Muhammad vs. Manes

St. Cyril of Jerusalem

Like the rest of the Bible, Muslims have a rocky relationship with the Gospel of John.  If a verse from John supports a Christian doctrine, it’s worthless.  If it supports an Islamic teaching, then it becomes super reliable.  Imagine going up to someone saying that half the Bible supports my religion.

Now, one section of the Gospel of John that Muslims find reliable is the portion about the Paraclete.  This of course excludes the John 14:26 where the Paraclete is specifically identified as the Holy Spirit.  But the Muslims think that the Paraclete is Muhammad.

One important thing about prophecies is that they’re identified early on.  The important prophecies about Jesus Christ were referenced by Himself or his apostles.  For example, on the cross Jesus Christ points to Psalm 22.  In the book of Acts, Isaiah 53 and Deuteronomy 18 are applied to Jesus Christ.  Other examples could be given.  Now, to be fair, not every prophecy about Jesus is in Scripture such as Daniel 9, but many important ones are.

Now, in the life of Muhammad, we don’t see this.  For example, when Muhammad fled Mecca and arrived in Medina, the Jews of Medina didn’t welcome him as the long awaited Muhammadim of the Song of Solomon.  To my knowledge I don’t know of anyone before Ahmed Deedat who used the Song of Solomon 5:16 Muhammadim argument.  If I’m wrong, feel free to correct me.

Now, discussing the Paraclete of the Gospel of John, this is one of the most important supposed prophecies of Muhammad in the Bible.  Now, this prophecy wasn’t expounded on by Muhammad or his companions or the next generation after that.  It first appears in the Seerah of Ibn Ishaq.  If you know the Alfred Guillaume version, it’s on pages 103 and 104.  So it’s well over 100 years after Muhammad dies.

When we look at history, Muslims need to explain why others have actually claimed to be the Paraclete.  In the fourth century, St. Cyril of Jerusalem wrote in Lecture 16 of his Catechetical Lectures of a guy named Manes.  Regarding this heretic he says: Manes dared to call himself the Paraclete sent by Christ.

So Manes actually claimed to be the Paraclete.  That’s more than Muhammad did as he wasn’t called the Paraclete for over a century later.  We could almost say that Manes makes a more consistent(but of course equally false) claim.  After all, he specifically claims to be the Holy Ghost.  St. Cyril writes:

How great is the impiety of Manes, who said that he was the Holy Ghost?

See, at least he’s consistent with this John 14:26.  Manes was at least trying to show how he fit into the Biblical framework whereas most Muslims try to drop John 14:26 either based on liberal scholarship or one late foreign language manuscript variant.

Luckily we don’t have to worry because neither Muhammad nor Manes are the Paraclete.  The Paraclete was identified specifically by Jesus Christ in John 14:26 and there is absolutely no reason to doubt the Son of God.

On another note, I hope all of my Catholic readers had a great Feast of Corpus Christi.  Here’s a video from our procession:

At Church earlier today. pic.twitter.com/ppj16sgAzG

— Allan Ruhl (@AllanRuhl) June 21, 2019

Our Corpus Christi procession yesterday. pic.twitter.com/cqshIyGkbi

— Allan Ruhl (@AllanRuhl) June 21, 2019