Christianity Among the Religions

E. L. Allen

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2020
• eBook ISBN:
  9781000228120
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Christian Church

Originally published in 1961, Christianity Among the Religions examines whether it is possible to learn from other religions without compromising on personal religious loyalties.

The book traces from the thirteenth century the gradual awakening of the West to the spiritual qualities of other religions and the various efforts made to place them in relation to Christianity. It explores the reports sent home by Jesuit missionaries in China, the advance in knowledge in nineteenth-century Europe, and the gradual decline in Western "provincialism". In doing so, the book puts forwards suggestions for the relation between Christianity and other religions and calls for open conversations between representatives of different faiths with the aim of increased unity of spirit.

Christianity Among the Religions will appeal to all those with an interest in the history of Christianity and religious studies more generally.

I

Truth and Error

a. Mission to Islam

It was in the thirteenth century that Western Christendom began to be shaken in the conviction that it possessed the absolute truth. The Church that had converted pagans, excommunicated heretics, and excluded the Jew from the common life, now found herself face to face with Islam. That enigmatic monarch Frederick II entered Jerusalem by treaty with the Sultan of Cairo and in defiance of the Pope, and the dwindling Christian principalities of Palestine took advantage of a truce with the enemy to turn against each other. Islam, it became clear, was not to be dispossessed by force of arms. The Cross and the Crescent must find some less futile and less bloody way of settling their differences. Nor was that all. For Islam had gone over to the counter-attack in the person of her philosophers. Under the patronage of the Abbasid caliphs in Baghdad, Greek medical, astronomical, and philosophical texts were translated into Arabic and commented on in the same language. Thanks to the Moslem conquest of Spain, this rich culture was carried to the gates of Western Europe. As Christian armies marched south to recover the peninsula, the new knowledge crossed the frontier in the opposite direction.

All this is part of the history of European culture. With it a new possibility emerged. There were intermediaries available who could assist in giving Averroes a Latin dress. Might not one of them be employed in rendering the same service to the Koran? Yes, if a Christian were found who wished to read it. Peter the Venerable was such a one, and in 1141 while in Spain on a tour of inspection he took the decisive step of commissioning a Latin version of the Koran. He was perhaps the first to see that it was vain to combat Islam with the sword while remaining ignorant of what it stood for. His purpose was a missionary one, and he knew that to make converts from a religion one must first study it. The Christians who undertook the task included one Robertus Retensis (of Reading?), an Englishman, but they were assisted by a Saracen of the same name as the Prophet. Robert’s rendering continued in use throughout the medieval period and we shall see that it was drawn upon in particular by Nicolas of Cuas.¹

So the missionary and not the soldier was now to be the champion of the faith. This was the bold new idea and the first Pope to espouse it was Gregory IX, though he did not for all that abandon hope that the crusading spirit might be renewed. He gave his support to the mendicant orders as they threw themselves into the enterprise. Of St Francis we know that he twice suffered disappointment before he set foot on the Holy Land. He was in Syria for more than a year (1219-1220), during which time he paid a visit to Egypt and found the crusaders there no less in need of his ministrations than the Saracens. We are told of an interview with the Sultan of Egypt, one version of which makes the latter ask for a sign that would enable him to decide between the rival religions. Another account represents the saint as offering himself to pass through fire if ‘the priests of Mahomet’ will do the same.²

¹ On this subject see Ugo Monneret de Villard, Lo Studio dell’Islām in Europa nel XII e nel XIII Secolo, 1944.

² Paul Sabatier, Vie de S. François d’Assisse, 1920, ch. XIV.

Franciscans and Dominicans worked in North Africa and the Near East, sometimes meeting with martyrdom as the reward of their zeal. But the missionary needs to know the language of those to whom he goes. So in 1250 the provincial chapter of Toledo sent eight Dominicans to Tunis to study Arabic. One of them was to become famous as linguist and writer. He was Ramon Martin, whose Pugio Fidei was a handbook for use in missions to Jews as well as to Moslems.¹ Another Dominican is important for his influence on Lull. He was Ramon de Pennyafort, a Catalan by birth; he claimed to have baptized two thousand converts from Islam. It was at his instigation that Lull devoted himself to the study of Arabic, purchasing a Moorish slave to act as teacher. Largely as the result of Lull’s tireless advocacy, the Council of Vienne in 1311 resolved upon the establishment of colleges for the study of Oriental languages. These were to be located at Bologna, Oxford, Salamanca, and the place of residence of the Roman court—it was necessary to be vague on that last point! Provision was to be made for their maintenance. Alas, there is no evidence that the project got beyond good intentions.

