Ibn Kātib Qayṣar's long-neglected Commentary on the Apocalypse of John is a veritable treasure trove for those interested not only in the early transmission of the biblical text and its history of interpretation, but also in the way ancient definitions of prophecy and vision were reconceived in Arabic Christian theology. Written in Cairo by a thirteenth-century Egyptian author, it is one of only two large-scale medieval commentaries on Revelation produced in the Arabic language. The other such commentary was composed by a fellow Copt, Būlus al-Būshī, who was a near contemporary of Ibn Kātib Qayṣar. Together, these two works provide a compelling witness to the currency of this apocalyptic biblical text among Christians living in Islamic Egypt.
In the first part of this article I shall provide a brief introduction to both of these Copto-Arabic authors, situating them within the history of eastern Christian commentary on the Apocalypse and supplying essential background on their life and writings, with special attention given to the apologetic context of their work. The second part—the heart of my study—will focus specifically on the way that Ibn Kātib Qayṣar frames his interpretation of John's vision in the opening paragraphs of his commentary. In his interpretation of Revelation 1:1, the author presents a hierarchical classification of revelatory visions and portrays John as an angel, apostle, prophet, and priest. As I shall demonstrate, these two sets of concerns reveal how Ibn Kātib Qayṣar elaborates on ancient Greek and Latin cultural assumptions—assumptions that were crucially mediated through Arabic channels—even as he engaged with subtle linguistic issues specific to his use of a Copto-Arabic biblical text. Finally, in the third and concluding part of this article, I shall raise some questions regarding how Ibn Kātib Qayṣar's work was contextualized by, and in conversation with, early medieval Islamic theories of visionary experience.
Arabic Commentaries on the Apocalypse of John in Historical and Cultural Context
The Apocalypse of John had a somewhat inconsistent history of reception among early Christian churches in the eastern Mediterranean regionFootnote 1 a fact confirmed by evidence related to both canonization and formal commentary. In the third century, Dionysius of Alexandria felt it necessary to allegorize the book of Revelation in order to defend its “concealed and more wonderful meaning” over against Christian detractors who rejected the work, even as he admitted the validity of critical arguments against its apostolic authorship.Footnote 2 In compiling an official list of canonical books, the fourth-century historian Eusebius of Caesarea showed some reservation about whether to include the Apocalypse, listing it alternatively under three separate categories: genuine, dubious, and spurious.Footnote 3 Evidence from the second half of the fourth century suggests that the book of Revelation had fallen out of favor in some regions. In Asia Minor (ca. 380), Gregory of Nazianzus omits it from his list of canonical writings,Footnote 4 and Amphilochius of Iconium harbors serious reservations, reporting that “most say it is spurious.”Footnote 5 In Palestine and Syria during the same period, John's Apocalypse is omitted from the canon lists compiled by Cyril of Jerusalem (ca. 350) and the Apostolic Constitutions (ca. 380), as well as from the Syriac Peshitta (ca. 400).Footnote 6
This less-than-enthusiastic reception of the book among eastern Christians is also reflected in a fairly sparse commentary record. In comparison, numerous commentaries on Revelation were produced in the West. In the third century, Hippolytus of Rome completed his major treatise On the Apocalypse (which unfortunately does not survive apart from selected quotations from later authors).Footnote 7 He was followed in the West by a series of Latin writers, including Victorinus of Pettau (late-third century),Footnote 8 Tyconius (ca. 380),Footnote 9 Primasius of Hadrumetum (ca. 550),Footnote 10 Apringius of Beja (Portugal, ca. 550),Footnote 11 Bede (early-eighth century),Footnote 12 and at least nine other commentators before the end of the twelfth century.Footnote 13 By contrast, in the Greek-speaking East, Origen's Scholia on the Apocalypse, if authentic,Footnote 14 would represent the only commentary on Revelation produced before the sixth century, and it was only a collection of scattered glosses on selected passages, not a comprehensive treatment of the text as a whole. In fact, only three full-length commentaries survive in Greek from late antiquity or the early medieval period. The earliest complete commentary in that language was written by a certain sixth-century writer named Oecumenius from Asia Minor.Footnote 15 The second and third commentaries—written in the seventh and tenth centuries by Andreas and Arethas of Caesarea in Cappadochia—are both dependent on Oecumenius's work, and the third is in many respects merely a paraphrastic expansion of the second.Footnote 16 Other Eastern Christian language groupings give the Apocalypse text even less attention: For example, no Apocalypse commentaries are recorded in the Coptic language, and only scattered excerpts from a twelfth-century commentary by Dionysius bar Salibi (Dionysius Syrus) survive in Syriac.Footnote 17 Thus, the presence of two original Arabic commentaries on Revelation from the thirteenth century significantly expands our knowledge regarding the reception of this text in the Christian East during the Middle Ages.
