77–93, at p. 82, and n. 34. For use by the Author only | © 2020 Koninklijke Brill NV the arabic translation of quaestiones ad antiochum ducem 19 and Answers of Anastasius of Sinai (d. ca. 700).14 How the Quaestiones relate to Anastasius’ collection of erotapokriseis has not yet been properly elucidated, despite some ill-founded claims to the contrary in secondary literature. There is no consensus as to whether the former was a model for the latter or vice versa.15 An attractive theory is that the two collections used the same unknown source, as Dirk Krausmüller has suggested.16 Yet, many source-critical issues remain unresolved due to the lack of a critical edition of the Quaestiones.17 14 15 16 17 Marcel Richard and Joseph Munitiz, Anastasii Sinaitae Quaestiones et responsiones, Turnhout, Brepols, 2006; Joseph Munitiz, Anastasios of Sinai, Questions and Answers, Turnhout, Brepols, 2011. Listings of questions contained in both Anastasius and Pseudo-Athanasius can be found in Gustave Bardy, “La Littérature patristique des ‘Quaestiones et Responsiones’ sur l’Écriture Sainte (suite et fin),” Revue biblique, 42 (1933), pp. 328–352, at p. 342, and Richard and Munitiz, Anastasii Sinaitae Quaestiones et responsiones, pp. lii–lv. One of the first scholars to notice the similarities was Gustave Bardy (see previous note). He does not express judgment about the channel of transmission between the two texts and yet he is cited in more recent scholarship as having posited the priority of Anastasius over Pseudo-Athanasius. See for example Marcel Richard, “Les veritables ‘Questions et réponses’ d’Anastase le Sinaïte,”Bulletin de l’Institut de recherches et d’histoire des textes, 15 (1967–1968), pp. 39–56, at p. 55, posits the priority of the work of Anastasius without giving arguments (cf. Marcel Richard, “Les fragments du commentaire de S. Hippolyte sur les Proverbes de Salomon,” Le Muséon, 79 (1966), pp. 61–94, at p. 61, n. 3); Dagron in turn uses Richard as his authority in this matter: Dagron, “L’ombre d’un doute: l’hagiographie en question,” pp. 61–62. The opposite is claimed by Vincent Déroche; see for example his “Les Dialogues adversus Iudaeos face aux genres parallèles,” p. 261, n. 21. John Haldon, in his “The Works of Anastasius of Sinai: A Key Source for the History of Seventh-Century East Mediterranean Society and Belief,” in Averil Cameron and Lawrence Conrad (eds.), The Byzantine and Early Islamic Near East. I: Problems in the Literary Source Material, Princeton, Darwin Press, 1992, pp. 107–147, seems to hold both positions at once; compare p. 118 and p. 129 (and cf. pp. 121–122). Haldon’s chapter was in turn misread by O’Sullivan (“AntiJewish Polemic and Early Islam,” pp. 49–50), who believed Anastasius of Sinai to be the author of the Quaestiones; Munitiz, Anastasios of Sinai, Questions and Answers, p. 22, views the matter as hitherto unresolved but gives a powerful argument in favor of an earlier date for the Quaestiones, which is that the latter contain considerably fewer references to Arab rule. I will deal with this issue in more detail in “Ps. Athanasius of Alexandria’s Quaestiones ad Antiochum ducem: A Byzantine Window onto the World from the Umayyad Period” (cf. n. 2 above). Krausmüller, “ ‘At the Resurrection We Will Not Recognize One Another’.” Yannis Papadogiannakis has taken the initiative of a collaborative project entailing a critical edition and English translation. For use by the Author only | © 2020 Koninklijke Brill NV 20 1 roggema The Arabic Translations of the Quaestiones Judging from the geographical focus in the text, it seems most likely that the text originated in Syria-Palestine.18 That is in all likelihood also the area where it was translated into Arabic, being among the first texts considered worth possessing in the language which more and more Christians in the late antique Near East had as their mother tongue. There are several prominent reasons why it is interesting to explore the Arabic translations of the Quaestiones. First of all, it is worth investigating how the Arabic stands in relation to the original Greek. This is not only interesting per se, insofar as the text provides ample material for the study of patristic GraecoArabic translations, but also specifically because the Arabic manuscripts are the oldest surviving textual witnesses. It is also worth considering that (as far as can be determined) the oldest Arabic translation was made in a context, the Chalcedonian monasteries of Palestine, not long after it was, or even when it was still, a living text in Greek, presumably with a readership for whom this text was used for their intellectual training and fed into their spiritual development. If it was indeed still a text that was alive in the minds of the translators, then the transition from the Greek to the Arabic would have been more or less seamless. This has two implications. First of all, the Arabic texts should be taken into consideration as potentially useful witnesses in the analysis of the transmission of the Greek text.19 Secondly, when there are divergences between the Greek and the Arabic, we may assume that these were wilfully made rather than erroneously, and this is interesting from the point of view of the reception of the text. The remarkably low number of misinterpretations of the Greek in the Arabic translations may strengthen the hypothesis that the text did not get detached from its original historical context.20 Of course, the Arabic versions of the Quaestiones are also interesting in and of themselves, because they are a fascinating testimony to the burgeoning Melkite world of learning. It is also interesting to observe that the text continued to be copied, read, and excerpted in Christian Arabic texts through the 18 19 20 I agree therefore with Patricia Crone (cf. “Islam, Judeo-Christianity and Byzantine Iconoclasm,” p. 61, n. 8 and p. 81). However, her claim that the text was originally written in Syriac cannot be supported. See the example of the Arabic readings of Question 1 on pp. 40–43 below. This is why it is infelicitous to refer to the Arabic translation as “medieval,” as though it stems from a different epoch than the late antique era in which the Greek original came into being (cf. Macé, “Les Quaestiones ad Antiochum ducem d’un Pseudo-Athanase (CPG 2257),” p. 121). For use by the Author only | © 2020 Koninklijke Brill NV the arabic translation of quaestiones ad antiochum ducem 21 centuries and that it appears to have impacted theological discussions between Christians, Muslims, and Jews in the centuries after its translation.21 None of these topics has, as yet, been explored with regard to the Quaestiones, but there are some valuable studies of the vibrant Patristic GraecoArabic translation movement in the monasteries of Palestine that allow us to understand the historical setting in which the translation of the Quaestiones took place.22 Although the names of its translators are unknown, the names of the scribes allow us to locate the transmission of the text in the famous monasteries of Palestine and Sinai, where during the eighth through the tenth century many Greek and Syriac works were translated into Arabic, studied, commented upon, and integrated into the Melkite world of learning. It has long been known that a partial Arabic translation existed in the late ninth century. The certainty we have in this regard is due to the fact that the oldest surviving manuscript of that partial translation, Strasbourg, BNU 4226, is dated to 885/6 AD (the date given is 272 of the Hiǧra). Its scribe was Anthony David of Baghdad, a well-known early Christian Arabic scribe.23 In the same year, he also copied, among others, Vatican Ar. 71, which is another set of Arabic translations of patristic texts.24 Both manuscripts were copied at the monastery 21 22 23 24 The reception of the Quaestiones in Melkite apologetics will be discussed in Section 4 of this chapter. Alexander Treiger, “Christian Graeco-Arabica: Prolegomena to a History of the Arabic Translations of the Greek Church Fathers,” Intellectual History of the Islamicate World, 3 (2015), pp. 188–227; Alexander Treiger, “The Fathers in Arabic,” in Ken Parry (ed.), The Wiley Blackwell Companion to Patristics, Chichester and Malden, Wiley Blackwell, 2015, pp. 442– 455; André Binggeli, “Early Christian Graeco-Arabica: Melkite Manuscripts and Translations in Palestine (8th–10th Centuries AD),” Intellectual history of the Islamicate World, 3 (2015), pp. 228–247; Sidney Griffith, Arabic Christianity in Monasteries of Ninth-Century Palestine, Aldershot, Ashgate, 1992; Kate Leeming, “Greek-Arabic Translation in the Christian Communities of the Medieval Arab World,” in Harald Kittel, Juliane House, and Brigitte Schultze (eds.), Übersetzung: Ein internationales Handbuch zur Übersetzungsforschung—Translation: An International Encyclopedia of Translation Studies—Traduction: encyclopédie internationale de la recherche sur la traduction, 3 vols., Berlin and New York, De Gruyter, 2004–2011, vol. 2, pp. 1217–1220. See also the Introduction to this volume. The extensive literature regarding the date, colophon, and virtual reconstruction of this manuscript (divided over libraries in Strasbourg, Birmingham, and Saint Petersburg) is listed by André Binggeli in his detailed study “Les trois David, copistes arabes de Palestine,” in André Binggeli, Anne Boud’hors, and Mattieu Cassin (eds.), Manuscripta Graeca et Orientalia. Mélanges monastiques et patristiques en l’honneur de Paul Géhin, Louvain, Peeters, 2016, pp. 79–117, at pp. 80–81; its contents were described in J. Oestrup, “Über zwei arabische codices sinaitici der Strassburger Universitäts- und Landesbibliothek,” Zeitschrift der Deutschen Morgenländischen Gesellschaft, 51 (1897), pp. 453–471, at pp. 455–458. Sidney Griffith, “Anthony David of Baghdad, Scribe and Monk of Mar Sabas: Arabic in the Monasteries of Palestine,” Church History, 58 (1989), pp. 7–19; repr. in Griffith, Arabic Chris- For use by the Author only | © 2020 Koninklijke Brill NV 22 roggema of Mar Saba and had been commissioned for Saint Catherine’s Monastery at Mount Sinai. This manuscript of the Quaestiones contains 45 questions which had been selected, without a detectable focus on specific themes, from the longer collection