Life After Death_ A History of the Afterlife in Western Religion - Alan Segal [409]
And behold, one of those who were with Jesus stretched out his hand and drew his sword, and struck the slave of the high priest, and cut off his ear. Then Jesus said to him, “Put your sword back into its place; for all who take the sword will perish by the sword.”
According to John of Mantua’s interpretation, this verse allows for religious violence because Jesus asked the disciple to put his sword away instead of throwing it away. While this argument is a pretext for military action against Islam, it is also an insight into the violent age that produced it. It even became customary to bless the sword of a new knight in a religious ceremony.
Already in the ninth century, the Popes were promising that death in a war against infidels would bring salvation. Pope Leo IV (847) promised a heavenly reward for any warrior dying in battle for defense of the church. Pope Nicholas I (858) promised both an earthly and heavenly indulgence for those having violated canon law, if they took up arms against the infidels (which he called a “plenary indulgence”). Pope John VIII (872) extended this promise to mean that victims were as pure as martyrs for the cross and so received a remission of sins. Pope Alexander II (1061), promised the same indulgence for all those who fought for the cross in Spain, expelling the Moors from Christian lands (the Reconquista). Gregory VII became the first pope to call for a war of all Christendom against the infidels. All that remained was for his successor Pope Urban II to call for the First Crusade (1095), which resulted in the capture of Jerusalem in 1099 by soldiers of Christendom, who were told that if they died in battle, they would go directly to heaven, in spite of any previous sins.52
The history of the Crusades is riddled with terrors for Jews, Christians, and Muslims alike. Impatient to earn their salvation, the soldiers of Christ began by killing anyone not like them. In the Spring of 1096, when the Crusaders were passing through the Rhine Valley on their way to the Holy Land, they attacked the Jewish settlements, killing anyone they could catch-man, woman, or child. These tragedies formed the core of a medieval Jewish martyrological tradition, most fully attested in chronicles and poetry.53 The Crusaders’ capture of Jerusalem in 1099 inaugurated the short zenith of their military power. It was a disaster for Muslims, for Jews, and Eastern Christians as well.
The Muslim reconquest began in earnest when Reynald of Châtillon initiated raids and skirmishes from his fortress city of Kerak, south of Amman in Jordan, which harassed the local caravan and shipping routes. Saladin (Salah ad-Din) eventually called a jihad when Reynald’s raids extended into Saudi Arabia and to the Red Sea. This brought the Crusader leader, Guy of Jerusalem, into the fray. The climactic battle took place at the Horns of Hattin (a topographic feature named for the god Ba’al) in the Galilee on July 4, 1187.
It was a total victory for the forces of Saladin. Reynald was captured and killed while King Guy of Jerusalem was captured and held for ransom. As a result, the Crusaders lost their Holy Land possessions, subsequently managing to burn Constantinople in their efforts to reclaim their possessions (1204). They also unknowingly killed thousands of Palestinian Christians throughout their rule, because they confused them with Muslims. They never regained Jerusalem again. For their part, Spanish Christians, after expelling the Muslims and Jews from Al-Andalus in 1492, turned to torturing and burning suspect converted Muslims and Jews, as an act of faith.
In spite of these grave injustices, many