101. This refers to those misguided nations from whom the Christians derived
their false beliefs and ways, particularly to the Hellenistic philosophers under
the spell of whose ideas the Christians had veered from the straight way they
had originally followed. The beliefs of the early followers of the Messiah were
mainly in conformity with the reality they had witnessed, and conformed to the
teachings they had received from their guide and mentor. But they later resorted
to an exaggerated veneration of Jesus, and interpreted their own beliefs in
the light of the philosophical doctrines and superstitious ideas of the neighbouring
nations. Thus they invented an altogether new religion not even remotely related
to the original teachings of the Messiah. In this connection the observations
of a Christian theologian, the Reverend Charles Anderson Scott are significant.
In a lengthy article entitled 'Jesus' Christ', published in the fourteenth edition
of Encyclopaedia Britannica, he writes:
. . . there is nothing in these three Gospels to suggest that their writers
thought of Jesus as other than human, a human being specially endowed with the
Spirit of God and standing in an unbroken relation to God which justified His
being spoken of as the 'Son of God'. Even Matthew refers to Him as the carpenter's
son and records that after Peter had acknowleged Him as Messiah he 'took Him
aside and began to rebuke Him' (Matthew, xvi. 22). And in Luke the two disciples
on the way to Emmaus can still speak of Him as 'a prophet mighty in deed and
word before God and all the people' (Luke, xxiv. 19). It is very singular that
in spite of the fact that before Mark was composed 'the Lord' had become the
description of Jesus common among Christians, He is never so described in the
second Gospel (nor yet in the first, though the word is freely used to refer
to God). All three relate the Passion of Jesus with a fullness and emphasis
of its great significance; but except the 'ransom' passage (Mark, x. 45) and
certain words at the Last Supper there is no indication of the meaning which
was afterwards attached to it. It is not even suggested that the death of Jesus
had any relation to sin or forgiveness.
A little further on he writes:
That He ranked Himself as a prophet appears from a few passages such as 'It
cannot be that a prophet perish out of Jerusalem'. He frequently referred to
Himself as the Son of Man; but while this must be maintained in face of influential
opinions to the contrary, the result for our purpose is less important than
we might expect, for the possible meanings of the phrase are as numerous as
the sources from which it may possibly have been derived. They range from simple
'man' through 'man in his human weakness' and the representative 'Man' to the
supernatural man from heaven foreshadowed in Daniel. If we had to postulate
one source and one meaning for the phrase as used by Jesus of Himself, it would
probably be found in Psalm Ixxx., where the poignant appeal to God for the redemption
of Israel runs out on the hope of a 'son of man whom thou madest strong for
thyself. The same author adds:
Certain words of Peter spoken at the time of Pentecost, 'A man approved of God',
described Jesus as He was known and regarded by His contemporaries. He was 'found
in fashion as a man', that is, in all particulars which presented themselves
to outward observation He Appeared and behaved as one of the human race. He
'was made man'. The Gospels leave no room for doubt as to the completeness with
which these statements are to be accepted. From them we learn that Jesus passed
through the natural stages of development, physical and mental, that He hungered,
thirsted, was weary and slept, that He could be surprised and require information,
that He suffered pain and died. He not only made no claim to omniscience, He
distinctly waived it. This is not to deny that He had insight such as no other
ever had, into human nature, into the hearts of men and the purposes and methods
of God. But there is no reason to suppose that He thought of the earth as other
than the centre of the solar system, of any other than David as the author of
the Psalms, or did not share the belief of His age that demons were the cause
of disease. Indeed, any claim to omniscience would be not only inconsistent
with the whole impression created by the Gospels, it could not be reconciled
with the cardinal experiences of the Temptation, of Gethsemane and of Calvary.
Unless such experiences were to be utterly unreal, Jesus must have entered into
them and passed through them under the ordinary limitations of human knowledge,
subject only to such modifications of human knowledge as might be due to prophetic
insight or the sure vision of God.
There is still less reason to predicate omnipotence of Jesus. There is no indication
that He ever acted independently of God, or as an independent God. Rather does
He acknowledge dependence upon God, by His habit of prayer and in such words
as 'this kind goeth not forth save by prayer'. He even repudiates the ascription
to Himself of goodness in the absolute sense in which it belongs to God alone.
It is a remarkable testimony to the truly historical character of these Gospels
that though they were not finally set down until the Christian Church had begun
to look up to the risen Christ as to a Divine Being, the records on the one
hand preserve all the evidence of His true humanity and on the other nowhere
suggest that He thought of Himself as God.
