The current post has been adapted and modified from the following article: What the Early Church Believed: Sabbath or Sunday?. All emphasis shall be mine.

The following quotations show that the first Christians understood that Sunday became the Lord’s Day as a result of Christ’s resurrection, and therefore replaced the Sabbath. This is why believers gathered for worship on first day of the week.

The Didache

Chapter 14. Christian Assembly on the Lord’s Day

But every Lord’s day gather yourselves together, and break bread, and give thanksgiving after having confessed your transgressions, that your sacrifice may be pure. But let no one that is at variance with his fellow come together with you, until they be reconciled, that your sacrifice may not be profaned. For this is that which was spoken by the Lord: In every place and time offer to me a pure sacrifice; for I am a great King, says the Lord, and my name is wonderful among the nations. (The Didache [A.D. 70]).

Epistle of Barnabas

Chapter 15. The false and the true Sabbath

Further, also, it is written concerning the Sabbath in the Decalogue which [the Lord] spoke, face to face, to Moses on Mount Sinai, And sanctify the Sabbath of the Lord with clean hands and a pure heart. Exodus 20:8; Deuteronomy 5:12 And He says in another place, If my sons keep the Sabbath, then will I cause my mercy to rest upon them. Jeremiah 17:24-25 The Sabbath is mentioned at the beginning of the creation [thus]: And God made in six days the works of His hands, and made an end on the seventh day, and rested on it, and sanctified it. Attend, my children, to the meaning of this expression, He finished in six days. This implies that the Lord will finish all things in six thousand years, for a day is with Him a thousand years. And He Himself testifies, saying, Behold, today will be as a thousand years. Therefore, my children, in six days, that is, in six thousand years, all things will be finished. And He rested on the seventh day. This means: when His Son, coming [again], shall destroy the time of the wicked man, and judge the ungodly, and change the-sun, and the moon, and the stars, then shall He truly rest on the seventh day. Moreover, He says, You shall sanctify it with pure hands and a pure heart. If, therefore, any one can now sanctify the day which God has sanctified, except he is pure in heart in all things, we are deceived. Behold, therefore: certainly then one properly resting sanctifies it, when we ourselves, having received the promise, wickedness no longer existing, and all things having been made new by the Lord, shall be able to work righteousness. Then we shall be able to sanctify it, having been first sanctified ourselves. Further, He says to them, Your new moons and your Sabbath I cannot endure. Isaiah 1:13 You perceive how He speaks: Your present Sabbaths are not acceptable to Me, but that is which I have made, [namely this,] when, giving rest to all things, I shall make a beginning of the eighth day, that is, a beginning of another world. Wherefore, also, we keep the eighth day with joyfulness, the day also on which Jesus rose again from the dead. And when He had manifested Himself, He ascended into the heavens. (Ibid. [A.D. 74]) ​​​​​​​

Ignatius of Antioch​​​​​​​

Chapter 8. Caution against false doctrines

Be not deceived with strange doctrines, nor with old fables, which are unprofitable. For if we still live according to the Jewish law, we acknowledge that we have not received grace. For the divinest prophets lived according to Christ Jesus. On this account also they were persecuted, being inspired by His grace to fully convince the unbelieving that there is one God, who has manifested Himself by Jesus Christ His Son, who is His eternal Word, not proceeding forth from silence, and who in all things pleased Him that sent Him.

Chapter 9. Let us live with Christ

If, therefore, those who were brought up in the ancient order of things have come to the possession of a new hope, no longer observing the Sabbath, but living in the observance of the Lord’s Day, on which also our life has sprung up again by Him and by His death — whom some deny, by which mystery we have obtained faith, and therefore endure, that we may be found the disciples of Jesus Christ, our only Master — how shall we be able to live apart from Him, whose disciples the prophets themselves in the Spirit did wait for Him as their Teacher? And therefore He whom they rightly waited for, having come, raised them from the dead. Matthew 27:52 (Epistle to the Magnesians [A.D. 110])

Justin Martyr​​​​​​​

Chapter 67. Weekly worship of the Christians

And we afterwards continually remind each other of these things. And the wealthy among us help the needy; and we always keep together; and for all things wherewith we are supplied, we bless the Maker of all through His Son Jesus Christ, and through the Holy Ghost. And on the day called Sunday, all who live in cities or in the country gather together to one place, and the memoirs of the apostles or the writings of the prophets are read, as long as time permits; then, when the reader has ceased, the president verbally instructs, and exhorts to the imitation of these good things. Then we all rise together and pray, and, as we before said, when our prayer is ended, bread and wine and water are brought, and the president in like manner offers prayers and thanksgivings, according to his ability, and the people assent, saying Amen; and there is a distribution to each, and a participation of that over which thanks have been given, and to those who are absent a portion is sent by the deacons. And they who are well to do, and willing, give what each thinks fit; and what is collected is deposited with the president, who succours the orphans and widows and those who, through sickness or any other cause, are in want, and those who are in bonds and the strangers sojourning among us, and in a word takes care of all who are in need. But Sunday is the day on which we all hold our common assembly, because it is the first day on which God, having wrought a change in the darkness and matter, made the world; and Jesus Christ our Saviour on the same day rose from the dead. For He was crucified on the day before that of Saturn (Saturday); and on the day after that of Saturn, which is the day of the Sun, having appeared to His apostles and disciples, He taught them these things, which we have submitted to you also for your consideration. (First Apology [A.D. 155])

The Didascalia

“The apostles further appointed: On the first day of the week let there be service, and the reading of the holy scriptures, and the oblation [sacrifice of the Mass], because on the first day of the week [i.e., Sunday] our Lord rose from the place of the dead, and on the first day of the week he arose upon the world, and on the first day of the week he ascended up to heaven, and on the first day of the week he will appear at last with the angels of heaven.” (Didascalia 2 [A.D. 225])

Origen

27. Significance of the Names of John and of His Parents.

The force that is in names may be applied in many matters, and it may be worth our while to ask at this point what is the significance of the names John and Zacharias. The relatives wish, as the giving of a name is a thing not to be lightly disposed of, to call the child Zacharias, and are surprised that Elisabeth should want him to be called John. Zacharias then writes, His name is John, and is at once freed from his troublesome silence. On examining the names, then, we find Joannes to be Joa without the nes. The New Testament gives Hebrew names a Greek form and treats them as Greek words; Jacob is changed into Jacobus, Symeon into Simon, and Joannes is the same as Joa. Zacharias is said to be memory, and Elisabeth oath of my God, or strength of my God. John then came into the world from grace of God (=Joa=Joannes), and his parents were Memory (about God) and the Oath of our God, about the fathers. Thus was he born to make ready for the Lord a people fit for Him, at the end of the Covenant now grown old, which is the end of the Sabbatic period. Hence it is not possible that the rest after the Sabbath should have come into existence from the seventh of our God; on the contrary, it is our Saviour who, after the pattern of His own rest, caused us to be made in the likeness of His death, and hence also of His resurrection. (Commentary on John, Book II [A.D. 229])

Victorinus

On the fifth day the land and water brought forth their progenies. On the sixth day the things that were wanting were created; and thus God raised up man from the soil, as lord of all the things which He created upon the earth and the water. Yet He created angels and archangels before He created man, placing spiritual beings before earthly ones. For light was made before sky and the earth. This sixth day is called parasceve, that is to say, the preparation of the kingdom. For He perfected Adam, whom He made after His image and likeness. But for this reason He completed His works before He created angels and fashioned man, lest perchance they should falsely assert that they had been His helpers. On this day also, on account of the passion of the Lord Jesus Christ, we make either a station to God, or a fast. On the seventh day He rested from all His works, and blessed it, and sanctified it. On the former day we are accustomed to fast rigorously, that on the Lord’s day we may go forth to our bread with giving of thanks. And let the parasceve become a rigorous fast, lest we should appear to observe any Sabbath with the Jews, which Christ Himself, the Lord of the Sabbath, says by His prophets that His soul hates; Isaiah 1:13-14 which Sabbath He in His body abolished, although, nevertheless, He had formerly Himself commanded Moses that circumcision should not pass over the eighth day, which day very frequently happens on the Sabbath, as we read written in the Gospel. John 7:22 Moses, foreseeing the hardness of that people, on the Sabbath raised up his hands, therefore, and thus figuratively fastened himself to a cross. Exodus 22:9, 12 And in the battle they were sought for by the foreigners on the Sabbath day, that they might be taken captive, and, as if by the very strictness of the law, might be fashioned to the avoidance of its teaching. 1 Maccabbees 2:31-41

And thus in the sixth Psalm for the eighth day, David asks the Lord that He would not rebuke him in His anger, nor judge him in His fury; for this is indeed the eighth day of that future judgment, which will pass beyond the order of the sevenfold arrangement. Jesus also, the son of Nave, the successor of Moses, himself broke the Sabbath day; for on the Sabbath day he commanded the children of Israel Joshua 6:4 to go round the walls of the city of Jericho with trumpets, and declare war against the aliens. Matthias also, prince of Judah, broke the Sabbath; for he slew the prefect of Antiochus the king of Syria on the Sabbath, and subdued the foreigners by pursuing them. And in Matthew we read, that it is written Isaiah also and the rest of his colleagues broke the Sabbath Matthew 12:5 — that that true and just Sabbath should be observed in the seventh millenary of years. Wherefore to those seven days the Lord attributed to each a thousand years; for thus went the warning: In Your eyes, O Lord, a thousand years are as one day. Therefore in the eyes of the Lord each thousand of years is ordained, for I find that the Lord’s eyes are seven. Zechariah 4:10 Wherefore, as I have narrated, that true Sabbath will be in the seventh millenary of years, when Christ with His elect shall reign. Moreover, the seven heavens agree with those days; for thus we are warned: By the word of the Lord were the heavens made, and all the powers of them by the spirit of His mouth. There are seven spirits. Their names are the spirits which abode on the Christ of God, as was intimated in Isaiah the prophet: And there rests upon Him the spirit of wisdom and of understanding, the spirit of counsel and might, the spirit of wisdom and of piety, and the spirit of God’s fear has filled Him. Isaiah 11:2-3 Therefore the highest heaven is the heaven of wisdom; the second, of understanding; the third, of counsel; the fourth, of might; the fifth, of knowledge; the sixth, of piety; the seventh, of God’s fear. From this, therefore, the thunders bellow, the lightnings are kindled, the fires are heaped together; fiery darts appear, stars gleam, the anxiety caused by the dreadful comet is aroused. Sometimes it happens that the sun and moon approach one another, and cause those more than frightful appearances, radiating with light in the field of their aspect. But the author of the whole creation is Jesus. His name is the Word; for thus His Father says: My heart has emitted a good word. John the evangelist thus says: In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God. All things were made by Him, and without Him was nothing made that was made. Therefore, first, was made the creation; secondly, man, the lord of the human race, as says the apostle. 1 Corinthians 15:45-47 Therefore this Word, when it made light, is called Wisdom; when it made the sky, Understanding; when it made land and sea, Counsel; when it made sun and moon and other bright things, Power; when it calls forth land and sea, Knowledge; when it formed man, Piety; when it blesses and sanctifies man, it has the name of God’s fear. (On the Creation of the World[A.D. 300])

Eusebius of Caesarea

Chapter 4. The Religion Proclaimed by Him to All Nations Was Neither New Nor Strange…

8. They did not care about circumcision of the body, neither do we. They did not care about observing Sabbaths, nor do we. They did not avoid certain kinds of food, neither did they regard the other distinctions which Moses first delivered to their posterity to be observed as symbols; nor do Christians of the present day do such things. But they also clearly knew the very Christ of God; for it has already been shown that he appeared unto Abraham, that he imparted revelations to Isaac, that he talked with Jacob, that he held converse with Moses and with the prophets that came after. (Church History, Book I [A.D. 312])

“[T]he day of his [Christ’s] light . . . was the day of his resurrection from the dead, which they say, as being the one and only truly holy day and the Lord’s day, is better than any number of days as we ordinarily understand them, and better than the days set apart by the Mosaic law for feasts, new moons, and Sabbaths, which the apostle [Paul] teaches are the shadow of days and not days in reality” (Proof of the Gospel, 4:16:186 [A.D. 319]).

