The Lord And The Prophet Of The Covenant

The last book of the Canonical Jewish Code of the Bible bears the name of "Malachai,"
which looks to be more a sur- name than a proper noun. The correct pronunciation
of the name is Malakh, which means "my angel" or "my mes- senger." The Hebrew
word, "mal’akh," like the Arabic "malak," like the Greek term "anghelos" from
which the English name "angel" is derived, signifies "a messenger," one
commissioned with a message or news to deliver to some- body.

Who this Malakhi is, in what period of the Jewish his- tory he lived and
prophesied, is not known either from the book itself or from any other portion
of the Old Testament. It begins with the words: "The ‘missa’ of the Word of
Yahweh the El of Israel by the hand of Malakhi," which may be translated: "The
discourse of the Word of Yahweh God of Israel, by the hand of Malakhi." It
contains four short chapters.

The oracle is addressed, not to a king and his courtiers, but to a people
already settled in Jerusalem with the Temple and its services. The sacrifices
and oblations are of the meanest and worst kind; the sheep and cattle offered at
the altars are not of the best quality; they are blind, lame, and lean animals.
The tithes are not regularly paid, and if at all paid are of the inferior
material. The priests, too, natu- rally, cannot devote their time and energy to
perform their sacred duty. For they cannot chew the beefsteaks and roasted
mutton-chops of the lean old, crippled sacrifices. They cannot live on the
scanty tithes or insufficient stipends. Yahweh, as usual with this incorrigible
people, now threatens, now holds out promises, and at times complain.

This discourse, or oracle, seems to have been delivered by the Prophet
Malakhi in about the beginning of the fourth century before the Christian era,
when the people of Israel were also tired of Yahweh; and used to say: "The Table
of the Lord (Yahweh) is an abomination, and His meal is con- temptible" (Mal. i.
12). "He who doeth evils is good in the eyes of Yahweh, and He is pleased with
them; or, where is the God of the judgment?" (Mal. ii. 17).

The Book of Malakhi, notwithstanding its being of a post captivitatem date,
is, however, written in a seemly good Hebrew style. To say that this "misa," or
discourse, has come down to us intact and unadulterated is to confess ignor-
ance of the language. There are several mutilated sentences, so that it is
almost impossible to understand the exact sense they intend to convey.

The subject of our discussion in this article is the famous prediction
couched in Mal. iii. 1. The prophecy runs thus: –

"Behold, I send My Messenger, and he shall prepare the way before Me; and
suddenly shall come to his temple the Adon whom ye are seeking, and the
Messenger of the Covenant whom ye desire. Behold, he cometh, says the Lord of
Hosts" (Mal. iii. 1).

This is a well-known Messianic prophecy. All Christian Saints, Fathers,
Popes, Patriarchs, Priests, monks, nuns, and even the Sunday-school children,
will tell us that the first messenger mentioned in the text is St. John the
Baptist, and the second messenger, whom their vernacular versions have rendered
"Angel of the Covenant," is Jesus Christ!

