Guibert fathered the trope of the heretic Oriental conquered by the orthodox West

Evidence

Orientals are clever, flighty intellectuals whose brilliant circumlocutions carry them off into heresy, contrasted implicitly to the stodgy, earthbound, authority-respecting Latins. Is it any wonder, Guibert continues, that virtually all the heresiarchs were Orientals, from Mani and Arius forward? These Orientals continue to defend their errors through reasoning (ratiocinatio): the use of leavened bread in the Eucharist, the lack of proper deference to the Pope, clerical marriage, and Trinitarian errors regarding the procession of the Holy Spirit. It is because of these errors, Guibert affirms, that God allowed the Eastern empire to fall to the Arab invaders. It is at this point that Guibert narrates Muhammad’s biography, placing him in a dual role: both as divine scourge sent to punish the heretical Eastern Christians, and the latest and worst of a long line of oriental heresiarchs. Heresy is a noxious Eastern import. — John V. Tolan, Saracens, 786

Categorization

• XREF: Anidjar’s claim that the modern Islam-West opposition is genealogically rooted in heresiology — this passage is the concrete 12th-century root of the ‘Orient as heretic’ framing.
• DEFINE: Shows the precise origination move: Guibert invents the ‘East as locus of heresy, West as locus of orthodoxy’ geography.