and were given a new consecutive numbering.25 Graf’s entry about the text in volume 1 of his GCAL predates the current scholarly interest in late antique erotapokriseis.26 He merely quoted Bardenhewer’s description of it as a late compilation of several unknown hands,27 as well as Abū l-Barakāt, who described it in his book catalogue as a collection of 45 questions on the “Trinity and Divine unity, the faith, and other matters.”28 Graf then lists the manuscripts known to him, but, possibly because he was unaware, he did not specify that besides the selection of 45 questions and a compilation of 68 questions,29 there exists an integral Arabic translation.30 This 25 26 27 28 29 30 tianity, Essay XI; André Binggeli, “Early Christian Graeco-Arabica,” p. 233, and Binggeli, “Les trois David,” pp. 80–100. The Arabic 45 questions (A) are listed here with the corresponding questions in the order of the edition of Migne’s PG (G): A1–11 = G1–11; A12 = G13; A13–15 = G15–17; A16–18 = G19–21; A19 = G23; A20–21 = G25–26; A22–25 = G34–37; A26–28 = G39–41; A29–31 = G45–47; A32– 34 = G49–51; A35 = G55; A36 = G57; A37 = G59; A38–39 = G64–65; A40–41 = G101–102; A42 = G111; A43 = G113; A44 = G115; A45 = G124. The edition in PG is based on late manuscripts that diverge considerably from the bulk of manuscripts, yet, for obvious reasons it has become the point of reference for research and will probably remain so until a critical edition has been produced. The numbering in PG may not reflect the original numbering (in fact, only about a quarter of the Greek manuscripts are numbered; see De Vos, “The Manuscript Tradition of the Quaestiones ad Antiochum Ducem,” p. 48) but this does not hamper our comparisons here. Graf, GCAL, vol. 1, pp. 312–313. Otto Bardenhewer, Geschichte der altchristlichen Literatur, Freiburg im Breisgau, Herder, 5 vols., 1913–1935, vol. 3, p. 68. Wilhelm Riedel, “Der Katalog der christlichen Schriften in arabischer Sprache von Abū ’l-Barakāt,”Nachrichten von der Königl. Gesellschaft der Wissenschaften zu Göttingen. Philologisch-historische Klasse (1902), pp. 635–706, at p. 646. Graf mentions (GCAL, vol. 1, p. 313) that the library of Charfeh held a 17th-century manuscript with shelfmark 8/10 (karšūnī) with 68 questions that subsequently disappeared. Graf did not know that Milan, Biblioteca Ambrosiana, XV E1 sup. (fols. 14v–50r), listed by him as “Mailand Ambros. (de Hammer) or. 90,2,” also contains 68 questions only (cf. Oscar Löfgren and Renato Traini, Catalogue of the Arabic Manuscripts in the Biblioteca Ambrosiana, 2 vols., Vicenza, N. Pozza, 1975–1981, vol. 1, p. 13). These 68 questions are not a different translation or recension but simply the second half of the Integral Arabic Translation, the text having been divided into two equal parts (hence the note “al-ṯānī,” above the text; the questions are numbered again from 1 onward). Presumably Dayr al-Šīr 431 contains the same 68 questions, although possibly it has the first half (P. Adrien Chaccour, Catalogue des manuscrits arabes de Dayr al-Šīr (Liban) des moines basiliens alépins, Liban [s.l.], 1976, p. 34). Graf’s information on the Mount Sinai manuscripts is notoriously scant. He was depen- For use by the Author only | © 2020 Koninklijke Brill NV the arabic translation of quaestiones ad antiochum ducem 23 complete translation of the 137 Greek questions and answers survives in some of the oldest Arabic manuscripts from Sinai (9th–10th c.), notably Sinai Ar. 431 (fols. 255r–321r) and Sinai Ar. 330 (fols. 227r–273v), as well as a number of manuscripts from later centuries.31 Some of the Arabic manuscripts even contain additional questions, such as the elegant but hitherto unstudied London, Royal Asiatic Society, Arabic 25, which contains a total of 146 questions.32 2 “The Arabic Translation of 45” versus “The Integral Arabic Translation” The first question with regard to the Arabic versions of the Quaestiones, is how the texts in the partial translation (henceforth: “The Arabic Translation of 45”), which is found in the oldest dated manuscript, and the complete translation 31 32 dent on rudimentary catalogues that gave little detail, because in all likelihood he did not travel to Sinai and therefore lacked good knowledge of what is the most important collection of Christian Arabic patristic translations and “arguably the single most important repository of Christian Arabic manuscripts in the world” (Treiger, “Christian GraecoArabica,” pp. 196–197). Despite Graf’s reference to manuscripts of the Quaestiones with more questions in it, some scholars have continued to refer to the Arabic translation as existing of only 45 questions, e.g. Macé, “Les Quaestiones ad Antiochum ducem d’un Pseudo-Athanase (CPG 2257),” p. 121, n. 3. On the additional witnesses from the New Finds, see below, pp. 33–40. Other manuscripts from Sinai are: Sinai Ar. 481, fols. 225v–283r (1091 AD); Sinai Ar. 485, fols. 124v–190r (ca. 13th c.); Sinai Ar. 585, fols. 2r–21r (partial: abrupt end at Question 33, followed by a 1.5 blank folios). Sinai Ar. 474 is listed both by Atiya (Aziz Suryal Atiya, The Arabic Manuscripts of Mount Sinai: A Hand-list of the Arabic Manuscripts and Scrolls Microfilmed at the Library of the Monastery of St. Catherine, Mount Sinai, Baltimore, the Johns Hopkins Press, 1955, p. 16) and by Kamil (Murad Kamil, Catalogue of All Manuscripts in the Monastery of St. Catherine on Mount Sinai, Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 1970, p. 41) as one of the witnesses, but it only contains Question 1 (on fols. 307v–309r). Kamil also mentions two manuscripts, not listed by Atiya, to which I have not had access: Sinai Ar. 468 (17th–18th c.) and Sinai Ar. 345 (1386AD) (Kamil, Catalogue, p. 41, No. 500 and p. 37, No. 472 respectively). There are also several confusing misattributions. Sinai Ar. 346 (1117AD) does not contain the Quaestiones but another series of erotapokriseis attributed to Athanasius of Alexandria, which can also be found in Sinai Ar. 481 (cf. Atiya, Arabic Manuscripts, p. 9); Sinai Ar. 454 is listed erroneously as a witness in Kamil, Catalogue, p. 32 (repeated in Nasrallah, HMLÉM, vol. 1, p. 124). https://www.fihrist.org.uk/catalog/work_9669 (17th c., no folio numbering). The additional questions in the manuscript are not known from any other manuscript of the Quaestiones, but are similar in style and content and deserve further study. Another important manuscript, besides the Sinai manuscripts, containing all the Quaestiones is Oxford, Bodleian, Greaves 30, fols. 1v–59v, which contains three additional questions. For use by the Author only | © 2020 Koninklijke Brill NV 24 roggema (henceforth: “The Integral Arabic Translation”) relate to each other.33 Was the Greek text translated twice independently or does one version of the Arabic Quaestiones depend on the other? Answering this question will be useful for the reconstruction of the translation history and especially for determining when the entire text was first translated into Arabic. I will try to answer this question by comparing the two texts. Along the way, I will comment on some other features of the Arabic manuscripts and the nature of their textual variants. Reading the opening sections of the Arabic Translation of 45 and the Integral Arabic Translation, the answer to this question seems within easy reach, because these sections are virtually identical. The textual closeness of the two Arabic texts is shown here below: Arabic translation of 45: Strasbourg, BNU 4226, fol. 45v Integral Arabic translation: Sinai Ar. 431, fol. 255r Preamble Preamble ‫المسيح الاهي وقوتي ورجاي ومخلصي‬ ‫هذه مسايل ملتقطه لانتيوخس ولابينا القديس اثناسيوس‬ ‫بطر يرك الاكسندر يه‬ ‫في ذلك الزمان اتا انسان ر يس يقال له انتيوخس من عظما‬ ‫العجم الي اثناسيوس فقال له ار يد يابونا اسايلك عن ابواب‬ ‫ من قول ابونا القديس‬:‫بسم الاب والا بن وروح القدس‬ ‫اثناسيوس بطر يرك الاسكندر يه مجاو به لمسايل انطيوخس‬ ‫الر يس‬ ‫في دلك الزمان انا انسان ر يس يقال له انطياخس من‬ ‫عظما العجم الي اثناسيوس القديس فقال له ار يد يا ابونا‬ ‫شتا هي في الـكتب والناس يختلفون فيها فانا احب ان‬ ‫اسلك عن ابواب شتا هي في الـكتب والناس يختلفون فيها‬ ‫فقال له اثناسيوس سلني يابني عن ما احببت فاخبرك بما‬ ‫من المسيحيين فقال له اثناسيوس سل عنما احببت يا ابني‬ ‫ليس انا لذلك اهلا‬ ‫وان كنت ليس انا لذلك اهلا‬ ‫تفسرها لي ليكون فيها منفعه لي ولمن بعدي من المسيحيين‬ ‫يوحي الل ّٰه علي فمي بروح قدسه فاني لهكاهن وان كنت‬ 33 ‫فانا احب ان تفسرها لي ليكون فيها منفعه لي ولمن بعدي‬ ‫فاخبرك بما يوحي الل ّٰه بروح قدسه علي فمي فاني كاهن له‬ The “Arabic Translation of 45” is also to be found in later manuscripts: e.g., Mingana Chr. Ar. 56, Charfet Ar. 378, and Jerusalem, Monastery of St Mark 21. The select questions found in Vat. Ar. 99 are taken from this translation. The select questions found in Paris Ar. 214 and Vat. Borg. Ar. 135 have very different wording and appear to be independent translations. For use by the Author only | © 2020 Koninklijke Brill NV the arabic translation of quaestiones ad antiochum ducem 25 (cont.) Arabic translation of 45: Strasbourg, BNU 4226, fol. 45v Integral Arabic translation: Sinai Ar. 431, fol. 255r Christ, my God, my power, my hope and my savior. These are selected questions of Antiochus and our father the Holy Athanasius, Patriarch of Alexandria. In the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. From the words of our holy father Patriarch Athanasius, in answer to the questions of Antiochus the chief. In that time an important man called Antiochus, from the elite of the Persians [or non-Arabs, al-ʿaǧam], came to Athanasius and said to him: “My father, I would like to ask you about various topics in the Scriptures that people disagree about, and I would like you to elucidate them to me, to my benefit and that of Christians after me.” In that time an important man called Antiochus, from the elite of the Persians [or non-Arabs, al-ʿaǧam], [came] to the holy Athanasius and said to him: “My father, I would like to ask you about various topics in the Scriptures that people disagree about, and I would like you to elucidate them to me, to my benefit and that of Christians after me.” And Athanasius answered: “Ask me, my son, whatever you like and I will inform you of what God sends down on my tongue through the Holy Spirit, for I am a priest unto Him, even though I am not