An eloquent practical example of the true and typical Christian policy towards sinful and wayward paganism, is that beautiful story told by Clemens of Alexandria about the aged apostle John. The story has every appearance of being historically true, at least in substance; but, even if fictitious, it must still be ‘in character,’ and therefore have value as evidence for the approved Christian method of grappling with heathen immorality. The story is briefly as follows. John, while visiting the Christians in some city—perhaps Smyrna—saw in the church a handsome heathen youth, and feeling attracted to him, entrusted him, in the presence of Christian witnesses, to the bishop’s care. The bishop took the youth home, taught, and baptized him; and then, thinking him secure, neglected him. When thus prematurely freed from restraint, bad companions got hold of him, and by degrees corrupted and enticed him into evil ways and finally into the commission of some great crime. He then took to the mountains with them as a brigand-chief, and committed acts of bloodshed and cruelty. Some time after, John visited the same city again, and, learning on enquiry what had happened, called for a horse and guide, and at length found his way unarmed into the young captain’s presence. The latter fled away in shame; but the apostle pursued him with entreaties: “Why, my child, dost thou flee from me, thine own father, unarmed (and) aged (as I am)? Have mercy on me, my child; fear not. Thou still hast hope of life. I will give account to Christ for thee. If need be, I will willingly endure thy death (for thee), as the Lord endured it for us. I will give my life for thine. Stand; believe; Christ has sent me.” The youth halted, looked downwards, cast away his weapons, trembled, and wept. When the apostle approached, the youth embraced him, and poured forth confessions and lamentations. John assured him of the Saviour’s pardon, and, falling on his knees, and kissing the right hand which the youth had concealed in shame, prevailed upon him to suffer himself to be led back to the church. There the apostle spent time with him in intercessory prayer, prolonged fasting, and multiplied counsels, and did not depart until he had restored him to the church, ‘a trophy of visible resurrection.’ 1

Ignatius writes to the Ephesians: “And on behalf of the rest of men, pray unceasingly. For there is in them a hope of repentance, that they may attain to God. Allow them therefore to become disciples even through your works. Towards their anger (be) ye gentle; towards their boasting (be) ye meek; against their railing (oppose) ye your prayers; against their error (be) ye steadfast in the faith: against their savagery (be) ye mild, not being eager to imitate them. Let us be found their brothers in forbearance: and let us be eager to be imitators of the Lord, (to see) who can be most wronged, who (most) deprived, who (most) despised, in order that no plant of the devil be found in you, but in all chastity and temperance ye may remain in Jesus Christ as regards both flesh and spirit.” 1 He says to the Trallians of their bishop: “His gentleness is a power: I believe even the godless respect him.” 2 “I need gentleness,” he tells them, “by which the Ruler of this age is brought to nought.” 3 He exhorts his friend Polukarpos, the bishop of Smyrna: “Forbear all men in love, as indeed thou dost.” 4 Polukarpos himself tells the Philippians that God will raise us from the dead if we “do His will and walk in His commandments. . . not rendering evil in return for evil, or reviling in return for reviling, or fisticuff in return for fisticuff, or curse in return for curse.” 5 “Pray also,” he says, “for kings and authorities and rulers and for those who persecute and hate you and for the enemies of the cross, that your fruit may be manifest among all, that ye may be perfect in Him.” 6 Aristeides says of the Christians: “They appeal to those who wrong them and make them friendly to themselves; they are eager to do good to their enemies; they are mild and conciliatory.” 7 Diognetos is told that the Christians “love all (men), and are persecuted by all;. . . they are reviled, and they bless; they are insulted, and are respectful.” 8 Hermas includes in his enumeration of Christian duties those of “withstanding no one,. . . bearing insult, being longsuffering, having no remembrance of wrongs.” 1 The author of the so-called second Epistle of Clemens reproves his readers for not being true to these principles: “For the gentiles, hearing from our mouth the words of God, are impressed by their beauty and greatness: then, learning that our works are not worthy of the things we say, they turn to railing, saying that it is some deceitful tale. For when they hear from us that God says: ‘No thanks (will be due) to you, if ye love (only) those who love you; but thanks (will be due) to you, if ye love your enemies and those that hate you’—when they hear this, they are impressed by the overplus of goodness: but when they see that we do not love, not only those who hate (us), but even those who love (us), they laugh at us, and the Name is blasphemed.” 2

“We,” says Justinus, “who hated and slew one another, and because of (differences in) customs would not share a common hearth with those who were not of our tribe, now, after the appearance of Christ, have become sociable, and pray for our enemies, and try to persuade those who hate (us) unjustly, in order that they, living according to the good suggestions of Christ, may share our hope of obtaining the same (reward) from the God who is Master of all. 3 . . . And as to loving all (men), he has taught as follows: ‘If ye love (only) those who love you, what new thing do ye do? for even fornicators do this. But I say to you: Pray for your enemies and love those who hate you and bless those who curse you and pray for those who act spitefully towards you.’ 4 . . . And as to putting up with evil and being serviceable to all and without anger; this is what he says: ‘To him that smiteth thy cheek, offer the other (cheek) as well, and do not stop (the man) that takes away thy tunic or thy cloak. But whoever is angry is liable to the fire. Every one who impresses thee (to go) a mile, follow (for) two (miles). Let your good works shine before men, that seeing (them) they may worship your Father in heaven.’ For (we) must not resist: nor has (God) wished us to be imitators of the wicked, but has bidden (us) by patience and gentleness lead all (men) from (the) shame and lust of the evil (things). And this we are able to show in the case of many who were (formerly) on your side. They changed from (being) violent and tyrannical, conquered either (through) having followed the constancy of (their Christian) neighbours’ life, or (through) having noticed the strange patience of fellow-travellers when they were overreached, or (through) having experienced (it in the case) of those with whom they had dealings.” 1

“We have learnt,” says Athenagoras, “not only not to strike back and not to go to law with those who plunder and rob us, but with some, if they buffet us on the side of the head, to offer the other side of the head to them for a blow, and with others, if they take away our tunic, to give them also our cloak. 2 . . . What then are those teachings in which we are brought up?” He then quotes the familiar words of Mt v. 44 f, and asks what logician ever loved and blessed and prayed for his enemies, instead of plotting some evil against them: but among the Christians, he says, there are those who “do not rehearse speeches, but display good deeds, (viz.) not hitting back when they are struck, and not going to law when they are robbed, giving to those that ask, and loving their neighbours as themselves.” 1 He speaks of the Christians later as those “to whom it is not lawful, when they are struck, not to offer themselves (for more blows), nor, when defamed, not to bless: for it is not enough to be just—and justice is to return like for like —but it is incumbent (upon us) to be good and patient of evil.” 2 Speratus, the martyr of Scilli, told the proconsul: “We have never spoken evil (of others), but when ill-treated we have given thanks—because we pay heed to our Emperor” (i.e. Christ). 3 Theophilos wrote: “In regard to our being well-disposed, not only to those of our own tribe, as some think (but also to our enemies), Isaiah the prophet said: ‘Say to those that hate and loathe you, Ye are our brothers, in order that the name of the Lord may be glorified and it may be seen in their gladness.’ And the Gospel says: ‘Love your enemies, and pray for those who treat you spitefully. For if ye love (only) those that love you, what reward have ye? even the robbers and the taxgatherers do this’.” 4

Eirenaios refers on several occasions to this teaching. One of the passages we have already had before us. 5 Elsewhere he quotes Jesus’ prayer, ‘Father, forgive them . . . ’ as an instance of obedience to his own command to love and pray for enemies. He argues from the prayer that the sufferings of Jesus could not have been in appearance only, as the Docetic errorists maintained: if they were, then his precepts in the Sermon on the Mount would be misleading, and “we shall be even above the Master, while we suffer and endure things which the Master did not suffer and endure.” 1 The Lord bade us, he says later, “love not neighbours only, but even enemies, and be not only good givers and sharers, but even givers of free gifts to those who take away what is ours. ‘For to him that takes away (thy) tunic from thee,’ he says, ‘give to him thy cloak also; and from him who takes away what is thine, demand (it) not back; and as ye wish that men should do to you, do ye to them’: so that we may not grieve as if we did not want to be defrauded, but rejoice as if we gave willingly, rather conferring a favour on neighbours, than bowing to necessity. ‘And if any one,’ he says, ‘impress thee (to go) a mile, go two more with him,’ so that thou mayest not follow as a slave, but mayest go in front like a free man, showing thyself ready in all things and useful to (thy) neighbour; not regarding their badness, but practising thy goodness, conforming thyself to the Father, ‘who makes His sun rise on bad and good, and rains on just and unjust’.” 2 Eirenaios in another work remarks that the Law will no longer say “‘Eye for eye, and tooth for tooth’ to him who regards no one as his enemy, but all as his neighbours: for this reason he can never stretch out his hand for vengeance.” 3 Apollonius told the Roman Senate that Christ “taught (us) to allay (our) anger,. . . to increase (our) love (for others) ( ), . . . not to turn to (the) punishment ( ) of those who wrong (us). . . .” 1

Clemens of Alexandria alludes several times to the teaching of Mt v. 44 f, Lk vi. 27 f, 2 and says further that the Gnostic, by which he means the thorough-going Christian, “never bears a grudge ( ), nor is vexed ( ) with anyone, even though he be worthy of hatred for what he does: for he reveres the Maker, and loves the one who shares in life, pitying and praying for him because of his ignorance.” 3 Those who pray that the wrongs they suffer should be visited upon the wrongdoers, Clemens considers as better than those who wish to retaliate personally by process of law; but he says that they “are not yet passionless, if they do not become entirely forgetful of wrong and pray even for their enemies according to the Lord’s teaching.” After some further words about forgiveness, he goes on to say that the Gnostic “not only thinks it right that the good (man) should leave to others the judgment of those who have done him wrong, but he wishes the righteous man to ask from those judges forgiveness of sins for those who have trespassed against him; and rightly so.” 4 “Above all,” he says elsewhere, “Christians are not allowed to correct by violence sinful wrongdoings. For (it is) not those who abstain from evil by compulsion, but those (who abstain) by choice, (that) God crowns. For it is not possible for a man to be good steadily except by his own choice.” 5

Tertullianus adverts to the command to love enemies and not to retaliate, and reassures the pagans that, although the numbers of the Christians would make it easy for them to avenge the wrongs they suffer, this principle puts an actual revolt out of the question: “For what war,” he asks, “should we not be fit (and) eager, even though unequal in numbers, (we) who are so willing to be slaughtered—if according to that discipline (of ours) it was not more lawful to be slain than to slay?” 1 “The Christian does not hurt even his enemy.” 2 In his treatise on patience, he quotes the words about turning the other cheek, rejoicing when cursed, leaving vengeance to God, not judging, etc., and insists on the duty of obeying them in all cases. “It is absolutely forbidden to repay evil with evil.” 3 It is true that Tertullianus smirches somewhat the beauty of the Christian principle of the endurance of wrongs, by inviting the injured one to take pleasure in the disappointment which his patience causes to the wrongdoer. The spirit of retaliation is kept, and ‘coals of fire’ selected as the most poignant means of giving effect to it. But his failure to catch the real spirit of Christian love renders his testimony to what was the normal Christian policy all the more unimpeachable. He calls the Christian the son of peace, for whom it will be unfitting even to go to law, and who does not avenge his wrongs. 4 The Bardesanic ‘Book of the Laws of the Countries’ compares those who take it upon themselves to inflict vengeance, to lions and leopards. 5

