PHILOSOPHY AND THE ABRAHAMIC RELIGIONS:
‘Scriptural Authority and Theories of Knowledge’
ISTANBUL, 9-11 December 2010
A COLLABORATIVE RESEARCH WORKSHOP ORGANIZED BY
MARMARA UNIVERSITY (Istanbul) AND McGILL UNIVERSITY (Montreal)
ABSTRACTS OF ACCEPTED PAPERS
Rahim Acar, Divinity School, Marmara University
Talking about God: Avicenna’s Way-out
Whether Avicenna approved divine attributes, perfection properties, or denied them is an issue of
debate among scholars. While some rejects that for Avicenna God has any attribute in the proper sense
of the term; some argues that he indeed approved God’s attributes. Both interpretation of Avicenna’s
position have textual basis. Certainly, Avicenna predicates many attributes of God, as he talks about
God. However, at times, he qualifies them such that they are no longer understood as usually we
understand those attributes. This ambiguity of Avicenna’s position regarding the divine attributes is
closely related to his position regarding the nature and scope of human knowledge about God. That is,
we do not know God by demonstrative proofs, reasoning from cause to the effect, but reasoning from
the effect to the cause. Such limited knowledge however, does not insure that the thing proved is the
God of Abrahamic religions, as taught by Islam. The weakness of our way of proving ‘that God is’ affects
the nature and scope of human rational knowledge concerning ‘what God is,’ and how we speak about
this God. Thus his analyses concerning human speech about God waiver between attributing God the
kind of properties found in religious texts on the one hand and refraining from predication of such
properties as they are generally used. This indicates Avicenna’s efforts to balance philosophical criteria
and scriptural authority.
James Bryson, Faculty of Divinity, University of Cambridge
Renaissance Platonism and Interreligious Dialogue: Nicholas of Cusa, Thomas Jackson, and the
Cambridge Platonists
Standing at the crossroads of the Middle Ages and the Renaissance in the Latin West, Nicholas of Cusa
(1401-1464) draws on a long tradition of ancient and medieval forms of pagan and Christian
Neoplatonism to develop a theological system imbued with an eirenic spirit. In his De Pace Fidei (1453),
Cusa uses Neoplatonic philosophy to posit a unity of world religions. The spirit of this work, and the
Neoplatonic metaphysics on which it depends, reemerge in a treatise on atheism, called The Original of
Unbelief, Misbelief, or Mispersuasions, concerning the Verity, Unity, and Attributes of the Deity (1625),
by Thomas Jackson (1579-1640), a forerunner to the Cambridge Platonists at Oxford. Jackson’s treatise
divides men according to their belief in a unified Godhead, in strict opposition to their peculiar cultural
or historical religious situation. Common to these works is the use of philosophy to reconcile the
apparent psychological divisions in the divine creation. Following Cusa, Jackson develops an ecumenical
theological system, within a discrete metaphysical framework, inspired by Neoplatonic mysticism.
David Burrell, Philosophy and Theology, Notre Dame University
Sketching a Jewish-Christian-Muslim Theology
In the face of countless negative indicators, and in the wake of the Regensburg gaffe (2007), rapport
between the two faith-communities of Christianity and Islam has been appreciably enhanced in the past
two years—in fact, more than in the previous fourteen centuries! The time seems ripe for a synthetic
work, tentatively entitled ‘Sketching a Jewish-Christian-Muslim Theology,’ delineating the points where
these traditions have veered towards one another over the centuries, to indicate trajectories for
productive work today. I propose an exercise in ‘creative hermeneutics,’ showing how each tradition
struggles with virtually intractable issues, thereby displaying how comparative inquiry can illuminate
those issues to the profit of both traditions. For each topic I shall explore how then current intellectual
trends helped to frame the issues so as to extend the reach of each tradition itself. Articulating free
creation demanded sharpening contrary views of causality, while exploring how each tradition executed
that task should help each to a fresh articulation today. Diverse ways of reconciling human with divine
freedom can highlight the crucial role which difference must play in such a comparative inquiry, whose
very mode is dialogic. Juxtaposing extensive Christian oeuvre on grace with Muslim (notably Sufi)
reflections on ‘proximity to God,’ and reflections of Abraham Joshua Heschel; as well as Muslim
explorations of trust in divine providence (notably Ghazali) with Augustinian and Ignatian themes of
‘abandonment’ and ‘detachment,’ also found in Moses Maimonides, should temper stereotypes of
‘Islamic fatalism’ on the one side, and ‘quietism’ on the other, to illustrate how diverse ways of
expressing the interactions of free creatures with a free creator have been expressed in practice.
Finally, Muslim (notably Shi’ite) ways of articulating ‘the return’ could enhance a relatively
underdeveloped Jewish and Christian eschatology.
