Miaphysite
Most likely early eighth century C.E.
The Disputation of John and the Emir relates an alleged conversation between the seventh-century Miaphysite patriarch of Antioch John Sedra and an unspecified Muslim leader. The text purports to be a letter written by an unnamed companion of the patriarch. In order to reassure the reader of John’s safety, the narrator describes how the patriarch had a friendly audience with the Muslim official.
The majority of the text consists of a dialogue between John and the emir. The emir presents a series of brief questions, and John gives more lengthy responses. They discuss topics such as the diversity of Christian beliefs, Christ’s divinity, who was controlling the world when Christ was in Mary’s womb, why the Hebrew prophets did not explicitly speak of Jesus, and what laws Christians follow. The narrative interrupts this pattern of question and answer only once, in order that the emir might summon a Jew to confirm John’s scriptural citations.
After relating the dialogue, the narrator states that even the Chalcedonian Christians present prayed for John, as they knew that the Miaphysite patriarch was representing all Christians before the emir. The text also asks the reader to pray that God will enlighten the emir and make him favorably disposed toward Christians. The work ends with a list of other people whom the narrator wants the letter’s readers to support in prayer.
Recent scholarship suggests that it is very unlikely that a Miaphysite patriarch and a Muslim official ever exchanged the words preserved in this text. Nevertheless, John and the Emir remains an important witness to what early Syriac Christians imagined such encounters might be like. Even if more likely written in the early eighth century than in the early seventh, the Disputation reflects what its contemporaries considered some of the most pressing theological issues brought about by the rise of Islam. Like most disputation texts, John and the Emir is not so much an attempt at objective historiography as an act of apologetics, polemic, and self-representation.
In 874 a monk named Abraham composed a ninety-nine-folio manuscript now housed in the British Library (BL Add. 17,193). He titled his work “A volume of demonstrations, collections, and letters” and included in it more than 125 short pieces ranging from biblical passages and excerpts from church fathers to lists of councils, caliphs, and calamities. Following a canon of Severus of Antioch regarding baptism and preceding a list of eighth-century disasters are three folios that make up the sole witness to John and the Emir. Fraçois Nau published an edition of this text in 1915. Michael Penn published a revised edition in 2008.
Dionysius of Tel Maḥrē (d. 845) speaks of a Muslim emir, Bar Saʻd, summoning the patriarch John of Antioch for an audience. Impressed by John’s answers to his questions, the emir commanded him to have the Gospel translated into Arabic. Although it was composed almost two centuries after John’s death, many scholars use this reference to argue that the Miaphysite author of John and the Emir wrote shortly after a real encounter between the patriarch and an Arab notable, most likely ʻUmayr ibn Saʻd al-Ans.āri.
According to John and the Emir, this meeting took place on Sunday, May 9. There were three years during John’s tenure as patriarch (r. 631–48) when May 9 fell on a Sunday: 633, 639, and 644. If written soon after any of these dates, John and the Emir would be the earliest witness to an interfaith dialogue between Christians and Muslims. But even if this were the case, the selective nature of the discussed topics, the characterization of the patriarch and his Muslim interlocutor, and the presence of numerous apologetic motifs make it quite clear that this document would still be far from an accurate transcript of John and the emir’s discussion.
Other scholars, however, see John and the Emir as a literary production written decades after John’s death in order to serve the needs of an eighth-century Miaphysite community. Several arguments support this later dating of the text. Details in Dionysius of Tel Maḥrē’s account appear dependent on John and the Emir, calling into question the historical basis for the described encounter. John and the Emir’s silence regarding the emir’s identity, title, and location, as well as any information about the letter’s recipients, seems surprising for a contemporary witness. The text’s concerns for Islam’s claim as an independent religious tradition and questions regarding inheritance law fit much better with our knowledge of eighth-century Syriac Christianity than with a mid-seventh century context. The style, the content, and even the term Hagarene show much greater affinities with eighth-century Syriac texts, such as the Disputation of Bēt Halē, than with seventh-century works.
The sole manuscript preserving the Disputation of John and the Emir includes a colophon dated to 874, and it remains possible that John and the Emir could have been written as recently as the last decades of the ninth century. Although such a late date cannot definitely be ruled out, John and the Emir’s depiction of Islam seems substantially less developed and detailed than those found in most Abbasid-era texts, and the majority of recent scholars suggest a composition date during the first half of the eighth century.
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Next, the letter of Mār John the patriarch concerning the conversation that he had with the emir of the Hagarenes.
Because we know that you are anxious and afraid on our behalf due to the affair for which we have been called to this region [along with] the blessed and God-honored father, lord, and patriarch of ours—we inform your love that on the ninth of this month of May, on holy Sunday, we entered before the glorious commander, the emir.[[[86]]] The blessed one and father of all was asked by him if the gospel that all those in the entire world who are and are called Christians hold is one and the same and does not vary in anything. The blessed one answered him, “It is one and the same to the Greeks, the Romans, the Syrians, the Egyptians, the Ethiopians, the Indians, the Aramaeans, the Persians, and the rest of all peoples and languages.”
He also inquired, “Why, when the gospel is one, is the faith diverse?” The blessed one answered, “Just as the Torah is one and the same and is accepted by us Christians, by you Hagarenes, by the Jews, and by the Samaritans, but each people differs in faith, so also concerning the gospel’s faith: each sect understands and interprets it differently, and not like us.”
He also inquired, “What do you say Christ is? Is he God or not?” Our father answered, “He is God and the Word that was born from God the Father, eternally and without beginning. At the end of times, for men’s salvation, he took flesh and became incarnate from the Holy Spirit and from Mary—the holy one and the Virgin, the mother of God—and he became man.”