Having sketched out the rather sparse landscape of eastern Christian commentary on John's Apocalypse, let me turn now specifically to the two Arabic authors who took up the task of interpreting this work. What do we know about them and their cultural context? Būlus al-Būshī and Ibn Kātib Qayṣar both participated in what has long been recognized as a “Golden Age” of Copto-Arabic literature—a theological renaissance that took hold of the Egyptian church during the thirteenth century. Būlus al-Būshī was a reform-minded church leader who was elected bishop of Old Cairo around 1250 C.E.Footnote 18 He is also known as a prolific theological author. In addition to his Commentary on the Apocalypse, he produced a series of eight homilies connected with major feast days,Footnote 19 as well as a systematic theology in three parts (on the Trinity, the Incarnation, and Christian truth).Footnote 20 His Commentary on the Apocalypse was the first written in Arabic; fairly spare in its wording, it becomes slightly more expansive when the author expounds upon the text's relevance for christological doctrine—especially the Incarnation, one of his favorite themes.Footnote 21 While this commentary has not yet been edited, Shawqi Talia of the Catholic University of America published an English translation of the work as part of his 1987 doctoral dissertationFootnote 22 and now is working on a full critical edition.
In contrast to the figure of Būlus, we know relatively little about Ibn Kātib Qayṣar. Our knowledge of his biography is limited to the fact that he descended from a Copt who held a prominent position in the Islamic government under the Amīr ʿAlam al-Dīn Qayṣar—hence, the meaning of his name, “Son of the Scribe of Qayṣar (Caesar).”Footnote 23 Ibn Kātib Qayṣar applied his own writing skills in the field of theology; his literary output included biblical commentaries and translations,Footnote 24 a theological treatise on confession, and an epitome of an apologetic dialogue written by the earlier Arabic Christian writer, Yaḥya Ibn ʿAdī.Footnote 25 He was also renowned as a grammarian and philologist; one of his influential works was a Coptic grammar entitled al-Tabṣira (“Enlightenment”). A polyglot, Ibn Kātib Qayṣar had some familiarity with Greek, Syriac, and Hebrew, in addition to Arabic and Coptic. This linguistic training significantly shaped his approach to the Apocalypse of John.
Ibn Kātib Qayṣar's commentary on Revelation dates to 1266/7,Footnote 26 perhaps only a decade or two later than the one authored by Būlus al-Būshī. The work survives in a small handful of manuscripts, including one at the Bibliothèque nationale in Paris dated to the thirteenth century,Footnote 27 and another at the Coptic Patriarchal Library in Cairo dating to the year 1335 C.E., but copied from an earlier manuscript dated 1305 C.E.Footnote 28 In other words, the known manuscript tradition for this commentary brings us to within thirty or forty years of its original composition. Judging by the surviving evidence, one may safely conclude that Ibn Kātib Qayṣar never completed his commentary; his interpretation ends rather abruptly at Revelation 20:6. However, in one of the curiosities of the manuscript tradition, this lacuna has been filled by later enterprising scribes, who have supplemented Ibn Kātib Qayṣar's text with Būlus al-Būshī's more succinct commentary on the remaining chapters and verses (20:7–22:21).Footnote 29 The end result is a juxtaposition of two Arabic perspectives on the Apocalypse of John.
