Newsgroups: soc.culture.arabic,soc.religion.islam
From: lhermi@magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu (Lotfi Hermi)
Subject: Developement of religious strata Judaism and Christianity (related to Islam)
Organization: Oberlin College Computer Science
Date: Fri, 18 Dec 1992 04:36:31 GMT
Message-ID: <1992Dec18.041028.29184@magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu>
Lines: 318

Here is a glimpse in Ibn Khaldun's Muqadimah in which he describes the
development of the Jewish and Christian religions he also points to the 
relationship the three monotheistic religions have with political autho-
rity and leadership. 

Save for analysis.

Lotfi


[31]  Remarks on the words "Pope" and "Patriarch"
in the Christian religion and on the word "Kohen"
used by the Jews.

It should be known that after the removal of its
prophet, a religious group must have someone to take care
of it. (Such a person) must cause the people to act according
to the religious laws. In a way, he stands to them in the
place (khallifah, caliph) of their prophet, in as much as (he
urges) the obligations which ( the prophet) had imposed
upon them. Furthermore, in accordance with the afore-men-
tioned need for political leadership in social organization,
the human species must have a person who will cause them
to act in accordance with what is good for them and who will
prevent them by force from doing things harmful to them.
Such a person is the one who is called ruler.

In the Muslim community, the holy war - Jihad - is a religious
duty, because of the universalism of the (Muslim) mission
and (the obligation to) convert everybody to Islam either by
persuasion or by force. Therefore, caliphate and royal au-
thority are united in (Islam), so that the person in charge
can devote the available strength to both of them at the
same time.

The other religious groups did not have a universal mis-
sion, and the holy war was not a religious duty to them, save
only for purposes of defense. It has thus come about that the
person in charge of religious affairs in ( other religious
groups) is not concerned with power politics at all. (Among
them,) royal authority comes to those who have it, by acci-
dent and in some way that has nothing to do with religion.
It comes to them as the necessary result of group feeling,
which by its very nature seeks to obtain royal authority, as
we have mentioned before, and not because they are under
obligation to gain power over other nations, as is the case
with Islam. They are merely required to establish their re-
ligion among their own (people).

This is why the Israelites after Moses and Joshua re-
mained unconcerned with royal authority for about four hun-
dred years.  Their only concern was to establish their re-
ligion. The person from among them who was in charge of
their religion was called the Kohen. He was in a way the
representative (caliph) of Moses. He regulated the prayers
and sacrifices of the Israelites. They made it a condition for
(the Kohen) to be a descendant of Aaron, as it had been
destined for him and his children by divine revelation.

For (supervision of the) political matters which naturally
arise among human beings, the Israelites selected seventy
elders who were entrusted with a general legal authority.
The Kohen was higher in religious rank than they and more
remote from the turbulent legal authority. This continued to
be (the situation among the Israelites) until the nature of
group feeling made itself fully felt and all power became
political. The Israelites dispossessed the Canaanites of the
land that God had given them as their heritage in Jerusalem
and the surrounding region, as it had been explained to them
through Moses. The nations of the Philistines, the Canaan-
ites, the Armenians [!], the Edomites, the Ammonites, and
the Moabites fought against them. During that (time), po-
litical leadership was entrusted to the elders among them.
The Israelites remained in that condition for about four
hundred years. They did not have any royal power and were
annoyed by attacks from foreign nations. Therefore, they
asked God through Samuel, one of their prophets, that He
permit them to make someone king over them. Thus, Saul
became their king. He defeated the foreign nations and
killed  Goliath, the ruler of the Philistines. After Saul,
David became king, and then Solomon. His kingdom flour-
ished and extended to the borders of the Hijaz and further to
the borders of the Yemen and to the borders of the land of
the Romans ( Byzantines) . After Solomon, the tribes split
into two dynasties. This was in accordance with the neces-
sary consequence of group feeling in dynasties, as we have
mentioned before. One of the dynasties was that of the ten
tribes in the region of Nablus, the capital of which is Samaria
(Sabastiyah), and the other that of the children of Judah
and Benjamin in Jerusalem.  Nebuchadnezzar, the king of
Babylon, then deprived them of their royal authority. He
first (dealt with) the ten tribes in Samaria (Sabastiyah),
and then with the children of Judah in Jerusalem. Their royal
authority had had an uninterrupted duration of a thousand
years. Now he destroyed their temple, burnt their Torah,
and killed their religion. He deported the people to Isfa-
han  and the 'Iraq. Eventually, one of the Persian Kayyanid
( Achaemenid) rulers brought them back to Jerusalem,
seventy years after they had left it. They rebuilt the temple
and re-established their religion in its original form with
priests only. The royal authority belonged to the Persians.