Athanasius

“The Sabbath was the end of the first creation, the Lord’s day was the beginning of the second, in which he renewed and restored the old in the same way as he prescribed that they should formerly observe the Sabbath as a memorial of the end of the first things, so we honor the Lord’s day as being the memorial of the new creation.” (On Sabbath and Circumcision, 3 [A.D. 345])

Cyril of Jerusalem

37… Fall not away either into the sect of the Samaritans or into Judaism, for Jesus Christ has henceforth ransomed you. Stand aloof from all observance of Sabbaths and from calling any indifferent meats common or unclean. (Catechetical Lectures, Lecture 4 [A.D. 350])

Council Laodicea (390) [LOCAL]

Christians must not judaize by resting on the Sabbath, but must work on that day, rather honouring the Lord’s Day; and, if they can, resting then as Christians. But if any shall be found to be judaizers, let them be anathema from Christ. (Canon 29)

John Chrysostom

9… How was it then when he [God] said, “You shall not kill” . . . he did not add, “because murder is a wicked thing.” The reason was that conscience had taught this beforehand, and he speaks thus, as to those who know and understand the point. Wherefore when he speaks to us of another commandment, not known to us by the dictate of conscience, he not only prohibits, but adds the reason. When, for instance, he gave commandment concerning the Sabbath— “On the seventh day you shall do no work”—he subjoined also the reason for this cessation. What was this? “Because on the seventh day God rested from all his works which he had begun to make” [Ex. 20:10-11]. . . . For what purpose then, I ask, did he add a reason respecting the Sabbath, but did no such thing in regard to murder? Because this commandment was not one of the leading ones. It was not one of those which were accurately defined of our conscience, but a kind of partial and temporary one, and for this reason it was abolished afterward. But those which are necessary and uphold our life are the following: “You shall not kill. . . . You shall not commit adultery. . . . You shall not steal.” On this account he adds no reason in this case, nor enters into any instruction on the matter, but is content with the bare prohibition. (Homilies on the Statutes, Homily 12, [A.D. 387])

Ver. 17. But if, while we sought to be justified in Christ, we ourselves also were found sinners is Christ a minister of sin?…

“… You have put on Christ, you have become a member of the Lord and been enrolled in the heavenly city, and you still grovel in the law [of Moses]? How is it possible for you to obtain the kingdom? Listen to Paul’s words, that the observance of the law overthrows the gospel, and learn, if you will, how this comes to pass, and tremble, and shun this pitfall. Why do you keep the Sabbath and fast with the Jews? Is it that you fear the Law and abandonment of its letter? But you would not entertain this fear, did you not disparage faith as weak, and by itself powerless to save. A fear to omit the sabbath plainly shows that you fear the Law as still in force; and if the Law is needful, it is so as a whole, not in part, nor in one commandment only; and if as a whole, the righteousness which is by faith is little by little shut out. If you keep the sabbath, why not also be circumcised? And if circumcised, why not also offer sacrifices? If the Law is to be observed, it must be observed as a whole, or not at all. If omitting one part makes you fear condemnation, this fear attaches equally to all the parts. If a transgression of the whole is not punishable, much less is the transgression of a part; on the other hand, if the latter be punishable, much more is the former. But if we are bound to keep the whole, we are bound to disobey Christ, or by obedience to Him become transgressors of the Law. If it ought to be kept, those who keep it not are transgressors, and Christ will be found to be the cause of this transgression, for He annulled the Law as regards these things Himself, and bid others annul it. Do you not understand what these Judaizers are compassing? They would make Christ, who is to us the Author of righteousness, the Author of sin, as Paul says, Therefore Christ is the minister of sin. Having thus reduced the proposition to an absurdity, he had nothing further to do by way of overthrowing it, but was satisfied with the simple protestation,” (Commentary on Galatians, Chapter 2 [A.D. 395])

“The rite of circumcision was venerable in the Jews’ account, forasmuch as the law itself gave way thereto, and the Sabbath was less esteemed than circumcision. For that circumcision might be performed, the Sabbath was broken; but that the Sabbath might be kept, circumcision was never broken; and mark, I pray, the dispensation of God. This is found to be even more solemn than the Sabbath, as not being omitted at certain times. When then it is done away, much more is the Sabbath…” (Homilies on Philippians Homily 10 [A.D. 402])

The Apostolic Constitutions

That Every Christian Ought to Frequent the Church Diligently Both Morning and Evening.

LIX . When you instruct the people, O bishop, command and exhort them to come constantly to church morning and evening every day, and by no means to forsake it on any account, but to assemble together continually; neither to diminish the Church by withdrawing themselves, and causing the body of Christ to be without its member. For it is not only spoken concerning the priests, but let every one of the laity hearken to it as concerning himself, considering that it is said by the Lord: He that is not with me is against me, and he that gathers not with me scatters abroad. Matthew 12:30 Do not you therefore scatter yourselves abroad, who are the members of Christ, by not assembling together, since you have Christ your head, according to His promise, present, and communicating to you. Be not careless of yourselves, neither deprive your Saviour of His own members, neither divide His body nor disperse His members, neither prefer the occasions of this life to the word of God; but assemble yourselves together every day, morning and evening, singing psalms and praying in the Lord’s house: in the morning saying the sixty-second Psalm, and in the evening the hundred and fortieth, but principally on the Sabbath day. And on the day of our Lord’s resurrection, which is the Lord’s day, meet more diligently, sending praise to God that made the universe by Jesus, and sent Him to us, and condescended to let Him suffer, and raised Him from the dead. Otherwise what apology will he make to God who does not assemble on that day to hear the saving word concerning the resurrection, on which we pray thrice standing in memory of Him who arose in three days, in which is performed the reading of the prophets, the preaching of the Gospel, the oblation of the sacrifice, the gift of the holy food? (Apostolic Constitutions , Book II, Section 7. On Assembling in the Church [A.D. 400])

Augustine

Chapter 23 [XIV.]— How the Decalogue Kills, If Grace Be Not Present

Although, therefore, the apostle seems to reprove and correct those who were being persuaded to be circumcised, in such terms as to designate by the word  law circumcision itself and other similar legal observances, which are now rejected as shadows of a future substance by Christians who yet hold what those shadows figuratively promised; he at the same time nevertheless would have it to be clearly understood that the law, by which he says no man is justified, lies not merely in those sacramental institutions which contained promissory figures, but also in those works by which whosoever has done them lives holily, and among which occurs this prohibition: You shall not covet. Now, to make our statement all the clearer, let us look at the Decalogue itself. It is certain, then, that Moses on the mount received the law, that he might deliver it to the people, written on tables of stone by the finger of God. It is summed up in these ten commandments, in which there is no precept about circumcision, nor anything concerning those animal sacrifices which have ceased to be offered by Christians. Well, now, I should like to be told what there is in these ten commandments, except the observance of the Sabbath, which ought not to be kept by a Christian — whether it prohibit the making and worshipping of idols and of any other gods than the one true God, or the taking of God’s name in vain; or prescribe honour to parents; or give warning against fornication, murder, theft, false witness, adultery, or coveting other men’s property? Which of these commandments would any one say that the Christian ought not to keep? Is it possible to contend that it is not the law which was written on those two tables that the apostle describes as the letter that kills, but the law of circumcision and the other sacred rites which are now abolished? But then how can we think so, when in the law occurs this precept, You shall not covet, by which very commandment, notwithstanding its being holy, just, and good, sin, says the apostle, deceived me, and by it slew me? What else can this be than the letter that kills? (On the Spirit and the Letter [A.D. 412])

Pope Gregory I

“It has come to my ears that certain men of perverse spirit have sown among you some things that are wrong and opposed to the holy faith, so as to forbid any work being done on the Sabbath day. What else can I call these [men] but preachers of Antichrist, who when he comes will cause the Sabbath day as well as the Lord’s day to be kept free from all work. For because he [the Antichrist] pretends to die and rise again, he wishes the Lord’s day to be held in reverence; and because he compels the people to Judaize that he may bring back the outward rite of the law, and subject the perfidy of the Jews to himself, he wishes the Sabbath to be observed. For this which is said by the prophet, ‘You shall bring in no burden through your gates on the Sabbath day’ [Jer. 17:24] could be held to as long as it was lawful for the law to be observed according to the letter. But after that the grace of almighty God, our Lord Jesus Christ, has appeared, the commandments of the law which were spoken figuratively cannot be kept according to the letter. For if anyone says that this about the Sabbath is to be kept, he must needs say that carnal sacrifices are to be offered. He must say too that the commandment about the circumcision of the body is still to be retained. But let him hear the apostle Paul saying in opposition to him: ‘If you be circumcised, Christ will profit you nothing’ [Gal. 5:2]” (Letters 13:1 [A.D. 597])

FURTHER READING

EARLY CHURCH ON JEWISH CHRISTIANS AND LAW OBSERVANCE

In this post I am going to share some of the most outlandish and bizarre fairytales about Muhammad’s conception, birth and early childhood. These Muslim fables will show just how irrational and unbelievable Islam truly, and highlight the extent that Muhammad’s followers went to fabricate lies and myths about their so-called prophet.

These Islamic myths will also demonstrate the desperation of Muslims to model Muhammad’s life after the births and lives of God’s true prophets, particularly the miraculous origins and ministry of the Lord Jesus.

It will become obvious from reading these myths that the reason why the Muslims felt the need to fabricate such lies and fairytales about Muhammad was because they wanted Allah’s “messenger” to resemble God’s inspired emissaries and beloved Son in order to make him more comparable to the biblical prophets and apostles of the true God.

MUHAMMAD’S BIRTH

We begin by highlighting some of the fantastical and far-fetched stores surrounding the conception and birth of Muhammad. All emphasis will be mine.

و كونه رافعاً رأسه عندما وضعته شاخصاً ببصره إلى السماء ، و ما رأته من النور الذي خرج معه ولادته ، و ما رأته إذ ذاك أم عثمان بن أبي العاص من تدلي النجوم ، و ظهور النور عند ولادته ، حتى ما تنظر إلا النور

As our beloved Prophet was born a radiant light accompanied him and he lifted his head towards the heavens and the mother of Uthman ibn Abu al-As’s son witnessed stars lowering themselves and a light so bright appeared that she could see nothing other than light. (Dalail an-Nabuwwah lil Bayhaqi, Volume 1, p. 113; Musnad Imam Ahmad, Volume 4, p. 127)

Abu Nu’aym reports from Abdullah ibn Abbas, who narrated that the mother of the Messenger, Amina used to state,

لما خرج من بطني فنظرت اليه فاذا انابه ساجد ثم رايت سحابة بيضاء قد اقبلت من السماء حتى غشيته فغيب عن وجھي ، ثم تجلت فاذا انابه مدرج في ثوب صوف ابيض وتحته حريرة خضراء وقد قبض على ثلٰثة مفاتيح من اللؤلوء الرطب واذا قائل يقول قبض محمد على مفاتيح النصرة ومفاتيح الربح ومفاتيح النبوة ثم اقبلت سحابة اخرٰى حتى غشيته فغيب عن عيني ثم تجلت فاذا انابه قد قبض على حريرة خضراء مطوية واذ قائل يقول بخٍ بخٍ قبض محمد على الدنيا کلھا لم يبق خلق من اھلھا الادخل في قبضته

“When the Messenger of Allah was born, he fell straight into prostration. Then I saw a white cloud from the sky appearing and covering the Messenger of Allah such that he disappeared from me. When the cloud appeared, I saw that the Prophet was covered in a white woolly shawl and there was a green mat spread on the floor. Within the hands of the Messenger there were three keys made of diamonds and there was an unseen voice heard saying, ‘The Messenger of Allah has grasped the key of giving victory, the key of giving benefit and the key of Prophethood.’ Then I saw another cloud which enclosed the Messenger of Allah such that he disappeared from my view and it became illuminated. I saw that the Messenger of Allah is holding a folded piece of green silk in his blessed hands and an unseen voice was heard was saying, ‘How great! How great! The Messenger of Allah has grasped the whole world; all the creation has entered into his grasp, with none left out.’”