Origenes has several important allusions to this aspect of Christian teaching. I select three only for quotation. He points out that God united the warring nations of the earth under the rule of Augustus, in order that by the suppression of war the spread of the gospel might be facilitated: for “how,” he asks, “would it have been possible for this peaceful teaching, which does not allow (its adherents) even to defend themselves against 1 (their) enemies, to prevail, unless at the coming of Jesus the (affairs) of the world had everywhere changed into a milder (state)?” 2 Later he says: “If a revolt had been the cause of the Christians combining, and if they had derived the(ir) origin from the Jews, to whom it was allowed ( ) to take arms on behalf of the(ir) families and to destroy (their) enemies, the Lawgiver of (the) Christians would not have altogether forbidden (the) destruction of man, teaching that the deed of daring (on the part) of his own disciples against a man, however unrighteous he be, is never right—for he did not deem it becoming to his own divine legislation to allow the destruction of any man whatever” ( ) 3 Later still, in dealing with the difference between the Mosaic and Christian dispensations, he says: “It would not be possible for the ancient Jews to keep their civil economy unchanged, if, let us suppose, they obeyed the constitution (laid down) according to the gospel. For it would not be possible for Christians to make use, according to the Law of Moses, of (the) destruction of (their) enemies or of those who had acted contrary to the Law and were judged worthy of destruction by fire or stoning. . . . Again, if thou wert to take away from the Jews of that time, who had a civil economy and a land of their own, the (right) to go out against the(ir) enemies and serve as soldiers on behalf of their ancestral (institutions) and to destroy or otherwise punish the adulterers or murderers or (men) who had done something of that kind, nothing would be left but for them to be wholly and utterly destroyed, the(ir) enemies setting upon the nation, when they were weakened and prevented by their own law from defending themselves against the(ir) enemies.” 1 These statements of Origenes are important for several reasons—for the clear indication they give that in the middle of the third century the ‘hard sayings’ of the Sermon on the Mount were still adhered to as the proper policy for Christians, for the direct bearing which those sayings were felt to have on the question of war, and for the frank recognition which Origenes accords to the place of sub-Christian ethical standards in the world’s development.

Cyprianus lays it down that “when an injury has been received, one has to remit and forgive it,” “requital for wrongs is not to be given,” “enemies are to be loved,” “when an injury has been received, patience is to be kept and vengeance left to God.” 2 He was horror-struck at the torture that went on in the law-courts: “there at hand is the spear and the sword and the executioner, the hook that tears, the rack that stretches, the fire that burns, more punishments for the one body of man than (it has) limbs!” 1 “None of us,” he says, “offers resistance when he is seized, or avenges himself for your unjust violence, although our people are numerous and plentiful. . . it is not lawful for us to hate, and so we please God more when we render no requital for injury. . . we repay your hatred with kindness,” and so on. 2 In his treatise on patience, he takes occasion to quote Mt v. 43–48 in full. 3 When a plague broke out and the pagans fled, he urged the Christians not to attend to their co-religionists only, saying “that he might be made perfect, who did something more than the taxgatherer and the gentile, who, conquering evil with good and practising something like the divine clemency, loved his enemies also, who prayed for the safety of his persecutors, as the Lord advises and exhorts.” Cyprianus drove this lesson home, we are told, with arguments drawn from Mt v. 44–48. 4 Commodianus utters the brief precept: “Do not hurt.” 5 The Didaskalia lays it down: “Those who injure you, injure not in return, but endure (it), since Scripture says: ‘Say not: I will injure my enemy since he has injured me; but bear it, that the Lord may help thee, and exact vengeance from him who has injured thee.’ For again it says in the Gospel: ‘Love those who hate you and pray for those who curse you, and ye shall have no enemy’.” 6 “Be prepared therefore to incur a loss, and try hard to keep the peace; for if thou incurrest any loss in secular affairs for the sake of peace, there shall accrue a gain with God to thee as to one who fears God and lives according to His commandment.” 1 In the Clementine Homilies Peter disclaims all wish to destroy the heretic Simon, saying that he was not sent to destroy men, but that he wished to befriend and convert him; and he touches on the Christian custom of praying for enemies in obedience to Jesus’ example: and Clemens rehearses to his father the teaching of Mt v. 39-41. 2

Lactantius refers to the Christians as “those who are ignorant of wars, who preserve concord with all, who are friends even to their enemies, who love all men as brothers, who know how to curb anger and soften with quiet moderation every madness of the mind. 3 . . . This we believe to be to our advantage, that we should love you and confer all things upon you who hate (us).” 4 Since the just man, he says, “inflicts injury on none, nor desires the property of others, nor defends his own if it is violently carried off, since he knows also (how) to bear with moderation an injury inflicted on him, because he is endowed with virtue, it is necessary that the just man should be subject to the unjust, and the wise man treated with insults by the fool,” etc. 5 “God has commanded that enmities are never to be contracted by us, (but) are always to be removed, so that we may soothe those who are our enemies by reminding them of (their) relationship (to us).” 6 The just man, once again, must return only blessings for curses: “let him also take careful heed lest at any time he makes an enemy by his own fault; and if there should be anyone so impudent as to inflict an injury on a good and just man, let him (i.e. the just man) bear it kindly and temperately, and not take upon himself his own vindication, but reserve (it) for the judgment of God.” After more to the same effect, Lactantius proceeds: “Thus it comes about that the just man is an object of contempt to all: and because it will be thought that he cannot defend himself, he will be considered slothful and inactive. But he who avenges himself on (his) enemy—he is judged to be brave (and) energetic: all reverence him, (all) respect him.” 1 A little later comes the famous passage, in which he deals with the divine command about homicide, and interprets it as prohibiting both capital charges and military service: “And so in (regard to) this commandment of God no exception at all ought to be made (to the rule) that it is always wrong to kill a man, whom God has wished to be a sacrosanct creature.” Of this application of the teaching we must speak later. 2

Probably one of the first things that will strike a modern reader on surveying this remarkable body of evidence is the apparent absence of any treatment of the question of the defence of others as a special phase of the general question concerning the treatment of wrongdoers. The silence of Christian authors on this particular point is certainly remarkable. Tertullianus even takes it for granted that, if a man will not avenge his own wrongs, á fortiori he will not avenge those of others 3 —a sentiment pointedly at variance with the spirit of modern Christianity; which is at times disposed to accept (as an ideal at all events, if not always as a practicable policy) absolute non-resistance in regard to one’s own wrongs, but which indignantly repudiates such a line of action when the wrongs of others—particularly those weaker than oneself—are in question. It is on the validity of this distinction that the whole case of the possibility of a Christian war is felt by many to rest. The point is so important that we may be pardoned for devoting a few lines to it, even though it carries us a little beyond the strictly historical treatment of the subject. In the first place, it needs to be borne in mind that the question is not the general one, whether or no the Christian should try to prevent others being wronged. That question admits of only one answer. The life of a Christian is a constant and effective check upon sin; and he is therefore at all times, in a general though in a very real way, defending others. The question is, Which is the right method for him to use—the gentle moral appeal or violent physical coercion? Whatever method he may choose, that method is not of course bound to succeed in any particular case, for circumstances may at any time be too strong for him: possibility of failure, therefore, is not to be reckoned a fatal objection to a policy of defence, for it tells in some measure against all policies. And be it remembered that the restraining power of gentleness is largely diminished, if not entirely destroyed, if the user of it attempts to combine it with the use of coercion and penalty. 1 We are therefore driven to make our choice between two policies of conduct, which to all intents and purposes are mutually exclusive. 1 Now in the use of violence and injury for the defence of others, the Christian sees a policy which he is forbidden, exhypothesi, to use in his own defence—and that for a reason as valid in the case of others’ sufferings as in that of his own, viz. the absolute prohibition of injury 2 —and which is furthermore a less effective policy than that of bringing the force of his own Christian spirit to bear on the wrongdoer, as the Salvationist, for instance, often does with the violent drunkard. If the objection be raised that few people possess this powerful Christian spirit capable of restraining others, I reply that we are discussing the conduct of those alone who, because or in so far as they are faithful Christians, do possess it. Again, when the wrongs of innocent sufferers are brought in in order to undermine obedience to the Sermon on the Mount, a fictitious distinction always has to be made between wrongs inflicted on others in one’s very presence and the possibly far more horrible wrongs that go on out of one’s sight. “Pity for a horse o’erdriven” easily evaporates when once the poor animal has turned the corner. Many a man would feel it a duty to use his fists to defend a woman from being knocked about under his own eyes, but would not by any means feel called upon to use either his fists or his powers of persuasion on behalf of the poor wife being beaten in her home a few streets off or on the other side of the town. Still less would he admit it as a general principle that he must not rest as long as there is any injustice going on in the world, which he might feel disposed to rectify by the use of violence if it were happening close at hand: and though he may allow himself to be swayed by this particular plea in a political crisis, it is obvious that it could never be taken and is never taken as a general guide for conduct. Unfortunately, we have to recognize the fact that countless acts of cruelty and injustice are going on every day, all around us, near and far; and the practical demands of Christian usefulness forbid the sensitive man to allow his spirit to be crushed by the awful thought that he cannot yet put a stop to these things. The sentiment which bids a man stick at nothing in order to check outrageous wrongdoing is entitled to genuine respect, for it is closely akin to Christian love; but it is misleading when it comes into conflict with a considered Christian policy for combating sin, for, as we have seen, it operates only within the compass of a man’s vision and in certain occasionally and arbitrarily selected areas beyond, and, when erected into a general principle of conduct, immediately breaks down. The rejection of this sentiment does not mean the rejection of the Christian duty “to ride abroad redressing human wrong”: it means the adoption, not only of gentler, but of more effective, tactics, calling—as the Christian persecutions show—for their full measure of danger and self-sacrifice; it means too a refusal to stultify those tactics under the impulse of a rush of feeling which so soon fails to justify itself as a guide to conduct.

