To retranslate a masterpiece of an eminent author from a foreign version if
he left other writings in his own language would not be very difficult. For thus
the translator could study the mind, the technicalities, and the expressions in
his works, and do his best to retranslate the book into its original language.
But how far he would be successful is a question which only able translators can
decide and determine. Similarly, if there were at least a couple of epistles or
writings of St. Luke in the Hebrew, his Gospel could with comparatively less
difficulty be translated into that tongue than it can now be done. But
unfortunately even such is not the case. For nothing is extant of the ancient
writings in the language of Jesus from which St. Luke translated the angelic
hymn; nor has he himself left us another book in a Semitic dialect.

To make myself better understood, and in order to make the English readers
better appreciate the extreme importance of this point, I venture to challenge
the best scholar in English and French literature to retranslate from a French
edition the dramatic work of Shakespeare into English without seeing the
original English text, and to show the grace and the elegance of the original as
well.

The great Muslim philosopher Ibn Sina (Avicenna) wrote in the Arabic, and
some of his works were afterwards retranslated from the Latin into the Arabic
because the originals were lost. Are these reproductions the exact texts of that
Muslim Aristotle? Certainly not!

In the previous article in this series, on "Eiriny," we discussed this
translational point to a certain extent; and we had no difficulty in finding its
equivalent Hebrew word "Shalom," because both are identical in the Septuagint
and Hebrew texts. But the Greek compound word "Eudokia" does not occur, to the
best of my knowledge, in the Septuagint Version, and it is extremely difficult
to find out its equivalent or synonymous term in the original. St. Barnabas does
not mention in his Gospel this angelic hymn and the story of the Shepherds of
Bethlehem; nor do the other Synoptics or the Epistles in the New Testament.

The modern Greeks frequently adopt "Eudokia" and "Eudoxia" for their feminine
proper nouns; and both these nouns are composed of two elements; "eu" and "dokeo,"
from the later being derived "doxa" which means "glory" or "praise" and so on.

In order to discover the original Semitic word in the song that the pious
Shepherds heard and related, and which the evangelist Luke has formulated into "Eudokia,"
we are compelled to examine and trace it right from its Greek root and
derivation. But before doing so, it is necessary to criticize and expose the
erroneous versions which have eclipsed the true meanings of Eudokia and
concealed its prophetical bearing upon Ahmad or Muhammad.

There are two principal versions of the New Testament from the Greek text,
one being in the so-called "Syriac" language, and the other in the Latin. Both
bear the same significant title of "Simplex" or "Simple," which both the "Pshittha"
and the "Vulgate" signify. There is much new material of information about these
two famous ancient versions which must embarrass the most erudite Christian
historians and the most dogmatic theologians. But for the present it may suffice
to say that the Aramaic (1) Version, called the Pshittha, is older than the
Latin Vulgate. It is common knowledge that the Church of Rome for the first four
centuries had no Scriptures or Liturgy in the Latin but in the Greek. Before the
Nicene Council in 325 A.C., the Canon of the books of the New Testament was not
completed, or rather established. There were dozens of Gospels and Epistles
bearing the names of different Apostles and other companions of Jesus, which
were held by various Christian communities as sacred, but they were rejected by
the Nicene Council as spurious. As the seat or center of the Syriac language and
learning was Orhai, i.e. Edessa, and never Antioch, it was here that the books
of the New Testament were translated from the Greek, after the notorious
Assembly of Nicea.

------------Footnote (1). The Pshittha Version of the Old Testament
never uses the words "Syria" and "Syriac," but "Aram" and "Aramaic."
------------- end of footnote

A profound examination and study of the early Christian literature and
history will show that the first preachers of the Gospel were Jews who spoke
Aramaic or the old Syriac language. Whether this "Gospel" was a written
document, or an unwritten doctrine or religion taught and propagated orally, is
a question for itself and lies outside the sphere of our present subject. But
one thing is certain and does really fall within the periphery of our subject –
namely, the early Christians conducted their religious services in the Aramaic
language. That was the common language spoken by the Jews, the Syrians, the
Phoenicians, the Chaldeans, and the Assyrians. Now it is but clear that the
Christians belonging to the Aramaic-speaking nationalities would certainly
prefer to read and pray in their own language, and consequently various Gospels,
Epistles, prayer-books, and liturgies were written in the Syriac. Even the
Armenians, before the invention of their alphabet in the fifth century, had
adopted the Syriac characters.

