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THE
INFLUENCE OF CHRISTIANITY AND |
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Nativity of Mary," "The Protevangelium
of James the Less," and the Arabic "Gospel
of the Infancy" are more authentic monuments of
the early Christian faith as taught by Christ than are
the canonical books of the New Testament! Experience
of the Muhammadan controversy renders the warning permissible.
6. Denial of the Crucifixion of
Christ.
It is well known that all Muhammadans have from the
earliest times denied that Christ died on the Cross.
In this they are supported by the Qur'an, which, in
Surah IV., An Nisa, 156, represents the Jews as saying,
"Verily we have slain the Messiah, Jesus, son of
Mary, the Apostle of God." Muhammad then in reply
to them says, "And they slew Him not, and they
crucified Him not, but He was represented unto them
[by another] ... And they slew Him not really, but on
the contrary God exalted Him unto Himself."
Muhammad's denial of the death of Christ on the Cross
cannot be traced even to such untrustworthy authority
as his favourite apocryphal Gospels. It is needless
to say that he contradicts both the Old Testament Prophets
and the New Testament Apostles, though doubtless merely
through ignorance. It seemed to him to be derogatory
to the dignity of Christ to have been crucified and
put to death by His enemies; and Muhammad was all the
more convinced of this |
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APOCRYPHAL BOOKS. |
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when he found his own enemies, the Jews, exulting
at having slain Jesus. Hence he gladly adopted the assertion
of certain heresiarchs, with whose views in other respects
he had little in common. Several of these had, long
before Muhammad's time, denied the actual suffering
of Christ. Irenaeus tells us with reference to the teaching
of the Gnostic heretic Basilides, who flourished about
A.D. 120, that, in speaking of Jesus, he taught his
deluded followers "That
He had not suffered; and that a certain Simon of Cyrene
had been compelled to carry His cross for Him; and that
this man was crucified through ignorance and error,
having been changed in form by Him, so that it should
be thought that he was Jesus Himself." This language
coincides very closely with that of the Qur'an in this
matter. Yet Muhammad would have repudiated the principle
upon which this view, according to Irenaeus, was based:
for Basilides held that Jesus was identical with νους
or Mind, the first emanation
from the unknown God, and that He could not suffer because
He had no real human body. This is absolutely opposed |
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