Narrated from Ibn Mas’ud. (Musnad Ahmad bin Hanbal [Al-Maktab al-Islami, Beirut], Volume 1, p. 386; Sunan al-Darimi, the chapter on Ma U’tiya al-Nabiyyu Min al-Fadl, [Dar al-Mahasin li al-Taba’ah, Cairo], Volume 1, p. 30, Al-Khasais al-Kubra, the chapter on Ma Zahara fi Lailat Mawlidi, [Markaz Ahl Sunnat, Gujarat], Volume 1, p. 48)

Ash Shifa, the mother of Abdur Rahman Ibn Awf attended his birth and tells us,

لما سقط صلى الله عليه و سلم على يدي و استهل سمعت قائلاً يقول : رحمك الله ، و أضاء لي ما بين المشرق و المغرب حتى نظرت إلى قصور الروم

“When he dropped into my hands he sneezed and I heard a voice saying, ‘May Allah have mercy upon you!’ The entire horizon became illuminated for me whereby I was able to see the castle of the Greeks.” (Dalail an-Nabuwwah lil Bayhaqi, Volume 1, p. 12; Dalail an-Nabuwwah li Abi Nu’aym, Volume 1, p. 136)

On the authority of Abdullah ibn Abbas who narrates:

كان من دلالات حمل رسول الله صلى الله عليه وسلم أن كل دابة كانت لقريش نطقت تلك الليلة وقالت : حمل برسول الله صلى الله عليه وسلم ورب الكعبة ، وهو أمان الدنيا وسراج أهلها

“One of the signs of the birth of the Prophet was that all the animals of the Quraish talked that night and said, ‘We swear by the Lord of the Kaba! That Prophet is coming who is the guardian/protector of the entire world and is the sun of its people’ (shedding the light of guidance).” (Al-Khasais al-Kubra with reference to Abi Nu’aym from Ibn ‘Abbas, the chapter on Ma Dhahara fi Layla Mawlidihi, [Markaz Ahl Sunnat, Gujarat], Volume 1, p. 47)

There’s more:

In the hadith literature occur the words, “and the visions of my mother who saw, as she bore me, a light came forth from her that lit up the castles of Syria.”

Muhammad b. Ishaq stated that Amina, daughter of Wahb and mother of the Messenger of God, used to say that when she became pregnant with the Messenger of God, a voice told her: “You are pregnant with the lord of this nation; when he drops to the ground (in birth) say the words, ‘I invoke for him the protection of the One God, from the evil of all who envy, from everyone committed to his oath and every prowling slave; may a champion protect me, for he is with the All-praised and All-glorious One, until I see him come into view.

“‘And the proof of that is a light accompanying him that will fill the castles of Busra in Syria. And at his birth, then call him Muhammad, for in the Torah his name is “Ahmad” and the hosts of earth and heaven give him hamd, praise. In the Gospels his name is “Ahmad”, the hosts of heaven and earth giving him hamd, praise. And his name in the Qur’an is “Muhammad”, “the praised one.”’”

But these traditions require that she had a vision when she became pregnant with him, that a light was emanating from her by which the castles of Syria were illuminated. And then, when she gave birth to him, she actually saw by her eyes a realization of that, just as she had seen beforehand, as told here. But God knows best.

Muhammad b. Sa’d stated that Muhammad b. ‘Umar, he being al-Waqidi, informed him that Muhammad b. ‘Abd Allah b. Muslim related to him, from al-Zuhri, what follows. Al-Waqidi also stated that Musa b. ‘Abda related to him the following, from his brother and Muhammad b. Ka’b al-Qurazi; as did ‘Abd Allah b. Ja’far al-Zuhri, from his aunt Umm Bakr, daughter of al-Miswar, from her father; as did ‘Abd al-Rahman b. Ibrahim al-Mazani and Ziyad b. Hashraj, from Abu Wajza; as did Ma’mar from Abu Nujayh, from Mujahid; as did Talha b. ‘Amr from ‘Ata from Ibn ‘Abbas. The accounts of some of these correlate with those of others. These accounts state that Amina daughter of Wahb said, “I became pregnant with him (meaning the Messenger of God) and he caused me no difficulties up to when I gave birth to him. When he was separated from me a light emerged along with him that lit all between east and west. Then he dropped to the ground, resting upon his hands, and took up a handful of earth which he gripped tight, raising his head towards heaven.”

Some sources word this tradition, “he dropped down resting upon his knees and there emerged with him a light by which were illuminated the castles and market-places of Syria, even so that the necks of the camels at Busra could be seen, while he raised his head towards heaven.”

The hafiz Abu Bakr al-Bayhaqi said that Muhammad b. ‘Abd Allah, the hafiz, informed him, quoting Muhammad b. Isma’il, quoting Muhammad b. Ishaq, and Yunus b. Mubashshir b. al-Hasan, quoting Ya’qub b. Muhammad al-Zuhri, quoting ‘Abd al-‘Aziz b. ‘Imran, quoting ‘Abd Allah b. ‘Uthman b. Abu Sulayman b. Jubayr b. Mut’im, from his father, from Ibn Abu Suwayd al-Thaqafi, from ‘Uthman b. Abu al-‘As as follows: “My mother told me that she witnessed the giving of the birth by Amina daughter of Wahb to the Messenger of God the night the birth occurred.” She said, “All I could see in the house was light. As I looked I saw the stars coming so close that I said that they were going to fall on me!”

The qadi (judge) ‘Iyad recounted, from al-Shaffa’, mother of ‘Abd al-Rahman b. ‘Awf, that she was his midwife and that she said that when he dropped into her hands and first made a sound, she heard a voice say, “May God have mercy on you!” And (she said) that a light shone from him by which the castles of Byzantium could be seen.

Muhammad b. Ishaq said that when she gave birth to him she sent her slave girl to ‘Abd al-Muttalib, his father having died while she was pregnant (it is also said that ‘Abd Allah died when the Prophet was 28 months old, and God knows best which account is true) to say to him, “A boy has been born to you, so look to him.”

When ‘Abd al-Muttalib came to her she related to him what she had seen when she bore him, what she had been told about him and what she had been ordered to name him.

So ‘Abd al-Muttalib took him in TO HUBAL; inside the ka’ba, and stood and prayed, thanking God the Almighty and Glorious, and speaking the verses,

“Praise be to God who gave me this fine, wonderful boy,

Who already in the cradle leads all boys; I entrust his safety to the pillared House (ka’ba),

Until he becomes the epitome of young men, until I see him fully grown.

I seek his protection from all who hate, and from the envious and the unstable,

From those with ambition but eyeless, until I see him highly eloquent;

You are he who was named in the Qur’an, in books whose meanings are well established,

(Your name being) ‘Ahmad, written upon the tongue.” (The Life of the Prophet Muhammad (Al-Sira al-Nabawiyya), translated by professor Trevor Le Gassick, reviewed by Dr. Ahmed Fareed [Garnet Publishing Limited, 8 Southern Court, south Street Reading RG1 4QS, UK; The Center for Muslim Contribution to Civilization, 1998], Volume I, 147-149; bold and capital emphasis mine)

The hafiz Abu Bakr al-Bayhaqi said that Abu ‘Abd Allah the hafiz informed him that Abu al-‘Abbas Muhammad b. Ya’qub related to him, quoting Ahmad b. Shayba al-Ramali, quoting Ahmad b. Ibrahim al-Hubali, quoting al-Haythami b. Jamil, quoting Zuhayr, from Muharib b. Dithar, from ‘Amr b. Yathribi, from al-‘Abbas b. ‘Abd al-Muttalib, as follows: “I said: ‘O Messenger of God, it was a sign of your prophethood that encouraged me to join your religion. I saw you in the cradle whispering to the moon and gesturing to it with your finger. And it would move in the direction you indicated.’ He replied, ‘I would talk to it and it to me and it would distract me from crying. And I would hear its palpitations when it would prostrate beneath God’s throne.”‘

He (Abu Bakr al-Bayhaqi) then said, “He (Ahmad b. Ibrahim Hubali) transmitted only this one tradition, and he is not known.”

Section: On the signs that occurred on the night of the birth of the Prophet. In the section on Hawatif al-Jan (The Cries of the Spirits), we told of the downcast faces of many of the idols and how they fell from their places on that night, and of what the Negus, the king of Abyssinia, saw. Similarly we have reported the appearance of the light that came with him that even lit up the castles of Syria when he was born, and how he dropped into a kneeling position and raised his head to heaven. We told also how the vessel split asunder from above his honoured face, what was seen by the tight in the house where he was horn and how the stars came down close to them, and other such events. (Ibn Kathir, p. 151; bold emphasis mine)

MUHAMMAD’S FAIRYTALE BIRTH EXPOSED

To show why the foregoing accounts are nothing more than fables which were fabricated to make Muhammad and his pagan mother resemble Christ and his holy mother, all one has to do is to note the traditions which indicate that Muhammad’s mother is in hell because she died as an unbelieving pagan.

For example, the Islamic sources plainly state that Allah refused to accept Muhammad’s intercession for his mother who died as an idolatress, causing the latter to weep bitterly since he had to accept the fact that both his parents are in hellfire experiencing Allah’s torture:

(36) Chapter: The prophet asked his Lord for permission to visit the grave of his mother

Abu Huraira reported Allah’s Messenger as saying: I sought permission to beg forgiveness for my mother, but He did not grant it to me. I sought permission from Him to visit her grave, and He granted it (permission) to me. (Sahih Muslim, Book 004, Number 2129 https://sunnah.com/muslim/11/134)

Abu Huraira reported: The Apostle of Allah visited the grave of his mother and he wept, and moved others around him to tears, and said: I sought permission from my Lord to beg forgiveness for her but it was not granted to me, and I sought permission to visit her grave and it was granted to me. So visit the graves, for that makes you mindful of death. (Sahih Muslim, Book 004, 2130 https://sunnah.com/muslim/11/135)

And so they prayed for the forgiveness of the idolaters until the verse (It is not for the Prophet, and those who believe, to pray for the forgiveness of idolaters)”. Abu’l-Qasim ‘Abd al-Rahman ibn Ahmad al-Harrani informed us> Muhammad ibn ‘Abd Allah ibn Nu’aym> Muhammad ibn Ya’qub al-Umawi> Bahr ibn Nasr> Ibn Wahb> Ibn Jurayj> Ayyub ibn Hani’> Masruq ibn al-Ajda’> ‘Abd Allah ibn Mas’ud> who said: “The Messenger of Allah went out one day to look at the graveyards and we went out with him. He ordered us to sit and then proceeded across until he stopped at one particular grave. He spoke to it for a long time and then the Messenger of Allah wept loudly and we wept for his weeping. After a while, he came toward us and was met by ‘Umar ibn al-Khattab who asked him: ‘O Messenger of Allah, what has made you cry, for we also cried and we were also scared?’ He came toward us, sat with us and then said: ‘My weeping made you scared?’ We said: ‘Yes, O Messenger of Allah!’ He said: ‘The grave you saw me talking to is the grave of Aminah bint Wahb. I sought permission from my Lord to visit her and He allowed me to do so. Then, I asked His permission to pray for her forgiveness and He did not grant it. The words of Allah, exalted is He (It is not for the Prophet, and those who believe, to pray for the forgiveness of idolaters even though they may be near of kin (to them) after it hath become clear that they are people of hell-fire. The prayer of Abraham for the forgiveness of his father was only because of a promise he had promised him…) were revealed and I was seized by the tenderness which a son has toward his mother. This is the reason why I wept”. (‘Alī ibn Ahmad al-Wahidi, Asbab al-Nuzul https://www.altafsir.com/Tafasir.asp?tMadhNo=0&tTafsirNo=86&tSoraNo=9&tAyahNo=113&tDisplay=yes&Page=3&Size=1&LanguageId=2; bold emphasis mine)

Another report claims:

