HMANE, Room 201, 6 Divinity Avenue, Cambridge, MA 02138
“The Story of the Apostles Peter, John and Paul in Antioch and Its Muslim Adaptation”
IMAGE:“St. Peter and St. Paul,” in the public domain
The Department of Near Eastern Languages & Civilizations and the Mashtots Chair of Armenian Studies
present
“The Story of the Apostles Peter, John and Paul in Antioch and Its Muslim Adaptation”
A lecture and roundtable discussion with Sofia Melikyan
Since the first centuries of Christianity numerous apocryphal texts have been associated with the names of the apostles Peter and Paul in the Near East. With the emergence of Islam, both characters were further rethought in the light of Islamic theology. Finally, as in many other cases, one can observe a kind of interaction between Muslim and Christian traditions, leading to some unexpected transformations. This lecture will examine these tendencies within the framework of the legend of the Christianization of Antioch, preserved in Syriac, Arabic and Armenian and having its supposed traces in the Qur’an and subsequent Islamic tradition. Some material evidences of the legend from Antioch (today’s Antakya in southern Turkey) will be considered as well.
Sofia Melikyan is a specialist in Christian Arabic literature, member of the editorial board at the “Orthodox encyclopedia” and former Associate Professor at Saint Tikhon’s Orthodox University in Moscow.