Thomas H. Curran, Classics and German, Dalhousie University and Fellow of King’s College
Hermeneutics and Scriptural Authority
The three Abrahamic religions are often treated as if they were ‘monoliths’; within each of the faiths,
adherents are represented as if they conformed to a unity of categories and professions. The ‘religions
of the Book’ have each, individually, manifested all the hermeneutical difficulties associated with the
identification of specific religious writings as Scriptural, canonical and revelatory. Immense confusion as
to the theological essence of each religion was sown by the predominantly Enlightened principles of
Biblical interpretation evident, especially in the 19th Century. In the European context, these
developments in Biblical criticism and interpretation result in the most extraordinary conclusions. The
principles which are meant to govern human behaviour are no longer discovered in Scripture (here only
broad and highly flexible principles are work), but rather in the inalienable tenets of human reason;
religious prohibitions and the principles of ethical life proceed not in terms of absolutes, but only in
terms of human history, situation and context. While Christian polity claims to be semper eadem, it
turns out, in fact, to be in a state of continual reform and renewal. If the revolution occasioned by 19thcentury Biblical hermeneutics were applied to questions concerning the ‘religions of the Book’
altogether, the whole context of the debate would require a shift. The principles of ‘sacred
interpretation’ emerge as of the same foundational importance as those inherited Scriptures
themselves, apparently being authentically interpreted. The commonly accepted description of
separate, monolithic faiths is in this way completely shattered. Now, we might allow each of these
faiths to reassert itself in conformity with the currently topical principles known as ad fontes, where the
authentic, real and original revelation is recovered by ‘reaching back’ beyond modern fashions in
interpretation. In this light, the Abrahamic religions need not be viewed as antagonistic rivals, but as all
engaged on a common quest authentically to recover and interpret Scripture.
Elizabeth DePalma Digeser, Department of History, University of California, Santa Barbara
Exegesis and Identity among Platonist Hellenes and Christians
In Christianity and the Rhetoric of Empire: The Development of Christian Discourse (1994), Averil
Cameron applied Michel Foucault‘s concept of a ‘totalizing discourse’ to describe both the rise of
Christian power in Late Antiquity and the evolution of Christian identity. Cameron‘s book was
revolutionary, both for its application of political theory to late antique studies and for its original
assessment of the forces driving the Christianization of the late Roman world. What Cameron did not
see, however—and what this paper will argue—is that the trend she had identified for Christian
discourse and Christian identity was actually a response to a new third-century approach to Platonist
exegesis. Pioneered by Ammonius Saccas, the notion of a ‘philosophy without conflict’ (ap. Hierocl. Prov.
ap. Phot. Bibl. cod. 251, 461a24-39) revolutionized the philosophical community by positing that the
doctrines of Plato and Aristotle agreed in their essential points and that their writings ought to be edited
and interpreted in such a way so as to harmonize their apparent conflicts. Ammonius applied two
overriding exegetical principles in seeking to find what was ‘true’ in philosophy: first, one ought to start
with Plato, second, truth ought to emerge in areas of agreement. A Christian, Ammonius also
interpreted the Gospels in a way that did not conflict with his reading of Plato: although he saw Jesus as
the prophet that Moses had predicted, he denied that Jesus was the logos incarnate as his
contemporary, Clement of Alexandria, had argued by putting together the Gospel of John with the logos
theology of Philo. It is not difficult to see in Ammonius’ approach the seed of a totalizing discourse;
when one considers the legacy of his disciples, the corollary trend of identity formation becomes clear
as well. A liminal figure, Ammonius taught a diverse circle of students, including the famous Christian
theologian, Origen of Alexandria, as well as Plotinus, the foremost Platonist philosopher of the age. In
both lineages survived the concept of a ‘philosophy without conflict’, but in a way that became
implicated with issues of identity by the century‘s end. The line starting with Origen maintained the idea
that truth was found in areas of agreement, yet began, not with Plato, but with the core notion that
Jesus was the logos incarnate, a premise that required not only exegetical strategies that harmonized
Christian and Platonist doctrine, but that also required applying figural exegesis to Hebrew Scriptures
and to the Gospels in order to produce a system that was conflict free. Plotinus‘ school produced
Porphyry of Tyre. Porphyry‘s critique of Origen‘s exegesis as betraying the laws of the Roman polity and
Greek philosophy set out Hellene identity in sharp opposition to Origen‘s form of Christianity. In
response to Porphyry, Eusebius of Caesarea, the historian and defender of Origen, criticized the
Platonist‘s own figural exegesis of mythology as a betrayal of the tenets of monotheistic Platonism and a
reversion to polytheism, in a way that defined Christian identity as embracing the only true philosophy
that correctly interpreted the teachings of Moses, Jesus and Plato.