A definite determination of the subject of this prophecy is of extreme
importance, because the Christian Churches have ever since believed that two
distinct persons are indi- cated therein; and the author of this erroneous
belief is a singularly remarkable blunder of St. Matthew’s. One of the
characteristic features of the First Gospel – Matthew – is to show and prove the
fulfillment of some particular state- ment or prediction in the Old Testament
concerning nearly every event in the life of Jesus Christ. He is very careless
to guard himself against contradictions, and less scrupulous in his quotations
from the Hebrew Scriptures. He is cer- tainly not well versed in the literature
of his own language. I had occasion to refer in the preceding article of this
series to one of his blunders concerning the ass upon which Jesus mounted. This
is a most serious point directly touch- ing the authenticity and the validity of
the Gospels. Is it possible that the Apostle Matthew should himself be ignorant
of the true character of the prophecy of Malakh, and ignor- antly ascribe to his
master a misquotation which would natu- rally put to question his very quality
of a divinely inspired Prophet? Then, what should we think of the author of the
Second Gospel – of St. Mark – who ascribes the passage in Malakh-l to Isaiah?
(Mark i. 2). Jesus is reported by Matthew (xi. 1-15), and this too is followed
or copied by Luke (vii. 18-28), to have declared to the multitude that John the
Baptist was "more than a Prophet," that it was he "about whom it was written:
Behold, I am sending My Angel before thy face, and he shall prepare thy way
before thee;" and that "none among those born by women was greater than John,
but the least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he." The corruption of
the text of Malakh is plain and deliberately made. The original text tells us
that Yahweh Sabaoth, i.e. God of Hosts, is the speaker and the believers are the
people addressed, as can be readily seen in the words "whom ye are seeking …
whom ye desire." God says: "Behold, I send My Messenger, and he shall prepare
the way before My face." But the Gospels have interpolated the text by effacing
the personal pronoun of the first person singular, and inserted "before thee"
(or "thy face," as in Hebrew) twice. It is generally believed that Matthew wrote
his Gospel in the then vernacular Hebrew or Aramaic in order to prove to the
Jews that God, addressing Jesus Christ, said: "Behold, I send My messenger
(Angel) [such is the version in Matthew xi. 10] before thee, and he shall
prepare thy way before thee;" and wishes to show that this angel or messenger
was John the Baptist. Then a contrast between the Prophets John and Jesus is
left to Prophet Jesus, who describes John as above every prophet and greater
than the sons of all human mothers, but the least in the Kingdom of Heaven – of
which Jesus is meant to be the King – is greater than John.

I do not believe for a second that Jesus or any of his disciples could have
made use of such language with the object of perverting the Word of God, but
some fanatical monk or an ignorant bishop has forged this text and put into the
mouth of Jesus the words which no prophet would speak.

The traditional idea that the Messenger commissioned to prepare or repair the
way before the "Adon" and the "Messenger of the Covenant" is a worshiper and
subordinate of the latter, and therefore to conclude that two distinct persons
are predicted is a creation of the ignorance concerning the importance of the
mission and the magnitude of the work assigned to that messenger. He is not to
be supposed as a pioneer or even an engineer appointed to construct roads and
bridges for the passing of a royal procession. Let us there- fore pore over this
subject more deeply and in a courageous, impartial, and dispassionate manner.

1. In the first place, we must well understand that the Messenger is a man, a
creature of human body and soul, and that he is not an Angel or a superhuman
being. In the second place, we should open our eyes of wisdom and judg- ment to
see that he is not dispatched to prepare the way before another Messenger called
"Adon" and the "Messenger of the Promise," but he is commissioned to establish a
straight, safe, and good Religion. He is commissioned to remove all the
obstacles in the way between God and His creatures; and to fill up all the gaps
and chasms in this grand path, so that it may be smooth, easy to walk on, well
lighted, and protected from all danger. The Hebrew phrase, "u pinna derekh,"
means to say that the Messenger "will put straight and clear the worship or the
religion." The verb "darakh" of the same root as the Arabic "daraka," means "to
walk, reach, and comprehend;" and the substantive "derekh" signifies, "road,
way, step," and metaphorically "worship and religion." It is used in this
spiritual sense all through the Psalms and the Prophets. Surely this high
Messenger of God was not coming to repair or reform a way, a religion for the
benefit of a handful of Jews, but to establish a universal and an unchangeable
religion for all men. Though the Jewish religion inculcates the existence of one
true God, still their conception of Him as a national Deity of Israel, their
priesthood, sacrificial rites and cere- monies, and then the non-existence of
any positive articles of belief in the immortality of the soul, the resurrection
of the dead, the last judgment, the eternal life in heaven or hell, and many
other deficient points, make it absolutely unfit and insufficient for the
peoples of diverse languages, races, di- mates, temperaments, and habits. As
regards Christianity, it, with its meaningless seven sacraments, its beliefs in
original sin, the incarnation of a god – unknown to all previous reli- gious and
mythological literature – and in a trinity of indivi- dual gods, and finally
because it does not possess a single line in scripto from its supposed founder,
Jesus Christ, has done no good to mankind. On the contrary, it has caused divi-
sions and sects, all inbued with bitter feelings of hatred and rancor against
each other.

