and Slavic languages, and the effects of this principle were, at least in Russia, most beneficial.
During the reign of Vladimir’s successor, Jaroslaff, 1019–1054, not only were churches and
monasteries and schools built all over the country, but Greek theological books were translated,
and the Russian church had, at an early date, a religious literature in the native tongue of the people.
Jaroslaff, by his celebrated code of laws, became the Justinian of Russia.
The Czars and people of Russia have ever since faithfully adhered to the Oriental church
which grew with the growth of the empire all along the Northern line of two Continents. As in the
West, so in Russia, monasticism was the chief institution for the spread of Christianity among
heathen savages. Hilarion (afterwards Metropolitan), Anthony, Theodosius, Sergius, Lazarus, are
prominent names in the early history of Russian monasticism.
The subsequent history of the Russian church is isolated from the main current of histoy,
and almost barren of events till the age of Nikon and Peter the Great. At first she was dependent
on the patriarch of Constantinople. In 1325 Moscow was founded, and became, in the place of
Kieff, the Russian Rome, with a metropolitan, who after the fall of Constantinople became
independent (1461), and a century later was raised to the dignity of one of the five patriarchs of
the Eastern Church (1587). But Peter the Great made the Northern city of his own founding the
ecclesiastical as well as the political metropolis, and transferred the authority of the patriarchate of
Moscow to the "Holy Synod" (1721), which permanently resides in St. Petersburg and constitutes
the highest ecclesiastical judicatory of Russia under the caesaropapal rule of the Czar, the most
powerful rival of the Roman Pope.
CHAPTER III.
MOHAMMEDANISM IN ITS RELATION TO CHRISTIANITY.136
"There is no God but God, and Mohammed is his apostle."—The Koran."There is one God and one Mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus,
who gave himself a ransom for all."—1 Tim. ii. 5, 6.
§ 38. Literature.
See A. Sprenger’s Bibliotheca Orientalis Sprengeriana. Giessen, 1857.
W. Muir.: Life of Mahomet, Vol. I., ch. 1. Muir discusses especially the value of Mohammedan
traditions.
Ch. Friedrici: Bibliotheca Orientalis. London (Trübner & Co.) 1875 sqq.
I. Sources.
- The Koran or AL-Koran. The chief source. The Mohammedan Bible, claiming to be given by
inspiration to Mohammed during the course of twenty years. About twice as large as the New
Testament. The best Arabic MSS., often most beautifully written, are in the Mosques of Cairo,
Damascus, Constantinople, and Paris; the largest, collection in the library of the Khedive in
Cairo. Printed editions in Arabic by Hinkelmann (Hamburg, 1694); Molla Osman Ismael (St.
Petersburg, 1787 and 1803); G. Flügel (Leipz., 1834); revised by Redslob (1837, 1842, 1858).
Arabice et Latine, ed. L. Maraccius, Patav., 1698, 2 vols., fol. (Alcorani textus universus, with
notes and refutation). A lithographed edition of the Arabic text appeared at Lucknow in India,
1878 (A. H. 1296).