He (Ibn Sa‘d) said: Then they said: O Apostle of Allah, our mother Mulaykah Bint al-Hulw used to secure the freedom of prisoners, feed the mendicant and show compassion to the poor. She had died. She had interred alive a daughter of very tender age, so what would be her condition. He said: She who interred her (daughter) alive and she who was interred alive are both in hell fire. Thereupon they got infuriated. He said: Come to me. They came back and he said: MY MOTHER IS WITH YOURS. They rejected it, and went away saying: By Allah! This man who made us eat the heart and thinks that our mother is in hell-fire, is not worthy of being followed. They set out and on the way they confronted one of the Companions of the Apostle of Allah who was bringing camels of sadaqah. They tied him and carried away the camels. This news reached the Prophet. He cursed them along with those whom he was cursing in these words: May Allah curse Ri‘l, Dhakwan, ‘Usayyah, Lihyan, and two sons of Mulaykah–Ibn Harim and Murran. (Ibn Sa’ad’s Kitab Al-Tabaqat Al-Kabir, English translation by S. Moinul Haq, M.A., PH.D, assisted by H.K. Ghazanfar M.A. [Kitab Bhavan Exporters & Importers, 1784 Kalan Mahal, Daryaganj, New Delhi – 110 002 India], Volume I, Parts I & II, pp. 383-384; bold and capital emphasis mine)

And here is an allegedly sound narration which unashamedly admits that Muhammad’s father is in hellfire:

Chapter 86: HE WHO DIED WITH UNBELIEF WOULD BE (THROWN) INTO THE FIRE, INTERCESSION WOULD BE OF NO AVAIL TO HIM AND THE RELATIONSHIP OF HIS FAVOURITES WOULD NOT BENEFIT HIM

Anas reported: Verily, a person said: Messenger of Allah, where is my father? He said: (He) is in the Fire. When he turned away, he (the Holy Prophet) called him and said: Verily my father and your father are in the Fire. (Sahih Muslim, Book 001, Number 0398 https://www.searchtruth.com/book_display.php?book=001&translator=2&start=0&number=0398)

The question to ask a Muslim is, how could Aminah have died as an idolatress pagan and who went to hell to be tortured if the reports of her seeing light come out of her private parts are true? How could she have not become a believer if she had seen and heard all those miraculous signs that accompanied the conception and birth of Muhammad?

The answer is obvious. These are nothing more than fairytales which Muslims forged to make their prophet look better and to dupe his followers into believing that his conception and birth rivaled that of the true prophets, and specifically that of the Lord Jesus’.

BORN CIRCUMCISED?

As if it couldn’t get any weirder, we are told that Muhammad was born already circumcised with other traditions claiming that it was Gabriel who came down to personally circumcise him!

Al-Bayhaqi stated, “Abu ‘Abd Allah the hafiz informed us, quoting Abu Bakr Muhammad b. Ahmad b. Hatim al-Darabardi, of Merv, Abu ‘Abd Allah al-Bushanji related to us, quoting Abu Ayyub Sulayman b. Salama al-Khaba’iri, quoting Yunus b. ‘Ata’ b. ‘Uthman b. Rabi’a b. Ziyad b. al-Harith al-Sadda’i, of Egypt, quoting al-Hakam b. Aban, from ‘Ikrima, from Ibn ‘Abbas, from his father al-‘Abbas b. ‘Abd al-Muttalib, God bless him, as follows. “The Messenger of God was born circumcised and with his umbilical cord severed. His grandfather ‘Abd al-Muttalib was amazed at this and found favour in him, saying, ‘This son of mine is sure to be important.’ And so he was.”

There is dispute over the veracity of this.

The hafiz Ibn ‘Asakir told it, from an account of Sufyan b. Muhammad al-Massisi, from Hushaym, from Yunus b. Ubayd, from al-Hasan, from Anas, as follows: The Messenger of God said, “One way God honoured me was in my being born already circumcised, so that no one saw my private parts.”

He (Ibn ‘Asakir) then related it on a line of transmission from al-Hasan b. ‘Arafa, on the authority of Hushaym.

He thereafter related it from Muhammad b. Muhammad b. Sulayman, he being al-Baghandi, who said that ‘Abd al-Rahman b. Ayyub al-Himsi related to him, quoting Musa b. Abu Musa al-Maqdisi, that Khalid b. Salama related to him, from Nafi’, from Ibn Umar, that the latter said, “The Messenger of God was born circumcised and with his umbilical cord detached.”

Abu Nu’aym stated that Abu Ahmad Muhammad b. Ahmad al-Ghitrifi related to him, quoting al-Husayn b. Ahmad b. ‘Abd Allah al-Maliki, quoting Sulayman b. Salama al-Khaba’iri, quoting Yunus b. ‘Ata’, quoting al-Hakam b. Ata, quoting ‘Ikrima, from Ibn ‘Abbas, from his father al-‘Abbas, as follows, “The Messenger of God was born circumcised and with his umbilical cord detached. This amazed his grandfather ‘Abd al-Muttalib and he found favour in him, saying, ‘This son of mine is sure to be important.’ And so he was.”

Some authorities claim authenticity for this tradition for the lines of transmission it has; some even claim for it the status of mutawatir.⁶⁰ However, this is debatable.

The word makhtun given in these traditions means “having the foreskin cut off’; the word masrur means “having had the umbilical cord from his mother severed”.

The Ibn ‘Asakir related from ‘Abd al-Rahman b. ‘Uyayna al-Basri as follows, “‘Ali b. Muhammad al-Mada’ini al-Salmi related to us, quoting Salama b. Muharib b. Muslim b. Ziyad, from his father, from Abu Bakra, that Gabriel circumcised the Prophet when he cleansed his heart.”

This is extremely strange.

It is also said that it was his grandfather ‘Abd al-Muttalib who circumcised him and held a celebration for him to which he gathered all Quraysh. But God knows best. (Ibn Kathir, 149-150; bold emphasis mine)

60. The term connotes a tradition related by consecutive testimonies and therefore one of evident authenticity. (Ibid., 149)

A DEMON-POSSESSED EPILEPTIC?

This next set of traditions depict Muhammad as a troubled youth who would experience seizures and strokes which resulted in his having hallucinations of beings coming to tear his chest wide open, and which those around him took as a sign of his being demon possessed, or of being under the control of the devil:

Some months after our return he and his brother were with our lambs behind the tents when his brother came running and said to us, “Two men clothed in white have seized that Qurayshi brother of mine and thrown him down and opened up his belly, and are stirring it up.” We ran towards him and found him standing up with a livid face. We took hold of him and I asked him what was the matter. He said, “Two men in white raiment came I and threw me down and opened up my belly and searched therein for I know not what.”¹ So we took him back to our tent.

His father said to me, “I am afraid that this child has had a stroke, so take him back to his family before the result appears.” So we picked him up and took him to his mother who asked why we had brought him when I had been anxious for his welfare and desirous of keeping him with me. I said to her, “God has let my son live so far and I have done my duty. I am afraid that ill will befall him, so I have brought him back to you as you wished.” She asked me what happened and gave me no peace until I told her. When she asked if I feared a demon possessed him, I replied that I did. She answered that no demon had any power over her son who had a great future before him, and then she told how when she was pregnant with him a light went out from her which illumined the castles of Busra in Syria, and that she had borne him with the least difficulty imaginable. When she bore him he put his hands on the ground lifting his head towards the heavens. “Leave him then and go in peace,” she said.’

Thaur b. Yazid from a learned person who I think was Khalid b. Ma’dan al Kala’i told me that some of the apostle’s companions asked him to tell them about himself. He said: ‘I am what Abraham my father prayed for and the good news of (T. my brother) Jesus. When my mother was carrying me she saw a light proceeding from her which showed her the castles of Syria. I was suckled among the B. Sa’d b. Bakr, and while I was with a brother of mine behind our tents shepherding the lambs, two men in white raiment came to me with a gold basin full of snow. Then they seized me and opened up my belly, extracted my heart and split it; then they extracted a black drop from it and threw it away; then they washed my heart and my belly with that snow until they had thoroughly cleaned them. Then one said to the other, weigh him against ten of his people; they did so and I outweighed them. Then they weighed me against a hundred and then a thousand, and I outweighed them. He said, “Leave him alone, for by God, if you weighed him against all his people he would outweigh them.'” (Alfred Guillaume, The Life of Muhammad: A Translation of Ibn Ishaq’s Sirat Rasul Allah, With Introduction and Notes [Oxford University Press, Fifteenth impression 2001], pp. 71-72; bold emphasis mine)

“Then one time he was out behind our dwellings with one of his foster-brothers with our animals. Suddenly that foster-brother came in greatly agitated and said, ‘That Quraysh brother of mine! Two men dressed in white came to him, laid him down, and split open his abdomen!‘

“At this his father and I rushed outside towards him. We found him standing there, his colour pale. His foster-father hugged him and asked, ‘What’s wrong, son?’ He replied, ‘Two men dressed in white came to me. They laid me down and opened my abdomen. Then they drew something from inside it and threw away. After that they put my abdomen back as before.’ So we took the boy back with us and his foster father said, ‘Halima, I’m afraid my foster son has become afflicted; let’s hurry and give him back to his family before what we fear does develop.’ So we did take him back. His mother was very surprised to see him and when we gave him over to her she said, ‘So why did you bring him back, nurse? You both wanted to have him so much.’ ‘No, it’s nothing,’ we replied, ‘it’s just that God has relieved us of our task. We did our duty. We’re afraid some harm or accident may befall him, so we are returning him to his own people.’ His mother insisted, ‘What’s going on with you both! Tell me truthfully what’s worrying you! ‘ She would not leave us alone till we told her what had happened. She asked, ‘Are you afraid for him from Satan? Absolutely not; Satan won’t get to him. By God, this son of mine has a great future before him. Should I tell you what happened with him?’ ‘Please do,’ we asked. ‘Well,’ she explained, ‘when I was pregnant with him, he was the lightest child I ever bore. And when carrying him I saw in my sleep a light emanating so bright it lit up the castles of Syria! And then, when he was born, he came out in a manner that babies never do, drew himself up on his arms and lifted his head up to heaven. So leave him, and don’t worry.”‘

This account has been related through various other lines as well, and it is one of the best known, and most frequently told by the biographers and early historians.

Al-Waqidi said that Ma’adh b. Muhammad related to him, from ‘Ata’ b. Abu Rabbah, from Ibn ‘Abbas, as follows, “Halima once went out to seek the Prophet and she found their animals to be sleeping in the sun. Him she found with his sister. She asked, ‘Why outside in this heat?’ His sister replied, ‘My brother doesn’t get hot; I saw a cloud shading him that stopped when he did and moved when he did, till he came to this spot.”‘

Ibn Ishaq said that Thawr b. Yazid related to him, from Khalid b. Ma’dan, from the Companions of the Messenger of God that the Companions once asked him to tell them about himself. He responded, ‘I am the one called for by my father Abraham, the glad tidings foreseen by Jesus, peace be upon them both. When she bore me my mother saw that a light came from inside her that illuminated the castles of Syria. I was suckled by the tribe of Sa’d b. Bakr and while I was among some of our animals two men dressed in white came, carrying a golden basin filled with ice. They laid me down, cut open my abdomen and took out my heart. This they split and extracted from it a black clot that they threw away. They then washed my heart and insides with that ice until clean. Having put it back as before, one of them said to his companion, ‘Weigh him against ten of his nation.’ He did so, but I outweighed them. He then said, ‘Weigh him against a hundred of his nation.’ This he did but I outweighed them. He said, ‘Weigh him against a thousand.’ The other man did, but I outweighed them too. The first man then said, ‘Leave him now, for even if you weighed him against his entire nation, he would outweigh them!'”

This has a fine, strong chain of authorities.

Ibn Ishaq also narrated that Abu Nu’aym, the hafiz, related this story in his work al-Dala’il (The Signs) by way of Umar b. al-Subh, known as Abu Nu’aym, from Thawr b. Yazid, from Makhul, from Shaddad b. Aws, in a much lengthened version. But this Umar b. Subh should be ignored, for he was a liar who was accused of invention. For this reason we will not mention the text of the tradition, for it gives no pleasure.

