Second part for ma *Main* man Arnold -
In Islam is fulfilled the prophecy of Matthew 21:42-43:
"The stone which the builders rejected, the same was made the head of the corner; this was from the Lord, and it is marvelous in our eyes. Therefore say I unto you, the kingdom of God shall be taken away from you, and shall be given to a nation bringing forth the fruits thereof."
At this point a necessary and wonderful guide appears, to purify and elevate our understanding of the relation between Islam and Christianity, and to break through the wall of orthodox prejudice that has blocked our understanding of the middle term [the so-called]Gnostic Judaeo-Christian heresy, the stone which the builders rejected.
Henri Corbin picks up Harnack's proposed definition of Islam as "a transformation on Arab soil of a Jewish religion that had itself been transformed by Gnostic Judaeo-Christianity." (7)
A special role was played by that "heresy" which struggled to avoid the catastrophic rupture between Christianity and Judaism, "Jewish Christianity" or "Ebionism."
The authoritative expert on Jewish Christianity, H.J. Schoeps, substantiates Harnack's judgment and draws out the world-historical implications: The Arabian Christianity which Mohammed found at the beginning of his public activity was not the state religion of Byzantium but a schismatic Christianity characterized by Ebionite and Monophysite views....
Thus we have a paradox of world-historical proportions, viz., the fact that Jewish Christianity indeed disappeared within the Christian church, but was preserved in Islam and thereby extended some of its basic ideas even to our own day.
According to Islamic doctrine, the Ebionite combination of Moses and Jesus found its fulfillment in Mohammed; the two elements, through the agency of Jewish Christianity, were, in Hegelian terms, "taken up" in Islam.(8)
Islam is to be envisaged as dialectical evolution, or evolutionary mutation, in the prophetic tradition, in response to the limitations built into the structure of orthodox Christianity by its historic compromise with Roman imperialism; by its commitment to scriptural canon, creedal orthodoxy, and episcopal hierarchy; and by its consequent scandalous history of schism and persecution (duly noted in the Koran).
To begin to envisage the prophetic tradition in truly world-historical terms ... the following hazardous generalizations are offered as preliminary orientation.
Islam picks up and extends the notion, already present in Jewish (Ebionite) Christianity, of the unity of the prophetic spirit:
Christus aeternus, verus propheta ab initio mundi per saeculum currens; the one true prophet, from age to age, from the beginning of the world; Adam, Noah, Abraham, Moses, Christ, Muhammad.
The later prophet comes to reiterate the Eternal and Everlasting Gospel—the "seim anew," Lex mosaica per Jesum prophetam reformata, the mosaic law reformed by Jesus the prophet. The tradition gets de-formed and has to be re-formed.
Thus "true Christianity" is identical with "true Judaism"; H.J. Schoeps speaks of Ebionite "federal theology," according to which just as Moses was the teacher of the Jews, so Jesus was the teacher of the Gentiles.
And continue reading here:
Apocalypse and/or Metamorphosis By Norman O. Brown
Ch. 5: The Prophetic Tradition -
Page 49 and up -
http://books.google.com/books... ~* hehehehehehe *~