Friday, September 25, 2015

Niketas Byzantios explores Jihad


The Church as the source of Holy War
The Byzantine state differed from the Latin and Islamic worlds in its retention of a powerful administration that alone had responsibility for the military. The Byzantine Church had no authority to interfere in military matters and held those who transgressed this rule accountable through rigorously enforced canon law.[1] The separation of the sacred nature of the Church and the profane duty of the imperium to wage war had meant that no Byzantine Patriarchs had pursued military ends as the Popes had done.[2] Byzantine churchmen supported the military activities of the empire as envoys and by their presence at army encampments without ever taking part in combat. A prominent example of the role carried out by Byzantine churchmen is Patriarch Nicholas Mystikos (901-907, 912-925) by his letters of mediation with Symeon of Bulgaria (893-927). In these letters he appeals for peace between Bulgaria and Byzantium and reminds the Archbishop of Bulgaria that his obligation “beyond all else (was) to serve the cause of peace’.[3] The mixture of the two spheres of society was considered abhorrent in Byzantium as witnessed by the damning accounts of Latin clergy participation in the crusades vividly described by Anna Komnene.[4] 
The Byzantine understanding of violence
The main obstacle in attaching a religious meaning to Byzantine wars is that the Byzantines viewed war as a symptom of the fallen world a tragedy and always sinful[5]. As a consequence of its perception of violence the Byzantines never developed a concept of meritorious killing, on the contrary Constantine Porphyrigenitos ridicules jihad in his De Administrando Imperio categorizing the belief “he who slays an enemy or is slain by an enemy enters into paradise” as “nonsense”.[6] Constantine’s repulsion at the idea of meritorious killing is representative of the Byzantine perception of Jihad and violence for the entire span of Byzantine history. “If, then, it has been demonstrated that all murder, insofar as it is murder, is bad, it is evident that it is also not licit.”[7] Niketas Byzantios’s (9th Century) dialogue with an “Agarene” is a polemical yet typically Byzantine explanation of the nature of killing (here murder). The segment above is a response to his Muslim correspondent’s letter explaining the Islamic belief in both licit and illicit murder. The criterion for licit murder according to the Muslim correspondent is the will of God.[8] As discussed above Byzantines attributed the existence of violence to the fall and therefore the devil, to attribute any war or killing to the will of God would have seemed completely alien.


[1] We have decreed that those who have been enrolled in the clergy or have become monks sheall not join the army or obtain ant secular office, Let those who dare do this and will not repent..be anathama, Chalcedon 7 RP 2;232
[2] A clear statement defining the roles for the classes of people in Byzantine society is found in “Holy orders have been established for the worship of God..through whom all things came into being and are governed in the ways of goodness known to him alone. Legal institutions are established to bring about justice.. laws and judges have been established to pronounce judgement .. to aid people in living together in peace.” Dennis, George T., ed. Three Byzantine Military Treatises, (Washington, 1985). p.13.
[3] Nicholas I, Patriarch of Constantinople, Letters. Trs. R. J. H. Jenkins, L. G. Westerink, Washington: Dumbarton Oaks, 1973. p. 82.
[4] Comnena, Anna, The Alexiad, ed. E. R. A. Sewter.  (London 2009), p. 285. Regarding the battle between Marianos and a priest defending count Prebentzas “The Latin customs with regard to priests differ from ours. We are bidden by canon law and the reaching of the Gospel, “touch not, taste not, hanfle not- for thou art consecrate’. But your Latin barbarian will at the same time handle sacred objects, fasten a shield to his left arm and grasp a spear in his right. He will communicate the Body and Blood of the Deity and meanwhile gaze on bloodshed and become himself “a man of blood”. Thus the race is no less devoted to religion than to war”…. “It was as if he were officiating at a ceremony, celebrating as though war was a holy ritual.”

[6] Porphyrogenitus Constantine, De Administrando Imperio, Trans. R j. Jenkins (Washington 1985),p 79.
[7] Krausmüller, Dirk. “Killing at god's command: Niketas Byzantios' polemic against Islam and the Christian tradition of divinely sanctioned murder.” Al-Masaq: Journal of the Medieval Mediterranean, 16:1, (Carfax, 2004), p. 167
[8] Arberry, A J., ed. The Koran Interpreted. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1996.
p. 207 “Then, when the sacred months are drawn away, slay the idolaters wherever you find them, and take them, and confine them, and lie in wait for them at every place of ambush.”)

No comments:

Post a Comment