Ibn Ishaq then said that Abu ‘Amr b. Hamdan related to him, quoting al-Hasan b. Nafir, quoting ‘Amr b. Uthman, quoting Baqiyya b. al-Walid, from Buhayr b. Sa’id, from Khalid b. Ma’dan, from ‘Abd al-Rahman b. ‘Amr ‘Salami, from Utba b. ‘Abd Allah, as follows. A man asked the Prophet, “What was it happened to you first, O Messenger of God?” He replied, “My wet-nurse was from the Bana Sa’d b. Bakr. One time a son of hers and I went off with our flock without taking any food with us. So I said, ‘Hey brother, go back and get us some food from our mother’s home.’ So my brother hurried away while I stayed with the animals. Then two white birds like eagles came along and one said to the other, ‘Is that he?’ ‘Yes,’ the other replied. Then they both swooped down, took hold of me and laid me out on my back. They then split my abdomen, extracted my heart, cut it open, and took out from it two black clots. One bird said to his companion, ‘Bring me some ice water.’ And with it they cleaned my insides. The first bird then said, ‘Now get some cold water.’ With that they washed my heart. Then the bird said, ‘Bring me al-sakina (quietude).’ This they sprinkled into my heart. The one said to the other, ‘Sew it up.’ So he did that and then placed on my heart the seal of prophethood. After that one bird said to the other, ‘Place him in one balance scale and a thousand of his people in the other.’ And when I looked up, there were the thousand above me, and I was concerned that some of them might tumble down on to me. Then the bird said, ‘If his whole nation were balanced against him, he would still outweigh them.’ Then both birds went away, leaving me there. I was tremendously afraid and raced off to my foster-mother and told her what had happened. She was afraid I’d lost my mind and exclaimed, ‘God protect you!’ Then she got an ass of hers ready for travel and put me on it. She rode behind me and we travelled till we reached my mother. She then said, ‘Well, I’ve fulfilled my pact and agreement.’ She then told my mother what had happened, but it didn’t shock her. She said, ‘What I saw was that a light came from inside me that lit up the castles of Syria.'”

Ahmad related it from a tradition told by Baqiyya b. al-Walid. ‘Abd Allah b. al-Mubarak and others similarly told this from Baqiyya b. al-Walid.

Ibn ‘Asakir related it through Abu Dawud al-Tayalisi. Ja’far b. ‘Abd Allah b. ‘Uthman al-Qurashi related to him that Umayr b. Umar b. ‘Urwa b. al-Zubayr informed him as follows, “I heard Urwa b. al-Zubayr relate from Abu Dharr al-Ghifari who said that he asked, ‘O Messenger of God, how were you informed that you were a prophet and when did you become convinced that you were one?’ He replied, ‘O Abu Dharr, two angels came to me when I was in one of the valleys of Mecca. One of them dropped down to the ground, while the other remained suspended between heaven and earth. One said to the other, “Is that he?” “Yes, it’s he.” The one said, “Weigh him against another man.” He did so, and I outweighed him.’”

He then told it till the end, recounting how his chest was opened and sewn up and the seal was placed between his shoulders. He then said, “Then finally they turned away from me, as if their work was fully done.”

Moreover Ibn ‘Asakir gave it from Ubayy b. Kab in similar words, and from Shaddad b. Aws in a more simple form than that.

And it is established in the sahih collection of Muslim through Hammad b. Salama, from Thabit, from Anas b. Malik that the Messenger of God was visited by Gabriel, on whom be peace, while he was playing with the other boys. Gabriel took him, laid him down, split his heart open, took it out and withdrew a black clot from inside it, saying, “That’s the devil’s lot!” Then he washed it in a golden basin with water from (the well called) zamzam. He then mended it and put it back in its place. The other boys raced off to his mother – meaning his nurse – and told her, “Muhammad has been killed!” When they met him he was very pale. Anas stated, “And I used to see the mark of the sewing on his chest.”

Ibn ‘Asakir related this through Ibn Wahb, from ‘Amr b. al-Harith, from ‘Abd Rabbihi Ibn Sa’id, from Thabit al-Banani, from Anas, to the effect that prayer was prescribed in Medina and that two angels came to the Messenger of God, took him to zamzam, split open his abdomen, took out his insides and put them in a basin of gold, washed them in zamzam water then filled his insides with wisdom and knowledge.

And the tradition also comes through Ibn Wahb, from Ya’qub b. ‘Abd Rahman al-Zuhri, from his father, from ‘Abd al-Rahman b. ‘Amir b. Utba b. Ibn Waqqas, from Anas, who said, “The Messenger of God was visited three nights. (A voice) said: ‘Take him who is the best of them and their leader.’ So they took the Messenger of God, conducted him to zamzam, opened his abdomen, brought a gold bowl, washed out his insides then filled them with wisdom and faith.”

This is substantiated by the account of Sulayman b. al-Mughira, from Thabit, from Anas.

In the two sahih collections it is given through Sharik b. Abu Nimr, from Anas, and also from al-Zuhri from Anas, from Abu Dharr and Qatada from Anas, and from Malik b. Sa’sa’sa from the Prophet in the recounting of al-Isra’ (the ascension to heaven), as the story of the laying open of his chest (as occurring) on that night, and its being washed with zamzam water.

There is no denying the probability of that occurring twice, once when he was young and once on the night of the ascension in preparation for his going to join the heavenly assemblage of angels, and of conferring with and appearing before the Lord, the Almighty, Glorious, Blessed, and Exalted one…

He reported also that when Halima was returning him fearing some harm had come to him, as she approached Mecca she lost him and could not find him. So she went to his grandfather ‘Abd al-Muttalib, and he and a group of men went off to search for him. It was Waraqa b. Nawfal and another man of Quraysh who found him and brought him to his grandfather. He put him on his shoulders and circumambulated (the ka’ba), praying to God for the boy’s protection, and then returned him to his mother Amina.

Al-Umawi related through Uthman b. ‘Abd al-Rahman al-Waqqasi, a weak authority, from al-Zuhri, from Sa’id b. al-Musayyab, the story of the birth of the Prophet, and of his being suckled by Halima with a course different from that of Muhammad b. Ishaq. He stated that ‘Abd al-Muttalib ordered his son ‘Abd Allah to take the baby and go around the quarters of the bedouin to find a foster-mother for him. He did so and eventually hired Halima to suckle him. He recounted that the boy stayed with her for six years, being brought each year to visit his grandfather. When the opening of his chest occurred while he was with them, she took him back and he lived with his mother until he was eight, when she died. Thereupon his grandfather ‘Abd al-Muttalib took charge of him, but he too died when the Prophet was ten. Then his two uncles, his father’s two brothers al-Zubayr and Abu Talib, took responsibility for him. In his early teens his uncle al-Zubayr took him to Yemen. His account states that on that journey they saw signs (of his prophethood). One of these was that a stallion camel had made its way some distance along a valley through which the party was passing. When the stallion saw the Messenger of God, it knelt down and rubbed its chest on the ground and so he mounted it. Another sign was that they came to a stream in violent flood but God Almighty dried it up so that they could cross it. Thereafter his uncle al-Zubayr died; at that time he was fourteen and Abn Talib alone took charge of him. (Ibn Kathir, pp. 162-166; bold emphasis mine)

FURTHER READING
Muhammad’s Silly and Ridiculous Teachings [Part 1], [Part 2]

Legends, Myths and Fables incorporated into the Qur’an

Source of Muhammad’s Inspiration – Divine or Demonic?

Revisiting the issue of Muhammad and Epilepsy Pt. 1

Revisiting the issue of Muhammad and Epilepsy Pt. 2

Revisiting the issue of Muhammad and Epilepsy Pt. 3

In this post I will examine Thomas Aquinas’ exegesis of John 10:28-30, specifically v. 29, where he interprets the text in respect to the eternal begetting of the Son, to the Father communicating/conferring his Deity to the Son in all of its fullness, albeit timelessly and eternally. I will show that Aquinas’ explanation is based on a variant reading in the manuscript tradition, and is therefore completely valid and correct.

Here is what the angelic Doctor wrote:

1450 He now proves what he had said above about the dignity of his sheep, namely, that no one can snatch them from his hand. His reason is this: No one can snatch what is in the hand of my Father; but the Father’s hand and mine are the same; therefore, no one can snatch what is in my hand. Concerning this he does three things: first, he gives the minor premise by showing that the Father had communicated divinity to him, saying, what my Father has given to me, through an eternal generation, is greater than all. “For as the Father has life in himself, so he has granted the Son also to have life in himself” (5:26). It is greater than any power: “He has given him authority to execute judgment, because he is the Son of man” (5:27); it is greater than any reverence and honor: “God had bestowed on him the name which is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow” (Phil 2:9). Therefore, what my Father has given to me, that is, that I am his Word, his only begotten, and the splendor of his light, is greater than all.

Secondly, he mentions the greatness of the Father’s power, which concerns the major premise, when he says, and no one is able to snatch, take by violence or secretly pilfer, out of my Father’s hand, from the power of my Father, or from me, who am the might of the Father – although as Augustine says, it is better to say “from the power of the Father” than “from me.” [32] Now no one is able to snatch out of my Father’s hand, because he is the almighty One who is not subject to violence, and he is all-wise from whom nothing is hidden: “He is wise in heart, and mighty in strength” (Job 9:4).

Thirdly, he affirms his unity with the Father, and from this the conclusion follows. Thus he says, I and the Father are one. As if to say: no one shall snatch them out of my hand, because I and the Father are one, by a unity of essence, for the Father and the Son are the same in nature.

1451 This statement rejects two errors: that of Arius, who distinguished the essence [of the Father from that of the Son], and that of Sabellius, who did not distinguish the person [of the Father from the person of the Son]. We escape both Charybdis and Scylla, for by the fact that Christ says, one, he saves us from Arius, because if one, then they are not different [in nature]. And by the fact that he says, we are, he saves us from Sabellius, for if we are, then the Father and the Son are not the same [person].

Yet the Arians, deceived by their wickedness, try to deny this, and say that a creature can in some sense be one with God, and in this sense the Son can be one with the Father. The falsity of this can be shown in three ways. First, from our very manner of speaking. For it is clear that “one” is asserted as “being”; thus, just as something is not said to be a being absolutely except according to its substance, so it is not said to be one except according to its substance or nature. Now something is asserted absolutely when it is asserted with no added qualification. Therefore, because I and the Father are one, is asserted absolutely, without any qualifications added, it is plain that they are one according to substance and nature. But we never find that God and a creature are one without some added qualification, as in 1 Corinthians (6:17): “He who is united to the Lord becomes one spirit with him.” Therefore, it is clear that the Son of God is not one with the Father as a creature can be. [33]

Secondly, we can see this from his previous statement, what my Father has given me is greater than all. He draws the conclusion from this: I and the Father are one. This is like saying: We are one to the extent that the Father has given me that which is greater than all.

Thirdly, it is clear from his intention. For our Lord proves that no one will snatch the sheep from his hand precisely because no one can snatch from the hand of his Father. But this would not follow if his power were less than the power of the Father. Therefore, the Father and Son are one in nature, honor and power.

[32] Ibid, 48, ch. 6, col. 1743; cf. Catena Aurea, 10:22-30.

[33] Summa, Christ is one with the Father absolutely, creatures can only become one with God in a qualified sense. (Commentary on the Gospel of John, Part II: Chapters 8-21, translated by
Fabian R. Larcher, O.P. [Magi Books, Inc., Albany, N.Y., 1998 (notes to these chapters provisional)], *10*; bold italicized emphasis mine)

Aquinas’ exegesis is based on the Latin Vulgate, which reads in the following manner:

“That which my Father hath given me, is greater than all: and no one can snatch them out of the hand of my Father.” John 10:29 

[29] Pater meus quod dedit mihi, majus omnibus est : et nemo potest rapere de manu Patris mei. Douay-Rheims American Edition 1899 – Latin Vulgate (DRA)

Contrast this with the Authorized King James Version (AV):

“My Father, which gave them me, is greater than all; and no man is able to pluck them out of my Father’s hand.”

As the readers can see, the difference lay between whether the verse states “That which my Father has given me,” or “My Father, which gave them me.”

