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TABLE OF CONTENTS

Table of Contents ..................................................................................... v

List of Illustrations ................................................................................. vii
Preface ....................................................................................................... ix
Acknowledgments ................................................................................... xi
Introduction .............................................................................................. 1
Theoretical Problems and Definitions of Dialogue ................... 1
The Historiographical Problem and the Lived Experience
of Dialogue .............................................................................. 5
The Literary Form ........................................................................... 8
Book Structure ............................................................................... 12
1 Dialogue as Christological Debate.............................................. 19
Origins ............................................................................................. 19
Dialogue and Christology in the Bible ....................................... 23
The Melkites, Jacobites, and Church of the East ..................... 30
Dialogue and Christology in Late Antiquity.............................. 36
Conclusion ...................................................................................... 41
2 Dialogue as Divine Exegesis: The Case of the Qur’an............ 45
Reading the Qur’an as Dialogue ................................................. 45
The Qur’an’s Use of Dialogue .................................................... 51
The Qur’an’s Christian Audience ............................................... 53
Dialogues with Christians in the Qur’an.................................... 61
Conclusion ...................................................................................... 69
3 Dialogue as Conquest and Conversion ...................................... 73
Conditions for Christian Dialogue in the Aftermath of the
Islamic Conquest .................................................................. 74
Conditions for Early Muslim Dialogue with Christians .......... 83
John of Sedra and the Muslim Emir .......................................... 87
‘Ali and the Byzantine Monk ....................................................... 94
‘Ali and the Patriarch .................................................................... 99
‘Ali and the Bishop of Najran ...................................................104

v
vi CHRISTIAN AND MUSLIM DIALOGUES

Conclusion ....................................................................................106
4 Dialogue as Competing Historiographies ................................109
Muhammad and the Christians of Najran ...............................115
The Islamic Bahira and Muhammad ........................................120
The Christian Sergius-Bahira and Muhammad .......................124
Conclusion ....................................................................................130
5 Dialogue as Theological Education and Dialectic..................133
A Christian Monk of Bet Hale and an Arab Notable ............138
Patriarch Timothy and Caliph al-Mahdi ..................................145
Imam al-Rida and The Arab Christians ...................................159
Conclusion ....................................................................................165
6 Dialogue as Hagiography ...........................................................167
Wasil of Damascus and The Byzantine leaders ......................169
Hisham ibn al-Hakam and the Patriarch Bariha .....................175
Imam Musa al-Kazim and the Monk and Nun of Najran ....179
Theodore Abu Qurra Against the Outsiders ..........................182
Conclusion ....................................................................................190
7 Dialogue as Scriptural Reinterpretation ...................................193
Imam al-Rida and The Patriarch ...............................................195
Abraham of Tiberias and ‘Abd al-Rahman al-Hashimi .........199
Theodore Abu Qurra and Caliph al-Ma’mun .........................212
Conclusion ....................................................................................228
8 The End of Dialogue? ................................................................231
Elias of Nisibis and George the Monk ....................................231
Significant Themes of Christian Dialogues .............................236
Significant Themes of Muslim Dialogues ................................241
From Creation to Collation .......................................................245
Bibliography ..........................................................................................249
Index .......................................................................................................276
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

Figure 1. Map of the Medieval Islamic World. ............................................ viii

Figure 2. Theodore Abu Qurra and al-Ma'mun. Illustrated by the Rt. Rev.
Mark Melone. .................................................................................................... xii
Figure 3. A Hagiographical Portrait of Theodore Abu Qurra. Illustrated
by the Rt. Rev. Mark Melone. ....................................................................... 192

vii
viii CHRISTIAN AND MUSLIM DIALOGUES

Figure 1. Map of the Medieval Islamic World.

PREFACE

This book is the product of several years of research and teaching

about the history of Christian-Muslim encounters. When acquaint-
ances hear about my specialty, they are much more interested in the
question of its relevance for contemporary affairs. My hope is that
past events and our historical interpretations have intrinsic worth
for the reader. I also hope that the reader finds value in under-
standing the origins, development, and continuity (or discontinuity)
between pre-modern and modern forms of dialogue.
Since the intended readership for this book includes both the
specialist and non-specialist, I have chosen to leave out diacritical
marks, typically used to transliterate Arabic, from the body of the
text. The presence of macrons and dots on the page, while correct
transliteration, distracts the eye and can be detrimental to reading
comprehension. Moreover, those who read Arabic will have no
trouble in understanding the words without the diacritical marks.
My concern for clarity on behalf of the uninitiated served as my
primary guide in this decision. For quotations from the Qur’an, I
have based my translations upon my own reading of the Arabic and
the translations done by Majid Fakhry in An Interpretation of the
Qur’an. For quotations from the Bible, I have used the Revised
Standard Version.
David Bertaina

ix
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

It is with great satisfaction that I would like to acknowledge the

institutions and people who made the completion of this book
possible. Sidney Griffith was the guiding force behind this topic,
and it could not have been written without his advice and contribu-
tions to the field of Christian Arabic studies. I am also grateful to
The Catholic University of America and the use of their Semitics
ICOR library. Shawqi Talia, Monica Blanchard, and Michael
O’Connor were all helpful in the early stages of writing the manu-
script. The Bibliotheca Apostolica Vaticana graciously provided me
with me with a copy of one of their manuscripts. The University of
Illinois Springfield was also generous in giving me a course reduc-
tion to allow time to edit this work. I would like to thank the librar-
ians who procured books and articles for me during the latter half
of my research. Father Mark Melone created beautiful iconography
for the book as well.
A number of friends and colleagues were instrumental in im-
proving the text by offering comments and suggestions on the
manuscript, including Aaron Berkowitz, Wendy Bignami, James
Bockmier, Sebastian Carnazzo, John Lamoreaux, Gabriel Said
Reynolds, and Peter Shapinksy. Their contributions helped me clar-
ify a number of issues and avoid several mistakes in the process of
completing the book; any remaining ones are solely my responsibil-
ity. I would also like to thank Andrew Bertaina and Vicki Bertaina,
who helped me clarify my ideas to non-specialists. My students and
colleagues at the University of Illinois Springfield were also sup-
portive in helping me revise the work. Katie Stott at Gorgias Press
helped me prepare and format the text. Most of all, I offer gracious
thanks to my wife Cheryl and our children Joseph and Anna, who
gave me love, support, insights, and stability during my time writ-
ing, editing and revising the book. To them I present my love and
gratitude.

xi
xii CHRISTIAN AND MUSLIM DIALOGUES

Figure 2. Theodore Abu Qurra and al-Ma'mun. Illus-

trated by the Rt. Rev. Mark Melone.
INTRODUCTION

THEORETICAL PROBLEMS AND DEFINITIONS OF

DIALOGUE
Most supporters of religious dialogue today are not fond of the
early history of Muslim and Christian encounters. According to the
common narrative, the legacies of Jihad and Crusade are products
of the past that must be overcome through dialogue which eschews
rhetorical and physical confrontation. Even the textual history of
dialogue encounters, when relegated to the genre of disputation, is
depicted as an embarrassing past that offers no insight for contem-
porary dialogue. However, I wish to challenge the contemporary
historiography of religious dialogue, which is an Enlightenment
creation, in which dialogue functions as an elaboration of liberal
tolerance and ecumenical mutual understanding. The Enlighten-
ment attempt to divorce pre-modern and modern forms of dia-
logue fails to show that contemporary dialogue has its own forms
of religious conflict and ways of accommodating and resisting dia-
logue. I would argue, rather, that the notion of religious dialogue is
part of a long history stretching back to Platonic philosophical us-
age, Aristotelian dialectic, Middle Eastern poetry, and medieval
religious debate. In problematizing the theory of dialogue as a
modern creation, we can recover the potential for understanding
the organic connection of modern dialogue with medieval apolo-
getics, polemics, and disputations. These methods are also legiti-
mate forms of religious dialogue.
My purpose is not to project liberal assumptions of dialogue
back into the seventh century in an attempt to rehabilitate pre-
modern Christian-Muslim encounters. Rather, I argue that beneath
our contemporary assumptions of tolerance, there are forms of
continuity between early medieval Christian and Muslim dialogue
and contemporary discourses. For instance, pre-modern and mod-
ern forms of dialogue recognize the reality of religious pluralism.
1
2 CHRISTIAN AND MUSLIM DIALOGUES

Both dialogues provide examples of polite, theological, and re-

spectful discussions. Both forms of dialogue are likewise apologetic
and polemical. The primary difference is that pre-modern forms of
dialogue tend to make this agenda explicit, whereas many contem-
porary forms of dialogue, despite claims of neutrality and tolerance,
have their own subtle polemics, partisan assumptions, and ideolo-
gies. The reality of power relations, patronage, and asymmetrical
relationships in modern religious dialogues are minimized or often
ignored. There is continuity between pre-modern and contempo-
rary forms of Christian-Muslim dialogue because each group ac-
cepts the necessity of dialogue while insisting on religious differ-
ence. However, there can be no such thing as a successful religious
dialogue based on liberal preconceptions of tolerance and respect.
Christians and Muslims do not hold to a unified doctrine or prac-
tice, but are individuals in communities committed to fundamental-
ly different truth claims about how God has entered history and
irrevocably communicated his signs of divine authority and
knowledge. This is why contemporary dialogue tends to focus not
on matters of faith, but on matters of liberal reason promoted as
common moral issues. This type of dialogue has produced im-
portant collaborations between groups on social issues, moral val-
ues, economic development, and the promotion of peace. But in
another sense, liberal dialogue attempts to make meaningful things
seem insignificant, such as religious truth claims, while it emphasiz-
es things which tolerant liberalism finds meaningful, or at least in-
nocuous to the power of the secular nation-state.
One considerable point of discontinuity between pre-modern
and modern forms of dialogue is the end (telos) of dialogue. For
pre-modern believers, dialogue required an alliance of faith and
reason in partnership. Dialogue was meant to encourage ways of
thinking that incorporated the traditions of rational thinking found
in Christianity or Islam, without a relativist perception to mitigate
their universal claims. The purpose of dialogue, for them, was that
their beliefs would prevail. According to this view, dialogue only
failed when the discussion partners missed the point of a truth
communicated to them. On the other hand, the teleological end of
modern liberal dialogue is not persuasion, but the dialogue itself. In
the realm of modern dialogue, competing religious views are guar-
anteed equal access but likewise prohibited from making claims to
being more reasonable or truthful. Thus, under the guise of being
 INTRODUCTION 3

neutral and tolerant, modern dialogue acts in a partisan and exclu-

sionary fashion. From this perspective, dialogue is a creedal faith
commitment. It functions as a therapy meant to redeem religious
groups from their commitments to objective truth and persuasion.
In other words, liberal dialogue emphasizes not the content of
what is expressed but rather the form of dialogue itself. From this
viewpoint, the action of expressing oneself is meaningful, rather
than the content of that expression.
While pre-modern and modern forms of dialogue differ in
their assumptions, there is one striking similarity between pre-
modern forms of dialogue and some critics of liberal dialogue. The
continuity lies in their mutual distrust of another institution (the
policies of the caliphate, or the state policies of secular liberalism)
serving as the sole adjudicator of dialogue based upon its notions
of tolerance and neutrality. Many Christians living under Islamic
law and Muslims living under secular liberal states have found these
forms of “neutrality” and “tolerance” to be oppressive. If these
matters are to be taken seriously, we must assess the past forms of
dialogue and how they might inform contemporary understandings
of dialogue. Dialogue that does not take seriously the truth claims
of its participants in matters of faith and reason becomes simply
another ideology (dialogue as an end in itself), rather than a means
to fulfill epistemic commitments such as that of Christians to evan-
gelization and Muslims to mission (da‘wa). Religious dialogue de-
pends upon intellectual differences, differing goals, and openness
to conversion. For these reasons, the study of the religious uses of
dialogue in the early Islamic Middle East is a worthwhile endeavor.
A second theoretical problem this book challenges is the con-
cept of an impermeable boundary between real interreligious con-
versations during the early Islamic Middle East and the actual dia-
logues that survive in texts. While it is true that discussions have a
spontaneous characteristic in contrast to the crafted literary form
of dialogue, I argue that this model creates an unnecessary bifurca-
tion of intellectual production and lived practice. These two quali-
ties informed one another in the spiritual writings of Muslim and
Christian authors who shared in the dialogical exchanges of texts
and readings through participation in the literary world of the me-
dieval Middle East. The literary dialogues were a product of those
experiences of time and place, and they merit due consideration,
within proper historical contexts, as dialogues in their own right.
4 CHRISTIAN AND MUSLIM DIALOGUES

The process of dialogue in the medieval period, and the dia-

logue texts representing this process, can be read as part of a reli-
gious polyphony that mutually shaped Christians and Muslims. The
event of dialogue itself speaks to the complementary and crosspol-
linating relationship between Christian and Muslim communities.
Dialogue texts are not only intellectual abstractions written down
on paper. They are embodied words belonging to the writer, read-
ers, listeners, and interpreters who participated in dynamic and liv-
ing exchanges from one person to another.
The concept of shared exchange contrasts with models that
argue for the dualistic “self/other” in reconstructing Christian and
Islamic identities during the early medieval period. For these au-
thors, Christians and Muslims erected theoretical and real bounda-
ries to separate and isolate each group from the other. They argue
that each group developed primarily in antithesis to the other, and
interactions were limited to polemical clashes, misunderstandings,
or cultural constructions. Claiming that there was an immediate
parting of the ways between the communities, they assert that dia-
logues are imaginary fabrications that supported the internal cohe-
sion of a single community and reflect no real engagement. Ac-
cording to this theory, historians will only find value in Christian-
Muslim encounters insofar as they signify self-definition and differ-
ence.
The arguments for self-identity and differentiation are certain-
ly valuable. However, explaining difference is not always a clear
matter, but it is dependent upon such factors as time and place.
Rather than advocating a model dependent on the language of
boundary and partition, I propose that we can narrate more fruit-
fully with models that acknowledge dialogue as an inherent part of
Christian and Muslim identity. Christian and Muslim texts, beliefs,
and practices continued to be relevant to one another from the
seventh century well into the medieval period. The relationships
between Muslims and Christians did not diverge quickly or clearly:
the confessional communities embodied real connections with one
another at the levels of written and oral communication. For in-
stance, Arab Christians had a nuanced relation with Arab Muslims
based upon their shared ethnic, social, linguistic, and cultural ideals.
Sometimes these individuals and communities identified more
closely with their Arab colleagues than their western Christian
counterparts. These realities facilitated dialogues that were multiple
 INTRODUCTION 5

and incongruous discourses that projected outward while internal-

izing the religious other. In short, the history presented here dis-
closes how Muslim and Christian communal identities were contin-
gent upon dialogue and interaction from the Qur’an to the time
leading up to the Crusades.

