Antiochus Strategos - The Sack of Jerusalem
(614)
Byzantine law granted toleration to Jews [Theodosian Code 16.8.21], although there
were occasional attempts at forced conversion [Leo VI, Novels], but
there was a general prejudice against Jews. The following account of
the fall of Jerusalem to the Persians in 614, by the
monk Antiochus Stategos, who lived in the monastary (lavra) of St. Sabas
in Jerusalem, shows this attitude. It provides a Byzantine version of
the later blood libel. It also, of course, may reflect Jewish resistance
to Byzantine restrictions an oppression. Finally, it might be noted
that, despite Antiochus' account, the Persians of this period seem to
have been significantly more tolerant of religious diversity than almost
any contemporary government. They began the system, long continued,
and later known (under the Turks) as the Millet system, by which each
religious group governed itself in religious and family matters.
The beginning of the struggle of the Persians with
the Christians of Jerusalem was on the 15th April, in the second indiction,
in the fourth year of the Emperor Heraclius. They spent twenty days
in the struggle. And they shot from their ballistas with such violence,
that on the twenty-first day they broke down the city wall. Thereupon
the evil; foemen entered the city in great fury, like infuriated wild
beasts and irritated serpents. The men however, who defended the city
wall fled, and hid themselves in caverns, fosses and cisterns in order
to save themselves; and the people in crowds fled into churches and
altars; and there they destroyed them. For the enemy entered in a mighty
wrath, gnashing their teeth in violent fury; like evil beasts they roared,
bellowed like lions, hissed like ferocious serpents, and slew all whom
they found. Lile mad dogs they tore with their teeth the flesh of the
faithful, and respected non at all, neither male nor female, neither
young nor old, neither child nor baby, neither priest no monk, neither
virgin nor widow….
Meanwhile the evil Persians, who had no pity in their
hearts, raced to every place in the city and with one accord extirpated
all the people. Anyone who ran away in terror they caught hold of; and
if any cried out from fear, they roared at them with gashing teeth,
and by breaking their teeth on the ground forced them to close their
mouths. They slaughtered tender infants on the ground, and then with
loud yelps called their parents. The parents bewailed the children with
vociferations and sobbings, but were promptly despatched along with
them. Any that were caught armed were massacred with their own weapons.
Those who ran swiftly were pierced with arrows, the unresisting and
quiet they slew without mercy. They listened not to the appeals of supplicants,
nor pitied youthful beuty nor had compassion on old men's age, nor blushed
before the humility of the clergy. On the contrary they destroyed persons
of every age, massacred them like animals, cut them into pieces, mowed
sundry of them down like cabbages, so that all alike had severally to
drain the cup full of bitterness. Lamentation and terror might be seen
in Jerusale. Holy churches were burned with fire, other were demolished,
majestic altars fell prone, sacred crosses were trampled underfoot,
life-giving icons were spat upon by the unclean. Then their wrath fell
upon priests and deacons; they slew them in their churches like dumb
animals.
****
Thereupon the vile Jews, enemies of the truth and
haters of Christ, when they perceived that the Christians were given
over into the hands of the enemy, rejoiced exceedingly, because they
detested the Christians; and they conceived an evil plan in keeping
with their vileness about the people. For in the eyes of the Persians
their importance was great, because they were the betrayers of the Christians.
And in this season then the Jews approached the edge of the reservoir
and called out to the children of God, while they were shut up therein,
and said to them: "If ye would escape from death, become Jews and
deny Christ; and then ye shall step up from your place and join us.
We will ransom you with our money, and ye shall be benefited by us."
But their plot and desire were not fulfilled, their labours proved to
be in vain; because the children of the Holy Church chose death for
Christ's sake rather than to live in godlessness: and they reckoned
it better for their flesh to be punished, rather than their souls ruined,
so that their portion were not with the Jews. And when the unclean Jews
saw the steadfast uprightness of the Christians and their immovable
faith, then they were agitated with lively ire, like evil beasts, and
thereupon imagined an other plot. As of old they bought the Lord from
the Jews with silver, so they purchased Christians out of the reservoir;
for they gave the Persians silver, and they bought a Christian and slew
him like a sheep. The Christians however rejoiced because they were
being slain for Christ's sake and shed their blood for His blood, and
took on themselves death in return for His death....
When the people were carried into Persia, and the
Jews were left in Jerusalem, they began with their own hands to demolish
and burn such of the holy churches as were left standing....
How many souls were slain in the reservoir of Mamel!
How many perished of hunger and thirst! How many priests and monks were
massacred by the sword! How many infants were crushed under foot, or
perished by hunger and thirst, or languished through fear and horror
of the foe! How many maidens, refusing their abominable outrages, were
given over to death by the enemy! How many parents perished on top of
their own children! How many of the people were bought up by the Jews
and butchered, and became confessors of Christ! How many persons, fathers,
mothers, and tender infants, having concealed themselves in fosses and
cisterns, perished of darkness and hunger! How many fled into the Church
of the Anastasis, into that of Sion and other churches, and were therein
massacred and consumed with fire! Who can count the multitude of the
corpses of those who were massacred in Jerusalem?
Sources: Medieval
Sourcebook
Translated by F. Conybeare, "Antiochus Strategos'
Account of the Sack of Jerusalem (614)," English Historical Review
25 [1910], p 506-508. Reprinted in Deno Geanokoplos, Byzantium, (Chicago:
1984), 334-335, 266-67
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