Around the dinner table this past week my kids were asked to answer the question of what individual they would consider studying full-time for the next 10 years. The boys all chose military commanders. Jeremy (from youngest boy to oldest) chose King David’s generals, including Joab, Ben chose Winston Churchill, Jared chose the Emperor Justinian after he couldn’t think of anyone better than who George initially selected, but let him have while he changed to St. Athanasius, and Jordan settled on Alexander the Great. Rachel picked the Bronte sisters, to rely on Elizabeth Gaskell’s book on Charlotte, and Rebecca, St. Genevieve.
George is reading Sailing from Byzantium: How a Lost Empire Shaped the World, and is finding the Saint and Emperor Justinian to have been brilliant in many fields including law, military strategy, architecture, and theology, as well as being a survivor of the Black Plague. I have also seen a documentary on the Christian East on Discovery Channel that casts him in a very positive light in reconquering and unifying the Roman Empire, and also being nice, under the influence of his empress Theodora, to the north African non-Chalcedonians, who had endured persecution by the Chalcedonian Orthodox. This brings me to my point which also comes from thinking about Gabriel’s post about Lincoln and westward expansion, What a Difference 50 Years Makes, which brings up how controversial the idea of Manifest Destiny was before the annexation of Texas.
In the comments I posit that if Texas hadn’t fought for independence, Mexico (do we want to bring up the Spanish Conquistadors?) may have ended up selling their share of land in the US as Russia (financially strapped after the Crimean War) and France (Napoleon) did to finance their wars in other places. That the giving up and gaining of land had mostly to do with greed and exploitation from all sides. I asked as an aside if Emperor Justinian was perhaps different. He was different in that he was reclaiming land, but believed he had the same Manifest Destiny in that he thought God mandated it.
This all relates to the idea of the sovereignty of rulership. America’s “right” to expand beyond its current borders, at least its ideals and the resources of other nations (oil), may be a last hold out to the traditional notion of the God determined, if He is considered, winner may take it all. My comment on Gabriel’s blog paints with a broad brush that all nations operated that way. One could say that the native Americans and the African slave sellers also believed that you may take what you can get, but had less might to do it with. It seems boundaries have always been rather fluid based on the strongest arms. Conquering nations have better organizational, technological, and propaganda skills. But I digress. I’m focusing more on motivations. The losers try to gain the upper hand by crying foul, and that they were bullied, but in many cases didn’t even they try to bully before they were defeated? Selfishness is not a national issue, though success may be. And isn’t strength a Christian virtue?
Under Emperor Justinian (and Constantine), the Orthodox had the bigger stick. According to George and my other source above, Emperor Justinian may have wielded it more humanely than most. This seems to be a resurrected view or at least the Orthodox view, though, after Gibbon’s negative spin on Byzantium. George thinks Gibbon may have also influenced the Wikipedia article on Justinian, which brings up his use of imposed conversions and persecutions of people who believed differently. Constantine comes across as allowing more pluralism, but even under him, St. Athanasius was persecuted and exiled for defending non-Arian Christianity. In contrast, St. Justinian seemed to want to expand his empire to bring it back into the fold of Orthodox Christianity, which sounds more justifiable to me than for economic gain. St. Vladimir’s influencing the conversion of Rus can also be seen as being for the good of the people. It seems we would not have traditional Orthodox nations with their magnificent, beautiful Churches (St. Justinian built the Hagia Sophia) if these Imperial rulers did not feel they had the right and the mandate to do so.
The colonists, including the Spanish, also enforced conversions on the Africans and the Native Americans, the latter resisting more than the former, but I don’t think even they say that converting the natives was the first priority. Their cheap labor and their lands were the motivation.
Up to the late 18th century, when Revolutions came in vogue, there were pretty clear demarcations between (what I assume is) Platonic hierarchy and the belief that superior people would rule the lower classes, who seemed for the most part, treated as pawns. These rulers had the right to force religion, taxes, and educational beliefs (hellenic schools were closed by Justinian) on the people, and the people were cared for, somewhat as children. Though the Romans apparently had a form of democracy, our modern sense of democracy amongst an equal populace seems to be new, though even now, some are deemed more equal than others (see also the Wiki article on American Exceptionalism).
But even though St. Justinian seems to have had loftier goals for his impositions, I wonder what the difference is between the methods used during historic times, of imprisonment, exile, and torture (St. Maximus’ tonguectomy comes to mind) and the Orthodox position today. One could argue that St. Athanasius, St. Chrysostom and St. Maximus were punished by unOrthodox people, but it seems to me that such treatment was not unheard of even by some Orthodox (per the Wiki article on Emperor Justinian). It also seems that in Byzantium social order and unity of correct theology and practice were deemed to go hand and hand. Further, I have heard of rare coercions among Russian hierarchs. Is it my personal bias that this is different than the Spanish Inquisition? In Brothers Karamazov, Dostoevsky presents the Catholics as different than the Orthodox. And he proposes that a way to curb bad behavior is to deny the Russian faithful communion. Indeed I think this is what the Canons in the Ecumenical Councils impose. Not torture, but distance from the Eucharist. Thus it is not the Church’s official position to torture and persecute the “unfaithful”. Dostoevsky also posits that this is all the Church can do as long as there is a separation of Church and State. Let the state be the bad cop and the Church can be the good cop.
Back to Texas, it is my understanding that the initial battle for Texas independence was to defend personal property which Mexico had granted to new settlers before tyranical Santa Anna decided to renig. Tyranny is the modern battle cry for revolution, but I think the Texans had more just cause than the increased taxes that the British colonists decried. Then, after 10 years of independence, Texas wanted to join the U.S. so it wasn’t as if the US forcefully took us over. As big as Texas is, I don’t think it felt like it could continue to defend its interests against the US and Mexico, plus many of the settlers were from the states, as well as many from Europe who had taken the Mexican offering of large tracks of cheap land. I just read that the Texans supported annexation except for one vote against.
In modern times however, tolerance of plurality is believed to promote social harmony. People are free to chose their own affiliations and are not to hamper others’ pursuit of happiness. A positive thing about this is that the populace is not seen as children, slaves, or as pawns. At least that’s the propaganda, conspiracy theories of puppet-masters, and The Grand Inquisitor’s view that people want to be mindless sheep, aside. I do not want to speculate that God has caused traditional Orthodox countries to lose their big stick to prevent coercive methods, but it does seem that people now must choose Orthodox Christianity as a minority option, as uncomfortable as that makes a western democratic society feel. Russia is still getting back on its feet, so we’ll see what happens there.
While I tend to believe that persuasion instead of coercion is more respectful of people’s free will, I probably have a more despotic view of training children. I do not believe they are capable of making healthy choices for themselves unless they are trained in good habits from early childhood. Therefore I do not put as much emphasis on border disputes, but on the State’s allowance for Orthodox Churches to nourish the faithful and their families in order to become good citizens of heaven. Yet I would rather be a US citizen in Texas than anywhere else. And if I had to chose other than local independence, I’d pick either England (such as Canada’s relationship) or Russia (for still believing in imposing Orthodoxy on its people), I think. I should probably at least visit those countries in order to make a more informed decision. However it is said that if people were given the chance to switch problems with someone else, they are more likely to keep their own. We are very influenced by how and where we are raised. Yet America does seem exceptional to me in that so many people picked up and moved here voluntarily, and don’t seem to have looked back. Its tradition is being a safe haven, except for the natives who were forced out and the Africans who were forced in. There are no easy answers.
By the way, I picked Plato.
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