THE HISTORIOGRAPHICAL PROBLEM AND THE LIVED

EXPERIENCE OF DIALOGUE
Contemporary historians have become increasingly aware of the
challenges in interpreting the historical and cultural context of
formative Islam due to the many competing methods that seek to
account for its development. Scholars of Islamic origins remain at
odds over the interpretation of the earliest centuries of the Islamic
communities, largely because they cannot agree on the authority of
the sources that claim to document the rise of Islam in the seventh
century. Recently, some scholars have described the early Islamic
Believers’ movement through a process of differentiation. Instead
of using a normative model of divinely-inspired history, they em-
ploy a model where early Islamic Believers exhibited growing self-
awareness through their encounters with the ideas and practices of
other monotheistic believers.1 While some paradigms assume that
Islamic communities developed as a result of a reformulated system
in light of the pre-Islamic Arabian social milieu, or that Islam was
the product of a unique (and divinely-inspired) history, other mod-
els posit that nascent Islamic thought and practice gradually devel-
oped in response to religious conversations with Christian (Ortho-
dox Melkite, West-Syrian Jacobite, and East-Syrian Church of the
East), Jewish, and pagan communities. The study of dialogue litera-
ture in this book avoids Islamic exceptionalism, which argues that
Islam emerged as a fully-elaborated system by the death of Mu-
hammad, hermetically sealed from its historical context in the Mid-

1 On the developing historical awareness of Islamic communities, see

Fred Donner, Muhammad and the Believers: At the Origins of Islam
(Cambridge, MA: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2010);
and Fred Donner, Narratives of Islamic Origins: The Beginnings of Islamic
Historical Writing (Princeton, NJ: Darwin Press, 1998).
6 CHRISTIAN AND MUSLIM DIALOGUES

dle East.2 Recognizing the realities of historical development and

using literary dialogues as a guide, we learn that Muslims and Chris-
tians did not go through an immediate parting of ways intellectually
or socially. Instead, Muslim and Christian individuals were often
ambivalent and unsure of their relation to one another and were
willing to adopt or share in common ideas and practices of other
believers. In this context, a clear understanding of the intellectual,
social, and political history of the early Islamic Middle East is re-
quired for understanding dialogue literature. Examining how Mus-
lims and Christians employed the literary genre reveals the devel-
opment of their own doctrines in tandem – together they chal-
lenged each other’s ideas and their historical and truth claims. Dia-
logues are therefore a fruitful area for understanding the early his-
tory of Islamic communities in the religiously plural Middle East.
I also argue that Christian-Muslim dialogue was a significant
feature in the construction of early Islamic and Christian social
identities, since they shared a common worldview of divinely-
inspired Scripture (in the widest sense of the term), and they both
appropriated biblical and qur’anic models for elaborating faith and
practice.3 For instance, Middle Eastern Christians and Muslims
interacted in a contact zone through their interpretations of dia-
logue texts. As different Christian and Muslim writers shared in the
practice of constructing dialogues, their works intersected and
overlapped one another in their use of familiar sources, languages,
and theologies. Authors engaged in the complex and unregulated

2 On approaches to Islamic history, see Chase Robinson,

“Reconstructing Early Islam: Truth and Consequences,” in Method and
Theory in the Study of Islamic Origins, ed. Herbert Berg (Leiden: Brill, 2003),
101-134. On the topic of exceptionalism, see especially 128-134. For a
survey of controversial issues in the academic field, see Adam Silverstein,
Islamic History: A Very Short Introduction (Oxford: Oxford University Press,
2010), 80-107.
3 See for instance the work of Uri Rubin, Between Bible and Qur’an: The

Children of Israel and the Islamic Self-Image (Princeton: Darwin Press, 1999);
Uri Rubin, The Eye of the Beholder: The Life of Muhammad as viewed by the Early
Muslims (Princeton, NJ: Darwin Press, 1995); and Uri Rubin, “Prophets
and Caliphs: The Biblical Foundations of the Umayyad Authority,” 73-99.
 INTRODUCTION 7

process of engaging other individuals, communities, texts, con-

cepts, and practices through the literary form with shared assump-
tions about the ways in which dialogue communicated their
worldview and place in history.
The present work examines the history of encounters between
Christians and Muslims through two levels of dialogue. On a liter-
ary level, the dialogue form is dependent upon the skills of the
composer, the receptivity of its readers, and the influence of ideas
on the wider culture. We can study these texts, their readers, and
their interpretations to learn about the ways in which Christians
and Muslims constructed figures and concepts using dialogues. In
most cases, the audience belonged to the author’s community.
Some Christian authors used popular discourse to depict witty he-
roes responding to provocative questions that reflected an imag-
ined discussion partner. On a historical level, the dialogue form can
be used as a tool for comprehending the social implications of reli-
gious interaction between Muslims and Christians in the early me-
dieval Middle East. Christians and Muslims wrote dialogues be-
cause they reflected part of their personal experience. At the liter-
ary level, the dialogue form may not have demonstrated significant
or real engagement. In historical terms, the fact that Christians and
Muslims took the time and effort to recall interreligious encounters
reveals an authentic concern, even mutual dependence, on making
sense of one’s community in tandem with other communities.4
The themes outlined in this book are not meant to form a
complete or comprehensive model for the uses of dialogue. The
study of medieval Christian and Muslim dialogues reveals the polit-
ical, socio-cultural, and religious particulars that shaped encounters
between individuals of diverse social standing, communal identity,
and geographical location. Encounters through shared socio-
cultural environments indicate that there were many ambiguities
between communities. Recognizing the diversity of groups among
Christians (Melkites, Jacobites, Church of the East) and Muslims

4 See also Sidney Griffith, The Church in the Shadow of the Mosque:

Christians and Muslims in the World of Islam (Princeton: Princeton University

Press, 2008), 39, 100-103.
8 CHRISTIAN AND MUSLIM DIALOGUES

(proto-Sunni and Shi‘ite groups), this book explores a wide range

of textual encounters at various points of intersection and sites of
conversation, while analyzing the dynamism of this dialogue and
the resulting crosspollinations.5

THE LITERARY FORM

The literary form of dialogue used by Muslims and Christians in the
Islamic Middle East repeated longstanding traditions that had their
origins in the earliest periods of Christianity and Islam. In the for-
mation of communal discourse, early Christians sought to distin-
guish their faith and practices according to their belief in Jesus
Christ as the Messiah as well as to verify Christianity as the fulfill-
ment of messianic expectation. They sought to attain their goals
through discussions with rival Jewish groups and Hellenistic pagans
while seeking to supplant their ways of life.6 By the time that Islam
arose in the seventh century, Eastern Christians had developed an
established structure for religious discussions that utilized models
found in the Old Testament, New Testament, and patristic theo-
logical reflection. In the same fashion, early Muslims sought to dif-
ferentiate their submission to God and the uniqueness of their
prophet Muhammad from the beliefs and observances of the Jews
and Christians in Arabia and the Meccan polytheists by way of
apologetic and polemical discourses. These discourses acknowl-
edged and employed some of the ideas of other religious communi-
ties. Many verses of the Qur’an are products of these conversations
which acclaimed the superiority of the one God within a religious-

5 For resources on these topics, see David Thomas and Barbara

Roggema, eds., Christian-Muslim Relations: A Bibliographical History, Volume

One (600-900) (Leiden: Brill, 2009); and Georg Graf, Geschichte der
Christlichen Arabischen Literatur, 5 vols. (Vatican City: Biblioteca apostolica
vaticana, 1944-1953).
6 See Leonard Rutgers, Making Myths: Jews in Early Christian Identity

Formation (Leuven: Peeters, 2009). Rutgers argues that while Jewish

scriptural thinking was co-opted by Christian biblical interpretation in the
literary realm, Christians were also converting synagogues into churches in
the material realm.
 INTRODUCTION 9

ly-competitive context. By the beginning of the Abbasid period

(750-1258), Muslim intellectuals made use of conventional patterns
of debate established in the Qur’an and early Islamic traditions as a
source for interreligious dialogue and interpreting confessional
identities. This process of dialogue represents a crucial understand-
ing of how Christians and Muslims lived, thought, and acted. The
dialogues in Christian and Muslim scriptures were foundational
components for subsequent religious literature and for forming
identity in relationship to others.7
During the formative period of Islam, authors attempted to
construct logical and revelatory models for commending the truth
of their religion to other communities. To do this, Muslim and
Christian writers experimented with various methods of composi-
tion. Many religious intellectuals selected the literary genre of dia-
logue as a means of communicating the fundamental concepts of
their respective religions.8 They wrote dialogues that functioned on
two levels: first, as systematic, philosophical and theological discus-
sions, or second, as popular, apologetic and entertaining debates.
Some texts functioned on both levels. Muslim and Christian writers
considered the dialogue form vital for several reasons: to acclaim
the truth of their positions, reinforce orthodoxy, provide rhetorical
entertainment and instruction, protect the integrity of their scrip-
tures, beliefs, and practices, and to criticize the veracity of religious

7 See Fred Donner, “From Believers to Muslims: Confessional Self-

Identity in the Early Islamic Community,” Al-Abhath 50-51 (2002-2003):

9-53.
8 The terms “dialogue,” “literary dialogue,” and “dialogue text” are

used interchangeably throughout this text since religious authors of the

medieval period used the same form regardless of the content of their
compositions. One reason for avoiding the use of the term “disputation”
is that some texts are free of polemical rancor. More importantly, the term
moves the reader away from the Enlightenment concept that dialogue is a
modern tolerant construct while pre-modern discourse is an inherently
polemical endeavor.
10 CHRISTIAN AND MUSLIM DIALOGUES

opponents’ arguments. Through dialogue texts, they transformed

and determined the patterns of interreligious conversation.9
Many writers depicted religious conversations in an authentic
fashion to add verisimilitude to the discussion. Dialogues were lit-
erary examples of the real debates that took place between various
intellectuals on matters of interest to the communities. Historically,
these conversations are part of the well-known tradition of medie-
val Islamic culture. Muslim leaders patronized such dialogues be-
cause they added to their prestige while providing entertainment
for the court. Within this culture of dialogue, the speakers would
address one another in front of the audience. They followed a de-
tailed form of conduct for debate and for determining the victor.
One speaker would serve as the questioner while the other discus-
sion partner would serve as the respondent. Since the initiator
could ask leading questions, they were considered to have the ad-
vantage in the dialogue. The respondent would have the privilege
of more time to speak and offer evidence. Victory was dependent
upon responding to the questioner, or being reduced to silence.
The prominence of courtly debate culture in literary dialogues is
another indicator of their connection to the lived experience of the
medieval Middle East.
Christian and Muslim authors wrote within this framework
with similar intents and purposes. While the formal construction of
literary dialogues was similar, the content varied depending upon
the needs of the author. Formally, writers employed dialogues as a
means by which they could extol or criticize particular matters,
without the hazard of speaking publicly in an adversarial atmos-
phere. Dialogues also conveyed authors’ theological perspectives
and objectives to the reader. For instance, composers of debate
texts employed scriptural reasoning in order to communicate their
principles to their audience. Scriptural reasoning means three dif-
ferent methods of engagement: using the Bible or Qur’an as a

9 For a historical survey of Christian-Muslim dialogue and authors,

see Jean-Marie Gaudeul, Encounters & Clashes: Islam and Christianity in
History, 2 vols. (Rome: Pontificio istituto di studi arabi e d’islamistica,
2000).
 INTRODUCTION 11

model for argumentation, using the Bible or Qur’an as a starting

point for a dialectical argument, or using the Bible or Qur’an as
evidence to support rational claims. Dialectic, which is the use of
philosophical and logical argumentation in a conversation between
a questioner and a respondent, was another important instrument
for interreligious discussion. Dialectical reasoning complemented
the authority of Scripture and tradition in discerning the true reli-
gion and served to point out poor arguments.10 Dialogue texts
functioned simultaneously as a religious and socio-political dis-
course that focused on defeating the opponent. Through dialogue,
the authors intellectually validated and defended their positions
while critiquing their opponent’s worldview.
The literary form served as a vehicle for memory-making
among the Christian and Islamic communities of the medieval
Middle East. The reminiscence of an intellectual conquest was a
testimony and means of empowerment for the community. Chris-
tian encounters with Muslims prompted a new form of minority
historiography: literary debates produced narratives of hagiograph-
ical heroes who bore witness to future hope.11 Depictions of histor-
ical figures offered examples of power in contrast to the communi-

10 Dialectic signifies the art of philosophical and logical conversation

while debating an issue. Christian-Muslim literary dialogues utilized
dialectic as a method of scrutinizing broad abstract ideas derived from the
analysis of particulars. Not all Christian-Muslim literary dialogues used
dialectic. Some authors exploited the methods of sophistical logic or
inductive reasoning to achieve their ends. For a broader description of
this method, see Jan Beckmann, “Dialektik,” in Lexicon für Theologie und
Kirche, ed. Michael Buchberger and Walter Kasper (Breisgau: Herder,
1995), 3:188-189.
11 Georg Graf made this point in his article on early Christian Arabic

works. See Georg Graf, “Christliche Polemik gegen den Islam,” Gelbe
Heft: Historisch und Politische Blätter für das Katholische Deutschland 2 (1926):
825-842. More recent work has called attention to the language of
memory as a sociological device for culture making, such as in the work of
Elizabeth Castelli, Martyrdom and Memory: Early Christian Culture Making
(New York: Columbia University Press, 2004).
12 CHRISTIAN AND MUSLIM DIALOGUES

ty’s perceived impotence. The texts sought to develop a relation-

ship between the victorious debater and the sympathetic reader.
Contemporary interpretive models of dialogue emphasize how
such literature might be understood meaningfully in terms of
Christian-Muslim relations. Christian and Muslim authors com-
mended their theological positions through dialogic techniques that
provided their own worldview within the context of their religious
interlocutors’ language. For instance, Christian authors utilized dia-
logues to define themselves and their communities within the Is-
lamic cultural environment and within the context of the Arabic
Qur’an. They shared literary forms as well as scriptural and philo-
sophical presuppositions with their Muslim conversation partners.12
Thus, identity was not only tied up in confessional circles so much
as in the dynamic discourse itself, the back-and-forth that occurred
between individuals and communities in this process of crosspolli-
nation and mutual discovery.13

BOOK STRUCTURE
There are a number of dialogues commemorating early medieval
encounters between Christian and Muslim groups. More than
twenty texts written in Arabic and Syriac (Christian Aramaic) from
the seventh century to the eleventh century have been preserved,
with the likely possibility that more are yet to be discovered.14 This

12 For an introduction this context, see Sidney Griffith, The Church in

the Shadow of the Mosque, 129-155.
13 For more on the concept of relational crosspollination between

Islam and Christianity from a historiographical and theoretical viewpoint,

see the article by James M. Montgomery, “Islamic Crosspollinations,” in
Islamic Crosspollinations: Interactions in the Medieval Middle East, ed. Anna
Akasoy, James E. Montgomery, and Peter Pormann (Exeter: Gibb
Memorial Trust, 2007), 148-193.
14 For a complete list of Christian-Muslim dialogues see David

Thomas and Barbara Roggema, eds., Christian-Muslim Relations. See also

Robert Caspar, et al, “Bibliographie du dialogue islamo-chrétien,”
Islamochristiana 1 (1975): 125-181; 2 (1976): 187-249; 3 (1977): 255-286; 4
(1978): 247-267; 5 (1979): 299-317; 6 (1980): 259-299; 7 (1981): 299-307.
 INTRODUCTION 13

book provides a survey of this material and analyzes the religious

uses of the literary form. Each chapter focuses on a particular pur-
pose for which writers composed dialogue texts.
The first chapter, “Dialogue as Christological Debate,” exam-
ines the various literary forms employed for dialogues. This classi-
fication of form and content reveals how authors communicated
their ideas using dialogue. In terms of purpose, why write dia-
logues? In terms of agency, who wrote dialogues? In terms of utili-
ty, what was the value of the literary form for its author and read-
ers? In terms of form and content, how did dialogues change over
time? Then the chapter offers a brief overview of the literary genre
and its features, moving from biblical uses of dialogue to its use for
Christological debates until the seventh century. These develop-
ments offer several conclusions about pre-Islamic Christian ap-
proaches to other religions using the literary form.
The second chapter, “Dialogue as Divine Exegesis,” traces the
history and significance of dialogues in the Qur’an in the early sev-
enth century. For the Qur’an, dialogue functioned as a divine exe-
gesis of biblical and theological topics, working on multiple levels
between divine authority, prophet, righteous believers, and skepti-
cal questioners. The chapter highlights the significance of the
Qur’an’s relationship to the Jews and Christians in the context of
these exchanges. Finally, the chapter considers the relationship be-
tween qur’anic dialogues and Christian Christological argumenta-
tion and the way the Qur’an internalizes Christian thought and
practice in its own image to establish conventional forms of dis-
course with religious others.
The third chapter, “Dialogue as Conquest and Conversion,”
examines the literary form as a response to the Islamic conquest
and an explanation of Christian conversion to Islam. The chapter
provides an analysis of the religious challenges of the Islamic con-
quest to the end of the Umayyad period (634-750). The section
examines the conditions for Christian discussion with nascent Is-
lamic communities and the situations available for early Muslim

