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The Muslim Attributes and the Christian Trinity*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 August 2011

H. A. Wolfson
H. A. Wolfson
Affiliation:
Harvard University
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Extract

Already in the first part of the eighth century, as one may judge from the reports of teachings to which Wāṣil (d. 748) was opposed, there arose in Islam the belief that certain terms which are attributed to God in the Koran stand for real incorporeal beings which exist in God from eternity. There is nothing in the Koran to warrant such a belief. Nor is there any warrant that at that early stage in the history of Islam the belief originated spontaneously by that kind of reasoning by which later Muslim theologians tried to defend it against opposition. The appearance of that belief at that time can be explained only on the ground of some external influence. Such an external influence could be either Greek philosophy or Judaism or Christianity. Greek philosophy is to be eliminated, for we have the testimony of Shahrastānī that it was not until later, among the followers of Wāṣil, that the problem of attributes came under the influence of Greek philosophy. And so also must Judaism be eliminated, for the kind of Judaism with which Islam was in direct contact at that time contained nothing in its teachings which could have inspired that new belief. By a process of elimination it is to be assumed that Christianity was that external influence.

Type
Research Article
Information
Harvard Theological Review , Volume 49 , Issue 1 , January 1956 , pp. 1 - 18
Copyright
Copyright © President and Fellows of Harvard College 1956

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References

1 Shahrastānī, al-Milal wal-Niḥal, p. 31, ll. 17 ff. (ed. Cureton).

2 Ibid., p. 31, ll. 19 ff. Cf. Horten, M., Die philosophischen Systeme der spekulativen Theologen im Islam (1912), p. 133Google Scholar.

3 Cf. Pocock, E., Specimen Historiae Arabum sive Gregorii Abul Farajii Malatiensis de Origine et Moribus Arabum (1650), p. 19, l. 12, referred to by S. Munk in his French translation of Maimonides' Dalālat al-Ḥāʼīrīn, Le Guide des Egarés, I, p. 180, n.1.Google Scholar

4 Ibid., quoted from al-Ījīʼs al-Mawāqif fī ʽIlm al-Kalām; referred to in Munk, op. cit., p. 181, n.1.

5 Quoted from his ‘Ishrūn Maqālāt in Judah ben Barzillai’ Perush Sefer Yeṣirah, p. 79.

6 al-Amānāt wal-Iʽtiqādāt II, p. 86, ll. 2 ff.

7 Cf. Frankl, P. F., Ein Muʽtazilitischen Kalam aus dem 10ten Jahrhundert (1872), pp. 15 and 28Google Scholar.

8 Dalālat al-Ḥāʼīrīn, I, 50.

9 Shahrastānī, p. 31, l. 19.

10 Here are examples of translations of the term maʽna in the passage of Wāṣil quoted above: Haarbrücker, in his translation of Shahrastānī, I, p. 45 (1850): “Begriff”; Horten in his Die philosophischen Systeme der spekulativen Theologen im Islam, p. 132 (1912): “geistige Realität (mana, Idee)”; cf. also Horten, , “Was bedeutet Maʽna als philosophischer Terminus,” ZDMG, 64 (1910) 391–396Google Scholar; Sweetman, Islam and Christian Theology I, 2, p. 232 (1947): “meaning,” “nature … in the sense of the reality of a thing or its entity.”

11 Cf. Die Hermeneutik des Aristoteles in der arabischen Uebersetzung des Isḥāk ibn Ḥonain, ed. Pollak, Isidor (1913), Glossar, pp. 47–48Google Scholar.

12 Cont. Cels. VIII, 12 (PG 11, 1533 C).

13 Adversus Praxean 7 (PL 2, 162 A B).

14 Ibid. 26 (PL 2, 189 B).

15 Cf. A. Hahn, Bibliothek der Symbole und Glaubensregeln der alten Kirche8, § 159, IV: τρία ὁμολογοῦντες πράγματα καὶ τρία πρόσωπα.