Greg Fisher, Department of Greek and Roman Studies, Carleton University, Ottawa
The politics of religion: Arabs, Christians and Romans in the last century before Islam
There is currently renewed interest in the nature of Arab Christianity in the centuries before the
emergence of Islam, a result of new work on a number of groups who comprised the most prominent
Arab allies of the Roman and Sasanian Empires in Late Antiquity (c. 400-650). Of particular interest is
how Arab conversions to Christianity within and on the fringes of Empire, and the resulting state of
‗being Christian‘, contributed to identity formation for the Arabs before Islam. Within this there is a
certain amount of attention on the impossible question of the religious sincerity of Arab Christians as a
marker of religious identity. ‗Sincerity‘ is, however, a chimera, and focusing on it obscures our ability to
understand the relationship between Arabs such as the Jafnid group (active c. 500-585) and the Roman
Empire, as well as the Hellenic culture shared by both groups. This paper suggests that it is more fruitful
to place the Jafnids and the other Arab Christians in contact with Rome within the wider context of the
Christological disputes of the fifth and sixth centuries taking place between Chalcedonians, miaphysites
and Nestorians, which were entwined within attempts by the Emperor and others to define what
correct belief should be. By examining religious affiliation within this highly fluid and unstable
environment – where the question of orthodoxy was always open for negotiation – and the cultural and
political benefits which accrued to the Arabs through their Christianisation, we can better understand
the contribution which the heritage of Hellenic culture and the complex processes of Christianisation
made to the formation of discrete Arab identities before the emergence of Islam in the seventh century.
Carlos Fraenkel, Department of Jewish Studies, McGill University
Religion as the handmaid of philosophy: a Platonic model and its use by Jewish, Christian, and Muslim
philosophers
I begin by examining the philosophical reconstruction of Greek religious and legal traditions in Plato's
Laws. Then I show how Plato's program of philosophical reconstruction was adopted by Jewish and
Christian philosophers in Antiquity, and Muslim and Jewish philosophers in the early Middle Ages. These
philosophers apply Plato's program to the historical forms of their respective religious tradition. The key
idea is that the historical forms of a religious tradition can be interpreted as the handmaid of
philosophy: they serve to convey philosophical contents to non-philosophers. Besides Plato I will look
primarily at Philo, Clement and Origen in Antiquity and al-Fârâbî, Averroes and Maimonides in the early
Middle Ages.
Wayne Hankey, Carnegie Professor of Classics, Dalhousie University
Philosopher-King, Legislator, Mystic, Prophet, Cosmic Priest: the Moses of Philo Judaeus and his
Islamic and Christian Successors
Drawing on Plato, Stoic notions, Jewish legends and the Septuagint, Philo Judaeus constructs Moses as a
Philosopher-King, Legislator, Mystic, Prophet, and Cosmic Priest. This amalgam certainly re-emerges as
model in the representation of Constantine by Bishop Eusebius of Caesarea, but it is likely that Philo was
known also among the philosophers of late pagan Antiquity. In any case, the divine philosopher and
theurge belong to the development of the conceptions of hierarchy in Iamblichus and Proclus and these
are now being shown to have influenced the constructions of both Christ and the hierarch in the
enormously influential Dionysius the pseudo-Areopagite who also gives evidence of knowing doctrines
of Philo. Dionysius is known in the Syrian-Arabic world out of which Islamic and Jewish political
conceptions drawing on the Hellenic heritage emerged after the 9th century. Al-farabi’s different
representations of the ruler who unites the philosophic and prophetic have the Moses of Philo in their
background and Moses Maimonides is in this sillage. Nor can we understand the titles of Christ
according to Thomas Aquinas nor his treatments of his knowledge apart from it. My paper will explore
these connections.
Douglas Hedley, Faculty of Divinity, University of Cambridge
The legacy of Parmenides and the God of Abraham
Neoplatonism's fascination with Parmenides left a deep legacy in the three Abrahamic religions. How
can a simple God be personal? In my paper I wish explore the tension between the tenet of Divine
simplicity and the Abrahamic conception of a personal deity. This is a complex problem for all three
traditions. There is no simple opposition between the Parmenidean legacy and the Scriptural (as older
text books often claimed), but nor was the integration without serious problems. My paper concentrates
upon Meister Eckhart (1260-1328) but his conception of unity is considered with reference to the
question of unity in Maimonides (1135-1204) and Ibn Arabi (1165-1240).
