The effect of religion on the army

[Jim Webster]

It's interesting reading many modern American historians reinterpreting, for example, the experience of the Greeks in Afghanistan in the light of American experience.
The Victorians weren't the first to do this. We owe much of our view of the Roman army to Gibbon, who had the English belief in an army of honest yeomen (The legions of the Roman Republic and the English archers at Agincourt) with and Englishman's contempt for armies of mercenary hirelings (every other army in Europe but ours) and a strong dose of enlightenment anti-clericalism which saw the decline of Rome as at least partially caused by the shift from the enlightened view of the ancients and a drift to the  domination of a priest ridden and pacifist church

Jim

[Rob Miles]

... the decline of Rome as at least partially caused by the shift from the enlightened view of the ancients and a drift to the  domination of a priest ridden and pacifist church

Jim

And, of course, any Roman Catholic would be quick to point out that this priest-ridden and pacifist <hem hem> church had the greatest empire of them all covering all continents. Evolution of what is considered to be 'empire'. After all, the British empire will not die so long as English is the lingua franca and English codes of dress, manner, military institutions, commercial law, parliamentary convention and collective unconscious remains so widespread. I don't think the Roman 'empire' ever went away, it just evolved. The Byzantine empire may have lasted longer but its legacy has been considerably less outside of Russia and Greece and the once mighty land empire of the Mongols left virtually nothing. The secret to the success of an empire appears to be the longevity of the ideas and culture that become common within it, not how long it lasts, nor how much land it encompasses. Here endeth today's lesson.

[Jim Webster]

Here endeth today's lesson.

but some good points there :-)

[Justin Swanton]

It's interesting reading many modern American historians reinterpreting, for example, the experience of the Greeks in Afghanistan in the light of American experience.
The Victorians weren't the first to do this. We owe much of our view of the Roman army to Gibbon, who had the English belief in an army of honest yeomen (The legions of the Roman Republic and the English archers at Agincourt) with and Englishman's contempt for armies of mercenary hirelings (every other army in Europe but ours) and a strong dose of enlightenment anti-clericalism which saw the decline of Rome as at least partially caused by the shift from the enlightened view of the ancients and a drift to the  domination of a priest ridden and pacifist church

Jim

I wonder to what extent people still take Gibbon seriously. He was of course writing during the Enlightenment, when the philosophers of Reason were busy clearing away the dross of the Mediaeval era and preparing society for a Brave New World.

If a pacifist Church brought down the Western Empire one kind of wonders how the Eastern Empire survived another ten centuries. And what was Maurice's Theban legion all about? And St Sebastian....officer in the Praetorian Guard?

[Patrick Waterson]

If a pacifist Church brought down the Western Empire one kind of wonders how the Eastern Empire survived another ten centuries.

We might observe that most of it did not: Syria, Egypt and North Africa were lost in the 7th century - not least because Syria and Egypt contained majority populations of Nestorians and Jacobites who were at odds with the prevailing theology in Constantinople (the church was anything but pacifist when it came to matters of doctrine).  The residue of the empire based on Asia Minor, the Balkans and Italy was gradually whittled away with occasional limited revivals (Nikephorus Phocas, John Zimiskes, Basil Bulgaroktonos) until by 1452 only Constantinople, the Morea and Trebizond were left.

[Justin Swanton]

If a pacifist Church brought down the Western Empire one kind of wonders how the Eastern Empire survived another ten centuries.

We might observe that most of it did not: Syria, Egypt and North Africa were lost in the 7th century - not least because Syria and Egypt contained majority populations of Nestorians and Jacobites who were at odds with the prevailing theology in Constantinople (the church was anything but pacifist when it came to matters of doctrine).  The residue of the empire based on Asia Minor, the Balkans and Italy was gradually whittled away with occasional limited revivals (Nikephorus Phocas, John Zimiskes, Basil Bulgaroktonos) until by 1452 only Constantinople, the Morea and Trebizond were left.

Militant Islam proved a tough adversary for pretty much anyone, Christian or not. The Byzantines did a lot better than the Sassanians, who were completely overrun in the course of a few years. If you compare the Byzantine Empire to any other state in history it comes off  remarkably well, surviving ultimate conquest for a thousand years. No pagan empire managed anything like it.