The early Christians therefore were not guilty, either of selfish cowardice or of an error of judgment, in interpreting the Master’s words as ruling out the forcible defence of one another against the manifold wrongs which pagan hatred and cruelty and lust brought upon them. It was clear indeed that the Master had so interpreted his words himself. He did nothing to avenge John the Baptist or the slaughtered Galilaeans; and when he forbade the use of the sword in Gethsemane, the occasion was one on which it had been drawn in a righteous cause and for the defence of an unarmed and innocent man. The way in which the Christians endured the injuries inflicted upon them in persecution had the effect—so Christian authors continually tell us—of evoking pagan admiration and sympathy, and even adding considerably to the number of converts. By the time the victory over the persecutors was won. Christian ethics had largely lost their early purity; but we see enough to be able to say that that victory was in no small measure due to the power of the Christian spirit operating against tremendous odds without the use of any sort of violent resistance. It took time of course to win the victory, and during that time countless acts of unthinkable cruelty and horror were endured: but would anyone seriously argue that that suffering would have been diminished, or better results achieved for the world at large or for the sufferers themselves, if from the first Christian men had acted on the principle that, while ready themselves to submit meekly, it was their duty to defend others if need be by force and bloodshed? When Plinius tortured the two Bithynian deaconesses, and when Sabina was threatened at Smyrna with being sentenced to the brothel, no Christian knight came forward to prevent the wrong by force of arms or perish in the attempt. Sabina said simply, in answer to the threat: “The holy God will see about that.” There must have been innumerable instances of Christians deliberately abstaining from the defence of one another. Such conduct, amazing as it may seem to us, does not argue callousness, still less cowardice, for cowards could never have endured torture with the constancy normally shown by the Christian martyrs. It simply means a strenuous adherence to the Master’s teaching—an adherence based indeed on a simple sense of obedience to him, but issuing, as posterity can see, in the exertion of an immense positive moral power, and involving, in a situation from which conflict and suffering in some measure were inseparable, probably a less severe conflict and a smaller amount of suffering than any other course of conduct consistent with faithfulness to the Christian religion would have involved.

The Christians ’ Experience of Evil in the Character of Soldiers .—Before we enter upon an examination of the course actually pursued by Christians in regard to service in the Roman legions, there is one more introductory study we shall have to undertake, viz. that of the unfavourable criticisms passed by Christians on the seamy side of the military character as they knew it in practical life, and the harsh treatment they received at the hands of soldiers with whom they came into conflict. The reader will of course understand that what we are here concerned with constitutes only one side of the picture; the other side, showing us instances of kind treatment and so on on the part of soldiers, will come to light at a later stage of our enquiry. At the same time, the aspect now before us was a very real and a very painful one, and is not without a fairly direct bearing on the early Christian attitude to war.

The main fact in the situation was that the soldier, being charged with ordinary police duties as well as with military functions in the narrower sense, was the normal agent of governments in giving effect to their measures of persecution. While the illegality of Christianity did not become a part of the imperial policy until 64 a.d. , numerous acts of persecution were committed before that date. John the Baptist had been beheaded in prison by one of Antipas’ guards. 1 Jesus himself had been mocked, spat upon, scourged, and crucified by soldiers. 2 James, the son of Zebedee, was executed by one of Agrippa’s soldiers. 3 Peter was guarded in chains by others, and escaped a like fate only by a miraculous deliverance. 4 Paul endured long confinement in the hands of the military; and, when the ship in which he and other prisoners were being taken to Rome was wrecked, the soldiers advised that they should all be killed to prevent any of them escaping. 5 Both Paul, and Peter were eventually martyred at Rome, doubtless by the hands of soldiers. In 64 a.d. Nero’s act in persecuting the Christians in order to divert from himself the suspicion of having set Rome on fire, inaugurated what proved to be the official policy of the Empire until the time of Constantinus. That policy was that the profession of Christianity was regarded as in itself a crime against society—like piracy, brigandage, theft, and arson—and as such was punishable with death by virtue of the ordinary administrative powers of the Roman Governor. Refusal to participate in the widely practised worship of the Emperor or to recognize any other of the pagan gods, strong disapproval of idolatry and all other manifestations of pagan religion, dissent and aloofness from many of the social customs of paganism, secret meetings, nocturnal celebration of ‘love-feasts,’ disturbance caused to family life by conversions—all these had resulted in making the Christians profoundly unpopular, and brought upon them the suspicion of being guilty of detested crimes, such as cannibalism and incest, and the stigma of being regarded as thoroughly disloyal and dangerous members of society. Such was the basis upon which the imperial policy rested. As individual Emperors varied in their attitude to Christianity (some even going so far as to grant it a de facto toleration), as the popular hatred would flame out and die down at different times and in different places, and lastly as the provincial governors had large discretionary powers and would differ widely in their personal views, the imperial policy of stern repression was not carried out consistently or uniformly. There would be extensive regions and lengthy intervals in which it would lie dormant. Here and there, now and then, it would break forth in varying degrees of severity: and whenever it did so, the task of carrying out the state’s decrees devolved upon the soldiers, as the policemen of the Empire. More than that, it is easy to see that, inasmuch as the conduct of official proceedings against the Christians rested in the hands of the military, they must often have borne the main responsibility for the occurrence of persecution. 1 We come across many traces of their activities in this direction. Thus Ignatius of Antioch wrote to his friends at Rome: “From Syria as far as Rome I am fighting with beasts, by land and sea, night and day, having been bound to ten leopards, that is (to say), a squad of soldiers, who become worse even when they are treated well. By the wrongs they do me, I am becoming more of a disciple.” 2 The arrest and burning of Polukarpos at Smyrna were evidently carried out by the military. 3 When Karpos was burnt at Pergamum, it was a soldier’s hand that lit the faggots. 4 In the dreadful persecution at Lugdunum (Lyons) in 177–8 a.d. , we are told that “all the wrath of populace and governor and soldiers fell in exceeding measure” upon certain of the martyrs, whose appalling sufferings cast a sinister light upon the character of their tormentors. 5 Clemens and Origenes group soldiers with kings, rulers, etc., as one of the parties regularly implicated in the futile persecution of Christianity. 1 Tertullianus numbers them as strangers and therefore enemies of the truth, their motive being the desire for gain. 2 Christians seem to have been exposed to as much danger from the interference of the military as from the hatred of the mob. 3 It seems to have been not unusual for imperilled or imprisoned Christians or their friends to secure better treatment or even release or immunity by secretly bribing an influential soldier, justifying their action by saying that they were rendering to Caesar the things that were Caesar’s: Tertullianus disapproved of the practice. 4 The apocryphal Acts of Thomas (225–250 a.d. ), tell how the Apostle, being sentenced to death, was struck by four soldiers and slain. 5 When Pionios was burnt at Smyrna in the persecution of Decius (250 a.d. ), a soldier nailed him to the stake. 6 The sufferings of Dionusios of Alexandria in the same persecution were due to his treatment by the military. 7 In the persecution of Valerianus (258–9 a.d. ) the same story is told: the arrest, custody, and execution of Cyprianus at Carthago were carried out by the proconsul’s soldiers 8 : the martyracts of Marianus and Jacobus, who suffered in Numidia, tell us that in the region of the martyrdom “the attacks of persecution swelled up, like waves of the world, with the blind madness and military offices of the gentiles,” that “the madness of the bloody and blinded governor sought for all the beloved of God by means of bands of soldiers with hostile and aggressive minds,” that the martyrs were guarded by “a violent band of centurions,” and that they were “assailed with numerous and hard tortures by a soldier on guard, the executioner of the just and pious, a centurion and the magistrates of Cirta being present also to help his cruelty.” 1 Fructuosus, who suffered death in Spain, was hurried to prison by the soldiers. 2 In the interval of comparative peace between 259 and 303 a.d. , the bigotry of certain pagan soldiers was more than once the cause of death to Christians in the army. 3 The great persecution begun by Diocletianus and his colleagues in 303 a.d. and continued in some parts of the Empire until 313 a.d. opened with the sack of the great church at Nicomedia by military and other officials, and the complete destruction of the building by the Praetorian Guards, who “came in battle array with axes and other instruments of iron.” 4 In the account given by Eusebios of the sufferings of the Christians, particularly in the East, soldiers appear at every turn of the story, as the perpetrators either of the diabolical and indescribable torments inflicted on both sexes 5 or of the numerous other afflictions and annoyances incidental to the persecution. 1 In Phrygia, for instance, they committed to the flames the whole population of a small town which happened to be entirely Christian. 2

Besides these allusions to the iniquities of persecution and besides the expressions of horror at the barbarities of war in general, we come across other references to the evil characters and evil deeds of soldiers. The Didaskalia forbids the acceptance of money for the church “from soldiers who behave unrighteously or from those who kill men or from executioners 3 or from any (of the) magistrate(s) of the Roman Empire who are stained in wars and have shed innocent blood without judgment, who pervert judgments,” etc. 4 Lactantius alludes to the calamities caused by the multiplication of armies under Diocletianus and his colleagues, 5 to the misdeeds of the Praetorians at Rome in slaying certain judges and making Maxentius Emperor, 6 to the terrible ravages committed by the troops of Galerius in his retreat from Rome, 7 and to the rapacity of the soldiers of Maximinus Daza in the East. 8 Eusebios gives us similar information in regard to the last-named ruler, 9 and tells us of the massacre committed in Rome by the guards of Maxentius. 10

Let us repeat that the grim indictment of the military character constituted by this long story of cruelty and outrage forms only one side of the picture, and obviously does not of itself imply any view as to the abstract rightfulness or otherwise of bearing arms: on the contrary, its sharpest charges belong to a time when there were certainly many Christian soldiers. Nevertheless, our study of the Christian view of war would be incomplete without the inclusion of this aspect of the case on the debit side of the account, an aspect which is more or less closely connected with the central question to which we have just alluded. It is to an examination of the view taken by the early Christians of that question that we have now to turn.

The Christian Refusal to participate in War .—The evidence as to the actual refusal of the early Christians to bear arms cannot be properly appreciated, or even fully stated, without a consideration of the parallel evidence touching the extent to which they were willing to serve as soldiers. The material of the present section will therefore be found to a certain extent to interlace with that of the corresponding section in our next part. For the sake, however, of simplicity of arrangement, it will be best to marshal the facts as we have them, first on one side, and then on the other, and to postpone our final generalizations until we have given full consideration to both.

It will probably be agreed by all that the substance of the last four sections creates at least a strong prima facie presumption that the persons who expressed themselves in the way explained in those sections would decline on principle to render military service. This presumption becomes very much stronger when we are reminded that there was practically nothing in the conditions of the time which would put such pressure on any early Christian as to compel him either to be a soldier against his will or to suffer the consequences of refusing to do so. We should expect therefore to find these Christians, at all events during the first few generations, refusing to serve as soldiers. With that expectation the little information that we possess is in almost entire harmony. 1 Apart from Cornelius and the one or two soldiers who may have been baptized with him by Peter at Caesarea (?40 a.d. ) and the gaoler baptized by Paul at Philippi (circ a.d. 49), 2 we have no direct or reliable evidence for the existence of a single Christian soldier until after 170 a.d.

Partly in justification, partly in amplification, of this negative statement, a few words must be said in regard to one or two incidents and epochs within the period indicated. Thus it is stated that Sergius Paulus, the proconsul of Cyprus, ‘believed’ as a result of the teaching of Paul on his first mission journey 3 (47 a.d. ). If this meant that Sergius Paulus became a Christian in the ordinary sense, he would have to be reckoned as another Christian soldier, for the proconsul of Cyprus was a military, as well as a civil, official: but the adherence of a man of proconsular rank to the Christian faith at this early date would be a very extra-ordinary occurrence; no other event of the same significance occurs till nearly the end of the century; no mention is made of the baptism of Sergius Paulus; and when it is said that he ‘believed,’ what is probably meant is that he listened sympathetically to what the apostles said and expressed agreement with some of their most earnest utterances. 1 In writing from Rome to his friends at Philippi (60 a.d. ), Paul says: “My bonds became manifest in Christ in the whole praetorium and to (or among) all the rest.” 2 Various opinions have been held as to the exact meaning of ‘praetorium’ here 3 ; but, even if it means the camp of the Praetorian Guards, the passage would not imply that some of the guards became Christians, but only that it became known to all of them that Paul was in custody because he was a Christian, and not for any political offence.

