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342 THE DECLINE AND FALL promise of the Paraclete, or Holy Ghost, was prefigured in the name, and accomplished in the person, of Mahomet,^ the greatest and the last of the apostles of God. The Koran The Communication of ideas requires a similitude of thought and language ; the discourse of a philosopher would vibrate, without effect, on the ear of a peasant ; yet how minute is the distance of their understandings, if it be compared with the contact of an infinite and a finite mind, with the word of God expressed by the tongue or the pen of a mortal ? The inspira- tion of the Hebrew prophets, of the apostles and evangelists of Christ, might not be incompatible with the exercise of their reason and memory ; and the diversity of their genius is strongly marked in the style and composition of the books of the Old and New Testament. But Mahomet was contented with a character more humble, yet more sublime, of a simple editor : the sub- stance of the Koran,-'*' according to himself or his disciples, is uncreated and eternal, subsisting in the essence of the Deity, and inscribed with a pen of light on the table of his everlasting decrees. A paper copy in a volume of silk and gems was brought down to the lowest heaven by the angel Gabriel, who, under the Jewish oeconom}^, had indeed been dispatched on the most important errands ; and this trusty messenger successively re- vealed the chapters and verses to the Arabian prophet. Instead of a perpetual and perfect measure of the divine will, the fi-agments of the Koran were produced at the discretion of Mahomet ; each revelation is suited to the emergencies of his policy or passion ; and all contradiction is removed by the saving maxim that any text of scripture is abrogated or modified by any subsequent passage. The word of God and of the apostle was diligently recorded by his disciples on palm-leaves and the shoulder-bones of mutton ; and the pages, without order or connexion, were cast into a domestic chest, in the [First custody of one of his wives. Two years after the death of (oncanonical) edition ot the Koran] 95 Among the prophecies of the Old and New Testament, which are perverted by the fraud or ignorance of the Musulmans, they apply to the prophet the promise of the Paraclete, or Comforter, which had been already usurped by the Montanists and Manichaeans (Beausobre, Hist. Critique du ManichtSismc, torn. i. p. 263, &c.) ; and the easy change of letters, -irepKAvTo; for n-opiicAr/Tos, affords the etymology of the name of Mohammed (Maracci, tom. i. part i. p. 15-28). [See John xvi. 7.] 96 For the Koran, see d'Herbelot, p. 85-88 ; Maracci, tom i. in Vit. Moham- med, p. 32-45 ; Sale, Preliminary Discourse, p. 56-70. [Noldeke, Gesohichte des Qorans, i860 ; Weil, Einleitung in dem Koran, 1878 (ed. 2) ; Palmer's translation in " Sacred Books of the East " (1880) ; Roddwell's translation, and article in Hughes' dictionary of Islam.]