The book of religion and empire

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THE BOOK OF RELIGION AND EMPIRE

I

The present work may possibly attract the attention of some scholars and students of comparative religion. It is a semi-official defence of Islam written at the command, with the assistance, and in the court of the Caliph Mutawakkil (a.d. 847-861) ; the adversaries more frequently at¬ tacked are the Christians, who, thanks to their numerical strength, to the vigilance of the East-Syrian Patriarchs residing in Baghdad, and to the influence of a successive series of court-physicians, were the strongest opponents of the State religion at the time of the ‘Abbasid dynasty ; in the second rank come Jews, Hindus, Buddhists, and Parsees, who, however, are more severely handled. The work is also likely to throw great light on the religious tendencies of Muhammadanism at the time of its greatest expansion and orthodoxy.

It is not our intention to give here a synopsis of the general plan adopted in the execution of the work, nor to express an opinion on its intrinsic merits and demerits.1 We leave the reader to draw his own conclusions on the subject ; but in order to help him in his task we have

1 A short essay in this direction was published in J.R.A.S., 1920, pp. 481-488. In some respects it is the weightiest of all the works on Islam that we have read for a long time, and during the last seven years we have perused more than seven hundred Arabic MSS. on different subjects. The author has displayed a literary art which has certain merits of its own, and which, from many sentences such as “if the adversaries shout,” appears to have been dictated to him by a series of public discussions held in the court of Mutawakkil.

VI ventured to add a few short notes to some statements which, to use a sentence of the author’s, not two learned men can regard as irrefragable.

The second half of the eighth and the first half of the ninth centuries were, owing to the somewhat tolerant attitude of the Caliphs of Baghdad, marked by the first serious shock of opinion between Christians and Muslims. It was at this time that, in answer to certain objections advanced by Christians, the ingenuity of the Muslim writers gathered from scattered materials and purely oral sources the weapons which in the same field of con¬ troversy would place them on even terms with their seemingly more favoured opponents. We do not believe that the imposing number of Muhammad’s miracles and prophecies (with which we should compare Kur’an, xxix 49 ; xiii. 27-30 ; xvii. 92-97) would have been so skilfully elaborated at so late a date as the eighth century, if their compilers had not been forced so to act by ready adversaries who had made the subject of thaumaturgy a special point in their polemics against them. We have here and there isolated cases of public discussions before this period. The earliest and the most important record seems to be the colloquy which took place in Syria be¬ tween the Arab generals and the Monophysite Patriarch of Antioch, John I., in the eighteenth year of the Hijrah Sunday, 9th May, a.d. 639). The Syriac text of this document has been published by F. Nau,1 and we have given a summary of it in the Journal of the Manchester Egyptian and Oriental Society (1916, p. 35 seq.). On the other hand, we know nothing about the discussion between the Umayyad ‘Abdul-Malik b. Marwan (a.d. 692-705) and Ibrahim, son of Rahib (monk) Tabarani.2

1 Journal Asiatique , 1915, 248.

2 Mentioned by Steinschneider, Polem. u. Apolog. Liter. 1877, No. 65, p. 82. \

Vll

The outcome of the discussion in the second half of the eighth century is known, on the Christian side, by the Syriac writings of Timothy, Patriarch of the East Syrian Church (a.d. 780-823). In one of his letters1 he records, by way of question and answer, the gist of the public discussion that he had before the Caliph Mahdi, about a.d. 783. At the end of the same century Abu Nuh of Anbar, the secretary of the Muslim Governor of Mosul, wrote a refutation of the Kur an, which Ebedjesu of Nisibis2 has registered in his Catalogue, compiled in a.d. 1298. Assemani mentions a work entitled Discussion between the monk Abu Karah and the Commander of the Faithful ,3 and Steinschneider,4 who has included it in his book as No. 64, believes that this Commander of the Faithful was the Caliph Ma’mun (a.d. 813-833). This treatise does not seem, however, to be of importance, and it is even possible that it consists of a record by an author of a later date of an event which had taken place several decades earlier; and the same may be said of the above discussion between b. Marwan and Tabarani.

During the reign of Ma’mun, in whose time the edict against the dogma of the eternity of the Kur an was issued, the better known Apology of Christianity by Kindi saw the light. The exhaustive study of W. Muir 5 renders it unnecessary for us to enter into detail con¬ cerning this work, but it would be useful here to remark

1 I read it in a MS., cf. al-Machriq for May and June, 1921.

2 Assemani, B. O. iii., i., p. 212.

s Ibid, iii., i., p. 609. 4 Polem. u. Afiol. Lit. p. 80.