On the other hand, the proselytes from the non-Semitic "Gentiles" to the "new
way" read the Old Testament in its Greek Version of the "Seventy." As a matter
of course, the scholars of the Greek philosophy and the ex-ministers of the
Greek mythology, once converted to the new faith and with the Septuagint before
them, could have no difficulty in the production of a "New Testament" as a
completion or a continuation of the old one.

How the simple Gospel of the Nazarene Messenger of Allah became a source of
two mighty currents of the Semitic and the Hellenic thought; and how the Greek
polytheistic thought finally overpowered the monotheistic Semitic creed under
the most tyrannical Greco-Latin Emperors, and under the most intolerant and
superstitious Trinitarian Bishops of Byzantium and Rome, are points of extreme
moment for a profound study by the Muslim savants.

Then there are the questions of the unity of faith, of doctrine, and of the
revealed text. For more than three centuries the Christian Church had no New
Testament as we see it in its present shape. None of the Semitic or Greek
Churches, nor did Antioch, Edessa, Byzantium, and Rome possess all the books of
the New Testament, nor even the four Gospels before the Nicene Council. And I
wonder what was or could be the belief of those Christians who were only in
possession of the Gospel of St. Luke, or of St. Mark, or of St. John, concerning
the dogmas of the Eucharist, Baptism, the Trinity, the miraculous conception of
Christ, and of dozens of other dogmas and doctrines! The Syriac Version of the
Pshittha does not contain the so-called "Essential" or "Institutional Words,"
now extant in St. Luke (xxii. 17, 18, 19). The last twelve verses of the
sixteenth chapter of the Second Gospel are not to be found in the old Greek
manuscripts. The so-called "Lord’s prayer" (Matt. vi. 9; Luke xi. 2) is unknown
to the authors of the Second and Fourth Gospels. In fact, many important
teachings contained in one Gospel were unknown to the Churches which did not
possess it. Consequently there could possibly be no uniformity of worship,
discipline, authority, belief, commandments, and law in the Early Church, just
as there is none now. All that we can gather from the literature of the New
Testament is that the Christians in the Apostolical age had the Jewish
Scriptures for their Bible, with a Gospel containing the true revelation made to
Jesus, and that its substance was precisely the same as announced in this
Seraphic Canticle – namely, ISLAM and AHMADIYEH. The special mission assigned by
Allah to His Prophet Jesus was to revert or convert the Jews from their
perversion and erroneous belief in a Davidic Messiah, and to convince them that
the Kingdom of God upon earth which they were anticipating was not to come
through a Messiah of the Davidic dynasty, but of the family of Ishmael whose
name was AHMAD, the true equivalent of which name the Greek Gospels have
preserved in the forms "Eudoxos" and "Periclytos" and not "Paraclete" as the
Churches have shaped it. It goes without saying that the "Periclyte" will form
one of the principal topics in this series of articles. But whatever be the
signification of the "Paraclete" (John xiv. 16, 26; xv. 26, and xvi. 7) or its
true etymological orthography, there still remains the shining truth that Jesus
left behind him and unfinished religion to be completed and perfected by what
John (ubi supra) and Luke (xxiv. 49) describe as "Spirit." This "Spirit" is not
a god, a third of the three in a trinity of gods, but the holy Spirit of Ahmad,
which existed like the Spirits of other Prophets in Paradise (cf. the Gospel of
Barnabas). If the Spirit of Jesus, on the testimony of an Apostle, John (xvii.
5, etc.), existed before he became a man, the Muslim, too, are perfectly
justified in believing in the existence of the Spirit of Prophet Muhammad on the
testimony of another Apostle, Barnabas! And why not? As this point will be
discussed in the course of the succeeding articles, for the present all I want
to ask the Christian Churches is this: Did all the Christian Churches in Asia,
Africa, and Europe possess the Fourth Gospel before the Nicene Council? If the
answer is in the affirmative, pray, bring your proofs; if it is in the negative,
then it must be admitted that a large portion of the Christians knew nothing
about St. John’s "Paraclete," a corrupt word which does not mean either a
"comforter" or "mediator" or anything at all! These are certainly very serious
and grave charges against Christianity.

But to turn to the point. The Pshittha had translated the Greek word "Eudokia"
(the Greeks read the word "Ivdokia," or rather pronounce it "Ivthokia") as "Sobhra
Tabha" (pronounced "Sovra Tava"), which signifies "good hope," or "good
anticipation;" whereas the Latin Vulgate, on the other hand, renders "Eudokia"
as "Bona Voluntas," or "good will."