Four distinguishing features of Ibn Kātib Qayṣar's commentary may be identified at the outset:
1) the author's special focus on the grammar and etymology of particular words and phrases, with special reference to Coptic, Greek, and Syriac precedents;
2) his fondness for systematic classification, such as when he categorizes different meanings of the words “vision” (1:1) and “Jewish” (2:9),Footnote 30 and different classes or races of human beings according to moral and ethnic types (3:4 and 13:1);Footnote 31;
3) his healthy regard for historical context; as, for example, in the case of his discussion of John's messages to the seven churches (2:1–3:22),Footnote 32 and the reigns of kings and emperors from the Hellenistic and Roman periods, such as Antiochus Epiphanes, Tiberius, Nero, and Titus (17:10);Footnote 33;
4) his citation of earlier commentators, including Hippolytus of Rome (whose interpretations he often rejects) and a spectrum of other medieval Arabic writers ranging from the Jewish philosopher Maimonides,Footnote 34 to Christian theologians from different theological communions in the Near East, including the Nestorians Abū al-Faraj ʿAbdallah ibn al-Ṭayyib and Sabrīshuʿ Bishr ibn al-Sirrī, as well as other anti-Chalcedonians such as ʿĪsā ibn Zurʿa and his near contemporaries Buṭrus al-Sadamantī and Būlus al-Būshī.Footnote 35 The ecumenical scope of his citational practice reflects the spirit of the Copto-Arabic “Golden Age,” a period during which Egyptian theologians came into deeper, more positive engagement with the theology produced by fellow Arabic Christians in Syria and Iraq as they sought to defend their beliefs over against the intellectual challenges raised by Islam.Footnote 36
The relevance of this apologetic context for the task of biblical interpretation—that is, the heightened sensitivities connected with Christian-Muslim encounter—becomes especially evident in the way that Ibn Kātib Qayṣar handles the number 666, the infamous mark of the beast in Revelation 13:18.Footnote 37 After citing Hippolytus, who had identified four historical personages whose names had letter values corresponding to 666, he goes on to mention the fact that his Arabic compatriot Būlus al-Būshī had more recently put forward a fifth name with this numerical value.Footnote 38 An examination of Būlus al-Būshī's own Commentary on the Apocalypse of John demonstrates his particular preoccupation with this detail in the biblical text. After quoting Revelation 13:11–18—eight consecutive verses of the biblical text—he reserves his only commentary for the number 666. In succinct and unsparing terms, he writes, “If the letters are summed up—if each letter is counted according to its value and added together, and then all are totaled up—the name (of the beast) will be Mametios (mametios)—‘Muhammad’ (Muḥammad).”Footnote 39
This numerical association of the beast with Muhammad and the coming of the Arabs to Egypt is attested in Coptic sources as early as the seventh century. Around the year 690, the chronicler John of Nikiu wrote,
And now many of the Egyptians who had been false Christians denied the holy orthodox faith and life-giving baptism, and embraced the religion of the Muslim, the enemies of God, and accepted the detestable doctrine of the beast, that is, Muhammad.Footnote 40
Perhaps twenty-five years later, the author of the Apocalypse of Ps.-Athanasius picks up on the same theme; written ca. 715, the work presents a prophecy purportedly given by the fourth-century Athanasius of Alexandria regarding the reminting of Islamic coins under ‘Abd al-Malik (696 C.E.). This retrospective prophecy forecasts the coming of a “nation (that) will destroy the gold on which there is the image of the cross of the Lord our God in order to make all the countries under its rule mint their own gold with the name of the beast written on it, the number of whose name is 666.”Footnote 41
This interpretation remained current in the thirteenth century; one finds it in at least one other Arabic-Egyptian work from Būlus al-Būshī's own era. His contemporary, Ibn al-Rāhib, twice makes reference to the name Mametios (
) in his Book of Histories (Kitäb al-Tawärīkh).Footnote 42 First, he recalls “what John the Evangelist mentioned in the Apocalypse regarding the weeks for the coming of Mametios and the period of time associated with him.”Footnote 43 Later, in commenting on dating systems, he notes that a particular Thursday was “the first day of the year in which Mametioe (sic), i.e., Muhammad, emigrated from Mecca to al-Medina.”Footnote 44 In his commentary on Revelation, Būlus al-Būshī inherits this apocalyptic tradition regarding the significance of Muhammad's name.