5 Apology of al-Kindy in Defence of Christianity , London. I read the Arabic text in the edition of the Nile Mission Press, 1912. A recent reviewer in the Jewish Quarterly Review has unsuccessfully tried to throw doubts on the authenticity of this book which from internal and external evidence is certainly one of the most genuine compositions that we possess in the literature of the 9th century. Cf. Casanova, Mahomet et la fin du

monde , ii, Notes CompUmentaires .

Vlll that the present Defence seems to be an attempt to refute lucubrations similar to those of Timothy or Kindi at an interval of some twenty-five to thirty years. The epithet “ Garmecite,” however, that the author applies to his adversary, points to a man living or born in the region of Mosul or that of the two Zabs, the word used by the author in this connection bein g Jurmukani (cf. p. 81).

Facing the Muslim side, it is worth noticing that the author of the present Defence speaks of some polemical dissertations which in our days seem to be lost (p. 3). It would be interesting also to have more details about the pamphlet entitled Answer to Christians by ‘Amr b. Bahr al-Jahidh, the celebrated Mu‘tazili writer who died a.d. 869; it is recorded by Hajji Khalifah in his Biblio¬ graphical Dictionary,1 and by Steinschneider ; 2 and we have no reliable information concerning the controversial dissertation of Abu ‘Isa Muhammad al-Warrak, which occasioned an answer by the monophysite Yahya b. ‘Adi of Takrit,3 who died in a.d. 974. Without dilating on the numerous but not very instructive publications of later generations we may, therefore, venture to assert that the present work, apart from its intrinsic value, is in order of date one of the most ancient.

The historical environment which gave birth to the present Defence is not too complex. The period of re¬ ligious toleration referred to above was briskly changed by Mutawakkil into an era of recrudescence of Islamic tendencies. This Caliph, whom Barhebraeus calls “a hater of Christians,” 4 ordered that all churches built since the commencement of Islam should be demolished,

3 Ibid. pp. 128 and 146. See the recent work of A. Perier, Yahia b. Adi, Petits traites aftologetiques (1920).

4 Chron. Syr. p. 155 (edit. Bedjan).

IX and forbade the employment of Christians in Government offices and the display of crosses on Palm Sunday ; he also gave orders that wooden figures of demons should be fixed on their doors, that they should wear yellow cowls, and a zonarion round the waist, that they should ride saddles with wooden stirrups with two globes behind the saddle, that the men’s clothes should have inserted a couple of patches of colour different from that of the clothes themselves, each patch to be four inches wide, and the two patches were also to be of different colour. Any Christian woman who went out of doors was to wear a yellow tunic without band.1 Under these circumstances, it is highly creditable to the author not to have employed a stringent style in his dealings with the “members of the protected cults” (dhimmis : said mostly of Jews and Christians). On the other hand, his propensity to flattery is explicable by the pride of Mutawakkil, who was pleased to be described as “the shadow of God spread between Him and His creation,”2 or “the rope extended between God and His servants.”3

The promulgation of the edict of the above persecu¬ tion is ascribed by Tabari to 235/849. From the general tenour of the present Defence it is clear, however, that either the persecution had not yet begun when the work was written, or that the work was edited some years after the edict of the persecution was issued, i.e. at a time when, owing to the unpopularity of its enactments, or to the changed attitude of the Caliph himself, it had reached the stage of a slow and natural death. The first hypothesis seems to be irreconcilable with the author’s statement on p. 138, and the second would require, as

1 Tabari, 3, 3, 1387 seq., analysed in J. Zaydan’s Ummayyads and Abbasids (translated by D. S. Margoliouth), p. 169.

2 Mas‘udi, vii. 278-279 (B. de Meynard). 3 Tabari 3, 3, 1387.

X events moved in the palaces of the Caliphs,1 2 a year not far remote from a.d. 855, or six years after the promul¬ gation of the edict of the persecution. This date has the advantage of harmonising with the author’s statement on p. 138.

