Warfare, Violence and Belief

In spite of the reservations expressed by a number of Christian thinkers, the view that warfare - however regrettable - in a just cause was acceptable became widespread, partly, of course, because from a pragmatic standpoint the Roman state, whatever faith it professed, had to defend its territorial integrity against aggression.

So some rationalisation of the need to fight was inevitable. Eusebius of Caesarea, the Christian apologist for Constantine I whose intellectual influence in this respect played a key role in the compromise between pagan and Christian attitudes to the empire, the emperor, and the imperial cult, expressed a view that can indeed be understood to represent warfare with the aim of promoting the new imperial faith as a type of holy war. The symbol of the cross appeared both in imperial propaganda and, more significantly, among the insignia of the imperial armies. The Christian labarum and the chi-rho symbol - seen in a vision by Constantine himself before his victory over Galerius in 312 - was carried by the standard-bearers of the legions, as well as appearing on imperial coins and in association with images or busts of the emperors. Warfare waged against the enemies of the empire was now warfare to defend or extend the religion favoured by the emperor and, from the time of Theodosius I, the official religion of the state as such. Enemies of the empire could be portrayed as enemies of Christianity, against whom warfare was entirely justified, indeed necessary if the True Faith were to fulfil the destiny inhering in divine providence. To a degree, therefore, warfare of the Christian Roman empire against its enemies and those who threatened it, and therefore God's empire on earth, was holy war. That this was a paradox within Christian attitudes to warfare is clear; but pragmatic considerations made a solution essential.^{^[972]} ^{^[973]}

Throughout its history and the many wars it had to fight - given the strategic and geopolitical situation it occupied - religious motifs played a key role in the ideological struggles waged by the empire.

This religious element was especially the case when the rulers of neighbouring hostile peoples or states actively persecuted the Christian communities within their territories, and the wars with the Persians were frequently presented both to the soldiers of the Roman armies and to the wider populace in the light of a struggle between Christianity and the forces of evil.1³

Awareness of difference in religion as at least one element among many in the accounts of war between the Christian Roman state and its enemies is hardly surprising, of course, and that is not an issue here. Throughout the seventh century Byzantine theologians as well as writers of miracle collections and lives raise the issue of Jewish or heretical hostility to orthodoxy; religious debate and theological argument became, indeed, the language through which politics and theories of power and authority were expressed. This is a development that can be seen increasingly from the later sixth century, but was given huge impetus after the defeats suffered by the Romans at the hands of Islam and the Arabs in the 630s and 640s. Yet the wars which were fought against the Persians by the emperor Heraclius, culminating in the complete defeat of the Sassanid forces in 626-7, had an ideological quality which, as has several times been pointed out, differentiates them from earlier conflicts. One of the hallmarks of the contemporary and later accounts of these wars is the pre-eminence of the cross as a symbol of imperial victory, and of the strongly religious element in imperial propaganda: this was a war fought by Christians under the victorious sign of the cross, with the aid of the Theotokos, the mother of God, against pagans who had impugned the integrity not only of the Roman empire, protected by God, but of the True Cross, the symbol of the faith itself.

As the East Roman empire became increasingly threatened and beleaguered during the second half of the seventh century and afterwards, so its religious identity came ever more to the fore; and logically enough, its struggle for survival took the form of a struggle between good and evil, between Christianity and its enemies.

This affected internal politics and social attitudes as much as it affected attitudes to warfare, of course. But it meant that, in one sense, all wars were now holy wars, for the very survival of the God-protected realm of the Chosen People was under threat.^{^[974]} ^{^[975]}

A passage from the introduction to the Ecloga of the emperors Leo III and Constantine V, an abridged codification of law issued in 741, admirably sums up the key elements in the East Roman attitude to warfare: undesirable, but at the same time justified in order to maintain order and achieve peace:

Since God has put in our hands the imperial authority... we believe that there is nothing higher or greater that we can do than to govern in judgement and justice... and that thus we may be crowned by His almighty hand with victory over our enemies (which is a thing more precious and honourable than the diadem which we wear) and thus there may be peace.1⁵

Yet the evidence for eastern Roman or Byzantine attitudes to warfare and fighting contains a number of ambiguities and paradoxes, ambiguities that have existed throughout the history of cultures dominated by Christianity. Some of these societies have developed a reputation for being more warlike or more peace-loving than others, however, both in the eyes of their contemporaries and in those of the modern commentator. Western medieval society gave the former impression to others when it was involved in warlike confrontation with them (as during the crusading period, for example), and Byzantium is placed usually in the second category.

