Again we say to them, Since you say that Christ is the Word of God and the Spirit, why do you abuse us with the Aetheriasts, since the word and the spirit are inseparable from him in whom they are by nature. Thus, if God has His word, then it is clear that it is also God; but if it is outside of God, then God, in your opinion, is dumb and soulless. Therefore, by avoiding God to have a partner, you have mutilated Him. For it would be better for you to say that He has a partner than to cut Him off, or to make Him like a stone or anything else from senseless objects. Thus you falsely call us etheriasts, but we call you those who cut off God.

They accuse us of being idolaters, because we worship the cross, which they abhor; And we will say to them, Why do you touch the stone that is in your Havathan and kiss it in greeting? Some of you say that Abraham copulated with Hagar on it; others say that here he tied a camel, intending to sacrifice Isaac. To this we answer: "The Scripture says that the mountain was wooded and with trees, from which Abraham chopped branches for a burnt offering, and put them under Isaac, and that he left the donkeys with his servants. Where did you get this nonsense?"

After all, there is no tree thicket, and donkeys do not walk. The Sarakins are ashamed, but they say that this is the stone of Abraham. But we will say to them, Let the rock of which you talk be the rock of Abraham. And so, if you greet him only because Abraham copulated with his wife on it, or because he tied a camel to it, are you not ashamed, but accuse us of worshipping the cross of Christ, by which the power of demons and the errors of the devil have been destroyed? What they call the stone is the head of Aphrodite, whom they worshipped, calling her Khabar. On this stone, to this day, the trace of a carved head is visible to those who look attentively.

This Mohammed, having composed, as has been said, many absurd fables, gave each of them a special name, for example: the scripture "On the Wife". In it, Mohammed establishes that you can openly take four wives and, if you can, thousands of concubines - as many as the hand can hold, in an inferior rank compared to four wives. But that it is possible to let go of whichever one you wish, and to take another, if you wish, this was established by Mohammed on the following occasion. Mohammed had a co-worker named Zid. He had a beautiful wife, whom Mohammed loved. And so, when they were sitting, Mohammed said: "God has commanded me to take your wife." He answered: "You are an apostle, do as God told you; Take my wife." Or rather, instead of what we have said above, Mohammed said to him: "God has commanded me that you should send away your wife." He let him go. After a few days, Mohammed says: "God commanded me to take it for myself." Then, having taken and committed adultery with her, he established this law: "Whoever will, let him put his wife away." If, having let her go, he turns to her again, then let another marry her, for it is impossible to take her back unless another marries her. If the brother has let her go, then his brother can marry her if he wishes. In the same work he prescribes the following: "Cultivate the land which God has given you, and cultivate it, and do such and such," so as not to say, as he did, all that is shameful.

There is also the scripture "On the Camel of God," about which it is said that there was a camel of God, who drank a whole river and could not pass between two mountains, because there was not enough space. So, says Mohammed, there were people in that place, and one day this people drank water, and the next day a camel drank water. After drinking water, the camel fed them, delivering milk instead of water. Those men, he says, rose up, because they were evil, and killed the camel, but she had a child, a little camel, who, they say, when the mother was killed, cried out to God, and God took her to Himself. We will say to them: where does this camel come from? They say that it is from God. We ask: did another camel copulate with her? They say: no. Where, we ask, did she give birth? For we see that your camel has no father or mother, and no pedigree. The evil that bore him suffered, but he who copulated with her does not appear, and the little camel is taken to heaven. Why then did not your prophet, to whom you say God spoke, find out about the camel where she grazed and who nursed her with milk? Or. Perhaps she herself, like a mother, fell into the hands of evil people and was killed, or she entered paradise as your forerunner. And from it will be for you the river of milk of which you speak. For you say that three rivers flow for you in paradise: of water, wine, and milk. If your forerunner, the camel, is outside of paradise, then it is clear that she has dried up from hunger and thirst, or others are using her milk, and in vain does your prophet babble that he conversed with God, for even the secret of the camel was not revealed to him. If he is in paradise, he drinks water again, and you suffer from lack of water among the pleasures of paradise. If you want wine from a flowing river, then, having drunk it unmixed due to the lack of water (for the camel has drunk everything), you become inflamed, become intoxicated and sleep, and feeling a heaviness in your head after sleep and a hangover from wine, you forget about the pleasures of paradise. How is it that your prophet did not take care that this should not happen to you in the paradise of pleasure? Why didn't he think about the camel, where was it now? But you did not ask him about this when he told you, as it were, in a dream, about the three rivers. But we proclaim to you openly that your wonderful camel entered the souls of donkeys before you, where you will also live like beasts. There is external darkness and endless punishment, roaring fire, a worm that never sleeps, and hellish demons.

Again, in the Scripture "On the Table" Mohammed says that Christ asked God for a table and it was given to him. God, he says, said to him, "I have given unto thee, and to those who are with thee, an incorruptible table."

In addition, he composes the scripture "On the Bull" and some other ridiculous nonsense, which, in view of their multitude, I think must be omitted. He decreed that the Saracens and their wives should be circumcised, and he commanded them not to observe the Sabbath and not to be baptized, one of the things permitted in the law to eat, and to abstain from the other; but he forbade drinking wine altogether.

Translated by A.I.Sagarda

III. An Accurate Exposition of the Orthodox Faith

Book One (Chapters 1–14)

Chapter I

That the Godhead is incomprehensible and that we should not search with excessive curiosity for what has not been handed down to us by the holy prophets, apostles and evangelists.

No one has seen God. The Only-begotten Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, is confessed (John 1:18). Thus, the Divinity is ineffable and incomprehensible; for no man knoweth the Father but the Son, nor the Son but the Father (Matt. 11:27). Likewise, the Holy Spirit knows the things of God, just as the human spirit knows what is in man (1 Corinthians 2:11). Except for the first and most blessed Being, no one has ever known God, except the one to whom He Himself revealed Him, not only from among men, but even from the all-worldly Powers, from the Cherubim and Seraphim themselves, I say.

However, God has not left us in complete ignorance; for the knowledge that God exists, He Himself planted in the nature of everyone. And the very creation of the world, its preservation and management, proclaim the greatness of the Godhead (Wis. 13:5). Moreover, God, first through the law and the prophets, then through His Only-begotten Son, our Lord and God and Saviour Jesus Christ, has communicated to us the knowledge of Himself that we can contain. Therefore, everything that the law and the prophets, apostles and evangelists handed down to us, we accept, know and revere [2]; and above that we experience nothing. For if God is good, then He is also the giver of all good, and has no part in envy or any other passion [3], for envy is not akin to the nature of God as impassible and the only good. And therefore He, as omniscient and provident for the good of everyone, revealed to us what we need to know, and what we cannot bear, He kept silent about it. In this we must be satisfied, abide in this, and not transgress the boundaries of the eternal (Proverbs 22:28) and the tradition of God.