I fearlessly challenge all the Greek scholars, if they dare, to contradict me
when I declare that the translators of the Syriac and Latin Versions have made a
serious error in their interpretation of "Eudokia." Nevertheless, I must confess
that I cannot conscientiously blame those translators of having deliberately
distorted the meaning of this Greek term; for I admit that both the Versions
have a slight foundation to justify their respective translations. But even so,
it must be remarked that they have thereby missed the prophetical sense and the
true meaning of the Semitic vocabulary when they converted it into the Greek
word "Eudokia."

The exact and literal equivalent of "good hope" in the Greek language is not
"eudokia," but "eu elpis, or rather "euelpistia." This exposition of "evelpistia"
(the proper Greek pronunciation) is enough to silence the Pshittha. The precise
and the exact corresponding term to the Latin "bona voluntas," or "good will,"
in the Greek tongue is certainly not "eudokia," but "euthelyma." And this short
but decisive explanation again is a sufficient reprimand to the priests of the
Vatican, of Phanar (Constantinople), and of Canterbury, who chant the "Gloria in
Excelsis" when they celebrate Mass or administer other sacraments.

1. THE ETYMOLOGY AND SIGNIFICATION OF "EUDOKIA"

Now let us proceed to give the true meaning of "Eudokia."

The adjectival prefix "eu" signifies "good, well, more, and most," as in "eudokimeo"
– "to be esteemed, approved, loved," and "to acquire glory"; "eudokimos" – "very
esteemed, most renowned and glorious"; "eudoxos" – "most celebrated and
glorious"; "eudoxia" – "celebrity, renown." The Greek substantive "doxa," used
in the compound nouns "orthodox," "doxology," and so on, is derived from the
verb "dokeo." Every student of English literature knows that "doxa" signifies
"glory, honor, renown." There are numerous phrases in the classical Greek
authors where "doxa" is used to signify "glory": "Peri doxis makheshai" – "to
fight for glory." The famous Athenian orator Demosthenes "preferred glory to a
tranquil life," "glory equal to that of the gods." I am cognizant of the fact
that "doxa" is, although seldom, used to signify (a) opinion, belief; (b) dogma,
principle, doctrine; and (c) anticipation or hope. But all the same, its general
and comprehensive sense is "glory." In fact, the first portion of the Canticle
begins with: "Doxa [Glory] be to Allah in the highest."

In the Dictionnaire Grec-Francais (published in 1846 in Paris by R. C.
Alexandre) the word "eudokia" is rendered "bienveillence, tendresse, volunte,
bon plaisir," etc.; and the author gives "dokeo" as the root of "doxa," with its
various significations I have mentioned above.

The Greeks of Constantinople, among whose teachers I have had several
acquaintances, while unanimously understanding by "eudokia" the meaning of
"delight, loveliness, pleasantness, and desire," also admit that it does signify
"celebrity, renown, and honorability" in its original sense as well.

2. THE ETYMOLOGY OF THE HEBREW FORMS OF MaHMaD AND HiMDaH, AND THEIR
SIGNIFICATIONS

I am convinced that the only way to understand the sense and the spirit of
the Bible is to study it from an Islamic point of view. It is only then that the
real nature of the Divine Revelation can be understood, appreciated, and loved.
It is only then, too, that the spurious, the false, and the heterogeneous
elements interpolated in it can be discovered in their blackest features and
eliminated. And it is from this point of view that I welcome this Greek word "eudokia,"
which in its true and literal signification admirably corresponds to the Hebrew
"Mahmad, Mahamod, Himdah," and "Hemed" so frequently used in the Old Testament.

(a) Hamad. This verb, which is constituted of three essential consonants hmd,
and common to all the Semitic dialects, everywhere in the Sacred Writ of the
Hebrews signifies: "to covet, fall in love, long for, take pleasure and delight
in," and "to desire ardently." Those who know Arabic will naturally understand
the comprehensive sense of the word Shahwat, which is rendered in English as
"lust, cupidity, ardent desire, and appetite." Well, this is the precise sense
and signification of the verb "hamad" in the Hebrew Scriptures. One of the
commands in the famous Decalogue of the Torah (Arabic "Taurat") or the Law
contains this clause: "Lo tahmod ish reikha" – "Thou shalt not covet the wife of
thy neighbor" (Exod. xx. 17.)

(b) Hemed. The substantive in the masculine gender, and "Himdah" in the
feminine, signifies: "lust, desire, pleasantness, delight, object of longing and
of desire, loveliness" (Hag. ii. 7; Jerem. xxv. 34, etc.).