A more positive piece of information consists in the fact that, shortly before the siege of Jerusalem by the Romans (70 a.d. ), the Christians of that city, in obedience to “a certain oracular response given by revelation to approved men there,” 4 left Jerusalem, and settled at Pella in Peraea beyond the Jordan, thus taking no part in the national struggle against Rome. We are too much in the dark as to the details to be able to ascertain the motive that really prompted this step. How far was it due to a disapproval of the national policy of the Jews? how far to a sense of a final break with Mosaism? how far to a simple desire for personal safety? how far to a recollection of the Master’s words, “Flee to the mountains”? or how far, possibly, to a feeling that the use of the sword was forbidden them? None of these reasons can be either definitely affirmed or definitely denied. The one last suggested is by no means impossible or unnatural. It is in keeping with what we know of the facts of the case. At all events the flame of Jewish patriotism was extinct in the hearts of these Jerusalemite Christians. Their policy on this occasion formed a contrast to that of a certain section of the Essenes, who, despite the fact that they were not usually over-patriotic and that they abjured the use of arms on principle, yet joined with their fellow-countrymen in the revolt against Rome. 1

The letter written about 112 a.d. by Plinius, proconsul of Bithynia, to the Emperor Trajanus concerning the Christians, does not refer either to their willingness or unwillingness to serve in the legions, and there would therefore be no occasion to mention it in this connection, were it not for the attempt which has been made to represent its silence as implying that the Christians of that time had no objection to bearing arms. Thus, Professor Bethune-Baker says: “Pliny’s letter shows that there was no complaint against the Christians then with regard to their view of war”; and in this judgment he is followed by the Venerable Archdeacon of Ely. 2 But inasmuch as there was nothing in the circumstances of the time to bring about a collision between the imperial government and the Christians on the subject of military service, and very probably nothing even to bring the views of the latter to the governor’s notice at all, the silence of the letter is perfectly compatible with the supposition that the Christians would not serve; and the attempt to deduce the opposite conclusion from it can only be described as entirely unwarranted. While we are speaking of the reign of Trajanus, it may be mentioned that in the Acts of Phokas, who is said to have been put to death in Pontus under this Emperor, the martyr-bishop baptizes a number of soldiers at their own request. 1 But the acts as a whole are of very questionable authority as history 2 ; and least of all could an ornamental detail like this be accepted on such slender grounds.

The idea has also been entertained that there is evidence for the existence of Christian soldiers in the time of the Emperor Hadrianus (117–138 a.d. ). The late Dr. J. Bass Mullinger of Cambridge says: “Aringhi ( Antiq. Christianae , i. 430) gives an epitaph of a soldier of the time of Hadrian, and (ii. 170) that of a soldier in the praetorian guard; Boldetti ( Osservazioni sopra I cimiteri, c. , p. 432), one of a VETERANUS EX PROTERIORIBUS (?“protectorioribus”), and also (p. 415) one “Pyrrho militi,” and (p. 416) that of one who is described as “felicissimus miles.” Marangoni ( Act. S. Vict. p. 102) gives us that of a centurion, and Ruinart ( Act. Mart. i. 50) that of two brothers, Getulius and Amantius, who were military tribunes under Hadrian.” 3 The first of these inscriptions, (which occurs, by the bye, on p. 525, not on p. 430, of Aringhi’s first volume), reads as follows: “Tempore Hadriani Imperatoris: Marius adolescens dux militum, qui satis vixit dum vitam pro Ch(rist)o cum sanguine consunsit, in pace tandem quievit. Benemerentes cum lacrimis et metuposuerunt.” It is, I am informed on competent authority, unquestionably a forgery. As regards the second inscription from Aringhi, there is not only no evidence of its pre-Constantinian date, but none even of its Christian origin. As regards the three inscriptions given by Boldetti, there is no evidence that any one of them is as early as the second century. That given by Marangoni is probably post-Constantinian, as it contains the nomen Flavius in the contracted form Fl. 1 As for Getulius and Amantius, their existence rests on the witness of the highly-coloured Acts of Symphorosa. 2 The names of Symphorosa and her seven sons are those of real martyrs: but that apparently is all that can be affirmed in support of the historicity of the story. Lightfoot, after a full discussion, decides that “the story condemns itself both in its framework and in its details,” and that “there is no sufficient ground for assigning their martyrdom to the reign of Hadrian.” 3

It has already been remarked that the sentiments expressed by Christian authors in regard to the iniquity of war, the essentially peaceful character of Christianity, the fulfilment of the great ploughshare prophecy in the birth and growth of the Church, the duty of loving enemies, and so on, all point to the refusal to bear arms as their logical implicate in practice. What has already been said, therefore, on these various points has a certain place in the consideration of the concrete topic now before us. While this is so, it would be merely tedious to reiterate all the evidence previously adduced: but there are certain pieces of that evidence which are more direct and explicit than others, and which therefore deserve to be either repeated or referred to here.

First in order among these are one or two passages in Justinus. What view, we may ask, in regard to military service must have been taken by the man who said: “We who hated and slew one another, and because of (differences in) customs would not share a common hearth with those who were not of our tribe, now, after the appearance of Christ, have become sociable, and pray for our enemies, and try to persuade those who hate (us) unjustly, in order that they, living according to the good suggestions of Christ, may share our hope of obtaining the same (reward) from the God who is Master of all”? 1 “We, who had been filled with war and mutual slaughter and every wickedness, have each one—all the world over—changed the instruments of war, the swords into ploughs and the spears into farming implements, and we cultivate piety, righteousness, love for men, faith, (and) the hope which is from the Father Himself through the Crucified One.” 2 Hefele 3 maintains that the language of Justinus in his (first) Apology, ch. xiv, does not necessarily imply a general disapproval of the profession of the warrior; and Professor Bethune-Baker, referring to ch. xi (where Justinus denies that the Christians are looking for a human kingdom) and xiv ff, remarks that he “expresses no definite view on the subject of war. . . . What he says. . . really only amounts to a general repudiation of warlike aims or methods on behalf of Christians. Had he regarded war as actually incompatible with Christian sentiment he would probably have taken this opportunity of disposing absolutely of the suspicion to which the Christians were exposed by their Master’s use of earthly metaphors to shadow forth eternal spiritual relations.” 1 This reasoning is, in my opinion, faulty. Justinus said all that was necessary in order to controvert the suspicion in question, and also, I would add, quite enough to show where he stood on the subject of military service: he would needlessly have prejudiced the Emperor against his main plea, viz. for toleration, had he gone out of his way to say that, if ever the attempt were made to compel Christians to serve in the legions, they would refuse to obey the Emperor’s order. It is worth while to notice, though Justinus does not mention the point in connection with war, that he regarded the Christians as making a positive contribution to the maintenance of peace by their very Christianity, and he commends them to the Emperor’s favour on this ground. 2

Tatianus, as we have seen, condemned war as murderous, 3 and, as Harnack says, “was undoubtedly opposed to the military calling.” He wrote: “I do not want to be a king: I do not wish to be rich: I decline military command: I hate fornication.” 4

What again must have been the attitude of Athenagoras, who declared that the Christians could not endure to see a man put to death, even justly, considering that to do so was practically equivalent to killing him, and that for this reason they could not attend the gladiatorial games? 1

The heathen philosopher Celsus in the ‘True Discourse’ which he wrote against the Christians about 178 a.d. (the approximate date of Athenagoras’ ‘Legatio’ also), not only exhorts the Christians to take part in civil government, but “urges us” (so Origenes said later, quoting Celsus’ words) “to help the Emperor with all (our) strength, and to labour with him (in maintaining) justice, and to fight for him and serve as soldiers with him, if he require (it), and to share military command (with him).” Celsus argued that, if all did as the Christian, nothing would prevent the Emperor being left alone and deserted and earthly affairs getting into the hands of the most lawless and savage barbarians, so that the glory neither of Christianity nor of true wisdom would be left among men. 2 “It is quite obvious from this,” Harnack says, “that Christians were charged with a disinclination to serve in the army, and the charge was undoubtedly well founded.” 3

The first reliable evidence for the presence of Christians in any number in the Roman army belongs, as we shall see later, to the reign of Marcus Aurelius (161–180 a.d. ), more precisely to about the year 174 a.d. This epoch is therefore an important landmark in the history of the subject, and we may pause here for a moment to summarize one or two aspects of the situation. It is only in this period that the question of service or abstention becomes one of real and practical significance to Christian people. Up to that time the conditions had constituted no challenge for anyone. “It is not therefore surprising,” says Harnack, “that until about the time of the Antonines, in particular Marcus Aurelius, a question of military service (Soldatenfrage) did not exist in the churches: the baptized Christian did not become a soldier; and those who were caught by the Christian faith in the camp had to see how they could come to terms with their military profession.” 1 The same scholar gives a useful enumeration of the various features of military life, which could not have failed to thrust themselves on the Christian’s notice as presenting, to say the least, great ethical difficulty. The shedding of blood on the battlefield, the use of torture in the law-courts, the passing of death-sentences by officers and the execution of them by common soldiers, the unconditional military oath, the all-pervading worship of the Emperor, the sacrifices in which all were expected in some way to participate, the average behaviour of soldiers in peace-time, and other idolatrous and offensive customs—all these would constitute in combination an exceedingly powerful deterrent against any Christian joining the army on his own initiative. 2

As a transition from this point to the full material furnished by Tertullianus, we may recall in passing the phrase in the Pseudo-Justinian ‘Address to the Greeks,’ exhorting them thus: “Learn (about) the incorruptible King, and know his heroes who never inflict slaughter on (the) peoples,” 1 the passage in Eirenaios, in which he applies the ploughshare prophecy to the Christians and says that they “now know not how to fight, but, (when they are) struck, offer the other cheek also,” 2 and the remark of Clemens of Alexandria: “We do not train women like Amazons to be manly in war, since we wish even the men to be peaceable.” 3

The writings of Tertullianus make it abundantly clear that in his time there were considerable numbers of Christians serving in the Roman army. This fact, the nature and significance of which will be considered later, is one of great importance, but it is very far from exhausting the contribution of this great writer to our subject. He testifies not only to the willingness of many to serve, but also to the unwillingness of many others; and the views he expresses on the question are more than mere statements of a personal opinion —they represent the convictions of a very large proportion of his fellow-Christians. Our best plan will be, first, to quote the pertinent passages from his works in chronological order, and then to add a few necessary comments. It may, however, be stated here that, bound up with the problem of military service was the problem of undertaking public office as a magistrate. The police-work of society was done largely by soldiers, and the magistrate was not so sharply distinguished from the army officer as he is now. In any case, the Christian difficulty was pretty much the same with the one as with the other: common to both were the two great stumbling-blocks of idolatrous contamination and the shedding of blood (either judicially or in battle). It will therefore help us to understand the Christian position if we include a few passages bearing upon the question of the Christian’s abstention from public office.