In this context, just as striking as Būlus's embrace of this polemical reading is Ibn Kātib Qayṣar's purposeful decision to suppress it. He notably refrains from quoting the specifics of Būlus's interpretation and concludes by saying, “The attempt to solve the true identity (of the beast) cannot be realized apart from divine inspiration, seeing as there have already been many inventive solutions proposed. How is it possible to find a way to know that name from its sum, apart from knowing the name itself? The wisdom in hiding this name was lest one of the kings or archheretics embrace it and claim that he is that beast.”Footnote 45 Far from supplying a name, Ibn Kātib Qayṣar is content here to leave the identity of the beast a mystery to his readers. His reticence to embrace Būlus al-Būshī's more controversial interpretation may be related not simply to hermeneutical method, but also perhaps to the very real social and political concerns he and his family would have had as cosmopolitan Copts who interacted with Muslim colleagues on a daily basis in literary and administrative circles.
On Visions and Angels: Ibn Kātib Qayṣar on Revelation 1:1
In the pages remaining, I want to focus my attention on the opening paragraphs of Ibn Kātib Qayṣar's commentary, and especially on two textual details that will highlight his understanding of divine visions and the mediatory role of “angels” in this revelatory economy. These two case studies will serve as an introduction to his unique sensibility as a commentator, an interpretive identity shaped by his inheritance of conceptual categories from late antiquity and by key issues related to the transmission and translation of the biblical text from Greek to Coptic and finally to Arabic.
Classified Vision: Revelation on the Edge of Wakefulness
The first textual detail which calls for closer study relates to Ibn Kātib Qayṣar's proclivity toward semantic classification. After a brief, formulaic preface, and after quoting the first two verses of Revelation chapter one, he focuses his attention on the very first word in the text, ru'yā, which may be translated as “vision,” “revelation,” or—as I will most often render it—“revelatory vision.” In his preface he had already identified the biblical book itself by the composite form derived from the Coptic and Arabic synonyms, ru' yā al-ābūghālumsis(lit. “revelatory vision of the Apocalypse”).Footnote 46 The commentator then proceeds to classify “revelatory vision” as “one (of three) species of prophecy (al-nubūwah) belonging to the givers of the law.”Footnote 47 He defines the broad category of prophecy as “a divine superabundance mediated through the intellect which has an effect over the rational soul, and then through it over the power of mental vision.”Footnote 48
Within this broad, overarching category of prophecy, he then differentiates between three sub-species or sub-types, which are distinguished according to the recipient's state of mind at the time the prophetic insight is granted. The first and weakest type, which he also somewhat confusingly labels with the term prophecy (al-nubūwah) “takes place if it occurs in the condition of sleep, by means of a dream.”Footnote 49 As examples, he points to a series of examples from the Hebrew Bible (dreams of Pharaoh and Nebuchadnezzar interpreted by Joseph and Daniel, the dreams of Jacob and Joseph, and Laban and Abimalech, and some of the prophecy of Daniel). The second type takes place in a condition of (semi-)wakefulness (al-yaqaẓah) characterized by light slumber (al-sabāt), and it is this type that he identifies as “revelatory vision” (al-ru'yā).Footnote 50 According to Ibn Kātib Qayṣar, this type of prophecy is described in Scripture as a kind of “sight, (a condition of) being lost in thought and inspiration” through which God speaks and acts in a more powerful way.Footnote 51 Examples include the visions of Abraham, Isaiah, Hosea, and Obadiah, some of the visions of Daniel, as well as the one recorded by John in his Apocalypse. Finally, the third type is defined by the recipient's condition of full wakefulness not affected by any trace of sleepiness, as in the stories of Adam in the Garden of Eden, Abraham's calling, Moses at Sinai, and (again) Daniel when he was on the bank of the Euphrates. This most powerful species of prophecy he characterizes as a divine “manifestation” (al-tajallī) and “message” (al-khiṭāb).Footnote 52
Thus, Ibn Kātib Qayṣar's classification of prophecy and vision may be graphically illustrated as follows:
1. Prophecy (al-nubūwah): experienced in a state of sleep.
2. Revelatory vision (al-ru'yā): experienced in a state of semi-wakefulness or light slumber.
3. A divine manifestation (al-tajallī) or message (al-khiṭāb): experienced in a state of full wakefulness.
Types of Prophecy (al-nubūwah)
Formally, this analysis of prophetic types bears some resemblance to the threefold classification scheme found in the fifth-century Roman philosopher and grammarian Macrobius, who divides revelatory dreams into three categories—the dream (Gr. ὅνειρος; Lat. somnium), the vision (Gr. ὅραμα; Lat. visio), and the oracular utterance (Gr. χρηματισμός; Lat. oraculum).Footnote 53 Like Ibn Kātib Qayṣar, Macrobius presents these types in terms of an ascending spectrum of revelatory insight: While the meaning of the divine message in a dream (somnium) remains (at least partly) concealed and therefore requires interpretation, the true meaning conveyed in an oracle (oraculum) is fully manifest to the recipient and does not require any interpretation. It remains an open question whether Ibn Kātib Qayṣar had access to such traditions, and if so, what kind of access he had.
