A Different Trinity: God, Mary & Jesus

At The Face of the Goddess I quoted Edward Gibbon (The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire) about a "heresy" of Mary-worshippers:

The Christians of the seventh century had insensibly relapsed into a semblance of paganism: their public and private vows were addressed to the relics and images that disgraced the temples of the East: the throne of the Almighty was darkened by the clouds of martyrs, and saints, and angels, the objects of popular veneration; and the Collyridian heretics, who flourished in the fruitful soil of Arabia, invested the Virgin Mary with the name and honours of a goddess.

At Islamic Awareness there are several more quotes from and about the Qur'an and Mary, including a telling quote from Rev. W. St. Clair Tisdall in his book, The Original Sources Of The Qur'an, published in 1905 by the Society for the Promotion of Christian Knowledge. Tisdall wrote,

...Muhammad heard certain Christians make that there are three Gods, that is to say God the Father, Mary, and Jesus. It is perfectly plain from these verses that Muhammad really did believe that the Christian doctrine inculcated belief in three separate Divine persons, Jesus and Mary being two of them. But our third quotation implies that Muhammad - probably from what he had seen of "Christian" worship - thought that the order was Jesus, Mary, God, or Mary, Jesus, God. No reasonable man will wonder at the indignation with which Muhammad in God's name abjures such blasphemy. We must all feel regret that the idolatrous worship offered to Mary led Muhammad to believe that people who called her "Queen of Heaven" and "Mother of God" really attributed to her Divine attributes.

Christians have evidently long thought that Muhammad just misunderstood about the trinity, but Islamic scholars - and Christians as well - point to seventh century Christians in Arabia who did worship Mary along with Jesus and god.

Also at Islamic Awareness, is a quote from George Sale in the preliminary discourse to his translation of the Qur'an, writes:

"Among the Arabs it was that the heresies of Ebion, Beryllus, and the Nazareans, and also that of the Collyridians, were broached, or at least propagated; the latter introduced the Virgin Mary for God, or worshipped her as such offering her a sort of twisted cake called collyris, whence the sect had its name.

"This notion of the divinity of the Virgin Mary was also believed by some at the Council of Nice, who said there were two gods besides the Father viz. Christ and the virgin Mary, and were thence named Mariamites."

There's a group called the Oregon Collyridians in Portland - they have an extensive website with links galore.

Seventh Century Church Chronology

R. Grant Jones has compiled a church chronology of 20 centuries. It's an enormous amount of work - I've cribbed here just the references to Gaul and a few others pertinent to the Face of the Goddess series. I disagree with Jones on some of his interpretations, but am grateful for and impressed by the sheer amount of information he's amassed.

Frankish names were rare for bishops in Gaul before the end of the sixth century. During the seventh century, they became increasingly common as Frankish leaders exerted control over the episcopate.

602 Pope Gregory the Great (590-604) wrote to the populace of Rome to prohibit the observance of Saturday as a sabbath, “following the perfidy of the Jews.”

603 Columbanus charged by a synod of Frankish bishops with the “error” of keeping Easter according to Celtic usage. Columbanus wrote to Pope Gregory I (590-604): “How then, with all your learning ... do you favor a dark Easter? An Easter proved to be no Easter?”

608 Boniface IV (608-15), bishop of Rome, requested imperial permission to convert the Pantheon, a pagan temple in Rome, into a church, St. Maria Rotunda or ad Martyrs, dedicated in 609. The Pantheon had been built by the emperor Hadrian between 118 and 128 A.D.

609 Patriarch Anastasios II of Antioch was lynched by Jews from that city. The incident was due to Phokas’s (602-10) attempt to convert the Jews to Christianity and to Jewish support for the Persian invaders (see 611 below).

610 Columbanus (see 590), removed from his monastery in Luxovium (Luxeuil) by conspiring enemies in the court of the Frankish king Theodoric (Theuderic) II, travelled to Switzerland and preached to the pagan Alemanni. (Columbanus had refused to bless Theuderic’s sons by his concubines.) Even without Columbanus, the monastery at Luxeuil thrived, growing to 200 monks. In this era, monasteries grew so large they became local economic centers.

612 The emperor Herakleios’s wife, the empress Fabia-Eudokia, died of epilepsy. She left two children - her son became Constantine III, who ruled briefly in 641. Herakleios married his niece, Martina, over the protests of patriarch Sergios.

