Origins and development

Chapter Two
Christianity

Its Origin and Development

Discussion of Christianity⁽¹⁾ cannot be separated, as regards its foundations and sources, from discussion of Judaism, because of the close historical and religious bond between them. Although the Jews do not recognise Christianity, whether its book, its prophethood, its doctrines or its rites, Christianity by its books and its messengers has a lineage going back to the Children of Israel and their books. This means that discussion of Christianity is merely an extension of discussion of Judaism, and our criticism of the Torah, in its text and its chain of transmission, necessarily extends its effect to Christianity as regards milla (religion as God revealed it) and nihla (a claim or doctrine put forward by human beings), since Christianity makes the Old Testament part of its wealth, the soil into which its roots reach, and the reference on which it relies for its doctrines, symbols and rituals. And yet Christianity as it is now, though it officially acknowledges the paternity of the Torah, is in reality an embryo, if we may use the expression, formed from many waters, which passed through its stages in several wombs, Jerusalem, Alexandria, Tarsus, Antioch and Athens, until its formation was completed and it was born in Rome, having become another creature altogether. Of the East it retains only veins connected to it that supply it with its blood, its thought and its doctrines, which ensure its survival and life; the West was a womb in which it was nurtured and which supplied it with nourishment that shaped its structure and completed its stages. Indeed, we would not stray from the truth if we said that Christianity, in its origin and development, was a strange creature, unique among living beings in having more than one father and more than one womb. It belongs neither to the East alone nor to the West alone, but to both together, such that if we removed the veins of life linking it to the East or to the West, nothing of it would remain, and it would vanish like a creature of dust, if we may use the expression. For despite its swelling and bloating, it does not carry within itself the vital organs that would ensure its survival and continuity. It is a shadow, not a reality; a mirror, not a fact; a compound without elements; a mixture of illusions and fancies without form or bounds.

(1) We recall that the religion and message of Jesus (peace be upon him) is Islam. That name [Christianity] is a man-made, later designation whose use became widespread after the message of Jesus was transformed into a new and different religion in about the fourth century. See on this Charles Guignebert, Al-Masihiyya: Nash'atuha wa Tatawwuruha (Christianity: Its Origin and Development), Chapter Seven.

If we look at its oldest documents, we find them distinguished from all other texts by the weakness of their chain of transmission, by confusion and by the difficulty of verifying them. Nothing shows this better than the following: "The careful research conducted in recent years on the basis of the original documents has established only a portrayal of the life of Jesus with some degree of certainty and confirmation, and we must regard the books that claim to recount his life as works resting on a great deal of arbitrariness and subjective tendency"⁽²⁾. "Merely leafing through the Gospels is enough to convince us that their authors arrived at plainly contradictory constructions of the same events and sayings, which compels us to say that they did not seek factual truth in writing them and did not draw on a fixed history imposing the sequence of events upon them; on the contrary, each followed his own inclination and his own plan in arranging and ordering his work"⁽³⁾. "Thus we can no longer distinguish clearly the historical aspects of the person of Jesus, and we no longer possess the sources needed to determine the events of his life precisely"⁽⁴⁾.

If, however, we look at it from a purely historical perspective, relying on the reports on which the other historical sources most agree, we find that it began with the appearance of a man called Jesus of Nazareth in the region of Galilee in northern Palestine, during the reign of the Roman emperor Tiberius. He called his people, the Children of Israel, as a messenger sent to them from God, summoning them to righteousness and piety and to the revival of the precepts of the Law revealed to Moses, and announcing the imminent coming of the Kingdom of God, in which there would be no place for the wicked. Some sincere supporters from among his people responded to him and gathered around him. But a violent event ended his life on earth. His work, however, did not end with his end: his followers continued to preach his call. Yet the first century had not passed before we find that his person had taken the foremost place in a new religion, which began to extend and spread, ending in complete separation from, and indeed open hostility to, the religion that Jesus himself had come to preach. This new religion grew strong and its pillars became firmly established until, in the fourth century, it became a strange empire founded in the name of Christ, called Christianity, extending the shadow of its church and its sovereignty with the extent of its possessions and influence on earth.

(2) Al-Masihiyya: Nash'atuha wa Tatawwuruha, p. 26, Charles Guignebert, translated by Abd al-Halim Mahmud, al-Maktaba al-Asriyya,

Beirut.

(3) Ibid., p. 28.

(4) Ibid., p. 29.