While it is doubtful that he had direct knowledge of Macrobius's writings, there is evidence that similar dream typologies disseminated widely during the medieval period, not only in the Latin language but also in Arabic-speaking contexts.Footnote 54 Ibn Kātib Qayṣar's impulse to classify these types of revelatory prophecy is also consistent with the systematic approach of other ancient theorists, the most famous of whom was Artemidorus (second century C.E.), who likewise ranked classes of dreamers according to their importance and level of insight.Footnote 55 By the ninth century, Artemidorus's Oneirocriticon had been translated (or better, adapted) into Arabic by Ḥunayn ibn Isḥāq, a Nestorian Christian physician and scholar from Iraq.Footnote 56 As a result, this standard Greek work became widely known throughout the Arabic-speaking world, and Artemidorus's penchant for classification systems and typologies became an integral component of early Islamic (and Arabic Christian) dream interpretation manuals.Footnote 57
However, what distinguishes Ibn Kātib Qayṣar's own threefold classification scheme from that of earlier theorists is the careful attention he gives to the middle category of al-ru'yā, which he associates with the revelation granted to John on Patmos, and to the particular cognitive state of the visionary in his semi-waking encounter with the divine. Here, one begins to get a sense of how this Arabic Christian used but also elaborated significantly upon the semantic categories used by ancient Greek writers. In antiquity, there were different perspectives on the relation between the condition of sleep (or wakefulness) and a person's corresponding receptivity (or resistivity) to divine influence. Thus, while Plato and Athanasius of Alexandria could describe sleep as the ideal state for “true and inspired divination,”Footnote 58 others like Gregory of Nyssa characterized the soul's higher perceptions during sleep as “weak and faint.”Footnote 59 Among ancient authors there does not seem to have been a consensus regarding the definition of dreams and visions, or regarding the relationship of one to the other. Indeed, scholars have increasingly noted a blurring of these two categories, partly due to inconsistencies in the application of terminology.Footnote 60
What is clear is that Kātib Qayṣar's threefold categorization according to the states of sleeping, semi-wakefulness (i.e., light slumber), and full wakefulness expands upon earlier systems of classification found in the Greek commentary tradition. Andreas and Arethas of Caesarea, writing in the seventh and tenth centuries respectively, both adhere to a two-type model in their interpretation of the conditions appropriate for the visionary experience; they each describe it as “the manifestation of secret mysteries,” granted to one “who is illuminated and suited for guidance, either through divine dreams (διὰ θείων ὀνειράτων) or in accordance with a waking vision (καθ' ὔπαρ), which comes from divine illumination.”Footnote 61
While Ibn Kātib Qayṣar's concern to distinguish semi-wakefulness as a receptive condition for divine vision represents a new element in eastern Christian commentaries on Revelation, one finds at least one potential precedent in the corpus of patristic literature. In the second-century Shepherd of Hermas, the protagonist is said to have experienced two of his five visions after he “became sleepy” (ἀφυπνώσαι).Footnote 62 Modern scholars have wrestled over whether this qualified as a sleeping dream or a waking vision. However, in doing so, their oppositional discourse has had the effect of establishing a categorical distinction between two states whose boundaries sometimes proved to be quite permeable for ancient authors.
The permeability of vision-states in late antiquity is illustrated in early Christian saints' lives such as the Life and Miracles of Saint Thecla and the Life of Saint John the Almsgiver. Both of these hagiographical works relate accounts in which the saints appear to female supplicants at night while they are asleep, and in both cases the powerful presence of the saint causes the supplicants to wake up. However, this transition from unconsciousness to conscious awareness does not immediately disrupt the vision; instead, the divine experience is mediated across the boundary from sleeping (ὄναρ) to waking (ὕπαρ).Footnote 63 Could such accounts have raised questions in the minds of ancient readers about the possibility of a third, liminal state of visionary receptivity? While this question cannot be answered with certainty based on late antique evidence, it was just such a middle state—a condition somewhere between sleeping and waking—that occupied a central place in the classificatory system of Ibn Kātib Qayṣar.