(c) MaHMaD, MaHaMoD (Lam. i. 7, 10; ii. 4, etc.). These participles forms are
also derivatives from the verb "hamad" and mean: "most covetable, delightful,
pleasant, delicious, charming, precious, beloved."

That the Arabic form MuHaMmaD and the Hebrew MaHMaD and MaHaMoD are derived
from one and the same verb or root, and that they, notwithstanding the slight
orthographic difference between the forms, have one common origin and
signification, there cannot be a jot or iota of doubt. I have given the meanings
of the Hebrew forms as the Jews and the lexicographers have understood them.

(d) It will therefore be observed that the Greek word "eudokia" must be a
literal representation of the Hebrew substantive HiMDah, and that both signify:
"delight, pleasantness, good pleasure (bon plaisir), desire, loveliness,
preciousness," and some other synonymous words.

Now it would follow from the above that the corresponding equivalent to the
Hebrew "Mahamod" can be none other than "eudoxos" which was the object of desire
and longing, the most delightful, pleasant, and coveted, and the most precious,
approved, loved, and esteemed.

That among all the sons of Adam the name Muhammad should be given for the
first time alone to the son of ‘Abdullah and Amina in the town of Mecca, is a
unique miracle in the history of religions. There could be no artificial device,
attempt, or forgery in this respect. His parents and relatives were people of "fitr"
uprighteous but knew nothing of the prohecies in the Hebrew or Christian
Scriptures concerning a great Prophet who was promised to come to restore and
establish the religion of Islam. Their choice of the name Muhammad or Ahmad
could not be explained away as a coincidence or an accidental event. It was
surely providential and inspired.

Whether the Arabian poets and men of letters had preserved the archaic
signification of the Hebrew passive participle of the pi’el form of the verb
hamad, or not, I have no means to prove one way or another. But the Arabic
passive participle of the pi’el conjugation of the verb hammida is Muhammad, and
that of the Hebrew himmid Mahmad or Mahamod. The affinity between the similarity
and the identity of the two forms is unquestionable.

I have faithfully reproduced the significations of the Hebrew forms as given
by the lexicographers and translators. But the intrinsical or spiritual sense of
"Himdah" and "Mahamod" is: "praise and praiseworthy, celebrity and celebrated,
glory and glorious." For among the created beings and things, what can be "more
glorious, honorable, illustrious, and praised than that which is most coveted
and desired." It is in this practical sense that the Qur’an uses the word hamdu
from which Ahmad and Muhammad are derivations, and hamdu is the same word as the
Hebrew hemed. The glory of Prophet Muhammad surpasses that of any other
creatures, as illustrated by Daniel (vii.), and in the oracle of Allah: "Law la
ka lama Khalaqna ‘l-Aflaka" – "Were it not for thee, were is not for thee (O
beloved Muhammad), We would not have created the worlds" (or heavens ). But the
highest honor and glory granted by Allah to His most esteemed Messenger was that
he was commissioned to establish and to perfect the true religion of Allah,
under the name of "Islam," which, like the name of Prophet Muhammad, has so very
many consolating and salubrious significations; "peace, security, safety,
tranquillity, salvation," and "the Good" in opposition to "the Evil"; besides
those of submission and resignation to the Will of Allah. The vision by which
the pious Shepherds were honored on the occasion of the birth of Jesus Christ
was timely and opportune. For a great Missioner of Allah, a holy Evangelist of
Islam was born. As Jesus was the Herald of the Kingdom of Allah, so was his
Gospel an Introduction to the Qur’an. The advent of Jesus was the beginning of a
new era in the history of religion and morals. He himself was not the "Mahamod"
who was to come afterwards to destroy the Evil One and his Kingdom of Idolatry
in the Promised Lands. The "Fourth Beast," the mighty Roman Power, was still
growing and expanding its conquests. Jerusalem, with its gorgeous temple and
priesthood, was to be destroyed by that Beast. Jesus "came to his own people;
but that people received him not." And those among the Jews who received him
were made "children of the Kingdom," but the rest dispersed in the world. Then
followed the ten terrible persecutions under the pagan Roman Emperors which were
to crown thousands with the diadem of martyrdom; and Constantine the Great and
his successors were allowed to trample upon the true believers in the Oneness of
Allah. And then it was that Prophet Muhammad – not a god or son of a god, but
"the glorious, the coveted, the most illustrious Son of Man, the perfect Bar
nasha" – was to come and destroy the Beast.