The Question Of The Crusades

And yet, even the least discerning of readers will have wondered if there wasn't more to the story of the True Cross' failure than appears on the surface. And there was. A close examination of events leading up to this epic confrontation reveals several interesting and significant facts:

1. Guy had been made king in violation of sacred oaths taken by all the leading barons and churchmen of Jerusalem, including himself. They had promised the dying leper-king, Baldwin IV, that they would leave the choice of a successor in the hands of the rulers of Europe, while Raymond was to act as regent.

2. Saladin had gathered his army to attack the Christians only after they repeatedly violated truces made with him in good faith. It was their practice to attack the rich caravans which passed along the road between Damascus and Mecca, plundering and slaughtering without conscience.

3. The great army which opposed the Saracens at Hattin had originally been gathered not for that purpose, but to destroy Raymond of Tripoli, the rightful ruler (as regent) of the kingdom of Jerusalem. Only last minute developments forced these two factions into alliance against the Moslem threat.

4. The Holy Cross, whose loss so bereaved all Christendom, seems to have been less highly regarded before the battle. Heraclius, Patriarch of Jerusalem, had declined to bring it on the campaign when ordered to do so by Guy, because he preferred to remain in the Holy City with his mistress, the fabulous Paschia de Riveri. Therefore he sent the holy relic in the care of the Prior of the Sepulchre instead.

More could be said, but I think the point is made. The "Christian" cause was hardly Christian. The Crusaders, whatever their original motives may have been, had by 1187 devolved into little more than merciless robber barons who covered their vicious activities with a cloak of religious sanctity. Yet calling oneself a Christian, and even sporting the relics of Christianity, is not the same thing as being a follower of Christ, as Christ himself declared in his Gospels.

Generally speaking, all people tend to accept the faith into which they are born as "true," and use that faith as a symbol of personal superiority and, when pressed-as the Crusaders at Hattin were pressed-they will expect the God Who nominally leads their sect to protect them. This sort of religious consciousness is, of course, hypocritical to a fine degree. It makes God the servant of man, which is the reverse of what is actually taught in the great Scriptures of the world. And, when God fails to sanctify our actions, fill our pockets, and protect us when retribution for our misdeeds arrives, our faith is broken like a fragile bubble. This sort of faith, the sort which was defeated in 1187 by the loss of the True Cross, is not real faith to begin with. It is, more correctly, a social convention meant to justify our personal desires, a tool and not an honest belief in the supremacy of God.

Still, the whole question of the Crusades remains. Why are there different faiths in the first place if, as all civilized religions agree, there is only one God? And, granted that different faiths represent different ways of worshiping the same God, why do the various devotees of that God come from time to time to swords' points?

In considering the second question we should remember that Saladin, like all good Moslems, thought the Christians no more than pagans because of their worship of the Virgin Mary, a clear instance of demigod worship in the eyes of the Arabs. And the Christians, of course, held the Saracens to be infidels simply because they revered Lord Jesus as a prophet and not as the only Son of God. Yet members of the two faiths, with all the grim and pitiless hatred between them, never doubted that both were ultimately following the same God. This is the great madness of the Crusades, and it has been to many a skeptic proof positive of the harmfulness and senselessness of strong religious convictions.

The present writer suggests that the solution to the riddles indicated by the Crusades cannot be found in the standard teachings of Christianity or Islam, nor in those of Judaism. No faith which holds itself as "true" to the exclusion of all others can adequately explain co-existing religions. In the Vedic writings of India, however, the enquirer may be surprised to find that all religions and forms of worship are explained and, what's more, accepted; while the basic teaching of love of Krishna, the Supreme Godhead, is maintained as "true."

The Vedic religious viewpoint has generally been regarded by scholars as bewilderingly liberal. In the words of one writer, "It affirms almost everything and denies almost nothing." This, however, does not so much indicate how blindly superstitious the people of India have been as it shows the truly universal scope of the Vedic writings. And it is because of their scope, as well as the systematic and scientific approach to spiritual wisdom which they present, that these writings offer us the hope of solving our religious riddles, both old and new.

There is a Vedic analysis, for example, of the stages of consciousness possessed by worshipers of God. The least developed devotee recognizes only two principles in existence: himself and God. All else is excluded, or condemned. Of course, his identification of God as, more or less, his own private possession extends to his family, his society, his nation and culture. He and his belong to God, and God belongs to them-exclusively. It is not difficult to see that this rudimentary worship of God, held to be highly imperfect by the Vedic standard, is the sort typified in the men of the Crusades. And this sheds some light upon their actual position, for they did truly worship God, but their understanding of Him, of His ways and His will and service, were imperfect.

It is not a far step from this narrow, elementary concept of God to the point of outright hypocrisy. First of all the Lord is the ruler and protector of one's life and community; next He becomes the symbol of their special superiority, and at last He is an excuse for their inebrieties-the servant rather than the master. For this reason the elementary stage of God consciousness, though it is surely transcendental and entails "salvation"-that is, release from the bondage of material Nature-can be seen to be a dangerous, unsteady platform. In this position, the risk of falling into unabashed hypocrisy is always present.