Tuesday, February 18, 2025

*** This is a rough transcript of today’s show ***

It is the 18th of February 2025. Welcome to the Christian History Almanac, brought to you by 1517 at 1517.org; I’m Dan van Voorhis.

The plush CHA studios are in the foothills of Saddleback Mountain. Whenever I travel inland on the toll road, I’m reminded that mountain ranges used to be concrete impassable barriers between peoples. This parallels what foreign languages used to be impassable barriers between people, texts, and ideas.

It is for this reason that some of my favorite historical characters are those who possessed the gift of languages- those who could translate texts otherwise unknown to large swaths of people- and today we remember one of the more significant members of the church who used his gifts of translation in the early modern period bringing the riches of the Syriac tradition to the rest of us in the west.  

He was Ibrahim-al Haqilani, born on this, the 18th of February in 1605. He was a theologian, teacher, and translator in the Maronite tradition. With a name like al Haqilani and a tradition like that of the Maronites, he deserves some special attention on the 420th anniversary of his birth.

He was born in Syria into that church that has long linked east and west. The Maronites are a church founded by St. Maron- a 4th-century monk in Antioch whose followers would move to Lebanon and grow amidst the expansion of Islam in the Middle East. By the time of the First Crusade, they allied themselves with Franks such that they were welcomed into fellowship with the church of the Latin West (what we call “Roman Catholic” today). This makes the Maronite Church one of the few “autocephalous” churches of the “east” (they have their own liturgy and languages- Syriac (a version of Aramaic) and Arabic. The church is one of the few that has retained its own tradition and leadership while also being in communion with Rome.

Ibrahim al Haqilani, who also went by the Latinized name “Abraham Ecchellensis,” would serve as a crucial link between the churches of the East and Middle East and the West.

Ibrahim came to Rome from his home in Syria to study at the Maronite College in Rome. He made a name for himself as one who could translate Syriac into Latin. You might remember that the Syriac language was one of the earliest to get its own translation and a tradition that was largely unknown for centuries because of the barrier of language.

Ibrahim first taught at Pisa before being called to Paris to work on a Polyglot bible- this is the tradition of publishing a biblical text in parallel columns in different languages.

Ibrahim took the old Syriac translations as well as the Samaritan Pentateuch- an old collection of the first 5 books of the Bible in a modified form of ancient Hebrew- and helped translate them into Latin. His knowledge of Middle Eastern languages made him invaluable in the West in this era of bible translation and proliferation. While academic squabbles led him to leave the polyglot project, his life work was still one of translating and bridging disparate Christian communities.

He would also translate other works in Arabic that would be helpful for understanding early Christian Muslim relations. Perhaps most important was a Syriac grammar he published, allowing others to learn the language. He would serve for a time on the congregation for the Evangelization of All Peoples (that’s the modern name- it was the “college of Propaganda” before that became a word meaning something else).

He translated Arabic histories and documents into Latin for Westerners but also translated Western texts for Christians who only read Syriac. He would teach at the Sorbonne and again in Rome, where he died in 1664. Ibrahim al Haqilani is not a household name- but his role in translating from Arabic both biblical and extra-biblical texts is worthy to note- one of the key “translators” in the story of the modern church born on this day in 1605.

The last word for today is from the daily lectionary- a good word from 2 Corinthians 1:

18 But as surely as God is faithful, our message to you is not “Yes” and “No.” 19 For the Son of God, Jesus Christ, who was preached among you by us—by me and Silas and Timothy—was not “Yes” and “No,” but in him it has always been “Yes.” 20 For no matter how many promises God has made, they are “Yes” in Christ. And so through him the “Amen” is spoken by us to the glory of God. 21 Now it is God who makes both us and you stand firm in Christ. He anointed us, 22 set his seal of ownership on us, and put his Spirit in our hearts as a deposit, guaranteeing what is to come.

This has been the Christian History Almanac for the 18th of February 2025 brought to you by 1517 at 1517.org.

The show is produced by the autocephalous Christopher Gillespie.

The show is written and read by a man whose cephalous is never auto… Dan van Voorhis.

You can catch us here every day- and remember that the rumors of grace, forgiveness, and the redemption of all things are true…. Everything is going to be ok.