The Word Made Flesh

Pascal famously observed that one of the main differences between Christ and Mohammed was that the coming of Christ was foretold, but that the coming of Mohammed was not. Moslem scholars have not, in general, denied that Christ was foretold, save where they have interpreted the relevant prophecies as referring not to Christ, but to Mohammed.

For example, they advance complex semantic, genealogical and comparative arguments to demonstrate that the prophecy which Moses made in the book of Deuteronomy cannot refer to Jesus, but can only refer to Mohammed (Deut.18.15-23).

But Moslems also argue that Jesus himself referred to the coming of Mohammed when he spoke about what Christians take to have been the coming of Holy Spirit. They say that the Greek word 'Paraclete' (which is usually translated as 'advocate', 'intercessor' or 'comforter') does not at all refer to the person of God manifested in the Holy Spirit, but that it is a misreading of the Greek word 'paraclytos' (the 'praised one'), and that word, they say. is equivalent in meaning to the Arabic word Ahmad and refers to Mohammed himself. Jesus, they say, was here prophesying not the coming of the Holy Spirit, but identifying the Prophet of Islam by name (see Jn. 14.26, Koran Sura 61.6).

Having read the argument and counter-argument, it seems to me that the words used to describe the prophet in Deuteronomy are sufficiently unspecific to be reasonably attributed to either Jesus or Mohammed. And Moslems rightly point out that, as a law-giver, Muhammed had more in common with Moses than did Christ, who stated clearly that he had not come to abolish or to alter the law, but to fulfill it (Mt.5.17). On the other hand, the Moslem reading of John fails entirely to have regard to the other passages in which the evangelist refers to the Holy Spirit, although the Greek term there used ( 'Pnuema Hagion') appears in immediate apposition to the word 'Paraclete' in the text on which Moslem scholars rely (eg. Jn.7.39, 20.22).

St.Ambrose famously observed that God 'did not elect to save mankind by philosophical argument' (De Fide ad Gratianum Augustum, Chap.5, Para. 42), and Heraclitus said that it was difficult for the head to go shopping with the heart, for what the heart wanted, it paid for with the head (Aristotle, Eudemian Ethics, B& 1223 b.23).

And yet no one can read the Bible without becoming aware of a certain quality which is reminds one of the great works of art, and, in particular, the great masterpieces of western music in which some great theme is announced, worked through, and transcended.

How often, in the events of the Old Testament, we see patterns which prefigure the events of the New: the sitories of Cain and Abel, Abraham and Isaac, Joseph and his brothers seem to prefigure a Jesus betrayed by and sacrificed on behalf of his own people. Noah, Abraham, and Joseph bring their families, and Moses the people of Israel, into new lands of promise: Jesus proclaims an entirely new kind of kingdom for those who believe in him. The prophets preach the corruption and cleansing of the world that they know, they foretell the coming of the Messiah, and the way in which he will be despised, rejected and cut off: Jesus fulfills their words in a way that transcends anything anyone expected.

It is this sense of unity and coherence which so immediately and so obviously distinguishes the relationship of Christ and the relationship of Mohammed to the Bible and justifies Pascal's fragmentary thought more thorougly than any reference to the inspired utterance of specific prophets or prophecies.