All the major religions IMHO cater for the army to some extent, i.e. they incorporate in their belief system a reason for soldiers to fight. Christianity is no exception to this, as the efficiency and professionalism of the Byzantine army demonstrates. If an empire loses land or is completely overrrun it is due, again IMHO, to unforeseen circumstances: a new military system in the case of the Achaemenid Persians, a division at the highest levels of government for the Western Romans, or just a bad day for the army like Manzikert or Myriocephalum for the Byzantines.

[Jim Webster]

Of course you have to ask just how pacifist the church was in reality. Whilst we have the teachings of the church, we also have Bishops like Synesius of Cyrene asking the Emperor for more Huns and personally organising the defence of the province.

Even earlier, with the Diocletianic Persecution, this seems to have been kicked off because the master haruspex claimed he couldn't read the omens because of Christians making the sign of the cross. These Christians were senior officers in the Emperor's household and one of Diocletian's first acts was then to eject Christians from the army. Which seems to indicate that they had joined

Jim

[Patrick Waterson]

It is interesting to note that these 'active bishops' (Synesius of Cyrene and Sidonius Apollinaris) tend to be out-and-out Hellenists without a discernible shred of Christian belief.  Also that they are stepping into the gulf left by the division of responsibility into 'civil' and 'military' that has scrambled the efforts of many a western civilisation since.

There is certainly evidence that Christians were in the Roman army in Diocletian's time, although how many of these were serving soldiers who had converted as opposed to Christians from birth who had enlisted is not clear.  And tombstone inscriptions tend to skirt around this sort of thing.  Once we are well into the Byzantine Empire, yes, the soldiery are Christian, but that brings its own set of problems, of which an inability to fight well at Easter because God is (temporarily) dead is perhaps the least of the concerns.

Militant Islam proved a tough adversary for pretty much anyone, Christian or not. The Byzantines did a lot better than the Sassanians, who were completely overrun in the course of a few years.

The Byzantines were actually pretty much on the ropes by the late 7th century AD, with Constantinople twice under siege; conventional wisdom has it that they owed their deliverance to the timely invention and application of Greek Fire.  Thereafter, sad to say, the Empire probably owed its continued survival as much to Muslim internal division as to the capabilities of its armies and generals and its somewhat overdeveloped sense of diplomacy.

If you compare the Byzantine Empire to any other state in history it comes off  remarkably well, surviving ultimate conquest for a thousand years. No pagan empire managed anything like it.

One could make the same comment about the Holy Roman Empire.  Yet both seem to have a yawning gap in achievement and a grovelling lack of dignity compared to, say, the shorter but brighter stars of Egypt and Macedon: longevity seems to have been purchased at the price of senescence.

All the major religions IMHO cater for the army to some extent, i.e. they incorporate in their belief system a reason for soldiers to fight.

Not too sure this applies to Buddhism; if anything, there seems to have been a tradition that fighting and religion are kept strictly apart.  As for the Byzantine Empire, Gibbon notes (chapter 53) that Nicephorus Phocas, one of the more successful emperors, sought to "bestow the honours of martyrdom on the Christians who lost their lives in a holy war against the infidels."  He cites Zonaras and Cedrenus as mentioning that "the patriarch, the bishops and the principal senators ... strenuously urged the canons of St Basil, that all who were polluted by the bloody trade of soldier should be separated, during three years, from the communion of the faithful." (See his footnote 83 to the 53rd chapter.)  Something of a let-down for the soldiery of the Empire, methinks, returning home as ex officio excommunicants.

Christianity is no exception to this, as the efficiency and professionalism of the Byzantine army demonstrates.

Might I suggest this may be confusing the influence of religion with that of military doctrine and practice?  The Taktikon and Strategikon were not exactly Christian documents.  Gibbon (chapter 53) himself concludes:

"... the Greek superstition relaxed the mind by prayer, and emaciated the body by fasting; and the multitude of convents and festivals diverted many hands and many days from the temporal service of mankind."

Apart from the provision of the occasional sacred standard, this seems to have been the sum of its contribution to the Imperial war effort.

