Heresy and the Islamic View of Christianity
Heresy and the Islamic View of Christianity
The analysis presented in this book has tended to focus on the past rather than the present. Yet an understanding of the past can nevertheless be helpful in making sense of the present and engaging some contemporary questions. One highly important example may be noted, even though its full discussion lies beyond the scope of this work. One of the most significant and difficult relationships in the contemporary world is the uneasy and suspicious dynamic between Christianity and Islam. Both are expanding, and in the course of their mutual expansion they have the potential to encounter each other as potential rivals and combatants.
Yet a respectful dialogue between Christianity and Islam has much to offer, partly in reducing tension between the two faiths, and partly because their differences help illuminate their distinct identities. A classic example concerns how the two faiths deal with the question of divine revelation. As Richard Martin and Mark Woodward put it, “How can the transcendent and eternal divine exist in historical, human context? For Christians, the problem centered on a person, Jesus Christ. For Muslims, it centered on a book, the Qur’an.”1 While there are forms of Christianity that come close to Islam’s emphasis on the supreme authority of a text—most notably, certain forms of Protestantism2—Christianity has traditionally accorded to Christ the position that Islam accords to the Qur’an. The scholar of religion Wilfred Cantwell Smith writes:
Muslims and Christians have been alienated partly by the fact that both have misunderstood each other’s faith by trying to fit it into their own patterns. The most usual error is to suppose (on both sides) that the roles of Jesus Christ in Christianity and of Muhammad in Islam are comparable…. If one is drawing parallels in terms of the structure of the two religions, what corresponds in the Christian scheme to the Qur’an is not the Bible but the person of Christ—it is Christ who is for Christians the revelation of (from) God.3
So how does our exploration and characterization of Christian heresy relate to the depiction of Jesus within Islam, and especially within the Qur’an? What if the Qur’an’s criticisms or representations of Christianity’s understanding of the person and place of Jesus reflect familiarity with its heretical, rather than its orthodox, forms?
One of the more troubling questions that hover over the surface of attempts to ease this difficult relationship is that of Islam’s representation of core Christian ideas such as the doctrine of the Trinity and the divinity of Christ. Most Christians find that the Qur’anic representation of these concepts bears little relation to their orthodox statements. Muslims whose knowledge of Christian beliefs rests solely upon the Qur’an often find themselves distressed by the manifest tension between what they have been led to suppose that Christians believe about Jesus and what they actually discover in conversation with Christians. Is there a way in which this situation can be resolved with integrity on both sides?
The ideas set out in this volume lay the groundwork for a solution that is both historically and theologically plausible. The problematic Qur’anic representation of Christianity can be argued to reflect knowledge, whether direct or indirect, of heretical versions of Christianity that are known to have been present in this region. As we have insisted throughout this work, heresies must be considered to arise within the church, and hence can be regarded as “Christian,” even though in a weak sense of the term. Nevertheless, they cannot be regarded as authentically Christian. The Qur’an thus critiques ideas that lie on the fringe of the Christian faith—and that virtually all Christians would also agree to be defective.
We shall illustrate this by considering two points at which the presentation of Christian ideas in the Qur’an raises concerns: the doctrine of the Trinity, and the doctrine of the divinity of Christ.
The Qur’anic representation of the doctrine of the Trinity has caused some bewilderment to Christians. Even allowing for a modest degree of textual ambiguity, the Qur’an appears to represent Christians as worshipping a trinity of three distinct persons—God, Jesus, and Mary.4 Although a number of scholarly Islamic writers have been careful to present what Christians actually believe,5 this curious tritheistic representation of Christianity remains perplexingly influential within popular Islam. This view simply cannot be sustained by any comparison with orthodox Christianity. So how are we to account for its origins? Why does the Qur’an attribute such a view to Christians when it is so clearly alien to mainline Christian orthodoxy?
The Qur’anic view of the Trinity appears to show at least some degree of familiarity with a heretical school within Christianity that was known to have been influential in the region of Arabia at that time. The heresy in question is that of the Collyridian sect, which flourished in the area that would now be called the Middle East.6 One of its most distinctive characteristics is treating Mary as a goddess, offering her worship and honor comparable to what might be expected for God himself.7 It is significant that the geographical regions within which Collyridianism appears to have flourished in the fifth century coincided with those once associated with the worship of female divinities such as Demeter and Rhea. The movement is one of the eighty “heresies” identified by Epiphanius of Salamis (c. 310–403) in his Panarion. The fact that it is ranked seventy-eighth on Epiphanius’s list of eighty heterodox sects suggests that he did not regard it as being particularly important; nevertheless, it appears to have been influential in the region that would later become the crucible within which Islam emerged. Do the Qur’anic comments on the Trinity reflect familiarity with this local Arabian heresy?
The same issue emerges as significant in considering the Qur’anic view of Jesus of Nazareth. The geographical and cultural location of early Islam had a significant impact on its understanding and evaluation of Christianity. Chalcedonian orthodoxy seems to have been slow to find its way into the Arabian Peninsula, let alone to command general acceptance in that remote region. Heretical views of the identity of Jesus of Nazareth appear to have had a significant impact in this region. In the absence of an alternative, heretical Christologies appear to have had a significant influence, especially at the popular level.