worthy of that.” And Athanasius answered: “Ask me, my son, whatever you like and I will inform you of what God sends down through His Spirit on my tongue, for I am a priest unto Him, even though I am not worthy of that.” A comparison of the two introductory sections shows that the Arabic texts are virtually the same. The scribe or redactor has changed the heading but after that the texts are very close. Sinai Ar. 431 has a clear error in writing anā for atā. Other manuscripts of the Integral Arabic Translation do not contain this error. It shows that in any case Sinai Ar. 431 is not the very first manuscript of the Integral Arabic Translation, because the scribe must simply have had an Arabic Vorlage in which he mistook two dots for one, rather than having misread the Greek. There is no divergence in the vocabulary employed, the orthography shows some very slight variation, and the few differences in wording and word order do not change the meaning. On the basis of this brief example, it is tempting to conclude that these texts derive from one and the same translation into Arabic and that hence the short recension has been made simply by selecting questions from the long translation. What is interesting, further- For use by the Author only | © 2020 Koninklijke Brill NV 26 roggema more, is that this introductory section is not to be found in any of the Greek manuscripts. It may have been added by the Arabic translator or a later redactor, although as long as we do not have a better grasp on the genealogy of the Greek manuscripts, it cannot be entirely excluded that it was included in an earlier stage of the Greek, which no longer survives. However this may be, it is not impossible that a second Arabic translator copied the introduction from the first Arabic translation but proceeded to make his own translation after that. Since there is no shortage of comparative textual material, we can proceed to compare a few of the Questions more closely. In Question 1, the divergences between the two Arabic recensions are much more prominent. To compare: Question 1 PG 28, col. 597: Ἐρώτησις αʹ. Πιστεύσαντες καὶ βαπτισθέντες εἰς Τριάδα ὁμοούσιον, καὶ λέγοντες Θεὸν εἶναι τὸν Πατέρα, ὁμοίως καὶ Θεὸν εἶναι τὸν Υἱὸν, ὡσαύτως δὲ καὶ Θεὸν εἶναι τὸ ἅγιον Πνεῦμα, πῶς οὐ λέγομεν τρεῖς θεοὺς, ἀλλ’ ἕνα καὶ μόνον Θεόν; Καὶ εἰ μὲν ἕνα προσκυνοῦμεν Θεὸν, εὔδηλον ὅτι, εἰς μοναρχίαν πιστεύοντες, Ἰουδαΐζομεν· εἰ δὲ πάλιν τρεῖς θεοὺς, πρόδηλον ὅτι Ἑλληνίζομεν, πολυθεΐαν εἰσάγοντες, καὶ οὐχ ἕνα μόνον Θεὸν εὐσεβῶς προσκυνοῦντες. Arabic translation of 45: Strasbourg, BNU 4226, fol. 45v Integral Arabic translation: Sinai Ar. 431, fols. 255r–v ‫قال انتيوخس لاي شي امنا وصبغنا بالطبيعه الواحده المثلثه‬ ‫قال انطياخس قبل كل شي لماذا هي امانتنا وغايتنا الطبيعه‬ ‫اله مثل ذلك فكيف لا نقول بانهم ثلثه الهه ولـكن اله‬ ‫وروح القدس اله تام ولا نقول ثلثه الهه ولـكن اله واحد‬ ‫بالجوهر ونقول ان الاب اله تام والا بن مثله وروح القدس‬ ‫واحد فان كنا نسجد لاله واحد فقد اقتصرنا علي اليهوديه‬ ‫ونسبنا الي يهود وان نحن ايضا عبدنا ثلثه الهه وقد انسبنا‬ ‫الي الحنيفيه وصرنا نعبد الههكثيره ولسنا نومن ونسجد لاله‬ ‫واحد‬ 34 ‫الواحده الثالوثه ونقول ان الاب اله تام والا بن اله تام‬ ‫ واحد فنحن نعبد راس واحد مثل‬34‫فان كنا نسجد ليلاه‬ ‫اليهود وان كنا ايضا نعبد ثلثه الهه فنحن نعبد الههكثيره مثل‬ ‫الحنفا وليس اله واحد‬ A peculiar spelling of ‫)?( لاله‬. For use by the Author only | © 2020 Koninklijke Brill NV the arabic translation of quaestiones ad antiochum ducem 27 (cont.) Arabic translation of 45: Strasbourg, BNU 4226, fol. 45v Integral Arabic translation: Sinai Ar. 431, fols. 255r–v Antiochus said: “Why do we believe and baptize in the one nature, trinitarian in essence, and say that the Father is a perfect God and the Son like Him and the Holy Spirit a God likewise; and why is it that we do not say that there are three Gods but rather one? For if we were to worship one God, then we would reduce ourselves to Judaism and affiliate with the Jews, and, likewise, if we were to worship three Gods, we would affiliate with paganism and we would worship many gods and we would not believe in and worship one God.” Antiochus said: “Before anything else, why is our belief and our object of worship the one trinitarian nature and why do we say that the Father is a perfect God and the Son a perfect God and the Holy Spirit a perfect God but we do not say three Gods but one God? For if we were to worship one God then we would worship one Principle like the Jews, and likewise if we were to worship three Gods then we would worship many Gods like the pagans and not one God.” In this first question of the text, the wording is somewhat similar, but much less so than in the opening section. One notices various divergences in the choice of words: such as ‫ المثلثه بالجوهر‬vs. ‫ الاه واحد ;الثالوثه‬vs. ‫ حنيفيه ;راس واحد‬vs. ‫حنفا‬. The Arabic Translation of 45 paraphrases the Greek verb “to Judaize” (Ἰουδαΐζομεν) as ‫فقد اقتصرنا علي اليهوديه ونسبنا الي يهود‬, while the Integral Arabic Translation chooses a simple “like the Jews.” Another conspicuous difference furthermore can be found in the very beginning where the Arabic Translation of 45 gives “we believe and baptize,” while the other text gives “our belief and object of worship.” In this case, the Arabic Translation of 45 is closer to the Greek text, which indeed refers to baptism. This particular divergent reading should not force us to conclude that the Arabic Translation of 45 cannot be an extract from the Integral Arabic Translation, because, as it turns out, another early manuscript of the Integral Arabic Translation does include the correct reading “baptism.” Sinai Ar. 330, fol. 227r, gives ‫امنا وصبغنا بالطبيعه‬, i.e., an exact agreement with the Arabic Translation of 45 and the Greek.35 It seems logical to assume that if the two recensions 35 Sinai Ar. 330, fol. 227r. For use by the Author only | © 2020 Koninklijke Brill NV 28 roggema do not derive from two separate translations but rather from one, that ‫وصبغنا‬ was misread and the preposition before “nature” was dropped so as to make sense of the phrase.36 In another instance the Integral Arabic Translation contains a reading which is closer to the Greek than the Arabic Translation of 45. Rather than using the simple “one God,” it uses “one head” (which I translated as “one Principle”), which must come from the Greek term μοναρχία, “monarchy.” More comparison is needed to understand the textual relation between the two recensions. Question 4 PG 28, col. 601: Ἐρώτ. δʹ. Πόθεν δῆλον ὅτι κτιστοί εἰσιν οἱ ἄγγελοι; οὐδὲ γὰρ ἐμφέρεταί τι τοιοῦτον ἐν τῇ βίβλῳ τῆς Γενέσεως. Ἀπόκ. Γινώσκων ὁ Θεὸς τὸ φιλείδωλον καὶ πολύθεον τῶν ἀνθρώπων, καὶ μάλιστα τῶν Ἰουδαίων, τούτου χάριν ἀπέκρυψεν ἐν τῇ Γενέσει τὸν περὶ τῶν ἀγγέλων λόγον· ἵνα μὴ καὶ αὐτοὺς θεοποιήσωσιν οἱ τὸν μόσχον καὶ ἄλλα τινὰ θεοποιήσαντες ὡς θεούς. Ὅτι δὲ καὶ κτιστοί εἰσιν οἱ ἄγγελοι, ἄκουσον τοῦ ἁγίου Πνεύματος διὰ τοῦ Προφήτου λέγοντος· “Αἰνεῖτε τὸν Κύριον, πάντες οἱ ἄγγελοι αὐτοῦ· αἰνεῖτε αὐτὸν, πᾶσαι αἱ δυνάμεις αὐτοῦ, ὅτι αὐτὸς εἶπε, καὶ ἐγενήθησαν, αὐτὸς ἐνετείλατο, καὶ ἐκτίσθησαν.” Arabic translation of 45: Strasbourg, BNU 4226, fols. 47r–v Integral Arabic translation: Sinai Ar. 431, fols. 258r–v ‫من ا ين يعرف بان الملايكه مخلوقه وليس لدلك ٺثبيت في‬ ‫من ا ين نعلم ان الملايكه مخلوقه ولم نجد في مصحف الخليقه‬ ‫ سبق في علم الل ّٰه ان جنس اليهود يحب عباده‬:‫جواب‬ ‫ سبق في علم الل ّٰه بان جنس اليهود يحب عباده‬:‫جواب‬ ‫مصحف الخليقه‬ ‫الاوثان وكثره الالهه منجل ذلك لم يوحي الي موسي ان‬ 36 ‫شي من هذا‬ ‫الاوثان وكثره الالهه فمن اجل دلك لم يوحي الل ّٰه الي موسى‬ All other manuscripts of the Integral Arabic Translation give ‫ ;وغايتنا‬Sinai Ar. 330 retains some other readings that are closer to the Greek, such as the correct answer to Question 7 while in all other manuscripts the answer given is in reality the answer to Question 8 (and see below at the textual comparison of Question 10), but because the manuscript is quite divergent from all others and heavily damaged, it is not useful to choose it here as the base manuscript for comparison of the recensions. For use by the Author only | © 2020 Koninklijke Brill NV the arabic translation of quaestiones ad antiochum ducem 29 (cont.) Arabic translation of 45: Strasbourg, BNU 4226, fols. 47r–v ‫يكتب في مصحف الخليقه شي من امر الملايكه لـكيما لا‬ ‫يتخدونها اليهود لهم كالالهه و يعبدونها كمثل عبادتهم العجل‬ ‫ فاما‬.‫في حور يب واشيا اخر شتي وسجودهم لها من دون الل ّٰه‬ ‫ان اردت ان تعلم ان الملايكه مخلوقين فاسمع روح القدس‬ ‫يقول علي فم داود النبي يسبح الرب جميع ملايكته سبحوه‬ ‫كل قواته فانه هو الذي قال فكانوا وهو الذي امر فخلقوا‬ ‫فليس نعلم من الـكتب الالهيه عن خلقه الملايكه يقين الا‬ Integral Arabic translation: Sinai Ar. 431, fols. 258r–v ‫ان يكتب في مصحف الخليقه شيا من امر الملايكه لـكيما‬ ‫لا يتخدوهم اليهود الههكما اتخدوا العجل اله واشيا اخرا‬ ‫عبدوها ايضا فان اردت ان تعلم ان الملايكه مخلوقين فاسمع‬ ‫روح القدس يقول علي فم داود النبي اذ يقول يسبح للرب‬ ‫كل ملايكته تسبحهكل اجناده لانه قال فكانوا وهو امر‬ ‫فخلقوا‬ ‫من هذا الموضع وهذه الكلمه فقط‬ Whence is it known that the angels are created, as there is no confirmation of that in the Book of Genesis? Whence do we know that the angels are created, as we do not find anything about it in the Book of Genesis? Answer: Preceding in God’s knowledge was that the race of the Jews loves idolatry and polytheism. Therefore He did not reveal to Moses that he should write anything about the issue of angels in the Book of Genesis, lest the Jews would adopt them as gods and worship them as with their worship of the calf at Horeb and other various things and their worship of these besides God. Answer: Preceding in God’s knowledge was that the race of the Jews loves idolatry and polytheism. Therefore He did not reveal to Moses that he should write anything about the issue of angels in the Book of Genesis, lest the Jews would adopt them as gods, in the way they took the calf as a god and various other things they worshipped. If you want to know that the angels are created, then listen to the Holy Spirit speaking through the mouth of David the Prophet: “Praise the Lord, all His angels, praise Him, all His forces”37 and He is the one who spoke and they were, “He is the one who com- If you want to know that the angels are created, then listen to the Holy Spirit speaking through the mouth of David the Prophet: “Praise the Lord, all His angels praise Him, all His hosts” and He spoke and they were, “He commanded and they were created.” 