II

Since this Defence represents the first published work of Adi Tabari, it will be useful to gather all the available information concerning his life and his works. Unfor¬ tunately, historical references to him found in writers of later date are scanty and confused. The very surname of his father, the Syriac vocable Rabban , has been read Zain, Zail , Rain , etc., by many historians, and this mis¬ take, which can easily be accounted for by the use of early and undotted Arabic letters on the part of Muslim writers, who hardly knew any other Semitic language besides Arabic, has been repeated by some well-known Arabists, in spite of the clear explanation given to it by the author himself in his medical work entitled Kunnash. This last Syriac word, or its Arabic equivalent was adopted by many Christian and Muslim physi¬ cians as constituting the best title to be given to their “complete ” repertory of Graeco-Oriental physiology and therapeutics or general pathology. Such is the title of two works by John b. Serapion, one by George b. Bokhtisho‘, one by the priest Aaron, one by Isaac b. Hunain, one by Sahir, one by Razi, one by Theodore, etc."

The mention made of Tabari by the Islamic authori¬ ties may be summarised as follows :

1 The best work on the life in the palaces of the Caliphs is Miskawaihi’s Tajarib (or “ Experiences of Nations ”), translated by D. S. Margoliouth in 1921 (Oxford, vols. i.-iv.).

2 See Fihrist , pp. 296-303.

xi

1. The General Historians . The better known com¬ patriot of our Tabari, i.e. the famous historian Muham¬ mad Tabari, mentions the author four times, in his Annales, under the name : ‘Ali b. Rabban, the Christian writer (see 3, 2, 1276-1277; ibid. 1283; ibid. 1293, edit. De Goeje), all in connection with Maziar of Tabaristan ; and Mas‘udi in his Muruj (viii. 326, edit. B. de Meynard) gives a quotation from him describing a bird called Kikam.

2. Fihrist (Fliigel, p. 296). “ Ali b. Zail,1 [with a Lam]

Abul-Hasan ‘Ali b. Sahl at-Tabari. He wrote to Maziar • •

b. Karan. When he became Muslim at the hands of Mu‘tasim, the latter drew him near to himself, and his merits became known in the Court. Then Mutawakkil bestowed honour upon him and made him of the number of his table-guests. He was a literary man and his books are : “ Paradise of Medicine ; Gift to the Kings ; The Kunndsh ; Utility of Food , Drink , and Medicinal Herbs. The author of the Fihrist, who was writing about 120 years after the death of Tabari, seems to have distinguished him from ‘Ali b. Rain, “the Christian ” whom he mentions on p. 316 as author of a book on Literature and Proverbs according to Persians, Greeks, and Arabs. In reality this ‘Ali appears to be identical with the author of this Defence. Further, is not the Kunnash the same work as that entitled Paradise of Medicine? We shall presently see that this book is preserved in some public libraries as having both titles. The British Museum MS.2 expressly states, “This is the index of the chapters of th e Kunndsh of ‘Ali b. Rabban, which is entitled Paradise of Medicine A

3. Ibn al-Kifti (edit. Lippert, 1913, p. 231). “‘Ali b.

1 Possibly an error for Rabl. Cf. the quotation from b. abi Usaibi‘ah and b. al-Kifti given below.

2 Cod. CCCCXLV. p. 218, in Rieu’s catalogue.

Xll

Zain 1 at-Tabari, abul-Hasan, the physician. He excelled in the medical science, and was at the service of the governors of Tabaristan. He studied philosophy and devoted himself to natural science. After an insurrection which took place in Tabaristan he went to Ray, where he became tutor to Muhammad b. Zakaria’ ar-Razi, who learned much from him. Thence he repaired to Samarra where he settled and wrote his Kunnash entitled Para¬ dise of Medicine. . . . He is mentioned by Muhammad b. Ishak an-Nadlm in his book, in which he says : ‘Abul- Hasan ‘Ali b. Zain, who is b. Sahl at-Tabari. Zain is the name of Sahl, because he was a Rabbi to the Jews.” This last information is erroneous, because the author of the Fihrist clearly states that the father of Tabari was a Christian (cf. here pp. 19, 50) ; further, the reading of “Zain” instead of “ Rabban ” in this quotation is evi¬ dently an error of the copyist, because it is the word “ Rabban ” and not “ Zain ” which means Rabbi

4. Ibn Abi Usaibi(ah (edit, of the press of Wahab, 1882, p. 309). “Ibn Rabban at-Tabari, who is abul-Hasan, ‘Ali b. Sahl, b. Rabban at-Tabari. Ibn Nadim of Baghdad says (that his name was) Rabl, with a Lam , and relates about him as follows : He was the writer of Maziar b. Karan; when he became Muslim at the hands ofMu‘tasim, the latter drew him near to himself, and his merits be¬ came known in the Court. Then the Caliph Mutawakkil made him of the number of his table-guests. He was a literary man and he instructed Razi in the medical pro¬ fession. He was born and brought up in Tabaristan. Among his sayings is the following : ‘ An ignorant physician is liable to death.’ Ibn Rabban at-Tabari has among other books : Paradise of Medicine . . . ; Gentleness