The latter reading clearly refers to the believers whom the Father has entrusted to the Son’s care and preservation, just as the following verses indicate:

“My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me: and I give unto them eternal life; and they shall never perish, neither shall any man pluck them out of my hand.” John 10:27-28

“All that the Father giveth me shall come to me; and him that cometh to me I will in no wise cast out. For I came down from heaven, not to do mine own will, but the will of him that sent me. And this is the Father’s will which hath sent me, that of all which he hath given me I should lose nothing, but should raise it up again at the last day. And this is the will of him that sent me, that every one which seeth the Son, and believeth on him, may have everlasting life: and I will raise him up at the last day. The Jews then murmured at him, because he said, I am the bread which came down from heaven. And they said, Is not this Jesus, the son of Joseph, whose father and mother we know? how is it then that he saith, I came down from heaven? Jesus therefore answered and said unto them, Murmur not among yourselves. No man can come to me, except the Father which hath sent me draw him: and I will raise him up at the last day… Then Jesus said unto them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, Except ye eat the flesh of the Son of man, and drink his blood, ye have no life in you. Whoso eateth my flesh, and drinketh my blood, hath eternal life; and I will raise him up at the last day.” John 6:37-44, 53-54

According to this variant, it is the Father, as the One that entrusted the believers to the Son, who is greater than all else.

On the other hand, according to the former reading it is that which the Father has given to the Son that is greater than all.

Now the question arises, what did the Father give to the Son which makes it greater than everything else?  

According to Aquinas, what was granted to the Son is his Deity which the Father has eternally and timelessly communicated to him, which makes the Son greater than all creation.

As I am about to show, Thomas’ interpretation is not only a valid interpretation of a variant reading found in the extant manuscript tradition, but this was also the view of some of the early church fathers and theologians.

TRANSLATIONS

Many of the major English translations of the Holy Bible have critical notes indicating that John 10:29 contains a “nest” of variant renderings within the extant Greek manuscript stream that affects the precise meaning of the verse. I list some of them here:

“What my Father has given me is greater than everything, and no one can snatch them away from the Father’s care.” Good News Translation (GNT)

^29 [a]My Father, who has given them to Me, is greater than all; and no one is able to snatch them out of the Father’s hand.

Footnotes

John 10:29 One early ms reads What My Father has given Me is greater than all New American Standard Bible 1995 (NASB1995)

“My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all; no one can snatch them out of my Father’s hand.”

Footnotes

John 10:29 Many early manuscripts What my Father has given me is greater than all New International Version (NIV)

“What[a] My Father has given to Me is greater than all. And no one is able to snatch them out of the hand of the Father.”

Footnotes

a. John 10:29 Or, That-which. Jesus may be referring to the flock itself viewed as an abstract whole; or, to His ‘authority over all flesh to give eternal life’ (17:2), making what follows ‘snatch it’. In either case, both the Father and the Son ensure the safety of the flock. Disciples’ Literal New Testament (DLNT)

“My Father, in regard to what he has given me, is greater than all,^[a] and no one can snatch them out of the Father’s hand.”

Footnotes

a.10.29 Other ancient authorities read What my Father has given me is greater than all else or My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all New Revised Standard Version Updated Edition (NRSVUE)

“What my Father has given me^[a] is more important than anything,^[b] and no one can snatch it from the Father’s hand.”

Footnotes

a. John 10:29 Some MSS read My father, who gave them to me,

b. John 10:29 Or is greater than everything else International Standard Version (ISV)

Here are several more versions that read similarly:

AUV(i) 29 What my Father has given me [i.e., my sheep] are greater than everything [else], and no one is able to steal them from the Father’s hand.

BBE(i) 29 That which my Father has given to me has more value than all; and no one is able to take anything out of the Father’s hand.

Goodspeed(i) 29 What my Father has intrusted to me is of more importance than everything else, and no one can tear anything out of the Father’s hands.

Noyes^(i) 29That which my Father hath given me is greater than all; and no one is able to tear [them] out of the Fathers hand.

Rotherham(i) 29 What, my Father, hath given me, is, something greater than all, and, no one, can carry off out of the hand of my Father:

Twentieth_Century(i) 29 What my Father has entrusted to me is more than all else; and no one can snatch anything out of the Father’s hands.

WNT(i) 29 What my Father has given me is more precious than all besides; and no one is able to wrest anything from my Father’s hand.

EARLY CHRISTIAN WRITERS

As I indicated, Aquinas wasn’t alone in exegeting the text in reference to Christ’s eternal generation. Note how the following early Christian theologians interpreted the verse:

11. We do not know Christ the God unless we know God the Begotten. But to be born God is to belong to the nature of God, for the name Begotten signifies indeed the manner of His origin, but does not make Him different in kind from the Begetter. And if so, the Begotten owes indeed to His Author the source of His being, but is not dispossessed of the nature of that Author, for the birth of God can arise but from one origin, and have but one nature. If its origin is not from God, it is not a birth; if it is anything but a birth, Christ is not God. But He is God of God, and therefore God the Father stands to God the Son as God of His birth and Father of His nature, for the birth of God is from God, and in the specific nature of God.

12. See in all that He said, how carefully the Lord tempers the pious acknowledgment of His debt, so that neither the confession of the birth could be held to reflect upon His divinity, nor His reverent obedience to infringe upon His sovereign nature. He does not withhold the homage due from Him as the Begotten, Who owed to His Author His very existence, but He manifests by His confident bearing the consciousness of participation in that nature, which belongs to Him by virtue of the origin whereby He was born as God. Take, for instance, the words, He that has seen Me, has seen the Father also John 14:9, and, The words that I say, I speak not from Myself. He does not speak from Himself: therefore He receives from His Author that which He says. But if any have seen Him, they have seen the Father also: they are conscious, by this evidence, given to show that God is in Him, that a nature, one in kind with that of God, was born from God to subsist as God. Take again the words, That which the Father has given unto Me, is greater than all , and, I and the Father are one. To say that the Father gave, is a confession that He received His origin: but the unity of Himself with the Father is a property of His nature derived from that origin. Take another instance, He has given all judgment unto the Son, that all may honour the Son even as they honour the Father. He acknowledges that the judgment is given to Him, and therefore He does not put His birth in the background: but He claims equal honour with the Father, and therefore He does not resign His nature. Yet another example, I am in the Father, and the Father is in Me , and, The Father is greater than I. The One is in the Other: recognise, then, the divinity of God, the Begotten of God: the Father is greater than He: perceive, then, His acknowledgment of the Father’s authority. In the same way He says, The Son can do nothing of Himself but what He has seen the Father doing: for whatever things He does, these the Son also does in like manner. He does nothing of Himself: that is, in accordance with His birth the Father prompts His actions: yet whatever things the Father does, these the Son also does in like manner; that is, He subsists as nothing less than God, and by the Father’s omnipotent nature residing in Him, can do all that God the Father does. All is uttered in agreement with His unity of Spirit with the Father, and the properties of that nature, which He possesses by virtue of His birth. That birth, which brought Him into being, constituted Him divine, and His being reveals the consciousness of that divine nature. God the Son confesses God His Father, because He was born of Him; but also, because He was born, He inherits the whole nature of God. (Hilary of Poitiers, On the Trinity, Book XI)

6. “And they shall never perish:” you may hear the undertone, as if He had said to them, Ye shall perish for ever, because ye are not of my sheep. “No one shall pluck them out of my hand.” Give still greater heed to this: “That which my Father gave me is greater than all.” What can the wolf do? What can the thief and the robber? They destroy none but those predestined to destruction. But of those sheep of which the apostle says, “The Lord knoweth them that are His;”³ and “Whom He did foreknow, them He also did predestinate; and whom He did predestinate, them He also called; and whom He called, them He also justified; and whom He justified, them He also glorified;”—there is none of such sheep as these that the wolf seizes, or the thief steals, or the robber slays. He, who knows what He gave for them, is sure of their number. And it is this that He says: “No one shall pluck them out of my hand;” and in reference also to the Father, “That which my Father gave me is greater than all.” What did the Father give to the Son that was greater than all? To be His own only-begotten Son. What, then, means “gave”? Was He to whom He gave previously existent, or gave He in the act of begetting? For if He previously existed to whom He gave the gift of Sonship, there was a time when He was, and was not the Son. Far be it from us to suppose that the Lord Christ ever was, and yet was not the Son. Of us such a thing may be said: there was a time when we were the sons of men, but were not the sons of God. For we are made the sons of God by grace, but He by nature, for such was He born. And yet not so, as that one may say, He did not exist till He was born; for He, who was coeternal with the Father, was never unborn.

Let him who is wise understand: and whoever understands not, let him believe and be nourished, and he will come to understanding. The Word of God was always with the Father, and always the Word; and because the Word, therefore the Son. So then, always the Son, and always equal. For it is not by growth but by birth that He is equal, who was always born, the Son of the Father, God of God, coeternal of the Eternal. But the Father is not God of⁵ the Son: the Son is God of the Father; therefore in begetting the Son, the Father “gave” Him to be God, in begetting He gave Him to be coeternal with Himself, in begetting He gave Him to be His equal. This is that which is greater than all.

How is the Son the life, and the possessor of life? What He has, He is: as for thee, thou art one thing, thou hast another. For example, thou hast wisdom, but art thou wisdom itself? In short, because thou thyself art not that which thou hast, shouldst thou lose what thou hast, thou returnest to the state of no longer having it: and sometimes thou re-acquirest, sometimes thou losest. As our eye has no light inherently in itself, it opens, and admits it; it shuts, and loses it. It is not thus that the Son of God is God—not thus that He is the Word of the Father; and not thus is He the Word, that passes away with the sound but that which abides in its birth. In such a way hath He wisdom that He is Himself wisdom, and maketh men wise: and life, that He is Himself the life, and maketh others alive. This is that which is greater than all. The evangelist John himself looked to heaven and earth when wishing to speak of the Son of God; he looked, and rose above them all. He thought on the thousands of angelic armies above the heavens; he thought, and, like the eagle soaring beyond the clouds, his mind overpassed the whole creation: he rose beyond all that was great, and arrived at that which was greater than all; and said, “In the beginning was the Word.” But because He, of whom is the Word, is not of the Word, and the Word is of Him, whose Word He is; therefore He says, “That which the Father gave me,” namely, to be His Word, His only-begotten Son, the brightness of His light, “is greater than all.” Therefore, “No one,” He says, “plucketh my sheep out of my hand. No one can pluck them out of my Father’s hand.” (Augustine of Hippo, “Lectures or Tractates on the Gospel according to St. John,” in St. Augustin: Homilies on the Gospel of John, Homilies on the First Epistle of John, Soliloquies, ed. Philip Schaff, trans. John Gibb and James Innes, , A Select Library of the Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers of the Christian Church, First Series, New York: Christian Literature Company, 1888), Tractate 48. John 10:22-42, Volume 7, pp. 267–268)

There is a considerable difference in these words, as rendered by Augustin, from that which is found in our English version: “My Father who gave them me is greater than all.” The latter is certainly the more intelligible and suitable to the context. But the variation of the mss. between the two readings, “ὅ … μεῖζον” and “ὅς … μείζων,” is somewhat remarkable. The far larger number are certainly in favor of the latter, as followed by our English Bibles, but the former is countenanced by some of the more important; while others which have ὅς have at the same time μεῖζον (neut.) and vice versa. Thus the Sinaitic reads ὅ (neut.), and μεῖζων (masc.); while the Alexandrian has ὅς (masc.), and μεῖζον (neut.). The Vulgate, and some of the other early versions, have Augustin’s reading; but the Peshito (Syriac), which is the earliest of them all, supports the other, its literal rendering being, “For my Father, who gave to me, than all greater [is] He.” Modern critics have generally adopted the masc. reading,—Griesbach, Bengel, and others, almost ignoring the other, and Stier dismissing it as wholly inadmissible; while Alford, in a very strange and unsatisfactory way, gives the neuter in his Greek text, and not a syllable of explanation in his notes. It seems to us that the transcriber had first let ὅ creep into the text, perhaps from the previous similar expression in chap. 6:39; and then μεῖζον was made neuter by some other to agree with it. This is more likely than the reverse; and our English reading is every way more satisfactory than Augustin’s.—Tr. (Philip Schaff, ed., St. Augustin: Homilies on the Gospel of John, Homilies on the First Epistle of John, Soliloquies, A Select Library of the Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers of the Christian Church, First Series, New York: Christian Literature Company, 1888, Volume 7)

COMMENTARIES

I now turn my attention to some more recent and modern commentaries on John’s Gospel. All emphasis will be mine.

