What Is Rome Trying To Accomplish?

His Holiness Pope Benedict XVI gave a speech September 12 at the Universityof Regensburg in his German homeland. He discussed "the question of Godthrough 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 hasbeen a "synthesis with Hellenism achieved in the early [Christian]church" and that this relationship between Christianity and Greekphilosophy and logic has been a very good thing. He warned against those whobelieve this synthesis is "not binding" upon new converts fromnon-western traditions; this view, he declared, is "false." Thepontiff plainly intended to depict the Roman Catholic Church as supportive ofmodernity and science in general, and both western and tolerant.

The Pope opened his homily by referring affectionately to his years teachingat the University of Bonn (from 1959) during which the university was a"universe of reason." He then segued into a description of some of hisrecent 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 alearned Persian (that is to say, Iranian) Muslim a century after the last majorCrusade. (I'm wondering if there really was a Persian involved in a dialoguewith 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 thatthese weren't his own words. You can find theofficial text here.

The good Emperor Manuel regarded Islam as irrational in its allegedeffort to spread itself by force. Manuel declared in response: "Not actingreasonably is contrary to God's nature." "Acting reasonably," thepope pointedly explained in his talk, means to act "with logos"—aterm 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) Hellenisticheritage. He declared, interestingly, that the Septuagint (translation of theOld Testament into Greek from the third to first centuries BCE) is an"independent textual witness and distinct and important step in the historyof revelation." The broad point, again, is that the rational Greek mind andthe mind of the Church are one, the pillars of the West.

Recall that the Greeks, aside from shaping rational western thought, alsoshaped 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 thePersians) were prone to enslavement by nature. This ideological constructionderives from a century of conflicts—the Greco-Persian Wars of the fifthcentury—but it has been echoed by Orientalists for centuries. Repeated by thePope, for example, who while still Cardinal Ratzinger told the French newspaper LeFigaro that Turkey should not be admitted into the European Union "onthe grounds that it is a Muslim nation" which has "always representedanother continent during history, always in contrast with Europe."

In beginning his remarks citing that exchange between a Byzantine Greekemperor and this "learned Persian," the pontiff was perhaps conveyinga not-so-subtle political message. It may have been a response to the learnedletter from Iranian President Ahmadinejad to President Bush. Ending his speechwith two references to the need for a (truly reasonable, nonviolent)"dialogue of cultures" Benedict unmistakably alludes to former IranianPresident Khatami's campaign for a "dialogue of civilizations." Thisis the Pope's rejoinder to that plea, presented as the response of the westernworld (growing out of that remarkable Judeo-Christian Greco-Roman synthesis), totoday's Persia—the Islamic Republic of Iran.

Having read the speech I just have a few questions of my own for the Vicar ofChrist.

Did the Byzantine emperors generally act according to "reason"—anymore 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 histhrone to his bother, who seized it in 1376. How'd he get it back? By callingfor 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 atthe 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 onthe Turks, he wrote the above-quoted remark about God's nature.

Then what happened? According to the Encyclopedia Britannica: "Atreaty in 1403 kept peace with the Turks until 1421, when Manuel's son andcoemperor John VIII meddled in Turkish affairs. After the Turks besiegedConstantinople (1422) and took southern Greece (1423), Manuel signed ahumiliating 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 adisastrous war with Muslims while eruditely disparaging their religion. I'dlike to ask the Pope:

Was there anything wrong with that?

And:

And when did the Byzantine Empire ever tolerate a "dialogue ofcultures" or apply "reason" to religious issues?

Seems to me that the Byzantine emperors, including the Palaeologan line fromthe thirteenth century, persecuted religious minorities, including Jews,Manichaeans and dissident Christians, during centuries in which the Islamicworld showed relative tolerance. I've read the texts of anathemas thatvirtually everyone in some parts of the Empire was obliged to pronounce publiclyin the sixth century: "I renounce Mani, Buddha his teacher," etc. Onpain of death, basically. There was no division between church and state. ManyByzantine Jews welcomed the initial Muslim Arab advances, providing relief fromChristian persecution.

One increasingly expects historical distortion and hypocrisy in the speechesof Bush administration officials. The effort to depict the Terror War as a waron "Islamofascism" shows their desperation. They must be delighted tohear the pope conflate Christianity, the west, and Reason explicitly whileimplicitly linking Islam, violence, and irrational intolerance. How sweet thatHis Holiness's erudition should elliptically reference Iran, while theBush administration prepares to attack it!

Breaking new ground for a Roman pontiff, Benedict forayed into the field of Qur'anexegesis in his talk, noting that the Muslim holy book states that "Thereis 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 obliquelyto "the instructions, composed later concerning holy war" implyingthat these more accurately characterize Islamic teaching. Is he not stating thatthe real Muslim teachings are those advocating intolerance and violence,and that Christian teachings pose a rational nonviolent alternative? Such aninterpretation, aligning the Vatican with the neocon and other Islamophobiccamps, could have serious religious and political implications.

The Regensberg talk has provoked an outcry, in Pakistan, Turkey, Lebanon andEgypt. 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 theVatican's foreign minister. Much thought must have been put into thecarefully-worded talk. But what is Rome trying to accomplish?

Gary Leupp is Professor of History at Tufts University, and AdjunctProfessor of Comparative Religion. He is the author of >Servants,Shophands and Laborers in in the Cities of Tokugawa Japan ; MaleColors: The Construction of Homosexuality in Tokugawa Japan ; and InterracialIntimacy in Japan: Western Men and Japanese Women, 1543-1900.