Thus, looking at Christianity in its first origin, and in its development and what it ended in, places us before two pictures that differ in everything, except in the link between them, which is the person of Jesus (peace be upon him), a person who has been exploited in the worst way throughout the whole of religious history. The Christ of today is a god; the Christ of yesterday was a man. The Christ of today legislates and lays down laws, permits and forbids, abases and exalts; the Christ of yesterday was a messenger conveying from God and calling to God by His leave, with no more power over his own affairs than human beings have over theirs. The Christ of today is a worshipped creator; the Christ of yesterday was a created servant. The books of yesterday speak of Christ's struggle and sufferings for the sake of his call to God; the books of today speak of the triumphant Christ who must be worshipped and deified with devotion. The books of yesterday speak of the loving Christ prostrate on the ground in humility before his Creator; the books of today speak of the Christ seated on his throne in heaven, with the crown of kingship on his head and in his hand the sceptre of dominion over the kingdom of earth and heaven. If we set about counting the differences between the Christ of yesterday and the Christ of today, we would never finish, and could not, unless we could count the differences between God and man. Those very differences are the content of the whole Christian heritage, or Christian theology (kalam); whatever else that heritage contains is only the seepage and secretion of analysis or debate over those differences. It is nothing but the outcome of continuous debate, interpretation, justification and explanation about the relation between the divine nature and the human nature in the person of Jesus. Hence it became the most disputatious and theological of the three religions, revolving around a single problem around which it does not and will not cease to revolve, for its life lies in that revolving; were it to stop, its heart and its breath of life would stop with it. If the scholars of Byzantium had nothing to talk about but the egg and the hen, what would remain of Christianity if talk of the God-man or the man-God, that is, Christ, were removed from it?! Perhaps his name would remain, and some virtues transmitted from him, things which, though true, cannot sustain a milla, nor build a church, nor raise thrones and kingdoms. Here we may rightly say once again: were it not for the Noble Qur'an, nothing would remain of Jesus (peace be upon him) and his message that points to him with certainty, neither milla nor nihla. Everything said about him outside what the Qur'an says is like carded wool; Christian scholars themselves cast doubts on it that almost make it like devoured stalks, or a trace after the substance is gone. What we present of Christianity through its official documents is only a sample to clarify this aspect. From those documents I shall content myself with what serves the purpose, and I shall not be drawn after the Christian historians of religion in everything they have said, nor share their zeal for mockery and demolition, for less than what I present would be enough to achieve the scholarly aim with which we are concerned, without bigotry or partisanship,

namely, to set out the milla as distinct from the nihla in Christianity, as one of the great heavenly religions, a religion faith in whose book and messenger forms one of the pillars of my own faith.

Though this is my aim, it will not be affected, and may perhaps be supported, by a word I find necessary as a preface to speaking about Christianity. I address it, with gentleness and affection, to my friend the young scholar-monk whose hospitality I had the good fortune to enjoy at one of our venerable monasteries in Wadi al-Natrun, and who has given himself and his youth to faith, withdrawing from people in the quiet of his cell in search of the roots and origins of that faith. It will not displease him, just as it will not displease any of our brothers, young scholar-monks like him, who wish to found their faith on truth and piety, goodness and love, nor will the results this chapter arrives at. Know, my friend, that I shall be the first to be glad of the correction of any error in them, provided that the correction rests on sound evidence in substance and in aim. Debate and dialogue for the sake of truth and goodness are praiseworthy, and every true religion and every unbiased mind calls to them, for knowing the truth and acting on it is God's message to people. As for debate for the sake of the self and the victory of an opinion or a belief, even though it has a function, whose educational and social role we might discuss, and which can be justified within the limits of that function, in my judgment it cannot be justified scientifically or morally before truth and goodness, or in the domain of knowledge. I am therefore not fit to be a party to debate of this kind, or an adversary in it. What, in your judgment, would a debate of this kind add beyond what the theologians of Judaism, Christianity or Islam have already added? It would only thicken the darkness with which the theologians have wrapped the divine light in those religions. What I would like to say to you is what Anatole France said: "Your pleasure at what you have seen does not concern me; it is enough for me that what you have seen is the truth. It is not the business of science to arouse pleasure or provoke displeasure; it is a stranger to human emotions"⁽⁵⁾. And my aim with you will remain:

Say: "O People of the Book, come to a word common between us and you: that we worship none but God, and associate nothing with Him, and that none of us take others as lords besides God." But if they turn away, then say: "Bear witness that we are Muslims [those who submit to God]."⁽⁶⁾

(5) Introduction, Al-Masihiyya: Nash'atuha wa Tatawwuruha.

(6) Al Imran: 64.