Page:A Moslem seeker after God - showing Islam at its best in the life and teaching of al-Ghazali, mystic and theologian of the eleventh century (IA moslemseekeraft00zwem).pdf/48



vent of St. Mary Deipara in the Nitrian Desert. In the early part of the eleventh century an Arabic scholar made a version of Tatian’s Diatessaron, that early Syriac Harmony of the Gospels which helped the Christian Church to realize the main facts concerning our Saviour. A version of the Psalms was prepared in the middle of the same century for use in the Church services of the papal or Melchite Greeks. This was translated from the Greek Psalter, and, from the place where it was first printed, became known afterwards as the Aleppo Psalter. 1 It remains an interesting ques tion whether Al-Ghazali in his travels, or while still in Khorasan, ever examined the New Testament.

We are told that the Jews translated their law into Persian by 827 A. D. It is, therefore, hard to acquit the Christians of Persia of negligence. Their bishops found time to write learned treatises in Persian and Arabic, and even to translate Aris totle, but not to give Moslems the Scriptures. Yet Al-Kindi and others like him, many of whose names and writings are lost, were not afraid to give their testimony even at the court of the Caliphs. " The Church," says W. T. Whiteley, 2 " had not failed to exercise an influence on Islam around it, while Christians might not, on peril of death, seek

See article on "The Arabic Bible" in The Moslem World, October, 1916.

2 " Missionary Achievement: " A survey of world-wide Evangelization, I/mdon, 1907, pp. 22, 26.