Baptism in Safety

Under the Islamic law of the emirate, a Muslim who received Christian baptism committed apostasy, a capital offense; Abo therefore could not be baptized in Tbilisi. He received baptism only when Nerse’s household withdrew northward, beyond the reach of Arab power, into the Christian-controlled lands of the north — Khazaria and Abkhazia — where he was safe from the penalty.

Tradition: Georgian Orthodox

Why Baptism Was Impossible in Tbilisi

Abo came to full Christian faith while still living under Arab rule, but he could not act on it openly there, and the reason is precisely legal rather than a matter of general persecution. Under the Islamic law that governed the emirate of Tbilisi, a born Christian might remain a Christian as a subordinate but tolerated dhimmi; what the law forbade, on pain of death, was apostasy from Islam (see Tbilisi under the Arab Emirate). Abo had been born and raised a Muslim (see Abo the Arab Perfumer). For him to be baptized — to pass publicly from Islam to Christianity — was therefore not merely a private religious act but, in the eyes of the ruling power, a capital crime (Sabanisdze, Martyrdom of Abo, c. 786–790; trans. Lang, Lives and Legends of the Georgian Saints, 2nd ed., SVS Press, 1976, pp. 115–133; on the apostasy penalty as the specific legal ground, see The Pattern of the Convert-Martyr).

This is why the Life is so precise about geography, and why the collection insists on it: Abo’s danger was never the general danger of being a Christian in Tbilisi — the Georgians around him were Christians — but the specific danger of being a convert from Islam. Baptism in Tbilisi would have exposed him at once to the apostasy law. His faith had to wait for a place where that law did not run.

The Withdrawal to the Christian North

That place came when the political fortunes of Prince Nerse turned again. Under renewed danger — the Life presents Nerse as once more in jeopardy from the Arab authorities — the prince withdrew from Kartli into the Christian-ruled lands to the north, taking his household, including Abo, with him. It was there, out of the emirate’s jurisdiction and safe from the apostasy penalty, that Abo at last received Christian baptism (Sabanisdze, Martyrdom of Abo, trans. Lang, 1976; OCA notice, “Martyr Abo the Perfumer,” oca.org: Abo “was eventually baptized in Khazaria, while in the company of Duke Nerse”).

The northern destination is described in the tradition as Khazaria — the great steppe khaganate north of the Caucasus, whose ruling elite was not Muslim (and, in this very period, is famously associated with a turn toward Judaism), so that its lands lay outside Islamic jurisdiction — and, in the fuller narrative, a subsequent move to Abkhazia, the Christian-ruled principality on the eastern Black Sea coast (Sabanisdze, Martyrdom of Abo, trans. Lang, 1976; and the classic study of this material, Peeters, “Les Khazars dans la Passion de S. Abo de Tiflis,” Analecta Bollandiana 52 [1934]: 21–56). What all versions agree on is the essential point: baptism was received in the free Christian north, where Arab law could not reach, and not in Arab Tbilisi.

The Disputed Itinerary

The details of the northern journey are the point at which the Life’s narrative has been most closely scrutinized, and here the collection flags the uncertainty honestly.

[Disputed: the exact itinerary and circumstances of Abo’s baptism in the north. The Life places the household’s refuge in Khazaria and then in Abkhazia, and locates Abo’s baptism in the course of this northern sojourn; Paul Peeters, in the classic critical study, examined the Khazar material in detail and treated the geography and some of the incidental detail with caution, situating it within the hagiographer’s knowledge and purposes rather than accepting every particular as a precise travelogue (Peeters, “Les Khazars dans la Passion de S. Abo de Tiflis,” Analecta Bollandiana 52 [1934]: 21–56). What is firmly attested by the near-contemporary source is that Abo was baptized in Christian-controlled territory in the north, where he was beyond the reach of the Islamic apostasy law; the precise route (Khazaria, Abkhazia, the order and duration of each stage) is reported by the single narrative of the Life and cannot be independently confirmed (Lang, Lives and Legends, 1976; Peeters, 1934).]

This is the proper posture for the repository: the firm core — a real baptism, in the safe Christian north, by a real convert from Islam — rests on a strong near-contemporary source; the incidental geography is reported as the Life gives it, with the standard scholarly caution named (METHODOLOGY §3.5). The northern journey is not a legend layered on centuries later; it is part of the original narrative of a man who knew Abo’s contemporaries. But a single narrative’s incidental details are not the same as documented fact, and Peeters’ study is the reason the collection marks the itinerary as disputed rather than certain.

The Meaning of a Baptism Delayed

There is a spiritual weight to the fact that Abo believed as a Christian before he could be baptized as one, and that his baptism, when it came, was received in exile from Arab power. It means that his Christianity was, from its sacramental beginning, bound up with the willingness to place himself outside the protection of the ruling law — to become, formally and irrevocably, an apostate in the eyes of that law. Baptism in the north was not an escape from danger but a step into it: for having once become a Christian, Abo would then, of his own choice, return to Tbilisi and live openly as one, knowing what the law prescribed (see Living Openly as a Christian). The safety of the northern baptism thus throws into relief the deliberateness of the return: Abo could have remained safe in the Christian north; he chose instead to carry his baptized and irreversible Christianity back into the city where it was a capital crime (Sabanisdze, Martyrdom of Abo, trans. Lang, 1976). The seal received in safety was carried, freely, back into danger.

See Also

References

  • Ioane Sabanisdze. The Martyrdom of Abo, c. 786–790. Trans. David Marshall Lang, in Lives and Legends of the Georgian Saints, 2nd ed., pp. 115–133. Crestwood, NY: SVS Press, 1976.
  • Peeters, Paul. “Les Khazars dans la Passion de S. Abo de Tiflis.” Analecta Bollandiana 52 (1934): 21–56. (The critical study of the northern/Khazar material in the Passion.)
  • Lang, David Marshall. Lives and Legends of the Georgian Saints. Introduction and apparatus to the Passion of Abo.
  • “Martyr Abo the Perfumer of Tbilisi, Georgia.” Orthodox Church in America, oca.org. (Baptism in Khazaria in the company of Duke Nerse.)