The Church Fathers in Arabic Translations

Book excerpt: This volume tells the story of the Arabic translations of the Church Fathers. By tracing the history of major translation centres, such as Palestine, Sinai, and Antioch, it describes how Middle Eastern Christians translated into Arabic, preserved, and engaged with their Patristic heritage. In addition to well-known authors, such as Gregory of Nazianzus, Ephrem the Syrian, and Dionysius the Areopagite, the volume presents a Patristic treatise written in Greek but preserved only in Arabic: the Noetic Paradise. Finally, by reconstructing a lost Arabic Dionysian paraphrase used by the Muslim theologian al-Ghazali, the volume explores Patristic influences on Islamic thought.