It is precisely because the Byzantine, or East Roman, self-image was one of a beleaguered Christian state, fighting the forces of darkness, that this was the case. Against its foes it had constantly to be on its guard, and to evolve a whole panoply of defensive techniques, among which warfare was only one element, and by no means necessarily the most useful.

In the middle of the tenth century the Italian diplomat Liudprand of Cremona saw the position of the empire accurately enough when he described it as being surrounded by the fiercest of barbarians - Hungarians, Pechenegs, Khazars, Rus and so forth. For him, this was a truly frightening situation, quite unlike anything faced by the Lombard princes or the papacy in Italy.^{^[976]}

Symbols of the faith, reflecting this awareness of difference (and also a felt superiority) were ever present in Byzantine military contexts, while the association of the faith with the struggle against the outsider was constantly reinforced also in day-to-day religious observance. At one level, that of public petitions for peace or success in war as enunciated in the orthodox liturgy, this had a formal, almost ritualistic quality which may have impacted only superficially on the awareness of most listeners. But at another level - that of occasional sermons or homilies praising imperial victories, warning of the dangers of barbarian attack; or that of the cult of saints, especially the various military saints whose exploits in saving soldiers and armies as well as ordinary people from enemies, or intervening to bring about Christian victories - the association must have been very apparent.^{^[977]} While it hardly encouraged a simple pacifism among the mass of the population, neither was warfare in the name of the orthodox faith a particularly exceptional state of affairs. Indeed, the church and the emperors actively employed religious symbols as palladia in the wars with enemies of the state: quite apart from the sacred images carried with armies or placed as protective devices on the walls or gates of cities, emperors endowed their armies with ceremonial crosses richly adorned with precious stones. These were important enough to act as both standards and talismans for the Byzantine soldiers, and as worthwhile objects for capture by their opponents: the capture of richly decorated crosses of gold and silver is frequently mentioned in Arab historical accounts of campaigns against the Rum, the Byzantines, just as their recovery is praised in Byzantine texts. The general, later the emperor Nikephoros II Phokas (963-9) recaptured a number of crosses during his campaigns in Syria, and they are mentioned specifically as ‘military crosses'.

Relics of saints or other figures in the Christian symbolic world were similarly deployed: in the ninth to twelfth centuries, for example, and almost certainly beforehand, emperors on campaign took along with them as a talisman an elaborate cross, including at its centre reliquaries containing a number of relics of saints and other sacred items, including a part of the Virgin's girdle and a residue of her milk. Special imperial crosses, richly bejewelled and decorated, were kept in the precincts of the palace for ceremonial processions. They also accompanied the emperors when they went on campaign. This tradition, legitimating warfare directed against those who threatened the Christian Roman state, is expressed in many contexts, not least the Byzantine war cry ‘The Cross has conquered.'^{^[978]}

In non-military contexts, too, imperial and other donations to monasteries made reference to the military role of the emperor, divine support for the empire's military enterprise, and prayers spoken for the success of the armies,^{^[979]} while throughout the military handbooks the authors refer constantly to the help given to the Romans by God, under whose protection (and that of the Virgin) the soldiers fight. In every aspect of public and private life, what Byzantines did was explained in terms of divine providence, and justified by recourse to God's will and design. In military contexts, this becomes especially apparent on the occasion of imperial triumphs, staged entries into the capital city involving the whole senior bureaucracy and court, the clergy of several churches, set acclamations orchestrated by imperial officials at key points along the processional route, frequent stops for prayer at churches along the route, distribution of largesse, display of prisoners and booty, and the close association of Christian spiritual with secular concerns. The connection between warfare and Christianity, the struggle for survival of the Chosen People, led by the emperor chosen by God, at the head of his armies (frequently also described as theophylaktoi - protected by God) was quite explicit.

All warfare was, in this sense, about Christianity and the Christian empire. To isolate a particular war or type of war as ‘holy' was unnecessary, and would in fact have seemed absurd. This is reinforced by the fact that a desire for peace, and a regret that war should be necessary, were constant motifs in imperial and church ideology.^{^[980]}

Liturgies for the troops were often held before battle; supplicatory prayer before and prayers of thanksgiving after battle were recommended; priests accompanied the army, at least on major expeditions, and played an important role in maintaining the soldiers' morale; and whether the enemy was pagan or Christian (for example, the Bulgars), these tokens of Byzantine orthodoxy and God's support against those who threatened the Chosen People were regularly employed. When the soldiers went into battle, they were instructed to remain as silent as possible until the command was given to shout the battle-cry. But they should also cry out, in unison, on leaving camp, either ‘nobiscum deus' (God is with us) or ‘Kyrie eleison' (Lord have mercy), and invoke Christ as the Lord of battles, before advancing in formation upon the enemy.^{^[981]}