1 This word is rightly corrected into Rabban in the edition of Cairo, a.h. 1326. See pp. 128 and 155.

xm of Life ; Gift to the Kings ; The Kunndsh ; Utility of Food and Drink and Medicinal Herbs ; Preservation of Health ; Enchantment ; Scarification ; Preparation of Food."

5. Yakut reports in his geographical dictionary (edit. Wustenfeld, ii. 608) : “ Something like the above narra¬ tion has been recorded by ‘Ali b. Zain at-Tabari, the writer of Maziar. He had acquired medicine, and has works on many subjects.” We consulted Yakut’s Dictionary of Learned Men , recently edited by D. S. Margoliouth, but were unable to find in it any reference to our author ; nor is there any mention of him in Sam- ‘ani’s Ansdb, an introduction to which was written in 1912 by the same scholar.

6. Ibn Khallikan (life, 717, 8, p. 75 of Wustenfeld’s edit.) writes about Razi the celebrated physician : “ He studied medicine under the physician abul-Hasan ‘Ali b. Zain at-Tabari, who has well-known works, such as the Paradise of Medicine. He was first a Christian, then he became a Muslim.”

7. Far more important is the following historical notice transmitted by the author himself in his work Paradise of Medicine1 above mentioned : “My father was one of the writers of the town of Merw, and one of the most esteemed and learned men in it. He had a re¬ markable zeal for the acquisition of piety and the acquain¬ tanceship of those who excelled in it. He was a constant reader of books of medicine and philosophy, and he pre¬ ferred medicine to the profession of his fathers. His aim in it was not vainglory nor money, but esteem and consideration. He was for that surnamed Rabban , which means ‘our master ’ and ‘ our teacher.’ ”

1 Cod. CCCCXLV. of the British Museum , p. 217 (Rieu). The work is also found in Cod. 6257 of Berlin , v. p. 513 (Ahlwardt), and in Cod. 1910 of Gotha iii. p. 456 (Pertsch). Cf. also Cod. dlxvii. of Oxford, p. 135 (Uri).

XIV

8. In the MS. containing the present Defence the first leaf, which had begun to fade, has been transcribed afresh by a sixteenth century hand with the following historical note: “This (MS.) has been transcribed from the auto¬ graph of the author. ‘Ali b. Zain, the writer of this book — may God have mercy on him — says, ‘ My father was writer to Maziar, the master of Tabaristan.’ When Mu‘tasim took Maziar at the hand of ‘Abdallah b. Tahir, (‘Ali) asked for safety, and then he became one of the table-guests of the Caliph Mutawakkil ‘ala Allah, and beatitude was ascribed to him. He became an eminent scholar, a traditionist, and a man of many works. The book has been transcribed from the autograph of its author, which fact will also be mentioned at the end of

i

the work. It is an excellent book, the merit of which is known only by the man who studies it with care.”

In addition to all these references it should be noted that the medical works of Tabari are frequently quoted or referred to in books of a later date, under the name “Tabari.” See Badr ad-Din Kalanisi’s Kardbddin (MS. 435 in the John Rylands Library; passim) and Nafls Kirmani’s Commentary on Najib ad-Dm Samarkandi’s Asbab wa ‘ Aldmat , where he is sometimes given his full name: ‘Ali b. Zain Tabari (see fol. 402% MS. 221 of the John Rylands Library).

Finally we should record the fact that at the bottom of the first page the titles of the following three chapters of a work by the author are transcribed apparently from an autograph : on the three denominations, the Melchites, the Jacobites, and the Nestorians (p. no); on the sen¬ tences differently worded by the Apostles (p. 126); on the ambiguous letters wherewith they have argued in favour of their laws (p. 131). The work alluded to seems to have been the Book of Replies to Christians mentioned on pp. 10 1 and 107.

xv

These are the original notices about the author, who at the beginning of his Defence calls himself “ freedman ” of the Caliph Mutawakkil. This might more appro¬ priately be referred to Mu'tasim (a.d. 833-841), in whose time Maziar b. Karan b. Wandahormiz of Tabaristan was finally defeated by ‘Abdallah b. Tahir,1 and who, ac¬ cording to Barhebraeus, freed at his death-bed eight thousand slaves bought with his money.2

