The Economic Policies and Organisation of the Byzantine Empire

Byzantine economic history shows a marked contrast to the economic history of other medieval states. Its evolution does not correspond with that of the peoples of western Europe with their steady advance towards modern economy, nor does it resemble the story of the Arab Empire, the story of a vast loosely-knit dominion, rich in natural resources of every sort but never fully developing them. Byzantium was a carefully administered state, dominating a large but not naturally very wealthy territory, and aiming at the greatest possible amount of centralisation in its capital, Constantinople, a city whose size and organised activity made it unique in the medieval world.

Byzantine history falls into clearly differentiated periods. The first, from the foundation of Constantinople till the Arab conquests in the seventh century, is a continuation of the history of the Roman Empire. The emperor still possessed all the eastern provinces of the Empire, and his problems were similar to those of his predecessors. There follows a period when the Empire, reduced in size and at first in danger of collapse, gradually adjusts its life to reach a high state of prosperity in the tenth and early eleventh centuries. Then comes a period of new invasions from the East and military and economic aggression from the West, Byzantium apparently recovers, then rapidly declines, till the capture of Constantinople by the Crusaders in 1204. The Empire of Nicaea and the recovery of Constantinople in 1261 again suggest a revival; but the last two centuries of the Empire tell a story of impoverishment and decay.

WHEN the waters of the Flood subsided. God brought the Ark to rest upon the slopes of Ararat; and Armenia, thus chosen to be the cradle of Mankind, remained for numberless centuries the centre of the Ancient World. From its mountains rivers flowed into Persia on the East, into Asia Minor on the West, and into Syria and Mesopotamia on the South, and up their courses came the thought of the Ancient World, Persian, Greek and Aramaic. In the Armenian market-towns these ideas might quarrel and clash, just as the Roman and Persian monarchs fought to secure the allegiance of their princes. In the more distant valleys where feudal lords reigned over a simple peasantry, they would develop undisturbed, to emerge upon the world again when the people of the valleys grew too many for their narrowness and overflowed abroad.

Christianity soon reached the Armenian highlands. The saints to whom the conversion of the country is officially due, Gregory the Illuminator and the martyred princess Rhipsime, lived in the latter half of the third century. Gregory was born at Ashtishat, in. the outh of Armenia, and probably learnt his faith from Antiochene teachers, that is to say, from a school that was still vague in its Christology and still unwilling to accept fully the Logos-Christianity of Alexandria. But Gregory had no wish to found a schismatic church. The great family to which he belonged, its power and wealth enhanced by his prestige, used its influence to spread the orthodox doctrine; and his disciples of the next century, the Catholicus Nerses and Mesrob, the founder of the Armenian alphabet, worked in with St Basil and the orthodox school of Caesarea.

IN Bosnia Dualism nearly reached the triumph of permanence, but its most spectacular achievements were made in Italy and in France. It was there that its growth most alarmed the Roman Church, and it was there that the Roman Church evolved the means for its suppression. The Inquisition fulfilled its object, but only as the result of careful organization and preparation; for which historians must be grateful. For, though the books of the heretics perished by its labours, the records of its trials and the inquisitors' manuals give us a far clearer picture of the Dualist Church than can be found elsewhere. It may be questioned how far evidence about the French or Italian dualists can be held to apply to the dualists of Bosnia, Bulgaria or Constantinople. The answer to that lies in the history of the spread of Dualism and in the words of contemporary writers.

It is probable that certain traditions of the Early Church died out slowly in the West. The career of Felix of Urgel in Charlemagne's days shows a lingering Adoptionism. Moreover many people were predisposed to heresy by a growing dislike of the luxury and the political activities of the Church. This attitude, which found legitimate expression in the asceticism of Peter Damian and his school and, a little later, in the Cistercian movement, led also to heretical teaching of a purely anti-clerical nature, such as that of the Netherlander Tanchelm or Tanquelin, who died in 1115, or that of Peter Valdes, founder of the Waldenses or Vaudois, who combined it with a desire for voluntary poverty.

TOLERANCE is a social rather than a religious virtue. A broad-minded view of the private belief of others undoubtedly makes for the happiness of society; but it is an attitude impossible for those whose personal religion is strong. For if we know that we have found the key and guiding principle of Life, we cannot allow our friends to flounder blindly in the darkness. We may recognize that without the key they may yet lead virtuous and admirable lives, but their task is made unnecessarily hard; it is our duty to help them on to the true Path, to show them the light that will illuminate it all. Opinions may vary as to the nature of the help that should be given, whether peaceful persuasion and a shining example, or the sword and the auto da fé. But no really religious man can pass the unbeliever by and do nothing.

