THE POPE, THE BYZANTINE EMPEROR, AND ISLAM

A worldwide denunciation coupled with acts of murder and mayhem by Muslims followed Pope Benedict XVI’s "Regensburg Address" for his quotation of a sentence from a Dialogue with a Muslim Teacher (a Persian) written by a Byzantine Greek emperor — theologian Manuel II Paleologus (1350-1425). The emperor was quoted as stating:

"Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and here you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached."

The Pope went on to comment further that:

"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. 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…"

The decisive statement in this argument is this: "not to act in accordance with reason, is contrary to God's nature."

As the Pope later explained:

"This citation, unfortunately, lent itself to misinterpretation. For the attentive reader of my text, however, it is clear that in no way did I want to make my own the negative words spoken by the medieval emperor in this dialogue, and that their polemical content does not express my personal conviction. My intention was quite different: starting with what Manuel II subsequently said in a positive manner, with very beautiful words, about rationality that must guide us in the transmission of faith, I wanted to explain that it is not religion and violence but rather religion and reason that go together".
(general audience, September 20, 2006)

Pope Benedict XVI stated nothing more than what his Predecessor had often repeated:

"the use of religion to justify violence, terrorism, and religious persecution is a perversion of reason and a blasphemy against God."

It is this specific aspect of the Byzantine emperor's thought that the Pope's remarks were intended to reinforce. Interestingly, the all-too-brief excerpt quoted by the Pope was from the emperor's seventh dialogue with a Muslim teacher, the "Persian" Mouterizes ("a certain old man"). The emperor actually wrote 26 Dialogues containing his discussions with his Muslim teacher Mouterizes while in Ankara in the winter of 1391. As the Pope noted in his footnotes, they have been published in full in Greek and German by Karl Forstel "Manuel II Paleologus. Dialoge mit einem Muslim" (three volumes; Wurzburg-Altgenberge 1993-1996).

It is in his "Letters" that the Byzantine Emperor also revealed his sentiments concerning the results of his personal encounters with the bloody and barbaric history of Islamic military expansion, which continually threatened the center of the Byzantine Greek Empire, the Queen City of Constantinople. Writing in 1396 from northern Italy to one of the leading Byzantine converts to Catholicism, the famous unionist Demetrios Kydones (reconciled to the See of Peter in 1357 — see his remarkable Apologia for Union With Rome contained in my book Ending the Byzantine Greek Schism), the emperor (whom Kydones regarded as approximating the ideal of Plato's "philosopher-king"), lamented the victories won by the "impious" followers of Mohammed.

"I know full well and am convinced that there will certainly be a reckoning so that the impious [Muslims] will come to realize they are but men, so that every mouth will be stopped, and they too, as Paul says, will be answerable to God. If I may say so, [there is] a certain obligation, as it were, to refute the belief, or what is really the folly, of the unbelievers, and show the foolishness and falsehood of the teaching which Mohammed, the pupil and general of Satan, gave as a sign of error to his initiates and disciples. To them he guaranteed and foretold, inasmuch as he is actually regarded as a prophet by those abandoned ones, that they would always be fully victorious over Christians. "Indeed, by God's hidden judgment, this continually happens, and not only does it not bring them to give up their vain belief, even though they have, as the saying goes, nothing sound to offer by way of defending their cult against attack, but it also impels to blasphemy many men more unsound in their faith and unaware of the wealth of God's goodness, forbearance, and magnanimity.

You may observe that some of them willingly deny the light and let themselves be nailed down to darkness, and even quite unabashedly, alas, expose our cause to ridicule. For if that self-styled prophet should not be refuted, and God who keeps the bow taut should never let fly the arrow, and he who bears the sword of which Paul speaks should polish it without purpose, and the God-haters should continue to run their present victorious course until the time comes when, according to the same Apostle, their worth will be made known by fire, then they might be able to present some sort of defense at the judgment, although not altogether a very good one, by alleging that they did not regard their teacher as a liar, but thought he was helping them. "If this is the sort of thing they believe, they would not have come close to the truth in any way, but since this people, being uneducated barbarians, follow falsehood wearing the mask of truth — I believe this is true if you carry your thoughts all the way back to their forefather Ismael — their mouths would not be completely shut at the time of judgment, which is what those servants with whom the Lord will then speak must undergo.

