Scott Zellner
Assignment 3: Rough Draft
Hon-H 211
4/29/2014
Narrative Use of Religion as a Response to Crisis
The environment one lives in has a direct impact upon his or her writing. Ibn Shaddād,
Dhuoda, Abelard, Prokopios, Homer, and the poet of Beowulf all lived in societies that used
religion as a source of comfort. All of these authors also wrote in response to crises. Each author
utilizes religion differently in his or her writing based on the scope of the crisis he or she faces.
The main difference in the ways these authors use religion is in the role they give their gods.
Those who use religion passively merely make references to their gods. Characters might pray to
them, but the deities are not characters in the narrative. Meanwhile, authors who use religion
actively make deities active characters that have an impact on the outcome of the narrative. Ibn
Shaddād, Dhuoda, Abelard, and Heloise faced personal crises and responded by giving the gods
a passive role in their writing while others, like Prokopios, Homer, and the poet of Beowulf,
faced societal crises and gave the gods an active role in their narratives. In this paper, the
connection between the crises each of these authors faced and their use of religion in response
within their writing will be examined.
Although Ibn Shaddād tells of many battles in the crusades in the Rare and Excellent
History of Saladin, he is really responding to the personal crisis of Saladin’s death. As Ibn
Shaddād writes at the end of the text: “I completed the collection of [the records] the day
[Saladin] died. Through this I planned to win the favor of God by urging people to bless his
name and remember his excellent qualities.”1 The introduction to the text explains that “Ibn
Shaddād was [Saladin's] intimate and close confidant, being seldom absent for any length of
time.”2 These two quotes communicate that Ibn Shaddād is mourning the death and honoring the
life of a close friend. That death is the real personal crisis to which Ibn Shaddād is responding.
In response to this personal crisis, Ibn Shaddād makes passive references to religion and
Allah throughout his writing. His primary goal with these reference is to establish comfortable
common ground with his Muslim audience and to honor Saladin. As will be shown below, this is
clear from the very beginning of Ibn Shaddād’s writing to the language he uses throughout the
book.
Ibn Shaddād wastes no time making an appeal to the comfortable traditions of his Muslim
audience. To establish how well Saladin practiced the Islamic faith, Ibn Shaddād starts his book
by showing how Saladin followed the Five Pillars of Islam.3 This is the second thing that the
reader learns about Saladin in this book, the first being his birth. Even the two pillars that Saladin
does not quite fulfill, the Ramadan Fast and the Pilgrimage,4 are explained and excused
thoroughly. Opening the book this way stresses the importance of religious tradition to Ibn
Shaddād and, to a Muslim audience, makes Saladin instantly more admirable. As a result, this
opening successfully furthers Ibn Shaddād’s goal of selling Saladin to his audience using
religious references.
1
Ibn Shaddād, Bahāʼ Al-Dīn Yūsuf Ibn Rāfiʻ. The Rare and Excellent History of Saladin. Trans. D. S. Richards.
Aldershot, England: Ashgate, 2002. Print.245
2
Shaddād 2 (CITE INTRODUCTION DIFFERENTLY?)
3
Shaddād 18
4
Shaddād 19
Ibn Shaddād continues this trend by referring to religion throughout the text. Whenever a
significant individual is introduced, he adds a parenthetical comment like “(God be pleased with
him).”5 When referring to the King of the Frankish army, Ibn Shaddād makes the parenthetical
comment “(God curse him).”6 These constant references throughout the book make it clear to
Muslim audiences that Ibn Shaddād’s priorities are linked with theirs and make his arguments
more palatable to them.
All of these references that Ibn Shaddād uses give Allah a passive role in his narrative. At
no point does Ibn Shaddād say that Allah has taken action or use him as a character in his
narrative. Allah’s grace is frequently asked for and sometimes is given, but Allah is not an actor
in the text. Therefore, Ibn Shaddād responds to his personal crisis by using passive religious
references.
Similar to Ibn Shaddād’s concern for Saladin, the fate of her son, William, is Dhuoda’s
primary concern in her Handbook for William and the source of her personal crisis. Before
writing her book, Dhuoda’s son William is taken as a hostage in Charles the Bald’s court
because of his father’s disobedience to the King. Dhuoda’s personal crisis is the breakup of her
family. This crisis drives her to give advice to William regarding his spiritual well-being.
