In 628 Byzantium's territorial holdings stretched from northern Africa and the southern tip of Spain to the whole of Asia Minor and Syria. In the same year, under the emperor Herakleios, Byzantium won a total defeat over their main rival of the time, Persia. The constant disputes between Persia and Byzantium had left royal coffers empty and resources stretched. It was only six years later that Arab armies started a short two year campaign that gave them control over the entire Byzantine east. This invasion was the beginning of raids and other military losses throughout two centuries that would spark and continue a religious policy almost unthinkable in relation to the Greek Orthodox Church, iconoclasm.
The rise of Islam is the first domino to fall in the line which ends in Byzantium's age of iconoclasm. The prophet Muhammad was born in Mecca in 571. Muhammad's revelations did not begin until he was in his late thirties. In his visions the angel Gabriel came to him and recited to Muhammad the words of a single, all powerful God.
[...] It is also an interesting point to consider that during this time period there were three groups of people claiming to be God's “chosen people”: the Jews, really the age old “chosen people” , and Byzantium and Islam both claiming to be the “chosen people” for the same reason; the Arab expansion. For the Byzantines, their losses were forcing them to cleanse the sin from themselves and their empire while for the Arabs their victories were a sign of God's approval. [...]
[...] The iconoclastic age of the Byzantine Empire lasted from 726, seventy-five years after the Arab invasions that sparked it. It did not end until 842. During this time, iconoclasm had a profound affect on how Byzantines interacted with their God, with their church, with their government, and with their military. Bibliography 1. Medieval Europe: A Short History, Judith M. Bennett and C. Warren Hollister (New York, NY: McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc, 2006) 2. Christianity : A History in the Middle East, Habib Badr, chief editor (Beirut, Lebanon : Middle East Council of Churches, Studies & Research Program, 2005) 3. [...]
[...] Iconoclastic theologians suggested that either the painting was of God himself (which would be merging the human and divine elements of Christ) or the painting represented Christ's human form alone (thereby separating the human and divine qualities of God).[5] Both of these options were unacceptable at the time due to a Christological debate from the fifth century that decided during the 451 Council of Chalcedon that Christ had two natures, human and divine, and that these “were inviolably joined together without division or separation.”[6] A Church council was called because of Constantine and his theologians' ideas connecting icon veneration to the very nature of Christ. [...]
[...] Razzia, traditional Arab raids, were a main staple of the Arabian Peninsula's economic base and were something known to Byzantium for centuries before the rise of Islam and its subsequent expansion. It was assumed by Herakleios that these beginning voyeurs into Byzantine territory by Arab soldiers were nothing more than these traditional raids. It is often concluded that the first invasions into Byzantium were indeed razzia due to the fact that the new Islamic law prohibited any Muslim to attack another Muslim. [...]
[...] The Byzantine Empire during this time period was not at its most stable not to mention the Church had been fighting an internal schism created by disputing ideas over the natures of Christ within the empire. Therefore, a person or family would often have an icon to which they were especially devoted to and miracles were often proclaimed as a holy response to a request made to the family icon. Icons were often based off of original relics or very large scale, expensive representations. [...]
APA Style reference
For your bibliographyOnline reading
with our online readerContent validated
by our reading committee
