Vita Machometi (Adelphus)

The Vita Machometi is a Latin biography of Muḥammad written by a certain Adelphus in the early to mid-12th century.[1] Nothing is known of the author but what he reveals about himself in the Vita.[2] This includes that he had heard the Muslim call to prayer and had conversed with a Greek about Islam while staying in Antioch on a return trip from Jerusalem.[3] Taken together, these facts suggest that he may have been a participant in the First Crusade.[4] He seems to have had a biblical and classical education.[5] He may have been a Benedictine abbot.[6]

The end of the Vita in the sole manuscript. The last line is the explicit identifying the author as Adelphus.

The Vita is a polemical account of Muḥammad's life based, so Adelphus claims, on the account of the Greek from Antioch.[4] It contains a mixture of actual knowledge of Islam and imaginary and folkloric accounts of its origins. Adelphus had clear misgivings about his information and sought to blame "the inventiveness of the Greeks".[7] The Vita relates that Muḥammad was a swineherd led by an evil spirit to seek out the heretical monk Nestorius (probably intended to refer to the Patriarch Nestorius). The latter teaches him magic and necromancy.[8] They create a new holy book—the Qurʾān—by corrupting the Bible, although Adelphus does not describe their doctrines in detail.[9] They present Muḥammad as a new prophet and produce fake miracles. Muḥammad marries the "queen of Babylon". To take over the leadership of the movement, he murders Nestorius and frames a bodyguard. Since the murder took place while all were drunk, he bans alcohol.[4] While out hunting one day, Muḥammad is attacked and eaten by pigs, which is why Muslims refuse to eat pork.[8]

The Vita Machometi contains many parallels to the 11th-century Latin life of Muḥammad by Embrico of Mainz.[9] The murder of Muḥammad's tutor is also found in the account of William of Tripoli.[10] Like Guibert of Nogent, Adelphus portrays Islam as the latest in a succession of Christian heresies arising in the east, like monophysitism and Nestorianism.[4] In addition to these western influences, he includes material borrowed from eastern traditions.[8]

The Vita Machometi was not widely read. It is known from a single manuscript of the mid-12th century, now in the Municipal Library of Trier and catalogued as MS 1897 (18).[8] The manuscript also contains the Historia de preliis and Berno of Reichenau's tonary.[4]