Islamochristiana notes new editions and manuscripts of texts as they are

published.
14 CHRISTIAN AND MUSLIM DIALOGUES

conversation with Christians. These historical developments offer

several conclusions about Christian and Muslim approaches to oth-
er religions and how to interpret dialogue as a historical phenome-
non. The following section analyzes a dialogue that commemorates
a meeting between the Christian Patriarch John and a Muslim emir
soon after the Islamic conquest.15 Then the chapter examines three
Shi‘ite dialogues which commemorate early conversations between
‘Ali and Christian leaders in the context of conversion to Islam.16
The fourth chapter, “Dialogue as Competing Histori-
ographies,” examines how Muslims and Christians used the literary
form of dialogue to reconstruct images of the Prophet and his rela-
tionship to Christians and their doctrines. After the Qur’an, the
oldest Islamic dialogues between Muslim characters and Christians
belong to the eighth-century biographical accounts of the life of
Muhammad. Composed by Muhammad Ibn Ishaq (d. ca. 767) and
transmitted via Ibn Hisham (d. ca. 833), one story depicts Christian
Arab leaders from Najran in conversation with Muhammad.17 The

15 The latest edition is in Michael Penn, “John and the Emir: A New
Introduction, Edition and Translation,” Le Muséon 121 (2008): 65-91. See
also an edition and English translation by Abdul-Massih Saadi, “The
Letter of John of Sedreh: A New Perspective on Nascent Islam,” Karmo
1/1 (1998): 18-31 (Arabic and Syriac); and 1/2 (1999): 46-64 (English). An
earlier study and text was produced by François Nau, “Un colloque du
patriarche Jean avec l’émir des Agaréens et faits divers des années 712 à
716 d’après le ms. du British Museum Add. 17193,” Journal Asiatique 11/5
(1915): 225-279. For an English translation of Nau’s text, see N. A.
Newman, ed., The Early Christian-Muslim Dialogue: A Collection of Documents
from the First Three Islamic Centuries, 632-900 A.D.; Translations with
Commentary (Hatfield, PA: Interdisciplinary Biblical Research Institute,
1993), 7-46.
16 See the chapter on ‘Ali’s discussions with Christians in Muhammad

Baqir ibn Muhammad Taqi al-Majlisi, Bihar al-Anwar al-Jami‘a li-Durar

Akhbar al-A’imma al-athar, 4 vols. (Beirut: Dar al-Fiqh lil-Tiba’ah wa-al-
Nashr, 1421/2001), 4:247-258.
17 See the English translation in Alfred Guillaume, The Life of

Muhammad: A Translation of Ishaq’s Sirat Rasul Allah (London: Oxford

University Press, 1955, reprint 2006), 270-272. For the Arabic text, see
 INTRODUCTION 15

chapter also examines a popular story found in both Christian and

Muslim narratives, which imagines an encounter between Muham-
mad and a Christian monk named Sergius-Bahira.18
The fifth chapter, “Dialogue as Theological Education and
Dialectic,” reveals how Christians and Muslims used the literary
form as part of their education systems. Dialogues helped to ex-
plain doctrine, provide answers to critics’ questions, and employ
philosophical dialectic. The chapter begins with an analysis of the
early eighth-century Syriac dialogue between the Monk of Bet Hale
and an Arab notable.19 Then the work examines the use of rational
argumentation in the discussion between Patriarch Timothy of the
Church of the East and the caliph al-Mahdi in 781.20 Some dia-

Ibn Hisham, Al-Sirat al-Nabawiyya, ed. Mustafa al-Saqqa et al., 4 vols.

(Beirut: al-Maktabat al-‘Ilmiya, 1990), 2:162-163.
18 There are several versions of the story in Syriac and Arabic, among

other languages. For the latest editions and English translations, see
Barbara Roggema, The Legend of Sergius Bahira: Eastern Christian Apologetics
and Apocalyptic in Response to Islam (Leiden: Brill, 2009). Roggema
completed a meticulous study of four different recensions of the Sergius-
Bahira material.
19 There is no complete edition and translation available of this text,

although there are several studies. See Gerrit Reinink, “Bible and Qur’an
in early Syriac Christian-Islamic Disputation,” in Christians and Muslims in
Dialogue in the Islamic Orient of the Middle Ages, ed. Martin Tamcke (Beirut:
Ergon Verlag, 2007), 57-72; Gerrit Reinink, “Political Power and Right
Religion in the East Syrian Disputation between a Monk of Bet Hale and
an Arab Notable,” in The Encounter of Eastern Christianity with Early Islam,
eds. Emmanouela Grypeou, Mark Swanson and David Thomas (Leiden:
Brill, 2006), 153-169; Sidney Griffith, “Disputing with Islam in Syriac: The
Case of the Monk of Bet Hale and a Muslim Emir,” Hugoye: Journal of
Syriac Studies 3/1 (2000): 1-19. It is also available online at the website:
http://syrcom.cua.edu/Hugoye/Vol3No1/HV3N1Griffith.html.
20 A Syriac manuscript and English translation were published by

Alphonse Mingana, ed., “The Apology of Timothy the Patriarch before

the Caliph Mahdi,” Bulletin of the John Rylands Library 12/1 (1928): 137-298.
Arabic versions of the encounter, which were likely translated from the
Syriac, have also been published by Louis Cheikho, “Al-Muhawara al-
diniya allati jarat bayna al-khalifa al-Mahdi wa Timotheus al-jathaliq,” al-
Machriq 19 (1921): 359-374, 408-418; Hans Putman, L’église et l’islam sous
16 CHRISTIAN AND MUSLIM DIALOGUES

logues between the eighth Imam ‘Ali ibn Musa al-Rida (d. 818) and
Arab Christians reveal Islamic interest in dialectic.21
The sixth chapter, “Dialogue as Hagiography,” looks at the
literary genre as a form of rhetorical enjoyment and memory mak-
ing for the heroes of Muslim and Christian communities. One ac-
count magnifies Wasil of Damascus in a discussion with Byzantine
leaders.22 The Shi‘ite tradition also includes some Muslim-Christian
dialogues acclaiming Hisham ibn al-Hakam and a Christian patri-
arch named Bariha who converts to Islam.23 The Imam Musa al-
Kazim was commemorated in his wise responses to a monk and a
nun from Najran. Finally, several short Arabic dialogues belonging
to Theodore Abu Qurra recognize his charismatic personality while
engaging in debate at the court of Caliph al-Ma’mun.24
The seventh chapter, “Dialogue as Scriptural Reinterpreta-
tion,” examines the new and creative ways Muslims and Christians
placed their communities within another scriptural worldview. The
ninth-century imam al-Rida presented some innovative biblical crit-
icism to his Christian discussion partner in one dialogue. Abraham
of Tiberias reinterpreted the Qur’an in light of Christian theology

Timothée I (780-823): étude sur l’église nestorienne au temps des premiers ‘Abbasides;
avec nouvelle édition et traduction du Dialogue entre Timothée et al-Mahdi (Beirut:
Dar el-Machreq [distribution, Librairie orientale], 1975).
21 These dialogues are in Muhammad Baqir al-Majlisi, Bihar al-Anwar,

4:404-434. An English translation for one of them is available in David

Thomas, “Two Muslim-Christian Debates from the Early Shi‘ite
Tradition,” Journal of Semitic Studies 33 (1988): 53-80.
22 Sidney Griffith, “Bashir/Beser: Boon Companion of the Byzantine

Emperor Leo III; the Islamic Recension of His Story in Leiden Oriental
Ms 951 (2),” Le Muséon, 103 (1990): 293-327. Griffith’s study, edition and
translation were reprinted as the eleventh chapter in Sidney Griffith, The
Beginnings of Christian Theology in Arabic: Muslim-Christian Encounters in the
Early Islamic Period (Aldershot: Variorum, 2002).
23 This article includes a translation as well as the dialogue mentioned

above from al-Rida. See David Thomas, “Two Muslim-Christian Debates

from the Early Shi‘ite Tradition,” 53-80.
24 John Lamoreaux is presently working on a study, edition and

translation of this ninth-century work entitled Against the Outsiders.

 INTRODUCTION 17

during a dialogue in Jerusalem around 820.25 Finally, the debate of

Theodore Abu Qurra with Muslim dialectical theologians at the
court of caliph al-Ma’mun, held in the year 829, is a prominent ex-
ample of how Christians had come to use qur’anic sources to
commend their particular religious worldview.26 The interpretive
framework illustrates how dialogues redefined the community’s
orthodoxy and promoted the reinterpretation of qur’anic and bibli-
cal material in order to praise religious truth. These features high-
light the ways in which religious encounters shaped social identity
through the dynamism of dialogue.
The conclusion, “The End of Dialogue,” examines the texts
of the eleventh to thirteenth centuries leading up to the Crusades,
when the use of the dialogue form began to decrease. Elias of Nis-
ibis (d. 1046), a Metropolitan for the Church of the East, wrote
down seven discussions between himself and the Muslim vizier
Abu al-Qasim al-Husayn ibn ‘Ali al-Maghribi (d. 1027).27 During

25 The critical edition and French translation are available in Giacinto

Bulus Marcuzzo, Le Dialogue d’Abraham de Tibériade avec ‘Abd al-Rahman al-

Hashimi à Jérusalem vers 820 (Rome: Pontificia Universitas Lateranensis,
1986). An English translation, made from a German translation prior to
the critical edition, was published by N. A. Newman, ed., The Early
Christian-Muslim Dialogue, 269-353. The German edition was made by Kurt
Vollers, “Das Religionsgespräch von Jerusalem (Um 800 D) aus dem
Arabischen Übersetzt,” Zeitschrift für Kirchengeschichte 29 (1908): 29-71, 197-
221.
26 An English translation of the critical edition is available in Wafik

Nasry, The Caliph and the Bishop: A 9th Century Muslim-Christian Debate: Al-
Ma’mun and Abu Qurrah (Beirut: CEDRAC, 2008).
27 New critical editions of most of the dialogues have been published

by Samir Khalil Samir, “Deux cultures qui s’affrontent: une controverse

sur l’i’rab au XI. siècle entre Elie de Nisibe et le vizir Abu l-Qasim,”
Mélanges de l’Université Saint-Joseph 49 (1975/1976): 619-649; Samir Khalil
Samir, “La réfutation de l’astrologie par Élie de Nisibe,” Orientalia
Christiana Periodica 43 (1977): 408-440; Samir Khalil Samir, “Le Premier
Entretien d’Élie de Nisibe avec le vizir al-Maġribi sur l’Unité et la Trinité,”
Islamochristiana 5 (1979): 31-117; Samir Khalil Samir, “Langue arabe,
logique et théologie chez Élie de Nisibe,” Mélanges de l’Université Saint-Joseph
52 (1991/1992): 229-367; Samir Khalil Samir, Foi et Culture en Irak au XIe
18 CHRISTIAN AND MUSLIM DIALOGUES

the Crusader period, George the monk entered a dialogue with

Muslim scholars in Aleppo, Syria. The chapter highlights some of
the most significant themes in the literary form. Dialogues were
accounts of hope for future generations, teaching tools for their
audience, apologetics for students, vehicles of empowerment for
minority historiographies, entertaining stories that inculcated socio-
cultural values, and stories that prevented or encouraged conver-
sion to other religious communities. The literary form sheds con-
siderable light on the history of Christian-Muslim encounters, par-
ticularly in illustrating the relationship between the communities
and identity formation in the early medieval Middle East. On close
inspection, Christian and Muslim dialogues from the early Islamic
Middle East can serve as both a guide and a warning about the reli-
gious uses of dialogue.

siècle: Elie de Nisibe et l’Islam (Aldershot, England: Variorum, 1996); Samir

Khalil Samir, “Iliyya al-Nasibini (975-1046 A.D.) wa-l-wazir Abu-l-Qasim
al-Maghribi (981-1027 A.D.),” al-Machriq 77 (2003): 83-105, 297. The first
Arabic edition is in Louis Cheikho, “Majalis Iliya mutran Nisibin,” al-
Machriq 20 (1922): 33-44, 112-122, 267-272, 366-377, 425-434.
1 DIALOGUE AS CHRISTOLOGICAL
DEBATE

ORIGINS
The dialogue form made its first appearance in the earliest stages of
written literature.28 By the beginning of the second millennium BC,
authors were already composing dialogues in cuneiform Sumerian.
Examples of dialogue literature appeared later in Akkadian, Egyp-
tian, Greek, Persian (Pahlavi), Hebrew, Aramaic, Syriac, and even-
tually in Arabic. Dialogues were already part of the curriculum at
academies and schools in the Ancient Middle East.29 The earliest
examples of this style of writing in the Mediterranean are found in

28 Dialogue can be analyzed through form and/or content. Analyzing

the form of a dialogue answers the questions: Why was the dialogue
composed? In what style of writing was the text composed? For whom
was the text written? How was the dialogue to be presented? Examples of
literature in which dialogues are used include hymnography, poetry,
dramatic and homiletic literature, and prose literature, which encompasses
historical writing, chronicles, apocalypses, biographies, hagiographies,
dogmatic theology, and texts made up exclusively of dialogue between
characters. The final literary form is the focus of this study.
Classifying dialogues according to content involves an assessment of
the characters and the setting within the narrative. The content may
include colloquial dialogues, legal and judicial dialogues, wisdom and
precedence disputations, theodicy and lebensmüde, philosophical and
speculative dialogues, and apologetic and polemical dialogues. The last
category of dialogue is the focus of this study.
29 See Karel van der Toorn, “The Ancient Near Eastern Literary

Dialogue as a Vehicle of Critical Reflection,” in Dispute Poems and Dialogues

in the Ancient and Mediaeval Near East, 59-75, especially 64.

