History of Free Thought in Reference to The Christian Religion

by Adam Storey Farrar

The views of Salvador in France (see p. [299]) are too original to be regarded as typical of the views of a party. They reproduce the critical difficulties of Maimonides and Spinoza, which seem never to have found favour with the Jews; but the general similarity of the doctrinal part of Salvador's system to that just described is very observable.

Note 5. p. [12]. The Contest Of Christianity With Mahometanism.

The contest of Christianity with Mahometanism, so far as it has been a struggle of argument and not of the sword, offers few remarkable points. In the first sweep of the Mahometan conquest, when the Christian nations succumbed both in the east and west, there was no field for a question of truth. It was only in Christian [pg 388] nations which were removed from peril, and yet sufficiently in contact to entertain the question of the claims of the Mahometan religion, that a consideration of its nature, regarded as a system of doctrine, could arise. Accordingly it is in Constantinople, or in Spain and the other parts of western Europe which came into connexion with the Moors, that works of this character appear.

The history may be conveniently arranged in three periods, each of which is marked by works of defence, some called forth by danger, a real demand, but subsiding into or connected with inquiries prompted only by literary tastes. The first is from the twelfth to the middle of the sixteenth century; the second during the seventeenth and eighteenth; the third during the present century.

1. A notice of the Mahometan religion exists in a work of J. Damascenus, in the eighth century; and Euthymius Zigabenus, a Byzantine writer of the twelfth: but the first important treatise written directly against it was in 1210, Richardi Confutatio, edited in 1543 by Bibliander from a Greek copy. The refutation of Averroes by Aquinas, about 1250, can hardly be quoted as an instance of a work against the Mahometan religion, being rather against its philosophy. A treatise exists by John Cantacuzene, written a little after 1350; which is to be explained probably by the circumstance that the danger from Mahometan powers in the east directed the attention of a literary man to the religion and institutions which they professed. Thus far the works were called forth by a real demand.

A series of treatises however commences about the time of the expulsion of the Moors from Spain, the cause of the existence of which is not so easy of explanation. Such are those in Spain by Alphonso de Spina, 1487, and by Turrecremata (see Eichhorn's Gesch. der Lit. vi.); by Nicholas de Cuza, published in 1543; in Italy about 1500 by Ludovicus Vives, and Volterranus; one by Philip Melancthon in reference to the reading of the Koran; and a collection of treatises, including those of Richardus, Cantacuzene, Vives, and Melancthon, published by Bibliander in 1543. Probably the first two of this list may have been the relic of the crusade of Christianity against the Moorish religion; the next two possibly were called forth by the interest excited in reference to Mahometans by reason of their conquests, or less probably by the influence of their philosophy at Padua (see Lect. [III]. p. [100] seq.). The two last are hardly to be explained, except by supposing them to be an offshoot of the Renaissance, and called forth by the largeness of literary taste and inquiry excited by that event.

2. When we pass into the seventeenth century, we find a series of treatises on the same subject, which must be explained by the cause just named, the newly acquired interest in Arabic and other eastern tongues. We meet however with others, called forth by the missionary exertions which had brought the Christians into contact with Mahometans in the east.

The treatise by Bleda, Defensio Fidei Christianæ, 1610, stands alone, unconnected with any cause. It was partly a defence of the conduct of Christians towards the Mahometans. A real interest however belongs to the work of Guadagnoli in 1631. A catholic missionary, Hieronymo Xavier, had composed in 1596 a treatise in Persian against Mahometanism, in which the general principle of theism was laid down as opposed to the Mahometan doctrine of absorption; next the peculiar doctrines of Christianity stated; and lastly, a contrast drawn between the two religions. See Lee's Tracts on Christianity and Mahometanism (below, pref. p. 5 seq.).

This work was answered in 1621 by a Persian nobleman named Ahmed Ibn Zain Elébidín. The line adopted by him was, (1) to show that the coming of Mahomet was predicted in the Old Testament (Hab. iii. 3); (2) to argue that Mahomet's teaching was not more opposed to Christ's than his was to that of Moses, and that therefore both ought to be admitted, or both rejected; (3) to point out critically the discrepancies in the Gospels; (4) to attack the doctrines of the Trinity and Christ's deity. (Lee, pref. 41 seq.)