reynolds-the-quran-in-its-historical-context-2

384 Gerald HawtingInherent in all of the beliefs alluded to by Epiphanius is the idea,mentioned, of a single spirit, Christ, that appeared in both Adam and Jesus andnot die. Hippolytus of Rome (d. c. 236) ascribes that understanding of Christcertain Alcibiades who had appeared in Rome, coming from Apamaea inwith a book revealed by an angel of gigantic proportions. 36 That angel, acc:ordllngto Hippolytus, Alcibiades identified as the son of God who was accompanieda female of similar dimensions whom he called the holy spirit. The bookbeen transmitted to Alcibiades from Elxai, the eponym of the Elkesaites,the teaching of Alcibiades (presumably following the ideas of the book) was"[Christ] was not at this time born for the first time of a virgin, but ... havingpreviously born and being re-born, he thus appeared and exists, undergoing .. ,ations of birth and moving from body to body." Unsurprisingly, Hippolytus labels,,the doctrine Pythagorean. 37 · ·The idea is also attested in the Pseudo-Clementine Homilies: "He (the man ··fashioned by the hands of God) alone has it (i.e. the holy spirit of Christ), who haschanged his forms and his names from the beginning of the world, and so reappearedagain and again in the world, until comi~g upon his own times, andanointed with mercy for the works of God, he shall enjoy rest for ever." 38To sum up, the evidence adduced here shows that ideas linking Jesus, prophecy,the spirit and angels were attributed to groups associated with Gnostic and J~wish­Christian views by the heresiographers and other "orthodox" writers. Those ideasare attested too in the pseudo-Clementine literature. Our argument is that theQur'anic evidence that its messenger was rejected because he was merely a human· ·being, and that his opponents expected him either to be, or to be associated with, 'an angel, suggests that similar ideas about prophets, angels and spirits existed inthe group or groups from which the relevant Qur'1inic passages come. Specifically,it suggests that the opponents of the Qur' 1inic messenger held the idea thata messenger of God could not be a mere human being but must have been penetratedor possessed by a spirit of prophecy, envisaged like an angel, that hadappeared in previous messengers. Against them, the Qur'1inic messenger assertsthat not only he but those previous messengers also were merely human, eventhough the revelation had been brought by the spirit or angel named in Q 2:97 asGabriel.36 Cf. the details about the huge size of Gabriel in the accounts ofMul)ammad's first revelation (e.g.,Ibn lsl)aq, Slrat Rasiil Allah, Cairo: Mu~tafli al-BabT al-I;IalabT, 1955, 1:237).37 Hippolytus, Refutatio IX, 14.1 (= Klijn and Reinink, Patristic Evidence, 116-17). Cf. the Muslimtradition according to which Mul)ammad was already created while Adam was still between spirit -and body (cited by Wensinck, "Muhammad und die Propheten," 185, from Ibn Sa'd, Tabaqiit,Leiden: Brill: 1904-40, 1:95-96; English translation in U. Rubin (ed.), Life of Muhammad, 332;and by T. Andrae, Die Person Muhammeds in Lehre und Glauben seiner Gemeinde, 313 ff.38 Pseudo-Clementine, Homilies, no. 3, ch. 20, cited from A. Roberts and J. Donaldson (eds), TheAnte-Nicene Fathers, veil. 8, American Reprint Revised by A. Cleveland Coxe, Grand Rapids:Eerdmans, 1951, reprint 1981 (originally printed, 1886). For the Greek text, see Rehm, DiePseudoklementinen I: Homilien.1V1essengl~r/~tposne and prophetMessengers and angels in the Qur'iin 385e have noted that the Qur'1in always uses the word "messenger" or "apostle"and never "prophet" (nab!) in those passages that contrast bashar withHow far is that significant? Wensinck discussed the possible distinctions...."......,~~ the concept of messenger/apostle and that of prophet in the Qur' an andtradition, and he traced the idea of the superiority of the apostle to the(while maintaining a certain degree of content common to the two notions)some early Christian literature. He noted the occurrence of the expressionMe!;sertger of God (shlibii d-alaha) in Syriac and the application of the word·. apostolos to (for Christians) major prophets like Isaiah, Jeremiah and John theBaptist, by Christian writers such as Origen and John Chrysostom. Furthermore,in the context of another discussion, W ensinck noted the conceptual overlapbetween both the Greek and Hebrew words for "angel" (aggelos, mal'iik), which·• have the more fundamental sense of messenger (the angel is a messenger of God),· imd the idea of the prophet as God's messenger (raszll, shlil;zii, etc.). 39How far this last point is relevant to the unwillingness of the Qur' 1inic opponentsto accept a mere human as a messenger is not clear. There are a few instancesin the Qur' 1in of words connected with the root r-s-l being used to refer to angels, 40··but the word malak always seems to indicate an angel (and never simply a humanmessenger). 41 Apart from the expectation of the mushrilaln that a messenger ofGod must be an angel (malak), one does not get much sense of a confusion of thewords for angel and messenger/apostle in the Qur'1in or in Arabic generally.In the passages we are concerned with, therefore, messengers or apostles seemto be more prominent than prophets, and it may be significant that this was also acharacteristic ofMani's ideas. Apparently echoing the elevation of the messenger/apostle above the prophet found in some early Christian texts, 42 it seems ~at ~anidid not refer to himself as a prophet but as a messenger/apostle. In Maruchae1smthe word prophet is usually applied to the elect of the community, the electi, ratherthan to Mani himself. That is part of Stroumsa' s argument that the widely accepted39 Wensinck, "Muhammad and the prophets," in U. Rubin ( ed.), Life of Mu/;lammad, 321-24, 331-32.40 Q 15:57; 51:~1: Abraham's "guests", traditionally viewed as angels, are addressed as ayyuhii1-mursahina. At Q 11:69 God refers to them as rusulunii, and again at 11:77. At Q 15:61 the samemursaliina who visited Abraham go to the people of Lot.41 Cf. the ambiguity, e.g., of the citation in Matthew 11:10 ofMalachi 3:1. In the gospelpas~ageJes.usfirst refers to John the Baptist as a prophet and much more than a prophet, and then apphes to htmthe passage from Malachi where God announces that He will send his messenger/angel (mal_'iik)to clear the way before Him. In the gospel passage mal'iik is rendered by aggelos, but translationswaver between words indicating "angel" and those indicating "messenger".42 The best known is probably 1 Corinthians 12:28 ("first apostles, secondly prophets"). D. Aune,Prophecy in Early Christianity, Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1983, 202, notes that "in manyrespects the NT apostle was the functional equivalent of the OT prophet." For a discussion thatincludes both texts where there is considerable overlap between the notions of apostolos andprophetes, and those that place the former higher in the hierarchy, see G. Stroumsa, "Seal of theprophets," JSA/7, 1986, (61-74) 72-73.