The same author also observes that:
He proclaimed that at and through the Resurrection Jesus had been publicly installed
as Son of God with power; and if the phrase has not wholly lost its official
Messianic connotation, it certainly includes a reference to the personal Sonship,
which Paul elsewhere makes clear by speaking of Him as God's 'own Son' . . .
It may not be possible to decide whether it was the primitive community or Paul
himself who first put full religious content into the title 'Lord' as used of
Christ. Probably it was the former. But the Apostle undoubtedly adopted the
title in its full meaning, and did much to make that meaning clear by transferring
to 'the Lord Jesus Christ' many of the ideas and phrases which in the Old Testament
had been specifically assigned to the Lord Jehovah. God 'gave unto Him that
name that is above every name - the name of "Lord"'. At the same time by equating
Christ with the Wisdom of God and with the Glory of God, as well as ascribing
to Him Sonship in an absolute sense, Paul claimed for Jesus Christ a relation
to God which was inherent and unique, ethical and personal, eternal. While,
however, Paul in many ways and in many aspects, equated Christ with God, he
definitely stopped short of speaking of him as 'God'.
In another article in Encyclopaedia Britannica (xiv edition), under the title
'Christianity', the Reverend George William Knox writes as follows about the
fundamental beliefs of the Church:
Its moulds of thought are those of Greek philosophy, and into these were run
the Jewish teachings. We have thus a peculiar combination - the religious doctrines
of the Bible, as culminating in the person of Jesus, run through the forms of
an alien philosophy.
The Doctrine of the Trinity. The Jewish sources furnished the terms Father,
Son and Spirit. Jesus seldom employed the last term and Paul's use of it is
not altogether clear. Already in Jewish literature it had been all but personified
(Cf. the Wisdom of Solomon). Thus the material is Jewish, though already doubtless
modified by Greek influence: but the problem is Greek; it is not primarily ethical
nor even religious, but it is metaphysical. What is the ontological relationship
between these three factors? The answer of the Church is given in the Nicene
formula, which is characteristically Greek, . . .
Also significant in this connection are the following passages of another article
in Encyclopaedia Britannica (xiv edition), entitled 'Church History': The recognition
of Christ as the incarnation of the Logos was practically universal before the
close of the 3rd century, but His deity was still widely denied, and the Arian
controversy which distracted the Church of the 4th century concerned the latter
question. At the Council of Nicaea in 325 the deity of Christ received official
sanction and was given formulation in the original Nicene Creed. Controversy
continued for some time, but finally the Nicene decision was recognised both
in East and West as the only orthodox faith. The deity of the Son was believed
to carry with it that of the Spirit, who was associated with Father and Son
in the baptismal formula and in the current symbols, and so the victory of the
Nicene Christology meant the recognition of the doctrine of Trinity as part
of the orthodox faith. The assertion of the deity of the Son incarnate in Christ
raised another problem which constituted the subject of dispute in the Christological
controversies of the 4th and following centuries. What is the relation of the
divine and human natures in Christ? At the Council of Chalcedon in 451 it was
declared that in the person of Christ are united two complete natures, divine
and human, which retain after the union all their properties unchanged. This
was supplemented at the 3rd Council of Constantinople in 680 by the statement
that each of the natures contains a will, so that Christ possesses two wills.
The Western Church accepted the decisions of Nicaea, Chalcedon and Constantinople,
and so the doctrines of the Trinity and of the two natures in Christ were handed
down as orthodox dogma in West as well as East.
Meanwhile in the Western Church the subject of sin and grace, and the relation
of divine and human activity in salvation, received special attention; and finally,
at the 2nd Council of Orange in 529, after both Pelagianism and semi-Pelagianism
had been epudiated, a moderate form of Augustinianism was adopted, involving
the theory that every man as a result of the Fall is in such a condition that
he can take no steps in the direction of salvation until he has been renewed
by the divine grace given in baptism, and that he cannot continue in the good
thus begun except by the constant assistance of that grace, which is mediated
only by the Catholic Church.
It is evident from these statements of Christian scholars that it was exaggerated
love and veneration of Christ which led the early Christians astray. This exaggeration
and the use of expressions such as 'Lord' and 'Son of God' led to Jesus being
invested with divine attributes and to the peculiar Christian notion of redemption,
even though these could not be accommodated into the body of the teachings of
Christ. When the Christians came to be infected with philosophical doctrines,
they did not abandon the original error into which they had fallen, but tried
to accommodate the errors of their predecessors through apologetics and rational
explanations. Thus, instead of returning to the true teachings of Christ, they
used logic and philosophy to fabricate one false doctrine after another. It
is to this error that the Qur'an calls the Christians' attention in these verses.