The Messenger, then, was commissioned with the abro- gating of both those
religions and the establishing of the ancient religion of Prophets Abraham and
Ishmael and the other Prophets, with new precepts for all men. It was to be the
shortest road to "reach" God; the simplest religion to worship Him, and the
safest Faith to remain ever pure and unadul- terated with superstition and
stupid dogmas. The Messenger was commissioned to prepare a road, a religion that
will conduct au who wish to believe in and love the One God without having need
of the leadership of hundreds of self- appointed guides and pretenders. And
above all, the Mes- senger was to come suddenly to his temple, whether it be the
one in Jerusalem or the one in Mecca; he was to root out all idolatry in those
countries, not only by the destruc- tion of idols and images, but also
inculcating in their former worshipers the faith in one true Allah. And the
accom- plishment of this stupendous task, namely, to construct a new Path, a
universal religion, that teaches that between God and man no absolute mediator,
no priest, saint or sacrament, is at all permissible, has only been done by a
Prophet whose name is Muhammad al-Mustapha!

2. John the Baptist was not the Messenger foretold by Malakhi The accounts
given about him by the four Evange- lists are very contradictory, but the one
thing that they together agree on is that he prepared no way at all; for he was
not accredited with a sacred scripture: he neither founded a religion nor
reformed the old one. He is reported to have left his parents and home while
still a youth; he lived in the desert on honey and the locust; and spent there
his life until he was about thirty years old, when he showed himself to the
multitudes on the banks of the River Jordan, where he used to baptize the
penitent sinners who confessed their sins to him. While Matthew knows nothing of
his re- lationship with Jesus, or does not care to report it, Luke, who wrote
his Gospel, not from a revelation, but from the works of the disciples of the
Master, records the homage rendered by John to Jesus when both in the wombs of
their mothers (Luke i. 39-46). He baptizes Jesus in the waters of the River
Jordan like everybody else, and is reported to have said that he (John) was "not
worthy to bow down to untie the laces of the shoes" (Mark i. 7) of Jesus, and
ac- cording to the Fourth Gospel he (John) exclaimed that Jesus was "the Lamb of
God that takes away the sins of the world" (John i. 29). That he knew Jesus and
recognized him to be the Christ is quite evident. Yet when he was imprisoned he
sends his disciples to Jesus, asking him: "Art thou he who is to come, or should
we anticipate another one?" (Matt. xi. 3, etc.). The Baptist was martyred in the
prison because he reprimanded an infidel Edomite, King Herod the Tetrarch, for
having married the wife of his own brother. Thus ends, according to the
narrative of the Evangelists, the life of a very chaste and holy prophet.

It is strange that the Jews did not receive John as a prophet. It is also
stranger still to find that the Gospel of Barnabas does not mention the Baptist;
and what is more, it puts the words said to have been uttered by John concern-
ing Christ into the mouth of the latter about Muhammad, the Prophet of Allah.
The Qur’an mentions the miraculous birth of John under the name of "Yahya," but
does not refer to his mission of baptism.

The description of his sermon is given in the third chapter of Matthew. He
seems to have announced the approach of the Kingdom of Heaven and the advent of
a Great Messenger and Prophet of God who would baptize the believers, not with
water, "but with fire and with the holy spirit."