614 The Persians under King Chosroes II invested Jerusalem on April 15. On May 5, the Persians forced their way within the walls, with the help of Jews. With their churches and houses in flames around them, the Christians were massacred, some by the Persian soldiers but many more by Jews. Sixty thousand perished and thirty thousand more were sold into slavery. The Persians carried off the True Cross.

Of the churches in Palestine, only the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem was spared. The apparent reason was the mosaic over the door, depicting the Wise Men from the East in Persian costume.

616 (619?) The Persians captured Egypt.

620+ The Visigoths succeeded in conquering the Roman province in Spain.

622-681 The Monothelete controversy

622 The emperor Herakleios (610-41), while on a visit to Armenia, and in order to shore up support among the Monophysites in Syria and Egypt, suggested that the divine and human natures in Christ, while quite distinct in his person, had but one will (thelema) and one operation (energeia). Sergios, patriarch of Constantinople, was a strong supporter of this doctrine of one theandric energy of Christ.

623 A Frankish merchant named Samo assisted the Slavs of Bohemia, Moravia and Slovakia in their revolt against their Avar overlords.

631 The emperor Herakleios (610-41) appointed Kyros, bishop of Phasis in Colchis, patriarch of Alexandria, with power to act as viceroy (dioiketes) of Egypt. Kyros began a ten-year persecution of the non-Chalcedonian Coptic Christians. The Coptic patriarch Benjamin I (622-661) escaped into hiding in the desert, and, in an attempt to discover Benjamin’s hiding place, Kyros had Benjamin’s brother Mina tortured, then drowned in the Nile, tied in a sack full of stones. The division among Christians no doubt aided the Islamic conquest of Egypt (639-641).

632 Death of Mohammed.

634 The Saracens swept up the coast of Palestine as far as Caesarea. Four thousand Christian, Jewish and Samaritan peasants were slaughtered.

635 Damascus fell to the Saracens. The Monophysites in Syria, persecuted for years by the Roman authorities, supported the invaders.

636 Fall of Antioch to the Saracen invaders. The emperor Herakleios (610-41) withdrew his forces from Syria.

637 Jerusalem fell to the Arab invaders. Sophronios negotiated civil and religious liberty for Christians in exchange for tribute.

639 Thousands died in Palestine of famine and disease caused by the Saracen invasion, in which villages were destroyed and fields laid waste.

639 In December, the Saracen general Amr ibn al-Asi invaded Egypt with between 3500 to 4000 soldiers.

640 The Saracens conquered the port of Caesarea in Palestine.

641 The Arabs conquered Egypt, including Alexandria. In September, the Saracen forces of Amr ibn Al-Asi entered Alexandria, completing their conquest of Egypt. They burned the books of the library to heat the public baths. It was said that the supply of books ran out after one year. Nevertheless, the initial years of Muslim rule were favorable for the Coptic Christians, who were allowed to practice their religion freely, and could build and repair churches without interference. The early jizyah (poll tax) was no more onerous than the Imperial taxes had been.

642 King Chindaswinth of Spain (642-53) ordered the death penalty for Christians who worshipped as Jews.

643 The Saracens ransacked Tripoli.

649 King Recceswinth of Spain (649-54) forbade observance of the Passover, the Old Testament dietary restrictions, and Jewish marriages. Jews were forbidden to go to court against Christians or to give evidence against them in court.

649 The Saracens attacked Cyprus, killing or enslaving much of the populace.

659 On her deathbed, Gertrude of Nivelles, daughter of Pepin I of France (the mayor of the palace who died ~ 640), requested burial in wearing a plain linen shroud. This ran contrary to the traditional (pagan) practice of a “furnished” grave. Her example was copied. By the 750s, the practice of furnishing graves against the needs of the dead in the afterlife had ceased in Francia.

661 The Frankish king Chlothar III and his queen Balthild founded a monastery at Corbie, giving it immunity from taxation and visits from local bishops in exchange for prayer, which the royal patrons trusted would protect and enrich their kingdom.

661 By this year, the Franks had replaced all Roman bishops in Gaul with Frankish bishops (see 601 above). St. Boniface described the Franks as: “voracious laymen, adulterous clergy and drunkards, who fight in the army fully armed and who with their own hands kill both Christians and pagans.”

662 Around this year, during the reign of their king Grimoald (ruled 662-71), the Lombards in the Benevento region were worshipping the image of a snake; the cult had endured from antiquity. St. Baratus had the snake idol melted down into a paten and chalice.

663 Constans II (641-68) visited Rome, where he stayed for 12 days. He stripped the city’s churches of valuables - taking even roof tiles from St. Maria ad Martyres.