We recall first the passage in Tertullianus’ ‘Apologeticus,’ in which he tells the pagans that, though the Christians are numerous and reckless enough to avenge their wrongs, there is no fear of their doing so. “For what war,” he asks them, “should we not be fit (and) eager, even though unequal in numbers, (we) who are so willing to be slaughtered—if, according to that discipline (of ours), it was not more lawful to be slain than to slay?” 1 It is doubtless in the light of this sentiment that we are to read the assumption earlier in his apology that Caesars could not be Christians. 2 In his ‘De Idololatria,’ written while he was still a loyal Catholic, he states the conditions under which he believes it to be possible for a Christian to be a magistrate. “And so let us grant,” he says, “that it is possible for anyone to succeed, in whatever office (he may happen to hold), in going on under the mere name of the office, without sacrificing, or lending his authority to sacrifices, or contracting for sacrificial victims, or assigning (to others) the care of the temples, or seeing after their revenues, or giving shows at his own (expense) or at that of the public, or presiding at them when they have to be given, or making a proclamation or an edict for any solemnity, or even swearing (oaths), or—as regards (his magisterial) power—judging anyone on a capital or criminal charge 1 —for thou mightest allow (him to judge) about (questions of) money—or condemning (anyone), 2 binding anyone, imprisoning anyone, or torturing (anyone): if it can be believed that these things are possible.” 3 In the next chapter he brands all magisterial garb and pomp as idolatrous and diabolic, but does not touch on the objection of violence and bloodshed. In the following chapter he deals specifically with the question of military service. “(The question) also concerning military service, which is concerned both with rank and power, 4 might seem (to have been) definitely settled in that (last) chapter. But now the question is asked on that (very point), whether a believer may turn to military service, and whether the military—at least the rank and file or (say) all the inferior (grades), who are under no necessity of (offering) sacrifices or (passing) capital sentences—may be admitted to the faith. There is no congruity between the divine and human ‘sacramentum,’ the sign of Christ and the sign of the devil, the camp of light and the camp of darkness: one soul cannot be owed to two, God and Caesar. And (yet, some Christians say), Moses carried a rod, and Aaron (wore) a buckle, and John was girt with a leather belt, 1 and Joshua (the son of) Nun led a line of march, and the people waged war—if it is your pleasure to sport (with the subject). But how will (a Christian) make war—nay, how will he serve as a soldier in peace(-time)—without the sword, which the Lord has taken away? For, although soldiers had come to John and received the form of a rule, although also a centurion had believed, (yet) the Lord afterwards, in disarming Peter, ungirded every soldier. No dress is lawful among us which is assigned to an unlawful action.” 2 In ‘Adversus Judaeos,’ which belongs roughly to the same period as ‘De Idololatria,’ Tertullianus says: “The old law vindicated itself by the vengeance of the sword, and plucked out eye for eye, and requited injury with punishment; but the new law pointed to clemency, and changed the former savagery of swords and lances into tranquillity, and refashioned the former infliction of war upon rivals and foes of the law into the peaceful acts of ploughing and cultivating the earth. And so. . . the observance of the new law and of spiritual circumcision has shone forth in acts of peaceful obedience.” 3 In the treatise ‘Adversus Marcionem,’ which came a few years later, about the time when Tertullianus broke with the Church and became a Montanist, he asks: “Who shall produce these (results, viz. truth, gentleness, and justice) with the sword, and not rather that which is contrary to gentleness and justice, (namely), deceit and harshness and injustice, (which are) of course the proper business of battles?” 1 A little later in the same work, he says: “‘And they shall not learn to make war any more,’ that is, to give effect to hostile feelings; so that here too thou mayest learn that Christ is promised not (as one who is) powerful in war, but (as) a bringer of peace.” 2 In ‘De Pallio,’ written about 210 a.d. , he confesses, in the person of his philosophic mantle, that he is “no barking pleader, no judge, no soldier.” 3

We next come to his important treatise ‘De Corona Militis,’ written—in 211 a.d. , some years after his attachment to Montanism—in defence of a Christian soldier who had refused to wear a garland on the Emperor’s birthday. Tertullianus takes occasion to touch on the prior question whether a Christian ought to be a soldier at all. “And in fact, in order that I may approach the real issue of the military garland, I think it has first to be investigated whether military service is suitable for Christians at all. Besides, what sort (of proceeding) is it, to deal with incidentals, when the (real) fault lies with what has preceded them? Do we believe that the human ‘sacramentum’ may lawfully be added to the divine, and that (a Christian) may (give a promise in) answer to another master after Christ, and abjure father and mother and every kinsman, whom even the Law commanded to be honoured and loved next to God, (and) whom the Gospel also thus honoured, putting them above all save Christ only? Will it be lawful (for him) to occupy himself with the sword, when the Lord declares that he who uses the sword will perish by the sword? And shall the son of peace, for whom it will be unfitting even to go to law, be engaged in a battle? And shall he, who is not the avenger even of his own wrongs, administer chains and (im)prison(ment) and tortures and executions? Shall he now go on guard for another more than for Christ, or (shall he do it) on the Lord’s Day, when (he does) not (do it even) for Christ? And shall he keep watch before temples, which he has renounced? and take a meal there where the Apostle has forbidden it? 1 And those whom he has put to flight by exorcisms in the daytime, shall he defend (them) at night, leaning and resting upon the pilum with which Christ’s side was pierced? And shall he carry a flag, too, that is a rival to Christ? And shall he ask for a watchword from his chief, when he has already received one from God? And (when he is) dead, shall he be disturbed by the bugler’s trumpet—he who expects to be roused by the trumpet of the angel? And shall the Christian, who is not allowed to burn (incense), to whom Christ has remitted the punishment of fire, be burned according to the discipline of the camp? (And) how many other sins can be seen (to belong) to the functions of camp(-life)—(sins) which must be explained as a transgression (of God’s law). The very transference of (one’s) name from the camp of light to the camp of darkness, is a transgression. Of course, the case is different, if the faith comes subsequent(ly) to any (who are) already occupied in military service, as (was, for instance, the case) with those whom John admitted to baptism, and with the most believing centurions whom Christ approves and whom Peter instructs: all the same, when faith has been accepted and signed, either the service must be left at once, as has been done by many, or else recourse must be had to all sorts of cavilling, lest anything be committed against God—(any, that is, of the things) which are not allowed (to Christians) outside the army, or lastly that which the faith of (Christian) civilians has fairly determined upon must be endured for God. 1 For military service will not promise impunity for sins or immunity from martyrdom. The Christian is nowhere anything else (than a Christian). . . . With him (i.e. Christ) the civilian believer is as much a soldier as the believing soldier is a civilian. The state of faith does not admit necessities. No necessity of sinning have they, whose one necessity is that of not sinning. . . . For (otherwise) even inclination can be pleaded (as a) necessity, having of course an element of compulsion in it. I have stopped up that very (appeal to necessity) in regard to other cases of (wearing) garlands of office, for which (the plea of) necessity is a most familiar defence; since either (we) must flee from (public) offices for this reason, lest we fall into sins, or else we must endure martyrdoms, that we may break (off our tenure of public) offices. On (this) first aspect of the question, (namely) the illegitimacy of the military life itself, I will not add more, in order that the second (part of the question) may be restored to its place—lest, if I banish military service with all my force, I shall have issued a challenge to no purpose in regard to the military garland.” 1 In the following chapter, he asks: “Is the laurel of triumph made up of leaves, or of corpses? is it decorated with ribbons, or tombs? is it besmeared with ointments, or with the tears of wives and mother, perhaps those of some men even (who are) Christians—for Christ (is) among the barbarians as well?” 2

The clear, thorough-going, and outspoken opinions of Tertullianus have naturally attracted a good deal of attention and criticism; and there are one or two points in connection with them which it will be well briefly to consider and emphasize.

1. The ‘De Idololatria’ (198–202 a.d. ) is the earliest evidence we have for the enlistment in the army of Christians who were already baptized. 3 Any Christian soldiers mentioned in documents of an earlier date may well have consisted, for aught we know to the contrary, of men converted when already engaged in military life.

2. He recognizes only two practicable alternatives for the converted soldier: he must either leave the service, or suffer martyrdom. Harnack indeed says that Tertullianus displays some uncertainty in regard to converts who were already soldiers, and that he does not present them this dilemma of either leaving the army or dying as martyrs, “but opens to them yet a third possibility, namely that of avoiding pollution by heathenism as much as they can.” 1 But it has to be remembered that the pollution was, in Tertullianus’ view, practically inseparable from military life; he runs over a large number of the commonest duties of the soldier, and raises objections to them one after another; and his third alternative must therefore be regarded as an ironical concession of a bare abstract possibility, which would be obviously impossible in practice, like his concession that a Christian may hold office, provided he has nothing to do with sacrifices, temples, public shows, oaths, judgment of capital or criminal cases, pronunciation and infliction of penalties, and so on.

3. The emphasis which he lays on the danger of contamination by idolatry has led some authors to represent this as his one real objection to military service and to use it for the purpose of dissociating him from those who in later times have objected to war on humanitarian grounds. Thus Professor Bethune-Baker says: “It is important to notice what Tertullian means by those offences against God which are inseparable from the soldier’s life. It is not the modern idea at all . The special objections which he feels, the only offences against Christian sentiment that seem to really weigh with him , are the military oath over which the heathen gods presided—and the pagan ceremonial with which so many military acts and operations were invested.” 1 This remarkable statement is approvingly quoted by Archdeacon Cunningham. 2 The passages just quoted from Tertullianus are sufficient proof of its amazing inaccuracy. Great as was his horror of idolatry, his conviction of the illegitimacy of all bloodshed and violence was equally great. Nor can I understand how Gass can say: “Tertullian was prepared to put up with Christian soldiers, only without the ostentatious crown of victory.” 3 Even Troeltsch falls a victim to this error: he says that Tertullianus and Origenes, “despite the(ir) contention that the soldiers’ handiwork of blood was absolutely unchristian, would have acquiesced, if service in the army had not brought the Christians into contact with the worship of the Emperor and (the religious customs) of the camp.” 4 This statement is unwarranted even in regard to Tertullianus, and still more so in regard to Origenes, who never raises the difficulty of idolatrous contamination in the army at all. 5

4. Tertullianus has been accused of lack of candour in boasting to pagans in one treatise 6 of the large number of Christians in the army, and after that arguing with his fellow-Christians that there ought not to be any Christians in the army at all. 1 But unless candour requires a writer to explain his whole mind on a subject every time he mentions it in a purely incidental way, the charge of disingenuousness is unwarranted. Each time that Tertullianus spoke to pagans of Christian soldiers without reproaching them, he was simply adverting to an obvious and admitted fact, in order to prove the numbers and ubiquity of the Christians and their readiness to take part in the activities of society. It would have been not only futile, but out of place, to introduce a topic upon which Christian opinion was divided, unless the course of the argument distinctly called for its treatment.

