Conversation between a Saracen and a Christian

The essay “Conversation of a Saracen with a Christian” was written by St. John of Damascus in the context of the rapid spread of Islam under the rule of the Arab Caliphate. The work, written in the form of a dialogue, represents one of the first systematic attempts by Christian theology to comprehend the new religious teaching and defend the Orthodox doctrine from its criticism. The treatise discusses issues related to the theological understanding of the omnipotence of God, the origin of good and evil, freedom of human will, predestination and Providence of God, the Sacrament of Baptism, communion with God, the Dormition of the Virgin Mary, and the doctrine of Christ. The main topics covered in the essay: 1. Trinity and Unity of God. The Saracen, following the principle of Islamic monotheism, rejects the dogma of the Trinity, perceiving it as polytheism. The Christian explains that the Trinity is one God in three Persons, emphasizing the perfect unity and inseparability of the Divine essence. 2. Christ is the Son of God and His Incarnation. Muslims categorically reject the idea that God could have a "son" in the human sense. St. John explains the dogma of the Incarnation of the Logos, showing that Christ is the Son of God not by intercourse or adoption, but by eternal birth from the Father and incarnation, that is, taking on human nature without sin. 3. Death on the Cross and Atonement. The Saracen denies the reality of Christ's crucifixion or its redemptive meaning. The Christian insists on the historical authenticity and theological significance of the Sacrifice of the Cross as a necessary act for the salvation of humanity. 4. The dialogue also touches on questions about the omnipotence of God, His omniscience, His relationship to the world and man. The author defends the Christian understanding of the Providence and goodness of the Creator. The work “Conversation between a Saracen and a Christian” is a valuable source for studying the early stages of Christian-Muslim theological interaction. * Title of the work in Greek: Διάλεξις Σαρακηνοῦ κα Χριστιανοῦ. * Title of the work in Latin: Disceptatio Christiani et Saraceni. To the Saracen’s question: “Who do you consider to be the culprit of good and evil?”, the Christian replies: “We say that only God and no one else is the culprit of all good, but not evil.” To this the Saracen says: “Who do you call the culprit of evil?” Christian: Of course, the one who is the devil by his own will, and us, people. Christian: Because of free will. Saracen. So, are you free, and you can do what you want and do? Christian: I was created by God free for only two things. Christian: For evil and for good, which is good and evil. Therefore, when I do evil, I bear punishment from the law of God, and when I do good, I do not fear the law, but I am also honored and pardoned by God. Likewise, God created the devil free even before people, and he sinned, and God cast him out of his order. But perhaps you will object to me: “What do you call good and evil? What is it? Behold, the sun, and the moon, and the stars are good—make something out of these.” But is it not because of this that I tell you even before: I do good and evil in accordance with man: good, such as glorifying God, prayer, alms and the like, and evil - fornication, theft and the like; if, as you say, good and evil are from God, then your God will turn out to be unrighteous, which is not so. After all, since God commanded, as you say, the fornicator to commit fornication, the thief to steal, and the murderer to kill; then they are worthy of honor - for they did the will of God. Your legislators will turn out to be liars, and your books will be forged, because they order the flogging of a fornicator and a thief who did the will of God, and the execution of a murderer who should have been honored because he did the will of God. The Saracen says: “Who fashions babies in women’s wombs?” “For the Saracens set this task before us as the most difficult, wanting to prove that God is the author of evil. After all, if I respond by saying that God fashions babies in the wombs of women, then the Saracen will say: “Behold, God is the helper of the fornicator and the adulterer.” To this the Christian replies: “We by no means find Scripture to say that God fashions or creates anything after the first week of peacemaking. If you doubt this, show yourself any creation or work created by God after the first week. But you will in no way be able to show it, for all visible creatures arose in the first week. After all, God created man in the first week and commanded him to give birth and be born, saying: “Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth” (Gen. 1:28). And since man was animated, having an animated seed, the seed sprang up in his own wife. So man begets man, as the divine Scripture says: “Adam begat Seth, and Seth begat Enosh, and Enosh begat Cainan, and Cainan begat Maleleel, and Maleleel begat Jared, and Jared begat Enoch” (Gen. 5:3–18). And it is not said: God created Seth, or Enosh, or anyone else, and from this we know that the one and only Adam was created by God, and his descendants are born and give birth to this time. And so by the grace of God the world stands, because from then on every grass and plant gives birth and is born by the command of God - for God said: “Let the earth bring forth green grass” (Gen. 1:11), and by His command every tree and every kind of grass and plant grew, having seed power in itself. The seed of every plant and herb is animate, and falling again onto the earth, either by itself or sown by another, it sprouts, not created by anyone, but in obedience to the first command of God. So, as I said before, being free only