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sense found in the Occident). For early Christianity presupposed as already extant certain conceptions,
namely, the destruction of all taboo barriers between kin groups, the concept of office, and the concept
of the community as an "institution" serving specific purposes. To be sure, Christianity, on its part,
strengthened these conceptions and greatly facilitated the renewed reception of them by the growing
European cities during the Middle Ages. But actually these notions fully developed nowhere else in the
world but within the Mediterranean culture, particularly in Hellenistic and definitely in Roman urban
law. What is more, the specific qualities of Christianity as an ethical religion of salvation and as personal
piety found their real nurture in the urban environment; and it is there that they created new movements
time and again, in contrast to the ritualistic, magical or formalistic re-interpretation favored by the
dominant feudal powers.
(E.2) Warrior Aristocrats
(E.2.a) Warrior's Conduct of Life
As a rule, the warrior nobles, and indeed feudal powers, have not become the carriers of a rational
religious ethic. Warrior's conduct of life has very little affinity with the notion of providence, or with the
systematic ethical demands of a transcendental god. Concepts like "sin," "salvation," and religious
"humility" have not only seemed remote from all ruling strata, particularly the warrior nobles, but have
indeed appeared reprehensible to their sense of dignity. To accept a religion that carries out such
conceptions and to revere the prophet or priest would appear humiliated and dishonorable to any martial
hero or noble person, for example, the Roman nobility of the age of Tacitus (AD 56-120), or the
Confucian Mandarins. It is an everyday event for the warrior to face death and the irrationalities of
human destiny. Indeed, the chances and adventures of this world fill his life to such an extent that he
does not seek a religion (and accepts only reluctantly) anything beyond protection against evil magic or
ceremonial rites acceptable to his sense of status dignity, such as priestly prayers for victory or for a
blissful death leading directly into the hero's heaven.
As has already been mentioned in another connection, [51] the educated Greek always remained a
warrior, at least in ideal. The simple animistic belief in the soul which left vague the existence after
death and the entire question of the hereafter (though remaining certain that the most miserable status
here on earth was better than the world of hell or Hades), remained the normal faith of the Greeks until
the time (1st century BC) of the complete destruction of their political autonomy. The only
developments beyond this were the mystery religions, which provided means for ritualistic improvement
of the human condition in this world and in the next; the only radical departure was the Orphic
communal religion, with its teaching of the transmigration of souls.
(E.2.b) Prophecy and Warrior
Periods of strong prophetic or reformist religious enthusiasm have frequently pulled the nobility in
particular into the path of prophetic ethical religion, because this type of religion breaks through all
classes and status, and because the nobility has generally been the first carrier of lay education. But the
routinization of prophetic religion had the effect of separating the nobility from the circle of religious
enthusiasm. This is already evident at the time of the religious wars in France in the conflicts of the
Huguenot synods with a leader like Conde over ethical questions. Ultimately, the Scottish nobility, like
the British and the French, completely dropped out from the Calvinist religion in which it, or at least
some of its groups, had originally played a considerable role.
As a rule, prophetic religion is compatible with the status sense of the chivalry of the nobility when it
directs its promises to the battle for faith. This conception presupposes the exclusiveness of a universal
god and the moral corruption of unbelievers who are his adversaries and whose ungodly existence
arouses his righteous indignation. Hence, such a notion is absent in the Occident of ancient times, as
well as in all Asiatic religion until Zoroaster. Yet, even in Zoroastrianism a direct connection between
religious promises and war against religious infidelity is still lacking. It was Islam that first created this
conjunction of ideas.
The precursor and probable model for this was the promise of the Hebrew god to his people, as
understood and reinterpreted by Muhammad after he had changed from a pietistic leader of a conventicle
in Mecca to the political leader (podesta) of Medina (Yathrib), and after he had finally been rejected as a
prophet by the Jews. The ancient wars of the Israelite confederacy, waged under the leadership of
various saviors conducting under the name of Yahweh, were regarded by the tradition as "holy" wars.
This concept of a holy war, namely, a war in the name of a god, for the special purpose of avenging a
sacrilege, which entailed putting the enemy under the ban and destroying him and all his belongings
completely, is known in Antiquity, particularly among the Greeks. But what was distinctive of the
Hebraic concept is that the people of Yahweh, as his special community, exemplified their god's prestige
against their foes. Consequently, when Yahweh became a universal god, Hebrew prophets and the
Psalmists created a new religious interpretation. The possession of the Promised Land, previously
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