Jesus, Prophet of Islam - The Islamic Bulletin

The Gospel of Barnabas 115

It is also known that it was being circulated in the first and sec­
ond centuries after the birth of Jesus from the writings of Iraneus
(130-200 AD) who wrote in support of the Divine Unity. Iraneus
opposed Paul and ms fol1owers whom he accused of being respon­
sible for the assimilation of the pagan Roman religion and Platonic
philosophy into the original teaching of Jesus. He quoted exten­
sively from the Gospel of Barnabas in support of his views.
It is also clear from relatively recent research - which has been
conducted more in the spirit of genuinely trying to find out what
actually happened, rather thanwith the intention of merely attempt­
ing to present further ' evidence' either for or against established
dogmas and theories which are clearly untenable in the light of
undisputed historical facts and blatant contradictions -that the
conflict between the Unitarian followers of Jesus who belonged to
the Tribe of Israel on the one hand, and the European followers of
Paul who did not belong to the Tribe of Israel and whose lives were
rooted in an entirely different culture and philosophical heritage,
on the other hand, occurred at a very early stage in the history of
the Christian Church -and even before the early Christians began
to rely more on the written word than on what had been transmit­
ted by word of mouth.
In his book, The Bible, theQur'anandScience, DrMaurice Bucaille
refers to these two groups as the Judeo-Christians and the Pauline
Christians. His overview of the origins of and the interaction be­
tween these two groups - an overview at which he clearly arrived
only after extensive research and careful consideration and analy­
sis -confirms that this conflict was, at least to begin with, not so
much an ideological conflict as a behavioural one, as his summary
of an article published by Cardinal Daniélou in 1967, including
many quotations from it, indicates:

After [esus's departure, the 'little group of Apostles'

formed a 'Jewish sect that remained faithful to the form

of worship practised in theTemple'. However, when the

observances of converts from paganism were added to

them, a 'special system' was offered to them as it were:

the Council of [erusalem in 49 AD exempted them from

circumcision and Jewish observances; 'many [udeo­

Christians rejected this concession'. This group is quite

separate from Paul. What is more, Paul and the [udeo­

Christians were in confliet over the question of pagans