part in forming the doctrine of Islam and in preparing the spiritual soil of Arabia for its reception has long been recognised. How much influence is to be attributed to the one, and how much to the other, is difficult to decide. For much is common to both, and we have to remember that there were many forms of Christianity intermediate between the orthodox Church of the seventh century and the Judaism out of which it sprang, and it was in the East, on the confines of Arabia, that we know these Judaistic forms of Christianity to have longest maintained themselves. Some things in the Qur'an and in Islam which appear specially Jewish, may really have come through nominally Christian channels. But even with that allowance there is no doubt about the large influence exercised by Judaism. There were Jews in Arabia long before Muhammad's time. In Medina they were numerous, and the fact that many of these Medinan Jews seem to have been proselytes rather than Jews by race, shows that Judaism as a religion had some attraction for the Arabs. For a trading community like Mecca—the birthplace of Muhammad and of his religion—the evidence of the presence of Jews is strangely scanty. But we know that for some time after the prophet and his followers emigrated to Medina, and even for some time before, he was in close and friendly relations with the Jews of that place.

It is therefore not with any desire to depreciate the influence of Judaism that I intend to devote myself mainly to the question of the relation between Christianity and Islam. The evidence

of its influence upon Muhammad is not quite so clear, but I hope to show that if its direct effect upon the prophet himself was perhaps not so great as that of Judaism, its effect in creating the atmosphere in which Islam took shape was probably of greater import. A consideration of the situation of Arabia in relation to Christianity will serve to show that the influence of that religion in preparing the spiritual soil of Arabia for the birth of the new religion and its reception was of very great importance.

Concerning the introduction of Christianity into Arabia very little is known with certainty. Arabians are said in the Book of Acts 1 to have been present in Jerusalem on the day of Pentecost, and to have heard the Apostles "proclaiming in their own language the mighty works of God". But that passage is too rhetorical to allow us to found much upon it. What was the nature of Paul's visit to Arabia 2 shortly after his conversion is also very uncertain, as is the length of time which he spent there. The three years which he mentions refers, not to the length of his stay in Arabia, but to the time which elapsed between his conversion and his going up to Jerusalem, including a period of activity in Damascus. Harnack thinks that the passage implies that he engaged in missionary work there; but I cannot see that that is a necessary inference. It seems much more likely that Paul, after the great change in his inner mind, withdrew to quiet and solitude for a time, to make clear to himself what the experience through which he had passed