Anastasios of Sinai (fl. c. 700) was a monk, pastor, and apologist living in the formerly Roman Near East, now ruled by Muslims. Naturally, this raised political questions such as the following:
“The Apostle says that the powers that are in the world are instituted by God (Rom. 13:1). Does it follow that every governor and emperor is appointed by God?”[1]
He begins by quoting Jeremiah 3:15, “I will give you rulers after your own hearts,” which he takes to mean that God appoints or wills the rulers the people deserve. From there, what intrigues about Anastasios’ response is that it is still largely shaped by the memory and imagination of living under a Christian regime. Thus, he shares an anecdote from a century prior:
When the tyrant Phokas [an unsurper; r. 602–610] became emperor and began to perpetrate those bloody massacres through Bonosos the executioner, a certain anchorite in Constantinople, a holy and very simple man who had great confidence in God, as if God were like his father or intimate friend, used to complain to God in all simplicity, “Lord, why have you made such a man emperor?” After several days had gone by and he repeated the same thing to God . . . a voice came to him from God, saying “Because I have not found anybody worse!”
After telling a similar tale about an evil bishop installed in an Egyptian city—i.e., bad rulers can be secular and ecclesiastical—he concludes with this:
So, dear friend, when you see some unworthy and wicked person is either emperor or governor or bishop, do not be surprised, but learn and believe with complete certainty that it is because of our crimes that we are handed over to such tyrants, and not even then do we desist from doing evil things. . . . Believe me when I tell you that if the race of the Saracens were to depart from us today, at once tomorrow the Green and Blue factions[2] would rise up once more and begin killing one another, and <the same with> the Eastern Administrative Area [of the pre-invasion empire], Arabia, Palestine, and many other countries.[3]
One is struck by Anastasios’ cheerful relativism. Christian and otherwise, there have ever been bad rulers, and we wouldn’t be terribly better off if we were to revert to the “Christian” ones.
The translator, Joseph Munitz, wryly notes that Anastasios was clearly no “liberation theologian.”[4] Nor indeed, I think, do Anastasios’ political theological reflexes map onto what one usually finds in the American church writ large.
That is to say, for all the overabundant political enthusiasm and commentary American Christians churn out qua Christians, almost none of it takes Anastasios’ line. Sitting here, I can think of dozens of sermons, podcasts, books, and think-pieces on relatively narrow “political” topics, such as civility or what one should believe about modern Israel. By contrast, I am not sure I have ever heard a contemporary American pastor, priest, or Christian writer seriously express the core thesis that bad politicians are fundamentally God’s chastisement, that “We the People” might be getting exactly what we deserve.
And someone like Anastasios would have found that omission all the more gobsmacking: after all, we elect our leaders.
Translation adapted from Anastasios of Sinai: Questions and Answers, trans. Joseph Munitz (Turnhout: Brepols, 2011), 177.
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The so-called “circus factions,” these groups were a bit like political mobilization squads blended with European football clubs. During the reign of Justinian I, they instigated a massive riot in Constantinople that destroyed much of the city nearly ousted him. Justinian’s move to quell the riot-turned-insurrection left thousands dead.
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Munitz, 178.
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Ibid., 13 ↑