[[[87]]] The glorious emir also asked him, “When Christ, who you say is God, was in Mary’s womb, who bore and governed the heavens and the earth?” Our blessed father immediately replied, “When God descended to Mount Sinai and was there speaking with Moses for forty days and forty nights, who bore and governed the heavens and the earth? For you say that you accept Moses and his books.” The emir said, “It was God, and he governed the heavens and the earth.” Immediately he heard from our father, “Thus Christ [is] God; when he was in the womb of the Virgin, as almighty God he bore and governed the heavens, the earth, and everything in them.”
The glorious emir also said, “As for Abraham and Moses, what sort of faith and belief did they have?” Our blessed father said, “Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Moses, Aaron, and the rest of the prophets and all the just and righteous ones had and held the faith and belief of Christians.” The emir said, “Why then did they not write openly and make [it] known concerning Christ?” Our blessed father answered, “As [God’s] confidants and intimates they knew. But [there was] the childishness and uneducated state of the people at that time who were inclined and attracted toward a multitude of gods to the point of considering even pieces of wood, stones, and many things [to be] gods and erecting idols, worshiping them, and sacrificing to them. The holy ones did not want to give the errant an occasion to depart from the living God and to go after error. But cautiously they said that which is the truth: ‘Hear, Israel, that the Lord your God, the Lord is one’ [Dt 6:5]. For they truly knew that God is one and [that there is] one divinity of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Because of this, they spoke and wrote secretly concerning God, that he is one and the same in divinity and is three hypostases and persons.[[[88]]] But he is not, nor is he confessed [to be], three gods or three divinities or, by any means, gods and divinities. Because [there is] one divinity of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, as we have said. And from the Father are the Son and the Spirit. If you want, I am willing and ready to confirm all these things from the holy scriptures.”
After the emir also heard these things, he asked only that if Christ is God and was born from Mary and if God has a son that it immediately be shown to him also from the Torah. The blessed one said, “Not only Moses but also all the holy prophets prophesized beforehand and wrote these things concerning Christ. One wrote concerning his birth from a virgin, another that he would be born in Bethlehem, another concerning his baptism. All of them, so to say, [wrote] concerning his salvific suffering, his life-giving death, and his glorious resurrection from among the dead after three days.” And he immediately brought forth examples and began to confirm [these things] from all the prophets and from Moses.
But the glorious emir did not accept these things from the prophets but wanted it to be shown to him [from] Moses that Christ is God. The same blessed one, along with many other [passages], brought forth this [one from] Moses: “The Lord brought down from before the Lord fire and sulfur upon Sodom and upon Gomorrah” [Gn 19:24]. The glorious emir asked that this be shown in the scripture. Without delay our father showed [this] in the full Greek and Syriac scriptures. For in [that] place there were also present with us certain Hagarenes. And they saw with their eyes those writings and the glorious name of “the Lord” and “the Lord.”[[[89]]] Indeed, the emir summoned a Jewish man who was [there] and was considered by them an expert of scripture. He asked him if this was so in the wording in the Torah. But he answered, “I do not know exactly.”
From here the emir moved to asking about the laws of the Christians, what and what sort [of laws] they are and whether they are written in the gospel. He also [asked], “If a man dies and leaves sons or daughters, a wife, a mother, a sister, and a cousin, how should his property be divided among them?” And after our holy father said, “The gospel is divine, for it teaches and commands the heavenly teachings and life-giving commandments and rejects all sins and evils and through itself teaches virtue and righteousness,” many things were discussed regarding this subject—while there were gathered there [many] people, not only nobles of the Hagarenes but also chiefs and leaders of cities and of believing and Christ-loving people: the Tanukāyē and Tuʻāyē and the ʻAqulāyē.
And the glorious emir said, “I want you to do one of three [things]: either show me that your laws are written in the gospel and be guided by them or submit to the Hagarene law.” When our father answered, “We Christians have laws that are just, are upright, and agree with the teaching and commandments of the gospel, the canons of the apostles, and the laws of the church,” that first day’s assembly was thus concluded.[[[90]]] And we have not yet come to enter before him again.
It was commanded by him that some people from the bishoprics of the Council of Chalcedon also come. Indeed, everyone who was present [both] from the Orthodox and from the Chalcedonians prayed for the life and safety of the blessed lord patriarch. They glorified and magnified God, who generously provided the word of truth for his eloquence and filled him with the power and grace which is from him, according to his true promises when he said, “They will stand you before kings and governors on account of me. But do not worry what you will say and be not concerned. At that hour, what you should say will be given to you. For you will not speak. Rather the spirit of your Father will speak through you” [Lk 12:11–12].
We have reported to your love these few of the many things that were very recently discussed so that you might diligently and continually pray for us without ceasing and entreat the Lord that he, in his mercy, care for his church and his people and that Christ make a resolution to this affair that pleases his will, aids his church, and comforts his people. For, as we said above, also those of the Council of Chalcedon prayed for the blessed Mār patriarch, because he spoke on behalf of the entire Christian community and did not speak against them.[[[91]]] They continually communicated with him and sought his blessedness to thus speak on behalf of the entire community and not to stir up anything against them. For they knew their weakness and the greatness of the danger and anguish that awaited if the Lord did not care for his church in accord with his mercy.
Pray for the glorious emir, that God would enlighten and instruct him concerning what is pleasing to the Lord and is beneficial. The blessed father of all, the revered fathers with him—Abba Mār Thomas, Mār Severus, Mār Sergius, Mār Aitilaha, Mār John, and their entire holy synodal board—as well as the leaders and believers who are gathered here with us, especially our beloved Mār Andrew (both a wise leader and one guarded by Christ), and we [who are] least in the Lord ask for your peace and holy prayers always.