Still more than the unbeliever it is the wrong believer, the heretic rather than the infidel, whose conversion is the concern of the faithful. For the infidel is often impossible to win. No one can prove that Christianity is better than Buddhism or Islam. Those who believe it to be so, do so not from logical argument but from an instinctive conviction that its fundamental message is the true revelation, whereas those of other creeds are false or unimportant. But the heretic Christian is in a different position. He believes, like the orthodox, in the basic article of the Christian faith, that Jesus of Nazareth died to redeem us. But he gives his faith another interpretation, an interpretation that leads him, in orthodox eyes, into dangerous and avoidable error.

HERESIES, like civilization itself, are apt to spread Westward from the East. The Gnostic seęds were to flower most richly not in Armenia nor in Bulgaria but in the Westernmost country of the Balkan peninsula and in Latin countries more Western still. By the end of the twelfth century the greatest centres of Bogomil activity were in Bosnia, in Lombardy and in France.

Nevertheless the heresy remained strong in its original birthplace; and the Balkan peninsula was regarded, even by the Western heretics, as its home. During the twelfth century the churches of Constantinople and Bulgaria still ranked as the chief heretic congregations. It was there that Bogomil doctrine had been fully evolved. Bulgaria was Bogomil's country; and Constantinople was still the greatest city of the Christian world The career of Nicetas, self-styled bishop of the heretics of Constantinople, in France in 1167 shows the respect that Constantinople still commanded. But it is doubtful if there was in fact a strong heretical body resident there. The city was well policed and the Emperors dangerously interested in theology. If there had been much heresy there would have been heresy-hunts, and some record would almost certainly have survived.

With the political decline of Constantinople the prestige of its heretical church faded. The centre of gravity of the heresy was moving westward, while after the Fourth Crusade the city was in full decay. In 1230 the Bogomils still formed a flourishing congregation in die Capital, side by side with a small Latin heretical church which was introduced almost certainly after the Latin conquest of 1204.

There has been so much loose thinking, fostered in particular by the Theosophists and the Neo-Occultists, of the connection of the Dualist Tradition with Eastern religion on the one hand, and with the Occult Tradition on the other, that it is necessary to add a little further clarification.

The resemblance between Cathar-Bogomil asceticism and Indian asceticism has often struck observers. Marco Polo says of Brahmin austerities (bk. III, chap. 20): “In fact they are worse in those whims than so many Patarenes.” But, though the practice is similar, the underlying theory is different. To the orthodox Christian, Matter is bad, as a result of the Fall, but can be made good through Christ's sacraments. To the Christian Dualist, Matter is irretrievably bad. To the Brahmin and, still more, to the Buddhist, Matter is an irrelevant thing. The Buddhist initiate is ascetic to show his indifference to material things, or to demonstrate his contempt for them. This difference is so fundamental that there can be no question of the Christian Dualists having felt the influence of Buddhist teaching, except through indirect channels. As we have seen, certain Buddhist stories containing a practical but nor a theological moral, like Barlaam and Josaphat, were adopted by the Gnostic Dualists. But their religious import must not be ranked too high. Christian Dualist doctrines are far more closely akin to those of the Zoroastrians, on which they were doubtless partially based. Zoroastrianism is a very different religion to Buddhism, and its theory of Matter far cruder.

THE Fathers of the Church, usually so careful and so precise, were now and then hesitant on matters of fundamental theology. Indeed, to one most essential question they long gave no clear answer. Concentrating their attention on the Redemption from sin, they ignored the problem of the original cause of sin. Yet sin was a very real thing to the Early Christians. The world that they knew, the cruel, luxurious, uncertain world of the Roman Empire, was undoubtedly a wicked place. How had such wickedness come into creation? If God was the Creator, and God was omnipotent and good, why did he permit such things to be? The Fall might explain why man was enchained in sin, but the Fall could not create sin; rather it was sin that created the Fall.