5. Again, Tertullianus’ attempt to find an application of Christianity to every department of life has been criticized as in itself a mistake. His earnestness, it is admitted, was commendable; but he was on wrong lines: “he failed, as every man is bound to fail, who conceives of Christianity in the light of a Rule, as a law of commandments contained in ordinances, rather than as a law of the spirit of life in Christ Jesus.” 2 We may concede that the province of Christian casuistry is a strictly limited one, and that the limits are at times overpassed both by Tertullianus and others. But even the Pauline Epistles, not to mention the Synoptic Gospels, teach us that there is such a thing as the Law of Christ, which, while springing from ‘the spirit of life in Christ Jesus,’ issues in certain very definite and concrete principles of conduct. This being so, it becomes the duty of every Christian, not only to work out the application of these principles to his own life, but also—and this is particularly the duty of the Christian teacher and writer—to assist others to do the same.

6. It is interesting to notice in Tertullianus the idea already suggested by Justinus 1 of the ‘alternative service’ rendered by the Christian to society and the State, despite the fact that he does not engage officially in public affairs. The idea forms, as we shall see later, a very important item in the apologia of Origenes. Tertullianus does not work it into any organic system of thought; but his expressions of it, such as they are, are interesting. “I might deservedly say,” he argues, “Caesar is more ours (than yours), inasmuch as he is appointed by our God. So that I do more for his (health and) safety (than ye do), not only because I demand it of Him who is able to give (it), nor because I who demand it am such as to deserve to obtain it, but also because, in reducing the majesty of Caesar below God, I the more commend him to God, to whom alone I subject him.” 2 He makes his philosophic cloak say in reply to the charge of idleness and neglect of public affairs: “Yet to me also it will be to some extent allowed that I am of advantage to the public. I am wont, from every boundary-stone or altar, to prescribe for morals medicines that will confer good health more happily on public affairs and states and empires than your works (will). . . . I flatter no vices; I spare no lethargy, no scabbiness; I apply the cautery to ambition,” and so on. 3

7. Lastly, it is a mistake to regard Tertullianus as an individual dissenter from the Church as a whole on this question of whether Christians ought to serve in the army or not. Harnack, for instance, urges (in my opinion, without sufficient ground) that the Christian soldiers in the army had up till then never agitated as malcontents (frondiert) on account of their Christian profession, and that his “attack on the service of Christians in the army was something new, hitherto unheard of: easy as it was for him to prove the essential incompatibility of the service of Christ and service in the army, even in peace(-time), it was just as impossible for him to appeal to a rigorous custom and practice already in force hitherto,” 1 It is true that no general or authoritative ruling on the point had yet been given—circumstances not having called for it, that Christian conviction in regard to it was never absolutely unanimous, that many of Tertullianus’ Christian contemporaries (how many we do not know) differed from him, and that the Church on the whole ultimately agreed with them rather than with him. It must however be borne in mind that this last fact would have its own effect in submerging to some extent earlier utterances of a contrary tendency; and this effect must be allowed for in explaining whatever paucity there is in records of this kind. Tertullianus clearly tells us that ‘many’ soldiers, when converted to Christianity, immediately left the service. 2 His own views are not to be set aside as those of a Montanist, for his objection to military service is as clear and emphatic in ‘De Idololatria,’ written before he had adopted Montanism, as it is in ‘De Corona,’ written after he had adopted it. 1 And when we consider that these views, as will be shown presently, agree with the testimony of Origenes and the oldest Church-Orders as to the normal Christian practice in the earlier part of the third century, and were apparently endorsed by so representative a churchman as his own fellow-countryman and admirer Cyprianus, we shall hardly be inclined to believe that at this time he was voicing the opinion of a minority of Christians, still less that he represented the views of a mere handful of fanatical extremists. 2

We have now to consider the evidence of the Canons of Hippolutos; but in order to do so, it is necessary to say something, by way of introduction, on a tiresome and as yet unsolved literary problem. Hippolutos was a learned Roman Christian, who flourished during the first thirty years of the third century. He was the critic and rival of Pope Kallistos (218–223 a.d. ), and for a time headed a separate congregation, as opposition-bishop; in 235 a.d. he was exiled to Sardinia, where probably he died. He is known to have interested himself in ecclesiastical regulations and to have written . Whether this is the title of one work or of two (‘Concerning Ministerial Gifts’ and ‘Apostolic Tradition’) we do not know; neither do we know the exact meaning he attached to These uncertainties have added to the difficulty of identifying Hippolutos’ composition among the various extant works possessing some sort of claim to embody it. The works concerned are members of a large family of documents and fragments in different languages and of different dates, but all closely related to one another and all dealing with rules and regulations to be observed in the government of the Church. Without attempting to enter into the tangled details of the problem, we may briefly outline the chief points. Three documents are in question: (1) the so-called ‘Hippolytean Canons,’ which cannot have come from Hippolutos as they stand, but must in any case have been heavily interpolated: 1 (2) the so-called ‘Egyptian Church-Order,’ the contents of which closely resemble those of the Hippolytean Canons, and which is usually assigned to the first half of the fourth century, though it has recently been claimed (by Dom Conolly) as virtually the composition of Hippolutos himself 2 : (3) ‘The Testament of our Lord,’ a Syrian or Cilician version of the same general collection of rules, dating about the middle of the fourth century, 1 but in some respects preserving older material than either of the two lastnamed works. Even if we cannot take Conolly’s theory as proven, we may yet well believe that Hippolutos did actually compose detailed regulations for Church-management, particularly if is to be regarded as the title of a separate work, distinct from , and that these regulations found their way to the East and are contained in a more or less modified form in the ‘Egyptian Church-Order,’ and the ‘Hippolytean Canons’ and also lie at the basis of ‘The Testament of our Lord’ and the still later Apostolic Constitutions (circ. 375 a.d. ). It would be difficult to account for the connection of Hippolutos’ name with this body of documents, unless we could regard him as the author of some of the material contained in them. 2 The reader will easily see that no investigation of the ruling given by Hippolutos on any point is adequate without a full quotation of what is said on it in each of the three documents mentioned. We must therefore proceed next to quote their respective regulations on the subject of Christians acting as magistrates and soldiers. These regulations occur in that part of each document which deals with the acceptance of new members into the Church and with the question of the trades and professions which it is legitimate or otherwise for Church-members to follow. As several versions are in question, I have set forth their contents in tabular form (pp. 122, 123) to facilitate the comparison of one with another.

It will be observed that only ‘The Testament of our Lord’ is consistently rigorous in refusing baptism to soldiers and magistrates except on condition of their quitting their offices, and forbidding a Christian to become a soldier on pain of rejection. All the other documents introduce some sort of modification. The Ethiopic version of the Egyptian Church-Order seems to allow a soldier already received to remain as such in the Church, on condition that he kills no one; but immediately afterwards it goes back on this concession by requiring a soldier among the believers to leave off or be rejected. The Coptic version of the Egyptian Church-Order first forbids the Christian soldier to kill men, and then says that, if he is commanded to kill men, he is not to thrust himself forward; but, like ‘The Testament,’ it refuses to admit a magistrate, and forbids the Christian to become a soldier on pain of rejection. The ‘Hippolytean Canons’ in one form forbid soldiers and magistrates to kill, even when commanded to do so, and prescribe ‘unarmedness’ for the latter; in the other form they first forbid the admission of magistrates and soldiers, and then apparently accept soldiers who have fought but who have neither used bad language nor worn garlands, and magistrates who are clothed with the adornment of justice.

While we are unfortunately not able to extract with any confidence from this bewildering maze of contradictions and modifications the exact words of Hippolutos himself, or of the original regulation, by whomsoever it was framed, it is not very difficult to see what the provisions of that original regulation must have been. All that we know from other sources—and from the inherent probabilities of the case—goes to show that the constant trend of Christian thought on this and similar questions was from strictness towards relaxation, from an almost complete abstention to an almost equally complete freedom to participate. 1 An incidental confirmation of this view comes from the Apostolic Constitutions, which are certainly later than the Egyptian Church-Order and almost certainly later than the other two documents we have been dealing with. In those Constitutions we can see that the movement towards leniency has got still further, and all that is required of a soldier applying for Church-membership is that he shall “inflict injury on no one, make no false accusation, and be content with the pay given to him.” 2 This is of course simply a repetition of the precepts of John the Baptist, and clearly does not imply that soldier-candidates would have to leave the army. We shall therefore not go far wrong in seeking for the original terms of Hippolutos’ Church-Order in the most stringent of the requirements still embedded in the documents as we have them. As the demand for a relaxation of this stringency made itself felt, the terms of the original would be little by little abbreviated, added to, or otherwise modified, so as to provide loopholes in favour of a laxer policy. Hence would arise that weird mixture of inconsistent permissions and prohibitions which gives such a curious appearance of vacillation to most of the existing codes. The only one of them which has kept the full strictness—whether or nor in the actual words—of the original is ‘The Testament of our Lord,’ which dates in its present form from the middle of the fourth century or a little later, and arose among the conservative Christians of Syria or south-eastern Asia Minor. 1 The substance of that original regulation must have been that a soldier or a magistrate who wielded the power of the sword could not be admitted by baptism to membership in the Christian Church, unless he had first resigned his military or quasi-military calling, that if a catechumen or a baptized Christian became a soldier, he must give it up or else suffer exclusion from the Church, and that similarly a mere desire on his part to become a soldier, showing, as it was thought, contempt for God, must be relinquished on pain of rejection or excommunication.

That some such regulations as these should have emanated—as they probably did—from so influential and representative a Churchman as Hippolutus of Rome, that the document embodying them should have been made the basis of virtually all subsequent Church-Orders, including some that were apparently highly esteemed and closely followed throughout whole regions of eastern Christendom, and that these particular rules should have survived unmodified in at least one such Church-Order until late in the fourth century and should still be so clearly visible as they are, under the moss-growths of successive editions, in other Church-Orders of approximately the same date—are facts of the first importance in the history of our subject, and facts, too, which as yet have not received anything like the attention they deserve. The comparative recency of the investigation of the Church-Orders accounts, in part at least, for the total omission of all reference to them in many of the writings that deal with this topic. 1 But even in the most recent and scholarly works the place assigned to them is scarcely adequate. Bigelmair quotes the passages from the Egyptian Church-Order, the ‘Hippolytean Canons,’ and ‘The Testament of our Lord,’ and admits that “they mark clearly and distinctly the views which prevailed in wide circles”: but he describes them as emanating from circles where “tertullianic views” were prevalent (aus tertullianischen Anschau-ungskreisen), and says that they possessed no generally binding power. 2 Even Harnack, whose work is that of an impartial, thorough, and accurate scholar, confines himself to a quotation of the ‘Hippolytean Canons,’ Nos. 13 and 14, as given by Riedel, combining it in a single paragraph with quotations from Origenes and Lactantius, and then remarks: “But these injunctions of the moralists were by no means followed in the third century,” adding as his grounds for this statement sundry pieces of evidence showing that many Christians of the third century and later were either in the army themselves or knew of no objection to Christians being there. 1 But this latter fact, the nature and extent of which we shall have to examine later, in no wise invalidates the conclusion to be drawn from the Church-Orders, viz. that in the third century the conviction that Christianity was incompatible with the shedding of blood, either in war or in the administration of justice, was not only maintained and vigorously defended by eminent individuals like Tertullianus of Carthago, Hippolutos of Rome, and Origenes of Palestine and Egypt, but was widely held and acted on in the Churches up and down Christendom. 2 For reasons to be stated later, the conviction was not unanimous; but the various indications of its absence can quite easily be explained without adopting Harnack’s view that it was simply the personal opinion of a few uninfluential ‘moralists.’ That view seems to me, in face of the evidence we have just had before us, and even in face of the facts on the other side of the case, not only unnecessary, but also erroneous.