The narrative of Dhuoda’s handbook gives God a passive role in the course of events.
Instead of making God a character, she instructs William on how to please God and reach
spiritual salvation. For example, Dhuoda spends the entirety of Book 8 directing William on how
5
6
CITE
Shaddād 94
to pray and for whom he should pray. She urges him to “despair of no one”7 and asks him to pray
for his father, the king that is causing them pain, the poor, for the dead, travelers, and a multitude
of others. While her ultimate goal is William’s salvation, it comes off as a lesson in empathy for
him. She is trying to make him think of others as if he were in their situation and to have
compassion for them. This example from Book 8 is representative of how religion is treated in
the rest of Dhuoda’s handbook. Instead of making God an active character, Dhuoda uses religion
to guide William’s salvation.
As told through The Letters of Abelard and Heloise, the title characters suffer the
personal crisis of having to leave their previous lives because of their love affair. Heloise has to
move to a convent and abandon her son. Abelard has to abandon his work at the school and joins
a monastery. Although their letters occur during and discuss reformation, their major focus in
writing is in response to their own personal crisis.
In response to their crisis, Abelard and Heloise reference religion as a source of comfort.
For example, to bring Heloise comfort about his well-being, Abelard gives her instructions to
pray for his well-being, similar to how Dhuoda gave William instructions to pray. Abelard asks
Heloise to “consider then the great power of prayer, if we pray as we are bidden, seeing that the
prophet won by prayer what he was forbidden to pray for, and turned God from his declared
intention.”8 On page 60, he provides a prayer script for her to follow. While his instructions are
more specific than Dhuoda’s, likely because he has had more training on the subject, Abelard’s
are much more self-centered. He spends the whole section telling Heloise specifically how to
7
Dhuoda, and Carol Neel. Handbook for William: A Carolingian Woman's Counsel for Her Son. Washington, D.C.:
Catholic University of America, 1999. Print. 85
8
Radice, Betty, M. T. Clanchy, Peter Abelard, and Héloïse. The Letters of Abelard and Heloise. London, England:
Penguin, 2003. Print.57
pray for him. He says, “At present you are over-anxious about the danger to my body, but then
your chief concern must be for the salvation of my soul, and you must show the dead man how
much you love the living by the special support of prayers chosen for him.”9 This shows that
Abelard and Heloise respond to their crisis through religion.
In Abelard and Heloise’s correspondence, religion is given a passive role. This is evident
from the textual examples above. Abelard’s advice above says that prayer might alter God’s
intention. This is evidence that God is not an active character in the narrative. Instead, God is an
outside character that they have to try and get the attention of. Therefore, Abelard and Heloise, in
the face of their personal crisis, give religion a passive role in their writing.
In contrast to the personal crises that Ibn Shaddād, Dhuoda, Abelard, and Heloise faced,
Prokopios wrote The Secret History in response to what he saw as the societal crisis of the reign
of the Roman Emperor Justinian and his wife Theodora. Prokopios’ thesis is essentially that
Justinian “kept introducing into public life things… previously forbidden by law while
abolishing firm and established customs all at once.”10 This quote establishes Prokopios as a
conservative who did not like the customs that Justinian was breaking. Alongside Justinian’s
legal changes, events like the Nika Riots and the plague constituted major crises for Prokopios.
As a result, he wrote The Secret History to try to persuade the Roman populace that Justinian and
Theodora posed a societal crisis.
Prokopios uses references to comfortable religious traditions to show how Justinian and
his wife Theodora deviate from them. One way Prokopios attacks Justinaian and Theodora is by
9
Radice 62
Prokopios. The Secret History: With Related Texts. Ed. Anthony Kaldellis. Indianapolis: Hackett Pub., 2010. Print.
50
10
showing how far they deviate from religion based moral traditions. For example, when
describing Theodora’s past as a prostitute he says that “there was no inviolable place that
[Theodora] could ever hesitate to desecrate, as she thought nothing of violating all sacred things.
Along with the common people, the priests of the Christians were likewise too afraid of her and
so they stood aside and let her do whatever she pleased.”11 When describing Theodora’s time as
a prostitute, he says “God would show no mercy upon the man who specified the name of [her]
trade.”12 These quotes show how Prokopios uses religious references to imply just how deviant
Theodora must have been, leaving the specifics to the imagination of his audience. This futhers
his goal of making his audience dislike Theodora as well as Justinian by association. In these
examples, Prokopios is using religion passively as a reference point similar to the way that Ibn
Shaddād uses it.
