Killing at God's command: Niketas Byzantios' polemic against Islam and the Christian tradition of divinely sanctioned murder

Krausmüller, Dirk 2004. Killing at God's command: Niketas Byzantios' polemic against Islam and the Christian tradition of divinely sanctioned murder. Al-Masaq Islam and the Medieval Mediterranean 16 (1) , pp. 163-176. 10.1080/0950311042000202579

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Abstract

My article has two objectives: I discuss aspects of the Byzantine debate about the principles on which a Christian value system should be based and I show how this debate was mirrored in Byzantine polemics against Islam. My starting point is a ninth‐century controversy between the Byzantine philosopher Niketas Byzantios (fl. c. 850) and an anonymous Muslim author. The Muslim author justified the concept of holy war by arguing that murder can be either licit or illicit, depending on whether or not the action is approved of by God. Niketas rejected this argument as irreconcilable with Christian ethics, maintaining that for Christians murder is always bad. However, in doing so Niketas departed from earlier Christian positions, developed in anti‐Manichaean polemic and Biblical exegesis, which either defined killing as a neutral act or rejected an essentialist approach in favour of God's will as the overriding criterion.

Item Type:	Article
Date Type:	Publication
Status:	Published
Schools:	History, Archaeology and Religion
Subjects:	B Philosophy. Psychology. Religion > BL Religion D History General and Old World > D History (General) > D111 Medieval History
Publisher:	Routledge
ISSN:	1473-348X
Last Modified:	04 Jun 2017 01:52
URI:	https://orca.cardiff.ac.uk/id/eprint/3942

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