If an empire loses land or is completely overrrun it is due, again IMHO, to unforeseen circumstances: a new military system in the case of the Achaemenid Persians, a division at the highest levels of government for the Western Romans, or just a bad day for the army like Manzikert or Myriocephalum for the Byzantines.

Or a stronger opponent or poor leadership - or exceptional leadership on the other side.  True, most empires do not foresee their own collapse (the Roman may have been an exception, thinking of the Sibylline Books), but let us not underrate the value of a straight fight for determining who does what unto whom.  The Byzantines became famous for 1) their avoidance of straight fights and 2) their use of gold and other aspects of diplomacy to try and keep opponents busy and/or quiescent.  Byzantine conquests or reconquests tended to be short-lived affairs, not least because of domestic problems, many of which were religious in nature (iconoclasm, monothelitism or just application of the canons of St Basil) and some of which were admittedly just the usual selection of bad characters whose ambition also exceeded their ability.

I think if there is felt to be any mileage in this particular discussion we should continue it in a new thread devoted to the purpose.

[Jim Webster]

It is interesting to note that these 'active bishops' (Synesius of Cyrene and Sidonius Apollinaris) tend to be out-and-out Hellenists without a discernible shred of Christian belief.  Also that they are stepping into the gulf left by the division of responsibility into 'civil' and 'military' that has scrambled the efforts of many a western civilisation since.

There is certainly evidence that Christians were in the Roman army in Diocletian's time, although how many of these were serving soldiers who had converted as opposed to Christians from birth who had enlisted is not clear.  And tombstone inscriptions tend to skirt around this sort of thing.  Once we are well into the Byzantine Empire, yes, the soldiery are Christian, but that brings its own set of problems, of which an inability to fight well at Easter because God is (temporarily) dead is perhaps the least of the concerns.

I'm not sure where the inability to fight well at Easter comes from,  Battle of Callinicum took place on Easter Saturday, 19 April 531 AD
It pretty well destroyed both Byzantine and Sassanid armies 

I'd also question the comment that Synesius of Cyrene and Sidonius Apollinaris  were without discernable Christian belief

Take Sidonius's letter to the Lord Bishop Patiens*
A.D. 474

ONE man deems happiness to consist in one thing, a second in another; my own belief is that he lives most to his own advantage who lives for others, and does heaven's work on earth by pitying the poverty and misfortune of the faithful. You may wonder at what I aim in these remarks. At yourself, most blessed father, for my sentiments refer especially to you,  who are not content to succour only the distress which lies within your cognizance, but push your inquiries to the very frontiers of Gaul, and without respect of persons, consider each case of want upon its merits.  Does poverty or infirmity prevent a man from making his way to you in person? He loses nothing; your free hand anticipates the needs of those whose feet are unable to bring them to you. Your watchful eye ranges over other provinces than your own; the spreading tide of your benevolence bears consolation to the straitened, however far away. And so it happens that you often wipe tears from eyes which you have never seen, because the reserve of the absent touches you no less than the plaints of those near at hand. I say nothing of your daily labour to relieve the need of your impoverished fellow countrymen, of your unceasing vigils, your prayers, your charity. I pass over the tact with which you combine the hospitable and the ascetic virtues, so that the king is never tired of praising your breakfasts and the queen your fasts. I omit your embellishment of the church committed to your care until the spectator hardly knows which to admire most, the new fabric which you erect, or the old which you restore. I do not mention the churches that rise in so many districts under your auspices, or the rich additions to their ornaments. I dismiss the fact that under your administration the faithful are increased and multiplied, while heretics alone diminish. I shall not tell how your apostolic chase for souls involves the wild Photinians in the spiritual mesh of homily; or how barbarians once converted by your eloquence pursue your track until, like a thrice-fortunate fisher of men, you  draw them up at last out of the profound gulfs of error.

A beautiful mixture of Christian sentiment and Greek literary affectation 

With Synesius his letter Letter 67: Paul of Erythrum and Other Matters
To Theophilus
Where he discusses the problem over who actually should be appointed bishop over certain communities he tackles it in a matter little different from what you see in the west

As for whether the soldiers were men who had joined having been Christians from birth or had been converted it doesn't really matter. Generally I suspect that the Christian faith of most people of the period was no more likely to make them pacifists than it was in 1914.