37 Psalms 148:2. For use by the Author only | © 2020 Koninklijke Brill NV 30 roggema (cont.) Arabic translation of 45: Strasbourg, BNU 4226, fols. 47r–v Integral Arabic translation: Sinai Ar. 431, fols. 258r–v manded and they were created.”38 We do not know anything precisely about the creation of the angels except for this passage and this saying only. The comparison of the two textual versions of Question 4 is straightforward. The differences between the two are minimal. The Arabic Translation of 45 is slightly more elaborate and contains a final phrase that is undoubtedly a gloss. The tendency of the redactor of the Arabic Translation of 45 to expand and to clarify also becomes clear in Question 10, which deals with the fall of Satan. Question 10 PG 28, col. 604: Ἐρώτ. ιʹ. Πότε, καὶ διὰ τί ἐξέπεσεν ὁ διάβολος, Μυθεύονται γάρ τινες, ὅτι, καταδεξάμενος προσκυνῆσαι τὸν Ἀδὰμ, διὰ τοῦτο ἐξέπεσεν. Ἀπόκ. Ἀφρόνων ἀνδρῶν, τὰ τοιαῦτα τυγχάνουσι ῥήματα. Ὁ γὰρ διάβολος, πρὶν γενέσθαι τὸν Ἀδὰμ, ἐξέπεσε. Πρόδηλον δὲ, ὅτι διὰ τὴν ὑπερηφανίαν αὐτοῦ, ὥς φησιν Ἡσαΐας ὁ προφήτης, λογισάμενος, ὅτι “Θήσω τὸν θρόνον μου ἐπὶ τῶν νεφελῶν καὶ ἔσομαι ὅμοιος τῷ Ὑψίστῳ.” Arabic translation of 45: Strasbourg, BNU 4226, fols. 48r–v ‫متي ولماذا سقط الشيطان فان المتكلمين من الناس بالباطل‬ ‫يقولون انه سقط عند امتناعه من السجود لادم‬ 38 39 Integral Arabic translation: Sinai Ar. 431, fol. 259v ‫ لانه‬39⟨‫متا ولمادا وقع الشيطان ⟩سمعت من يقول انه وقع‬ ‫ابا يسجد لادم‬ Psalms 148:5. Words between brackets supplied by Sinai Ar. 330. For this manuscript see p. 28, n. 36 above and p. 35 below. For use by the Author only | © 2020 Koninklijke Brill NV the arabic translation of quaestiones ad antiochum ducem 31 (cont.) Arabic translation of 45: Strasbourg, BNU 4226, fols. 48r–v ‫ انما يتكلم بهذا الحمقا والجهال من الناس لان‬:‫جواب‬ ‫الشيطان قد سقط من قبل ان يخلق ادم وذلك لافتخاره‬ ‫وعظمته وكبر ياهكما قال اشعيا عنه انه قال اضع منبري‬ ‫فوق الغمام واكون مثل العلي‬ Integral Arabic translation: Sinai Ar. 431, fol. 259v ‫ هذا قول حمقا الناس قد سقط الشيطان من قبل‬:‫جواب‬ ‫ان يخلق ادم من اجل كبر ياهكما قال اشيا النبي ان الشيطان‬ ‫ العلي‬40‫قال في فكره اضع لي منبرا علي سحابه واكون كسبه‬ When and why did Satan fall? For theologians among the people who speak falsehood say that it was with his rejection of the worship of Adam. When and why did Satan fall? [I heard some say that he fell] because he refused to worship Adam. Answer: Those who say this are dumb and ignorant among the people, because Satan fell before Adam was created and that was because of his pride and arrogance and haughtiness, as Isaiah said about him: he said: “I will place my throne above the clouds and I will be like the Most High” [cf. Isaiah 14:13–14]. Answer: This is what dumb people say. Satan fell before Adam was created because of his haughtiness, as the Prophet Isaiah said that Satan said in his mind: “I will place a throne for myself on the clouds and I will be like the Most High” [cf. Isaiah 14:13–14]. Again we have an example of minor variations in the vocabulary that do not affect the meaning. We find ‫ الغمام‬vs. ‫ سحابه‬for “clouds” and ‫ سقط‬vs. ‫ وقع‬for “fell.”41 The Arabic Translation of 45 again amplifies the meaning by means of hendiadys. The Greek “foolish” (ἄφρονος) is expressed with the “foolish and ignorant” 40 41 Read: ‫ كشبه‬as in other manuscripts. With regard to the former variation, one might wonder whether this is due to different Bible translation being used. Because of the great amount of Bible quotations in the Quaestiones, it would be worth examining to what extent they echo contemporary Bible translations, which would have belonged to the oldest Arabic Bible translations made. This is beyond the scope of this paper, however. One observation can be made with regard to Question 101. There the Arabic translations contain the same error. In referring to the good deeds of Jews and gentiles, they both miss the word “peace” in the quotation of Rom. 2:10. It indicates that the redactors and scribes did not review and edit the quotes they encountered on the basis of the Bible text. For use by the Author only | © 2020 Koninklijke Brill NV 32 roggema (‫)الحمقا والجهال‬. Satan’s pride (ὑπερηφανία) is even rendered with three consecutive terms: “pride and arrogance and haughtiness” (‫)افتخاره وعظمته وكبر ياه‬. In the Greek text the reference to the people who attribute Satan’s fall to his refusal to worship Adam suggests disagreement between them and the interlocutor; these people μυθεύονται, “speak myths.” In the Integral Arabic Translation there is no such a term, even though the translator creates distance between himself and the ones who believe this, by saying “I heard some people say.” The Arabic Translation of 45 uses the strong words ‫المتكلمين من الناس بالباطل‬, i.e., “the speakers of falsehood among the people.” The first word, mutakallimīn, expresses not only “speakers” but also theologians, especially Muslim theologians. There is little doubt that the redactor/translator has wanted to point his finger at Islam, for in the Qurʾān (Q 38:71–78) this is the explanation for the fall of Satan. Islam had adopted this view of the Fall from Jewish and Syriac Christian traditions in the Middle East and we cannot be entirely sure whether the original Greek question alluded to this notion as found in nascent Islam or in various heterodox Jewish and/or Christian groups. A century or two later, when an Arabic translator refers to the mutakallimūn, it is most likely that he has Muslim theologians as his specific target.42 This question is again a good example of the methods employed by the redactor/translator of the Arabic Translation of 45. He expands and adds force to the discourse in this way. I have used the double term “redactor/translator” here, because the person who produced the shorter recension did so on the basis of the Integral Arabic Translation, but probably by checking the existing Arabic against a Greek copy of the text. There are two reasons for assuming this: (a) the frequent employment of hendiadys seems more plausible as a product of translation rather than of redacting; (b) a secondary translation process can explain the inconsistency of textual agreement, i.e., certain turns of phrase and entire phrases which agree, mixed with very divergent sentences in which the divergences are casual, i.e., not new interpretations. 42 For the remarkable permutations of this extra-Biblical tradition about Satan, see Sergey Minov, “Satan’s Refusal to Worship Adam: A Jewish Motif and its Reception in Syriac Christian Tradition,” in Menahem Kister et al (eds.), Tradition, Transmission, and Transformation from Second Temple Literature through Judaism and Christianity in Late Antiquity, Leiden and Boston, Brill, 2015, pp. 230–271. For use by the Author only | © 2020 Koninklijke Brill NV the arabic translation of quaestiones ad antiochum ducem 3 33 A Glimpse of the Sinai Arabic New Finds Besides the important Sinai Arabic manuscripts discussed above, it is worth looking at the New Finds, that is to say: the manuscripts which have been found in Saint Catherine’s Monastery during the 1970s and which have not yet been fully made available for consultation. The catalogue that was made of these finds by Yannis Meimaris tells us that there are at least two other rather ancient parchments among the New Finds that contain an Arabic version of the Quaestiones, MSS Sinai Ar. NF Parch. 17 and 25, and one folio of each is reproduced in the catalogue. My observations here are based on the catalogue only, since I have not had access to these texts. The first manuscript, Sinai Ar. NF Parch. 17, is only 10 folios long and the only text in it is the Quaestiones.43 It is unlikely that the whole text was copied here, because it could not fit on a mere 10 folios of this size. The text could be an excerpt or the codex could be partially lost. A third possibility—that it represents the Arabic Translation of 45—can be excluded because the questions that feature on the reproduction in the catalogue are not among those included in that recension.44 On the image, the right-hand page consists of the last few words of Question 116 through half of the answer to Question 118. Some leaves are missing then (and the image shows that the spine is loose), for on the left-hand part of the image there is part of Question 127 until the beginning of Question 130. An interesting aspect of the manuscript is that the hand is quite similar to that of two well-known Christian Arabic manuscripts from the last quarter of the ninth century: Sinai Ar. 72 and London, BL Or. 4950. Their copyist is Stephen of Ramla, a monk and scholar at the Monastery of Mar Khariton.45 One peculiar element in the paleography of Sinai NF Parch. 17 distinguishes it from those two manuscripts copied by Stephen of Ramla, however, and that is the fact that the letter qāf is written with a diacritical point under the letter, rather than two above. This feature is known from a few other early Christian and Islamic Arabic manuscripts, such as Sinai Ar. 154 of ca. the year 800, as well as several other manuscripts from the ninth and early tenth centuries.46 43 44 45 46 Ἰωάννης Μεϊμάρης, Κατάλογος τῶν νέων ἀραβικῶν χειρογράφων τῆς Ἱερᾶς Μονῆς ἁγίας Αἰκατερίνης τοῦ ὄρους Σινᾶ / Katālūǧ al-maḫṭūṭāt al-ʿarabiyya al-muktašafa ḥadīṯan bi-Dayr Sānt Katrīn al-Muqaddas bi-Ṭūr Ṣīnāʾ, Athens, Ethnikon Hidryma Ereunōn, 1985, p. 83, image 22; the brief description is on p. 25* and p. 27. For the list of questions in the “Arabic Translation of 45,” see n. 25 above. Sidney Griffith, “Stephen of Ramlah and the Christian Kerygma in Arabic in Ninth-Century Palestine,” Journal of Ecclesiastical History, 36 (1985), pp. 23–45, esp. 38–45. Juan Pedro Monferrer-Sala, “Once Again on the Earliest Christian Arabic Apology: Remarks on a Palaeographic Singularity,” Journal of Near Eastern Studies, 69 (2010), pp. 195– For use by the Author only | © 2020 Koninklijke Brill NV 34 roggema If we look at Question 117 (Εἰ ἐξὸν ἄρα τοῖς ἄρχουσι δῶρα δέχεσθαι, καὶ ταῦτα εἰς πτωχοὺς ἀναλίσκειν;) and compare the wording with Sinai Ar. 431, we notice that there is no divergence in wording at all. Both manuscripts ask: ‫هل يحل للعمال‬ ‫يسترشون و يتصدقون بما استرشوا‬, i.e., “Is it permissible for officials to take bribes and to donate as alms what they have received as bribes?” Close textual agreement can also be noticed in the next question, Question 118, about the possible conflict between one saint’s invocation and that of another. The questions are similar but not identical: Question 118 PG 28, col. 672: Ἐρώτ. ριηʹ.