Conflating the Messenger: John as Angel, Apostle, Prophet, and Priest
The second textual detail I want to focus on requires a close examination of the Arabic biblical text quoted by Ibn Kātib Qayṣar in comparison with its Coptic and Greek antecedents.
“The revelatory vision (al-ru'yā) of Jesus Christ that God gave to him who taught his servants about what must come to pass quickly and who gave a sign to them and sent it by way of his angel, his servant John (min qibali malākihi ʿabdihi Yūḥannā).”
Translation of the Arabic text of Revelation 1:1, as quoted by Ibn Kātib QayṣarFootnote 64 “The revelation (
) of Jesus Christ that God gave to him (i.e., John), to show his servants those things that must happen quickly. And he signified them, having sent themthrough his angel to his servant John (
).”
“The revelation (ἀποκάλυψις) of Jesus Christ that God gave to him, to show his servants the things that must happen quickly. And he signified (them), having sent them through his angel to his servant John (διὰ τοῦἀγγέλου αὐτοῦ τῷ δούλῳ αὐτοῦ Ἰωάννῃ).
Translation of the Greek text of Revelation 1:1Footnote 66The change in the Arabic text quoted by Ibn Kātib Qayṣar is attention-grabbing: The translator has conflated the roles of John and the angel in the text. John himself becomes the divine messenger through which the revelation is shared with all humanity.
The source of this variant reading of Revelation 1:1 was confusion on the part of the translator over the syntax of the Bohairic Coptic text on which he relied.Footnote 67 His error seems to have been that he mistakenly read the consecutive 
marking two nouns in apposition, instead of as elements of two separate preposi-tional phrases.Footnote 68 It should be noted that the translator in question was probably not Ibn Kātib Qayṣar himself, but rather an earlier scribe. This hypothesis is supported by the fact that the Arabic text used by Būlus al-Būshī shares this same reading, even as it differs in other details.
The apocalypse (abūghālimsīs) of Jesus Christ that God gave to inform his servants about what must come to pass quickly. He taught them and sent them by the hand of his angel John, his servantʿalā yad malākihi Yūḥannā ʿabdihi).
Translation of the Arabic text of Revelation 1:1, as quoted by Būlus al-BūshīFootnote 69Here we have a vivid example of how idiosyncrasies in the process of early transla-tion from Coptic to Arabic provided new contexts for creative commentary on the biblical text as it was received in medieval Egypt by Arabic-speaking writers.
In the case of Ibn Kātib Qayṣar, this textual detail becomes the focus of both etymological analysis (in relation to the language of the Hebrew Bible) and theological-ethical reflection (on Christian practice and leadership). First, he makes a point of emphasizing that “the naming of John as an angel (malāk) follows the custom of the Bible in the naming of all the prophets and apostles and priests as angels.”Footnote 70 He grounds this custom in the fact that the term malāk in Hebrew means “apostle” (i.e., “messenger,” Ar. rasūl). Ibn Kātib Qayṣar then plays off this fact in drawing a correlation between the function of angels and apostles, who are both considered as specially privileged emissaries sent by God to deliver a message.
Second, having drawn out these etymological connections, Ibn Kātib Qayṣar shifts his attention to the theological-ethical implications of John's identification as an “angel” for understanding Christian practice and leadership. In this context he identifies four additional attributes—“abstinence, the renunciation of bodily desires, contemplation of God . . ., and an abundance of knowledge”Footnote 71 —associated not only with angels and apostles, but also with prophets and priests.
The characterization of ascetic practice as angelic in character was a common trope in late antiquity; Christian monks were understood to embody the life of angels in their detachment from the world and in their teachings.Footnote 72 It is in the context of this high cultural value placed on asceticism within the Egyptian church that Ibn Kātib Qayṣar identifies the author of Revelation not only with the apostle John but also with John the Baptist, who was understood in the early church as a biblical model or type for the monastic life.Footnote 73 Thus, he writes, “John has been called ‘the Baptist,’ and he is also a priest, prophet, and apostle after the fashion of an angel. About him it is said, ‘Behold, I am sending my angel (i.e., messenger) before you’ (Mark 1:2; cf. Malachi 3:1).”Footnote 74 For this Arabic commentator, John the Evangelist, John the Apostle, and John the Baptist are one and the same.
