Taking
the Eagle on the Cross: Byzantine conceptions of Holy War
In
an addendum to his podcast, “Twelve Byzantine Rulers”, Lars
Brownworth discusses a conversation between an Islamic scholar and
Manuel II Palaiologos, third to last Byzantine Emperor in the early
15th
century. “Written down as “26 Dialogs with a Persian”, Manuel
II thoroughly attacks the idea of holy war as being in any way just
or useful” (Brownworth). This section of the dialogs was then
quoted by Pope Benedict the XVI in a speech at the University of
Rebensburg in 2006. (Benedict XVI):
“Show
me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find
things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the
sword the faith he preached.” The emperor, after having expressed
himself so forcefully, goes on to explain in detail the reasons why
spreading the faith through violence is something unreasonable.
Violence is incompatible with the nature of God and the nature of the
soul. "God", he says, "is not pleased by blood – and
not acting reasonably is contrary to God's nature. Faith is born of
the soul, not the body. Whoever would lead someone to faith needs the
ability to speak well and to reason properly, without violence and
threats... To convince a reasonable soul, one does not need a strong
arm, or weapons of any kind, or any other means of threatening a
person with death...”
Clearly Manuel II has a
particular conception of holy war here is a kind of “faith by the
sword”. He seems to regard it as affronting to God. What is at
stake is the question of whether the Emperor could support his
position or was he accusing the Muslims of similar things to what his
Empire had done? Geoffrey Regen argues that the Byzantines in fact
invented a form of Holy War similar to the later Crusades and Jihads.
(Regen v). How could Manuel II arrive at such a position as he held
in the dialogs if Holy War had traditional roots with Byzantium?
In
order to understand how Manuel II arrived at such an opinion, it is
necessary to understand the structure of the Byzantine Empire. As a
direct, eventually fully Greek speaking successor to the Eastern
Roman Empire, they identified as Romaioi or Romans throughout the
Empire's history (Miller 10). ). The use of religion in warfare was
by no means a new concept. The Battle of the Milvian Bridge made
famous by the painting of crosses on the shields of Constantine's
troops, was not some sudden conversion as often portrayed but a
continuation of the use of the symbol “Sol Invictus” invoked in
years previous by Constantine's father. (Regen 3, 12-14). Constantine
used the council of Nicea and the founding of Constantinople, as a
specifically Christian city, to enforce a point that he was the right
hand on Earth of the Almighty Christian God. (Regen 22-23).
By
the time of Manuel II, however, the Empire was a mere shell of its
former self, controlling only Eastern Thrace, Thessaloniki, and the
southern half of Morea (Encyclopedia Britannica). Regen argues that
this Crusade was not the first Crusade at all, but rather that we can
look back to Heraclius to find the origins of the idea of Crusade and
indeed the very idea of a “Holy War” (Regen v). Constantine may
have marched forth under the sign of the “Unconquerable Sun”, but
Heraclius was the first to use the language of holy war to define an
enemy and rally his people behind him (Regen 14).
“Men,
my brethren, let us keep in mind the fear of God and fight to avenge
the insult done to God. Let us stand bravely against the enemy who
have inflicted many terrible things on the Christians. Let us respect
the sovereign state of the Romans and oppose the enemy who is armed
with impiety. Let us be inspired with faith that defeats murder. Let
us be mindful of the fact that we are within the Persian land and
that flight carries a great danger. Let us avenge the rape of our
virgins and be afflicted in our hearts as we see the severed limbs of
our soldiers. The danger is not without recompense: nay, it leads to
eternal life. Let us stand bravely, and the Lord our God will assist
us and destroy the enemy” (Regen 81).
By
the early 7th
century CE, the Empire had reclaimed much of the lost territory in
the west. Weakened by the Emperor Phokas began purging the Byzantine
military of political opponents upon taking the throne in 602 CE.
(Regen 48-50). This was very poor timing as an angry Persian king was
bearing down on the Byzantine Empire as vengeance for Byzantine
intervention in the recent Persian Succession War. Combined with the
cruelty of Phokas toward the populace in Constantinople, allowed
Heraclius to effectively stage a coup and execute Phokas (Regen
54-55). Heraclius, fair haired and blue eyed, was received as the new
Constantine.The financial and military ruin brought by Phokas
resulted in the Avars and Slavs attacking the Balkans and the
Persians taking Egypt and Jerusalem including the relic of the True
Cross (Regen 68-69). This desperate situation set the stage for the
idea of Holy War to take root and grow into the saving grace of the
Empire.
Sergius,
the patriarch of Constaninople made the offer to sell church property
to fund a massive campaign to drive the Persians back. In addition,
the morale of the people would need to be regained in order to win
the war. Explicitly religious terms were employed, casting the
Persian King as Satan and Heraclius as David, the man chosen by God
to save the Empire (Regen 69-70). Byzantine armies had defended the
Empire as the Chosen Empire of God for centuries (Miller 10). This
was different; this was a war of annihilation, a fight to the very
end where there would be only one victor. The Persians had to be
destroyed.
Heraclius
having raised a massive army, goaded on by promises of Martyrdom,
struck deep into Persian territory. Whereas before the duty had been
to the Empire, now the soldiers were exhorted to fight as Christian
warriors, each one deserving of Paradise if he died (Regen 82).
Heraclius struck a deeply religious blow to the Persians when he
sacked and desecrated the Zoroastrian shrine at Takht-i Salaiman.
