Abstract
This article focuses on the literary motif of Constantine’s artful conversion to Christianity in the context of Early Islamic literature. While it is reasonable to expect that this particular way of presenting Constantine’s approach to religion would have proven useful in the context of polemical literature against Christianity, this article aims to show that his conversion also appeared in literary settings different from a strictly theological one. Alongside the polemical work of ʿAbd al-Ǧabbār, the article presents the terms in which the figure of Constantine and his conversion were appropriated within the works of al-Masʿūdī and Miskawayh. In these two particular authors the story of Constantine’s conversion is relevant to problems peculiar not to the apologetic but rather to historiographical and ethical discourses. Constantine therefore stands as a representative case in point for the diversified reception and adaptation of Late Antiquity’s legacy within the emerging Islamicate world.
Highlights
Legends about the first Christian emperor circulated in all languages of the Late Antique Mediterranean world, becoming part of the cultural world inherited by Islamic civilization
While it is reasonable to expect that this particular way of presenting Constantine’s approach to religion would have proven useful in the context of polemical literature against Christianity, this article aims to show that his conversion appeared in literary settings different from a strictly theological one
Alongside the polemical work ofAbd al-Ǧabbār, the article presents the terms in which the figure of Constantine and his conversion were appropriated within the works of al-Masūdī and Miskawayh
Summary
Legends about the first Christian emperor circulated in all languages of the Late Antique Mediterranean world, becoming part of the cultural world inherited by Islamic civilization. In these different contexts the legacy of Constantine found new forms of reinterpretation and re-appropriation. Jonathan Stutz conversion can be seen as an echo of several narratives developed in Late Antique historiography about Constantine, above all the legend of the vision of the Cross and the Sylvester legend, which we will present in the first section below before tracing some distinguishing features of the literary motif of Constantine’s feigned conversion as exemplified by the Muslim writersAbd al-Ǧabbār al-Hamaḏānī, al-Masūdī, and Miskawayh.[2]
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