Finally, in his commentary on Revelation 1:1, Ibn Kātib Qayṣar demonstrates a further concern to tie John's prophetic, apostolic, and ascetic legacy to the ecclesiastical role of the priest or bishop, “on account of the fact that all of them are prepared for God's service and the administration of his worship.”Footnote 75 John himself is recognized as the one who became the first bishop in Asia Minor at the presiding city of Ephesus, where he “preached before the transfer of that leadership to Constantinople in the days of Constantine the Great.”Footnote 76 Thus, in writing to the seven churches, the divinely-inspired John was directing his message to cities that “belonged to his (episcopal) seat” and to “the bishops of these churches,” who are identified as his “disciples.”Footnote 77
These bishops, in their authority as heads of the churches, are understood to have inherited John's own angelic stature, and Ibn Kātib Qayṣar deciphers several more cryptic details in the first three chapters of Revelation to support this point. The seven stars in Revelation 1:16 are “the angels of the seven churches,” and since priests are also identified as angels, the intended referent must be “the leaders of the seven churches.”Footnote 78 This sequential interpretative logic connecting “stars” to “angels” and thence to “bishops” and “church leaders” is sustained throughout the commentary.Footnote 79 This logic also provides the Arabic commentator with an interpre-tive key for understanding the peculiar form of epistolary address that appears in each of the seven messages recorded in chapters 2 and 3 of Revelation (i.e., “to the angel of the church.”)Footnote 80 In this context, he repeatedly presses home the point that these “angels” were, in fact, the bishops of these historical church communities, even mentioning Polycarp (Fīlfārīyūs) of Smyrna by name, whose “crown of life” in Revelation 2:10 is understood to indicate his martyrdom.Footnote 81
Final Thoughts: Dreams, Visions, and Christian-Muslim Apologetic in Ibn Kātib Qayṣar's Commentary
The two examples discussed in the previous section are meant to serve as a preliminary introduction to Ibn Kātib Qayṣar's work as a commentator. As a pair of case studies, they provide intriguing glimpses into how this medieval author appropriated and developed categories from Greek late antiquity, and how the transmission of the biblical text into the Arabic language conditioned its interpretive reception in thirteenth-century Egypt. Much more remains to be done to flesh out Ibn Kātib Qayṣar's modus operandi as an Arabic exegete reading Revelation in an Islamic intellectual and social environment, and I hope this article prompts further research in this area. Before I close, however, let me suggest at least one fruitful avenue for contextual study—an inquiry into the question of how Ibn Kātib Qayṣar's classification of revelatory vision related to early Muslim theories of prophecy and dreams.
There is abundant evidence for early medieval Islamic dream interpretation, and even a cursory glance at this large corpus reveals typologies of classification that are often quite elaborate. In one case, a Muslim oneirocritic named Sijistānī (937–1008 C.E.) divides dreams into six types, and then goes on to identify fourteen grades of dreamers and thirty-five different aspects of dream interpretation. Another theorist, Dīnawarī (1008 C.E.), introduces his work by addressing a series of fifteen topics related to dream experience, including the nature of sleep, behavior that encourages “true” dreams, the character of the angel responsible for dream revelations, as well as the definition of dreams and their relation to prophecy (to name only a few themes).Footnote 82 In the context of performing the particular task of biblical commentary, Ibn Kātib Qayṣar shares certain elements of this ethos in which systematic methodologies reigned supreme.
Indeed, in comparing his discussion of al-ru'yā with those of his Muslim con-temporaries, one observes correspondences not only on a formal level, but also in substantive terms. In classifying al-ru'yā as one species of prophecy, Ibn Kātib Qayṣar follows a judgment held by most early medieval Muslim oneirocritics. One of the early witnesses to this tradition, Ibn Qutaybah (828–889 C.E.), describes al-ru'yā as a kind of “divine inspiration” (al-waḥy) and a mode of “prophecy” (al-nubūwah).Footnote 83 Later Muslim theorists sought to be even more precise; they frequently defined al-ru'yā as one of forty-six types of prophecy available to humankind, a view that was picked up by Arabic Christian authors like the tenth-century Iraqi Nestorian Bar Bahlūl.Footnote 84 In presenting his own classification of prophecy, Ibn Kātib Qayṣar may have been adapting and simplifying such models in combination with earlier threefold typologies of dream visions developed in late antiquity by writers like the aforementioned Macrobius.