Which (ος). Who. If ο (which) is correct, we have to take ο πατηρ as nominative absolute or independent, “As for my Father.”

Is greater than all (παντων μειζων εστιν). If we read ος. But Aleph B L W read ο and A B Theta have μειζον. The neuter seems to be correct (Westcott and Hort). But is it? If so, the meaning is: “As for my Father, that which he hath given me is greater than all.” But the context calls for ος … μειζων with ο πατηρ as the subject of εστιν. The greatness of the Father, not of the flock, is the ground of the safety of the flock. Hence the conclusion that “no one is able to snatch them out of the Father’s hand.” (Robertson’s Word Pictures in the New Testament (A.T. Robertson), Chapter 10)

29. which gave them] Better, which hath given them . Comp. 17:6, 24. This enforces the previous assertion. ‘To snatch them out of My hand, he must snatch them out of My Father’s hand; and My Father is greater than all:’ even than the Son (14:28). But the reading is not certain. The most probable text gives, that which the Father hath given Me is greater than all. The unity of the Church is strength invincible.

out of my Father’s hand] The better reading is, out of the Father’s hand. ‘Out of His hand’ would have sufficed; but ‘Father’ is repeated for emphasis. (Cambridge Greek Testament Commentary for Schools and Colleges, Chapter 10)

29. My Father, which gave them me, is greater than all (ὁ πατήρ μου ὃς δέδωκέ μοι, μείζων πάντων ἐστιν). There is considerable confusion here about the reading. Westcott and Hort and Tischendorf read ὁ πατήρ μου (Tischendorf rejects μου) ὃ δέδωκέν μοι πάντων μεῖζόν ἐστιν. That which the Father (or my Father) hath given me is greater than all. Rev. gives this in the margin. For gave, render hath given. (Marvin Richardson Vincent, Vincent’s Word Studies in the New Testament, New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1887, Volume 2, 197)

The last statement is sustained by a still loftier assumption. Before translating, it is necessary to notice the three readings of the text.

(1) That of the T.R. and the Revisers’ Text: £ My Father who gave (them) to me is greater than all the powers that can possibly be arrayed against them.

(2) The reading of א, D, With reference to that which my Father, One greater than all, gave me, and no one is able to pluck from the hand of the Father.Meyer, however, translates this differently; he supposes the μεῖζον to refer to the Father “a something greater, a greater potence.” Westcott and Hort prefer the reading with ὅ and μείζον; and Westcott translates, That which my Father has given me is greater than all,and regards it as a reference to the sheep as a collective unity. The internal reasons compel Luthardt, Godet, and Lange to fall back on T.R., and surely the extraordinary strain of the meaning justifies them. Our Lord would sustain with even stronger assurance the safety of his sheep. The Father’s gift to himself, the Father’s own eternal love and power, the Divine omnipotence of the Lord God himself, is pledged to their security. “My hand” becomes “my Father’s hand.” He seems to say, “If you question my capacity, you need not question his power. Sacrilegious violence may apparently nail my hands to the cross; the sword may awake against Jehovah’s Shepherd. But none can outwit, surprise, crucify, conquer, my Father, none can invalidate his care.” (The Pulpit Commentaries, Chapter 10)

This assumes that the niv rightly preserves the best reading of the Greek. There is a nest of variants here, and more than one way to translate several of them. The reading chosen is that of the Byzantine tradition, more recently supported by an early papyrus, P⁶⁶. It makes the most sense in the context, and various reasonable conjectures have been advanced to explain how this obvious reading might well have been corrupted so thoroughly in the manuscript tradition. (D. A. Carson, The Gospel according to John, The Pillar New Testament Commentary, Leicester, England; Grand Rapids, MI: Inter-Varsity Press; W.B. Eerdmans, 1991)

As B. Metzger has noted, there are indeed a “nest” of variant readings at 10:29 concerning the matter of power (TCGNT, 232). The issue basically comes down to whether it is the Father or what he has given that is greater than all. The NIV probably is correct, but in any case the source of power rests ultimately in the Father, even if here it is focused on the gift. (Gerald L. Borchert, John 1–11, The New American Commentary, Nashville: Broadman & Holman Publishers, 1996, Volume 25A)

10:29 The clause who has given them to me, is greater than all follows the reading of the majority of manuscripts (the Byzantine text) as well as one of the earliest manuscripts (p66). This reading makes the most sense, but then why would the text have been changed if this were the original meaning (Metzger 1994:198)? Of the other readings (cf. Beasley-Murray 1987:165), the main alternative to the NIV is “what has been given to me is greater than all.” This could mean that the flock that the Father has given to Jesus is greater than all, which would comment on the superiority of the community Jesus is gathering around him. Or this reading could mean that the power the Father has given to Jesus is greater than all (cf. Grundmann 1967:537), thus reinforcing his claim that no one can snatch them out of my hand (v. 28). Thus, any of the major readings could fit the present context. (Rodney A. Whitacre, John, The IVP New Testament Commentary Series, Westmont, IL: IVP Academic, 1999, Volume 4)

John 10:29

ὁ πατήρ μου ὃ δέδωκέν μοι πάντων μεῖζων ἐστίν

My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all, and no one can seize them from the Father’s hand.

There are several variations in this verse, and the textual evidence is scattered. The variation accepted BY MOST English translations for the beginning of the verse is literally translated, “What my Father has given to me is greater than all,” though one early witness has “the Father” instead of “my Father.” The alternate form of this is rendered “My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all.” (Rick Brannan and Israel Loken, The Lexham Textual Notes on the Bible, Lexham Bible Reference Series, Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press, 2014, Jn 10:29a)

CONCLUSION

The foregoing data demonstrates that Aquinas’ exegesis of John 10:29 wasn’t novel, nor a departure from the plain contextual meaning of the text. Rather, the angelic Doctor’s explanation is based on a variant reading within the manuscript stream of this verse and is, therefore, a valid interpretation. It even has the support of some of Christianity’s earliest and greatest thinkers/scholars/theologians/apologists etc.

FURTHER READING

HILARY’S TRINITARIAN BELIEFS

Ignatius of Antioch’s Proclamation of the Essential Deity of Christ

Justin Martyr’s Witness to Christ’s essential and eternal Deity

IRENAEUS AND THE DEITY OF CHRIST

MORE FROM IRENAEUS ON THE DEITY OF CHRIST

Tertullian and the Doctrine of the Trinity

DID TERTULLIAN DENY THE ETERNAL NATURE OF CHRIST?

Origen’s Christology

Ante-Nicene Witness to Jesus’ Deity

WERE EARLY CHRISTIANS TRINITARIANS?

Did the Ante-Nicene Fathers Worship the Holy Spirit as God Almighty?

THE EARLY CHURCH ON THE ETERNAL BEGETTING OF THE SON

In this post I will be quoting from the works of another early church father, namely Hilary of Poitiers, in respect to his Trinitarian beliefs.

The citations will show that Hilary affirmed that the Son was timelessly begotten, and therefore not a creature, since the Son has been eternally God with the Father. The quotations will further prove that Hilary believed the Son to be subject or subordinate to the Father, yet not as a creature of God, but rather as the Father’s eternally begotten Son from whom he timelessly derives his divine essence and authority. All emphasis will be mine.

X. And if any one admits that God became Father of the Only-begotten Son at any point in time and not that the Only-begotten Son came into existence without passion beyond all times and beyond all human calculation: for contravening the teaching of the Gospel which scorned any interval of times between the being of the Father and the Son and faithfully has instructed us that In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God John 1:1, let him be anathema.

24. It is a pious saying that the Father is not limited by times: for the true meaning of the name of Father which He bore before time began surpasses comprehension. Although religion teaches us to ascribe to Him this name of Father through which comes the impassible origin of the Son, yet He is not bound in time, for the eternal and infinite God cannot be understood as having become a Father in time, and according to the teaching of the Gospel the Only-begotten God the Word is recognized even in the beginning rather to be with God than to be born.

XI. And if any one says that the Father is older in time than His Only-begotten Son, and that the Son is younger than the Father: let him be anathema.

25. The essential likeness conformed to the Father’s essence in kind is also taught to be identical in time: lest He who is the image of God, who is the Word, who is God with God in the beginning, who is like the Father, by the insertion of times between Himself and the Father should not have in Himself in perfection that which is both image, and Word, and God. For if He be proclaimed to be younger in time, He has lost the truth of the image and likeness: for that is no longer likeness which is found to be dissimilar in time. For that very fact that God is Father prevents there being any time in which He was not Father: consequently there can be no time in the Son’s existence in which He was not Son. Wherefore we must neither call the Father older than the Son nor the Son younger than the Father: for the true meaning of neither name can exist without the other…

A copy of the creed composed at Sirmium by the Easterns to oppose Photinus.

38. We believe in one God the Father Almighty, the Creator and Maker, from whom every fatherhood in heaven and in earth is named.

And in His only Son Jesus Christ our Lord, who was born of the Father before all ages, God of God, Light of Light, through whom all things were made in heaven and in earth, visible and invisible. Who is the Word and Wisdom and Might and Life and true Light: who in the last days for our sake took a body, And was born of the Holy Virgin, And was crucified, And was dead and buried: who also rose from the dead on the third day, And ascended into heaven, And sits on the right hand of the Father, And shall come at the end of the world to judge the quick and the dead; whose kingdom continues without end and remains for perpetual ages. For He shall be sitting at the right hand of the Father not only in this age, but also in the age to come.

And in the Holy Ghost, that is, the Paraclete, whom according to His promise He sent to the apostles after He ascended into heaven to teach them and to remind them of all things, through whom also are sanctified the souls of those who believe sincerely in Him.

I. But those who say that the Son is sprung from things non-existent, or from another substance and not from God, and that there was a time or age when He was not, the holy Catholic Church regards as aliens.

II. If any man says that the Father and the Son are two Gods: let him be anathema.

III. And if any man says that God is one, but does not confess that Christ, God the Son of God, ministered to the Father in the creation of all things: let him be anathema…

IX. If any man says that the man alone born of Mary is the Son: let him be anathema. We cannot declare that the Son of God is born of Mary without declaring Him to be both Man and God. But lest the declaration that He is both God and Man should give occasion to deceit, the Council immediately adds,

X. If any man though saying that God and Man was born of Mary, understands thereby the Unborn God: let him be anathema.

47. Thus is preserved both the name and power of the divine substance. For since he is anathema who says that the Son of God by Mary is man and not God; and he falls under the same condemnation who says that the Unborn God became man: God made Man is not denied to be God but denied to be the Unborn God, the Father being distinguished from the Son not under the head of nature or by diversity of substance, but only by such pre-eminence as His birthless nature gives.

XI. If any man hearing The Word was made Flesh thinks that the Word was transformed into Flesh, or says that He suffered change in taking Flesh: let him be anathema.

48. This preserves the dignity of the Godhead: so that in the fact that the Word was made Flesh, the Word, in becoming Flesh, has not lost through being Flesh what constituted the Word, nor has become transformed into Flesh, so as to cease to be the Word; but the Word was made Flesh in order that the Flesh might begin to be what the Word is. Else whence came to His Flesh miraculous power in working, glory on the Mount, knowledge of the thoughts of human hearts, calmness in His passion, life in His death? God knowing no change, when made Flesh lost nothing of the prerogatives of His substance.

XII. If any man hearing that the only Son of God was crucified, says that His divinity suffered corruption or pain or change or diminution or destruction: let him be anathema.

XIII. If any man says Let us make man Genesis 1:26 was not spoken by the Father to the Son, but by God to Himself: let him be anathema.