These values are constants throughout the existence of the empire. In the thirteenth century the courtier Nikephoros Blemmydes composed a short treatise belonging to the genre generally known as Mirror of Princes, a book of advice but also in praise of the emperor of the day, a genre which reached back into Roman times. In this, Blemmydes, writing for Theodore II Laskaris (1254-8), the son of the emperor John III Vatatzes (1222-54), offers advice on, amongst other aspects of the imperial office, military discipline and training, strategy and tactics. He stresses the need for ruthless action in dealing with enemies (the empire at the time was engaged in conflicts with the Seljuq Turks in Asia Minor, the Latin empire and princes who had partitioned the Byzantine empire after the Fourth Crusade in 1203-4, and the Bulgars), and warfare is clearly taken for granted as a normal activity for an emperor. Yet, at the same time, fighting and the need to wage war are understood as regrettable, something forced upon an emperor by the circumstances in which his beleaguered state finds itself.^{^[982]}

Similarly, the writer Theognostos, writing in the first half of the thirteenth century, penned a Mirror of Princes in which military activity is a taken-for- granted part of a ruler's life, and in which warfare to defend the empire of the Romans, the orthodox empire of the Chosen People, was a day-to-day matter. When victories are achieved, God should be thanked; when defeats are suffered, these are to be accepted as God's punishment for the sins of the Romans. Warfare was, on this account, by definition a religious matter; but it was a regular, everyday affair, unexceptionable in this respect. Whatever the achievements of individual emperors or the Christian Roman people as a whole, therefore, there was no reason in this context to treat warfare against the enemies of the empire as a special event. All fighting was for orthodoxy and the empire; all warfare was, thus, holy war; and while it was to be regretted, and avoided wherever possible, it was also part of daily life for the empire and many of its inhabitants. Crucially, and in contrast to the West, fighting and warfare were ultimately the responsibility of the emperor, appointed by God to lead the faithful in defence of the Chosen People. Such views were particularly clearly enshrined in the preambles to imperial grants of revenue to soldiers in the twelfth century and after, texts that neatly sum up these values:

But we must welcome with the best we can the soldiers and warriors who show courage against blood-thirsty barbarians, since they give up body and soul for the people called after Christ, and expose themselves to the greatest of dangers.²³

Official secular as well as religious belief accepted warfare as endemic, unavoidable, but nevertheless a bad thing. The opening statement of the emperor Leo VI, ‘the Wise' (886-912), in the preface to his treatise on military tactics and strategy, provides an excellent example of this attitude. In Leo's view, humans are essentially peaceful by nature, valuing their own security and embracing peace as the best means of maintaining a tranquil life. But the devil, by tempting people to sin, causes conflict and violence, stimulating men to wage war in spite of themselves and contrary to their own real interests and desires. The orthodox Christian empire was - as the earthly version of the kingdom of heaven - quite justified in fighting to defend itself

in Sermons and Letters of the 10th and 11th Centuries. An Ideological Approach', in K. Tsiknakes (ed.), Byzantium at War (Athens: Idryma Goulandre-Chorn, 1997), pp. 213-38.

23 See R. Browning, Notes on Byzantine Prooimia, Wiener byzantinistische Studie 1: Supplement (Vienna: Austrian Academy, 1966), p. 23 (i); cf. also p. 29 (o). Cf. H. Hunger, Prooimion: Elemente der byzantinischen Kaiseridee in den Arengen er Urkunden, Wienerbyzantinistische Studien 1 (Vienna: AustrianAcademy, 1964), pp. 243-4 (no. 19). against external aggression. Defensive warfare was, in this view, God's struggle, and was perfectly acceptable. And even though the interpretation of ‘defensive' could vary, so that warfare to recover formerly imperial lands might also thus be justified, yet Leo insists that aggressive warfare and the needless shedding of the blood of even barbarians should be condemned. The ambiguity was explicit even in the words of a Father of the Church: for while condemning murder, the fourth-century Athanasius of Alexandria emphasised that killing one's enemies in battle was both just and praiseworthy, bringing honour on those who thus distinguished themselves.^{^[983]}

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Source: Gordon Matthew, Kaeuper Richard, Zurndorfer Harriet (eds.). The Cambridge World History of Violence. Volume 2: AD 500-AD 1500. Cambridge University Press,2020. — 696 p.. 2020

Warfare, Violence and Belief

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