Jaarboek Thomas Instituut 1997 - Thomas Instituut te Utrecht

42 PIM VALKENBERG
The first name which must be mentioned in this context is that of
Yanah ibn Mansur ibn Sarjun, better known as John of Damascus".
He was born in a family of important political and financial advisers
of the Caliphs in Damascus. He probably lived between c.675 and
c.750 A.D., first at the Omayyad court in Damascus, then in the
monastry of Mar Saba near Jerusalem. He published two short
writings on Islam, of different literary genres". His main systematictheological
work was entitled 'the Fount of Knowledge'; it has in its
historical part an enumeration of heresies. The final chapter on these
heresies concerns Islam, 'the religion of the Ishmaelites'. But apart
from this apologetic work, John als composed a kind of dialogue'?
between a Christian and a Muslim.
The reasons for choosing these texts by John of Damascus as
the main texts in the first section are clear: he was, as far as we
know, the very first to react on Islam as a new reality in theological
writings, even before the Muslims themselves developed a comparable
form of apologetic theology or kaläm. Moreover, his methods of
argumentation have been very influential in subsequent history, both in
the Eastern Churches and in the West.
The next author under consideration is Theodore Abu Qurrah (c. 755-
Thomas Aquinas in ScG 1,6. Adel-Théodore Khoury is the historiographer for
the subsequent history of polemics and apologetics in Byzantine theology. See
his Les théologiens Byzantins et l'Islam: textes et auteurs (VlIP-XlIP S.),
Louvain - Paris 1969; Der theologischeStreit der Byzantinermit dem Islam,
Paderborn 1969; Polémiquebyzantinecontre l'Islam (VIIP-XlIPS.), Leiden
1972, and Apologétiquebyzantinecontre l'lslam (VlIP-XlIP S.), Altenberge
1982. More indications may be found in the indexes of Islamochristiana.
91 See for the name F.R. Chase, Saint John of Damascus, Writings,
New York 1958, p. v; G. Graf, Geschichte der christlichen arabischen
Literatur, vol. II (Vatikanstadt 1947), p. 377.
92 Texts, translations and commentaries in Daniel 1. Sahas, John of
Damascus on Islam, Leiden 1972; Jean Damascène, Écrits sur l'Islam,
présentation, commentaire et traduction par Raymond Ie Coz (Sources
Chrétiennes no. 383), Paris 1992.
93 Orig. {j[CXÀE~[Ç, translated as 'controverse' by Le Coz, and as
'dialogue' or 'dispute' by Sahas.