188 | CHAPTER 6
cies at work too, especially later on, toward suppression of philosophical
speculation and imposition of orthodoxy, “correct opinion,” consolidating
Christian identity round a single creedal statement summarizing all neces-
sary belief. The loss of the eastern provinces, where miaphysitism had con-
centrated, left supporters of Chalcedon in unchallenged control of the impe-
rial Church. This rigidification of doctrine can be taken as diagnostic of the
end of the patristic phase in pre- Reformation Church history (the Reform
bred its own fathers), and may be dated (with the above reservations about
Arabic patristics) after John of Damascus’s summa, and the last of the ecu-
menical councils in 787. Not that rigidification meant an end to controversy.
On the contrary, part of it was the perpetuation of controversy in the form of
the same classic arguments, especially in the Caliphate, where Christians had
to argue not only with Muslims but also with a wider spectrum of Christian
allegiance—Chalcedonian, non- Chalcedonian, and Church of the East—
than was available on the East Roman side of the frontier.^113
Hence the Qurʾān’s perception of Christianity as a self- defeatingly disputa-
tious religion that corrupts and betrays its scriptures—an accusation it levels
at the Jews too, and more frequently.^114 But it is legitimate to ask how Islam
proposed to resolve the problems of doctrine and authority that had defeated
the older revelations. This is a major part of the First Millennium story—one
might indeed say, of the debate that constitutes the First Millennium.
Islam
The Qurʾān’s debts to, but also criticism of, its forerunners were not unprec-
edented. In the second century Marcion had accused the Church of falsify-
ing its Gospel, and retained only Luke (which of course encouraged adher-
ence to the four- gospel model). The third- century Mesopotamian prophet
Mani (d. 276/77), raised in a Judeo- Christian Baptist sect, had upbraided
Jesus, Zarathushtra, and Buddha for not clearly stating their teaching in book
form, with the result that their Churches were bound to pass away and their
by specialists in the history of late antiquity... that shifting Christian and Hellenic identities are little
more than discursive constructs” (147), tantamount to demotion of the “reality” of Platonism to a cul-
tural construct variously conditioned and manipulated. “The social and cultural history dominating the
field of late antique and Byzantine studies progressively absorbs intellectual history and diverts [atten-
tion] from the underlying philosophical and theological incompatibility between the Judaeo- Christian
world- view and the Hellenic world- view” (150). Certainly Christians used Plato according to their own
doctrinal criteria, not searching for what Plato himself intended. But even philosophers who adhered to
the old religion did not hesitate to “harmonize” Plato with Aristotle. Just like a chapel built with spolia
from a temple, the new intellectual construct had its own meaning and viability. The historian’s job is to
elucidate that, not offer libations to shades of the ancients.
113 Griffith, Church in the shadow of the Mosque [5:119] 62.
114 Qurʾān 2.253, 3.19, 5.14, 19.34 on disputatiousness; 2.75, 4.46, and especially 5.12–15, on
corruption of scripture.