XIV. If any man says that the Son did not appear to Abraham , but the Unborn God, or a part of Him: let him be anathema.

XV. If any man says that the Son did not wrestle with Jacob as a man , but the Unborn God, or a part of Him: let him be anathema.

XVI. If any man does not understand The Lord rained from the Lord to be spoken of the Father and the Son, but says that the Father rained from Himself: let him be anathema. For the Lord the Son rained from the Lord the Father…

XVII. If any man says that the Lord and the Lord, the Father and the Son, are two Gods because of the aforesaid words: let him be anathema. For we do not make the Son the equal or peer of the Father, but understand the Son to be subject. For He did not come down to Sodom without the Father’s will, nor rain from Himself but from the Lord, to wit, by the Father’s authority; nor does He sit at the Father’s right hand by His own authority, but because He hears the Father saying, Sit on My right hand. 

51. The foregoing and the following statements utterly remove any ground for suspecting that this definition asserts a diversity of different deities in the Lord and the Lord. No comparison is made because it was seen to be impious to say that there are two Gods: not that they refrain from making the Son equal and peer of the Father in order to deny that He is God. For, since he is anathema who denies that Christ is God, it is not on that score that it is profane to speak of two equal Gods. God is One on account of the true character of His natural essence and because from the Unborn God the Father, who is the one God, the Only-begotten God the Son is born, and draws His divine Being only from God; and since the essence of Him who is begotten is exactly similar to the essence of Him who begot Him, there must be one name for the exactly similar nature. That the Son is not on a level with the Father and is not equal to Him is chiefly shown in the fact that He was subjected to Him to render obedience, in that the Lord rained from the Lord and that the Father did not, as Photinus and Sabellius say, rain from Himself, as the Lord from the Lord; in that He then sat down at the right hand of God when it was told Him to seat Himself; in that He is sent, in that He receives, in that He submits in all things to the will of Him who sent Him. But the subordination of filial love is not a diminution of essence, nor does pious duty cause a degeneration of nature, since in spite of the fact that both the Unborn Father is God and the Only-begotten Son of God is God, God is nevertheless One, and the subjection and dignity of the Son are both taught in that by being called Son He is made subject to that name which because it implies that God is His Father is yet a name which denotes His nature. Having a name which belongs to Him whose Son He is, He is subject to the Father both in service and name; yet in such a way that the subordination of His name bears witness to the true character of His natural and exactly similar essence.

XVIII. If any man says that the Father and the Son are one Person: let him be anathema…

XX. If any man deny that, as the Lord has taught us, the Paraclete is different from the Son; for He said, And the Further shall send you another Comforter, whom I shall ask: let him be anathema…

XXII. If any man says that the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit are three Gods: let him be anathema…

XXVII. Once more we strengthen the understanding of Christianity by saying, If any man denies that Christ who is God and Son of God, personally existed before time began and aided the Father in the perfecting of all things; but says that only from the time that He was born of Mary did He gain the name of Christ and Son and a beginning of His deity: let him be anathema. (On the Councils, or the Faith of the Easterns)

5. They think also that they have a compendious refutation of Prophets, Evangelists and Apostles alike, in their assertion that the Son was born within time. They pronounce us illogical for saying that the Son has existed from everlasting; and, since they reject the possibility of His eternity, they are forced to believe that He was born at a point in time. For if He has not always existed, there was a time when He was not; and if there be a time when He was not, time was anterior to Him. He who has not existed everlastingly began to exist within time, while He Who is free from the limits of time is necessarily eternal. The reason they give for their rejection of the eternity of the Son is that His everlasting existence contradicts the faith in His birth; as though by confessing that He has existed eternally, we made His birth impossible.

6. What foolish and godless fears! What impious anxiety on God’s behalf! The meaning which they profess to detect in the word homoousion, and in the assertion of the eternity of the Son, is detested, rejected, denounced by the Church. She confesses one God from Whom are all things; she confesses one Jesus Christ our Lord, through whom are all things; One from Whom, One through Whom; One the Source of all, One the Agent through Whom all were created. In the One from Whom are all things she recognises the Majesty which has no beginning, and in the One through Whom are all things she recognises a might coequal with His Source; for Both are jointly supreme in the work of creation and in rule over created things. In the Spirit she recognises God as Spirit, impassible and indivisible, for she has learned from the Lord that Spirit has neither flesh nor bones Luke 24:39; a warning to save her from supposing that God, being Spirit, could be burdened with bodily suffering and loss. She recognises one God, unborn from everlasting; she recognises also one Only-begotten Son of God. She confesses the Father eternal and without beginning; she confesses also that the Son’s beginning is from eternity. Not that He has no beginning, but that He is Son of the Father Who has none; not that He is self-originated, but that He is from Him Who is unbegotten from everlasting; born from eternity, receiving, that is, His birth from the eternity of the Father. Thus our faith is free from the guesswork of heretical perversity; it is expressed in fixed and published terms, though as yet no reasoned defense of our confession has been put forth. Still, lest any suspicion should linger around the sense in which the Fathers have used the word homoousion and round our confession of the eternity of the Son, I have set down the proofs whereby we may be assured that the Son abides ever in that substance wherein He was begotten from the Father, and that the birth of His Son has not diminished ought of that Substance wherein the Father was abiding; that holy men, inspired by the teaching of God, when they said that the Son is homoousios with the Father pointed to no such flaws or defects as I have mentioned. My purpose has been to counteract the impression that this ousia, this assertion that He is homoousios with the Father, is a negation of the nativity of the Only-begotten Son…

33. Continue your study of the witness borne by Moses; mark how diligently he seizes every opportunity of proclaiming the Lord and God. You take note of the passage, Hear, O Israel, the Lord your God is One. Deuteronomy 6:4 Note also the words of that Divine song of his; See, See, that I am the Lord, and there is no God beside Me. While God has been the Speaker throughout the poem, he ends with, Rejoice, you heavens, together with Him and let all the sons of God praise Him. Rejoice, O you nations, with His people, and let all the Angels of God do Him honour. God is to be glorified by the Angels of God, and He says, For I am the Lord, and there is no God beside Me. For He is God the Only-begotten, and the title ‘Only-begotten’ excludes all partnership in that character, just as the title ‘Unoriginate’ denies that there is, in that regard, any who shares the character of the Unoriginate Father. The Son is One from One. There is none unoriginate except God the Unoriginate, and so likewise there is none only-begotten except God the Only-begotten. They stand Each single and alone, being respectively the One Unoriginate and the One Only-begotten. And so They Two are One God, for between the One, and the One Who is His offspring there lies no gulf of difference of nature in the eternal Godhead. Therefore He must be worshipped by the sons of God and glorified by the angels of God. Honour and reverence is demanded for God from the sons and from the angels of God. Notice Who it is that shall receive this honour, and by whom it is to be paid. It is God, and they are the sons and angels of God. And lest you should imagine that honour is not demanded for God Who shares our nature , but that Moses is thinking here of reverence due to God the Father — though, indeed, it is in the Son that the Father must be honoured — examine the words of the blessing bestowed by God upon Joseph, at the end of the same book. They are, And let the things that are well-pleasing to Him that appeared in the bush come upon the head and crown of Joseph. Deuteronomy 33:16 Thus God is to be worshipped by the sons of God; but God Who is Himself the Son of God. And God is to be reverenced by the angels of God; but God Who is Himself the Angel of God. For God appeared from the bush as the Angel of God, and the prayer for Joseph is that he may receive such blessings as He shall please. He is none the less God because He is the Angel of God; and none the less the Angel of God because He is God. A clear indication is given of the Divine Persons; the line is definitely drawn between the Unbegotten and the Begotten. A revelation of the mysteries of heaven is granted, and we are taught not to dream of God as dwelling in solitude, when angels and sons of God shall worship Him, Who is God’s Angel and His Son…

37. The fact is obvious from His own words. For He says to Hosea the prophet, I will no more have mercy upon the house of Israel, but will altogether be their enemy. But I will have mercy upon the children of Judah, and will save them in the Lord their God. Hosea 1:6-7 Here God the Father gives the name of God, without any ambiguity, to the Son, in Whom also He chose us before countless ages. Their God, He says, for while the Father, being Unoriginate, is independent of all, He has given us for an inheritance to His Son. In like manner we read, Ask of Me, and I will give You the Gentiles for Your inheritance. None can be God to Him from Whom are all things , for He is eternal and has no beginning; but the Son has God, from Whom He was born, for His Father. Yet to us the Father is God and the Son is God; the Father reveals to us that the Son is our God, and the Son teaches that the Father is God over us. The point for us to remember is that in this passage the Father gives to the Son the name of God, the title of His own unoriginate majesty. But I have commented sufficiently on these words of Hosea. (On the Trinity, Book IV)

11. We do not know Christ the God unless we know God the Begotten. But to be born God is to belong to the nature of God, for the name Begotten signifies indeed the manner of His origin, but does not make Him different in kind from the Begetter. And if so, the Begotten owes indeed to His Author the source of His being, but is not dispossessed of the nature of that Author, for the birth of God can arise but from one origin, and have but one nature. If its origin is not from God, it is not a birth; if it is anything but a birth, Christ is not God. But He is God of God, and therefore God the Father stands to God the Son as God of His birth and Father of His nature, for the birth of God is from God, and in the specific nature of God.

12. See in all that He said, how carefully the Lord tempers the pious acknowledgment of His debt, so that neither the confession of the birth could be held to reflect upon His divinity, nor His reverent obedience to infringe upon His sovereign nature. He does not withhold the homage due from Him as the Begotten, Who owed to His Author His very existence, but He manifests by His confident bearing the consciousness of participation in that nature, which belongs to Him by virtue of the origin whereby He was born as God. Take, for instance, the words, He that has seen Me, has seen the Father also John 14:9, and, The words that I say, I speak not from Myself. He does not speak from Himself: therefore He receives from His Author that which He says. But if any have seen Him, they have seen the Father also: they are conscious, by this evidence, given to show that God is in Him, that a nature, one in kind with that of God, was born from God to subsist as God. Take again the words, That which the Father has given unto Me, is greater than all , and, I and the Father are one. To say that the Father gave, is a confession that He received His origin: but the unity of Himself with the Father is a property of His nature derived from that origin. Take another instance, He has given all judgment unto the Son, that all may honour the Son even as they honour the Father. He acknowledges that the judgment is given to Him, and therefore He does not put His birth in the background: but He claims equal honour with the Father, and therefore He does not resign His nature. Yet another example, I am in the Father, and the Father is in Me , and, The Father is greater than I. The One is in the Other: recognise, then, the divinity of God, the Begotten of God: the Father is greater than He: perceive, then, His acknowledgment of the Father’s authority. In the same way He says, The Son can do nothing of Himself but what He has seen the Father doing: for whatever things He does, these the Son also does in like manner. He does nothing of Himself: that is, in accordance with His birth the Father prompts His actions: yet whatever things the Father does, these the Son also does in like manner; that is, He subsists as nothing less than God, and by the Father’s omnipotent nature residing in Him, can do all that God the Father does. All is uttered in agreement with His unity of Spirit with the Father, and the properties of that nature, which He possesses by virtue of His birth. That birth, which brought Him into being, constituted Him divine, and His being reveals the consciousness of that divine nature. God the Son confesses God His Father, because He was born of Him; but also, because He was born, He inherits the whole nature of God. (On the Trinity, Book XI)

FURTHER READING

Ignatius of Antioch’s Proclamation of the Essential Deity of Christ

Justin Martyr’s Witness to Christ’s essential and eternal Deity

IRENAEUS AND THE DEITY OF CHRIST

MORE FROM IRENAEUS ON THE DEITY OF CHRIST

Tertullian and the Doctrine of the Trinity

DID TERTULLIAN DENY THE ETERNAL NATURE OF CHRIST?

Origen’s Christology

Ante-Nicene Witness to Jesus’ Deity

WERE EARLY CHRISTIANS TRINITARIANS?

Did the Ante-Nicene Fathers Worship the Holy Spirit as God Almighty?

THE EARLY CHURCH ON THE ETERNAL BEGETTING OF THE SON