Besides giving us great art, keeping alive Greek culture and civilization, and seeing to it that there was at least one place in the world where everyone who wanted to be was educated, the Byzantines protected and preserved the Christian faith.
Long before the word “crusader” was ever heard, the Byzantine emperor Heraclius was fighting the Saracens in Damascus, Homs, Jerusalem, and Antioch just as the crusaders did in the days of Richard the Lion-Hearted 500 years later. Almost every Byzantine emperor who followed him did the same. Among the caliphs whom they fought, but could not defeat, was Harun al-Rashid, the hero of The Arabian Nights.
They did defeat many another Moslem leader, however, and so although the Arabs often advanced through the empire, they were never able to pour into the Balkans as they had poured into France and Spain.
But the Byzantines did more than just battle the enemies of Christianity, and they also did more than argue over the fine points of religion.
They tried to practice Christianity as well as preach it. They believed that philanthropia—from which our word “philanthropy,” or “love of mankind” is derived—was the first duty of those who were rich or had power. There were no people before the Byzantines, and only a few since, who believed so sincerely that every man was really and truly his brother’s keeper. And by being his brother’s keeper they meant taking care of him in every kind of need.
In the Byzantine Empire there were homes for travelers and pilgrims. There were homes for orphans. There were homes for the sick. There were homes for foundlings. There were old-age homes.
All of these institutions were heavily endowed when they were not actually supported by the government, and the officials in charge of them were important people. Take the orphan homes, for example. There were forty orphan homes in Constantinople alone. Each was headed by an orphanotrope. The Grand Orphanotrope who was over all of them, was appointed by the emperor himself. He held one of the highest offices in the empire.
Many of the Byzantine laws were Christian as well. In the old days of the ancient Roman Empire, the father was the absolute master of the family. His wife’s property, including her dowry, became his, and if he did not like her, he could divorce her with little more than a word. At least in the very early days, he had power of life and death over his slaves and almost as much over his children. If a son did not please him, he did not have to leave him a penny in his will.
But the Byzantines did not want laws like that. They wanted laws that the Saviour would approve of. In their opinion, Christ would not have approved of divorce, and so although they could not stop it altogether, they made it much more difficult to get. At one time there were only four recognized reasons for divorce. One of them was that you could get a divorce if your husband (or wife) tried to murder you!
Women were given many other rights by the Byzantines. If a child wanted to marry, he had to get his mother’s permission as well as his father’s. A woman’s property did not belong exclusively to her husband; her property and her husband’s property now belonged to both of them. If the father died, the mother could become her child’s guardian.