Now, if John the Baptist were the Messenger appointed by God to prepare the
way before Jesus Christ, and if he was his herald and subordinate, there is no
sense and wisdom whatever in John to go about baptizing the crowds in the waters
of a river or a pond and to occupy himself with half a dozen disciples. He ought
to have immediately followed and adhered to Jesus when he had seen and known
him! He did nothing of the kind! Of course, a Muslim always speaks of a prophet
with utmost respect and reverence, and I am not expected to comment further, as
an Ernest Renan or an indifferent critic would do! But to say that a prophet
whom they describe as a dervish (Sufi) of the wilderness clad in the skins of
animals, and a dervish who comes forth and sees his "Adon" and the "Angel of the
Covenant," and then does not follow and cleave to him, is ridiculous and
incredible. To think and believe that a prophet is sent by God to pre- pare the
way, to purify and clear the religion for the coming of his superior, and then
describing him as living all his life in the desert among the animals, is to
tell us that he was constructing chaussees, causeways or railways, not for men,
but for beasts and genii.

3. Nor was John the Baptist the Prophet Elijah or Elias, as Christ is made to
have said. The Prophet Malakhi, in his fourth chapter (verses 5, 6), speaks of
the coming of Elijah, which fact is foretold to take place some time before the
day of the Resurrection and not before the Appearance of the Messenger in
question. Even if Christ had said that John was Elijah, the people did not know
him. What Jesus meant to say was that the two were similar in their ascetical
life, their zeal for God, their courage in scolding and admonishing the kings
and the hypocrite leaders of the religion.

I cannot go on discussing this untenable claim of the Churches concerning
John being the Messenger "to prepare the way." But I must add that this Baptist
did not abrogate one iota of the Law of Moses, nor add to it a tittle. And as to
baptism, it is the old Jewish ma’muditha or ablution. Washing or ablution could
not be considered a "religion" or "way" whose place has been taken by the famous
and my- sterious Church institution of the sacrament of Baptism!

4. If I say that Jesus Christ is not intended in the prophecy of Malakhi, it
would seem that I was advancing an argumentum in absurdum, because nobody will
contradict or make an objection to my statement. The Churches have al- ways
believed that the "Messenger of the way" is John the Baptist, and not Jesus. The
Jews, however, accept neither of the two. But as the person foretold in the
prophecy is one and the same, and not two, I most conscientiously declare that
Prophet Jesus is not, and could not be, that person. If Jesus was a god, as he
is now believed to be, then he could not be employed to prepare the way before
the face of Yahweh Sabaoth! If Prophet Jesus were the Yahweh Sabaoth who made
this prophecy, then who was the other Yehweh Sabaoth before whose face the way
was to be prepared? If he were a simple man, made of flesh and blood, and
worshiper of the Lord of Hosts, then the claim falls to the ground. For Jesus as
a simple human being and prophet could not be the founder of the trinitarian
Churches. Whichever form of the Christian religion we may take, whether it be
the Orthodox, Catholic, Protestant, Salvationist, Quaker, or any of the
multitudinous sects and communities, none of them can be the "way," the
"religion" indicated by Malakhi; and Prophet Jesus is not its founder or
preparer. So long as we deny the absolute Oneness of God, we are in error, and
Jesus cannot be our friend nor can he help us.

5. The person indicated in the prophecy has three qualifications, namely, the
Messenger of Religion, the Lord Commander, and the Messenger of the Convent. He
is also described and distinguished by three conditions, namely "he is suddenly
coming to his Mosque or Temple, he is looked for and sought by men, and is
greatly desired and coveted."

Who can, then, be this glorious man, this Great Bene- factor of humanity, and
this valiant Commander who rendered noble services in the cause of Allah and His
religion other than Prophet Muhammad? – upon whom may rest God’s peace and
blessing.

He brought to the world an unrivalled Sacred Book, Al-Qur’an, a most
reasonable, simple, and beneficial religion of Islam, and has been the means of
guidance and conversion of millions and millions of the heathen nations in all
parts of the globe, and has transformed them all into one universal and united
Brotherhood, which constitutes the true and formal "Kingdom of Allah" upon the
earth announced by Prophets Jesus and John the Baptist. It is futile and
childish to com- pare either Jesus or John with the great Messenger of Allah,
when we know perfectly well that neither of these two did ever attempt to
convert a single pagan nor succeeded in persuading the Jews to recognize his
mission.