Joshua Hollmann, Faculty of Religious Studies, McGill University
For the Peace of Constantinople: Nicholas of Cusa’s De pace fidei and the polis as nexus of ChristianMuslim dialogue
Nicholas of Cusa’s De pace fidei presents a Neoplantonic vision of Christian-Muslim dialogue centred in
Jerusalem, a city of interwoven importance to the three Abrahamic religions. Influenced by Plato’s
Republic and other Christian and Muslim philosophers, notably Augustine and Averroës, Cusanus
transmits the Greek archetypal idea of the polis as nexus of religious concordance. While on a journey
from Constantinople, Cusanus received his vision of docta ignorantia (learned ignorance). This vision
provides the metaphysical foundation of his later vision of religious peace in De pace fidei, composed in
response to the fall of Constantinople to the Ottomans in 1453. The two cities: Constantinople, which
for Cuansus was the primary repository of Neoplatonic thought, and Jerusalem, which in the western
medieval mind was the center of the earth, spatially and symbolically mark the Greek patterned
geography for the social imaginary of Christian-Muslim dialogue in De pace fidei. For Cusanus the Logos
of concordance extends by gradation to all being, so also religious peace as realized dialectically and
hierarchically through the Logos extends from the city of Jerusalem to Constantinople and throughout
the world.
Aaron W. Hughes, State University of New York (SUNY), Buffalo
Logos and Muthos in Premodern Jewish Philosophy
This paper will explore the dialectic between rationality and mythical thinking in several key Jewish
philosophers in the premodern period. Many of these thinkers, like Plato before them, sought to
circumscribe mythopoesis and install the rational faculty as the sole arbiter of truth. This led to a
denigration of the imaginative faculty, although one that ultimately proved ambiguous owing to the
need to account for the phenomenon of prophecy and prophetic language. Again, not unlike Plato, this
gave way to a renewed focus on imagination and the coining of a series of elaborate allegories to point
the way to a proper – i.e., word-less or silent – understanding. To explore these and related issues, I
shall primarily confine my analysis to a discussion of Maimonides (d. 1204) and Judah Abravanel (d. after
1521). Whereas the former is mistrustful of the imagination, the latter celebrates it. This paper will
explore and analyze this discrepancy in greater detail.
Tariq Jaffer, Department of Religion, Amherst College
The Aims, Structure and Methods of Fakhr al-Din al-Razi’s Qur’an Commentary
This paper highlights the unique contribution of Fakhr al-Din al-Razi (d. 1210) to the field of scriptural
hermeneutics in the Islamic tradition. In the first part of the paper I argue that Razi’s Qur’an
commentary — the Great Commentary — marks a pivotal point in the history of tafsir through its
appropriation of interpretive methods, commentarial procedures, and techniques and concepts from
the Arabic philosophical tradition (falsafa). I argue that Razi transferred these philosophical tools across
disciplinary boundaries (from falsafa to tafsir) and that this ‘transfer of methods’ naturalized a wealth of
philosophical (as well as scientific) material into the genre of tafsir. By calling attention to the reception
of Razi’s commentary, this part also shows that Razi’s commentary began a trend in tafsir that aimed to
provide philosophical accounts of scriptural expressions and ideas. In the second part I situate Razi’s
‘transfer of methods project’ against the broader arc of Islamic intellectual history. Here I argue that
Ghazali (d. 1111) set the wheels of this project in motion, and that Razi and his Ash‘arite followers
carried out this project as part of their research agenda. By highlighting the transfer of methods project
as one of the salient characteristics of the late Ash‘arite school’s methodology, this part calls attention
to the dynamism of theology in the post-Ghazalian time period.
Ibrahim Kalin, Prince Alwaleed Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding, Georgetown University
Mulla Sadra on Existence, Intellect, and Intuition
This study looks at how the seventeenth-century philosopher Sadr al-Din al-Shirazi, known as Mulla
Sadra, attempted to reconcile the three major forms of knowledge in Islamic philosophical discourses:
revelation (Qurnullan), demonstration (burhan), and gnosis or intuitive knowledge (nullirfan). In his
grand synthesis, which he calls the 'Transcendent Wisdomnull, Mulla Sadra bases his epistemological
considerations on a robust analysis of existence and its modalities. His key claim that knowledge is a
mode of existence rejects and revises the Kalam definitions of knowledge as relation and as a property
of the knower on the one hand, and the Avicennan notions of knowledge as abstraction and
representation on the other. For Sadra, all these theories land us in a subjectivist theory of knowledge
where the knowing subject is defined as the primary locus of all epistemic claims. To explore the
possibilities of a nullnon-subjectivistnull epistemology, Sadra seeks to shift the focus from knowledge as
a mental act of representation to knowledge as presence and unveiling. The concept of knowledge has
occupied a central place in the Islamic intellectual tradition. While Muslim philosophers have adopted
the Greek ideas of knowledge, they have also developed new approaches and broadened the study of
knowledge. The challenge of reconciling revealed knowledge with unaided reason and intuitive
knowledge has led to an extremely productive debate among Muslims intellectuals in the classical
period. In a culture where knowledge has provided both spiritual perfection and social status, Muslim
scholars have created a remarkable discourse of knowledge and vastly widened the scope of what it
means to know. For Sadra, in knowing things, we unveil an aspect of existence and thus engage with the
countless modalities and colours of the all-inclusive reality of existence. In such a framework, we give up
the subjectivist claims of ownership of meaning. The intrinsic intelligibility of existence, an argument
Sadra establishes through his elaborate ontology, strips the knowing subject of its privileged position of
being the sole creator of meaning. Instead, meaning and intelligibility are defined as functions of
existence to be deciphered and unveiled by the knowing subject. This leads to a redefinition of the
relationship between subject and object or what Muslim philosophers call the knower and the known.