Ἐὰν ἀνὴρ ἅγιος ἀποστείλῃ παιδείαν, ἢ τιμωρίαν, ἢ δαίμονα, ἢ θάνατον, ἢ ἄλλην τινὰ παίδευσιν εἰς οἶκον, ἢ οὐσίαν ἀνθρώπου, ἢ εἰς τέκνα· ἆρα δύναται ὁ ἄνθρωπος ἐκεῖνος παρακαλέσας ἕτερον ἅγιον ἐκφυγεῖν τὴν ἀπόφασιν, ἣν ἀπέστειλεν αὐτῷ ὁ δοῦλος τοῦ Θεοῦ; Sinai Ar. 431, fol. 302v Sinai Ar. NF Parch. 17 ‫ان كان انسان قديس دعا علي اخر فناله بلا او ضرا او‬ ‫ان انسان قديس بعث علي اخر بلا او ضرا او شيطان او‬ ‫ذلك الانسان يطلب الي قديس اخر يدفع ذلك البلا بطلبته‬ ‫ذلك الانسان يطلب الي قديس اخر يدفع ذلك عنه بطلبه‬ ‫شيطان او موت او امتال هذا او لولده او لماله هل ينتفع‬ ‫الي الل ّٰه كما انه ناله بدعوه ذلك القديس الاول‬ When a holy person invokes God against someone else and he is struck by misfortune or damage or a devil or death or similar things or his offspring or his property are, is it beneficial for that person to ask another saint to dispel that misfortune from him by imploring God in the same way as the misfortune struck him through the prayer of that first saint? ‫موت او امثال هذا او علي ولده له ومال له هل يستطيع‬ ‫من الل ّٰه كما اٺته البليه بطلبه من الل ّٰه ايضا‬ When a holy person inflicts upon someone else misfortunate or damage or a devil or death or similar things or upon his offspring or upon property of his, is it possible for that person to ask another saint to dispel that by imploring God in the same way as the misfortune overcame him through imploring God as well? 197; La Spisa presents some more examples and shows that the scribal habit also features in early Islamic Arabic texts: Paolo la Spisa, “Cross Palaeographical Traditions. Some examples from Old Christian Arabic Sources,” in Dmitry Bondarev, Alessandro Gori and Lameen Souag (eds.), Creating Standards. Interactions with Arabic Script in 12 Manuscript Cultures, Berlin and Boston, Walter de Gruyter, 2019, pp. 93–109, pp. 98–100. As for Sinai Ar. 154, see also pp. 40–43 below. For use by the Author only | © 2020 Koninklijke Brill NV the arabic translation of quaestiones ad antiochum ducem 35 A comparison of the two versions of the passage yields some interesting points. First of all, we find again confirmation that the scribes worked with what is ultimately the same translation from Arabic. It is not conceivable that the identical turns of phrase (e.g., ‫ )بلا او ضرا او شيطان او موت او امثال هذا‬would be independent. One can also notice that both versions have tried to make some improvements and clarifications. Sinai Ar. 431 had specified that the question concerns cases where the saintly invocation of misery has not just been uttered but also been realized, by means of the word ‫فناله‬. There is also a more specific verb used: rather than just asking whether it is possible (‫ هل يستطيع‬as in Greek δύναται) to ask a second holy man, this manuscript asks whether it is beneficial (‫)هل ينتفع‬ to ask another saint. Sinai Ar. NF Parch. 17, in its turn, by adding the words (‫بطلبه‬ ‫ )من الل ّٰه ايضا‬has wanted to underscore that the suggested way of undoing the invoked affliction would be through exactly the same process as the one that brought the affliction about. Sinai Ar. NF Parch. 17 is closer to the Greek with regard to the first verb: to send misfortune (baʿaṯa, translated above as “to inflict”) corresponds to the Greek (ἀποστείλῃ, “sends”) while the other translation (daʿā ʿalā, i.e., “to invoke God against,” “to curse”) is more specific. Interestingly, we may note too that Sinai Ar. 330, fol. 266v, has the same wording as Sinai Ar. NF Parch. 17. Whereas in the example of the difference between Sinai Ar. 330 and the other manuscripts of the Integral Arabic translation in the opening section of the text, the divergence was probably due to a misreading of the word “baptism,” here the divergence between Sinai Ar. 330 and Sinai Ar. NF Parch. 17, on the one hand, and Sinai Ar. 431 and some other manuscripts of the Integral Arabic Translation, on the other, we get the impression that the latter have undergone a more conscious intervention aimed at clarifying the meaning of the text. The passage allows us to distinguish two different branches in the transmission of the Integral Arabic Translation. Sinai Ar. 481, Sinai Ar. 485, Oxford, Bodleian, Greaves 30, and London, Royal Asiatic Society 25 follow Sinai Ar. 431 while Milan, Biblioteca Ambrosiana, XV E1 sup. follows Sinai Ar. 330. Now that we have determined that despite the small differences in wording Sinai Ar. NF Parch. 17 is part of the Integral Arabic Translation, it is interesting to look at the radically different wording of the answer to Question 117. Whereas the questions were identical, the answers are as follows: Answer to Question 117 PG 28, col. 672: Ἀπόκ. Εἰ μέν τινες εὐεργετηθέντες ἐν εὐπορίᾳ τυγχάνουσι, καὶ ἑκουσίως αὐτοῖς ταῦτα προσφέρουσι, λέγω δὴ τοῖς εὐεργετήσασιν· ἴσως οὐ πολὺ κρῖμα For use by the Author only | © 2020 Koninklijke Brill NV 36 roggema ἔχουσιν οἱ δεχόμενοι· δῆλον ὅτι, ἐὰν εἰς πτωχοὺς αὐτὰ διανείμωσιν. Ἐπεὶ ὅσα ἐκ γεωπόνων ἢ χειροτεχνῶν δέξονται δῶρα, καταπονουμένων καὶ ἀντίληψιν ζητούντων, πῦρ καὶ κόλασιν ἑαυτοῖς συνάγουσι, κἂν εἰς μυρίας εὐποιίας αὐτὰ διαδώσουσι, καθώς φησιν ἡ Γραφὴ, ὅτι “Πῦρ καταφάγεται οἴκους δωροδεκτῶν.” Sinai Ar. 431, fol. 302v Sinai Ar. NF Parch. 17 ‫كل من استرشا ينبغي حقه من ظالم له فتلـكه الرشوه لمن‬ ‫اما ان كانوا ميسر ين قد عرفوا ان العمال اصحاب صدقه‬ ‫ياخذها عذاب شديد ونار لا تطفا ولو صدقوا بها وعملوا بها‬ ‫فرشوهم طايعين فليس علي العمال ذنب شديد كل ذلك‬ ‫يسترشي‬ ‫ينبغي حقه من ظالم له فتلك لمن ياخذها عذاب اليم ونار‬ ‫كل حسنهكمثل ما يقول الكتاب النار تحرق بيوت كل من‬ ‫فاما كل رشوه تكون من صاحب ارض او من انسان‬ ‫لا تطفا ولو صدقوا بها وعملوا بها كل حسنهكمثل ما يقول‬ ‫الكتاب النار تحرق بيوت كل من يسترشي‬ Anyone who was asked for bribes must get justice from the one who oppresses him. And for the one who took the bribe there will be a grievous punishment and an unquenchable fire, even if he gave alms from it and did all good deeds with it, as the Scripture says: “Fire will burn the houses of anyone who demands bribes” [Job 15:34]. If they are rich, knowing that the officials are people who give alms, and they are giving the bribe willingly, then there is not great blame on the officials [for]47 all that. As for any bribe from a farmer or from a [crafts]man,48 he must get justice from the one who oppresses him, and for the one who took the bribe there will be a grievous punishment and an unquenchable fire, even if he gave alms from it and did all good deeds with it, as the Scripture says: “Fire will burn the houses of anyone who demands bribes” [Job 15:34]. A comparison with the Greek shows that Sinai Ar. NF Parch. 17 is again closer to it. In the Greek version of PG the answer begins also with the description of how and why certain bribes are not all that reprehensible, when the ones paying them are rich and do not do it against their will. The very interesting insight we gain from this brief comparison is the way in which somewhere fur- 47 48 Missing in the Arabic. Word missing, cf. Greek χειρότεχνος. For use by the Author only | © 2020 Koninklijke Brill NV the arabic translation of quaestiones ad antiochum ducem 37 ther down the line one of the scribes of the Integral Arabic Translation has decided to remove the beginning of the passage and create a slightly different beginning, thereby altering the tenor of the answer entirely. Apparently, what Athanasius of Alexandria supposedly thought of bribery is made secondary to the redactor’s urge to depict bribery as an immense sin tout court. The textual intervention must have happened at a different stage than the one described with regard to Question 118, because in this case Sinai Ar. 330 agrees with the other manuscripts of Integral Arabic Translation against Sinai Ar. NF Parch. 17. The second relevant manuscript from among the New Finds is Sinai Ar. NF Parch. 25. Meimaris’ catalogue contains one image of this parchment manuscript.49 The first of four texts included in this undated 64-folio manuscript consists of all or part of the Quaestiones. The hand might be estimated as late ninth or early tenth-century. André Binggeli has noticed the similarity between this hand and one single leaf, fol. 116, of Vatican Ar. 71, the rest of which was written almost entirely in 885/6 by Anthony of Baghdad.50 I agree with Binggeli’s hypothesis that this one folio and Sinai Ar. NF Parch. 25 were written by the same scribe, since the writing in the two manuscripts is far too similar and too particular to be of two different scribes.51 From the digital images on the website of the Vatican Library, the one leaf seems an integral part of the codex and if this is the case, the scribe would have been one of Anthony of Baghdad’s contemporaries, and thus also have worked in the late ninth century.52 The fact that the hand is squarish Kufi-like supports such a dating. Until the New Finds become accessible, we cannot determine how many of the Quaestiones are contained in Sinai Ar. NF Parch. 