Alexander and the Greeks then defeated the Persians,
and the Jews came under Greek domination. The Greek rule
then weakened, and, with the help of (their) natural group
feeling, the Jews rose against the Greeks and made an end
to their domination over them. (Jewish) royal authority was
in charge of their Hasmonean priests. (The Hasmoneans)
fought the Greeks. Eventually, their power was destroyed.
The Romans defeated them, and ( the Jews) came under
Roman domination. (The Romans) advanced toward Jerusa-
lem, the seat of the children of Herod, relatives by marriage
of the Hasmoneans and the last remnant of the Hasmonean
dynasty. They laid siege to them for a time, finally conquer-
ing (Jerusalem) by force in an orgy of murder, destruction,
and arson. They laid Jerusalem in ruins and exiled (the Jews)
to Rome and the regions beyond. This was the second de-
struction of the temple. The Jews call it ''the Great Exile.''
After that, they had no royal authority, because they had lost
their group feeling. They remained afterwards under the
domination of the Romans and their successors. Their re-
ligious affairs were taken care of by their head, called the
Kohen.

The Messiah (Jesus) brought (the Jews) his religion, as
is known. He abolished some of the laws of the Torah. He
performed marvelous wonders, such as healing the insane 
and reviving the dead. Many people joined him and believed
in him. The largest group among his following were his
companions, the Apostles. There were twelve of them. He
sent some of them as messengers (Apostles) to all parts of
the world. They made propaganda for his religious group.
That was in the days of Augustus, the first of the Roman
emperors, and during the time of Herod, the king of the
Jews, who had taken away royal authority from the Hasmo-
neans, his relatives by marriage. The Jews envied (Jesus)
and declared him a liar. Their king, Herod, wrote to the
Roman Emperor, Augustus, and incited him against (Jesus).
The Roman Emperor gave ( the Jews) permission to kill
him, and the story of Jesus as recited in the Qur'an oc-
curred.

The Apostles divided into different groups. Most of them
went to the country of the Romans and made propaganda for
the Christian religion. Peter was the greatest of them. He
settled in Rome, the seat of the Roman emperors. They 
then wrote down the Gospel that had been revealed to Jesus,
in four recensions according to their different traditions.
Matthew wrote his Gospel in Jerusalem in Hebrew. It was
translated into Latin by John, the son of Zebedee, one of
( the Apostles) . ( The Apostle) Luke wrote his Gospel in
Latin for a Roman dignitary. (The Apostle) John, the son of
Zebedee, wrote his Gospel in Rome. Peter wrote his Gospel
in Latin and ascribed it to his pupil Mark. These four
recensions of the Gospel differ from each other. Not all of
it is pure revelation, but (the Gospels) have an admixture
of the words of Jesus and of the Apostles. Most of (their
contents) consists of sermons and stories. There are very
few laws in them.

The Apostles came together at that time in Rome and
laid down the rules of the Christian community. They en-
trusted them to Clement, a pupil of Peter, noting in them
the list of books that are to be accepted and in accordance
with which one must act.

(The books which) belong to the old religious law of the
Jews are the following:

The Torah, which consists of five volumes.
The Book of Joshua.
The Book of Judges.
The Book of Ruth.
The Book of Judith.
The four Books of Kings.
The Book of Chronicles.
The three Books of Maccabees, by Ibn Gorion.
The Book of Ezra, the religious leader.
The Book of Esther and the story of Haman.
The Book of Job the Righteous.
The Psalms of David.
The five Books of David's son, Solomon.
The sixteen Prophecies of the major and minor prophets.
The Book of Jesus, the son of Sira, the minister of
Solomon.

(The books of) the religious law of Jesus that was re-
ceived by the Apostles are the following:

The four recensions of the Gospel.
The Book of Paul which consists of fourteen epistles.
The Katholika (General Epistles) which consist of seven
epistles, the eighth being the Praxeis (Acts), stories
of the Apostles.
The Book of Clement which contains the laws.
The Book of the Apocalypse (Revelation) which contains
the vision of John, the son of Zebedee.

The attitude of the Roman emperors toward Christianity
varied. At times, they adopted it and honored its adherents.
At other times, they did not recognize it and persecuted its
adherents and killed and exiled them. Finally, Constantine
appeared and adopted Christianity. From then on, all (the
Roman emperors) were Christians.

The head of the Christian ( community) and the person in
charge of ( Christian religious) institutions is called Patriarch.
He is their religious head and the representative (caliph) of
the Messiah among them. He sends his delegates and rep-
resentatives to the remote Christian nations. They are called
"bishop," that is, delegate of the Patriarch. The man who
leads the prayers and makes decisions in religious matters is
called ''priest." The person who withdraws from society and
retires into solitude for worship is called ''monk." The latter
usually seek solitude in (monastic) cells.

