Note 13 — Chapter XXI · Antichrist.

The christians poorly requited this amicable theory of the mussulmans by very extensively identifying Mohammed as Antichrist, at one period. From that period came the English word mawmet (idol), and mummery (idolatry), both of which, probably, are derived from the name of the Arabian Prophet. Daniel’s ‘Little Horn’ betokens, according to Martin Luther, Mohammed. ‘But what are the Little Horn’s Eyes? The Little Horn’s Eyes,’ says he, ‘mean Mohammed’s Alkoran, or Law, wherewith he ruleth. In the which Law there is nought but sheer human reason (eitel menschliche Vernunft).’ ... ‘For his Law,’ he reiterates, ‘teaches nothing but that which human understanding and reason may well like.’ ... Wherefore ‘Christ will come upon him with fire and brimstone.’ When he wrote this—in his ‘army sermon’ against the Turks—in 1529, he had never seen a Koran. ‘Brother Richard’s’ (Predigerordens) Confutatio Alcoran, dated 1300, formed the exclusive basis of his argument. But in Lent of 1540, he relates, a Latin translation, though a very unsatisfactory one, fell into his hands, and once more he returned to Brother Richard, and did his Refutation into German, supplementing his version with brief but racy notes. This Brother Richard had, according to his own account, gone in quest of knowledge to ‘Babylon, that beautiful city of the Saracens,’ and at Babylon he had learnt Arabic and been inured in the evil ways of the Saracens. When he had safely returned to his native land he set about combating the same. And this is his exordium:—‘At the time of the Emperor Heraclius there arose a man, yea, a Devil, and a first-born child of Satan, ... who wallowed in ... and he was dealing in the Black Art, and his name it was Machumet.’ ... This work Luther made known to his countrymen by translating and commenting, prefacing, and rounding it off by an epilogue. True, his notes amount to little more but an occasional ‘Oh fie, for shame, you horrid Devil, you damned Mahomet,’ or ‘O Satan, Satan, you shall pay for that,’ or, ‘That’s it, Devils, Saracens, Turks, it’s all the same,’ or, ‘Here the Devil smells a rat,’ or briefly, ‘O Pfui Dich, Teufel!’ except when he modestly, with a query, suggests whether those Assassins, who, according to his text, are regularly educated to go out into the world in order to kill and slay all Worldly Powers, may not, perchance, be the Gypsies or the ‘Tattern’ (Tartars); or when he breaks down with a ‘Hic nescio quid dicat translator.’ His epilogue, however, is devoted to a special disquisition as to whether Mohammed or the Pope be worse. And in the twenty-second chapter of this disquisition he has arrived at the final conclusion that, after all, the Pope is worse, and that he, and not Mohammed, is the real ‘Endechrist.’ ‘Wohlen,’ he winds up, ‘God grant us his grace, and punish both the Pope and Mohammed, together with their devils. I have done my part as a true prophet and teacher. Those who won’t listen may leave it alone.’ In similar strains speaks the learned and gentle Melancthon. In an introductory epistle to a reprint of that same Latin Koran which displeased Luther so much, he finds fault with Mohammed, or rather, to use his own words, he thinks that ‘Mohammed is inspired by Satan,’ because he ‘does not explain what sin is,’ and further, since he ‘showeth not the reason of human misery.’ He agrees with Luther about the Little Horn: though in another treatise he is rather inclined to see in Mohammed both Gog and Magog. And ‘Mohammed’s sect,’ he says, ‘is altogether made up (conflata) of blasphemy, robbery, and shameful lusts.’ Nor does it matter in the least what the Koran is all about. ‘Even if there were anything less scurrilous in the book, it need not concern us any more than the portents of the Egyptians, who invoked snakes and cats.... Were it not that partly this Mohammedan pest, and partly the Pope’s idolatry, have long been leading us straight to wreck and ruin—may God have mercy upon some of us!’13