16 Homilia, XVI, 4 (PG 31, 480 C); XXIV (604 D); Epist. 210, 4 (PG 32, 773 B).

17 Apologeticus contra Theodoretum pro XII Capitibus, I (PG 76, 396 C): ἀλλὰ πραγμάτων, ἤγουν ὑποστάσεων γέγονε σύνοδος.

18 Opuscula (PG 97, 1480 B). There is no parallel to this quotation in the Arabic works of Abucara published by P. Constantin Bacha (Les Oeuvres Arabes de Theodore Aboucara, Beyrouth, 1904). Cf. analysis of parallels between those Arabic works and the Greek Opuscula in G. Graf, Die arabischen Schriften des Abū Qurra, pp. 67–77, in Forschungen zur Christlichen Literatur- und Dogmengeschichte, 10 (1910). The technical terms for persons used in these Arabic works are aqānīm and wujūh (cf. ibid., p. 32).

19 Soph. Elench. 17, 175a, 8–9.

20 Cf. the doubt raised with regard to the implication of the use of the term maʽāniyy as a description of the persons of the Trinity in G. Graf, Die Philosophie und Gotteslehre des Jaḥja Ibn ʽAdī (1910), p. 46. We shall discuss this matter in another chapter.

21 Op. cit., II, p. 86, l. 10.

21a Ibid., I, p. 42, ll. 13 and 17. Cf. Ibn Ḥazm, Faṣl (1347), I, p. 49, ll. 4–5.

22 Epist. 38, 3 (PG 32, 328 C).

23 Cf. Cardet, L. et Anawati, A.-M., Introduction à la Théologie Musulmane (1948), p. 201Google Scholar.

24 De Fide Orth. I, 8 (PG 94, 824 B).

25 Opuscula (PG 97, 1473 D).

26 Ibid. (1480 C). No parallels to these two quotations in Abucara's original works (cf. above n. 18).

27 Cf. “Un Traité de Yaḥyā ben ʽAdī, Défense du Dogme de la Trinité contre les Objections d'al-Kindī,” by Augustin Périer in Revue de l'Orient Chrétien, 22 (1920–21), p. 5, ll. 2–4.

28 Op. cit. (above n. 27), p. 5, ll. 4–5.

29 Op. cit., p. 86, ll. 9–10.

30 Op. cit., p. 79.

31 Cf. Vingt Traités Théologiques d'Auteurs Arabes Chrétiens, by P. Louis Cheikho, 2nd edition, 1920, p. 126, ll. 2–3; cf. L. E. Browne, Eclipse of Christianity in Asia, p. 124, where Eliyya of Nisibis is also quoted, from Cheikho's Trois Traités, p. 33, as describing the Father as essence, the Son as the Logos, and the Holy Spirit as life. Cf. also J. W. Sweetman, Islam and Christian Theology, I, 2, p. 92.

32 Shahrastānī, p. 172, l. 10.

33 Ibid., p. 175, l. 11; cf. p. 173, ll. 15–16.

34 Vingt Traités, etc., p. 20, ll. 9–10.

35 John 1:4; Col. 3:4; cf. John 11:25; 14:6.

36 1 Cor. 1:24.

37 Luke 1:35.

38 1 Cor. 1:24.

39 Cf. Theophilus, Ad Autol. II. 15 and 18; Irenaeus, Adv. Haer. IV, 20, 3; cf. IV, 7, 4; IV, 20, 1.

40 Cf. Kaufmann, D., Geschichte der Attributenlehre in der jüdischen Religions-philosophie (1877), p. 41, n. 77Google Scholar.

41 Adversus Arium I, 63 (PL 8, 1087 D).

42 Ibid. IV, 21 (1128 D); cf. I, 13 (1048 B).

43 De Divisione Naturae I, 13 (PL 122, 455 C).

44 On the Neoplatonic triads, see Zeller, Phil. d. Gr. III, 24, pp. 748, 784, 857–858.

45 Damascius, Philosophi Platonici Quaestiones de Primis Principiis, 54 (ed. Jos. Kopp, 1826), p. 144.

46 Proclus, In Timaeum, 225 B.

47 Plat. Theol. III, 14, p. 146; IV, I, p. 179.

48 Ibid. IV, I, p. 180; Inst. Theol. 103. From the context of this latter reference it is evident that τὸ ὄν is to be taken here in the sense of “the existent” rather than in the sense of “existence.”