The Apostle Peter, the chief Apostle and oldest of the
disciples, was in Rome and established the Christian religion
there. Nero, the fifth Roman emperor, killed him.  Successor 
to Peter at the Roman see was Arius.

Mark the Evangelist spent seven years in Alexandria and
Egypt and the Maghrib making propaganda. After him came
Ananias, who was called Patriarch. He was the first Patriarch
there. He appointed twelve priests to be with him, and it was
arranged that when the Patriarch died, one of the twelve
should take his place, and one of the faithful be elected to
take his place as the twelfth priest. Thus, the patriarchate fell
to the priests.

Later on, dissension broke out among the Christians with
regard to the basic principles and articles of their religion.
They assembled in Nicea in the days of Constantine, in order
to lay down (the doctrine of) true Christianity. Three hun-
dred and eighteen bishops agreed upon one and the same
doctrine of Christianity. They wrote it down and called it
"the Creed.'' They made it the fundamental principle to
which they would all have reference. Among the things they
set down in writing was that with respect to the appointment
of the Patriarch as the head of Christianity, no reference
should be made to the independent judgment of the priests,
as Ananias, the disciple of Mark, had prescribed. That point
of view was abolished. The Patriarch was to come from a
large group and to be elected by the leaders and chiefs of the
believers. It has been so ever since. Later on, other dis-
sensions arose concerning the basic principles of Christianity.
Synods concerned with regulating (the religion), were as-
sembled, but there was no dissension with regard to the
basic principles (of the method of selecting the Patriarch).
It has remained the same ever since.

The Patriarchs always appointed bishops as their dele-
gates. The bishops used to call the Patriarch "Father" as
a sign of respect. The priests similarly came to call the
bishop "Father,'' when he was not together with the Patri-
arch, as a sign of respect. This caused confusion in the use
of the title over a long period, ending, it is said, with the
Patriarchate of Heraclius in Alexandria. It was considered de-
sirable to distinguish the Patriarch from the bishop in the
matter of respect (shown to him by style of address) . There-
fore, the Patriarch was called "Pope," that is, "Father of
fathers." The name (of ''Pope") first appeared in Egypt,
according to the theory expressed by Jirjis b. al-'Amid
in his History. It was then transferred to the occupant of the
most important see in (Christianity), the see of Rome, which
was the see of the Apostle Peter, as we have mentioned
before. The title of Pope has remained characteristic of the
see of Rome down to this day.

Thereafter, there were dissensions among the Christians
with regard to their religion and to Christology. They split
into groups and sects, which secured the support of the
various Christian rulers against each other. At different times
there appeared different sects. Finally, these sects crystallized
into three groups, which constitute the ( Christian) sects.
Others have no significance. These are the Melchites, the
Jacobites, and the Nestorians. We do not think that we should
blacken the pages of this book with discussion of their dogmas
of unbelief. In general, they are well known. All of them are
unbelief. This is clearly stated in the noble Qur'an. (To) dis-
cuss or argue those things with them is not up to us. It is
(for them to choose between) conversion to Islam, payment
of the poll tax, or death.

Later on, each sect had its own Patriarch. The Patriarch
of Rome is today called "Pope." He is of the Melchite
persuasion. Rome belongs to the European Christians. Their
royal authority is established in that region.

The Patriarch of the (Christian) subjects in Egypt is
of the Jacobite persuasion. He resides among them. The
Abyssinians follow the religion of (the Egyptian Christians).
The Patriarch of Egypt delegates bishops to the Abyssinians,
and these bishops arrange religious affairs in Abyssinia. The
name of ''Pope" is specially reserved for the patriarch of
Rome at this time. The Jacobites do not call their patriarch
"Pope." The word (Pope) is pronounced Pappa.

It is the custom of the Pope with respect to the European
Christians to urge them to submit to one ruler and have
recourse to him in their disagreements and agreements, in
order to avoid the dissolution of the whole thing. His pur-
pose is to have the group feeling that is the strongest among
them (concentrated upon one ruler), so that (this ruler) has
power over all of them. The ruler is called "Emperor"
(Emperador), with the middle letter (pronounced some-
how) between dh and z. (The Pope) personally places the
crown upon the head of (the emperor), in order to let him
have the blessing implied (in that ceremony). The emperor,
therefore, is called "the crowned one." Perhaps that is the
meaning of the word ''emperor."

This, briefly, is our comment on the two words Pope and
Kohen.

''God leads astray whomever He wants to lead astray,
and He guides whomever He wants to guide." 