25, but the fact that the Greek question numbers in the margins are in agreement with the numbering of the full set may indicate that this was originally part of the complete text, not merely a selection. What can be determined, too, is that this is not a witness to the Arabic Translation of 45. This is because the section displayed 49 50 51 52 For the brief descriptions of this manuscript, see Meimaris, Katalogos, pp. 26*–27* and p. 28; the image on p. 87 is No. 29. Binggeli, “Les trois David,” p. 83 and n. 17. For this manuscript copied by David Anthony of Baghdad, see p. 21 above. I have no doubt that also part of Sinai Ar. 508 was written by this scribe. See, for example, the frontispiece in Margaret Dunlop Gibson, Apocrypha Arabica, London, C.J. Clay, 1901, depicting fol. 95r of the Book of the Rolls. No repairs or insertions are visible at that section of the manuscript: https://digi.vatlib.it/ view/MSS_Vat.ar.71. For use by the Author only | © 2020 Koninklijke Brill NV 38 roggema on the picture consists of the end of Question 83 until the beginning of Question 86, which are not contained in that select translation.53 We may compare the small excerpt readable from the image in the catalogue with our Integral Arabic Translation. Question 85 PG 28, col. 649: Ἐρώτ. πεʹ. Τινές φασιν, ὅτι οὐ δεῖ ἀνεξέταστον παρέχειν ἐλεημοσύνην, ἀλλ’ ἐρωτᾷν μετὰ ἀκριβείας, εἰ ἐν ἀληθείᾳ ἐνδεής ἐστιν ὁ ἡμῖν προσερχόμενος. Λέγει γὰρ, φησὶν ὁ Σολομὼν, ὅτι, “Ἐὰν ποιῇς ἀγαθὸν, βλέπε τίνι ποιεῖς.” Ἀπόκρ. Οὕτω καὶ τὰς λοιπὰς Γραφὰς οἱ κακῶς νοοῦντες διαστρέφουσιν· οὐ γὰρ περὶ τοῦ ἀνθρώπου τοῦ πτωχοῦ τοῦτο εἶπεν ὁ Σολομών· ἀλλὰ “βλέπε, τίνι ποιεῖς,” τουτέστιν, ὅτι τῷ Θεῷ ποιεῖς. Εἰ γὰρ πρὸ τοῦ ἀνακρίνειν τοὺς αἰτοῦντας τοῦτό φησι, πῶς ὁ Κύριος λέγει· “Παντὶ τῷ αἰτοῦντί σε δίδου;” Sinai Ar. 431, fols. 288v–289r ‫ان بعض الناس يقول انه ليس ينبغي لاحد ان يتصدق‬ ‫او يعطي لكل من ادرك ولاكن يضع صدقته حيت ينبغي‬ Sinai Ar. NF Parch. 2554 ‫سمعت بعض يقول انه ليس ينبغي لاحد ان يتصدق‬ ‫و يعطي كما ادرك ولاكن يضع الدي له حيث ينبغي و يسل‬ ‫و يسل ان كان ذلك الانسان محتاجا فان سليمن النبي يقول‬ ‫عن ذلك ان كان الانسان محتاج فان سليمن النبي يقول اذا‬ .‫ هكذا وسا ير الـكتب يحولون الدين رايهم خسيس‬:‫جواب‬ ‫ لم‬.‫ هكدا وسا ير الـكتب يحلون الذين رايهم خبيث‬:‫جواب‬ ‫اذا احسنت فانظر الي من تحسن‬ ‫احسنت فانظر الي من تحسن‬ ‫لم يقول هذا سليمن النبي في شان الانسان الفقير ولاكنه‬ ‫يقول هذا سليمن النبي في شان الانسان الفقير ولاكنه قال‬ ‫نر يد نسل عن كل انسان ان كان محتاجا صدقنا عليه ونحتج‬ ‫ وهذا‬.‫نسل عن كل مسكين ان كان مسكين صدقنا عليه‬ .‫كل يسلك ولا تمنع كل من ياخذ منك‬ .‫يسلك ولا تمنع كل من ياخذ منك‬ ‫قال انظر الي من تحسن يعني بانك الي الل ّٰه تحسن فان كنا‬ ‫بان الكتاب امر بذلك فكيف قال الرب في الانجيل اعطي‬ 53 54 55 ‫ نر يد‬55‫ انكنا‬.‫انظر الي من تحسن يعني بانك الي الل ّٰه تحسن‬ ‫عنا الكتاب فكيف قال الرب في الانجيل عطي كل من‬ For the list of questions included in the “Arabic Translation of 45,” see n. 25 above. See Meimaris, Katalogos, p. 87, the left-hand page of image 29. Sic. For use by the Author only | © 2020 Koninklijke Brill NV the arabic translation of quaestiones ad antiochum ducem 39 (cont.) Sinai Ar. 431, fols. 288v–289r Sinai Ar. NF Parch. 25 Some people say that it is not necessary for anyone to give alms and make donations to anyone whom he comes across but that one should put down what[ever] one has, when necessary, and ask whether that is a person in need, for Solomon the Prophet says: “When you do good, look to whom you do good.”56 I heard some say that it is not necessary for anyone to give alms and make donations as he comes across (i.e., the person) but that one should put down what one has, when necessary, and ask about that one whether the person is in need, for Solomon the Prophet says: “When you do good, look to whom you do good.” Answer: This is what happens to all the Scriptures: they get twisted by those whose opinion is despicable. Solomon the Prophet did not speak with reference to a poor person but said rather: “Look to whom you do good,” meaning that you do good to God. If we meant asking every person if they are in need, would we believe him and would we claim that the Scripture commanded that? Then why is it that the Lord said in the Gospel: “Give to anyone who asks you and do not refuse anyone who takes from you” [Luke 6:30]? Answer: This is what happens to all the Scriptures: they get [twisted] by those whose opinion is vicious. Solomon the Prophet did not speak with reference to a poor person but said rather: “Look to whom you do good,” meaning that you do good to God. If we meant asking every poor person if they are poor, would we believe him? And that is what the Scripture means? Then why is it that the Lord said in the Gospel: “Give to anyone who asks you and do not refuse anyone who takes from you” [Luke 6:30]? The texts express the same idea and are quite similar and yet there is a high number of small divergences. It turns out that this applies to all the Arabic manuscripts that contain the passage—which is shorter and simpler in the Greek of Migne. A few readings of Sinai Ar. NF Parch. 25 agree with Sinai Ar. 330 against Sinai Ar. 431, such as ‫ خبيث‬vs. ‫ خسيس‬and ‫ محتاج‬vs. ‫مسكين‬. After these observations on the textual differences between the various ancient textual witnesses, it is worth drawing some preliminary conclusions. The most important finding of the comparison is that the oldest dated and partial translation of the Quaestiones, contained in Strasbourg, BNU 4226 (885/6 AD)— what I have called “The Arabic Translation of 45”—was certainly not the first 56 Not a literal citation. An echo of Proverbs 3:27? For use by the Author only | © 2020 Koninklijke Brill NV 40 roggema translation made. It was written at a time when the text had already been translated in full. We have determined by means of a textual analysis that this integral translation was used by the redactor/translator of the Arabic Translation of 45. The exploration of various ancient manuscripts of the Integral Arabic Translation yields two interesting facts: (a) the number of Arabic manuscripts of the Quaestiones produced up to the early tenth century is remarkably high, a fact which underscores the popularity of the text in early Melkite circles; (b) the Integral Arabic Translation must have been made at least several decades before the last quarter of the ninth century, since by that time the textual variation in the manuscripts is already considerable. In the next section of the article I will touch upon the question of the date of the Integral Arabic Translation again, while discussing the reception of the text among early Melkite authors. 4 The Quaestiones in Early Arabic Christian Apologetics One of the ways in which we can determine the popularity of the Quaestiones among Melkite Christians is by looking for quotations and echoes of it in their writings. Since the text was deemed worthy of being translated, we may assume it was appreciated and read in the Melkite monastic circles where its translation was commissioned. As it turns out, three early and well-known ChristianArabic apologetic texts from the Melkite milieu integrated parts of the Quaestiones. The first example is what is believed to be the oldest Christian Arabic apologetic text, the anonymous and untitled work known in English under the title “On the Triune Nature of God.”57 The text has received considerable attention on the grounds that it creatively expresses the Christian view of salvation history by using Qurʾānic phraseology. The opening part of the text is a prayer with echoes of the Fātiḥa of the Qurʾān. After that opening prayer and before the long narration of salvation history, there is a section on the unknowability of the mystery of the Trinity and the Divine majesty.58 It is introduced by the 57 58 Margaret Dunlop Gibson, An Arabic Version of the Acts of the Apostles and the Seven Catholic Epistles from an Eighth or Ninth century MS. in the Convent of St Catherine on Mount Sinai, with a Treatise On the Triune Nature of God, with Translation, from the Same Codex, London, C.J. Clay and Sons, 1899 (to be used with caution; see n. 58 below). Because of errors in the edition and the translation by Gibson (cf. Gibson, An Arabic Version of the Acts of the Apostles, pp. 75*–76*), the reader is referred to Sinai Ar. 154, fols. 100r– 101r, and Paolo la Spisa, “Excerptum dalla più antica apologia araba cristiana,” Quaderni For use by the Author only | © 2020 Koninklijke Brill NV the arabic translation of quaestiones ad antiochum ducem 41 defensive statement: “We do not profess three Gods—God forbid—rather, we profess that God and His Word and His Spirit are one God and one Creator.” The author proceeds to explain how the one God, with his “Word and Spirit,” form the Trinity. What follows is a long list of examples of natural phenomena that can be regarded simultaneously as one and three, and of which one element that manifests itself forms the proof of the existence of the other elements that might be invisible. Several of these are frequently found in Christian-Arabic texts, such as the sun with its rays and its heat, and the mouth with its tongue and its word.59 In “On the Triune Nature of God” this list of examples is, however, more elaborate than usual: – the sun (disk, rays, heat); – the eye (pupil, light); – soul (body, spirit); – a tree (trunk, branches, fruit); – a body of water (source, river, lake); – human spirit (spirit, intellect, word); – the mouth (tongue, word). The only other case of such a long list of which I am aware appears in the answer to Question 1 in the Quaestiones, where the issue under discussion is also how to distinguish the belief in the Trinity from polytheism. The list of examples is very similar, albeit even more extensive: – the sun (disk, rays, heat); – the eye (light, pupil); – the finger ( flesh, bone, nail); – soul (mind, ratio); – a tree (roots, branches, leaves); – a body of water (spring, river, lake); – daybreak (light, sun); – fire (light, heat); – the mouth (tongue, word). 