19
20 CHRISTIAN AND MUSLIM DIALOGUES

Greek philosophical dialogues. In contrast to the use of dialogues

to advance a story plot, literary dialogues presented the plot as a
way to advance characters’ ideas. For Greek writers such as Plato,
the form was an intellectual display of rational argumentation be-
tween the questioner and respondent. Based on the assumptions of
objectivity, rationality, and teaching authority, the dialogue form
was meant to persuade and convince others of specific truths, offer
apologetics, and present intelligible accounts of their worldview.
Using dialectic and rhetoric, dialogues were meant to mimic human
conversation while leading their audience toward a specific intellec-
tual goal.30
Ancient authors adopted the dialogue genre because of the
beneficial characteristics of its form. Dialogues solve a problem
through the process of questions and answers in a discussion. The
dialogue form created a relationship between characters, such as a
master and disciple link. Ancient dialogue literature portrayed real-
istic participants, as conversation partners needed identities. Only
then could the author negotiate the path of his own identity with
that of the discussants. In many dialogues, a contest would ensue
between the characters. They engaged in debate using polite or ad-
versarial rhetoric to argue against one another or to consider inno-
vative answers to a problem.31 As the champion of the author’s
dialogue, the master was in control of the discussion with the disci-
ple. At the end of the dialogue, the merits of the competing claims
were weighed against one another, and the dialogue came to a con-
clusion. Many texts used a political leader or impartial observer as
the judge between the speakers.
Different types of dialogue texts proliferated in the Ancient
Middle East and Mediterranean. Colloquial dialogues were popular

30 For more on the early Greek use of Socratic dialogues, see Charles

Kahn, Plato and the Socratic Dialogue: The Philosophical Use of a Literary Form
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996), 1-35.
31 See the introduction in G. J. Reinink and H. L. J. Vanstiphout, eds.,

Dispute Poems and Dialogues in the Ancient and Mediaeval Near East: Forms and
Types of Literary Debates in Semitic and Related Literatures (Louvain:
Department Oriëntalistiek, 1991), 1-6.
 CHRISTOLOGICAL DEBATE 21

texts that recorded as brief exchanges between characters. Some

colloquial dialogues were set in the workplace and they sometimes
they had a humorous intent. Legal and judicial dialogues were set in
a court where the characters were typically the prosecutor and the
defendant. The stories were concerned with issues of law, morals,
and the final judgment. Wisdom and precedence dialogues were
between inanimate objects, such as flowers or the months of the
year. The two types differed because debates about wisdom dis-
cussed the values of a particular merit, while precedence dialogues
argued for the superiority of one object over another. Theodicy
dialogues involved a human or the human soul speaking with a
divine power. They concentrated on the relationship between hu-
manity and difficulties that are beyond their power. The genre in-
cludes discussions about why bad things happen to good people –
the most prominent of these dialogues being the biblical Book of
Job. Philosophical and speculative dialogues focused on two hu-
man characters in discussion about a particular matter in the search
for specific knowledge concerning the subject. The Socratic dia-
logues, among other Greek works, belong to this subtype of the
genre. The goal of these dialogues was not for precedence or tri-
umph, but rather for a colloquy that would result in new insights or
truths.
Originally these dialogues were used exclusively by the edu-
cated elite such as philosophers, poets, playwrights, and political
leaders. But the dialogue form proliferated among the common
class because of its accessibility, its use of everyday language, and
its adaptability to many different contexts. The genre underwent
numerous developments, adaptations, and reinterpretations de-
pendent upon its literary environment. Scholars have noted that the
dialogue structure in the Ancient Middle East remained relatively
stable in form, yet adaptable to the ethnic, political, and religious
concerns of the authors who employed the genre for various pur-
poses. The history of the dialogue structure is traceable from An-
cient Middle Eastern literature down to the early Islamic period;
however the differing features of the literary content within the
22 CHRISTIAN AND MUSLIM DIALOGUES

genre are dependent upon the author’s environment in relation to

time and geography.32 In this way the earlier dialogues were the
geographical and spiritual antecedents to Christian and Muslim
dialogues. They followed a formal link with earlier compositions on
the basis of the genre’s structure, although the authors modified
the particular content of the dialogue according to their own theo-
logical concerns.
The widespread evidence of dialogues within Mediterranean
and Middle Eastern cultures suggests that Muslim and Christian
authors consciously embraced existing forms of the genre. Their
dialogues were not a unique development in literary history but
they were a part of the cultures of the region. Several scholars have
shown that dialogue genre was prevalent prior to the Islamic period
because it was accessible to the common and literate classes
through its style of depicting real conversations.33 Dialogue litera-

32 See the introduction in Reinink and Vanstiphout, eds., Dispute Poems

and Dialogues in the Ancient and Mediaeval Near East, 1-3.

33 See Reinink and Vanstiphout, eds., Dispute Poems and Dialogues in the

Ancient and Mediaeval Near East, 5. They state:

Very often the genre, which was apparently used by a literate class, seems
to be addressed to the common people, or to the market place and street;
and in some instances it seems even to be felt to “belong” there. An at-
tractive line of evolution, presented here with much caution and only as a
line for further research, might consist of pointing out that the tradition in
Mesopotamia was strong enough to carry the form from the second mil-
lennium down to the first, and even beyond the demise of cuneiform cul-
ture as such, and thus well down into the Common Era. The line of
transmission, by the way, was a double one: the Aramaic as well as the
Persian linguistic area show the enduring popularity of much Mesopota-
mian material till a very late date. On the other hand, as a popular genre
the structure underwent new thematic developments, and might then re-
ascend into higher, e.g. liturgical, spheres (see the Syriac examples), ac-
companied sometimes by an evolution from “quodlibetal” or value-free
opposition to well-defined and prejudged oppositions. Such a view of the
evolution would account for the adaptations the structure has undergone
in different times, places and cultures. It does not greatly affect the linear
descent of the genre in the formal sense, albeit that some formal features
may also be adapted to new functions and contexts. This approach seems
 CHRISTOLOGICAL DEBATE 23

ture was not a unique creation of each society or a direct descend-

ent of earlier cultures, but rather an adaptable genre that spoke to
the needs and contexts of peoples from different periods and loca-
tions. Dialogue was a successful literary form because of its cross-
pollination at the religious, social, and economic levels.

DIALOGUE AND CHRISTOLOGY IN THE BIBLE

Historically speaking, Christians and Muslims have exhibited great
interest in religious conversation. They integrated religious others
into their writings about culture, history, and practical concerns.
Religious identities were fundamentally bound to the types of con-
versations they had with those who espoused a different
worldview. For instance, Syriac and Arabic-speaking Christians
were among the first writers to describe and analyze the emerging
Islamic religion and its rulers. During subsequent centuries, Mus-
lims adopted existing literary structures and fashioned new literary
styles, such as oral traditions, in order to describe the rise of Arab
tribes into a vast Islamic empire. The ongoing dialogue was an in-
herent part of the process of developing an identity, and the dia-
logue text represented one manifestation of this. Nowhere was this
development of dialogue via identity more profound for Christians
than in the Bible.
For early Christian believers, there were two important levels
of dialogue. First there were the written narratives of the Bible that
included dialogues between biblical figures. The Book of Job is the
only biblical text to use the dialogue form exclusively. The Book of
Job was a dialogue on theodicy (the problem of evil in a world with
a just God).34 The story introduces Job as a blameless and right-
eous man who feared God. When the Lord commends Job because
of his faith, Satan replies that it is only because of God’s blessings.
Satan is then permitted to take these things away from Job, in order

certainly more satisfactory than the polygenesis theory by which the genre
would have sprung up at different places and at different times and in dif-
ferent cultures – more or less as a literary universal.”
34 The structure of Job shows that literary dialogues already had

established thematic and structural prototypes in the Ancient Middle East.

24 CHRISTIAN AND MUSLIM DIALOGUES

to test his reaction. The rest of the story is a dialogue between Job
and others regarding his situation. When the first calamities befall
Job, he tears his clothing, shaves his beard, and prays: “Naked I
came from my mother’s womb, and naked shall I return; the Lord
gave, and the Lord has taken away; blessed be the name of the
Lord.”35 But in the following sections, Job converses with his wife
and three friends on the subject of theodicy – how can a just God
permit such actions to befall his servant? Each section is a lengthy
dialogue between Job and his friends, who offer consolation in the
form of wisdom about what has happened to him. Job responds
that they would not think philosophically if they were in his place.
When the three men end their conversation with Job, he feels he is
justified, but does not acquiesce to their counsel. Another speaker,
Elihu, comes forward to dialogue with Job, reminding him of
God’s greatness and that Job is wrong to question the justice of the
Lord. Finally, the Lord enters into dialogue, asking Job: “Where
were you when I laid the foundation of the earth? Tell me, if you
have understanding.”36 In response, Job acknowledges that the
Lord is omnipotent and omniscient. He acknowledges that humans
cannot understand the ways of the Lord and he chooses to repent.
The dialogue closes with the Lord judging in favor of Job and re-
storing his blessings twice over.
In Job’s dialogue with others, we learn how the literary form
was used to introduce multiple perspectives as a series of free and
unmerged voices.37 The conversations depict the protagonist as a
hero who answers the questions of his conversation partners. Each
speaker critiques Job’s response to his predicament, while the Lord
offers a closing word on the situation. From a structural perspec-
tive, the Lord is the impartial moderator and judge of the discus-
sion. In this case, the Lord does not regulate the discussion but
presents a conclusion, allowing Job to be the victor after his re-

35 Job 1:21
36 Ibid., 38:4
37 For more on Job and the use of dialogue, see Carol Newsom, “The

Book of Job as a Polyphonic Text,” Journal for the Study of the Old Testament
97 (2002): 87-108.
 CHRISTOLOGICAL DEBATE 25

pentance. These archetypal structures in Scripture would justify

their use in later religious literature.
The second level of dialogue engaged in by early Christians
was the dialogue between the text, its readers, and the ways of in-
terpreting them in time. For instance, the very act of canonizing the
Christian Bible as a set of books inspired by God was an act of
dialogue; it proclaimed that the Holy Spirit had spoken with created
beings relationally through these specific texts (and not through
others).38 By way of those books, a dialogue between humanity and
divinity occurred on a new level between the texts and their read-
ers. For example, early Christians read the conversations between
God and creation, particularly in Genesis, as dialogical exchanges
that were perpetually relevant for the Church and its sacramental
relationship to God.39 These books were to be read dialogically
with each other – that is, Paul’s letter’s had entered into dialogue
with Genesis, or John Chrysostom’s homilies had entered into dia-
logue with the Gospel according to Matthew. Early Christian inter-
pretations of how these scriptures fit together theologically were
part of the Christian attempt to understand Jesus Christ and elabo-
rate on his identity.
Returning to the first level of dialogue, there is no complete
literary dialogue in the New Testament. However, the Gospel writ-
ers recorded several dialogues between Jesus and his adversaries.
These exchanges highlight three important qualities in dialogues
that became more important in subsequent centuries: they estab-

38 In terms of dialogic theology, the Hebrew Bible is a continuous

dialogue between God and his chosen people. Many of God’s
conversations with Adam, Noah, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and others
follow a literary pattern for human participation in a dialogue with the
divine. Dialogue is therefore seen as sharing in the truth of God,
especially when God shares the truth with his chosen people. See Walter
L. Reed, Dialogues of the Word: The Bible as Literature According to Bakhtin
(New York: Oxford University Press, 1993).
39 For a summary of the dialogical aspect of biblical texts, see

Gerhard Sauter, “Dialogik II,” in Theologische Realenzyklopädie, ed. Gerhard

Krause and Gerhard Müller (New York: Walter de Gruyter, 1981), 8:703-
709.
26 CHRISTIAN AND MUSLIM DIALOGUES

lished patterns of Christian response to criticism; they crafted a

theological vocabulary for early Christological language about Jesus
Christ; and they expressed Christian identity through dialogue that
interiorized Jewish and Hellenistic worldviews as inseparable com-
ponents of Christian discourse.
Many of Jesus’ dialogues recorded in the Gospels were based
on a brief question to which he responded with an extended para-
ble or wisdom saying. For instance, the synoptic Gospels of Mat-
thew, Mark, and Luke recorded several encounters between the
Pharisees, the scribes, and Jesus.40 But very few examples included
a discussion partner who spoke more than once. One exception
was Jesus’ encounter with Satan in the synoptic parallels Luke 4:1-
13 and Matt. 4:1-11. While wandering in the desert prior to his
public ministry, the devil tries to tempt Jesus. The devil attempts to
coax Jesus to produce bread, worship him, and prove he was the
Son of God. Jesus responds to the temptations with wisdom say-
ings in the form of a religious disputation. When the devil asks him
to turn a stone into bread, Jesus responds with a biblical verse: “It
is written, ‘Man shall not live by bread alone.’” The passage sug-
gests that Jesus found recourse to his message and identity in the
words of Scripture. This biblical approach to dialogue would be-
come an essential aspect of interreligious dialogue in later periods.41

40 In the synoptic parallels Matt. 9:1-8/Mark 2:1-12/Luke 5:17-26,

Jesus argues with scribes about forgiving the sins of a paralytic man. Jesus
responds that the Son of Man has power to do such things on earth. This
brief exchange is a question and response which typify Gospel
argumentation. Another example of a disputation occurs in the parallels
Matt. 12:1-8/Mark 2:23-28/Luke 6:1-5, where Jesus’ disciples are accused
of violating the Sabbath by plucking heads of grain. Jesus responds with a
scriptural analogy from 1 Sam. 21:3-6, in which David is given holy bread
to eat despite the fact that the bread was reserved for the priests alone.
41 Prophetic prediction, in which one verse was interpreted in light of

another verse, was another common method of scriptural argumentation

found in early Christian writings. Early Christian authors amassed Old
Testament biblical verses and used them for distinctive Christian
doctrines, such as the divinity of Jesus. This style of interpretation via
proof text developed into an entire genre, known as testimony collections.
 CHRISTOLOGICAL DEBATE 27

Authors also used analogies in their dialogues as a way of

pointing to a particular truth. In the synoptic parallel Matt. 15:21-
28/Mark 7:24-30, Jesus encounters a Syro-Phoenician Canaanite
woman who implores him to help her possessed daughter, to
which he responds, “It is not fair to take the children’s bread and
throw it to the dogs.” Jesus’ mission was for the chosen people of
Israel. Undeterred, however, she points out: “Yes, Lord, yet even
the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their master’s table.” Pleased
with the woman’s apt analogy and determination, Jesus heals her
daughter on account of her faith (and her sound analogical reason-
ing).
In Luke 10:25-37, Jesus converses with a lawyer. The lawyer’s
first question concerns the criteria for inheriting eternal life. Jesus
reminds him of the law in Deut. 6:5 and Lev. 19:18 about human
conduct in the world (“You shall love the Lord your God with all
your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your might” and
“You shall love your neighbor as yourself”). But the lawyer asks
him for the definition of one’s neighbor. Jesus offers the parable of
the Good Samaritan as a response to the question about who is
one’s neighbor – whoever is within reach and shows mercy.
Christological debate was a significant theme included in
many Gospel dialogues. For example, the chief priests and the el-
ders are part of a dispute with Jesus concerning his authority in the
synoptic parallels Matt. 21:23-27/Mark 11:27-33/Luke 20:1-8. In
another dialogue from Matt. 22:15-22/Mark 12:13-17/Luke 20:20-
26, Jesus is challenged to answer a question concerning tribute to
Caesar as a test of his authority. In Matt. 26:59-68/Mark 14:55-

See Mark Swanson, “Apologetics, Catechesis, and the Question of

Audience in ‘On the Triune Nature of God’ (Sinai Arabic 154) and three
Treatises of Theodore Abu Qurrah,” 113-134; David Bertaina, “The
Development of Testimony Collections in Early Christian Apologetics
with Islam,” in The Bible in Arab Christianity, ed. David Thomas (Leiden:
Brill, 2007), 151-173; Mark Swanson, “Beyond Prooftexting: Approaches
to the Qur’an in Some Early Arabic Christian Apologies,” Muslim World
86 (1998): 297-319. For the patristic period, see Martin C. Albl, ‘And
Scripture Cannot Be Broken’: The Form and Function of the Early Christian
Testimonia Collections (Leiden: Brill, 1999).
28 CHRISTIAN AND MUSLIM DIALOGUES