Torrance Kirby, Faculty of Religious Studies, McGill University
The ‘sundrie waies’ of Wisdom: Richard Hooker on the authority of Scripture and Reason
In the second book of his treatise Of the Lawes of Ecclesiastical Politie (1594), Richard Hooker
addresses the definition and the limits of the authority of scripture. The ways of Wisdom are ‘of
sundrie kinds, so her maner of teaching is not meerely one and the same. Some things she openeth
by the sacred bookes of Scripture; some things by the glorious works of nature: with some things she
inspireth them from above by spirituall influence, in some thinges she leadeth and trayneth them
onely by worldly experience and practise. We may not so in any one speciall kind admire her that
we disgrace her in any other, but let all her wayes be according unto their place and degree adored’
(Lawes II.1.4). The ‘maine pillar’ of Puritan objections to the Elizabethan Settlement rested upon the
claim that ‘scripture ought to be the only rule of all our actions.’ The immediate practical concern
here was whether it was necessary to look to the scriptures directly for the structures of church
government. Hooker argues that the authority of scripture must be interpreted strictly with respect
to ‘that end whereto it tendeth.’ He affirms the Protestant reformers’ doctrine of sola scriptura,
that the Bible contains a complete account of all things ‘necessary to salvation.’ Tradition and
human authority exercised through the church cannot add anything to God’s written word for this
purpose. On the other hand, the grounds of religion are understood by Hooker both to be revealed
in scripture and accessible to the light of natural reason. God the creator of the world speaks
through nature whose voice is his instrument and is manifest to the eye of reason in the glorious
works of creation. Whereas scripture alone is to be followed in the formulation of the ‘rule of faith’,
reason, custom and human authority are necessary in order to avoid ‘infinite perplexities,
scrupulosities, doubts insoluble and extreme despaires’ in the external ordering of religion. It is not
the purpose of the divine law as revealed in the scriptures to provide prescriptions for the political
structure of the church. This paper aims to explore Hooker’s contribution to the early-modern
treatment of the relation and the boundaries between the authority of Scripture and that of Reason.
Gregory MacIsaac, Classics, Carleton University, Ottawa
The philosophical structure of the Divine Comedy
In my paper I explain the internal structure of the three canticles of Dante’s Commedia, showing how
each makes use of Aristotelian and Neoplatonic principles. To date, little attention has been paid to this
aspect of Dante’s masterwork. Most Dante scholars have attended more to the historical or literary
aspects of the Commedia than the philosophical, and most philosophers ignore the Commedia because
it falls outside the philosophical canon. I show that Inferno and Purgatorio are an application of
Aristotle’s Nicomachaean Ethics, specifically his doctrine of choice as desiderative reason or rational
desire and his doctrine of habituation. Paradiso, on the other hand, is a model of the Neoplatonic
cognitive faculities, divided into the realms of sensation, discursive reason, and intellect. In this fashion,
Dante instantiates the normal Neoplatonic practice of following Aristotle for the material world, and
‘Plato’ for the spiritual.
Heidi Marx-Wolf, Department of Religion, University of Manitoba
A Case Study in the Late Roman Appropriation of the Classical Greek Patrimony: Images of the Ideal
Philosopher among third-century Platonists
Although there is no doubt that Greek philosophy greatly influenced Christianity, Judaism, and Islam, it
is important to highlight the fact that in the late Roman period, this patrimony was both shared and
contested among Christian and non-Christian intellectuals. Furthermore, the identity of those
intellectuals who saw themselves as the heirs and preservers of the classical Greek patrimony was itself
under construction. This is particularly true of the third century when Christians and non-Christians
were frequenting the same philosophical schools, studying under the same teachers and sharing ideas
across religious boundaries. This paper will argue that this interaction and the way in which Hellenic
philosophers were laying claim to the Greek past and creating their identity is crucial for understanding
the ways in which Greek philosophy influenced later epistemology and textual approaches in the
Abrahamic religions. This is because the Greek philosophical tradition continued to develop in very
deliberate, dialogic and self-conscious ways well into the period of Christian and Rabbinic formation.