49 Plat. Theol. IV, I, p. 180.

50 Inst. Theol. 103.

51 Plat. Theol. III, 14, p. 146; IV, I, pp. 179, 180; Inst. Theol. 103.

52 Plat. Theol. IV, 1, p. 180.

53 Plat. Theol. III, 14, p. 146; IV, 1, pp. 179, 180; Inst. Theol. 103.

54 Inst. Theol. 103.

55 Proclus, In Timaeum. 118 E.

56 Shahrastānī, p. 31, l. 19–p. 32, l. 2.

57 Ibid., p. 31, ll. 16–17.

58 Ibid.

59 Ibid., p. 60, ll. 8–9.

60 The passage in a manuscript which reports in the name of Jahm a longer list of terms (see Pines, Beiträge zur islamischen Atomenlehre (1936), pp. 124–123, and Watt, W. M., “Early Discussion about the Koran,” Muslim World 40 (1950), pp. 28–29CrossRefGoogle Scholar) deals with anthropomorphisms and not with attributes, that is to say, it deals with a denial of corporeal attributes of God but not with a denial of incorporeal attributes.

61 al-Ash'arī, Maqālāt al-Islamīyīn, p. 166, ll. 14–15 (ed. H. Ritter).

62 Ibid., p. 478, I. 15–p. 488, l. 1; cf. Shahrastānī, p. 63, 11. 6–7.

63 al-Ash'arī, op. cit., p. 165, ll. 5–6; Shahrastānī, p. 34, ll. 13–14.

64 Baghdādī, al-Farq bain al-Firaq, p. 108, ll. 7–9 (ed. Muhammad Badr, Cairo, 1910).

65 Op. cit., pp. 78–79.

66 Op. cit. II, p. 84,1. 15.

67 Shahrastānī, p. 30,11. 7–8.

68 Ibid., p. 61, l. 20–p. 62, l. 1.

69 Tahāfut al-Falāsifah VI, 1, p. 163, ll. 2–3 (ed. Bouyges).

70 Cf. Yaḥya Ibn ʽAdī's quotation of the following statement by Muslims: “The hypostases are according to them equal in all respects” (Petits Traités Apologétiques de Yaḥyā Ben ʽAdī, by A. Périer, p. 36). That the Christians called the Trinity God is implied in the Koran; cf. below at nn. 74, 75.

71 In the Arabic translations of the Greek formula μία οὐσία, τρεῖς ὔποστάσεις the term hypostases is translated by aqānīm, but, as for the term ousia, it is translated either by jauhar, “substance” (cf. Yaḥyā Ibn ʼAdī in Petits Traités Apologétiques, p. 36,1. 8; Shahrastānī, p. 172, 1. 9) or by dhāt, “essence” (cf. Paul Rahib of Antioch in Vingt Traités, etc., p. 27, 1. 11). Similarly in Latin versions of the formula, ousia is translated either substantia or essentia (cf. Augustine, De Trinitate V, 8, 10–V, 9, 10). Sometimes it is translated by kiyan (Eliyya of Nisibis in Vingt Traités, etc., p. 126, 1. 3), which, as a literal translation of ousia, may be taken to mean both “essence” and “substance.”

72 Cf. above at nn. 28–34.

73 Cf. above at nn. 24–27.

74 Surah 4:169.

75 Surah 5:77.

76 Surah 2:256.

77 Surah 2:256.

78 Surah 2:256.

79 Surah 30:53.

80 The transition from the Koranic conception of the Trinity to the later Muslim conception of the Trinity will be discussed in another chapter.

82 Op. cit. I, 53.

83 In that chapter, we shall discuss the passage in Abucara which is taken by Becker, C. H. (“Christliche Polemik und islamische Dogmenbildung,” Zeitschrift für Assyriologie, 26 (1912), pp. 189–199CrossRefGoogle Scholar) as the source of the Muʼtazilite denial of attributes.