65/Luke 22:66-71, the Sanhedrin council debates with Jesus about

whether he is the Messiah. In each case, the Gospel author uses the
dialogue form to disclose Christian Christology within the Jewish
context. The evidence suggests that the synoptic Gospel authors
recognized the reality of a polemical milieu in which Jesus and the
community sought to commend their faith. Thus, the Gospel writ-
ers used the dialogue form as one way of establishing apologetic
and polemical responses to religious others and in support of the
Christological claims made by the early Christian community.42
The Gospel according to John was unique in its presentation
of Jesus. In the opening chapters, Jesus has discussions with Nico-
demus (John 3:1-15) and with a Samaritan woman at Jacob’s well
(John 4:5-29). Both dialogues reveal the Christological status of
Jesus to religious others, a Pharisee and a Samaritan, as the Living
Water and the Source of Life.
In subsequent chapters, Jesus debates with Jews concerning
his identity and mission. In John 6:41-59, Jesus calls himself the
Bread of Life and alludes to the Eucharist as a way to explain his
flesh and blood. His audience murmurs, grumbles, and complains
about his witness. Unlike the manna, which the chosen people ate
in the wilderness, and yet later died a human death, Jesus proclaims
that one who would eat his bread would never die.
The longest dialogue in the Gospel involves Jesus and Pontius
Pilate discussing Jesus’ kingship (John 18:33-38). In comparison
with Roman and Jewish rule, Jesus emphasizes the truth of his
message is not a worldly political system:
Pilate entered the praetorium again and called Jesus, and said
to him, “Are you the King of the Jews?” Jesus answered, “Do
you say this of your own accord, or did others say it to you
about me?” Pilate answered, “Am I a Jew? Your own nation

42 For a study of the Jewish-Christian encounter in the earliest

periods, see Claudia Setzer, Jewish Responses to Early Christians: History and
Polemics, 30-150 C.E (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1994). See also the
chapters in M. J. Edwards, Martin Goodman, and S. R. F. Rowland
Christopher Price, eds., Apologetics in the Roman Empire: Pagans, Jews, and
Christians (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999).
 CHRISTOLOGICAL DEBATE 29

and the chief priests have handed you over to me; what have
you done?” Jesus answered, “My kingship is not of this world;
if my kingship were of this world, my servants would fight,
that I might not be handed over to the Jews; but my kingship
is not from the world.” Pilate said to him, “So you are a king?”
Jesus answered, “You say that I am a king. For this I was born,
and for this I have come into the world, to bear witness to the
truth. Every one who is of the truth hears my voice.” Pilate
said to him, “What is truth?”
The Book of Acts contains some religious dialogues as well.
The deacon Stephen disputes with the Freedmen synagogue mem-
bers in Acts 6:8-9 concerning the Christological status of Jesus,
which culminates in his death by stoning. In Thessalonica, Paul
debates with members of the Jewish community concerning the
meaning of the scriptures and how they should be read in light of
Christological claims about Jesus (Acts 17:1-4). When he travels to
Athens, Paul follows the same method and debates with the Athe-
nian community as well as in the market streets. Paul even engages
in debate with Epicurean and Stoic philosophers on these matters.
Acts 26 records a dialogue between Paul, King Agrippa, and
the governor Porcius Festus. The dialogue follows the form of a
court exchange, where the person on trial attempts to prove the
truth of a religion before skeptical leaders. The encounter empha-
sizes the Christian need to make Christological claims about Jesus
in the context of first-century Judaism and its prophetic tradition:
Agrippa said to Paul, “You have permission to speak for your-
self.” Then Paul stretched out his hand and made his de-
fense…. “To this day, I have had the help that comes from
God, and so I stand here testifying both to small and great,
saying nothing but what the prophets and Moses said would
come to pass.” And as he thus made his defense, Festus said
with a loud voice, “Paul, you are mad; your great learning is
turning you mad.” But Paul said, “I am not mad, most excel-
lent Festus, but I am speaking the sober truth. For the king
knows about these things, and to him I speak freely; for I am
persuaded that none of these things has escaped his notice, for
this was not done in a corner. King Agrippa, do you believe
the prophets? I know that you believe.” And Agrippa said to
Paul, “In a short time you think to make me a Christian!” And
30 CHRISTIAN AND MUSLIM DIALOGUES

Paul said, “Whether short or long, I would to God that not on-
ly you but also all who hear me this day might become such as
I am – except for these chains” (Acts 26:1-7, 24-29).
The twenty-sixth chapter of Acts provides the most complete
New Testament example of a dialogue. In terms of content, the
topic concerned the Christological assertions of Christianity and it
was written for apologetic as well as religious purposes. With re-
gard to its form, the literary dialogue was intended as a written text
to be read for an audience or to be read personally. Its purpose was
to strengthen the nascent Christian community, but also to encour-
age dialogue with the world through evangelization.43
Early Christian writers used dialogue to explore the identity
and authority of Jesus in debate with Jews within the historical con-
texts of first-century Judaism and the Roman Empire. Often their
focus was to commend Jesus’ message and his status as the Messi-
ah. While the dialogue form was not the most significant genre
used by early Christians, the concept of dialogue was quite im-
portant. Later Christian readers used these patterns for understand-
ing their identity in relation to religious others. Biblical texts estab-
lished that Christian identity was dependent upon a dialogical en-
counter. In the process of dialogue with these other voices, early
Christian readers were called into a relationship with the religious
commitments of first-century Judaism. This furthered their theo-
logical worldviews that proclaimed Jesus as the Messiah. In subse-
quent centuries, Christians would continue to use the dialogue in
Christological debate not only with Jews and pagans, but with other
Christian communities.

THE MELKITES, JACOBITES, AND CHURCH OF THE EAST

Following the New Testament, Christian authors would fully ex-
ploit the dialogue as a way of communicating their identity through

43For reading this particular dialogue between Paul and the Roman
leaders in Acts as a new cultural worldview of evangelization, see C. Kavin
Rowe, World Upside Down: Reading Acts in the Graeco-Roman Age (Oxford:
Oxford University Press, 2009), 53-87.
 CHRISTOLOGICAL DEBATE 31

religious encounter.44 Among early Greek authors, Justin Martyr (d.

165) composed his Dialogue with Trypho the Jew,45 and three other
Jewish-Christian dialogues are extant: Athanasius and Zacchaeus,
Simon and Theophilus, and Timothy and Aquila.46 Latin dialogues
include the second-century Octavius by the Roman convert Marcus
Minucius Felix,47 and several philosophical dialogues by Augustine
(d. 430),48 Sulpitius Severus (d. 420),49 and Pope Gregory the Great

44 For a closer study of the dialogue genre among early Christian

writers, see Manfred Hoffmann, Der Dialog bei den Christlichen Schriftstellern
der Ersten Vier Jahrhunderte (Berlin: Akademie-Verlag, 1966). He lists the
dialogues as either apologetic, martyr literature, dogmatic-polemic, or
philosophical. See also Bernd Reiner Voss, Der Dialog in der frühchristlichen
Literatur (Munich: Wilhelm Fink Verlag, 1970); P.L. Schmidt, “Zur
Typologie Und Literarisierung Des Frühchristlichen Lateinischen
Dialogs,” in Christianisme Et Formes Littéraires De L’antiquité Tardive En
Occident: Huit Exposés Suivis De Discussions, ed. Alan Cameron and Manfred
Fuhrmann (Geneva: Vandoeuvres, 1976), 101-190; Alain Le Boulluec, ed.,
La Controverse Religieuse et ses Formes (Paris: Cerf, 1995).
45 For Justin Martyr, see Philippe Bobichon, ed., Justin Martyr, Dialogue

Avec Le Tryphon: Edition Critique (Fribourg: Academic Press Fribourg,

2003); Michael Slusser, ed., Dialogue with Trypho (Washington, D.C.:
Catholic University of America Press, 2003).
46 See William Varner, ed., Ancient Jewish-Christian Dialogues: Athanasius

and Zacchaeus, Simon and Theophilus, Timothy and Aquila: Introductions, Texts,
and Translations (Lewiston, NY: E. Mellen Press, 2004). Ariston of Pella
wrote The Dialogue between Jason and Papiscus in the mid-second century but
it is no longer extant.
47 See Bernhard Kytzler, M. Minuci Felicis: Octavius (Stuttgart and

Leipzig: B.G. Teubner, 1992). An English translation is available in

Graeme W. Clarke, The Octavius of Marcus Minucius Felix (New York:
Newman Press, 1974).
48 Augustine composed a series of philosophical dialogues in 386-387

while preparing for Baptism. See Ludwig Schopp et al., eds., The Happy
Life, Answer to Skeptics, Divine Providence and the Problem of Evil, Soliloquies
(New York: Cima Publishing Company, 1948). Augustine also wrote a
dialogue On Free Will.
49 Sulpitius Severus wrote three books of dialogues, most notably

concerning the life of his colleague Saint Martin of Tours. A translation is

32 CHRISTIAN AND MUSLIM DIALOGUES

(d. 604).50 Other authors composed intra-Christian dialogues, in-

cluding the Dialogue with Heraclides by Origen (d. ca. 254),51 the Sym-
posium, or on Virginity by Methodius of Olympus (d. ca. 311),52 and
three dialogues called Eranistes by Theodoret of Cyrrhus (d. ca.
457).53 Other early Christian writers used the genre as a polemical
instrument against Gnostics and Manichaeans, such as the Dialogue
on True Faith in God by Origen.54 There are many more dialogues
attributed to Arius, Gregory Thaumaturgos, Pseudo-Athanasius,
Hegemonius, and Gregory of Nyssa.55 Fusing Greek philosophical
themes, Aristotelian dialectic, and Christian theology, authors in the
first four centuries used dialogues to debate with Jews, defend
Christianity from pagan attacks, demonstrate Christian reasonable-

available in Alexander Roberts, ed., Sulpitius Severus, Vincent of Lerins

(Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1982).
50 Pope Gregory the Great composed four books of dialogues

between himself and his deacon Peter on the lives of the Italian saints.
For a translation into English see Odo John Zimmerman, ed., Saint
Gregory the Great: Dialogues (Washington, DC: Catholic University of
America Press, 1959, reprint 2007).
51 The critical edition is in Jean Scherer, ed., Entretien d’Origèn avec

Héraclide (Paris: Cerf, 1960, reprint 2002); the English translation is in

Robert Daly, ed., Treatise on the Passover and Dialogue of Origen with Heraclides
and His Fellow Bishops on the Father, the Son, and the Soul (New York: Paulist
Press, 1992).
52 See the English translation in Herbert Musurillo, ed., Methodius: The

Symposium, a Treatise on Chastity (Westminster, MD: Newman Press, 1958;

reprint 1988).
53 See the English translation in Gérard Ettlinger, ed., Theodoret, Bishop

of Cyrrhus: Eranistes (Washington, DC: Catholic University of America

Press, 1975; reprint 2003).
54 See Robert A. Pretty and G. W. Trompf, eds., Dialogue on the True

Faith in God: De Recta in Deum Fide (Louvain: Peeters, 1997). On Christian-

Manichaean encounters, see Guy Stroumsa and Sarah Stroumsa, “Aspects
of Anti-Manichaean Polemics in Late Antiquity and under Early Islam,”
Harvard Theological Review 81 (1988): 37-58. A lost third-century dialogue
with the Montanist Proclus is another example of the use of the genre by
early Christians against heretical groups.
55 For more on these dialogues, see Manfred Hoffmann, Der Dialog bei

den Christlichen Schriftstellern der Ersten Vier Jahrhunderte.

 CHRISTOLOGICAL DEBATE 33

ness in the Roman Empire, reflect on philosophical issues, explore

different theological views on matters of Christian thought and
practice, and critique Gnostic and Manichaean claims.
By the fifth century, dialogues held a prominent place in
Christian literature, whether in Latin, Greek, or Syriac.56 One way
that dialogues were used was as records of debates between Chris-
tological foes.57 Between the Orthodox Church councils of Ephe-
sus in 431, Chalcedon in 451, and Constantinople II in 553 and the
Church of the East synods of Dadisho in 424, Acacius in 486, and
Mar Aba in 544, there arose a growing estrangement between
Christian communities of the eastern Mediterranean and Middle
East. In fact, the developing schisms between Christian communi-
ties only became fully formed after the rise of Islam, during the
seventh, eighth and ninth centuries, when the Councils of Constan-
tinople III in 681, Nicea II in 787 and the Synodicon of Orthodoxy
in 843 fully established Byzantine Orthodoxy and signified the end
of attempts at reunion between Christian Churches in the region.58
There were three Christian groups involved in these theologi-
cal discussions, with each community given a polemical name by
the others: Chalcedonians, Monophysites, and Nestorians. They

56 On the relationship between Greek and Syriac and their shared

literary tradition of dialogues, see chapters VI-XI in Sebastian Brock, From
Ephrem to Romanos: Interactions between Syriac and Greek in Late Antiquity
(Aldershot, England: Ashgate Variorum, 1999).
57 See Richard Lim, Public Disputation, Power, and Social Order in Late

Antiquity (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1995). Lim argues that

the rise of rhetoric and dialectic in public disputations transformed
dialogue from an intellectual display into a social event determined by
hierarchy (the holy man) and consensus (the Church).
58 For a survey of the Christological debates and the differences of

terminology as described for the Chalcedonians, Monophysites, and

Nestorians, see Alois Grillmeier, Christ in Christian Tradition, vol. 2 in 4
Parts (Atlanta: John Knox Press, 1975-1995). Part one covers the
reception history of the Council of Chalcedon from each community’s
perspective. Part two focuses on the Orthodox tradition in sixth-century
Constantinople, while part four focuses on the tradition of the Coptic and
Ethiopic Churches after Chalcedon.
34 CHRISTIAN AND MUSLIM DIALOGUES

were separated not only by Christology but by theology, liturgy,

language, geography, and ethnicity. Each of these factors played a
role in the polemical nature of their debates and the resulting dia-
logue texts. As the three largest Christian communities of Late An-
tiquity, their histories were deeply tied to the Christological debates
of early Christianity and the Councils that rendered decisions that
were either orthodox or heretical, depending upon one’s point of
view.59
The Chalcedonians, also known as the Orthodox, were pri-
marily adherents living within the Byzantine Empire. They were
also known as Byzantine or Greek Orthodox, and later by Muslims
as Rum (Roman) Orthodox. Most Orthodox Christians lived in the
Eastern Mediterranean, including Greece, Asia Minor, Syria, and
Palestine. The heart of the Church in the Middle East was located
at the patriarchates of Jerusalem and Antioch, with a minority in
Alexandria. The polemical term Chalcedonian came from the
Council of 451, which proclaimed that Jesus Christ was perfectly
the same in divinity and in his humanity, true God and true man,
composed of rational soul and body. For them, Jesus Christ had
both a human and divine nature, as well as a human and divine will,
yet he was one essence as the incarnate hypostasis of the eternal
Son, which possessed the fullness of both natures.60 Following the
rise of Islam and the council of Constantinople II in 681, the Or-
thodox Christians living under Islamic rule came to be called
‘Melkites’ (imperialists) by their Christological opponents.61 The
Melkites were Arab Orthodox, who used Arabic as a literary lan-
guage, adhered to the Church councils, used the Byzantine liturgical

59 For more on these groups in the Middle East and early Islamic
times, see Sidney Griffith, The Church in the Shadow of the Mosque, 129-140.
60 For more on Byzantine Patristic theology, see John Meyendorff,

Byzantine Theology: Historical Trends and Doctrinal Themes (New York:

Fordham University Press, 1974), especially 19-41.
61 For more on the legacy of these controversies, see Sidney Griffith,

“‘Melkites,’ ‘Jacobites,’ and the Christological Controversies in Arabic in

Third/Ninth-Century Syria,” in Syrian Christians under Islam: The First
Thousand Years, ed. David Thomas (Leiden: Brill, 2001), 9-55.
 CHRISTOLOGICAL DEBATE 35

rite, and were in communion with the Byzantine Orthodox who

lived outside of the Islamic realm. In addition to the Melkites,
Georgian Christians were also part of the Orthodox communion
living under Islam.
The polemical term Monophysite referred to the Coptic,
Ethiopic, and Jacobite (West Syrian) Churches that professed the
Christological teaching of Cyril of Alexandria (d. 444) as interpret-
ed by subsequent theologians such as Severus of Antioch (d. 538)
and Philoxenus of Mabbug (d. 523).62 Also called Miaphysites, the
communities taught that Jesus Christ, while human and divine, had
a single incarnate nature as God the Word. In the aftermath of the
Islamic conquest, the Coptic Church, and the Syriac-speaking West
Syrian Church (which, after the sixth-century, were called ‘Jaco-
bites’ after their bishop Jacob Baradeus) became two prominent
Christian communities participating within the life of the caliphate.
In the ninth century, the Armenian Church would also join this
communion of churches.
The Nestorians, who did not identify themselves by this po-
lemical term but called themselves simply the Church of the East,
lived under the Sasanian Persians before the rise of Islam.63 They
are also referred to as East Syrians by scholars, in contrast to the
West Syrian Jacobites. I will use this non-polemical term in the
book, rather than the polemical term Nestorian. In terms of geog-
raphy, the East Syrians were the largest Church in the world by the
seventh century. They had communities in the Middle East, includ-
ing Iraq, Arabia, and Central Asia as well as India and China. Fol-
lowing the school of Antioch led by Greek theologian Theodore of
Mopsuestia (d. 428) and the later Syriac theologians Narsai (d. 503)
and Babai the Great (d. 628), the Church of the East taught that

62 Particularly influential theologians for the Church were Patriarch

Severus of Antioch (d. 538), Philoxenus of Mabbug (d. 523), and Jacob
Baradeus (d. 578).
63 For surveys of the Church of the East, see Christoph Baumer, The

Church of the East: An Illustrated History of Assyrian Christianity (London: I.B.

