st. john of damascus (676-749 - Cristo Raul

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92 ST. JOHN OF DAMASCUS.
remarkable a feature in the early religious systems of
the peninsula, and which was modified, rather than
extinguished, by Mahometanism, is not here joined
by Damascenus to the two preceding idolatries. From
the time of Heraclius, whose reign (611-641)
covered the chief events of Mahomet s life, Damas
cenus goes on to say that these pagan superstitions
were changed. The new prophet, happening to meet
with the scriptures of the Old and New Testaments,
and with a living expounder in the form of an Arian
monk 1 (or, according to another reading,
"with
Hebrews, and so-called Christians, Arians and Nestorians
formed a
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composite system of his own from
these various sources. God, according to the new
religion, is the one Maker of all things, neither be
gotten nor begetting. Christ is the Word and Spirit
of God, but a created being and a servant, born
without man s intervention of Mary, who is
identified
with Miriam, the sister of Moses and Aaron. 2
Jesus
was begotten of her by the Logos, or Word of
God. He was a prophet of God. But what the
Jews in their wickedness crucified was not Christ, but
a mere shadow. This form of Docetism, it may be
1
This statement may have arisen from the story of his meet
ing with the monk Bahira, on one of his journeys into Syria.
Sir W. Muir in his
The story is discussed by
Life of Maho
met," i., p. 35.
- This is the inference commonly drawn from the words of the
Koran, "Mary, the daughter of Imram (i.e. Amram). Sale
tries to save Mahomet from the reproach of so strange an
anachronism by giving another interpretation to the passage.
See his note on it in Sura iii., and also Sura xvi., sub Jin.