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After Jesus the Messiah, peace be upon him, was raised to heaven, his companions differed concerning him, as Ibn ʿAbbās and other early authorities relate—and as we mentioned when discussing the verse, “So We strengthened those who believed against their enemy, and they became dominant” (Sūrat al-Ṣaff 14).

Ibn ʿAbbās and others said: One party declared, “Among us was the servant of Allah and His messenger, then he was lifted up to heaven.” Another said, “Among us was the son of Allah, and Allah raised him to Himself.” A third asserted, “Allah was among us, then He ascended to heaven.” The first statement is the truth; the other two are blatant disbelief, as in His words: “But the factions differed among themselves; so woe to those who disbelieved from the witnessing of a Momentous Day” (Sūrat Maryam 37).

They next disagreed over the transmission of the Gospels in four ways—addition, omission, distortion, and substitution. Three hundred years after the Messiah there occurred an immense catastrophe: the four patriarchs, together with all the bishops, priests, deacons, and monks, differed over Jesus in countless, unrestrained doctrines. They convened and brought their dispute before Constantine, the king who founded Constantinople—the First Council. The king sided with the largest faction that had agreed on one of those doctrines; they became known as the Melkites (“royalists”), and he refuted and banished the rest.

One group alone broke away—the followers of ʿAbd Allāh ibn Idiyūs—who maintained that Jesus is a servant of Allah and a messenger from among His messengers. They withdrew to deserts and wastelands, built hermitages, monasteries, and secluded cells, subsisted on scant provisions, and avoided contact with those other communities and sects.

The Melkites, meanwhile, erected enormous churches. They took existing Greek structures and re-oriented their sanctuaries toward the east, whereas they had formerly faced north, toward the constellation of Capricorn.