Tauris, 2006); and Samuel Hugh Moffett, A History of Christianity in Asia:
Volume I (San Francisco: Harper, 1992).
36 CHRISTIAN AND MUSLIM DIALOGUES

Jesus Christ had a union of two natures and their two essences
(hypostases) in one person.64 Contrary to most historical books, the
rise of Islam did not signal an end to Christian evangelization by
Eastern Christians. In fact, the Church of the East sent missionar-
ies among certain Turkic and Mongol tribes and entered China by
the end of the seventh century.
In addition to these three significant groups, the Maronites
were a community of Syriac-speaking Christians who lived primari-
ly in what is now Lebanon. The Maronites, who came into com-
munion with the Catholic Church during the Crusader period, were
originally neo-Chalcedonians who believed that while Jesus Christ
was made of human and divine natures, he had a single divine will
– the term for this theological claim is monothelitism. Even after
the rise of Islam, Maronites were still considered theologically dif-
ferent from the other communities, although their location in the
mountainous regions of Lebanon meant they participated less in
the intellectual ferment of the early Islamic Middle East.65

DIALOGUE AND CHRISTOLOGY IN LATE ANTIQUITY

Among these Christian communities, the dialogue form was used
with practical questions in mind. The dialogue rose to prominence
because of its important background in the Greek and Syriac tradi-
tions, its capacity for presenting the new comprehensive systems of
theological learning, its usefulness for apologetics and polemics, its
role in the education system, its relation to the Bible and early
Christian literature, its significance for recounting discussions at
Church councils, and its facility for depicting Christological de-

64 For more on the Christology of the Church of the East, see

Sebastian Brock, “The Christology of the Church of the East in the
Synods of the Fifth to Early Seventh Centuries: Preliminary
Considerations and Materials,” in Studies in Syriac Christianity: History,
Literature, and Theology (Aldershot, England: Ashgate Variorum, 1992),
Chapter XII.
65 On Maronite history and literature, see Matti Moosa, The Maronites

in History (Piscataway, NJ: Gorgias Press, 2005).

 CHRISTOLOGICAL DEBATE 37

bate.66 Dialogues were meant to be practical compositions that

promoted a community’s orthodoxy and condemned heretical in-
terpretations of faith and practice (e.g., the Melkites, Jacobites, and
the Church of the East).67
Literary dialogues from this period were typically drawn from
real conversations with theological opponents. Averil Cameron
argues that the Christological debates in the pre-Islamic period
gave rise to the literary dialogue as an amenable way of transmitting
the essence of these discussions. Sixth-century records include Or-
thodox dialogues with Copts and Jacobites in Constantinople dur-
ing 531/2, the monk Sabas’ arguments against Origenism in 531 in
Constantinople, Chalcedonian debates with Copts and Jacobites in
532, a debate between Paul the Persian and Photeinos the Mani-
chaean in Constantinople, and conference reports from Chalcedo-
nian discussions with Persians and with Jacobites in 561.68 There
were also several debates held under the patronage of the Sasanian
court, such as a dialogue between East Syrians and West-Syrian
Jacobites in Ctesiphon in 612. The debate between Maximus the
Confessor and Pyrrhus, as well as the debate following the Council
of Constantinople II in 681, confirms that oral and written dia-
logues continued well into the Islamic era in the eastern Mediterra-
nean.69

66 Averil Cameron, “Disputations, Polemical Literature and the

Formation of Opinion in the Early Byzantine Period,” 91-108, esp. 100.

67 See Richard Lim, Public Disputation, Power, and Social Order in Late

Antiquity. He argues that the fifth-century debates had shifted the dialogue
genre from pure Aristotelian dialectic to formal debate with an emphasis
on orthodox piety as a criterion for argumentation.
68 See for instance Sebastian Brock, “The Conversations with the

Syrian Orthodox under Justinian (532),” Orientalia Christiana Periodica 47

(1981): 87-121; the debate between Paul and Photeinos in J.-P. Migne, ed.,
Patrologiæ cursus completus: Series Græca (Paris: J.-P. Migne, 1864-1865),
88:529-552; and Antoine Guillaumont, “Justinien et l’Église de Perse,”
Dumbarton Oaks Papers 23/24 (1969-1970): 39-66.
69 See Joseph Farrell, The Disputation with Pyrrhus of Our Father among the

Saints, Maximus the Confessor (South Canaan, PA: St. Tikhon’s Seminary
38 CHRISTIAN AND MUSLIM DIALOGUES

Averil Cameron has pointed out a link between the sixth-

century culture of debate and its subsequent importance in the first
centuries Christian-Muslim encounters.70 The impetus for Chris-
tian-Muslim dialogues, according to Cameron, came out of the reli-
giously plural context of the Mediterranean and Middle East:
Thus there is no single explanation for the prevalence of the
literary disputation in the early Byzantine period, but rather a
range of interlocking ones. Travel of Eastern Orthodox and
sometimes Nestorians to Constantinople, resort to asylum in
the imperial palace and the frequency of translation all made it
certain that there would be much interrelation between such
writings in Greek and in Syriac, without having to look for di-
rect debts; similarly, the political circumstances which made
debate necessary at the same time tend to obscure the line be-
tween literary and non-literary or documentary. The very prev-
alence of such debate almost in everyday experience made it all
the more understandable, I suggest, that some writers used it
for fictitious or more purely literary purposes, and that many
subjects which might have lent themselves to other literary
forms (hagiographical narrative, for instance) were now treated
in the form of a disputation.71
By the early seventh century, dialogues had become perhaps the
most popular literary genre in theological writing. Set within a new
religious context, the literary genre provided a means to express the
supremacy of one’s community and contend against religious inter-
locutors. Thus Greek and Syriac dialogues reflected the historical
background of intense theological debate during Late Antiquity.72

Press, 1990). For the Greek see J.-P. Migne, ed., Patrologia Graeca 91:287-
354.
70 Avril Cameron, “Disputations, Polemical Literature and the

Formation of Opinion in the Early Byzantine Period,” 102-103.

71 Avril Cameron, “Disputations, Polemical Literature and the

Formation of Opinion in the Early Byzantine Period,” 104.

72 On these controversies in a general historical context, see John

Meyendorff, Imperial Unity and Christian Divisions: The Church, 450-680 A.D.
(Crestwood, NY: St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 1989).
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 — Kun vaan löytäisimme asunnon! huokasi Priscilla. — Katsohan
tuonne Kingsportiin päin, Anna — taloja, pitkiä talorivejä, minne vain
katsot, mutta ei ainoatakaan meille luotua asuntoa.

— Tukahuta valituksesi, Priss! Toivoa älä milloinkaan heitä! Eikö

joku vanha roomalainen sanonut: 'Ellen löydä huonetta, niin
rakennan itse'. Tällaisena päivänä ei epäonnistumisen käsitettä ole
olemassakaan.

He vaelsivat puistossa auringonlaskuun asti, riemuiten kevään alati

uudistuvasta ihanuudesta ja sulosta. Kuten tavallista kääntyivät he
kotiin päin Spoffordkatua saadakseen nähdä Karoliinan majan.

— Minusta tuntuu aivan kuin jotain merkillistä ja salaperäistä olisi

tekeillä, sanoi Anna, kun he nousivat rinnettä. — Vasenta
silmäluomiani kutkuttaa ja nykäisee, ja se merkitsee iloista yllätystä.
Mutta mitä ihmettä! Priscilla Grant, avaa tähystysluukut selälleen ja
katso tuonne ja sano minulle, onko se totta — vai näenkö minä
näkyjä.

Priscilla katsoi. Annan nykäisevä ja kutkuttava silmäluomi ei ollut

ennustanut väärin eikä hänen silmänsä ollut pettänyt. Ristikkoportin
holvikaaressa riippui pieni vaatimaton valkea plakaatti, johon oli
kirjoitettu ilmoitus. Se kuului:

Vuokralle tarjotaan täysin kalustettuna. Lähempiä tietoja paikalla.

— Priscilla, sanoi Anna kuiskaukseksi hiljentyneellä äänellä.

Uskotko, että saamme vuokrata Karoliinan majan?

— En, sitä en kylläkään usko, tunnusti Priscilla. — Mikään niin

suloinen ei ole koskaan mahdollisuuden rajojen sisäpuolella.
Ihmeitten aika on ohi. Minä en tahdo toivoa. En voisi kestää toivon
sammumista. He tahtovat tietysti siitä paljon enemmän kuin mitä me
raukat voimme maksaa. Muista, että tässä kulkee Spoffordkatu.

— Meidän täytyy joka tapauksessa ottaa selko asiasta, virkkoi

Anna päättävästi. — On liian myöhäistä mennä sinne tänä iltana,
mutta huomenna me tulemme takaisin tiedustelemaan. Voi, Prissy,
mitä, jos me saisimme tuon ihastuttavan paikan! Minusta on aina
tuntunut, kuin kohtaloni olisi kytketty Karoliinan majaan — siitä
saakka, kun näin sen ensi kerran.
X.

KAROLIINAN MAJA.

Seuraavana iltana he kulkivat päättäväisin askelin monivärisin kivin

laskettua käytävää läpi puutarhan. Huhtikuun tuuli humisi petäjissä,
ja lehdoissa kahisivat kultarintakertut — paksut, hyvinsyötetyt,
rohkeat pikku veitikat, jotka hyppelehtivät hiekkakäytävillä. Tytöt
soittivat vähän arasti ovikelloa. Ovea tuli avaamaan iäkäs, hiukan
nokinen palvelijatar. Eteisestä tultiin suoraan isoon arkihuoneeseen,
missä iloisen uunivalkean ääressä istui kaksi naista. Hekin olivat
harmahtavia kasvoiltaan ja vanhanpuoleisia. Jollemme ota lukuun
sitä, että toinen näytti olevan seitsemänkymmenen ja toinen
viidenkymmenen ikäinen, ei heidän välillään ollut juuri mitään eroa.
Kummallakin oli hämmästyttävän suuret, veden väriset silmät
terässankaisten silmälasien takana, myssy päässä ja harmaa saali
hartioilla, kumpikin kutoi sukkaa kiirehtimättä, mutta samalla
hellittämättä, kumpikin keinui verkkaan keinutuolissaan ja katsoi
tyttöihin sanomatta sanaakaan. Kummankin naisen takana istui iso
valkea posliinikoira, jossa oli pyöreitä, vihreitä täpliä, vihreä kuono ja
vihreät korvat. Koirat vetivät heti puoleensa Annan mielikuvituksen,
ja hän korotti ne kohta kaksoisjumaluudeksi, joka vartioi Karoliinan
majaa.

Pari minuuttia kului kenenkään katkaisematta äänettömyyttä. Tytöt

olivat liiaksi hermostuneita löytääkseen sanoja, eivätkä vanhukset
enempää kuin vihreätäpläiset koiratkaan näyttäneet olevan
halukkaita keskustelun aloittamiseen. Anna katsahti nopeasti
ympärilleen. Miten rajattoman hauskan näköistä täällä oli!
Lasiruutuinen ovi johti suoraapäätä petäjiä kasvavalle ruohokentälle,
ja kultarintakertut tulivat uteliaina sipsuttaen portaille asti. Lattiaa
peittivät pitkät kotikutoiset, heleänväriset matot. Sellaisia oli Marillan
tapana kutoa vanhoista kangastilkuista kotona Vihervaarassa, mutta
ne olivat joutuneet muodista pois kaikkialla muualla, Avonleassakin,
jossa kuitenkin oli ymmärretty antaa arvoa kunnon tilkkumatoille. Ja
tässä hienon Spofford-kadun varrella oli samanlaisia! Korkea,
kirkkaaksi kiilloitettu kaappikello naksutti kuuluvasti ja juhlallisesti
eräässä nurkassa. Pieniä, ihastuttavia seinäkaappeja oli asetettu
avonaisen takan kummallekin puolelle, ja niiden lasiovien takaa näkyi
vilahdukselta omituisia posliinitavaroita. Seinillä riippui vanhoja
kuparipiirroksia ja silhuetteja. Eräästä nurkasta kulki portaat
yläkertaan ja ensimmäisellä, jotakuinkin matalalla olevalla askelmalla
oli leveä ikkuna ja sen alla houkutteleva, siniseksi maalattu penkki.
Kaikki näytti juuri sellaiselta, millaiseksi Anna edeltäpäin oli
kuvitellut.

Äänettömyys oli jo käynyt verrattain painostavaksi, ja Priscilla

nipisti Annaa merkiksi, että hänen tuli puhua.

— Me — me luimme ilmoituksesta, että tämä talo on

vuokrattavana, aloitti Anna heikolla äänellä, kääntyen vanhemman
naisen puoleen, joka nähtävästi oli neiti Karoliina Spofford.
 — Niin, niin on, virkkoi neiti Karoliina. — Aioin juuri ottaa pois
ilmoituksen tänään.

— Voi — me tulemme siis liian myöhään, sanoi Anna alakuloisesti.

—
Neiti on jo vuokrannut sen toiselle?

— En, mutta me päätimme, ettemme vuokraa sitä ensinkään.

— Voi, kuinka ikävää, huudahti Anna ääni suruisena. — Minä olen

niin ihastunut tähän paikkaan. Olin kovasti toivonut, että me
saisimme sen vuokrata.

Silloin neiti Karoliina laski kädestään sukankutimensa, otti

silmälasit nenältään, hankasi niitä, asetti ne jälleen nenälleen ja
tarkasti ensimmäisen kerran Annaa ihmisolentona. Nuorempi nainen
seurasi hänen esimerkkiään niin perinpohjaisesti, että hän olisi aivan
hyvin voinut olla vanhemman peilikuva.

— Oletteko ihastunut siihen? kysyi neiti Karoliina korostaen. —

Merkitseekö se, että te todellakin pidätte siitä, ettei se teistä ole vain
pikkusievä? Nykyajan tytöt käyttävät niin liioiteltuja lausetapoja, ettei
koskaan tiedä, mitä he oikeastaan tarkoittavat. Niin ei tehty minun
nuoruudessani. Silloin ei nuoren tytön tapana ollut sanoa, että hän
rakasti perunasosetta ja läskiä, aivan samalla äänensävyllä, jolla hän
olisi voinut sanoa rakastavansa äitiään tahi Vapahtajaa.

Hyvä omatunto antoi Annalle rohkeutta.

