J. F. Campbell Collection > Koran: or, Alcoran of Mohammed

SECT. VIII. PRELIlIINARr DISCOURSE. 113
Ebn Ata. As to their chief and general tenets, 1. They entirely rejected
all eternal attributes of God, to avoid the distinction of persons ma.de by
tlie Christians ; saying that eternity Ls the proper or formal attribute of hia
essence ; that God knows by his essence, and not by his knowledge;^ and
the same they affirmed of liis other attributes ^ (though all the Motazalites
do not understand these words in one sense) ; and hence this sect were alsf»
named 3Ioattalites, from their divesting God of his attributes : * and they
went so far as to say, that to alEi'iu these attributes is the same thing its
to make more eternals than one, and that the unity of God is inconsis-
tent with such an opinion ; ^ and this was the true doctrine of Wasul
their master, who declared that whoever asserted an eternal attribute as-
serted there were two gods.' This point of speculation concerning the
divine attributes was not ripe at first, but was at length brought to ma-
turity by Wjisel's followers, after they had read the books of the philoso-
phers.^ 2. They believed the word of God to have been created in sub-
jecto (as the schoolmen term it), and to consist of letters and sound ; copies
thereof being written in books, to express or imitate the original. They
also went farther, and affii-med that whatever was created in subjecto is
also an accident, and liable to perish.^ They denied absolute predes-
tination, holding that God was not the author of evil, but of good only ;
and that man was a free agent : * which being properly the opinion of the
Kadarians, we defer what may be farther said thereof till we come to speak
of that sect. On account of this tenet and the first, the INIotazalites look
on themselves as the defenders of the unity and justice of God.* 4. They
held that if a professor of the true religion be guilty of a gi-ievous sin, and
die without repentance, he wiU be eternally damned, though his punish-
ment will be lighter than that of the infidels.® 5. They denied all vision
of God in paradise by the corporeal eye, and x'ejected aU comparisons or
similitudes applied to God.^
This sect are said to have been the first inventors of scholastic divinity,'
and are subdivided into several inferior sects, amounting, as some reckon,
to twenty, which mutually brand one another with infidelity ; ® the most
remarkable of them are : —
1. The Hodeilians, or followers of Hamdan Abu Hodeil, a Motazalite
doctor, who differed something from the common form of expression used
by this sect, saying that God knew by his knowledge, but that his know-
ledge was his essence ; and so of the other attributes : which opinion he
took from the philosophers, who affirm the essence of God to be simple
and without multiplicity, and that his attributes are not posterior or ac-
cessory to his essence, or subsisting therein, but are his essence itself:
and this the more orthodox take to be next kin to making distinctions
in the deity, which is the thing they so much abhor in the Christians.' As
to the Koran's being uncreated, he made some distinction ; holding the
word of God to be partly not in subjecto (and therefore uncreated), a»
when he spake the word Kun. L e. Fiat, at the creation, and partly in
<- ilaimonides teaches the same, not as the doctrine of the M(5tazalites, but his
own. Vide More Nov. lib. 1, c 57. ^ Al Shahrestani, apud Poc. Spec p. 214,
Abu'Ifarag p. 167. » Vide Poc. Spec. p. 224. » Sharh al xMawakef, and al Shah-
rest, apud Poc p. 216. Maimonides (in Proleg. ad Pirke Aboth, sect, viii.) asserts
the same tiling. i Vide Poc. ibid. » Al Shahrest. ib. p. 215. » Abu"lfarag. and
al Shahrest. ubi .sup. p. 217. S( c before, sect. iii. p. 48. * Vide Per. Spec. p. 240.
* Al Shahrest. and Sharh al iMawakef, apud Poc. ubi sup. p. 214. * Maracc. Prodr.
ad Kef. Alcor. part. iii. p. 74. " Idem, ib. ^ vide Poc. Spec. p. 213, and D'Herbel.
Art. Motazelah. » Auctor al Mawakef. apud Poc. ib. i Al Shahrestani, apud
i-jc. p. 215—217.
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