The Qur’an represents Christians as understanding and worshipping Jesus as a physically divine figure, which is tantamount to paganism, idolatry, or polytheism. This criticism can be defended only with some difficulty in the face of orthodox Christian thought,8 especially given that the relationship between God the Father and God the Son is not understood physically.9 However, the Qur’anic depiction of Jesus of Nazareth makes sense when seen in the context of the intrinsic Docetism of many Gnostic Christologies, which are known to have been influential in this region of Arabia around this time.10 The suggestion that the Qur’an’s critique of Christology has been evoked by local Christologies influenced by Sethian Gnosticism does not detract from the validity of the criticisms it offers. It is simply to note that a local inauthentic version of the Christian faith is being criticized, not its definitive orthodox form.
For example, let us consider again a passage we considered earlier , taken from a significant work of Sethian Gnosticism, the Second Treatise of the Great Seth. This work, believed to date from the fourth century, is an important witness to Gnostic understandings of Jesus of Nazareth prevalent in Egypt and Arabia. This work refuses to accept that Jesus was crucified, offering an alternative account of the events of Good Friday that is written in the first person.
I did not succumb to them as they had planned. But I was not afflicted at all. Those who were there punished me. And I did not die in reality but in appearance…. For my death, which they think happened, [happened] to them in their error and blindness, since they nailed their man unto their death. For their Ennoias did not see me, for they were deaf and blind. But in doing these things, they condemn themselves. Yes, they saw me; they punished me. It was another, their father, who drank the gall and the vinegar; it was not I. They struck me with the reed; it was another, Simon, who bore the cross on his shoulder. It was another upon Whom they placed the crown of thorns.11
It will be obvious that this teaching bears a remarkable similarity to Islamic teachings about Jesus of Nazareth, which reflect a similar disinclination to accept that Jesus suffered and died upon the cross. The central passage in the Qur’an chastises the children of Israel for killing God’s prophets, for vilifying Mary, and for claiming to have killed the Christ.
They say: “We have surely killed the Christ, Jesus son of Mary, the messenger of God.” They did not kill him, nor did they crucify him; rather, it was made only to appear so to them…. They did not kill him…. Rather, God took him up to himself, for God is mighty and wise.12
Although there are some grammatical questions about how this passage is to be translated, most Qur’anic exegetes have regarded this as amounting to an explicit denial of the death and crucifixion of Christ at the hands of his enemies. Many Islamic commentators have taken a similar line, arguing that the New Testament includes material that detracts from the divinity or honor of Jesus. For example, the eleventh-century writer Ibn al-Juwayni (1028–85) argued that the Gospel writers ought to have omitted references to events such as the scourging of Jesus and the crowning with thorns, which humiliate Jesus.13 Similarly, Abu Hamid al-Ghazali (1058–1111) took exception to the description of Christ’s passion in the Gospel of Matthew, in particular words attributed to Christ such as “Let this cup pass away from me” and “Father, why have you abandoned me?” These, he argues, point to Jesus as a human being rather than a divine figure.
Some scholars, such as Mahmoud Mustafa Ayoub (b. 1938), have suggested that the Qur’anic view of Jesus, although superficially Docetic, is actually merely substitutionist.14 This, however, is to limit Docetism to only one of its specific historical forms. Ayoub seems unaware of the complexity of Docetism, in particular the tendency of some of its forms to deny the death by crucifixion of Jesus of Nazareth as demeaning or humiliating, thereby compromising his divinity. In this view, as we have seen, Jesus is held not to have died on the cross, being replaced by a substitute such as Simon of Cyrene.
So what are the Qur’an’s sources on this matter? It seems increasingly clear that the Qur’anic representation of the fundamental ideas of Christianity has been shaped by an encounter with the forms of Christianity that were prevalent in the Arabian Peninsula. These, it seems, may have been predominantly heretical rather than orthodox. The issue is not so much the Qur’anic view of Jesus itself, but its sources. Where did Muhammad derive these views? The presence of these ideas in the Nag Hammadi collection of texts is suggestive, given their geographical vicinity to the Arabian Peninsula. Islam’s problematic characterization of Christianity gives every appearance of having been shaped by sources influenced by Sethian Gnosticism rather than Chalcedonian orthodoxy.
This way of looking at things, if correct, opens the way to a significant degree of theological rapprochement between Christianity and Islam. Since Christian heresies are forms of Christianity, no matter how defective, deformed, or distorted, the recognition that the Qur’an knows of, and criticizes, heretical forms of Christianity allows Muslims to affirm that what is being criticized is indeed a form of Christianity, and Christians to respond by pointing out that they are not authentic or representative forms of Christianity. Indeed, Christians would concur in criticizing such beliefs as they are presented in the Qur’an. Muhammad may well have been correct in identifying unacceptable Christian views about Jesus and God—but the inadequacy of these views would be accepted by Christians, and their representative character called into question.
Further exploration of this point will be important to Christian-Muslim relations. If the Qur’an shows familiarity primarily with heretical views on the Trinity and Christology, which could be extrapolated to generalizations about Christianity itself, there is no doubt that the often tense relationship between these faiths could be improved by more detailed investigation of these issues.