Byzantine chroniclers explained Muslim victory as God’s punishment for heresy

Evidence

For Theophanes, the primary dramatic cause of the spectacular losses of Roman territory to the Arabs is Heraclius’s embracing of the Monothelite heresy (according to this doctrine, Christ had a single, unified will, rather than separate divine and human wills). This fall from grace is all the more dramatic as Heraclius had (for Theophanes) been the champion of orthodoxy, thanks to whom Constantinople had crushed its Avar and Persian enemies and recovered the true cross from the Persians. God and the Virgin had watched over Heraclius and guaranteed his success until the emperor inexplicably turned heretic, at which point they abandoned him to the Arab invaders. Moreover, it is the fault of wicked Monophysite Syrians that Heraclius was dragged into the nets of heresy: how could the ravaging of Syria by Arab armies be anything but God’s just and terrible punishment? — John V. Tolan, Saracens, 411

Categorization

• XREF: The defeated-explains-victory-as-God’s-punishment structure — the interpretive move that blames the victims’ doctrinal failings rather than imperial weakness — parallels Sigmund Freud-family readings of religious defeat that vault claims on scapegoating could connect to.
• QUESTION: Worth checking whether this punitive-theodicy pattern of explaining Muslim success recurs in early modern European accounts of Ottoman victories.