— Minä pidän todellakin tästä paikasta, sanoi hän ujosti. —

Ihastuin siihen heti kun näin sen syksyllä. Toverini ja minä
tahtoisimme hyvin mielellämme koettaa omaa taloutta ensi vuonna,
jotta ei tarvitsisi asua täysihoidossa. Siksi me olemme koettaneet
saada vuokrata oman asunnon. Ja kun minä näin, että tämä talo oli
vuokrattavana, tulin kovin iloiseksi.

— Siinä tapauksessa voitte sen saada, virkkoi Karoliina-neiti. —

Maria ja minä päätimme tänään olla kokonaan vuokraamatta. Ne,
jotka tulivat tänne katsomaan, eivät meistä olleet miellyttäviä.
Meidän ei ole pakko vuokrata kotiamme. Meillä on varaa lähteä
Euroopan-matkalle, niinkuin olemme aikoneet, vaikka kotimme olisi
tyhjä ja asumatonkin. Olisihan tulo siitä hyvä olemassa, mutta en
tahtoisi kullastakaan jättää kotiani sellaisten ihmisten haltuun, jotka
ovat tunkeutuneet tänne urkkimaan ja katsomaan kaikkea. Mutta te
olette toista lajia. Minä uskon, että pidätte meidän tuvastamme ja
olette sille hyvä. Voitte sen saada.

— Kun vaan — kun vaan voisimme maksaa mitä pyydätte, änkytti

Anna.

Karoliina-neiti mainitsi summan. Anna ja Priscilla katsoivat

toisiinsa. Priscilla pudisti päätään.

— Niin paljon me emme kylläkään voi antaa, pelkään minä, virkkoi

Anna ja räpytteli kiivaasti silmiään. — Meitä on vain muutama
korkeakoulussa opiskeleva tyttö, ja me olemme köyhiä.

— Kuinka paljon olette laskeneet voivanne maksaa? kysyi

Karoliina-neiti, joka ei hetkeksikään lakannut kutomasta sukkaa.

Anna mainitsi summan, jonka he arvelivat voivansa antaa.

Karoliina-neiti nyökäytti vakavasti.
 — Hyvä on. Niinkuin äsken sanoin, ei meille ole ehdottomasti
välttämätöntä vuokrata tätä paikkaa. Me emme ole rikkaita, mutta
me olemme siksi riippumattomia, että voimme matkustaa
Eurooppaan. Minä en ole eläessäni ollut Euroopassa enkä uskonut
koskaan sinne joutuvani — en ole siitä erikoisesti välittänyt. Mutta
veljentyttärelleni tässä, Maria Spoffordille, on tullut halu lähteä sinne.
Ja tehän kyllä ymmärrätte, että Marian ikäisen nuoren naisen ei
sovellu kulkea yksin maita ja mantereita.

— Kyllä — luonnollisesti… sanoi Anna, huomatessaan, että neiti

Karoliina tarkoitti täyttä totta.

— Niin, eihän se kävisi mitenkään päinsä. Sentähden täytyy minun

lähteä mukaan pitämään hänestä huolta. Minustakin on hyvin
hauskaa päästä matkustamaan. Olen tosin seitsemänkymmenen
vuoden vanha, mutta minusta tuntuu niinkuin minulla olisi vielä
paljon tekemättä tässä maailmassa. Olisin kai lähtenyt Eurooppaan
aikoja sitten, jos olisin tullut sitä ajatelleeksi. Aiomme jäädä sinne
pariksi, ehkä kolmeksi vuodeksi. Kesäkuussa matkustamme ja
lähetämme teille avaimen sitä ennen ja jätämme kaiken siinä
kunnossa, että voitte muuttaa tänne milloin hyvänsä. Ne tavarat,
joista olemme erikoisen arkoja, me siirrämme pois, mutta muita
saatte käyttää.

— Jättääkö neiti posliinikoirat paikoilleen? kysyi Anna kainosti.

— Toivoisitteko niiden jäävän?

— Oi, minä kyllä toivoisin! Ne ovat kauhean herttaisia.

Tyytyväinen ilme levisi neiti Karoliinan kasvoille.

 — Minun täytyy sanoa, että annan hyvin suuren arvon noille
koirille, virkkoi hän. — Ne ovat sadan vuoden vanhoja ja ovat
istuneet tässä avonaisen takan kummallakin puolella siitä saakka kun
veljeni Aaron toi ne mukanaan Lontoosta viisikymmentä vuotta
sitten. Spoffordkatu on saanut nimensä veljeni Aaronin mukaan.

— Se oli oikein miehinen mies, sanoi neiti Maria, joka nyt ensi
kerran puuttui puheeseen. — Hänen vertaistaan ei tapaa nykyään.

— Hän oli sinulle hyvä setä, Maria, virkkoi neiti Karoliina

huomattavasti liikutettuna. — Sinulle on varmaan jäänyt muisto
hänestä?

— Tulen muistamaan häntä, niin kauan kuin elän, vastasi Maria-

neiti juhlallisesti. — Näen hänet nytkin silmieni edessä seisomassa
tuossa uunivalkean ääressä kädet takinliepeiden alla ja suu
hyväntahtoisessa hymyssä.

Neiti Maria otti esiin nenäliinansa ja pyyhki silmiään, mutta neiti

Karoliina palasi päättäväisesti tunteiden ylemmistä piireistä
aineellisiin asioihin.

— Koirat saavat siis olla paikoillaan, jos te lupaatte huolellisesti

varoa niitä, sanoi hän. — Niiden nimet ovat Gog ja Magog. Gog
katsoo oikeaan ja Magog vasempaan. Ja sitten vielä eräs asia. En voi
uskoa teillä olevan mitään sitä vastaan, että talo saa pitää vanhan
nimensä "Karoliinan maja".

— Oi, miten voitte ajatellakaan! Juuri sitä me pidimme heti

ensimmäisestä päivästä aivan erikoisen hauskana.
 — Minä huomaan, että te olette järkeviä tyttöjä, sanoi Karoliina-
neiti hyväksyvästi — Mutta eikö ole hullua, että jokainen, joka ennen
teitä tuli katsomaan taloa, kysyi kävisikö päinsä saada ottaa pois
nimikilpi siksi aikaa, kun he asuvat täällä. Sanoin heille suoraan, että
nimi liittyi tähän paikkaan. Talon nimi on ollut Karoliinan maja siitä
saakka kuin veljeni Aaron jätti sen minulle testamentissaan, ja
Karoliinan majana se pysyy, kunnes minä kuolen ja Maria kuolee.
Kun niin pitkälle päästään, saa uusi omistaja antaa tuvalle miten
komean nimen hän suinkin tahtoo. Se ei koske meitä. Mutta teitä
ehkä huvittaa kulkea talon läpi katsomassa kaikkea, ennenkuin me
pidämme asian ratkaistuna.

Uusi tutkimusretki herätti tytöissä mitä suurinta ihastusta. Paitsi

suurta arkihuonetta eli vierashuonetta oli alakerrassa keittiö ja pieni
makuuhuone. Yläkerrassa oli kolme huonetta, yksi iso ja pari pientä.
Anna rakastui heti toiseen näistä kahdesta huoneesta, jotka olivat
mäntymäelle päin, ja toivoi saavansa sen. Siinä oli siniset
seinäpaperit ja pieni vanhanaikainen peilipöytä, kirkkaaksi kiilloitetut
kynttilänpitimet molemmin puolin. Pikkuruutuista ikkunaa kehysti
valkeat musliiniverhot rypytettyine kaistaleineen, ja ikkunan alla oli
pieni penkki, joka viekoitteli huoneen asukasta istuutumaan siihen
lukemaan taikka haaveilemaan.

— Kaikki on niin ihastuttavaa, että me varmaankin heräämme ja

huomaamme sen suloiseksi uneksi, joka katoaa kukon laulaessa,
virkkoi Priscilla heidän mennessään kotiin.

— Minusta neiti Karoliina ja hänen veljentyttärensä näyttävät siksi

tanakoilta, etteivät he aivan helposti haihdu häipyvänä sumuna,
nauroi Anna. — Voitko kuvitella heitä maapallon matkailijoina —
varsinkin saaleissa ja myssyissä, jotka näimme.
 — Luultavasti he riisuvat ne yltään, kun he todella lähtevät
matkalle, sanoi Priscilla, mutta sukankutimen he varmasti ottavat
mukaansa kaikkialle. Siitä on heidän suorastaan mahdoton luopua.
He tulevat kävelemään Rooman Pietarinkirkon holvien alla kutoen
sukkaa, siitä olen varma. Mutta sillaikaa me asumme Karoliinan
majassa, jota ei saa ristiä uudestaan, oikein Spoffordkadun varrella.
Minusta tuntuu jo kuin olisin puolittain miljoonanomistaja.

— Minä olen niin suunnattoman iloinen, että vain tahtoisin

riemuita ja laulaa, sanoi Anna.

Samana iltana Philippa Gordon koputti erästä ovea

Johanneksenkadun kolmessakymmenessäkahdeksassa ja heittäytyi
Annan vuoteelle aivan elämään kyllästyneenä.

— Rakkaat ihmiset, minä olen niin väsynyt ja lopussa, että voisin

hypätä… Olen seisonut päälläni matka-arkussa ja pakannut koko
päivän.

— Pakkaaminen oli luonnollisesti kaksi kertaa rasittavampaa kuin

sen olisi tarvinnut olla, siksi ettet voinut ratkaista mitä oli pantava
pohjalle ja mitä päälle, nauroi Priscilla.

— Kas vaan, sinä arvasit ihan oikein! Niin, kun minä vihdoin olin
saanut pakatuksi kaiken ja minun emäntäni ja hänen
palvelijattarensa olivat istuneet kumpikin matka-arkun kannella
painamassa niin paljon kuin jaksoivat, jotta saisin sen lukkoon, niin
minä huomasin pakanneeni aivan alimmaksi pohjalle koko joukon
tavaroita, joita välttämättä tarvitsin lukukaudenpäättäjäisissä. Ei
auttanut siis muu kuin avata arkku taas, viskellä ja etsiä kokonainen
tunti, jotta saisin esiin, mitä tarvitsin. Väliin luulin saaneeni käsiini
sen, mitä etsin, ja minä vedin ja kiskoin niin paljon kuin jaksoin, ja
se olikin sitten aivan muuta, semmoista, mikä olisi mainiosti saanut
pysyä paikoillaan. Anna, minä en sanonut mitään rumia sanoja.

— En kai ole sitä väittänytkään.

— Et, mutta näytit siltä. Myönnän, että ne pyörivät kielelläni.

Sitäpaitsi olen saanut ihan kauhean nuhan, en voi muuta kuin
honottaa ja aivastaa ja puhua dedääd… Kertokaa nyt virkistykseksi
jotain hauskaa.

— Ensi torstai-iltana tulevat Alec ja Alonzo sinun luoksesi, sanoi

Anna koetteeksi.

Phil pudisti alakuloisena päätään.

— Bidä ed välitä Alecista edkä Alodzosta diid kauad kuid bidulla od

duha. Mutta mikä teitä oikeastaan vaivaa? Kun tarkemmin katselen,
niin minusta näyttää kuin teidän sisässänne olisi jonkinlainen
bengaalivalaistus. Tehän ihan loistatte. Mitä on tapahtunut?

— Ensi talvena me asumme Karoliinan majassa, virkkoi Anna,

iloinen ylpeys väreillen äänessä. — Asumme, ymmärräthän, meillä
on oma talous, emme ole täysihoidossa. Me olemme sen
vuokranneet, ja Stella Maynard tulee myöskin, ja hänen tätinsä
hoitaa meidän kotiamme.

Phil ponnahti pystyyn, pyyhki nenänsä ja heittäytyi Annan eteen

polvilleen.

— Tytöt — oi hyvät, rakkaat ihmiset — antakaa minun tulla

mukaan! Minä olen hyvin kiltti. Ellei siellä ole minulle mitään oikeata
huonetta, niin minä nukun öisin pienessä koirankopissa
omenapuiden alla — minä olen nähnyt sen. Antakaa minun vaan
tulla mukaan!

— Nouse, pikku hupakko!

— En liiku paikaltani, niin kauan kuin olen hengissä, ennenkuin

lupaatte minulle, että saan olla samassa taloudessa teidän
kanssanne.

Anna ja Priscilla katsoivat toisiinsa. Sitten sanoi Anna hitaasti:

— Rakas lapsi, tietysti meistä olisi hirmuisen hauskaa saada sinut

mukaan. Mutta suoraan sanoen — minä olen köyhä, Prissy on köyhä,
Stella Maynard on köyhä — meidän täytyy järjestää elämämme
kauhean yksinkertaiseksi, ja ruoka tulee olemaan sen mukaan. Sinun
olisi pakko syödä ja elää aivan samoin kuin me. Mutta sinä olet rikas,
ja sitä todistaa parhaiten se, mitä sinun isäsi maksaa kuukaudessa
asunnostasi ja ruuastasi.

— Oh, luuletko sinä, että minä siitä välitän? huudahti Phil. —

Mieluummin silakkaa korinttikastikkeen kanssa teidän luonanne,
pikkuiset kullanmurut, kuin tryffeleillä täytetty kalkkuna yksinäisessä
täysihoitolan ruokasalissa. Älkää luulko, että minä olen pelkkää
vatsaa, tytöt. Elän erittäin mielelläni leivällä ja maidolla — ja joskus
vähän hilloa — kun vaan annatte minun tulla mukaan.

— Sitäpaitsi saamme tehdä itse aika paljon. Stellan täti ei voi ehtiä
kaikkea. Meidän jokaisen osalle tulee koko lailla tehtäviä. Ja sinä —

— Ja minä olen tähän asti ollut kuin kedon liljat, jotka eivät työtä
tee eivätkä kehrää, täydensi Philippa. — Mutta minä kyllä opin. Kun
näytätte yhdenkin kerran, miten minun pitää tehdä, niin minä kyllä
osaan. Vuoteen järjestämisestä minä jo nyt selviydyn; ruokaa en
tietysti osaa valmistaa — vielä. Mutta minä olen luonteeltani kiltti ja
tasainen enkä ole koskaan happamalla tuulella, kun on ruma ilma.
Se saa monen marisemaan. Rakkaat kulta-ihmiset! En ole eläessäni
toivonut mitään näin kauheasti — ja lattia on niin kamalan kova
polviparoille.

— Vielä eräs asia, keskeytti Priscilla päättävästi. — Koko Redmond

tietää, että sinulla on vieraita melkein joka päivä. Niin suuri
vastaanotto ei käy päinsä Karoliinan majassa. Me olemme päättäneet
olla kotona vain perjantai-iltaisin, jolloin hyvät ystävämme ovat
tervetulleita. Jos sinä liityt meihin, niin sinäkin saat mukautua
samaan sääntöön.

— Äärettömän mielelläni. Niinkuin minä vähääkään välittäisin koko

tuosta vieraiden paljoudesta! Tulee päinvastoin olemaan suloista
saada olla vähän rauhassa. Olin itsekin ajatellut määrättyä päivää,
mutta tietysti en voinut mitään päättää tahi ilmoittaa asianomaisille.
Ellette suostu siihen, että minä lyön ryysyt yhteen ja jaan myötä- ja
vastoinkäymiset teidän kanssanne joka suhteessa, niin minä
kiukuttelen itseni hengiltä ja kummittelen sitten kauheasti… Minun
päämajani on sitten Karoliinan majan portailla, joten te ette pääse
ulos ettekä sisään koskettamatta minun astraaliruumistani.

Anna ja Priscilla vaihtoivat syvämietteisiä katseita.

