Jaarboek Thomas Instituut 1997 - Thomas Instituut te Utrecht

AQUINAS AND INTERRELIGIOUS DIALOGUE 43
c.830 A.D.). He was, just like John of Damascus, a monk of Mar
Saba, but he was also an Orthodox bishop of Harran. While John
wrote in Greek, Abu Qurrah was the first Christian to write his works
in Arabic, which made communication with his Muslim adversaries
easier. Abu Qurrah can be seen as a Christian apologist, influenced by
his master John, in a now increasingly Muslim cultural climate. Many
Christians, for instance, did no longer dare to venerate the icons of
Christ and the Saints because of the reproaches of Muslims and Jews.
Abu Qurrah was known among Muslims as a controversialist, a
mutakallim, and he is said to have participated in public debates about
religion at the court of Caliph Harün ar-Rashïd (786-809). As a result
of this, Abu Qurrah is better acquainted with the Muslim tradition than
John of Damascus could be".
If it is permitted to leave out a century, we come to an age in which
Jews, Christians and Muslims still live on a more or less equal
footing, and in which some of them practiced the methods of kalàm,
either polemical or apologetic. Probably the most famous theologian in
this century is Saadiah Gaon (882-942) who was known as a fighter
against the enemies of rabbinical Judaism, both within and outside the
Jewish religion. His Arabic 'Book of Doctrines and Beliefs' is the first
real systematic-theological work in the history of Judaism, and
translated into Hebrew it became one of the basic textbooks of Jewish
theology. It contains some interesting passages in which Saadiah
defends the Unity of God and attacks the deviating Christian
opinions" .
94 See A Treatise on the Veneration of the Holy Icons written in Arabic
by Theodore Abü Qurrah, bishop of Harrän (c.755-c.830 A.D.), Translated
into English, with Introduction and Notes by Sidney H. Griffith (Eastern
Christian Texts in Translation, vol. 1), Leuven 1997.
95 Sirat, A History of Jewish Philosophy in the Middle Ages, pp. 18-32;
W. van Bekkum, "Se'adja Gaon - Het Verkozen Boek van Geloofsopvattingen
en Meningen", M. van Loopik (red.), Tweespalt en verbondenheid. Joden en
Christenen in historisch perspectief: joodse reacties op christelijke theologie,
Zoetermeer 1998, pp. 34-53. In "Joodse kritiek op de christelijke
triniteitsidee" , Tijdschrift voor Theologie 37 (1997) 343-367, K. Middleton
and M. Poorthuis discuss Saadia's criticism of the Christian trinitarian