This paper will explore the identities which certain late Roman philosophers, such as Porphyry and
Iamblichus, constructed for themselves by exploring the biographical portraits they themselves created
of the ideal philosopher. In particular, this paper considers the portraits Porphyry and Iamblichus
created of the Pre-Socratic philosopher, Pythagoras. This paper also explores the possibility that
Porphyry and Iamblichus used their constructions of Pythagoras to continue their discussion about the
role of ritual in the life of the philosopher. It will also address their understanding of philosophers as
political actors. This paper will, therefore, address a number of historiographical issues relating to these
third-century figures. First, it will counter the image propounded by scholars such as Dodds that
philosophy in the third century was characterized by a decline into superstition and irrationality by
focusing on the importance of ritual practice to the philosophical life.
Feisal Mohamed, Department of English, University of Illinois
Civil Theology in Augustine, Milton, and the Present
In his extended critique of Varro’s now lost Antiquitates rerum humanorum et divinarum, Augustine
takes aim especially at the distinction between ‘natural’ and ‘civil’ theology, the former being the
philosophical determination of the nature of the gods and the latter being officially sanctioned practices
of worship. If a theology shows the nature of God, Augustine wonders, ‘what is found wrong with it, to
cause its exclusion from the city?’ That question is a question believers have put to the established
church of the English Reformation and to today’s secular state. This paper will look at objection to the
English church through Milton’s Samson Agonistes, which places the language of civil theology in the
mouth of the Philistine Dalila. It will then apply the category of civil theology to the secular state in a
critique of the term ‘toleration,’ looking especially at religious controversy in France, Turkey, and in the
Supreme Court of Canada’s decision in Bruker v. Marcovitz (2007).
Gerbern Oegema, Faculty of Religious Studies, McGill University
Paul in his Cultural Context: Jewish, Greek and Christian
In this paper I will discuss some examples of ‘Biblical interpretation in Paul’ or ‘Paul’s reading of the
Bible’ within its cultural context. I would like to elucidate Paul’s use and interpretation of Biblical
quotations and allusions in its cultural context, which I define as the world of early Jewish and Christian
Biblical interpretation as well as of the knowledge and employment of Greco-Roman rhetoric within its
socio-religious and political context of first century C.E. Palestine and Jewish-Christian relationships. The
paper will be limited to Paul’s Epistle to the Galatians, of which Chapter 3 will serve as an example of
Paul’s use and interpretation of scriptural quotations against the background of that of his Jewish,
Hellenistic and Christian contemporaries. The highest concentration of Biblical verses in Paul’s literary
corpus is found in Galatians 3:6-14, which serves as a midrash or pesher on Abraham’s faith in verses 6-9
and as a biblical foundation of faith in Jesus Christ in verses 10-14.
Jennifer Otto, Vanier Fellow, Faculty of Religious Studies, McGill University
Paideia in Genesis: The Allegory of Sarah and Hagar as interpreted by Philo and Clement
Paideia, the educational process by which youths became citizens in ancient Greek cities, is today
infamous for having included sexual relationships between teacher and pupil. For early Jews and
Christians, paideutic relationships also contravened prescribed sexual ethics. This paper examines two
instances in which allegorical interpretation, an originally Greek hermeneutical method, is applied by
philosophically-inclined Jewish and Christian exegetes to their Scriptures in order to locate paideia
within their own tradition. In his treatise On Mating with the Preliminary Studies, Philo of Alexandria
gives an exegesis of Genesis 16:1-6, in which Abraham’s sexual relationships with Hagar and Sarah are
allegorically interpreted as the pursuit of preliminary studies and philosophical education, respectively.
Philo’s allegory is borrowed two centuries later by Clement of Alexandria in Stromateis 1, who prefers
Philo’s paideutic interpretation of Sarah and Hagar to the one given by Paul in Gal. 4:21-31. In both
cases, allegorical interpretation is employed to mediate the sexual elements of Greek paideia and to
integrate the contents of classical studies into Jewish and, later, Christian education.
Emily Parker, Department of Classics, Dalhousie University
Philo Judæus of Alexandria—The Paradigmatic Exegete
Philo (20 BCE to 50 CE) provides the first explicit synthesis of scripture-based monotheism and Hellenic
and Hellenistic philosophy. After Philo, there emerges a vast tradition of scriptural exegesis, in which
sacred texts and philosophical methods and doctrines are interpreted in light of each other. In Philo, we
find many of the principles fundamental to this hermeneutical tradition, such as the allegorical reading
of scripture, the formulation of dogmatic statements, the concordance between Plato, Aristotle and
revelation, to name just a few. Moses, as Philo understands him, is the pre-eminent source of all
philosophical doctrine, which is recorded in the Pentateuch and which is exemplified in his virtuous life.
Thus for Philo, and for those who follow him, religion and philosophy are wholly intertwined; to consider
these activities as separate in ancient and medieval thinkers is a misunderstanding, which undermines
the common philosophical heritage that was formative of Islam, Judaism, and Christianity. This paper
will outline the argument in De Opificio Mundi – Philo’s exegesis of Genesis – and identify the key
principles (mentioned above) contained therein. Then, the paper will highlight the reappearance of
these patterns in Moses Maimonides (1135-1204 CE), focusing on his influential treatise, The Guide of
the Perplexed. It must be noted that the aim is not to posit any direct dependence of Maimonides on
Philo, but rather to illustrate the reoccurrence of significant patterns, first established by Philo.
