As we Christian apologists know, Muslim apologists blame St. Paul for making Christianity the way it is today. St. Paul is responsible for promoting the death, resurrection, and deity of Christ. It’s actually quite amazing when you think about it. A Jew, probably educated similarly to a modern rabbi today is able to subvert the whole movement from Tawheed to Trinitarianism, escape from death to death and resurrection and the destruction of the true Injeel.
Muslims don’t study Church history. They only look at the first century when the early Islamic Christians theoretically existed. The 2nd through 21st centuries are irrelevant. I’m going to talk about some juicy episodes in Church history and then draw a fascinating conclusion.
In 451 AD the ecumenical council of Chalcedon passed the famous Tome of Leo. However, there were a good amount of dissenters. These people are known today as monophysites, miaphysites or the Oriental Orthodox. They form significant populations in Eritrea, Ethiopia, Egypt, Syria, and Armenia. Egypt and Syria were part of the Roman Empire so that posed a problem for the emperors. One empire one faith, right? You couldn’t have two Christian churches in one empire. Nestorians were largely gone from the empire at this point so they didn’t play much of a role.
In the late fifth century the Emperor Zeno(What a name!) issued a document called the Henotikon. This document tinkered with the Tome of Leo in a way that was acceptable for many Oriental Orthodox. The Alexandrian Oriental Orthodox Patriarch Peter Mongus accepted Chalcedon under these modified conditions. Pope Felix III ended up excommunicating Patriarch Acacius of Constantinople over his promotion of the Henotikon in 484. Constantinople would end up being reconciled to Rome in 519. To make a long story short, the Henotikon failed. Sorry Zeno.
Another attempt at reuniting the Oriental Orthodox was Monothelitism; the doctrine that Christ had one will. This was used by the Emperor Heraclius in the 7th century. This compromise of the Tome of Leo had some success initially. Like the Henotikon though, it was a compromise on truth. In 649 AD Pope Martin, Maximus the Confessor and many other Eastern bishops, priests, deacons and monks condemned Monothelitism in a synod in Rome held in the Lateran Basilica.
Pope Martin and Maximus the Confessor were captured by Roman(Byzantine) authorities, brought to Constantinople and condemned, then thrown in prison. Pope Martin was actually initially sentenced to be executed but it was then commuted to jail time. Both Pope Martin and Maximus the Confessor died in prison rather than compromise the faith. After decades of Monothelitism a theologically sound emperor held an ecumenical council in Constantinople in 680 AD where Pope Agatho solemnly condemned the heresy. This council basically took the theological conclusions of Pope Martin and Maximus the Confessor at the Roman synod of 649 AD.
In the 5th, 6th, and 7th centuries we have probably a dozen emperors trying to subvert the Church over and over again, yet the Church stayed firm to the Council of Chalcedon and the Tome of Leo. The Roman Emperors were the most powerful men of the day. They were more powerful than the modern American President or the Secretary General of China. They couldn’t change the faith even on a technical Christological point. Yet, somehow St. Paul, a Jew from Anatolia, managed to completely subvert the faith, not just on esoteric Christological issues but on core doctrines like the death, resurrection, and deity of Christ. Not only did St. Paul subvert the Islamic faith, he obliterated all traces of it. A lowly Jew did what multiple Roman Emperors couldn’t. Pretty impressive, right Muslims?
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