A NEW PERIODIZATION | 57and revelations and organize them into some form of book in order to de-
limit the canon—an agreed collection of texts inspired by this intervention
of God in human affairs and now circulated, though with exclusions poten-
tially controversial and capable of giving rise to countercanons. Not in Juda-
ism, Christianity, or Islam did these texts add up to anything remotely resem-
bling an ordered theolog y or systematic creed—the prophetic experience
usually resists systematization.^24 But speculation, debate, and teaching, both
concurrent with and subsequent to the scriptural phase, do gradually elicit
and nurture a doctrine, typically through composition of commentaries on
the canonical texts. Once this doctrine, or theolog y, has been expounded
fully enough to permit brief presentation in handbooks or even as a creed,
the tradition in question attains a consensus and a relatively mature formula-
tion, for which reference can more conveniently be made to the writings of
the tradition’s outstandingly wise and pious representatives, than directly to
its foundation texts. All of this, together, is what I call the “exegetical” phase.^25
Objections to or modifications of such a generalizing analysis spring read-
ily to mind. For example it has been argued that in the earliest decades of
Islam neither the prophet nor the scripture were much emphasized as touch-
stones of identity until the reign of the Caliph ʿAbd al- Malik (685–705), who
drew the community’s boundaries more tightly.^26 It must also be admitted
that the monotheist associations of terminolog y such as “prophetic” and
“scriptural” seem less appropriate in fields such as philosophy and law. yet the
writings of Plato and Aristotle did come to enjoy semiscriptural status, and
there was a revelatory element in some Greek philosophy, for instance Par-
menides or the Chaldaean oracles;^27 while the formulation of law, though an
ongoing process, could be presented by Justinian (to say nothing of Moses) as
an act of divine inspiration.^28 The prophecy- scripture- exegesis schema can
help us make at least preliminary sense of the welter of new doctrines emerg-
ing during the First Millennium. At this point it may be helpful to tabulate
some of the evolutionary milestones of the main cultural traditions that ma-
tured during the First Millennium, in order to convey an impression of how
they developed in relationship to each other.
24 Mani aspired to be an exception: see below pp. 188–89. On Islam, see A. Wensinck, The Muslim
creed (Cambridge 1932) chap. 1.
25 Compare the “deuteronomic” phase—of harmonizing, standardizing, systematizing, and gap
filling rather than addressing single, unique problems in a competitive and polemical spirit—detected by
R. Netz, The transformation of mathematics in the early Mediterranean world (Cambridge 2004) 8, 121–
23, 126–27, 133, in late Greek and Arabic mathematicians’ treatment of Archimedes. For further discus-
sion of Netz’s thesis, see K. Tybjerg, “The point of Archimedes,” Early science and medicine 10 (2005)
574–76.
26 Donner, Muhammad and the believers [1:2] 202–11.
27 P. Hadot, “Théologie, exégèse, révélation, écriture, dans la philosophie grecque,” in M. Tardieu
(ed.), Les règles de l’interprétation (Paris 1987) 23–34.
28 Humfress [1:37], in Maas (ed.), Age of Justinian [1:34] 167–68.