Theodore Abu-Qurrah
Encyclopedia
Theodore Abū Qurrah was a 9th century Christian
Arab
theologian who lived in the early Islamic period.Biography=
He was born around 750 AD in the city of Edessa
, in northern Mesopotamia
, and was the Chalcedonian
or Melkite
bishop
of the nearby city of Harran
between 795 and 812. According to a late (and hostile) source, he was removed from his see by the Melkite
bishop
of Antioch
, Theodoret (795
-812
), because of his heretical Christology, although this is unlikely: between 813 and 817 he debated with the Monophysites of Armenia
at the court of Ashot Msakeri.
He has traditionally been thought to have been a monk at the monastery of Mar Saba
(the monastery where, earlier, John of Damascus
had lived), but this has been shown to be due to a confusion with Theodore of Edessa.
He died between 820 and 825.
Writings=
Abū Qurrah was one of the first Christian authors to use Arabic. Some of his works were translated into Greek
, and so circulated in Byzantium
, but he was mainly known only to Arabic-speaking Christians. He also claimed to have written thirty treatises in Syriac, but none of these have yet been identified. His writings provide an important witness to Christian thought in the early Islamic world. A number of them were edited with German translations by Georg Graf
and have now been translated into English by John C. Lamoreaux.
Abū Qurrah argued for the rightness of his faith against the habitual challenges of Islam
, Judaism
and those Christians who did not accept the doctrinal formulations of the Council of Chalcedon
, and in doing so re-articulated traditional Christian teachings at times using the language and concepts of Islamic theologians: he has been described by Sydney H. Griffith as a Christian mutakallim. He attracted the attention of at least one Muslim Mu'tazilite mutakallim, Isa ibn Sabih al-Murdar (d. 840
), who is recorded (by the biobibliographical writer, Ibn al-Nadim
, who died in 995
AD) as having written a refutation of Abū Qurrah. The subjects covered were, in the main, the doctrine of the Trinity
, the Incarnation
, and the Sacraments, as well as the practices of facing east in prayer (rather than towards Jerusalem or Mecca
), and the veneration of the cross and other images.
In his On the Existence of God and the True Religion, he used a thought experiment in which he imagined himself having grown up away from civilization (on a mountain) and descending to 'the cities' to inquire after the truth of religion: an attempt to provide a philosophical argument in support of Chalcedonian Christianity from first principles.
Theodore also translated the pseudo-Aristotelian De virtutibus animae into Arabic from Greek for Tahir ibn Husayn
at some point, perhaps around 816.
Published works=
External links=
Christian
A Christian is a person who adheres to Christianity, an Abrahamic, monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus of Nazareth as recorded in the Canonical gospels and the letters of the New Testament...
Arab
Arab
Arab people, also known as Arabs , are a panethnicity primarily living in the Arab world, which is located in Western Asia and North Africa. They are identified as such on one or more of genealogical, linguistic, or cultural grounds, with tribal affiliations, and intra-tribal relationships playing...
theologian who lived in the early Islamic period.Biography=
He was born around 750 AD in the city of Edessa
Edessa, Mesopotamia
Edessa is the Greek name of an Aramaic town in northern Mesopotamia, as refounded by Seleucus I Nicator. For the modern history of the city, see Şanlıurfa.-Names:...
, in northern Mesopotamia
Mesopotamia
Mesopotamia is a toponym for the area of the Tigris–Euphrates river system, largely corresponding to modern-day Iraq, northeastern Syria, southeastern Turkey and southwestern Iran.Widely considered to be the cradle of civilization, Bronze Age Mesopotamia included Sumer and the...
, and was the Chalcedonian
Chalcedonian
Chalcedonian describes churches and theologians which accept the definition given at the Council of Chalcedon of how the divine and human relate in the person of Jesus Christ...
or Melkite
Melkite
The term Melkite, also written Melchite, refers to various Byzantine Rite Christian churches and their members originating in the Middle East. The word comes from the Syriac word malkāyā , and the Arabic word Malakī...
bishop
Bishop
A bishop is an ordained or consecrated member of the Christian clergy who is generally entrusted with a position of authority and oversight. Within the Catholic Church, Eastern Orthodox, Oriental Orthodox Churches, in the Assyrian Church of the East, in the Independent Catholic Churches, and in the...
of the nearby city of Harran
Harran
Harran was a major ancient city in Upper Mesopotamia whose site is near the modern village of Altınbaşak, Turkey, 24 miles southeast of Şanlıurfa...
between 795 and 812. According to a late (and hostile) source, he was removed from his see by the Melkite
Melkite
The term Melkite, also written Melchite, refers to various Byzantine Rite Christian churches and their members originating in the Middle East. The word comes from the Syriac word malkāyā , and the Arabic word Malakī...
bishop
Bishop
A bishop is an ordained or consecrated member of the Christian clergy who is generally entrusted with a position of authority and oversight. Within the Catholic Church, Eastern Orthodox, Oriental Orthodox Churches, in the Assyrian Church of the East, in the Independent Catholic Churches, and in the...
of Antioch
Antioch
Antioch on the Orontes was an ancient city on the eastern side of the Orontes River. It is near the modern city of Antakya, Turkey.Founded near the end of the 4th century BC by Seleucus I Nicator, one of Alexander the Great's generals, Antioch eventually rivaled Alexandria as the chief city of the...
