Begotten Not Made”

BEGOTTEN NOT MADE"ONE of the greatest difficulties of the missionary among Moslems is undoubtedly to be found in this clause of the so-called Nicene Creed.The current Arabic rendering mawliid ghairu mukhliiq, an exact translation of the Greek ytuuq&vsa o ; rocq&usa, has for a Moslem nothing but physical suggestion.The Arabic mawltid may mean " born " or " begotten "---i.e., may refer to the mother or the father as also may yEuuqOhsabut it can be used only of actual birth, human or animal.So wuhd is to be distinguished from ibn, which is human only, and has a non-physical atmosphere.With the second element, "not made,:' there need be little difficulty.The idea is already familiar by association with the Koran, which, also, is ghairu wzkhltiq.Parallels, therefore, with the orthodox Moslein doctrine of the Koran, may lead a certain way towards the Christian doctrine of the Person of Christ, and should be used freely.*But they break at the word " begotten."The Koran is not even a Person which " proceeded"- h C T O p E U d p E U O U , munbathiq -from Allah, but is only a manifestation upon earth of the eternal quality (sifa) of Allah called Speech (kuZC7n).That quality, like all the other qualities, mystically inheres in the essence (dhzt) of Allah in such a way that it niay not be said either that it is He or that it is other than He.The Koran, therefore, is to be called " uncreated," although many varying formulae have been used to express the relationship between its wordsphysically written, heard, remembered-and the eternal quality in the * See Canon Gairdner in " Vital Forces of Christianity and Islam," PP. 30 ff., and my own paper, pp.221 ff.* See my " Development," pp.336 f. t This waa pointed out long

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