The policy of Heraclius was directed to the establishment of a bond of union, which should connect all the provinces of his empire into one body, and he hoped to replace the want of national unity by identity of religious belief. The church was far more closely connected with the people than any other institution, and the emperor, as political head of the church, hoped to direct a well-organised body of churchmen. But Heraclius engaged in the impracticable task of imposing a rule of faith on his subjects, without assuming the office, or claiming the authority of a prophet or a saint. His measures, consequently, like all ecclesiastical and religious reforms which are adopted solely from political motives, only produced additional discussions and difficulties. In the year 630, he propounded the doctrine that in Christ, after the union of the two natures, there was but one will and one operation. Without gaining over any great body of the schismatics whom he wished to restore to the communion of the established church by his new rule of faith, he was himself generally stigmatised as a heretic. The epithet Monothelite was applied to him and to his doctrine, to show that neither was orthodox.
In the hope of putting an end to the disputes which he had rashly awakened, he again, in 639, attempted to legislate for the church, and published his celebrated Ecthesis, which, though it attempts to remedy the effects of his prior proceedings, by forbidding all controversy on the question of the single or double operation of the will in Christ, nevertheless includes a declaration in favour of unity. The bishop of Rome, already aspiring after an increase of his spiritual authority, though perhaps not yet contemplating the possibility of perfect independence, entered actively into the opposition excited by the publication of the Ecthesis, and was supported by a considerable party in the Eastern church, while he directed the proceedings of the whole of the Western clergy.
On a careful consideration of the religious position of the empire, it cannot appear surprising that Heraclius should have endeavoured to reunite the Nestorians, Eutychians, and Jacobites to the established church, particularly when we remember how closely the influence of the church was connected with the administration of the state, and how completely religious passions replaced national feelings in these secondary ages of Christianity. The union was an indispensable step to the re-establishment of the imperial power in the provinces of Egypt, Syria, Mesopotamia, and Armenia; and it must not be overlooked that the theological speculations and ecclesiastical reforms of Heraclius were approved of by the wisest councillors whom he had been able to select to aid him in the government of the empire. The state of society required some strong remedy, and Heraclius only erred in adopting the plan which had always been pursued by absolute monarchs, namely, that of making the sovereign’s opinion the rule of conduct for his subjects. We can hardly suppose that Heraclius would have succeeded better, had he assumed the character or deserved the veneration due to a saint.
The marked difference which existed between the higher and educated classes in the East, and the ignorant and superstitious populace, rendered it next to impossible that any line of conduct could secure the judgment of the learned, and awaken the fanaticism of the people. As a further apology for Heraclius it may be noticed that his acknowledged power over the orthodox clergy was much greater than that which was possessed by the Byzantine emperors at a later period, or that which was admitted by the Latin church after its separation. In spite of all the advantages which he possessed, his attempt ended in a most signal failure; yet no experience could ever induce his successors to avoid his error. His effort to strengthen his power by establishing a principle of unity, aggravated all the evils which he intended to cure; for while the monophysites and the Greeks were as little disposed to unite as ever, the authority of the Eastern church, as a body, was weakened by the creation of a new schism, and the incipient divisions between the Greeks and the Latins, assuming a national character, began to prepare the way for the separation of the two churches.
While Heraclius was endeavouring to restore the strength of the empire in the East, and enforce unity of religious views,—the pursuit of which has ever been one of the greatest errors of the human mind,—Mohammed, by a juster application of the aspiration of mankind after unity, had succeeded in uniting Arabia into one state and in persuading it to adopt one religion. The force of this new empire of the Saracens was directed against those provinces of the Roman Empire which Heraclius had been anxiously endeavouring to reunite in spirit to his government. The difficulties of their administration had compelled the emperor to fix his residence for some years in Syria, and he was well aware of the uncertainty of their allegiance, before the Saracens commenced their invasion. The successes of the Mohammedan arms, and the retreat of the emperor, carrying off with him the holy cross from Jerusalem, have induced historians to suppose that his latter years were spent in sloth, and marked by weakness. His health, however, was in so precarious a state that he could no longer direct the operations of his army in person; at times, indeed, he was incapable of all bodily exertion. Yet the resistance which the Saracens encountered in Syria was very different from the ease with which it had yielded to the Persians at the commencement of the emperor’s reign, and attests that his administration had not been without fruit.