Remember it was Augustine of Hippo (354 - 430 AD) who seems to have made the first written argument for the 'Just War' that has survived to us, and it's unlikely that his arguments were entirely original or unique to himself
Indeed he bases his arguments theologically on Romans 13:4 

4 For the one in authority is God's servant for your good. But if you do wrong, be afraid, for rulers do not bear the sword for no reason. They are God's servants, agents of wrath to bring punishment on the wrongdoer.

Jim

[Dangun]

Not too sure this applies to Buddhism;

Nor Jainism.

PS: Head spins, as to how we ended up here

[Jim Webster]

Not too sure this applies to Buddhism;

Nor Jainism.

PS: Head spins, as to how we ended up here

Actually a lot of Samurai were Zen Buddhists 

Jim

[Dangun]

The claim that any of the monotheisms are pacifist seems prima facie, pretty silly...
...even before we get to the problem of finding evidence that might relate religiosity to military effectiveness.

[Jim Webster]

I suspect that the indirect effects of religion can have a greater effect than the direct. We get examples of religions tying up wealth and manpower and denying them to the state.

But equally there are plenty of occasions where the State confiscated the assets of religious institutions to fund its own policies. Without even stopping to check, the names that come to mind are Henry VIII, Constantine, Antiochus III, Pompey the Great, and of course the Phocians.
So religious institutions could perhaps be regarded as a long term safe deposit scheme, which states can dip into only when things get desperate enough to mean they're willing to pay the price of bad PR etc.

Tying up manpower is perhaps a bigger issue, but is one you have to weigh against the use of this manpower in agriculture and in 'ground breaking' for new land, so it might be that what the state lost in one place it gained in another

Jim

[Rob Miles]

The storybooks are full of examples of armies fighting or not fighting because of the omens from God/gods or by meteorological or other events from the beginning of the Bible onwards. Sailor superstition survived into the 20th century and cannons are still found with exhortations to God to 'be with us'. Joan of Arc inspired the French, of all people, to reverse the 'flow of play' in the Hundred Years War. Druids led the ancient British against the Romans (and got slaughtered, but then so it goes). When a state gains a single 'unifying' religion (or else) it creates a much deeper divide and matter of grievance against those who follow false gods, no gods, the same gods but in a significantly different way. Even today, the Islamic world is tearing itself to pieces because of what some ancient ancestors said to one another in same spot hundreds of years ago. Religion is very good for generating hatred of foes- it provides a better impetus for the common soldier than simply giving your lord a slightly bigger back pocket.

There is, of course, a difference between functional religion, superstition, church on the one hand and the philosophical or collective consciousness of values and belief on the other. The moment a priesthood is established, the clock starts ticking down to the abandonment of all that ethereal nonsense about loving each other to be replaced with fulfilling the needs of the establishment that built up around it. Eventually, the cavernous cathedrals built by the flame of passionate belief become edifices of authority and control. The early Christians won converts by refusing to answer violence for violence. Later, they won converts by going into other peoples' lands and forcibly converting 'for the good of the soul'. Once any religion gets it into its head that the best way to serve God is to beat the living crap out of any who do not recognise him in the way they think he wants to be, you may as well fix handles and wheels onto the pews the better to ship the whole lot down to Hell.

Rules once made for the protection of members of the same racial group (Greeks, for example) were made for those of the same religion (or certain 'related' ones). Otherwise...

[Patrick Waterson]

I'm not sure where the inability to fight well at Easter comes from,  Battle of Callinicum took place on Easter Saturday, 19 April 531 AD
It pretty well destroyed both Byzantine and Sassanid armies 

And I understand that one of the excuses for the lacklustre Byzantine performance was that 'God, being dead, could not help us' - though I am unsure whether this is from Procopius or Robert Graves.

I'd also question the comment that Synesius of Cyrene and Sidonius Apollinaris  were without discernable Christian belief

Sidonius was, from his writings, a happy Hellenist - writing to a bishop naturally necessitated a certain degree of Christian politeness, but when writing to friends his allusions and allegories are all Hellenistic and one searches in vain for a single Christian statement.