59 di studi arabi, n.s. 9 (2014), pp. 33–56, pp. 50–52. For a new and improved translation, see Mark Swanson, “An Apology for the Christian Faith,” in Samuel Noble and Alexander Treiger (eds.), The Orthodox Church in the Arab World, 700–1700. An Anthology of Sources, DeKalb, Northern Illinois University Press, 2014, pp. 40–59, at pp. 44–45, from which I cite here. For the frequent use of such explanations in Christian Arabic apologetics, see: Rashid Haddad, La Trinité divine chez les théologiens arabes 750–1050, Paris, Beauchesne, 1985, pp. 115–127; Michał Sadowski, “The Knowledge of God in the Arab Christian Theology,” Studia Oecumenica, 12 (2012), pp. 241–256. For use by the Author only | © 2020 Koninklijke Brill NV 42 roggema The commentary after both lists shows that we are dealing with the same text in both the Quaestiones and “On the Triune Nature of God.” The final example of the mouth is elaborated on in both sources by means of a quotation from Isaiah (20:1 / 40:5), “the mouth of the Lord has spoken.” After this, both texts, somewhat paradoxically, end the relevant section with a resolute dismissal of attempts to delve deeply into the Divine mysteries, by saying that it cannot be grasped by words, arguments, or imagery. Two metaphors are used to underscore this dismissal: whoever attempts to fully comprehend God’s essence is “like someone searching hard for his own shadow” and “like someone trying to weigh the water of the ocean in the palm of his hand.” Comparing these two passages, several interesting facts emerge. Whereas the textual overlap is unmistakable, there is no verbal agreement in the Arabic of the two texts, as we can see with the two metaphors mentioned: 1. ‫ الدي لا يدركه ابدا‬60‫ فانه يطلب طله‬in “On the Triune Nature of God” vs. ‫فهو يشبه‬ ‫ الذي اشتد في طلب ظله‬in the Arabic version of the Quaestiones; 2. ‫ فانه قد قدر على ان يكيل ما البحر بكفه‬in “On the Triune Nature of God” vs. ‫كمثل‬ ‫ الذي حرص ان يكيل مياه البحار براحته‬in the Arabic version of the Quaestiones. “On the Triune Nature of God” was written in the middle of the eighth century, and it is probable that the Quaestiones had not yet been translated into Arabic at this time.61 The author of the apologetic text was therefore in all likelihood working with its Greek original. In the Greek of the edition in PG the answer to Question 1 is much shorter than in the Arabic manuscripts and contains nothing of this passage under discussion. As it turns out, however, at least eight of the Greek manuscripts have the more elaborate passage with the Trinitarian analogies, which all Arabic manuscripts contain as well.62 The 60 61 62 Diacritical dot missing in the manuscript (Sinai Ar. 154, fol. 101r), but the meaning “shadow” (‫ )ظل‬is clear. The oldest known dated patristic translation into Arabic is from 772AD and presumably the Graeco-Arabic patristic translation movement began to emerge some decades before that, so it is not to be excluded a priori that the translation of the Quaestiones had been made when “On the Triune Nature of God” was composed. See Alexander Treiger, “The Earliest Dated Christian Arabic Translation (772AD): Ammonius’ Report on the Martyrdom of the Monks of Sinai and Raithu,” Journal of the Canadian Society of Syriac Studies, 16 (2016), pp. 21–38. For the date of “On the Triune Nature of God,” see Alexander Treiger, “New Works by Theodore Abū Qurra Preserved under the Name of Thaddeus of Edessa,” Journal of Eastern Christian Studies, 68 (2016), pp. 1–51, at p. 12. See, for example, Oxford, Bodleian, Barocci 129 (14th c.; the oldest manuscript of this branch). For use by the Author only | © 2020 Koninklijke Brill NV the arabic translation of quaestiones ad antiochum ducem 43 author of “On the Triune Nature of God” as well as the Arabic translators must have been working from Greek manuscripts that belong to this specific branch.63 Another early Christian Arabic text in which the Quaestiones are cited is Theodore Abū Qurra’s treatise on icon veneration, which is to be dated the first quarter of the ninth century.64 In Chapter 8 of this work, Abū Qurra refers explicitly to the Quaestiones, when he quotes a passage from Question 39, which is a defense of the veneration of the cross and of icons.65 Since Theodore Abū Qurra composed his treatise in Arabic, there is a distinct possibility that he cited the passage from an Arabic version of the Quaestiones, although it is also possible that he searched patristic texts in their original Greek, the language in which most patristic texts would have been available to him and which he knew well. It is worth comparing Theodore’s Arabic passage with the extant Arabic translation, because a textual agreement between these passages would indicate that already during Theodore’s time of writing (early ninth century), there was an Arabic translation in existence. Question 39 PG 28, col. 621: Ἐρώτ. λθʹ. Τοῦ Θεοῦ διὰ τῶν προφητῶν ἐπιτρέποντος, μὴ προσκυνεῖν χειροποίητα, διὰ τί προσκυνοῦμεν εἰκόνας καὶ σταυρὸν, ἔργα τεκτόνων ὑπάρχοντα, καθὼς καὶ τὰ εἴδωλα τυγχάνουσιν; Ἀπόκ. Οὐχ ὡς θεοὺς προσκυνοῦμεν τὰς εἰκόνας οἱ πιστοί· μὴ γένοιτο! ὡς οἱ Ἕλληνες· ἀλλὰ μόνον τὴν σχέσιν καὶ τὴν ἀγάπην τῆς ψυχῆς ἡμῶν τῆς πρὸς τὸν χαρακτῆρα τῆς εἰκόνος ἐμφανίζομεν· ὅθεν πολλάκις τοῦ χαρακτῆρος λειανθέντος, ὡς ξύλον ἀργὸν λοιπὸν τήν ποτε εἰκόνα καίομεν. Καὶ ὥσπερ Ἰακὼβ μέλλων τελευτᾷν ἐπὶ τὸ ἄκρον τῆς ῥάβδου, τῷ Ἰωσὴφ προσεκύνησεν, οὐ τὴν ῥάβδον τιμῶν, ἀλλὰ τὸν ταύτην κατέχοντα· […] 63 64 65 The connection between the Integral Arabic Translation and this particular branch of the Greek textual genealogy will be discussed in a forthcoming article by Ilse De Vos and myself. Ignace Dick, Théodore Abuqurrah: Traité du culte des icônes: Introduction et texte critique, Jounieh, Librairie Saint-Paul, 1986, pp. VIII–IX. I thank Alexander Treiger for drawing my attention to this quotation. For use by the Author only | © 2020 Koninklijke Brill NV 44 roggema Theodore Abū Qurra, Treatise on the Veneration of the Holy Icons ‫ما شأننا نسجد للصور والصليب التي هي صنعة النجار ين‬ ‫كالاوثان والل ّٰه قد امر في الانبياء الا نسجد لصنعة الايادي‬ ‫ ليس سجودنا لل ّٰه كسجودنا‬:‫فاجابه مر اثناسيوس وقال‬ Sinai Ar. 431, fols. 269v–270r ‫ان الل ّٰه تبارك وتعالا قد امر الناس في الانبيا ان لا يسجدون‬ ‫لشي مخلوق فلماذا نحن نسجد للصليب وللتماثيل والناس‬ ‫يصنعونها‬ ‫ ليس نسجد نحن المومنين للتماثيل ولاكن لل ّٰه‬:‫جواب‬ ‫للصور نحن المومنين كعبادة الاوثان لا يكون بل انما نبتدي‬ ‫وليس غرضنا في دلك للتماثيل كمثل الحنفا ولاكن لمودتنا‬ ‫عشقا اياه منجل هذا اذا درست الصورةكثيرا ما نحرق‬ ‫تماثيلهم اشتقنا الي اعمالهم فلذلك ر بما انفسد التمثال او‬ ‫بسجودنا للصورة وللصليب بالوجه الذي الصورة له وحبنا‬ ‫ذلك الذي كان مرة صنما كالعود‬ ‫وكما ان يعقوب اذ دنا من الموت سجد على طرف عصا‬ 66.‫يوسف ليس ليكرم العصا ولـكن للذي كان يمسكها بيده‬ ‫للشهدا والقديسين الذين ارضوا الل ّٰه ولمحبتنا اياهم اذا ابصرنا‬ ‫انكسر اللوح الذي هو فيه مصور اخدنا واحرقناه بالنار‬ ‫كالحطب‬ ‫وكما سجد يعقوب لاصل عصا يوسف عند موته ولم ير يد‬ ‫بذلك كرامه العصا بل كرامه ماسكها‬ What business is it of ours to make prostration to the icons and to the cross? They are the handiwork of carpenters, like the idols. In the prophets God gave the command that we should not make prostration to the work of human hands. God, the blessed and exalted, has commanded us in the prophets not to make prostration to any created thing, so why do we make prostration to the cross and to representations, while people make them? In his answer to him St. Athanasius said that for us believers, making prostration to God is not the same as making it to the icons; it is not like idolatry. Rather, with our prostration to an icon or to the cross, we undertake only to show love and affection for the person whose icon it is. For this reason, whenever the icon is Answer: We, believers, do not make prostration to representations but to God, and our objective is not in those representations, as with pagans. It is, however, because of our affection for the martyrs and the saints, who pleased God, and our love for them. When we look at their representations, we yearn for 66 Ioannes Arendzen, Theodori Abu Ḳurra de cultu imaginum libellus e codice arabico nunc primum editus latine versus illustratus, Bonn, Typ. Caroli Drobnig, 1897, p. 11; see also Dick, Théodore Abuqurra: Traité du culte des icônes, pp. 115*–116*. For use by the Author only | © 2020 Koninklijke Brill NV the arabic translation of quaestiones ad antiochum ducem 45 (cont.) Theodore Abū Qurra, Treatise on the Veneration of the Holy Icons Sinai Ar. 431, fols. 269v–270r effaced, what was once an image is then most frequently burnt as wood. their deeds. This is why whenever their representation gets spoiled, or the plank on which he is depicted breaks, [then] we take it and burn it in a fire like firewood. And just as Jacob when he came near death, bowed down on the top of Joseph’s staff, he did not do so to honor the staff, but the one who was holding the staff in his hand.67 And just like Jacob when he bowed down at the knob of Joseph’s staff, at his death, he did not intend the honoring of the staff with that but rather the honoring of its holder. A comparison of the versions of the passage reveals that the wording is very different. First of all, the use of (near-)synonyms shows that these do not represent the same translation. Secondly, the semantic divergences, such as “the person whose icon/image it is” as opposed to the “beloved martyrs and saints,” suggest that they may go back to slightly different Greek exemplars. It is also interesting to note that Theodore Abū Qurra designates Antiochus in the introduction to the quotation as al-arkūn, i.e., archon. In none of the Arabic manuscripts of the Quaestiones is this label to be found. There Antiochus is simply said to be “min ʿuẓamāʾ al-ʿaǧam,” i.e., an eminent Persian (foreigner, non-Arab), and raʾīs, i.e., chief, important man. In all likelihood, Theodore Abū Qurra made his own translation of Question 39. The third text in which we find quotations from the Quaestiones is the Kitāb al-Burhān, in the manuscripts often falsely attributed to Athanasius of Alexandria or, following Graf, to Eutychius of Alexandria, but in reality written by the ninth-century Melkite Peter of Bet Raʾs.68 The oldest manuscript of this text is the ninth-century Sinai Ar. 75 (fols. 102v–222r). Its scribe is undoubtedly identi- 67 68 Sidney Griffith, A Treatise on the Veneration of the Holy Icons, Written in Arabic by Theodore Abû Qurrah, Translated into English with Introduction and Notes, Louvain, Peeters, 1997, pp. 43–44, with minor adaptations of mine; it should be noted that the quote from the Quaestiones runs on until p. 45, end of second paragraph, not to n. 86 on p. 44. Mark N. Swanson, “Peter of Bayt Raʾs,” in CMR1, pp. 902–906. To the manuscripts listed there Sinai Ar. 510 (13th c., acephalous), fols. 1r–157v should be added (identified by Alexander Treiger). For use by the Author only | © 2020 Koninklijke Brill NV 46 roggema cal to the one of Sinai Ar. 431, which contains, among other texts, the Integral Arabic Translation of the Quaestiones, as we have seen.69 This extensive Melkite apologetic text finishes with a testimonia list containing passages from the Old Testament adduced as prophecies that are fulfilled in the events of Christ’s life and that prove the divine Incarnation.70 Graf already noted that this list is similar to Question 137 of the Quaestiones and must be a reworking of it.71 Mark Swanson proceeded to compare the two texts and confirmed Graf’s suggestion that it is a somewhat