Prokopios goes a step further than Ibn Shaddād and gives religion an active role in his
narrative by accusing Justinian of being connected to demonic forces. There is a section in The
Secret History titled “The Demonic Nature of Justinian and Theodora.”13 He highlights the
number of deaths during their reign, testimony of Justinian’s mother about his birth, Justinian’s
ascetic lifestyle, and an instance in which a monk called Justinian “the Lord of Death” as
evidence for his claim that Justinian is not human. Here, Prokopios is using religious tradition as
a means to dehumanize Justinian. He is deliberately trying to make his audience as
uncomfortable as possible with the rule of Justinian by describing him as a demon. While Ibn
Shaddād might refer to Saladin’s relationship with Allah, he would never claim that Saladin was
11
Prokopios 17
Prokopios 43
13
Prokopios 58-68
12
divine or a prophet. This use of religion is active, because Prokopios is using religion to ascribe
supernatural attributes to Justinian.
Prokopios takes this active use of religion further by using his established demonic
description of Justinian and ending part two of The Secret History with a section titled “The
Destruction of the World by the Demon Justinian.” He attributes the Nile subsiding at the wrong
time, a flood in Tarsos, earthquakes, and the plague to Justinian’s “occult power and demonic
nature.”14 Here Prokopios is using the populace’s beliefs in religious customs and traditions to
accuse Justinian of crimes he could not have possibly committed so that Romans would have
more reasons to dislike Justinian. It is unlikely that even Prokopios truly buys into this argument.
Had Prokopios truly believed that Justinian was responsible for such huge disasters, he would
have made Justinian’s control of the natural world the focal point of The Secret History. Instead,
the argument is relegated to the end of the text. Prokopios is only able to make this argument by
giving religion an active role in his argument responding to the societal crisis of Justinian’s
reign.
Homer gives even more agency to Greek gods in The Iliad, an epic poem from oral
tradition, in response to the societal crisis of the Trojan War. Although the poem focuses on only
a few characters and the personal crises they face during the war, the aggregate of these personal
crises and the scope of war itself leading to the fall of Troy make the Trojan War a societal crisis.
Because of the magnitude of the events in The Iliad, events are often explained by the actions of
the Gods.
14
Prokopios 85
Homer gives the Greek gods very active roles in The Iliad. Throughout the poem, Homer
talks about events occurring on Mount Olympus that affect the action in Troy. For example,
Athena comes down to stop Achilles from killing Agamemnon,15 Zeus directly impacts the
course of battle by stealing Glaucus’ wits during his fight against Diomedes,16 Apollo saves
Hector’s life,17 and when Hermes guides Priam to Achilles’ tent. While other works feature
characters praying, in The Iliad the audience knows whether the gods hear those prayers and how
they respond. In one instance, Athena directly refuses to hear the prayers of the Trojan woman.18
In the poem, the human characters are perfectly aware of the gods’ involvement in the war. For
example, Priam says “we’ll fight tomorrow until some fatal power decides between us both”19
and Achilles warns Patroclus that if he goes too far with his attack, a god will get involved and
kill him.20 These instances show just how active of a role Homer gives religion in this poem
about this societal crisis.
The poem Beowulf seems at first to occupy a middle ground in this schema. While
Beowulf the character acts in reaction to murderous monsters, the poem is written as a memorial
to Beowulf. As J.R.R. Tolkien argues “[Beowulf] is an heroic-elegiac poem; and in a sense all its
first 3,126 lines are the prelude to a dirge.”21 So, as with Ibn Shaddād’s writings, this poem is a
reaction to the death of an individual. Although the death of an individual would seem at first to
be a personal crisis, the dirge Tolkien describes focuses more on his societal impact. The poem
ends with the lines “So the Geat people, his hearth companions,/sorrowed for the lord who had
15
Homer, Robert Fagles, and Bernard MacGregor Walker. Knox. The Iliad. New York: Penguin, 1991. Print. 84
Homer 203
17
Homer 223
18
Homer 205
19
Homer 226
20
Homer 415
21
Donoghue, Daniel, and Seamus Heaney. Beowulf: A Verse Translation: Authoritative Text, Contexts, Criticism.
