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His Holiness Pope Benedict XVI gave
a speech September 12 at the University of Regensburg in his
German homeland. He discussed "the question of God through
the use of reason" and the matter of getting "reason
and faith [to] work together in the right way." His basic
theme was that there has been a "synthesis with Hellenism
achieved in the early [Christian] church" and that this
relationship between Christianity and Greek philosophy and logic
has been a very good thing. He warned against those who believe
this synthesis is "not binding" upon new converts from
non-western traditions; this view, he declared, is "false."
The pontiff plainly intended to depict the Roman Catholic Church
as supportive of modernity and science in general, and both western
and tolerant.
The Pope opened his homily
by referring affectionately to his years teaching at the University
of Bonn (from 1959) during which the university was a "universe
of reason." He then segued into a description of some of
his recent reading.
"I was reminded of all
this recently when I readpart of the dialogue carried
on---perhaps in 1391 in the winter barracks near Ankara [in modern
Turkey]---by the erudite Byzantine Emperor Manuel II Paleologus
and an educated Persian on the subject of Christianity and Islam,
and the truth of both."
Thus he alluded to an encounter
between a Byzantine (Christian) emperor and a learned Persian
(that is to say, Iranian) Muslim a century after the last major
Crusade. (I'm wondering if there really was a Persian involved
in a dialogue with Manuel, or if the emperor simply composed
a dialogue to express his views.) The emperor, as cited by Benedict,
tells the Persian,
"Show me just what Muhammad
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."
BBC News reports that the Pope
said "I quote" twice, stressing that these weren't
his own words. You can find the
official text here.
The good Emperor Manuel regarded
Islam as irrational in its alleged effort to spread itself
by force. Manuel declared in response: "Not acting reasonably
is contrary to God's nature." "Acting reasonably,"
the pope pointedly explained in his talk, means to act "with
logos"-a term taken from Greek philosophy.
The Pope did not return to the issue of Islam, but rather devoted
his attention to the Church's (reason-filled) Hellenistic heritage.
He declared, interestingly, that the Septuagint (translation
of the Old Testament into Greek from the third to first centuries
BCE) is an "independent textual witness and distinct and
important step in the history of revelation." The broad
point, again, is that the rational Greek mind and the mind of
the Church are one, the pillars of the West.
Recall that the Greeks, aside
from shaping rational western thought, also shaped our ideas
about geography. The Greeks first divided "Europe"
from "Asia," and opined that Greeks were unique and
superior to the "Asiatics." The Greeks, declared the
Father of History, Herodotus, knew that they were "free,"
whereas the Asiatics (particularly the Persians) were prone to
enslavement by nature. This ideological construction derives
from a century of conflicts---the Greco-Persian Wars of the
fifth century---but it has been echoed by Orientalists for centuries.
Repeated by the Pope, for example, who while still Cardinal Ratzinger
told the French newspaper Le Figaro that Turkey should
not be admitted into the European Union "on the grounds
that it is a Muslim nation" which has "always represented
another continent during history, always in contrast with Europe."
In beginning his remarks citing
that exchange between a Byzantine Greek emperor and this "learned
Persian," the pontiff was perhaps conveying a not-so-subtle
political message. It may have been a response to the learned
letter from Iranian President Ahmadinejad to President Bush.
Ending his speech with two references to the need for a (truly
reasonable, nonviolent) "dialogue of cultures" Benedict
unmistakably alludes to former Iranian President Khatami's campaign
for a "dialogue of civilizations." This is the Pope's
rejoinder to that plea, presented as the response of the western
world (growing out of that remarkable Judeo-Christian Greco-Roman
synthesis), to today's Persia---the Islamic Republic of Iran.
Having read the speech I just
have a few questions of my own for the Vicar of Christ.
Did the Byzantine emperors
generally act according to "reason"---any more than
their Persian, Turkish, or Arab contemporaries?
Let's look at this Manuel II
character, whom the Pope calls "erudite." Crowned co-emperor
by his father, in 1373, he lost his throne to his bother, who
seized it in 1376. How'd he get it back? By calling for help
from the Muslim Turks! I suppose that was reasonable.
Back on the throne in 1379,
no doubt acting in accordance with logos, he paid tribute
to the Turkish Sultan and actually had to live as a vassal at
the Turkish court! But he rebelled in 1391, the very year that
while in the "barracks at Ankara" mentioned by the
Pope and preparing for war on the Turks, he wrote the above-quoted
remark about God's nature.
Then what happened? According
to the Encyclopedia Britannica: "A treaty in 1403
kept peace with the Turks until 1421, when Manuel's son and coemperor
John VIII meddled in Turkish affairs. After the Turks besieged
Constantinople (1422) and took southern Greece (1423), Manuel
signed a humiliating treaty and entered a monastery."
Maybe it hadn't been so reasonable
that time to meddle with those Muslims. Maybe the Pope could
have mentioned this in his speech.
Here in 1391 we have an emperor
in his war camp, provoking what was to be a disastrous war with
Muslims while eruditely disparaging their religion.I'd
like to ask the Pope:
Was there anything wrong
with that?
And:
And when did the Byzantine
Empire ever tolerate a "dialogue of cultures" or apply
"reason" to religious issues?
Seems to me that the Byzantine
emperors, including the Palaeologan line from the thirteenth
century, persecuted religious minorities, including Jews, Manichaeans
and dissident Christians, during centuries in which the Islamic
world showed relative tolerance. I've read the texts of anathemas
that virtually everyone in some parts of the Empire was
obliged to pronounce publicly in the sixth century: "I renounce
Mani, Buddha his teacher," etc. On pain of death, basically.
There was no division between church and state. Many Byzantine
Jews welcomed the initial Muslim Arab advances, providing relief
from Christian persecution.
One increasingly expects historical
distortion and hypocrisy in the speeches of Bush administration
officials. The effort to depict the Terror War as a war on "Islamofascism"
shows their desperation. They must be delighted to hear the pope
conflate Christianity, the west, and Reason explicitly while
implicitly linking Islam, violence, and irrational intolerance.
How sweet that His Holiness's erudition should elliptically reference
Iran, while the Bush administration prepares to attack
it!
* *
* * *
Breaking new ground for a Roman
pontiff, Benedict forayed into the field of Qur'an exegesis
in his talk, noting that the Muslim holy book states that "There
is no compulsion in religion" (Surah 2: 256). But he notes
that the "experts" say that this was composed early
on, when "Mohammed was powerless and still under threat."
He refers obliquely to "the instructions, composed laterconcerning
holy war" implying that these more accurately characterize
Islamic teaching. Is he not stating that the real Muslim
teachings are those advocating intolerance and violence, and
that Christian teachings pose a rational nonviolent alternative?
Such an interpretation, aligning the Vatican with the neocon
and other Islamophobic camps, could have serious religious and
political implications.
The Regensberg talk has provoked
an outcry, in Pakistan, Turkey, Lebanon and Egypt. By all reports
the Bishop of Rome is a very careful and deliberate man, who
has just appointed a specialist in the Islamic world to serve
as the Vatican's foreign minister. Much thought must have been
put into the carefully-worded talk. But what is Rome trying to
accomplish?
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