Just recently I wrote a 10-page research essay for my Medieval History class on the crusades in the Holy Land during the Middle Ages. While doing my research I came across an interesting idea/point of interest.
Here is an excerpt from my paper:
“The Church, since the first century A.D., was never a warrior institute. That being said, some early Church fathers did not condemn war. If anything, they found definite support for war and soldiers in the New Testament, not to mention the Old Testament. They followed three criteria for war: (1) it was not to be entered into lightly or for aggrandizement; (2) it must be formally declared by an authority recognized as having the power to make such a declaration; and (3) it must be waged justly. These criteria were rooted in Roman Republic law.7 For Christians specifically, St. Augustine set the standard. He wrote, ‘It is the injustice of the opposing side that lays on the wise man the duty to wage wars.’8 St. Augustine believed in two legitimate forms of authority. Like Paul, he recognized pagan rulers as divine ministers put in authority by God. He also believed that God could order violence, and that such violence would be just. Ultimately, Augustine questioned what, in war, was evil.9 According to Augustine, ‘the real evils were not the deaths of those who were going to die anyways, but the love of violence, cruelty, and enmity.’10 He had his own version of the three criteria: (1) it must be proclaimed by a legitimate authority; (2) it ought to have a just cause, like recovery of lost property or unjust violence; and (3) it should be fought with the right motives; i.e. no cruelty or excessive bloodshed.11 This was the view of the Church and Christian kings at the time when Urban issued his appeal. This was how Christian Europe justified the Crusades. They were told or were convinced that the Crusades were Holy Wars, authorized, directly or indirectly, by God.12 The Crusades were never meant to be wars of conversion or for the purpose of winning recruits for the Kingdom. To be fair, they had good intentions. There was nothing wrong with wanting to punish those who deserved punishment for their unjust wrongdoing. It went wrong once the Crusaders started to fall into the category of those that love violence, cruelty, and enmity, for their own gain.
Pope Urban II had no standing army. When he issued the appeal in 1095, he was relying on the response of the Christian nations of Europe to provide him with an army to March on Jerusalem. At the time Jerusalem had been recently conquered by the Selchuk Turks. The Selchuks were recently converted to Islam. For the crusaders to successfully take Israel and ultimately Jerusalem, Urban would need a large, devoted army. This goes back to what St. Augustine preached about the use of violence and war in the Kingdom of God. Urban immediately had to reconcile war and the teachings of the Church so that he might gain an army to do the Church’s bidding. Aside from St. Augustine, there were few who thought that war and Christianity could be reconciled. There was one predecessor to Urban who believed strongly in the teaching of St. Augustine on war and did something about it. Pope Gregory VII believed that he had complete control over the spiritual state of every soul in Europe. In that regard he believed that he had control over the kings and princes.19 Pope Gregory decided that instead of having an unreliable secular army backing the papacy, it was better to have a growing Christian army backing the papacy.20 He twisted the idea of Christians being “soldiers of Christ” against spiritual forces into ‘soldiers of Christ’ in the physical realm.21 This was the platform that Urban build off of”
Were the crusades really “holy” wars? Apparently St. Augustine found reason for war. How is it that our Christian culture today would be offended by this?
I would venture to say, that, because of the focus that our culture puts on “world peace” and being “politically correct”, our Christian culture today says that war is morally wrong and that challenging the injustice and wrongdoings of another with righteous force is wrong. That is wrong. How can you expect to be able to fight the darkness in the spiritual war in your mind and body if you cannot first fight against the physical darkness?!
May God grant us the power and strength to stand firm against the powers of evil one, spiritually and physically.
(numbers 7-21 in the text are the footnotes for my sources.)
7Jonathan Riley-Smith, The Crusades, Christianity, and Islam (New York: Columbia University Press, 2008) 10-3.
8 Ibid., 12.
9 Ibid., 12-3.
10 Ibid., 13.
11 Thomas Asbridge, The First Crusade: A New History (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004) 21-5.
12 Ibid.
13 Riley-Smith, The Crusades: A Short History, 1.
14 Ibid., 2.
15 Ibid., 1-2.
16 Ibid.
17 Asbridge, The First Crusade, 20-1.
18 Ibid., 20.
19 Asbridge, The First Crusade, 26-7.
20 Ibid., 27.
21 Ibid.