, Theodoret (795
795
Year 795 was a common year starting on Thursday of the Julian calendar. The denomination 795 for this year has been used since the early medieval period, when the Anno Domini calendar era became the prevalent method in Europe for naming years.- Europe :* In the earliest recorded Viking raid on...
-812
812
Year 812 was a leap year starting on Thursday of the Julian calendar.- Europe :* The second Battle of Roncevaux Pass is fought between the Basques and the Franks....
), because of his heretical Christology, although this is unlikely: between 813 and 817 he debated with the Monophysites of Armenia
Armenia
Armenia , officially the Republic of Armenia , is a landlocked mountainous country in the Caucasus region of Eurasia...
at the court of Ashot Msakeri.
He has traditionally been thought to have been a monk at the monastery of Mar Saba
Mar Saba
The Great Lavra of St. Sabbas the Sanctified, known in Arabic as Mar Saba , is a Greek Orthodox monastery overlooking the Kidron Valley in the West Bank east of Bethlehem. The traditional date for the founding of the monastery by Saint Sabas of Cappadocia is the year 483 and today houses around 20...
(the monastery where, earlier, John of Damascus
John of Damascus
Saint John of Damascus was a Syrian monk and priest...
had lived), but this has been shown to be due to a confusion with Theodore of Edessa.
He died between 820 and 825.
Writings=
Abū Qurrah was one of the first Christian authors to use Arabic. Some of his works were translated into Greek
Greek language
Greek is an independent branch of the Indo-European family of languages. Native to the southern Balkans, it has the longest documented history of any Indo-European language, spanning 34 centuries of written records. Its writing system has been the Greek alphabet for the majority of its history;...
, and so circulated in Byzantium
Byzantium
Byzantium was an ancient Greek city, founded by Greek colonists from Megara in 667 BC and named after their king Byzas . The name Byzantium is a Latinization of the original name Byzantion...
, but he was mainly known only to Arabic-speaking Christians. He also claimed to have written thirty treatises in Syriac, but none of these have yet been identified. His writings provide an important witness to Christian thought in the early Islamic world. A number of them were edited with German translations by Georg Graf
Georg Graf
Georg Graf was a German Orientalist. He was one of the most important scholars of the study of the Christian orient, and his 5 volume Geschichte der christlichen arabischen Literatur remains the basis of all subsequent work.-Life:Georg Graf was born in Munzingen, Germany, in 1875.He entered the...
and have now been translated into English by John C. Lamoreaux.
Abū Qurrah argued for the rightness of his faith against the habitual challenges of Islam
Islam
Islam . The most common are and . : Arabic pronunciation varies regionally. The first vowel ranges from ~~. The second vowel ranges from ~~~...
, Judaism
Judaism
Judaism ) is the "religion, philosophy, and way of life" of the Jewish people...
and those Christians who did not accept the doctrinal formulations of the Council of Chalcedon
Chalcedon
Chalcedon , sometimes transliterated as Chalkedon) was an ancient maritime town of Bithynia, in Asia Minor, almost directly opposite Byzantium, south of Scutari . It is now a district of the city of Istanbul named Kadıköy...
, and in doing so re-articulated traditional Christian teachings at times using the language and concepts of Islamic theologians: he has been described by Sydney H. Griffith as a Christian mutakallim. He attracted the attention of at least one Muslim Mu'tazilite mutakallim, Isa ibn Sabih al-Murdar (d. 840
840
Year 840 was a leap year starting on Thursday of the Julian calendar.-Europe:* After the death of Louis the Pious, his sons Lothar, Charles the Bald and Louis the German fight over the division of the Holy Roman Empire, with Lothar succeeding as Emperor.-Asia:* Tang Wu Zong succeeds Tang Wen Zong...
), who is recorded (by the biobibliographical writer, Ibn al-Nadim
Ibn al-Nadim
Abu'l-Faraj Muhammad bin Is'hāq al-Nadim , whose father was known as al-Warrāq was a Shia Muslim scholar and bibliographer. Some scholars regard him as a Persian, but this is not certain. He is famous as the author of the Kitāb al-Fihrist...
, who died in 995
995
Year 995 was a common year starting on Tuesday of the Julian calendar.- Europe :* Upon the death of Eric the Victorious, he is succeeded by his son Olof Skötkonung as the first baptized king of Sweden....
AD) as having written a refutation of Abū Qurrah. The subjects covered were, in the main, the doctrine of the Trinity
Trinity
The Christian doctrine of the Trinity defines God as three divine persons : the Father, the Son , and the Holy Spirit. The three persons are distinct yet coexist in unity, and are co-equal, co-eternal and consubstantial . Put another way, the three persons of the Trinity are of one being...