That the writer was an eminent physician and moralist is established by the above quotations. He was also the nephew of the Syrian doctor, abu Zakkar Yahya b. Nu‘man, whom he mentions by name, and to whom he attributes a polemical work lost in our days.3 If abu Zakkar is the same man as Zakariya’ mentioned by Bar Bahlul in his Syriac lexicon and identified by some critics with abu Yahya al-Marwazi — an identification which to us seems very doubtful — the year of his death should be ascribed to the second quarter of the first half of the ninth century, because the author of this Defence speaks of him in terms which suggest that he had lived shortly before the final edition of his book. Confusion between physicians and moralists of the ninth century is frequent in the works of a later date, and the time has not yet come to speak of them in an irrefragable manner.

If we were allowed to add a remark to the identification of Zakariya’ with abu Yahya al-Marwazi,4 we should say that an identification with abu Zakariya’ Yahya b. Masuwaih,5 the physician of the Caliphs Ma’mun, Mu‘tasim, Wathik, and Mutawakkil, would be more in harmony with the general course of events. On the one hand, the name given to him by the author does not conflict with

1 Tabari, 3, 2, 1268 seq. 2 Chron. Syr. p. 153 (Bedjan).

3 See p. 147. 4 Cf. Fihrist , p. 263, and Usaibi‘ah i. pp. 234-235.

5 Cf. Fihrist , pp. 295-296, and Steinschneider in Z D M G, 1893, xlvii. PP- 351-354.

XVI this surmise, and on the other hand, the year of his death commonly believed to have been a.d. 854-855 would be in consonance with the text of our Defence, written certainly between 847 and 861, and probably in 855.

III

The manuscript which contains the text of this Defence is, so far as we are aware, unique. It is numbered 631 in the Crawford collection of the John Ry lands Librar}q measures 210 x 127 mm. and consists of 73 leaves of paper, with 19 lines to the page. The first leaf, which, as stated above, had begun to fade, has been written afresh by a sixteenth-century hand. If the scribe’s state¬ ment is correct — and we have no reason to question it — the MS. is a transcript from the author’s autograph. This appears in the note translated above, which refers us to the colophon at the end of the MS. Unfortunately, this colophon cannot be deciphered in its totality. The sentences which can be read with safety may be trans¬ lated as follows :

“ The book was finished — and glory and praise be to God — on the morning of Friday 4 Muharram of the year six hundred and sixteen — may God make good its be¬ ginning ! Has copied it for himself the servant soliciting the mercy and the forgiveness of the Almighty God : ‘Abdul-Hamid b. Husain b. Bashlk, who thanks the Almighty God for His favours and blesses His Prophet, our Master Muhammad, with his family and companions, and gives them peace for ever.”

The date a.h. 616 (a.d. 1219) is also found on the first page, written by the sixteenth-century hand, while at the bottom of the last page the following words are read in a thirteenth-century hand : “ I said This is the last work

XVII bear the name of an owner, a certain Musa copied by Jamal ud-Din, who died shortly after he had finished it.” Can this Jamal ud-Din be identified with the above ‘Abdul-Hamid ?

On folios ia, 19b, and 59b, marginal notes dated 1148/1735 1149/1736

al-Maulawi. It is evidently this man who has added a few philological and historical notes on the narrow margins of the book, and vocalised some difficult words. These stray notes are the only data that we possess as to the provenance of the MS.,1 which was apparently written in Baghdad forty years before its sack by the hordes of Hulaku. From the footnotes of pp. 97, 106, 13 1, etc., and from some passages of the text, it would appear that the MS. is a transcript from a first or rough draft made by the author, but it is possible to admit that some of these passages were marginal notes which have been misplaced by the copyist.

The translation given in the present volume preserves the Arabic colouring of the original, but contains a few explanatory words not found in the text, and safeguards the interests of a general reader not necessarily an Arabist. We have inserted some foot-notes to elucidate difficult points, and have compared the historical and traditional sayings reported by the author with the following authorities : —

Buk. The Sakih of Bukhari : edition of Cairo, a.h. 1313, in nine volumes.

Hish. Ibn Hisham’s Life of the Prophet ; edition of Cairo, a.h. 1332, by Tahtawi, in three volumes.