However, while Ibn Kātib Qayṣar definitely shared similar assumptions with his Muslim contemporaries on the classification of al-ru'yā as a form of prophecy, he also diverged from them on one critical point. Medieval Muslim theorists primarily understood the word ru'yā to refer to a divinely sent dream during sleep, a form of revelation best exemplified by Muhammad's reception of the Qur'ān. In early Islam, the true dream visions (ru'yā, pl. ru'ā) experienced by the prophet Muhammad are consistently set over against the unreliable dreams (ḥulm, pl. aḥlām) that bedeviled his critics.Footnote 85 By contrast, Ibn Kātib Qayṣar interprets the words ḥulm and ru'yā in nearly synonymous terms. Both have a positive connotation, but, according to his system of classification, the former is still clearly subordinated to the latter. While the term ḥulm (“dream”) (“dream”) is used to describe “the weakest species of prophecy,”Footnote 86 the kind experienced in sleep, the term ru'yā (“revelatory vision”) refers to a higher grade of revelatory experience, one that takes place in a waking, daydream state.
Ibn Kātib Qayṣar's reinterpretation of these terms would have had profound implications for interreligious dialogue and debate in medieval Egypt. If the prophet Muhammad received his messages from God while asleep, as was widely assumed by Muslim interpreters like al-Bukhāri,Footnote 87 then his experience would necessarily correspond to the first (and lowest) category of prophecy in Ibn Kātib Qayṣar's schema. It would no longer qualify as a revelatory vision (ru'yā), but rather as a prophetic dream (ḥulm). The semi-waking vision (ru'yā of John is, by definition, identified with the second level of prophecy, and therefore in comparison accorded higher status. One related terminological detail should not escape our attention at this point. When Ibn Kātib Qayṣar labels John's vision as a form of divine inspiration (waḥy),Footnote 88 he is borrowing a term regularly used by Muslim interpreters to describe the Qur'ān, the record of the revelation conferred on Muhammad. Here, however, the Arabic Christian commentator reappropriates this language for a very different end—namely, to mark John as a divinely-inspired messenger, as an apostle (rasūl)who rivals and surpasses his counterpart, the prophet (rasūl) of Islam. In this context, it is also noteworthy that this Copto-Arabic author identifies Jesus Christ as the sole source of this revelation, the one who granted this vision to John and who “taught his servants,” the apostles (al-rusul), the “superabundance” of his truth.Footnote 89
With these details in view, one begins to see more clearly the delicately drawn lines of Ibn Kātib Qayṣar's subtle scriptural apologetic against Islamic theology. At the beginning of his Commentary on the Apocalypse of John, he constructs a classification schema that utilizes Qur'ānic terminology and Islamic typological models, but that crucially reworks these elements to underscore the apostolic in-spiration of John and the authority of Christ in contradistinction to rival Muslim claims regarding divine revelation. In this way, Ibn Kātib Qayṣar introduces a distinctively Arabic Apocalypse, a biblical text and commentary directed to those among his own language community who had an ear to hear “what the Spirit is saying to the churches.”Footnote 90
. Immediately below, the scribe has assigned each letter in the name its numerical value: 40 + 1 + 40 + 5 + 300 + 10 + 70 + 200 (= 666).
) in the name for an epsilon (
). In the Berlin manuscript cited above (Or. fol. 434, 24), a different nineteenth-century scribe records the same passage, but leaves an open space where he was supposed to have written the word Mametios This omission is perhaps due to the difficulty he had in working with the Coptic language (this despite the fact that he successfully copied the same word earlier in his manuscript). For more information on the life and work of Ibn al-Rāhib, see Adel Y. Sidarus, Ibn ar-Rāhibs Leben und Werk: Ein koptisch-arabischer Enzyklopādist des 7./13. Jahrhunderts (Islamkundliche Untersuchungen 36; Freiburg: Klaus Schwarz Verlag, 1975); and Johannes den Heijer, “Coptic Historiography in the Fatimid, Ayyubid, and Early Mamluk Periods,” Medieval Encounters 2 (1996) 67–98, esp. 83–88.