Minucius Felix says: “It is not right for us either to see or hear of a man being slain; and so careful are we (to abstain) from human blood, that we do not even touch the blood of eatable animals in (our) food. . . . Even though we refuse your official honours and purple, yet we do not consist of the lowest dregs of the population.” 3

We turn next to Origenes, the prince of early Christian thinkers. Apart from his general eminence as scholar, theologian, apologist, and practical Christian, he is far and away the most important writer who handles the question before us. Though he yields to Tertullianus in rhetorical brilliance and to Augustinus in his influence over posterity, his defence of the early Christian refusal to participate in war is the only one that faces at all throughly or completely the ultimate problems involved. He has however been strangely misunderstood and misinterpreted, and certainly never answered. Our procedure will be, as before, to let our author first speak for himself, and then add a few elucidations and comments of our own. We begin, therefore, with a series of passages from Origenes’ reply to Celsus (248 a.d. ), some of which we have already had occasion to quote in another connection.

“How would it have been possible for this peaceful teaching (of Christianity), which does not allow (its adherents) even to defend themselves against 1 (their) enemies, to prevail, unless at the coming of Jesus the (affairs) of the world had everywhere changed into a milder (state)?” 2 “If a revolt had been the cause of the Christians combining, and if they had derived the(ir) origin from the Jews, to whom it was allowed ( ) to take arms on behalf of the(ir) families, and to destroy (their) enemies, the Lawgiver of (the) Christians would not have altogether forbidden (the) destruction of man, teaching that the deed of daring (on the part) of his own disciples against a man, however unrighteous he be, is never right—for he did not deem it becoming to his own divine legislation to allow the destruction of any man whatever.” 1 “To those who ask us whence we have come or whom we have (for) a leader, we say that we have come in accordance with the counsels of Jesus to cut down our warlike and arrogant swords of argument into ploughshares, and we convert into sickles the spears we formerly used in fighting. For we no longer take ‘sword against a nation,’ nor do we learn ‘any more to make war,’ having become sons of peace for the sake of Jesus, who is our leader, instead of (following) the ancestral (customs) in which we were strangers to the covenants.” 2 “It would not be possible for the ancient Jews to keep their civil economy unchanged, if, let us suppose, they obeyed the constitution (laid down) according to the gospel. For it would not be possible for Christians to make use, according to the Law of Moses, of (the) destruction of (their) enemies or of those who had acted contrary to the Law and were judged worthy of destruction by fire or stoning. . . . Again, if thou wert to take away from the Jews of that time, who had a civil economy and a land of their own, the (right) to go out against the(ir) enemies and serve as soldiers on behalf of their ancestral (institutions) and to destroy or otherwise punish the adulterers or murderers or (men) who had done something of that kind, nothing would be left but for them to be wholly and utterly destroyed, the(ir) enemies setting upon the nation, when they were weakened and prevented by their own law from defending themselves against the(ir) enemies.” 3 “We ought, however, to despise currying favour with men and kings, not only if we curry favour with them by means of acts of blood-guiltiness and licentiousness and savage cruelty, but also if (we do it) by means of impiety towards the God of all or any speech (uttered) with servility and obsequiousness, (which is) foreign to brave and high-principled men and to those who wish to join to the(ir) other (virtues) bravery as (the) highest virtue.” 1

Origenes, however, does not set himself seriously to grapple with the difficulties of the problem until near the end of his eighth and last book, Celsus having placed his criticism on this particular point at the end of his work and being followed in the matter of arrangement by his Christian opponent. Practically the whole of the eight chapters that come last but one in Origenes’ reply are taken up in justifying the Christian attitude of aloofness from all forms of violence in the service of the state. We shall confine our quotations to the most pertinent passages. First, in replying to the objection that, if all did the same as the Christians, the Emperor would be deserted, and the Empire would fall a prey to the barbarians, Origenes says: “On this supposition” (viz. that all did the same as himself and took no part in war or magistracy), “the Emperor will not ‘be left alone’ or ‘deserted,’ nor will ‘the world’s (affairs) fall into the hands of the most lawless and savage barbarians.’ For if, as Celsus says, ‘all were to do the same as’ I (do), clearly the barbarians also, coming to the Word of God, will be most law-abiding and mild; and every religious worship will be abolished, and that alone of the Christians will hold sway; and indeed, one day it shall alone hold sway, the Word ever taking possession of more (and more) souls.” 1 Then in the next chapter: “Since he puts the question: ‘What would happen if the Romans, persuaded by the argument of the Christians, should neglect the (services owed) to the recognized gods and the laws formerly in force among men, and should worship the Most High?,’ hear our answer on this. We say that if two of us agree upon earth concerning anything that they shall ask, they shall receive it from the heavenly Father of the righteous: for God rejoices over the agreement of rational beings, and turns away from discord. What must (we) believe if, not only—as now—very few agree, but the whole Empire (governed) by the Romans? For they will pray to the Word, who said of old to the Hebrews when they were pursued by the Egyptians: ‘The Lord shall fight for you, and ye shall be silent’; and, praying with all concord, they will be able to overthrow far more enemies who pursue them than those whom the prayer of Moses—when he cried to God—and of those with him overthrew. . . . 2 But if, according to Celsus’ supposition, all the Romans were to be persuaded, they will by praying overcome their enemies; or (rather) they will not make war at all, being guarded by the Divine Power, which promised to save five whole cities for the sake of fifty righteous. For the men of God are the salt that preserves the earthly order of the world; and earthly things hold together (only) as long as the salt is not corrupted.” 3 The next chapter is an obscure one. Origenes quotes Celsus as saying to the Christian the following: “It is absolutely intolerable that thou shouldst say that, if those who now reign over us, having been persuaded by thee, should be taken captive, thou wilt persuade those who reign after (them. and) then others, if they should be taken captive, and others again, (and so on), until, when all who have been persuaded by thee have been taken captive, some one ruler who is prudent and foresees what is happening shall altogether destroy you, before he himself is destroyed.” Origenes replies that no Christian talks like this, and attributes it to the nonsensical invention of Celsus himself; and unfortunately we cannot get any further with it. 1 He then proceeds: “After this, he utters a sort of prayer: ‘Would that it were possible for the Greeks and barbarians that occupy Asia and Europe and Libya unto the ends (of the earth) to agree (to come) under one law’; (but) judging this to be impossible, he adds: ‘He who thinks this (possible) knows nothing.’ If it is necessary to speak of this, a few (words) shall be said on the subject, though it needs much investigation and discussion, in order that what was said about the whole rational (creation) agreeing (to come) under one law might appear to be not only possible but certain. Now the Stoics (say) that, when the strongest of the elements prevails, the conflagration will occur, all things being changed into fire: but we say that the Word (will) one day master the whole rational creation and transform every soul into his own perfection. . . . For the Word is stronger than all the evils in a soul, and the healing that is in him leads it (the soul) forward for each man according to the will of God: and the end of things is the destruction of evil.” He then has a long passage on the Christian anticipation of the complete destruction of evil, and concludes: “This I thought it reasonable to say, without exact statement (of details), in answer to Celsus’ remark, that he thought it impossible for the Greeks and barbarians inhabiting Asia and Europe and Libya to agree. And perhaps such (an agreement) is really impossible to those still in bodies, but not impossible to those who have been released from them.” 1

He then turns to the concrete appeal of Celsus that the Christians should serve in the army and take part in the business of government. “Celsus next urges us to help the Emperor with all (our) strength, and to labour with him (in maintaining) justice, and to fight for him and serve as soldiers with him, if he require (it), and to share military command (with him). To this it has to be said that we do help the Emperors as occasion (requires) with a help that is, so to say, divine, and putting on ‘the whole armour of God.’ And this we do in obedience to the apostolic voice which says: ‘I therefore exhort you firstly that supplications, prayers, intercessions, thanks-givings, be made for all men, for Emperors and all who are in high station’; and the more pious one is, so much the more effectual is he in helping the Emperors than (are) the soldiers who go forth in battle-array and kill as many as they can of the enemy. And then we should say this to those who are strangers to the faith and who ask us to serve as soldiers on behalf of the community and to kill men: that among you the priests of certain statues and the temple-wardens of those whom ye regard as gods keep their right-hand(s) unstained for the sake of the sacrifices, in order that they may offer the appointed sacrifices to those whom ye call gods, with hands unstained by (human) blood and pure from acts of slaughter; and whenever war comes, ye do not make the priests also serve. If then it is reasonable to do this, how much more (reasonable is it, that), when others are serving in the army, these (Christians) should do their military service as priests and servants of God, keeping their right-hands pure and striving by prayers to God on behalf of those who are righteously serving as soldiers and of him who is reigning righteously, in order that all things opposed and hostile to those that act righteously may be put down? And we, (in) putting down by our prayers all demons—those who stir up warlike feelings, and prompt the violation of oaths, and disturb the peace, help the Emperors more than those who to all appearance serve as soldiers. We labour with (him) in the public affairs—(we) who offer up prayers with righteousness, with exercises and practices that teach (us) to despise pleasures and not to be led away by them. And we fight for the Emperor more (than others do): and we do not serve as soldiers with him , even though he require (it); but we do serve as soldiers on his behalf , training a private army of piety by means of intercessions to the Deity. 1 And if Celsus wishes us to exercise military command on behalf of (our) country, let him know that we do this also, not in order to be seen by men and to obtain empty glory in their eyes by doing so: for in secret (and) under the control of our inner reason are our prayers, sent up as from priests on behalf of those in our country. And Christians benefit the(ir) countries more than do the rest of men, educating the citizens and teaching them to be devout towards the God of the State, and taking up into a sort of divine and heavenly State those who have lived well in the smallest states. . . . 1 But Celsus urges us also to (take part in) govern(ing) the country, seeing that this has to be done for the sake of the safety of the laws and of piety. But we, knowing in each state another organization of a ‘country’—(an organization) founded by the Word of God—exhort those who are powerful in speech and who lead a wholesome (moral) life to rule over churches, not accepting those who are fond of ruling, but constraining those who through (their) great modesty are unwilling rashly to accept the public charge of the Church of God. . . . And (it is) not (for the sake of) escaping from the public services of life that Christians shun such things, but (because they are) reserving themselves for a diviner and more necessary service, (namely that) of (the) Church of God, both necessarily and rightly taking the lead for the salvation of men, and having taken charge of all—of those within (the Church), in order that they may daily live better (lives), and of those who are apparently without, in order that they may become (engaged) in the serious words and works of piety, and thus, truly worshipping God and training as many as they have power to, may be mingled with the Word of God and the divine Law and may thus be united to the God who is over all through the Son of God—Word and Wisdom and Truth and Righteousness—who unites to Him every one who is bent on living in all things according to (the will of) God.” 1

There are several points in the teaching set forth in these passages which call for special comment.