1 The words “ In Egypt ” are also clearly read at the top of the titlepage after a truncated line.

b xviii INTRODUCTION

I.S. The Tabakat of Ibn Sa‘d, edited at Leyden under the direction of E. Sachau, in seven volumes. Musi. The Sahih of Muslim; edition of Cairo, a.h. 1327, in two volumes.

Musn. Musnad of Ahmad b. Hanbal ; edition of Cairo, a.h. 1313, in six volumes.

Tab. The Annals of Tabari ; edited at Leyden under the direction of De Goeje, in fifteen volumes. Taj. Taj al-Arus. Arabic dictionary, edition of Cairo,

in ten volumes.

Had we extended our comparisons to all the tradi¬ tional books, we should have swollen the foot-notes without appreciable advantage.

Other historians and theologians are quoted without abbreviations and with full reference to the edition which we have used.

It must not be inferred that our comparative apparatus implies that the same tradition is registered verbatim by the writers referred to in the foot-note. It is a well-known fact that an identical tradition is sometimes so confusedly worded by the authors of the ninth century that the readers can scarcely recognise its extent and purpose, and more especially the occasions and circumstances which gave birth to it. As to the meagre historical value of all this tardy HacTith , the reader should consult the recent and well-known publications of Professors Margoliouth, Goldziher, Wensinck, Snouck Hurgronje and Lammens, in the light of which many lucubrations by ancient critics have become antiquated.

With regard to the Biblical quotations found in the book, since the author is mostly dependent only on the Syriac Version, we have collated his translation with the Peshitta. This collation is complete so far as the Penta¬ teuch is concerned, but for the rest of the sacred Books xix a note has been added only in case of a mistranslation or misquotation.1

About the author’s sources nothing can be stated with any degree of certitude. On the one hand, the historical details in the section dealing with the Prophet and the Orthodox Caliphs, are often preceded by the formulae “It has come to our knowledge,” “It has been related,” which may equally point to oral traditions and to written sources. On the other hand, there is no reason for denying the probability that Tabari was in the privileged position of having ready access to the archives and the library of the Court in which, it is to be presumed, the few Islamic biographical works (most of which are now lost) preceding the present Defence, were to be found. On p. 19 the author is speaking of works written from the time of the appearance of Islam down to his own day, and now and then he endeavours to furnish important details of circumstantial evidences ; so on p. 34 he states, in connection with a miracle of the Prophet, that the descendants of the man to whom the wolf spoke, were in his own time known by the epithet “the children of the man to whom the wolf spoke.”

Concerning a Biblical Version quoted by the author on pp. 78, 95, 98, and attributed by him to a certain Marcus the tarjaman , we could find no definite traces. From the Fihrist (pp. 23-24) we know that the Old and New Testa¬ ments were translated into Arabic long before the tenth Christian century, but we have no reason to identify the problematic Marcus Ya'Kubi called Badawi, therein mentioned as author of an Arabic book, with Marcus the tarjaman spoken of in the present Defence. On p. 306

1 The reader will doubtless notice the differences in the numbers of the chapters of the Bible used by the author. The numbers of the chapters of his Bible are those formerly in use in the East Syrian (Nestorian) Church.

XX the Fihrist mentions an earlier but still more problematic Marcus.

On the authority of Cod. Vat. Arab. 13, of the end of the eighth century, we may state that an Arabic Version of the Gospels was in existence about a.d. 750 (cf. Scholz’s Krit. Reis. 118 seq., and Guidi’s Ev. p. 8). Further, the historian Michael the Syrian (edit. Chabot ii. p. 431) attributes an Arabic translation of the Gospels to the Christian Arabs assembled at the above public discussion which took place in Syria in a.d. 639. This, if we mistake not, is the oldest date to which any Christian historian has ascribed the existence of an Arabic Version of the Gospels, but great importance should not be at¬ tached to a mere historical tradition without subsequent data of a concrete and positive order.1

We believe that the problem of “Marcus, the trans¬ lator,” may be satisfactorily solved in the following manner : in the still unpublished repertory of the East Syrian exegesis, entitled Gannath Bussame ,2 a tradition is registered to the effect that the Hebrew text of the Old Testament was translated into the Syriac Peshitta of our days by the disciple Mark, probably Mark the evangelist himself. There is no necessity, therefore, to resort to the hypothesis that the author was dependent in his scriptural quotations upon a pre-existent Arabic Version of the Bible. The Syriac statement of the Gannath may be translated as follows : —