Medieval apologetics used neutral gentile philosophers as fair-minded arbiters

Evidence

Llull presents a learned, aged, gentile philosopher meditating on death, in tearful melancholy because he knows he will die and that there is no life after death. Llull’s gentile, like Theodore Abû Qurrah’s outsider from a remote mountainous region or Peter Abelard’s gentile philosopher, is meant to be an intelligent neutral observer, neither Jew, Christian, nor Muslim. — John V. Tolan, Saracens, 1307

Categorization

• DEFINE: Defines the literary convention of the ‘gentile philosopher’ — a neutral observer figure used across Christian apologetic dialogues.