The Arian Monk
One point of clear convergence
between the two theologians comes with the assertion that Muhammad studied
under an Arian monk for his education in matters relating to theology. As
discussed above, the idea that Muhammad had learned from a monk had a wide
currency in the Middle East in the eighth and ninth centuries, both among
Christians and Muslims.[1]
In Christian sources, such as those of our authors, the monk is either made out
to be a heretic, sometimes representing one of the competing Christian
traditions in the Levant, or he is seen as an orthodox monk who taught Muhammad
the truth, and whom Muhammad later ignored or misunderstood. In Muslim sources
the monk is most often used to support the claim that Muhammad was a prophet,
and his religious affiliation is not expanded on; its importance is not as
relevant for Muslims unconcerned with, and often unaware of, intra-Christian
disputation.[2]
What makes the monk a unique connection between John and Theodore, however, is
his status as an Arian, something claimed by virtually no other contemporary
sources, Christian or Muslim.
In the course of John of
Damascus' and Theodore Abu Qurrah's works on Islam, they report that Muhammad
learned about Christianity from an Arian, whom John describes as a monk.[3]
Theodore is more explicit in characterizing the Arian's relationship to
Muhammad, but does not actually identify the person as a monk, saying only that
Muhammad was the “disciple of an Arian”.[4]
Given both Theodore's relationship to John, and the ubiquity of the view
Muhammad had a monk for a teacher, there is no reason to doubt Theodore has a
monk in mind when referring to Muhammad's teacher, and as we shall see in a
moment, no reason either to doubt that Theodore received this tradition via
John.
Neither of the two theologians
assigns a name to this person in their other works, but given the scarcity with
which later theologians in the Christian tradition identified the monk as an
“Arian”, it is clear that we are dealing with one of the direct influences John
of Damascus had on his spiritual disciple Theodore. Theologians who followed
them, and indeed contemporary with Theodore, characterized the monk as
proceeding either from the Jacobite, Nestorian, or other tradition.[5]
This was the case whether or not the Christian portrayals of the monk depicted
him as representative of their own orthodox tradition, or of a heretical
tradition. In either case, apart from only one or two later Armenian
traditions, apparently no other theologian, Arabic, Syriac, or Greek, made the
sole source of Muhammad's knowledge about Christianity a monk of the ‘Arian'
tradition.[6]
This would become the case even with John of Damascus' text, as it was later
circulated in one of the more widespread recensions. Ms Paris gr. 1320 (11th
century) gives Jews, Christians, Arians, and Nestorians as influential over the
Prophet.[7]
The tradition preserved in this manuscript would become more popular in
Byzantium than that showing an Arian influence alone, suggesting perhaps
incredulity among later scribes that Muhammad's education could have been due
to only Arian influence and their desire to attribute further heretical
influences to him.
Whatever the reason so few other
sources give an Arian as the sole teacher of Muhammad, we should regard the
fact that both John of Damascus and Theodore Abu Qurrah refer to an Arian
teacher as evidence that Theodore received this idea from John. Further, as I
have argued above, whether or not the claim is justified, the two may well have
had good reason to have believed the characterization literally.[8]
At the same time, the evidence being as weak as it is does not allow us to
argue positively for their belief as opposed to the possibility of their use of
an Arian as a rhetorical device. For the case here, however, the mention of an
Arian by both John and Theodore serves as a valuable link between the two, and
for their theological views of Islam.
[1] See
chapter 4 on Islamic and Para-Islamic Traditions for examples.
[2] For
examples of how the monk was portrayed as an orthodox monk, whether proceeding
from the non-Chalcedonian (Jacobite), Church of the East (Nestorian), or
Chalcedonian (Melkite) tradition, see Roggema, The Legend of Sergius Bahīrā,
pp. 123–34.
[3] John
refers to the monk as “supposedly Arian” (ópolws åpslav@).
[4] Theodore
is more explicit, saying that the false prophet of the Saracens was “the
disciple of an Arian” ('Apelavoll dxpoatys). Glei and Khoury (eds.), Schriften
Zum Islam, p. 118; Lamoreaux (trans.), Theodore Abu Qurrah, p. 225.
[5] For
a good summary of the Byzantine polemical accounts of the monk and his
relationship to Muhammad, see Khoury, Polemique Byzantine, pp. 76–87. The
Medieval western sources seem most often to attribute Muhammad's education to
Nestorianism and/ or Sabellianism, although Arianism and other heresies also
sometimes feature. See N. Daniel, Islam and the West: The Making of an Image
(rev. edn., Oneworld, 1993), pp. 209–13.
[6] For
the Armenian traditions, not all of which portray Bahīrā as an Arian, see
Thomson, ‘Armenian Variations on the Bahira Legend. There were to be reports
from later Byzantines which attributed multiple influential ideologies on
Muhammad, some of which included Arianism, but none exclusively so, and most
often these ideas were not identified with Arianism, as much as with
Nestorianism and Judaism. For those, see Khoury, Polemique Byzantine, pp.
76–87.
[7] See
Kotter, Die Schriften vol. iv, p. 6o. Interestingly, this would also appear to
be the case in Western Europe during the Middle Ages, where a cursory look at
the main secondary references all seem to be consistent with what I have said
about Byzantium; namely that while ‘Arianism' is sometimes described as one of
several contributing factors in influencing Muhammad, the idea that the Prophet
was ever the disciple of an Arian, or that he learned from an Arian monk seem
to be absent, although as I have said, a Nestorian monk is sometimes adduced.
See for example, Daniel, Islam and the West, pp. 209–13, Tolan, Saracens, pp.
52-53.
[8] See
Chapter 4 above on Islamic and para-Islamic Traditions.
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