"For a long time these people have been acting wantonly, blaspheming and mocking what is holy in an unbearable manner, and feasting on blood and massacres, and for this they have hardly received any punishment, let alone an appropriate one. If no one should ever punish them and in so doing refute that madman and anti-Christ, Mohammed, that imposter, not a prophet, then until the dawning of that day without an evening, which will bring an end to repentance and which will manifest what is hidden, those people will have, I imagine, the elements of an apology and a means of defending themselves in judgment, but no intelligent person would call it reasonable... "Not only would I strongly maintain what I have stated above, but I would be willing to stake salvation itself, which means everything to Christians, instead of anything else of value, that God will necessarily do as I have said because He is just and good. Whether He will do it sooner or later, He alone knows. For as the Savior says, it is not for us to know the times and seasons; our role is to pray that we may see this".
("The Letters of Manuel II Paleologus," translated and edited by George T. Dennis, 1977; pp. 82-84)

It may be noted here that the lay theologian and humanist Demetrios Kydones (1323-1398) served as Manuel II's literary and diplomatic mentor as well as an important official in the Imperial Court. Under the two previous emperors (John Cantacuzenos and John V Paleologus), Kydones had encouraged the union of the Churches and a Byzantine-Latin Alliance against the Ottoman Turks. He had not only introduced St. Thomas Aquinas into Byzantium by his translations of the Angelic Doctor's works but interestingly had also translated for the study of the Byzantines the most important anti-Islamic treatise of the medieval West, "The Refutation of the Koran" by the Dominican Ricoldo of Monte Croce (d. 1320).

The Emperor Manuel II was not unacquainted with this famous work. Like other Byzantine dissidents, the Emperor-theologian was not in the communion of the Catholic and Roman Church (he even wrote a theological treatise on the Holy Spirit against the Latins), but he was not a fanatic opponent of Church Union. He seems rather to have been an opportunist engaging in ecclesiastical negotiations to win military aid from the West but regarding the hard-core opposition of many of the clergy and laity as rendering the feasibility of Reunion hopeless.

Certainly, Pope Benedict XVI like his Predecessor Pope John Paul II adheres to the teaching of the Second Vatican Council:

"The Church has a high regard for the Muslims."

The positive aspects of Islamic belief are indeed noted in Nostra Aetate, n. 3, which also declares that:

"over the centuries many quarrels and dissensions have arisen between Christians and Muslims. The sacred council now pleads with all to forget the past and urges that a sincere effort be made to achieve mutual understanding; for the benefit of all men, let them together preserve and promote peace, liberty, social justice, and moral values."

It is understandable, therefore, why the Pope responded to his critics in the following manner:

"In quoting the text of the Emperor Manuel II, I intended solely to draw out the essential relationship between faith and reason. On this point I am in agreement with Manuel II, but without endorsing his polemic."

The emperor's polemic stemmed not only from his desire to defend Christian beliefs, but was a reaction to the terrorism, massacres, persecution, and enslavement of Christians he witnessed in his own time. Fortunately, there are Muslim voices that repudiate what has been termed, not without reason, Islamo-fascism. Magdi Allam, a leading Muslim commentator in Italy, is one of those voices:

"Why do not Muslims, especially, the so-called moderates, react with such strength and intensity [as the Pope's detractors] against the real and eternal desecrators of Islam, that is, the Islamic terrorists who kill other Muslims in the name of the same God, radical Muslims who legitimize the destruction of Israel and teach the faith of Islamic 'martyrdom'?

The Pope's words, while quoting the Byzantine Emperor Manuel II Paleologus, about the expansion of Islam through the sword, either at Mohammed's times inside the Arabian Peninsula and after his death outside it (with some exceptions), underline an undeniable historical truth. The Quran itself states it; furthermore, the forced conversion to Islam of the whole Byzantine Empire in the east and south of the Mediterranean, and the further expansion northward in Europe and eastward in Asia, demonstrates the point made by the Byzantine emperor. It is foolish to deny the truth, as it can only engender insane reactions…

The Pope is threatened because he has said things that every single honest and reasoning Muslim should accept: "the historical truth" (editorial in Corriere della Sera).

In conclusion, it is evident that the Pope has called upon Muslim religious and political leaders to reexamine the role of reason in Islamic theodicy and to repudiate the ideology of terrorism grounded in irrational religious hatred. He has clearly identified problems that are inside Islam itself.

 

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