It is a desire to solve the problem of Evil that lies at the base of Gnosticism. The heretics and philosophers, complained Tertullian, were always asking the same question: “Whence came Evil, and in what does it exist?” and the question that arises out of it: “Whence and how came Man?” Unguided by the Church the heretics and philosophers sought out their own solutions and out of their searching Christian dualism was founded.

The origin of Gnosticism must remain obscure. Partly it is to be sought in the age-long magical tradition. Gnostic writings such as the Pistis Sophia seem to be connected with the Hermetic occultism of the Egyptians, and the Gnostic doctrine of the Eons resembles Kabalistic lore with its archangels.

GEOGRAPHY has provided an easy land-route from Western Asia to Europe; and in the Middle Ages men made full use of it. The great Byzantine roads ran from Armenia and the Saracen frontier over the highlands of Asia Minor, then still fertile and flourishing, down to the narrow sea and the Imperial City. Beyond they ran on again, through the wilder Balkans, to the Danube and to the Adriatic Sea. Along these roads year after year journeyed Armenians, crowded out from their own narrow valleys, eager to join in the busy life of the Capital or to find fresh lands for exploitation amongst the guileless peoples of Europe.

The Balkan peninsula in the ninth century was fit ground for them. In the days of the old Roman Empire it had been amongst the richest provinces of Europe, its countryside studded with busy market-towns and breeding a sturdy peasantry. Its inhabitants, Latin-speaking except in the mountains of the West where a primitive tongue now called Albanian lingered and in the coastal ports of the Greeks, formed the best soldiers in the Roman army. When the Visigoths crossed the Danube and Valens fell at Adrianople this prosperity declined. Invader after invader, Goth, Hun or Avar, overran its pastures; its harvests seldom were allowed to ripen. The population grew smaller, and retired more and more to the mountains, to Pindus in the south and, in greater numbers, to the Carpathians beyond the Danube, to emerge, as Vlachs or Roumanians, after very many centuries. But few of the warlike raiders from the East remained; the empty places were taken by a gentler race, the Slavs.

The Byzantine Empire under the Iconoclastic Emperors was undoubtedly a favourable soil for the spread of Puritanistic heresies. But it would be a mistake to assume that therefore Iconoclasm and the Puritan heresies of the time belonged to the same tradition. There were, I think, five distinct and separate movements.

1. (i) Iconoclasm. This was largely political in origin; it was a movement started within the Church against certain sections of the Church, namely, the monastic vested interests. Theologically it was a Christological heresy. It taught that Christ the God could not be depicted, and therefore pictures of Christ could only show Jesus the man and so were not suitable objects for worship. Similarly, pictures of the Saints could only show their earthly forms and not the Divine spirit that had made them Saints. This theology is somewhat unsound, savouring of Monophysitism; and in the controversy the Iconodule theologians certainly put forward the better case. But Iconoclasm was formidable because of its political background—because of a general jealousy of the monasteries, who championed Image-worship and found it financially profitable, and because of the tendency of the Semitic elements in the Empire to favour a greater simplicity of worship and to take seriously the old Mosaic injunction against graven images. The contemporaneous growth of Islam is another example of this sentiment. But theologically Iconoclasm did not belong to the Gnostic Tradition, and politically it was what we should now call Erastian. It believed in a State Church.

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SO it was that one great confederate Dualist Church arose, stretching from the Black Sea to Biscay. In all the countries into which it spread, its successes were made sure by political conditions, by circumstances of racial politics, of class politics and of personal politics. But for the social condition of the peasants of Bulgaria, but for the diplomatic condition of Bosnia, midway between Eastern and Western Christendom, and but for the rapacity of certain great nobles of Languedoc, stimulated by the vulnerability of an inadequate Catholic hierarchy, the Dualists might have remained in obscurity. But the political impulse was not everything. Behind it there was a steady spiritual teaching, a definite religion, that developed and declined as most religions do, but that embodied a constant Tradition.

What was this Tradition? Where and when did it begin? Its birth lies far back in the days when man first consciously looked at the world and saw that it was bad; and he wondered how such evil should be, and why God, if there be a God, could permit it, “The earth is given into the hand of the wicked”, cried Job: “He covereth the faces of the judges thereof; if not, where and who is He?” This is the problem behind the Tradition, a problem that every religious thinker must face and few can solve. At times it might be ignored. The Jews in the days of their prosperity, complacent at being the Chosen People, or the Greeks of the fifth century b.c., in love with the world around them, might forget its wickedness or despise the cause of it.