in the things already mentioned, wherever I sow, using my power, whether in my own wife or in someone else’s, the seed rises and becomes obedient to the first command of God, and not as He creates and does every day, because in the first week God created heaven and earth, and the whole world in six days, and on the seventh day He rested from all His works (Gen. 2el.), as the Scripture testifies to me.” Saracen: but how does God say to Jeremiah: “Before I formed you in the womb, I knew you, and... from the womb... I sanctified you” * (Jer. 1:5)? Christian: God formed the animate and seminal power of every man from Adam onwards. For Adam, having Seth in his womb, begat him, as I have already said, and Seth Enos, and every man, having first had a son in his womb, [gives birth to him], and a son begat and is begetting to this time. And “from the womb he sanctified you” understand as [the womb] truly giving birth to the children of God, according to the testimony of the Holy Gospel: “And to those who received Him, to those who believe in His name? gave the power to become children of God, who were born neither of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God” (John 1:12–13) through baptism. 2. Opponent: was there baptism before Christ? After all, Jeremiah is born before Christ. Christian. It was, according to the testimony of the holy Apostle, who said that some were baptized into the cloud, others into the sea (1 Cor. 10:1). And the Lord says in the Gospels: “unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the Kingdom of Heaven” (John 3:5). So Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob, and the rest of the saints before Christ, entering the Kingdom of Heaven, were first baptized, because according to the testimony of Christ, if they had not been baptized, they would not have been saved. The Holy Spirit also testifies, saying: “Sinners are alienated from the womb” ** (Ps. 57:4), that is, from baptism. Therefore, we confess that all those who have been saved and are being saved by baptism are saved and are being saved by the grace of God. 3. Saracen: Do you call the one who does the will of God Himself good or evil? Having guessed his cunning, the Christian says: I know what you want to say. Saracen: So tell me. Christian: Do you want to ask, did Christ suffer willingly or unwillingly? So that if I answer: “I suffered by will,” I can say to me: “Go now, bow to the Jews, because they have fulfilled the will of your God.” Saracen: This is exactly what I wanted to tell you - if you have reasons, answer me. Christian: What you call will, I call patience and generosity. Saracen: How can you prove it? Christian: Business, because if you and I are sitting or standing, can any of us, outside the power and dominion of God, get up and move? Christian: When God says: “Do not steal, do not fornicate, do not kill,” does He want us to steal, fornicate, kill? Saracen: No, because if He wanted to, He would not have said: “do not steal, do not fornicate, do not kill.” Christian: Thank God that you recognized what I want to say. So you agreed with me that none of us can get up or move without God, and that God does not want us to steal or fornicate. If now I get up, go and steal, or commit fornication, will you say that this is the will of God or permission, patience and generosity? 4. Realizing and being surprised, the Saracen said: Indeed, it is so. Christian: Understand also that although God can strike, He abstained for a while, that is, showed magnanimity about sin. But if I do not repent, He will reward me when He wants, just as He did with the Jews. For after a few years He raised up Titus and Vespasian and the Greeks against them, and overthrew their arrogance. 5. If a Saracen asks you and says: “Who do you think Christ is?”, answer him: “The Word of God, and I think that I am not sinning in anything here, because He is called the Word in Scripture, and Wisdom, and Mice, and the Power of God, and much more - for He has many names. Ask him and you in turn: “What is the name of Christ in your scripture?” And maybe he will want to ask you something else, wanting to elude you - do not answer him until he resolves your question. And he will definitely have to answer you: “In my scripture Christ is called the Spirit and Word of God.” And then you ask him again: “Does your scripture consider the Spirit and the Word of God to be uncreated or created?” And if he says that they are uncreated, tell him: “You agree with me - after all, what is not created by anyone, but what creates, is God.” If he even dares to say that they were created, tell him: “But who created the Spirit and the Word of God?” And if he, in difficulty, answers that God created them, tell him: “You just said that they were uncreated, and now you claim that God created them. Now, if I told you that, you would tell me that “you yourself have refuted your testimony, and I no longer believe you, no matter what you say.” However, I will ask you one more thing: “Before God created the Spirit and the Word, He had neither the Spirit nor the Word?” And he will run away from you, not having anything to answer you - after all, such people are heretics for the Saracens, very vile and disgusting - and if you want to divulge about him to the rest of the Saracens, he will be very afraid of you. 6. And if a Saracen asks you, saying: “Are the words of God created or uncreated?” After all, they present this question to us as the most difficult, wanting to prove that the Word of God is created, which is not so. After all, if you say: “They are created,” he will answer that “behold, you call the Word of God created.” If you say: “They are uncreated,” he will answer that “behold, all the existing words of God are uncreated, but they are not