altered version of it.72 Question 137 has sometimes attracted special attention because it is longer than the rest of the Quaestiones, is sometimes transmitted separately, and could stand as an individual work within the Adversus Iudaeos tradition. Although it cannot be confirmed, it has even been suggested that it was an older independent treatise to begin with, which was later added to the Quaestiones.73 Be this as it may, a look at our Arabic manuscripts of the Quaestiones reveals that Peter of Bet Raʾs used neither the separate version nor Question 137 in the form in which it appears in the Greek Quaestiones, but rather the Integral Arabic Translation. In other words, he did not translate and reword the Greek, but he must have copied the entire Question 137 from the Arabic version of the collection.74 As we have seen in the discussion of the manuscript tradition, the text began to circulate widely 69 70 71 72 73 74 Atiya, Arabic Manuscripts, p. 4, gives Sinai Ar. 75 a ninth-century dating, whereas he assigns Sinai Ar. 431, p. 12, a tenth-century dating. The same dates are given by Kamil: Kamil, Catalogue, p. 14 (No. 68) and p. 39 (No. 488). There is no doubt, however, that these are written by one and the same scribe. Pierre Cachia (ed.) and W. Montgomery Watt (trans.), Eutychius of Alexandria, The Book of the Demonstration (Kitāb al-Burhān) (CSCO 192–193 and 209–210, Scriptores arabici 20– 23), 4 vols., Louvain, Peeters, 1961, vol. 3, pp. 114–132 (Arabic) and vol. 4, pp. 68–78 (trans.). Georg Graf, “Zu dem bisher unbekannten Werk des Patriarchen Eutychios von Alexandrien,” Oriens Christianus, n.s. 2 (1912), pp. 136–137. Mark Swanson, “Folly to the Ḥunafāʾ: The Cross of Christ in Arabic Christian-Muslim Controversy in the Eighth and Ninth centuries A.D.,” Unpublished Ph.D. Diss., Rome, Pontificio Instituto di Studi Arabi e d’Islamistica, 1992, pp. 36, 39, and 121 and Mark Swanson, “Beyond Prooftexting (2): The Use of the Bible in Early Arabic Christian Apologies,” in David Thomas (ed.), The Bible in Arab Christianity, Leiden and Boston, Brill, 2007, pp. 91– 112, at pp. 101–104. See, for example, Arthur Lukyn Williams, Adversus Judaeos: A Bird’s Eye View of Christian apologiae until the Renaissance, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1935, pp. 160–162; Külzer, Disputationes graecae contra Iudaeos, p. 136. The texts are identical and hence also share peculiarities, such as the extension of Zechariah 14:4 “On that day his feet shall stand on the Mount of Olives, which lies before Jerusalem on the east” with the words “and He raised him up”: compare Sinai Ar. 481, fol. 282v and Cachia and Watt, Eutychius of Alexandria, The Book of the Demonstration (Kitāb al-Burhān), vol. 3, p. 130. For use by the Author only | © 2020 Koninklijke Brill NV the arabic translation of quaestiones ad antiochum ducem 47 in Arabic during the ninth century. Precisely in this period, we also see it being excerpted in Arabic for the first time. The three examples discussed here show how the Quaestiones were used by early Melkite authors. They confirm what has emerged from the discussion above about the manuscripts: they were popular reading material in the Middle East during the eighth and ninth century. In the cases we discussed, the excerpts of the text have been recognized or, as in the case of Theodore Abū Qurra’s Treatise on the Veneration of the Holy Icons, explicitly labelled as deriving from the Quaestiones. How the text impacted other thinkers and shaped opinions in the wider Arabic-speaking world is harder to trace and is a task that needs to be taken up within a larger project of unlocking Arabic patristic erotapokriseis.75 As a start, I hope to have drawn attention to its diverse and intriguing contents, which impacted Melkite literature from its inception and remained a point of reference for the Melkite community during its formative period. Bibliography Arendzen, Ioannes. Theodori Abu Ḳurra de cultu imaginum libellus e codice arabico nunc primum editus latine versus illustratus, Bonn, Typ. Caroli Drobnig, 1897. Assfalg, Julius. Georgische Handschriften, Wiesbaden, Franz Steiner Verlag, 1963. Avagyan, Anahit. Die Armenische Athanasius-Überlieferung: das auf armenisch unter des Athanasius von Alexandrien tradierte Schrifttum, Berlin and Boston, Walter de Gruyter, 2014. Bardenhewer, Otto. Geschichte der altchristlichen Literatur, Freiburg im Breisgau, Herder, 5 vols., 1913–1935. Bardy, Gustave. “Les Trophées de Damas. Controverse judéo-chrétienne du VIIe siècle,” Patrologia Orientalis, 15 (1927), pp. 169–292. Bardy, Gustave. “La Littérature patristique des ‘Quaestiones et Responsiones’ sur l’Écriture Sainte (suite et fin),” Revue biblique, 42 (1933), pp. 328–352. Bardy, Gustave. “Les trois David, copistes arabes de Palestine,” in André Binggeli, Anne Boud’hors, and Mattieu Cassin (eds.), Manuscripta Graeca et Orientalia. Mélanges 75 For a recent introduction to a similar collection of questions and answers in Arabic, see Barbara Roggema, “Christian-Muslim-Jewish Relations in Patristic Literature: The Arabic Questions and Answers of Basil and Gregory,” in David Bertaina, Sandra T. Keating, Mark N. Swanson, and Alexander Treiger (eds.), Heirs of the Apostles: Studies on Arabic Christianity in Honor of Sidney H. Griffith, Leiden and Boston, Brill, 2018, pp. 395– 414. For use by the Author only | © 2020 Koninklijke Brill NV 48 roggema monastiques et patristiques en l’honneur de Paul Géhin, Louvain, Peeters, 2016, pp. 79–117. Bussières, Marie-Pierre (ed.). La littérature des questions et réponses dans l’Antiquité profane et chrétienne: de l’enseignement à l’exégèse: actes du séminaire sur le genre des questions et réponses tenu à Ottawa les 27 et 28 septembre 2009, Turnhout, Brepols, 2013 Cachia, Pierre (ed.), and W. Montgomery Watt (trans.). Eutychius of Alexandria, The Book of the Demonstration (Kitāb al-Burhān) (CSCO 192–193 and 209–210, Scriptores arabici 20–23), 4 vols., Louvain, Peeters, 1961. Chaccour, Adrien. Catalogue des manuscrits arabes de Dayr al-Šīr (Liban) des moines basiliens alépins, Liban [s.l.], 1976. Crone, Patricia. “Islam, Judeo-Christianity and Byzantine Iconoclasm,” Jerusalem Studies in Arabic and Islami, 2 (1980), pp. 59–95. Dagron, Gilbert. “L’ombre d’un doute: l’hagiographie en question, VIe–XIe siècle,” Dumbarton Oaks Papers, 46 (1992), pp. 59–68. De Vos, Ilse. “The manuscript tradition of the Quaestiones ad Antiochum Ducem,” in Reinhout Ceulemans and Pieter de Leemans (eds.), On Good Authority. Tradition, Compilation and the Construction of Authority in Literature from Antiquity to the Renaissance, Turnhout, Brepols, 2015, pp. 43–66. De Vos, Ilse, and Olga Grinchenko. “The Quaestiones ad Antiochum ducem: Exploring the Slavonic Tradition,” Byzantion, 84 (2014), pp. 105–143. Déroche, Vincent. “L’Apologie contre les Juifs de Léontius de Néapolis,” Travaux et Mémoires, 12 (1993), pp. 45–104 [repr. in: Gilbert Dagron and Vincent Déroche, Juifs et Chrétiens en Orient Byzantin, Paris, ACHCByz, 2010, pp. 381–443]. Déroche, Vincent. “Les Dialogues adversus Iudaeos face aux genres parallèles,” in Sébastien Morlet, Olivier Munnich, and Bernard Pouderon (eds.), Les Dialogues Adversus Iudaeos: Permanences et mutations d’une tradition polémique, Paris, Institut d’Études Augustiniennes, 2013, pp. 257–266. Dick, Ignace. Théodore Abuqurrah: Traité du culte des icônes: Introduction et texte critique, Jounieh, Librairie Saint-Paul, 1986. Gibson, Margaret Dunlop. Apocrypha Arabica, London, C.J. Clay, 1901. Gibson, Margaret Dunlop. An Arabic Version of the Acts of the Apostles and the Seven Catholic Epistles from an Eighth or Ninth century MS. in the Convent of St Catherine on Mount Sinai, with a Treatise On the Triune Nature of God, with Translation, from the Same Codex, London, C.J. Clay and Sons, 1899. Graf, Georg. “Zu dem bisher unbekannten Werk des Patriarchen Eutychios von Alexandrien,” Oriens Christianus, n.s. 2 (1912), pp. 136–137. Graf, Georg. Geschichte der christlichen arabischen Literatur, 5 vols., Città del Vaticano, Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, 1944–1953. Griffith, Sidney H. “Stephen of Ramlah and the Christian Kerygma in Arabic in NinthCentury Palestine,” Journal of Ecclesiastical History, 36 (1985), pp. 23–45. For use by the Author only | © 2020 Koninklijke Brill NV the arabic translation of quaestiones ad antiochum ducem 49 Griffith, Sidney H. “Anthony David of Baghdad, Scribe and Monk of Mar Sabas: Arabic in the Monasteries of Palestine,” Church History, 58 (1989), pp. 7–19; repr. in Griffith, Arabic Christianity, Essay XI. Griffith, Sidney H. Arabic Christianity in Monasteries of Ninth-Century Palestine, Aldershot, Ashgate, 1992. Griffith, Sidney H. A Treatise on the Veneration of the Holy Icons, Written in Arabic by Theodore Abû Qurrah, Translated into English with Introduction and Notes, Louvain, Peeters, 1997. Haddad, Rachid. La Trinité divine chez les théologiens arabes 750–1050, Paris, Beauchesne, 1985, pp. 115–127. Haldon, John. “The Works of Anastasius of Sinai: A Key Source for the History of Seventh-Century East Mediterranean Society and Belief,” in Averil Cameron and Lawrence Conrad (eds.), The Byzantine and Early Islamic Near East. 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La Spisa, Paolo. “Excerptum dalla più antica apologia araba cristiana,” Quaderni di studi arabi, n.s. 9 (2014), pp. 33–56. La Spisa, Paolo. “Cross Palaeographical Traditions. Some examples from Old Christian Arabic Sources,” in Dmitry Bondarev, Dmitry, Alessandro Gori, and Lameen Souag (eds.), Creating Standards. Interactions with Arabic Script in 12 Manuscript Cultures, Berlin and Boston, Walter de Gruyter, 2019, pp. 93–109. Leeming, Kate. “Greek-Arabic Translation in the Christian Communities of the Medieval Arab World,” in Harald Kittel, Juliane House, and Brigitte Schultze (eds.), Übersetzung: Ein internationales Handbuch zur Übersetzungsforschung—Translation: An International Encyclopedia of Translation Studies—Traduction: encyclopédie internationale de la recherche sur la traduction, 3 vols., Berlin and New York, De Gruyter, 2004–2011, vol. 2, pp. 1217–1220. For use by the Author only | © 2020 Koninklijke Brill NV 50 roggema Lukyn Williams, Arthur. 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