Timothy Riggs, Department of Classics, Dalhousie University
Transformations of the Soul: Elements of Pagan Greek Neoplatonic Theurgy in the Theurgy of
Dionysius the Areopagite
The corpus of works written by the author known as Dionysius the Areopagite, which has had a
tremendous influence on such thinkers as John Scotus Eriugena and St. Thomas Aquinas, has been
shown, in the scholarship of the past century, to be heavily dependent upon the work of Late
Ancient Neoplatonic philosophers such as Proclus and Iamblichus. However, the precise nature of
this relationship has not yet been sufficiently explained. Specifically, scholars tend to introduce
distinctions between the principles of Dionysius’ theurgical liturgy and those of the theurgical
practices of Iamblichus and Proclus in order to show radical differences between Dionysius’
understanding of the soul’s relationship to God and the world and that of his Neoplatonic
predecessors. This paper will argue that such differences are not so radical at all and that, indeed,
Dionysius brings into his own theology the essential principles of theurgy as outlined by his
predecessors.
Yazeed Said, University of Cambridge and Visiting Fellow, McGill Centre for Research on Religion
Knowledge in Ghazālı’s Politics
What is the foundation of Imam Abū Hāmid al-Ghazālı’s (d. 1111) political society? This paper aims to
discuss how Ghazālı’s theological sensitivities, as derived from his definition of fiqh in the first book of
the Book of Knowledge, Kitāb al-fiilm, form the foundation for his political and legal thought. If Ghazālı’s
legal and political methodology and epistemology provide a polemic analogous to his writings on
philosophy and other matters, for which he is more famed, they would reveal to us a manifesto for an
alternative order, concerned with a coherent definition of the Ummah. Pursuing political theory with
Ghazālı means revealing the extent to which he examines the nature or meaning of fiqh, as knowledge
and discernment that applies to the whole Body Politic, giving rise to a number of broader questions
about law, its meaning and purpose, about government and its meaning, and about the role of the
individual.
Thomas Sizgorich, Department of History, University of California, Irvine
A Christian Arbiter of Abbasid Elegance: Hunayn b. Ishaq and the Greco-Roman Origins of Adab
Among the scholars who enjoyed the patronage of the third-/ninth-century Abbasid caliphal court was
the Christian physician, translator and adib Hunayn Ibn Ishaq. Hunayn is best known to modern
historians for his translations of Greek and Roman medical texts, but he was also an author of apologetic
and philosophical works. In the production of these texts, Hunayn frequently positioned himself as a
kind of cultural impresario and interstitial entrepreneur, trading upon his fluency in the languages and
cultural traditions of the ancient, pre-Islamic Mediterranean and Middle East to establish himself as an
arbiter of ancient knowledge. It was in accordance with a similar strategy of authorial self-fashioning
that Hunayn composed a text known as the ‘Adab of the Philosophers’, a collection of biographical
notices on and apophthegmata attributed to the philosophical superstars of Greek and Roman antiquity.
While the text itself brims with intriguing renditions of such figures as Plato, Diogenes and Alexander the
Great, the paper I propose will focus upon the prefatory sections of the text, in which Hunayn traces the
history of ‘adab’ to the methods of education and personal training with which the ‘sons of kings’ in the
ancient Greco-Roman world were prepared to take up the power and authority to which station entitled
them. For the student of late antiquity, it quickly becomes clear that the argument implicit in Hunayn‘s
narrative is that the complex of cultural training, personal comportment, aesthetics, theories of power
and uses of literature signaled in the Abbasid world by the term ‘adab’ was in fact nothing other than an
Arab version of Greco-Roman paideia, a phenomenon whose roots, Hunayn claimed, resided precisely in
the ancient cultural traditions over which Hunayn himself had long asserted his expertise. In so doing, I
will suggest, Hunayn attempted to establish himself as an arbiter of the cultural and political koine of
Abbasid elites in part on the basis of his Christian identity (which identified him in the minds of many
Muslims with the traditions of the ancient world) and on the basis of his own earned reputation as a
purveyor of ancient knowledge and cultural expertise.
