A Review of Peter the Venerable's Writings Against the Saracens

This is a must read for any Christian interested in the Middle Ages. The edition I used for this book is volume 16 of The Fathers of the Church: Medieval Continuation series.  The volume includes several books and letters written by an abbot of Cluny.
Often hailed as a saint, Peter the Venerable has never been officially canonized. At about thirty years of age, Peter became an abbot of his own monastery.  Peter the Venerable was an abbot that became one of the first scholars in the west to be strongly familiar with the teachings of Islam. According to The Encyclopedia of Britannica, Peter the Venerable attempted to turn The Crusades movement into an effort of evangelizing the Muslims. He was a lover of peace. He translated the Koran into Latin so that missionaries would known more about the religion they were facing. Peter wrote these books to the Muslims, saying he did so out of love for them. He contrasts those that fight the Muslims with arms to his use of words and reason that he uses instead against Islam. He writes the Muslims to correct them of their ways. This French abbot, would actually pave the way for serious western scholar understandings of Islam. He had an Encyclopedia like knowledge of Islam. His Latin translation of the Koran was used by Benedictine preachers of the Crusades. He spent much time with Islamic scholars in Spain {so much for the alleged accusation that Medieval Christians were ignorant of Islam.} Peter actually called Mohammed Satan. A friend of Bernard of Clairvaux, Peter supported and praised The Knights Templar in their conflict with the Saracens, as well as that of King Louis VII, whom did fight in the Second Crusade against the Saracens, despite the fact that Peter never preached or was involved in a Crusade himself. Lest one interpret Peter the Venerable's work as being anti-Crusade, they have misunderstood the abbot. The abbot actually supported The Crusades, often praying for the Crusaders to succeed.
 Peter writes the Muslims out of love. This abbot had a great love for both the Muslims and the Jews. He disagrees with Christians that teach only heretics should be addressed. He cites Augustine as support for his position as Augustine wrote not simply against the errors of heretics but also Jews and Pagans, and addresses the fact that even pagans should be addressed.   He actually sees Islam as the greatest of all errors. He urges Christians to take action against the Mohammedan sect.  It has been said that this abbot was more aware of the teachings of the Holy Scriptures, which he uses all the ways through these works, than he was of the church fathers.
 To Peter, one cannot except parts of the Scriptures without accepting all of it. To Peter, for the Muslims to be consistent, they must embrace either Judaism or Christianity.
 According to Professor M. D. Knowles, professor of Modern History at Cambridge University,  Peter the Venerable is mostly only known among medievalists.
 Many Medieval church leaders were formerly monks including Popes Gregory VII and Urban II. These church leaders and others brought many monastic practices to the church as a whole.
 Logical reasoning follows Peter's own reasoning: If the Koran is true, the Bible must be true, but because the Bible is true, the Koran cannot be true. He teaches also that if the Scriptures lie, as the Muslims say they do in part, then they must be false, as would be the Koran which would be taking truths from lies. He points out a constant contradiction in Islam which is that the Islamic texts take partly from texts that are not inerrant according to Muslims, to form a new text that is. 
 Peter of Poiters, a student of Peter the Venerable, understood the Koran in 2:23 to teach men having the right to commit sodomy with women.
 The Muslims claim that Jews and Christians corrupted the texts just simply does not add up. The Koran makes notorious claims that do not add up with historical evidence such as its claim that Christ was not crucified despite historians and non-Christians Josephus and Tacitus saying that Jesus was crucified.  Even outside of the gospels, there is evidence that Christ was crucified from secular historians of the time. Were all these documents corrupted too? If the Muslim replies yes, then their whole religion is nonsense-which it is of course.
Peter constantly brings up Biblical prophecies one by one that came true after the texts were written while no such prophecies came true from the the text of the Koran. To Peter, the Koran was also written by Mohammed rather than divine revelation from God. His works discuss Islamic theology of Christ. According to him, Mohammed took both from heretical Christians, such as the Nestorians, as well as the Jews, to form a new religion. Peter goes into detail in why he believes Islam was merely formed to be a religion of power.
 Perhaps one of the strongest points Peter the Venerable has against Islam is its lack of historical text before Mohammed. Peter claims the Islamist have claimed the former Scriptures {being the Bible}, have been corrupted. Peter points out there lack of historical evidence for this.  The Islamic claim that the Jewish and Christian Scriptures have been corrupted, also doesn't add up. There has never been historical evidence that the Bible was corrupted, and there has never been historical evidence of any manuscripts of the Bible before Mohammed that align with his teachings. It seems strange to Peter, that if the Koran were true, that despite all the Bible manuscripts in existence by Jews and Christians, that none of them are known to exist, which would mean every single supposed Scriptural text supporting the Koran was corrupted.  Again, no evidence for the supposed corruption of the Scriptures other than Islam's self professed belief about it, which is no evidence actually at all.
 According to Islam, Gabriel the angel delivered God's message of the Koran to Mohammed during the season of Ramadan. It does make you think even more about professing Christians that celebrate this season with their Muslim friends.
 Peter the Venerable believed it was the church's right to stamp out heresy. Here too, this supports the Crusades for it shows that Islam was a heresy that the church could not be silent about while kings go to war. Peter felt that paganism was worse than heresy, though he considers Islam both, as Muslims unlike heretical Christians, receive no sacraments at all. This quite differs from many modern theologians now that consider Islam only to be heresy. Elsewhere, he writes that there are four sects in the world: Christians, Jews, Muslims, and Pagans. He also talks about in his writings, the Koran's claim that Christ ascended to the stars rather than Christ's Crucifixion and Resurrection.
 To me, the most interesting part of the book is on page 39, which shows that unlike articles from Catholic Answers, Taylor Marshall and Peter Kreeft, Peter does not believe Muslims worship the one true God.
''And since he had heard that God's prophets are great men, and saying that he is a prophet so as to pretend to be something good, he attempted to lead them partly away from idolatry, yet not to the true God but rather to his own false heresy; which he already begun to bring forth.''
 In the passage above, Peter mentions  the contrast between the true God of Christianity and the false god of Islam by merely his own mentioning of Mohammed not leading people to the true God. Of course, the many defenders of Vatican II, with its abominable heresies, will either take Peter's words out context or disavow them by placing him as a merely a monk rather than church teaching. I'm not here to convert such people, but to demonstrate the truth and accuracy  of what were always taught by the Holy Roman Catholic Faith.
 Check out the book and read it. You will learn a lot about a medieval understanding of Islam.

''The truth will set you free.'' John 8: 32


''All the ways of this world are as fickle and unstable as a sudden storm at sea.'' -Peter the Venerable