The Medieval Church · c. 860–873
How to Discern the True Religion
Hunayn ibn Ishaq · 808 – 873
What it is
The caliph's chief translator sets out six reasons people adopt a religion — force, wealth, tribal loyalty, a persuasive orator, permission to indulge, and evidence — and argues that Christianity spread with none of the first five going for it.
Why it lasted
By the man who ran the Baghdad translation movement and put most of Greek medicine and philosophy into Arabic, from which Europe later got it back. His argument from unlikely success is still the shape of a common apologetic.
Scripture it works from
Where to read it
This work is in the public domain and can be read in full, free, at the archives below.
These open a search on each archive rather than a direct link, which is the honest way to point at an edition nobody here has checked line by line.
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