, the Incarnation
Incarnation
Incarnation literally means embodied in flesh or taking on flesh. It refers to the conception and birth of a sentient creature who is the material manifestation of an entity, god or force whose original nature is immaterial....
, and the Sacraments, as well as the practices of facing east in prayer (rather than towards Jerusalem or Mecca
Mecca
Mecca is a city in the Hijaz and the capital of Makkah province in Saudi Arabia. The city is located inland from Jeddah in a narrow valley at a height of above sea level...
), and the veneration of the cross and other images.
In his On the Existence of God and the True Religion, he used a thought experiment in which he imagined himself having grown up away from civilization (on a mountain) and descending to 'the cities' to inquire after the truth of religion: an attempt to provide a philosophical argument in support of Chalcedonian Christianity from first principles.
Theodore also translated the pseudo-Aristotelian De virtutibus animae into Arabic from Greek for Tahir ibn Husayn
Tahir ibn Husayn
Tahir ibn Husayn was a general and governor during the Abbasid caliphate. Specifically, he served under al-Ma'mun and led the armies that would defeat al-Amin, making al-Ma'mun the caliph...
at some point, perhaps around 816.
Published works=
- Some works in J.-P. Migne, Patrologia graeca, 97
- I. Arendzen, Theodori Abu Kurra De cultu imaginum libellus e codice arabico (Bonn, 1897)
- C. Bacha, Les oeuvres arabes de Théodore Aboucara (Beyrout, 1904)
- C. Bacha, Un traité des oeuvres arabe de Théodore Abou-Kurra (Tripoli [Syria] – Rome, 1905)
- G. Graf, Die arabischen Schriften des Theodor Abu Qurra, Bischofs von Harran (ca. 740-820), Forschungen zur christlichen Literatur- un Dogemengeschichte, X Band, 3/4 Heft (Paderborn, 1910)
- L. Cheikho, 'Mimar li Tadurus Abi Qurrah fi Wugud al-Haliq wa d-Din al-Qawim', al-Machriq, 15 (1912), pp. 757–74, 825-842
- G. Graf, Des Theodor Abu Kurra Traktat uber den Schopfer un die wahre Religion (Munster, 1913)
- I. Dick, 'Deux écrits inédits de Théodore Abuqurra', Le Muséon, 72 (1959), pp. 53–67
- S. H. Griffith, 'Some Unpublished Arabic Sayings Attributed to Theodore Abu Qurrah', Le Muséon, 92 (1979), pp. 29–35
- I. Dick, Théodore Abuqurra. Traité de l'existence du Créateur et de la vrai religion / Maymar fi wujud al-Kaliq qa-l-din al-qawim li-Thawudhurus Abi Qurra (Jounieh, 1982)
- S.K. Samir, 'Kitab "Jami' wujuh al-iman" wa-mujadalat Abi Qurra 'an salb al-Masih', Al-masarra, 70 )1984), 411-27
- I. Dick, Théodore Abuqurra. Traité du culte des icônes / Maymar fi ikram al-ayqunat li-Thawudhurus Abi Qurra (Jounieh, 1986)
- S. H. Griffith, 'Theodore Abû Qurrah's Arabic tract on the Christian practice of venerating images', Journal of the American Oriental Society, 105 (1985)
- R. Glei and A. Khoury, Johannaes Damaskenos und Theodor Abu Qurra. Schriften zum Islam (Wurzburg, 1995), pp. 86-127, 148-49, 150-53
- Yuliyan Velikov, The Word about the Image. Theodore Abū Qurrah and St Cyril the Philosopher and the Defence of the Holy Icons in the Ninth Century, (Veliko Turnovo 2009) - in Bulgarian
Arabic
Greek
- Greek works with Latin Translation, from Migne, Patrologia graeca, vol. 95 (Paris, 1865)
Translations
- German: G. Graf, Die arabischen Schriften des Theodor Abû Qurra
- French: A treatise on the veneration of images and Demonstration of the Faith of the Church through the two Testaments and the Councils
- Russian: G. Sablukov, Translation of Theodore Abu Qurrah's Greek Works in Russian, Missioner 6 (1879), and Dialogue with a Muslim
External links=
- David Bertaina, 'An Arabic account of Theodore Abu Qurra in debate at the court of caliph al-Ma'mun: A study in early Christian and Muslim literary dialogues', Ph.D. diss., Catholic University of America, 2007.
- John C. Lamoureaux, 'The Biography of Theodore Abu Qurrah Revisited', in Dumbarton Oaks Papers, 56
- John C. Lamoreaux, Theodore Abu Qurrah and John the Deacon , Greek, Roman, and Byzantine Studies, 42 (2001), 361-386
- Guy Monnot, 'Abu Qurra et la pluralité des religions', Revue de l'histoire des religions, 208 (1991), pp. 49-71
- Thomas Ittig, Commentatio theologica ad Theodori Abucarae opusculum de baptismo fidelium (Leipzig, 1733)