New York: Norton, 2002. Print. 128 (CITE SCHOLARSHIP DIFFERENTLY?)
16
been laid low./ They said that of all the kings upon earth/ he was the man most gracious and fairminded,/ kindest to his people and keenest to win fame.”22 This quote describes Beowulf’s death
as a societal crisis. Furthermore, unlike the clearly defined relationship between Ibn Shaddād and
Saladin, there is no established relationship between the poet of Beowulf and Beowulf the person.
Through this reasoning, the crisis in Beowulf can be classified as societal.
The anonymous poet responds to the societal crisis by actively attributing the successes
of Beowulf to God. A major theme in this poem that trust in God leads to success where trust in
man-made objects fails. When Beowulf fights Grendel, he chooses to do so without weapons or
armor. His fellow fighters learn during the battle that “no blade on earth, no blacksmith’s art
could ever damage their demon opponent. [Grendel] had conjured the harm from the cutting
edge of their demon opponent.”23 From this quote one sees an active use of religion in the
supernatural description of Grendel. In fact, Grendel and his mother are given definition as
characters in being described as the offspring of Cain from the Biblical story of Abel and Cain.24
Beowulf fights Grendel by putting the monster in an arm lock. Beowulf’s victory is not won
through any surge of strength on his part but because Grendel, who “had given offense to God,/
found that his bodily opposition had failed him.”25 Ultimately, Beowulf’s defeat of Grendel is
credited to God on an active level in the following quote: “as he would have killed more, had not
mindful God and one man’s daring prevented the doom.”26
The theme of God’s power succeeding where the weapons of man fail is repeated in the
fight against Grendel’s mother. During the fight, the sword Unferth gave him breaks. In a
22
Donoghue 78
Donoghue 22
24
Donoghue 6
25
Donoghue 22
26
Donoghue 27
23
moment when the result of the battle seems uncertain the poet states “holy God decided the
victory. It was easy for the Lord, the Ruler of Heaven to redress the balance once Beowulf got
back up on his feet.”27 Immediately after this quote, Beowulf finds the magic sword that allows
him to defeat Grendel’s mother. It is clear that the sword that God allows him to find succeeds
where the sword Unferth gave him breaks. This theme regarding God’s power gives religion an
active role in the narrative of Beowulf.
In all of these texts, crisis drives their authors to the comfort of religion. As shown in this
paper’s schema, different types of crises lead authors to use religion in different ways. Personal
crises in the form of the death of a friend, as with Ibn Shaddād, the loss of a son, as with Dhuoda,
or the loss of a lover and a lifestyle, as with Abelard and Heloise, leads to religion being used as
a point of reference to guide future behavior. In these, advice is given, blessings are asked for,
and God is passive. Societal crises, in form of a tyrannical emperor, as with Prokopios, a war, as
with Homer, or the death of a societal hero, as with the poet of Beowulf, religion is used to
explain what happened in chaotic times. It is not enough in times where crises effect the
multitude for God to being sitting idly by: He must be involved somehow. As such, Demons are
used to explain Justinian’s actions in The Secret History, the Greek Gods are used to explain the
chaotic events of The Iliad, and God is used to explain Beowulf’s triumphs in Beowulf. Overall,
the scope of a crisis changes the way people tell stories and communicate in regards to religion
in response.
27
Donoghue 41
Works Cited
Dhuoda, and Carol Neel. Handbook for William: A Carolingian Woman's Counsel for Her Son.
Washington, D.C.: Catholic University of America, 1999. Print.
Donoghue, Daniel, and Seamus Heaney. Beowulf: A Verse Translation: Authoritative Text,
Contexts, Criticism. New York: Norton, 2002. Print.
Homer, Robert Fagles, and Bernard MacGregor Walker. Knox. The Iliad. New York: Penguin,
1991. Print.
Ibn Shaddād, Bahāʼ Al-Dīn Yūsuf Ibn Rāfiʻ. The Rare and Excellent History of Saladin. Trans.
D. S. Richards. Aldershot, England: Ashgate, 2002. Print.
Prokopios. The Secret History: With Related Texts. Ed. Anthony Kaldellis. Indianapolis: Hackett
Pub., 2010. Print.
Radice, Betty, M. T. Clanchy, Peter Abelard, and Héloïse. The Letters of Abelard and Heloise.
London, England: Penguin, 2003. Print.