— Niin, sanoi Anna, me emme voi luonnollisestikaan luvata ottaa

sinua joukkoomme ennenkuin olemme neuvotelleet Stellan kanssa,
mutta en usko hänellä olevan mitään sitä vastaan. Me otamme kyllä
omasta puolestamme sinut mielellämme yhteen joukkoon.
 — Jos kyllästyt meidän yksinkertaiseen elämäämme, niin saat
mennä tiehesi, ja sillä hyvä, lisäsi Priscilla.

Phil hyökkäsi pystyyn, suuteli ja puristi molempia suunniltaan

riemusta ja lähti rallattaen tiehensä.

— Niin, kunhan kaikki menisi hyvin, sanoi Priscilla laimeasti.

— Katsotaan, että menee, vastasi Anna rohkaisevalla äänellä. —

Minä luulen, että Phil tulee olemaan verrattain hauska jäsen meidän
pienessä taloudessamme.

— Varmasti, Phil on mukava ja vitsikäs seura joutohetkinä. Ja kuta

useampia meitä on, sitä huokeammaksi meille tulee. Mutta millaista
on olla hänen kanssaan yötä päivää? Voi mennä sekä talvi että kesä,
ennenkuin pääsee selville, kenen kanssa viihtyy, kenen ei.

— Mitä siihen tulee, on alkuaika meille kaikille koetusaikaa. Ja

meidän on käyttäydyttävä kuin kiltit ja kunnolliset ihmiset ainakin —
oltava itse häiritsemättä ja suotava jokaiselle vapaus. Phil ei ole
itsekäs, vaikka onkin vähän ajattelematon, ja minä uskon, että me
tulemme kaikki vetämään samaa köyttä viehättävässä majassamme.
XI.

ATOSSA-TÄDIN LUONA.

Anna palasi Avonleahin suuren stipendin säteilevä kajastus

otsallaan. Ystävät ja tuttavat sanoivat hänelle, ettei hän ollut
kovinkaan paljon muuttunut — äänensävy ilmaisi, että he olivat
ihmeissään ja vähän pettyneitä siitä, ettei niin ollut. Avonleakaan ei
ollut muuttunut. Ainakaan ei alussa siltä tuntunut.

Mutta kun Anna ensimmäisenä sunnuntaina kotiintulonsa jälkeen

istui Vihervaaran kirkonpenkissä ja katseli seurakuntaa, huomasi hän
useita pieniä erilaisuuksia, jotka nyt olivat kaikki yhtaikaa näkyvissä
ja paljastivat hänelle, ettei aika edes Avonleassa pysynyt aivan
paikallaan. Uusi sananjulistaja puhui saarnatuolista. Penkeistä olivat
useammat kuin yhdet tutut kasvot poistuneet ainiaaksi. Abe-setä,
mainehikas sääprofeetta, joka oli ennustanut niin monet ukkosilmat,
oli jo ennustanut kaikki ennustuksensa, ja vanha Josiah Sloane, jota
ei kukaan voinut arkussa makaavana enää tuntea, hänen viiksensä
ja partansa kun olivat hyvin sievästi leikatut, uinuivat pienellä
hautausmaalla kirkon takana. Ja Billy Andrews oli viettänyt häänsä
Nettie Blewettin kanssa. He olivat juuri tänä sunnuntaina
vastanaineina koekävelyllään. Kun Billy säteillen ylpeyttä ja
tyytyväisyyttä ohjasi sulkain koristamaa ja silkkiin verhottua
morsiantaan perheen kirkonpenkkiin, loi Anna silmänsä maahan,
jotteivät ne liiaksi loistaisi. Hän palautti mieleensä joululomalla
viettämänsä myrsky-yön, jolloin Jane oli kosinut Billy-veljensä
puolesta. Rukkaset eivät suinkaan olleet särkeneet Billyn sydäntä.
Anna olisi tahtonut tietää, olikohan Jane kosinut myös Nettieä
veljensä puolesta vai oliko Billyllä ollut niin paljon rohkeutta
rinnassaan, että hän uskalsi itse esittää tuon tärkeän kysymyksen.
Koko Andrewsin perhe näytti hekkumoivan samassa ylpeydessä ja
tyytyväisyydessä kuin Billykin, mukavassa sopessaan istuvasta
lihavasta anopista ylhäältä lauluparvelta katselevaan Janeen, joka oli
jättänyt opettajatartoimensa Avonlean koulussa ja aikoi syksyllä
matkustaa länteen.

— Kosijoita ei ole Avonleassa joka oksalla, virkkoi rouva Rakel

Lynde ivallisesti hymyillen. — Hän syyttää nyt terveyttään, joka muka
on heikko, ja sanoo lännen ilmanalan paremmaksi. En ole
milloinkaan kuullut hänen terveydessään olleen mitään vikaa.

— Jane on herttainen ja kunnon tyttö, sanoi uskollinen Anna. —

Hän ei ole koskaan koettanut hankkia huomiota osakseen, niinkuin
monet muut.

— Ei olekaan, hän ei ole koskaan juossut poikien jälkeen, jos sitä

tarkoitat, virkkoi Rakel-rouva. — Mutta hän tahtoisi mielellään joutua
naimisiin, kuten kaikki muutkin. Mitä muuta tekemistä hänellä olisi
kaukana lännessä — jossain maailman matkojen takana, mistä tietää
vain sen verran, että miehiä on paljon ja naisia harvassa? Hyh —
minä en jaksa kuulla sitä…

Janea ei Anna kuitenkaan sinä päivänä katsonut huolestuneesti ja

ihmeissään, vaan Ruby Gillistä, joka istui lauluparvella Janen
vieressä. Miten oli Rubyn laita? Hän oli kauniimpi kuin milloinkaan
ennen, mutta hänen sinisissä silmissään oli kuumeinen loiste ja
poskien heleä puna oli melkein huolestuttavan korea. Hän oli
sitäpaitsi laihtunut ja käynyt heikon näköiseksi, laulukirjaa pitelevät
kädet näyttivät melkein läpikuultavilta kuin kukan lehdet.

— Onko Ruby Gillis sairas? kysyi Anna rouva Lyndeltä, kun he

yhdessä menivät kirkosta kotiin.

— Ruby Gillis on kuolemaan tuomittu, hänessä on lentävä

keuhkotauti, vastasi rouva Lynde tuimasti. — Sen tietää koko
maailma, paitsi hän itse ja hänen perheensä. He eivät huomaa
sellaisia asioita. Jos kysyt heiltä, voi hän erinomaisen hyvin. Hän ei
ole jaksanut hoitaa opettajatartointaan sen jälkeen kun hänellä oli
keuhkokuume talvella, mutta hän lupaa ryhtyä taas opetustyöhön
syksyllä, ja hän hakee paikkaa Valkorannassa. Tyttöparka, hän
makaa varmasti haudassa, kun lehdet syksyllä putoavat.

Anna kuunteli tätä äänettömän kauhun vallassa. Oliko mahdollista,

että Ruby Gilliksellä, hänen vanhalla koulutoverillaan, josta hyvin
paljon pidettiin, oli vain vähän aikaa elettävänä? Oli kaameata sitä
ajatella. He olivat tosin joutuneet verrattain kauas toisistaan vuosien
kuluessa, mutta vanha tyttö-ystävyys yhdisti heitä vieläkin, ja Anna
tunsi piston sydämessään. Ruby oli kaikista nuorista tytöistä vilkkain,
iloisin ja keimailevin. Tuntui mahdottomalta sovittaa kuolemaa ja
katoovaisuutta häneen. Hän oli jumalanpalveluksen jälkeen tullut
sydämellisesti tervehtimään Annaa ja pyytänyt häntä seuraavana
iltana luokseen.

— Tiistaina ja keskiviikkona se ei sovellu, sanoi hän jonkinlaisella

ylpeydellä. — Konsertti toisena päivänä ja isot kutsut toisena, hyvä
ystävä. Herb Spencer ja minä menemme yhdessä — hän on nykyään
minun… Mutta lupaa varmasti tulla huomenna. Tahtoisin kauhean
mielelläni puhua sinun kanssasi. Tahdon kuulla kaikesta, mitä olet
tehnyt korkeakoulussa.

Anna ymmärsi, että Rubyn mieli teki puhua omista

valloituksistaan, mutta hän lupasi tulla, ja Diana tarjoutui tulemaan
mukaan.

Tytöt kulkivat ääneti eteenpäin. Alkoi jo hämärtää. Kultarintakertut

visersivät korkealla puitten latvoissa jäähyväisiä laskevalle auringolle,
ja niiden riemuitseva laulu täytti kullaltahohtavan ilman.
Sammakkojen kurnutus kuului lammesta ja suomaista peltojen
takaa, missä oras alkoi nousta ja varttua elähyttävän auringon ja
sadekuurojen vaikutuksesta. Ilma oli täynnä vastaleikattujen
karhunmaaramapensasten raikasta tuoksua. Valkeita sumuharsoja
leijaili äänettömissä notkoissa, ja sinihohteiset tähdet kuvastuivat
puroon, joka jyrkkien rantojen välissä virtasi.

— Kuinka ihana auringonlasku! sanoi Diana. — Katso Anna, on

kuin näkisi toisen maan kangastavan. Sen rantama on tuo
purppuraisten pilvien äyräs, ja erillään uiskenteleva valoisa hattara
muistuttaa kultaista merta.

— Mitä sanoisit, jos voisimme purjehtia sinne Paulin kultaisessa

veneessä — se oli uusi kuu, ja Paulin oli tapana sanoa, että sitä oli
ohjattava hyvin varovasti, jottei se törmäisi karille mihinkään pilveen
— miten hauskaa se olisi, virkkoi Anna kuljettuaan syviin mietteisiin
vaipuneena. — Uskotko, että me silloin voisimme jälleen löytää
kaikki suloiset muistot, kaikki ihanat keväät, jotka meille ovat
kukkineet?
 — Kuinka sinä puhutkaan! huudahti Diana. — Minusta alkaa
tuntua oikein kaamealta, aivan kuin me jo olisimme vanhoja
mummoja, joilta kaikki hauska elämässä on mennyttä.

— Jotain sentapaista minä olen tuntenut siitä saakka kun kuulin,

miten on Ruby-raukan laita, sanoi Anna. — Jos on totta, että hänellä
ei ole pitkiä aikoja elettävänä, niin kaikki muukin kauhea ja synkkä
voi olla totta.

— Tahtoisitko tulla hetkeksi Elisha Wrightin luo? kysyi Diana. —

Äiti pyysi minua antamaan tämän pienen purkin Atossa-tädille.

— Kuka on Atossa-täti?

— Vai et sitä tiedä? Hänen oikea nimensä on Samson Coates

Spencervalesta, ja hän on rouva Wrightin täti. Hän on myös minun
isäni täti, joten me olemme sukua. Hänen miehensä kuoli talvella,
hän jäi hyvin varattomaksi ja yksinäiseksi, minkä vuoksi Wrightit
ottivat hänet luokseen. Äidin mielestä meidän olisi pitänyt ottaa
hänet, mutta isä sanoi: "Ei kiitoksia. Asua Atossa-tädin kanssa — se
vielä puuttuisi."

— Onko hän sitten niin hirveä? kysyi Anna hajamielisenä.

— Saat itse nähdä, kunhan olemme siellä, sanoi Diana

merkitsevällä äänellä. — Isä sanoo aina, että hänellä on terävä nenä,
mutta vielä terävämpi kieli.

Iltapäivä oli jo pitkällä, mutta Atossa-täti leikkasi täydessä

touhussa siemenperunoita keittiössä. Hän istui vanhaan
haalistuneeseen aamupukuun kääriytyneenä ja hänen harmaat
hiussuortuvansa olivat aikalailla pörröiset. Kasvot ilmaisivat
mahdollisimman selvästi hänen olevan pahoillaan siitä, että hänet
yllätettiin mitä arkipäiväisimmässä touhussa.

— Ahaa, vai tässä on Anna Shirley! virkkoi hän Dianan esittäessä

ystävätärtään. — Sinusta olen kuullut puhuttavan. — Äänen sävystä
kävi selville, ettei hänen kuulemansa ollut Annalle edullista. — Rouva
Andrews juuri mainitsi sinun tulleen kotiin. Hän sanoi sinun
muuttuneen paljon eduksesi.

Täti Atossa oli ilmeisesti sitä mieltä, että tuon edullisen muutoksen
pitäisi jatkua vielä hyvän aikaa. Hän leikkasi edelleenkin perunoitaan
reippain ja varmoin ottein.

— Tuskinpa kannattanee pyytää teitä istumaan? jatkoi hän ääni

happamana. — Täällähän ei ole mitään hauskaa tarjottavana
tuollaisille neideille. Kaikki muut ovat tiessään.

— Äiti lähetti terveisiä ja pyysi saada antaa tädille tämän pienen

ruukun rabarberihyytelöä, sanoi Diana ystävällisesti. — Hän keitti sen
tänään ja arveli sen ehkä maistuvan.

— Kiitos vaan, sanoi Atossa-täti yhtä äreästi kuin ennenkin. —

Äitisi hyytelö ei ole milloinkaan ollut erikoisesti minun heikkouteni —
hän imellyttää aivan liiaksi. Hiukan minä kai kuitenkin koetan saada
alas. Ruokahaluni on ollut surkeanpuoleinen nyt keväällä. Minä olen
kaikkea muuta kuin terve, jatkoi Atossa-täti painokkaasti, mutta
kuitenkin täytyy minun puuhata ja touhuta. Täällä ei tarvita sellaisia,
jotka eivät osaa tehdä työtä. Ellei sinulle tuota liiaksi vaivaa,
tahtoisitko viedä hyytelöpurkin ruokakonttoriin? Minulla on kova kiire
saada nämä kurjat perunat valmiiksi illaksi. Teidän tapaisenne hienot
naiset eivät kai milloinkaan ole näin karkeassa työssä. Taidatte
pelätä käsien pilaantuvan.
 — Minä leikkasin aina siemenperunat, ennenkuin me vuokrasimme
maat muille, virkkoi Anna hymyillen.

— Minä teen vieläkin sen, nauroi Diana — Kolme päivää istuin

leikkaamassa viime viikolla. Mutta luonnollisesti, lisäsi hän
kiusoitellen, minä aina iltaisin voitelin käsiäni ruusuvedellä ja
sitruunamehulla ja vedin niihin vanhat, pehmeät hansikkaat,
ennenkuin menin nukkumaan.

Atossa-täti kohotti nenänsä pystyyn ja tuhahti halveksivasti.

— Sinä olet varmaan oppinut tuon niistä monista typeristä

aikakauslehdistä, joita ihmiset tilaavat nykyään. Niissähän annetaan
neuvoja sekä käsien säilyttämisestä että tuuheista silmäripsistä ja
kaikenlaisesta turhamaisuudesta ja koreudesta, — minä vain
ihmettelen, kuinka sinun äitisi antaa sinun tuhlata aikaasi sellaiseen.
Mutta hän on aina hemmotellut sinua. Kyllähän me aavistimmekin,
kun George meni hänen kanssaan naimisiin, ettei hän ollut
onnistunut vaimoa valitessaan.

Atossa-täti huokasi niin raskaasti kuin olisivat kaikki George Barryn

avioliittoon kohdistuneet synkät aavistukset toteutuneet.

— Vai te lähdette? kysyi hän, tyttöjen noustessa paikoiltaan. —

Eipä olekaan mikään ilo jutella minunlaiseni vanhan akan kanssa.
Kylläpä sattuikin ikävästi, kun pojat eivät ole kotona.

— Me aiomme pistäytyä vähän Ruby Gilliksen luona, selitti Diana.

— Oh, ei ollenkaan tarvitse antaa selityksiä, virkkoi täti Atossa

rakastettavasti. — Te vain pujahdatte sisään ja lennätte tiehenne niin
sukkelaan että töin tuskin ennätätte sanoa hyvää päivää ja hyvästi.
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