(Regen 81). Heraclius won that war, recovering the True Cross and
securing the Empire against further incursion by the Persians. This
was a Pyrrhic victory, as the Arabs under the banner of Islam then
stormed out of Arabia taking the Levant and North Africa under their
own form of holy war, Jihad. Regen suggests that Mohammed may well
have been influenced by the language and concepts that Heraclius used
to launch his holy war against Persia, but the evidence is scant and
sources few as to the exact nature of early Islamic jihad (Regen
254-255). The Empire survived, but the next few centuries were a
tenuous holding on. Furthermore, the Byzantines were highly religious
about the fate of the Empire. They felt that they existed by the
grace of God. A grace that an angry God could easily withdraw and
doom them all if they failed to live up to His standards (Nicol 4-6).
Heraclius
was also regarded as an example of knightly virtue in the West, the
one of the first of the so called “Paladins” (Regen vii). This
clearly demonstrates that at least some the qualities prized by Latin
crusaders to be Byzantine in origin. In Heraclius, we have a man who
went to war with an enemy on religious grounds as well as for
survival. For the Empire of God on Earth to survive, desperate
measures had to be taken.
Alexios
I beseeched the West for aid against the Turks in the 11th century,
thereby launching the formal “First Crusade”. Attempting to
recover from the defeat of the emperor Romanos Diogenes, Alexios I's
requested mercenaries some years later. However, Christian pilgrims
had begun to suffer from the breakdowns in Byzantine military
capacity even before Romanos’ defeat and thus the stage was set for
Rome to clear the way for pilgrims and to claim the mantle of
defender of Christianity (Regen 225-227). This was not helped by
Byzantine conduct during the First Crusade. The scale of the
intervention was totally unexpected and Alexios I tried at all costs
to preserve Byzantine authority against a vastly numerically superior
force via guile and trickery. This was seen as entirely dishonorable
by Western Crusaders.
Pope
Urban II had used the very same style of language used by Heraclius
to incite the Latin crusaders to action:
“O
what a disgrace if a race so despised as the Turks, so base and full
of demons, should overcome a people faithful to the All-powerful God,
and resplendent with the name of Christ! O what reproaches will be
charged against you by the Lord Himself if you do not help our fellow
Christians! Let those who delight in making private wars against the
Faithful turn their wrath against infidels, who should have been
driven back before now. Let robbers become soldiers of Christ. Let
them fight barbarians, not brothers. Let those who will fight and
kill for any low wage now labour instead for an eternal reward. Let
those dejected in mind and body offer themselves to the glory of
heaven. And if any who goes should lose his life, by land or sea, or
in fighting the pagans, his sins shall be remitted. This I will grant
by the power invested in me by God.” (Foss 38).
Here
again, we see personal appeals to a wildly disparate force, to each
that he should go and fight not for pay in gold or land but for pay
in the hereafter in the form of eternal Paradise. So, here we have a
good idea of what a specifically holy war should look like. It is a
war fought for religious reasons on grounds of defense of a divinely
chosen faith. It sets about demonizing its enemies as servants of
evil. It attracts forces that are often highly irregular but also
typically highly effective due to their willingness to die en masse
as the crusaders did in the siege of Jerusalem during the First
Crusade.
The
key difference between Byzantine conceptions of war and the Latin and
Muslim concepts was the idea of war as tragedy. War was something
that should be avoided if at all possible in the Byzantine mind.
Saint Basil had proscribed that a soldier should abstain from taking
communion while on active duty (Miller 11). Regen suggests that this
view was set when the Empire was not in peril in the 4th century, and
that Basil would have formulated it differently had he lived at the
time of Heraclius (Regen 191). The Empire had forfeited its moral
authority over Christianity by not joining fully in the Crusades and
had continually feuded with the Latin church ever since. The
Byzantine emperors and various claimants to the throne even sought
aid from the Turks at various points in internal conflicts. Manuel II
had spent time as a Turkish vassal (Dennis xiv – xv). Had the
Empire truly still been large, perhaps his attitudes would have fit a
more aggressive mold.
So,
Byzantine attitudes toward holy war seem to have changed with the
times, when the Empire needed saving, Heraclius roused the Empire to
heights of greatness. By the time of Manuel II, calling a Crusade
would have been a fruitless gesture with the Byzantine populace
convinced they had lost the protection of God and the Latin Church
viewing the Byzantines as mere heretics. Holy War can only be of use
when the populace feels that God is on their side. Without that
spiritual resource, Manuel II could be reasonably expected to defend
his faith and his empire in terms of peace rather than war.
Works Cited:
Brownworth,
Lars. “Manuel II: Faith and Reason” Twelve
Byzantine Rulers Lars
Brownworth 2007. MP3 File.
"Byzantine
Empire." Encyclopædia
Britannica. Encyclopædia Britannica Online.
Encyclopædia Britannica Inc., 2012. Web. 19 Mar. 2012.
Dennis,
George T., Timothy S Miller, and John W Nesbitt. Peace
and War in Byzantium: Essays in Honor of George T. Dennis, S.J.
Washington,
D.C.: Catholic University of America Press, 1995. Print.
Foss,
Michael. People
of the First Crusade.
1st U.S. ed. New York: Arcade Pub., 1997. Print.
Manuel
II Palaeologus, Emperor of the East, and George T Dennis. The
Letters of Manuel II Palaeologus: Text, Translation, and Notes.
Washington : Locust Valley, N.Y.: Dumbarton Oaks Center
for
Byzantine Studies, Trustees for Harvard University, 1977. Print.
"Meeting
with the Representatives of Science" The
Holy Father – Benedict XVI.
The Vatican Publishing House, 12 Sep 2006 Web. 19 Mar. 2012.
Nicol,
Donald MacGillivray. Church
and Society in the Last Centuries of Byzantium.
Cambridge [Eng.] ; New York: Cambridge University Press, 1979. Print.
Regan,
Geoffrey. First
Crusader: Byzantium's Holy Wars.
1st Palgrave Macmillan ed. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2003. Print.