By such measures as these the stage was being set for a new kind of encounter with Islam, one based on knowledge to some extent. There was need for this, too, as one can see from a glance at some of the great preposterous opinions of Mohammed and his religion that were current at the time. Perhaps it is not surprising that Mohammed was thought of as a heretic and schismatic. In the seventh century John of Damascus, who had first-hand contact with Islam, included Mohammed in his catalogue of Christian heretics. He founded the ‘Saracen’ sect on the strength of a cursory acquaintance with the Scriptures and information given by an Arian monk. One story made him a priest, if not actually a cardinal! Islam was generally reputed to be an idolatrous religion with an image of Mohammed as its cult-object. Some who claimed to have visited Palestine as pilgrims declared that an image of the kind was to be seen in the Mosque of Omar. And has not the medieval morality-play given us the word ‘termagant’, used originally for a Moslem idol, the product of Christian ignorance and fear? ²

¹ On Ramon Martin see The Legacy of Islam, 1931, pp. 272 f.

² For the acount of Mohammed current at the Papal Court see Matthew Paris, Chronica Majora (Rolls Series), iii. 343 ff. For the popular view see Dorothy Sayers’ translation of The Song of Roland.

b. Ramon Lull

The most notable of the seventeenth-century missionaries was Ramon Lull. The words in which he expressed the ideal that governed his earlier years have often been quoted and are indeed memorable:

Many knights do I see who go to the Holy Land thinking to conquer it by force of arms. But, when I look at the end thereof, all of them are spent without attaining that which they desire. Wherefore, it appears to me, O Lord, that the conquest of that sacred land will not be achieved . . . save by love and prayer and the shedding of tears as well as blood. . . . Let the knights become religious, let them be adorned with the sign of the Cross and filled with the grace of the Holy Spirit, and let them go among the infidels to preach truth concerning thy Passion.¹

What is less well known is that he later abandoned this ideal. In preparation for the Council of Vienne he made up his mind ‘to propose three things for the honour and reverence and increase of the holy Catholic faith’. The first was study of the Oriental languages, the second,

that of all Christian knights there should be made a certain order, which should strive continually for the conquest of the Holy Land.²

With the third we shall be concerned in a later section.

¹ E. Allison Peers, Ramon Lull, London: S.P.C.K., 1929, pp. 30 f.

² Ibid. p. 351.

³ Ibid. p. 325.

Was the change of front occasioned by the ill-success of his missionary labours? Though he wrote much, he visited North Africa only three times, and in each case his stay was a brief one. It is not surprising that his method at Bugia brought him to prison. For he stood in the market-place and cried: ‘The law of the Christians is holy and true, and the sect of the Moslems is false and wrong, and this I am prepared to prove.’³ He did not doubt that he himself was in possession of the truth and that those to whom he went were wilfully in error. He had complete confidence in his ability to demonstrate the truth of the Trinity and the Incarnation. Did he not actually invent a sort of

logical machine, in which the subjects and predicates of theological propositions were arranged in circles, squares, triangles, and other geometrical figures, so that by moving a lever, turning a crank, or causing a wheel to revolve, the propositions would arrange themselves in affirmation or negation, and thus prove themselves to be true?¹

Apparently, therefore, Lull accepted the current view that Christianity and Islam were related simply as truth and error. But this was not quite the case. As a student of Islam, he could not but be aware that it had much in common with his own faith. So, in the Book of the Gentile, he introduces us to a Saracen who is called upon to state what he believes. Before speaking, he performs the prescribed lustrations, of which a detailed account is given, recites the opening sura of the Koran, and then gives a statement of his creed that shows how accurate was Lull’s information.

¹ Catholic Encyclopaedia, xii. 670.

In the main body of the book, three sages, a Jew, a Christian, and a Saracen are about to begin a discourse that has the unity of religion as its aim, when they are accosted by a heathen philosopher. He tells them that he sees death approaching and fears it may be the end. Can they not convince him of God and the resurrection? Since the three religions are united on these points, they are able to satisfy him. But when he asks why so little is done for those who share his ignorance, he learns how deeply his new acquaintances are divided. Each is convinced that his own religion is the one true faith and that eternal torment awaits those who profess one of the others. He begs therefore that each will state his case, so that he may choose between them. They speak in order of age, the Jew first, the Christian next, the Saracen last. So fairly is Islam represented that there is even a warning against supposing that its Paradise is a place of sensual delights merely. The philosopher appears to incline towards the Christian position, but he leaves without committing himself. The sages are impressed with the Gentile’s concern for truth and vow to seek it as earnestly, by friendly discussion among themselves. What is remarkable is the objectivity of the whole treatment. Was Lull so confident of the Christian case that he could afford to be scrupulously fair to Judaism and Islam? Or was he merely reproducing ...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Original Title Page
• Original Copyright Page
• Preface
• Table of Contents
• 1. Truth and Error
• 2. A Vision of Unity
• 3. The Impact of China
• 4. Rationalism and Romanticism
• 5. The Way of the Absolute
• 6. Counter-attack from the East
• 7. The Turn of the Century
• 8. Philosophy in East and West
• 9. Christianity and Indian Religions
• 10. Criticism
• 11. Towards a Conclusion
• 12. Communication
• Index