Many of his reforms could only have been effected after the conclusion of the Persian War, when he recovered possession of Syria and Egypt. He seems indeed never to have omitted an opportunity of strengthening his position; and when a chief of the Huns or Bulgarians threw off his allegiance to the Avars, Heraclius is recorded to have immediately availed himself of the opportunity to form an alliance, in order to circumscribe the power of his dangerous northern enemy. Unfortunately, few traces can be gleaned from the Byzantine writers of the precise acts by which he effected his reforms; and the most remarkable facts, illustrating the political history of the time, must be collected from incidental notices, preserved in the treatise of the emperor Constantine Porphyrogenitus, concerning the administration of the empire, written for the instruction of his son Romanus.
WARS WITH THE MOHAMMEDANS
[633-640 A.D.]
In the year 633 the Mohammedans invaded Syria, where their progress was rapid, although Heraclius himself was in the neighbourhood. The imperial troops made considerable effort to support the military renown of the Roman armies, but were almost universally unsuccessful. The emperor intrusted the command of the army to his brother Theodore, who had distinguished himself in the Persian wars. Vartan, who commanded after Theodore, had also distinguished himself in the last glorious campaign in Persia. [As we have already said] the health of Heraclius prevented his taking the field in person, and the absence of all moral checks in the Roman administration, and the total want of patriotism in the officers and troops at this period, rendered the personal influence of the emperor necessary at the head of his armies in order to preserve due subordination, and enforce union among the leading men of the empire.
Towards the end of the year 633, the troops of Abu Bekr laid siege to Bostra, a strong frontier town of Syria, which was surrendered early in the following year by the treachery of its governor. During the campaign of 634 the Roman armies were defeated at Adjnadin, in the south of Palestine, and at a bloody and decisive battle on the banks of the river Yermouk, in which it is said that the imperial troops were commanded by the emperor’s brother Theodore. Theodore was replaced by Vartan, but the rebellion of Vartan’s army and another defeat terminated this general’s career. In the third year of the war the Saracens gained possession of Damascus by capitulation, and they guaranteed to the inhabitants the full exercise of their municipal privileges, allowed them to use their local mint, and left the orthodox in possession of the great church of St. John. About the same time, Heraclius quitted Edessa and returned to Constantinople, carrying with him the holy cross which he had recovered from the Persians, and deposited at Jerusalem with great solemnity only six years before, but which he now considered it necessary to remove into Europe for greater safety. His son, Heraclius Constantine, who had received the imperial title when an infant, remained in Syria to supply his place and direct the military operations for the defence of the province. Wherever the imperial garrison was not sufficient to overawe the inhabitants, the native Syrians sought to make any arrangement with the Arabs which would insure their towns from plunder, feeling satisfied that the Arab authorities could not use their power with greater rapacity and cruelty than the imperial officers. The Romans still retained some hope of reconquering Syria, until the loss of another decisive battle in the year 636 compelled them to abandon the province. In the following year, 637 A.D., the Arabs advanced to Jerusalem, and the surrender of the Holy City was marked by arrangements between the patriarch Sophronius and the caliph Omar. The facility with which the Greek patriarch of Jerusalem, Sophronius, at this time, and the patriarch of Constantinople, Gennaddius, at the time of the conquest of the Byzantine Empire by Muhammed II (1453 A.D.), became the ministers of their Mohammedan conquerors, shows the slight hold which national feelings retained over the minds of the orthodox Greek clergy. Heraclius concentrated an army at Amida (Diarbekr) in the year 638, which made a bold attempt to regain possession of the north of Syria. Emesa was besieged; but the Saracens soon assembled an overwhelming force; the Romans were defeated, the conquest of Syria was completed.