With Synesius his letter Letter 67: Paul of Erythrum and Other Matters
To Theophilus
Where he discusses the problem over who actually should be appointed bishop over certain communities he tackles it in a matter little different from what you see in the west

But look at his letter 104 and letter 113.  Chatting with bishops is not a true reading of a man's sentiments.  We may also remember that this is a man who specifically insisted that he be exempted from Christian doctrine as a condition of taking up the post; in the words of the Wikipedia article: "as regarded orthodoxy he expressly stipulated for personal freedom to dissent on the questions of the soul's creation, a literal resurrection, and the final destruction of the world".  His sentiments expressed in Letter 105, that "If anybody asks me what my idea of a bishop is, I have no hesitation in saying explicitly that he ought to be spotless, more than spotless, and in all things, he to whom is allotted the purification of others." would, in Orthodox Christian terms, mark this neo-Platonist and follower of Hypatia as a Donatist heretic.

As for whether the soldiers were men who had joined having been Christians from birth or had been converted it doesn't really matter.

It might, because men who were converted while in a military career would remain in it, while a 'born Christian' would actively have to seek recruitment, and this is a threshold that many might have been unwilling or unable to cross before Theodosius started to make it the norm.

Generally I suspect that the Christian faith of most people of the period was no more likely to make them pacifists than it was in 1914.

Again, not too sure about this: granted that among some Christianity was only skin-deep, but in the canons of St Basil (specifically canon no.8 ) we get:

"An entirely involuntary act again, and one that admits of no doubt at all, is one such as that of robbers, and that of military assaults. For these men slay others for the sake of money, though they escape detection. Those engaged in wars are bent on slaying and murderous deeds; they can neither be scared nor be sobered, but, on the contrary, are openly bent on killing the adversaries as a matter of choice."

The specific three-year excommunication is stipulated in canon 13:

"Our Fathers did not consider murders committed in the course of wars to be classifiable as murders at all, on the score, it seems to me, of allowing a pardon to men fighting in defense of sobriety and piety. Perhaps, though, it might be advisable to refuse them communion for three years, on the ground that they are not clean-handed."

Curiously enough, Basil also stipulates (canon no.55):

"As for those who resist robbers, if they themselves are outside of the Church, they are to be excluded from communion with the good boon; but if they are Clerics, they are to be deprived of their rank."

You just can't win ...

Remember it was Augustine of Hippo (354 - 430 AD) who seems to have made the first written argument for the 'Just War' that has survived to us, and it's unlikely that his arguments were entirely original or unique to himself ...

True, and this seems to be implicit in Basil's reference to "Our Fathers" who "did not consider murders committed in the course of wars to be classifiable as murders at all, on the score, it seems to me, of allowing a pardon to men fighting in defense of sobriety and piety."  This does suggest that there was a degree of sentiment that did paint the soldier a murderer, but which was argued aside on the basis of expediency.  Note that it seemed to be a question of allowing a pardon rather than encouraging a man to take up arms - the poor chap gets to feel guilty however one looks at it.

The claim that any of the monotheisms are pacifist seems prima facie, pretty silly...
...even before we get to the problem of finding evidence that might relate religiosity to military effectiveness.

It was Winston Churchill who noted:

"But the Mahommedan religion increases, instead of lessening, the fury of intolerance. It was originally propagated by the sword, and ever since, its votaries have been subject, above the people of all other creeds, to this form of madness. In a moment the fruits of patient toil, the prospects of material prosperity, the fear of death itself, are flung aside. The more emotional Pathans are powerless to resist. All rational considerations are forgotten. Seizing their weapons, they become Ghazis—as dangerous and as sensible as mad dogs: fit only to be treated as such. While the more generous spirits among the tribesmen become convulsed in an ecstasy of religious bloodthirstiness, poorer and more material souls derive additional impulses from the influence of others, the hopes of plunder and the joy of fighting. Thus whole nations are roused to arms. Thus the Turks repel their enemies, the Arabs of the Soudan break the British squares, and the rising on the Indian frontier spreads far and wide. In each case civilisation is confronted with militant Mahommedanism. The forces of progress clash with those of reaction. The religion of blood and war is face to face with that of peace. Luckily the religion of peace is usually the better armed."

To save space, one can find his further observations on the subject (among other things) here.

I trust we are all enjoying ourselves ...