672 The Saracens attacked the islands of Cos and Rhodes, killing or enslaving much of the populace.

673-5 A synod at Saint-Jean-de-Losne condemned clerical hunting (see 517, 747).

674 The Saracens attacked Crete, killing or enslaving much of the populace.

678 Constantine IV (668-85) began to search about for a final resolution on the Monothelite question. He wrote suggesting a general council.

679 Barontus, formerly a royal official, now a monk at the monastery of Logoretum (near Bourges, central France), became very sick. He had a vision in which he saw angels guiding him toward heaven, but demons, simultaneously, clawed at him. When Barontus came to the gates of heaven, the demons listed his sins at St. Peter’s request. See Diadochos, 486.

694 King Egica of Spain ordered the enslavement of all Jews and the confiscation of their property.

698 Carthage fell to the Saracens.

698 End of the Istrian Schism (548-698). The synod of Pavia restored communion between Istria and Rome, broken during the Fifth Ecumencial Council (see 548 above).

700 In Rome from around this year, a large fragment of the True Cross was venerated in the Church of the Holy Cross in Jerusalem.

Forced Conversion of Jews

It's an old article in the Jewish Political Studies Review, but considering how ignorant most of us are about the Byzantine Empire and the late classical/early dark ages, pertinent. "In the seventh century, the Arabs embarked on the conquest of the world in the name of Islam," Rivkah Duker Fishman writes. "The Caliphate replaced the Persian Empire and Christian Spain and conquered much of the Byzantine Empire. The latter, however, seemed to ignore the threat of the new invaders and their religion. Instead, the Byzantine political and intellectual elite focused increasingly on the Jews in tracts and legal measures."

On 31 May 632, apparently under the influence of these churchmen, Emperor Heraclius took the unprecedented step of issuing a decree of forced conversion of his Jewish subjects to Christianity. This edict encompassed the areas of Asia Minor (now Turkey), Syria, Palestine, Greece, Egypt, and the Balkans. Although it was not implemented, the decree alienated the Jews, many of whom had allied themselves with the Persians earlier in the century. Longstanding discriminatory policies and laws influenced Samaritans and non-Orthodox Christians, along with Jews, in favor of the Arab invaders.

According to leading Byzantinist Averil Cameron, the reasons for the anti-Jewish bellicosity during the seventh century were cumulative: long-term stigma resulting from the church fathers' writings, the intense anti-Jewish and anti-heretical activities and legislation of the Emperor Justinian in the mid-sixth century, the fact that Jews were considered supporters of certain factions or contenders for the throne in the late sixth century, and the Jews' reputation as sympathizers of the Persians.

Other scholars believe that Jews mainly served as a surrogate or a literary and artistic construct in place of the Muslims whose power Christianity could not break.

Persia also fell to the Arab/Islamic invaders in the seventh century. And yet, if you were to ask most people what happened in the seventh century how many of us would be able to say that it was a cataclysmic time, and explain why?

Seventh Century Islam Today

Two new histories look at what happened to Islam - which means why do some of the cultures informed by this religion still believe in stoning? Or, as the reviewer says, "The Muslim world seems to be caught up in a crisis that shows no end in sight. If there is a single image that reflects this ongoing catastrophe, it is captured in the haunting eyes of a dying Neda Soltani, the 24-year-old woman shot dead on the streets of Tehran."

The two books are:
THE CRISIS IN ISLAMIC CIVILIZATION
by Ali A. Allawi
Yale University Press, 320 pages, $33.50
*
LOST IN THE SACRED
Why the Muslim World Stood Still
by Dan Diner
Princeton University press, 214 pages, $35.95

The Globe and Mail reviews these two books here.

Until the 15th century, bloodshed and oppression were not an exclusive domain of the Muslim world. The rest of humanity, from India to China, from Africa to Europe, lived through similar travails. However, after the Reformation, Renaissance and Enlightenment, Europe slowly started on the long road to democracy, freedom, liberty and secularism, with religion and race separated from state and politics, at least in spirit if not in practice.

However, in the Muslim world, time seems to have stood still for the past five centuries. The once glorious civilizations that flourished in Baghdad, Cordoba and Delhi now seem to me mere myths that sustain the ossified existence of a billion people, trapped in the past and seemingly unable to break loose from chains of conformity intertwined with superstition and a contempt for joy itself.

Interestingly, the readers' comments are hostile - complaining that the West didn't stop being bloodthirsty in the 15th century, but has eclipsed Islam before and since.

There's some truth to that, but doesn't explain what happened to Islam.