Fehrullah Terkan, Faculty of Theology, Ankara University
Making ‘Islamic Philosophy’ Islamic: Al-Ghazali’s Paradigm-Shifting Enterprise
Al-Ghazali was the leading critic of the Greek paradigm of thinking which dominated the intellectual
products of Muslim peripatetics of the classical period of Islamic philosophy. An examination of his
approach to philosophy and of the criticisms that he leveled against Muslim philosophers
unquestionably reveals that al-Ghazali did not denounce philosophy insofar as it is philosophy. This we
know from the fact that he subscribes to certain doctrines of the falasifah. Such an examination shows
several more significant points: a) al-Ghazali undertook to show that the falasifah’s arguments to
support their doctrines are neither well-built nor cogent; b) he also rebutted the philosophical views
that he deemed unacceptable on the ground that they were not built upon the paradigm of Islamic
worldview extracted from Islamic revelation. This is despite the fact that he was influenced by his
peripatetic predecessors. His being influenced by them should not be considered in contradiction with
his paradigm-shifting philosophical arguments against them. For his arguments are constructed with a
view to differentiating between the Islamic teachings and the falasifah’s Greek way of thinking
concerning the fundamental issues that are dealt with by both of the perspectives. Al-Gazali tackled
quite a few problematic propositions of the falasifah with a view to making Islamic the ‘Islamic
Philosophy’ of the falasifah. To that end, he attempted to bring admissible alternatives by invoking to
Islamic revelation apart from the aid of reason. But the underlying issue was the notion of God and alGhazali set out to show the philosophical admissibility of the Islamic ‘theistic’ God in contradistinction
with the religiously unacceptable ‘deistic’ Necessary Existent of the falasifah. Al-Ghazali’s efforts were
oriented towards the propositional truth of religious teachings despite the falasifa’s belittling challenge
to revelation by viewing it as epistemologically inferior. In this presentation, I shall offer some examples
for these claims from his texts on the notion of deity and some other issues through analyzing relevant
passages. I hope to show how al-Ghazali’s conspicuous albeit reserved appropriation of philosophy and
his reception of certain philosophical doctrines at the same time made possible the engenderment of a
new paradigm of thinking that gave rise to a new though short-lived way of philosophizing.
Alexander Treiger, Department of Classics, Dalhousie University
Charming the Snake or Charmed by the Snake: al-Ghazali and the Philosophers
In his celebrated ‘polemical autobiography’ The Deliverer from Error (al-Munqidh min al-Dalal), the
Muslim theologian al-Ghazali (1058-1111) uses a series of striking images to characterize his attitude to
the Graeco-Arabic philosophical tradition, especially to the philosophy of al-Farabi and Ibn Sina. In one
of these images, perhaps the most telling one, philosophy is implicitly compared to a snake, and the
expert theologian, like al-Ghazali himself, is presented as a snake-charmer. The theologian’s task is to
neutralize the snake’s venom and to distil the theriac required to cure the Muslim community from its
spiritual disease. Despite the fact the theriac administered by the theologian is derived from the snake
of philosophy, ordinary Muslims ought to feel no aversion to it, but gratefully accept the treatment, for
it is necessary for curing their ailment. Despite al-Ghazali’s overt criticism of certain philosophical
teachings in his anti-philosophical treatise Incoherence of the Philosophers, curing spiritual disease with
philosophical theriac is precisely what he sets about to do in his other works, beginning with his
magnum opus The Revival of the Religious Sciences (Ihya’ ‘ulum al-din). In this respect, al-Ghazali is very
much charmed by the snake of philosophy, even as he presents himself as a snake-charmer. Though
critical of certain philosophical teachings, al-Ghazali is appreciative of philosophy as a whole and uses it
constantly in order to cure the Muslim community from its spiritual disease, in his attempt to revive and
reinvigorate the Islam of his day.
Hikmet Yaman, Faculty of Theology, Ankara University
Prophetic Niche in the Virtuous City: Revelatory Background of Islamic Philosophy
In the early period of their philosophical activities, Arabic-speaking thinkers received a Greek intellectual
heritage that in fact did not make a definitive distinction between philosophy and religion. They believed
that true philosophy and religion do not contradict one another and that ultimately philosophy was the
intellectual expression of religious beliefs, the two using different modes of expression. In this
conjunction, the earliest Muslim historians of philosophy make frequent reference to the intellectual
legacies of Hermes, Luqmān, and The Five Pillars of Hikmah (asātīn al-hikmah al-khamsah), namely,
Empedocles, Pythagoras, Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle. The Muslim historians thought that philosophy
represented for these ancient authorities knowledge of the true nature of things and derived from the
prophetic revelation (mishkāt al-nubuwwah) by way of Luqmān and David. This paper will explore the
earliest Muslim philosophers’ reception and perception of philosophy in its particular relation to the
institution of prophethood. The exploration will include an analysis of the inner formative forces that
caused Muslim intellectuals to become interested in Greek philosophy and its leading figures, as well as
an attempt to discuss their main objectives that they hoped to achieve through philosophical inquiry.
From this perspective, the paper will examine the writings of three major Muslim philosophers from the
formative period of Islamic philosophy, namely al-Kindī (d. ca. 260/873), al-Fārābī (d. 339/950) and Ibn
Sīnā (d. 428/1037).