The True Religion Apology as Counter-Political Theology in Syriac:
This paper examines the so-called “true religion apology”, a popular motif in Islamicate Christian literature, as a form of counter-political theology, focusing on four West-Syriac authors who wrote in Syriac: Giwargis of Bʿeltan (d. 790), Dionysius of Tell-Maḥrē (d. 845), Jacob bar Shakkō (d. 1241), and Gregory bar ʿEbrōyō (d. 1286). Across their works, the true religion motif follows a common structure: positively, it affirms Christianity as the true faith, based on fulfilled prophecy and miracles performed by Christ and his followers; negatively, it explains the acceptance and spread of religions other than the true one —most notably Islam—by appealing to all-too-human worldly motives such as coercion, material gain, ethnic or tribal solidarity, preference for easy teachings, or moral laxity. Writing in the context of the Islamic empire, all four authors adapted this apologetic model to different intellectual and social settings. Giwargis of Bʿeltan deploys the “true religion” argument in biblical exegesis to confront early Muslim criticisms of the scriptural integrity of the Gospel. Dionysius of Tell-Maḥrē integrates the motif into his historical narrative, offering a counter-history of the rise of Islam. Jacob bar Shakkō embeds the apology within a systematic theological framework that rationalizes Christian belief against Islamic objections. Finally, Gregory bar ʿEbrōyō, writing in a scholastic register, presents a more irenic yet theologically firm version of the argument. Taken together, these texts illustrate how the true religion apology functioned as a durable and flexible discourse through which Syriac Christians responded to the dominant religio-political order. Far from being a static polemical form, it operated as a counter-political theology: affirming the legitimacy of the Christian faith while critically engaging with the Islamic empire’s theological claims and imperial ideology, and at the same time explaining Christian political marginality.