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From Qumran to Qur’ān: the Religious Worlds of Ancient Christianity *

This essay seeks to present, in a nutshell, a number of reflections on the long trajectory of ancient Christianity, particularly in the East, from its beginnings until the coming of Islam. As is well known, the Islamic conquests transformed the Christian self-understanding in the East, on both sides of the border between Byzantium and the Caliphate. In the West, too, the consciousness of the new, powerful challenge to the Christian empire was never very far away. Hence the advent of Islam constitutes the first real challenge to the belief in the ecumenical destiny of Christianity.