gods. So you admitted that Christ, being the Word of God, is not God.” Therefore, in response, do not tell him that they are created or that they are uncreated, but answer him this way: “I confess that only one hypostatic Word of God is uncreated, as you also admitted, and I call all my Scripture not words, but the verbs of God.” And if the Saracen says: “But how does David say that “the words of the Lord are pure words” (Ps. 11:7), but not “the words of the Lord are pure words?”, tell him that the prophet spoke figuratively, and not in the proper sense. And if he says to you: “What is figurative and proper meaning?”, answer him that proper meaning is a firm indication of a thing, and figurative meaning is not solid. And if the Saracen says to you: “Is it permissible for a prophet to give an unsteady command?”, tell him that it is the custom of prophets to personify inanimate things, and they endow them with eyes and lips, as, for example, “the sea saw and ran” (Ps. 114:3). After all, it is clear that the sea has no eyes - for it is not animate. And again the same prophet addresses him as if he were animated: “What is the matter with you, O sea, that you ran away?” (Ps. 113:5) and so on. “And my sword shall be satisfied with flesh,” says Scripture, because “satisfying” speaks of the mouth of one who eats and consumes, but the sword cuts, but does not consume. So, in a figurative sense, he called verbs words, which actually are not words, but verbs. 7. And if a Saracen says to you: “How did God descend into the womb of a woman?”, say to him: “Let us use your scripture and my scripture; your scripture says that God first purified the Virgin Mary more than all female flesh, and the Spirit of God and the Word descended into Her, and my Gospel says: “The Holy Spirit will come upon You, and the power of the Most High will overshadow You” (Luke 1:35). Here is one voice of both sayings, and one meaning. Know also that Scripture speaks of the descent and ascent of God in a figurative sense, and not in the proper sense, in relation to our properties - after all, the descent and ascent of the philosophers in the proper sense speaks of bodies, but God contains everything and is not contained by any space. For one of the prophets said: “Who measured the waters of the sea with his hand, and the heavens with a span, and the whole earth with a handful?” *** (Isa.40:12). And in general, all the waters are under the hand of God, and the whole sky is an inch, and the whole earth is a handful. How can He Himself descend and ascend in His own hand, which contains everything? 8. If a Saracen asks you, saying: “And if Christ was God, how did He drink, and eat, and sleep, and so on?”, tell him that the eternal Word of God, who created everything, as my Scripture and your writing testify, Himself created from the flesh of the Holy Virgin Mary a perfect man, animated and gifted with intelligence, and he drank, and ate, and slept, but the Word of God did not eat, did not drink, and did not sleep, and was not crucified, and did not die, but the holy Flesh, which He received from the Holy Virgin, she was crucified. Know, then, that Christ is considered dual in nature, but one in hypostasis. For the one eternal Word of God is hypostatic even after taking on the flesh, that is, personal, but not by nature - for a fourth person was not added to the Trinity after the ineffable union with the flesh. 9. If a Saracen asks you: “Is she whom you call the Mother of God dead or alive?”, tell him: “She is not dead,” relying on evidence from Scripture. For Scripture says about this: “Natural human death also came to Her, but without imprisoning and subjugating us, like us, no, but as if we say: the first man fell asleep and lost a rib.” 10. If a Saracen says to you: “Well, I received a blow in a certain place of my flesh, and the flesh from the blow produced a bruise, and a worm grew in the bruise. So who created it? - tell him, as we have already said, that after the first week of peacemaking we do not find that God created or was creating anything, but by the command of God, which He gave in the first week, what is happening is happening. For after the Fall the earth was condemned to grow thorns and thistles. And to this day, not sown, it produces thorns and thistles. And our flesh, condemned then, produces lice and worms to this day. 11. Next the Saracen asks the Christian: “Who do you have more, the one who sanctifies or the one being sanctified?” The Christian, having guessed his tricky question, says: “I know what you want to say.” And the Saracen: “And if you know, tell me.” The Christian says that “if I say that he who sanctifies is greater than that which is sanctified, you will answer me: go, worship John the Baptist as the one who baptized and sanctified your Christ.” The Saracen says: “That’s exactly what I wanted to tell you.” The Christian asks the Saracen allegorically: “If you go with your slave to the bathhouse and he washes and cleans you, who will you call greater, that pitiful and bought slave, or yourself, whom he washes as his master?” “You mean that I who bought him are greater than he who was bought by me,” the Saracen said to the Christian. The Christian answered: “Thanks be to God. Also understand that John, as a slave and servant, served Christ in the Jordan, by being baptized in which, my Savior crushed the heads of the evil demons that nested there.” The Saracen, very surprised and perplexed, and not having anything to answer the Christian, left, no longer challenging him to argue. “...and before you came out of the womb, I sanctified you.” “The sinner has alienated herself from lies.” “Who measured water in a handful, and the sky in a span, and the whole earth in a handful? You might be interested in: