Composed by Grigor Magistros, an 11th-century Armenian princely savant and
friend of the Byzantine Emperor Constantine IX Monomachus (reigned
1042-55), the Magnalia Dei is a summation of the Bible in epic
verse. Written on one of the author's visits to Constantinople, it
resulted from an encounter there with a Moslem intellectual by the name of
Manazi - none other than Abu Nasr al-Manazi, vizier and emissary of the
Abbasid Caliphate, theologian and poet, who frequently visited
Constantinople in quest of Greek scientific manuscripts. During their
discussion on the Bible and the Qur'an, a stock Islamic argument emerged:
that the Qur'an is superior to the Christian Scriptures on account of its
beautiful, inimitable verse. The epic is Magistros's response.
The Magnalia
Dei is the earliest literary epic in medieval Armenian, and one of the
most informative compositions within the genre of biblically inspired
verse narratives in Christian literature.