1. It will have been noticed that Origenes speaks of the Emperor as ‘reigning righteously’ and of his soldiers as ‘righteously rendering military service,’ that as a Christian he was prepared to pray for their victory in a righteous conflict, 2 and that he recognized the right of the ancient Jews to fight against their enemies. 3 Elsewhere he speaks of “people everywhere being compelled to serve as soldiers and to make war on behalf of the(ir) countries” in the times before Augustus, “when there was need that there should be war, for instance, between Peloponnesians and Athenians, and similarly between others.” 4 He also says that “the wars of the bees perhaps constitute a lesson for the conduct of just and orderly wars among men, if ever there should be need (for them).” 5 All these passages but the last explicitly refer to the warfare of some set of non-Christians: and in the last there is no indication that Origenes has Christians in mind. When the fact is once clearly grasped that his allusions to justifiable wars are always, either explicitly or implicitly, to wars waged by non-Christians, many of the criticisms levelled at his teaching will be seen to rest on a misapprehension. 6

2. His candid recognition of the temporary place and value of what was good in pagan and Mosaic ethics must not be taken as stultifying or cancelling his equally candid declaration that Christians ought not to and would not take part in war. Several modern writers have fallen into this fallacy. Thus Grotius says that Origenes and Tertullianus are not consistent, and he quotes in regard to the former the passage about the bees. 1 Guizot, in a note on Gibbon, 2 says: “Origen, in truth, appears to have maintained a more rigid opinion (Cont. Cels. l. viii); but he has often renounced this exaggerated severity, perhaps necessary to produce great results, and he speaks of the profession of arms as an honourable one (l. iv. c. [83] 218. . . ).” Professor Bethune-Baker writes: “From all these passages together it is perhaps fair to conclude that Origen considered the Christian ideal incompatible with war, but would in practice have permitted Christians to engage in war. It is clear he regarded it as a Christian duty to pray for ‘those that are warring justly.’ Further, as it is quite certain that there were many Christians in the armies at the time when Origen was writing, it is not improbable that in his specific answer he is thinking particularly of the Christian clergy. Several of his phrases suggest this limited application.” 3 This guardedly expressed, but nevertheless quite erroneous, suggestion is invested by Archdeacon Cunningham with dogmatic certainty: “It is clear that the Great Alexandrian did not regard War as a thing in which the Christian was wrong to take part.” 1 Guignebert remarks: “But already Origenes seems to admit at least defensive war” 2 : and similarly Bigelmair: “Even Origenes at times gave a less rigorous judgment,” for he meets a point brought forward by Celsus “with the remark—which contrasts curiously with his position elsewhere—that the wars of the bees were a pattern for the righteous and orderly wars of men.” 3 All this misses the point. Origenes’ view of the Christian’s duty in regard to war is put as clearly as words could make it: and though he compares the intercessions of the Christians to the sacrifices of the pagan priesthood and speaks about the duty of the Christian clergy in training and governing others, the supposition that he meant to limit the abstention from bloodshed to the clergy is quite out of keeping with his actual statements. It is abundantly clear that he regarded the acceptance of Christianity as incompatible with the use of arms; and his relative justification of the wars of non-Christians cannot be made a ground either for doubting that his rigorism was seriously meant, or for accusing him of inconsistency in maintaining it. 4

3. Origenes accepts as true the charge implied in the appeal made by Celsus seventy years before, that Christians did as a body refuse to serve in the army and to hold magistracies. “We do not serve as soldiers with the Emperor, even though he require (it). . . . Christians avoid such things” (i.e. public offices). 5 He speaks as if he was not aware that Christians ever took any other line 1 : and though this cannot be construed as showing that none of them ever did so—for there is evidence to prove that many did—or that Origenes dishonestly concealed what he knew to be a fact—for the dishonesty would have been so patent as to serve no purpose, yet it proves that even at this date, the middle of the third century, the predominant opinion among Christians was that their religion forbade them to serve in the legions. 2

4. It is often urged that the early Christian disapproval of all violence has to be read in the light of early Christian eschatology. For if you could assume that within the near future, possibly almost immediately, the existing world-order was going to fall to pieces with a crash, the wicked were going to be rooted out and punished, and the reign of righteousness set up—all by the exercise of a special Divine intervention—then obviously there would not be much difficulty in proving all fighting, and indeed all judicial procedure, to be useless. Now whatever weight must be assigned to this consideration in criticizing the views of primitive Christians, or even of a man like Tertullianus, it is highly significant that the most gifted thinker of the early Church, the man who maintained the Gospel-principle of non-resistance as earnestly and explicitly as any, was unique also in this other excellence—that his mind was not fettered by the crude obsessions of orthodox Christian eschatology: he had little or nothing to say of a bodily return of Christ, or of an end of the world due to occur in the near future; he contemplated an indefinite prolongation of human history under the divine control; he had his eyes open to the needs of society, and, though keen on the spiritual side of things, suffered from no blind ‘otherworldliness’—from none of what Weinel aptly calls ‘Jenseitsfanatismus.’ Eschatology, it is urged, invalidates the early Christian witness in regard to war: it cannot however invalidate the witness given by Origenes, for he did not share even the weakened eschatological beliefs of his Christian contemporaries. Yet none gave a clearer or more intelligent witness on the subject of Christian gentleness than he.

5. Note further that fear of idolatrous contamination had nothing to do with Origenes’ disapproval of military service. He does indeed once mention ‘impiety towards God’ as a means of currying favour with kings, but never as a bar to service in the army. His view was based—as his analogy with the pagan priesthood, as well as many other passages, clearly shows—on the Christians’ determination to keep their hands free from the stain of blood. Yet the late Dr. Gwatkin, in his criticism of Origenes’ reply to the charge of disloyalty, 1 altogether ignores this aspect of the case, and speaks as if squeamishness on the subject of idolatry were the only difficulty that had to be considered. Even Troeltsch, as we have seen, 2 says that, if it had not been for this difficulty, Origenes would have acquiesced in Christians serving as soldiers.

6. Origenes happily lays great stress on the positive service which the Christians render to the State, a service which he claims is diviner, more needful, and more effective than that of the soldier or magistrate. “We do help the Emperors as occasion (requires). . . We labour with (him) in the public affairs. . . we fight for the Emperor more (than others do). . . Christians benefit the(ir) countries more than the rest of men,” and so on. 1 Of this service he specifies two forms. (a) Intercessory prayer, which he rightly regards as exceedingly effective when coming from Christians: this prayer is that the Emperor and those associated with him may be successful in their efforts, in so far as their purposes are righteous, “in order that all things opposed and hostile to those that act righteously may be put down” . It assumes that the Emperor has a standard of righteousness which is valid relative to his own sub-Christian condition, and it does not commit the Christian who offers it to an approval of the same standard for himself. The Christians, moreover, by their prayers, put down the demons who rouse warlike passions and disturb the peace. (b) Influence for good over others by the activities of the Church and the power of Christian life, “educating the citizens and teaching them to be devout towards the God of the State,” taking charge of those within and those without the Church, and working effectually for their moral and spiritual salvation. No criticism of Origenes, which does not give full weight to this positive side of his plea, is either fair to him or worthy of a Christian critic. The words of the late Dr. Gwatkin unfortunately fail in this respect. “Even Origen only quibbles,” he says, “in his answer that they do not serve in the army because they support the emperor with their prayers, that they fight for their country by educating their fellow-citizens in true piety, that they help to govern it by devoting themselves to the nobler and more needful service of the church of God. All this evades the point—that men have no right to renounce at pleasure their duties to their country.” 1 Now the party guilty of evading the point in this case is not the ancient apologist, but the late lamented historian himself; for in speaking of military service as a duty to one’s country, he is, of course, simply assuming without argument the very point under debate: he has not a word to say on the very serious question as to how slaughter in war is to be reconciled with the teaching of Jesus. Not only does he assume that military service is a duty, but he calls the Christian refusal of it a renunciation of duty at pleasure . He does not realize that the early Christian, in refusing the use of arms, more than compensated for his withdrawal from the army by the moral and spiritual power for good which he exercised as a Christian, that he did—as Origenes claimed—really and literally help the Emperor in the maintenance of peace and justice, and really did benefit his country more than the rest of men.

7. This brings us to our last point, namely the question whether the Christian ethic as interpreted by Origenes can be safely advocated as a practical policy, or whether it is open to the fatal charge of anarchy. What is going to happen, Celsus had asked, as people are asking now, if this sort of thing spreads? Will not civilization become the prey of barbarians and savages? On the score of the results which, it is assumed, would follow from the adoption of his teaching, the political views expressed by him have been criticized as extravagant. 1 The criticism is in my judgment unwarranted. To foresee accurately the future history of Christianity is under no conditions and at no period an easy task, even when one is emancipated—as Origenes happily was—from the crude obsessions of orthodox eschatology. It is therefore not to be wondered at that he should hesitate to affirm positively that all the inhabitants of the world would be able, while still in the body, to come together under one law, though he does not rule out this contingency as impossible, just as, in repudiating the extravagant utterance attributed by Celsus to a Christian, he does not rule out absolutely the possibility of an Emperor’s conversion. 2 His task was to show that a Christianity, which sets its adherents to work in the varied external and internal activities of the Church, which endows them with moral purity and energy and spiritual power, and which forbids them to participate in the penal bloodshed and violence which pagan society finds necessary for its own preservation and well-being—that such a Christianity can be allowed to spread indefinitely among mankind, without any fear of a disastrous breakdown of civilization being occasioned by its expansion. That task he performs with admirable common-sense and insight. He does not desire or advocate or expect a sudden and wholesale abandonment by society of its usual methods of dealing with internal and external enemies, without any of those compensating safeguards and improvements which the gradual and steady growth of Christianity would ensure. And it is as a gradual growth that he thinks of the expansion of Christianity—as a growth consisting of the accretion of one individual after another, “the Word ever taking possession of more (and more) souls” until it has mastered the whole rational creation, 1 as a growth going on, not only among the civilized inhabitants of the Empire, but also among the uncivilized barbarians beyond its borders, 2 not only among the virtuous, but also among the sinful and criminal people, and therefore as removing steadily the wrongdoing which evokes wars and calls for penalties, while supplying steadily pari passu a more effectual cure for that wrongdoing in the shape of the mighty spiritual and moral influence of the Church. His programme thus consists of two gradual processes going on side by side as the result of the spread of Christianity: firstly, the gradual diminution of crime and the risk of foreign aggression, and secondly, the gradual substitution of spiritual influence for physical coercion, i.e. of a more for a less effective remedy for crime and aggression. 3 What ground does such a programme give for the charge of anarchy? Celsus actually made such a charge, but had to contradict himself in doing so. He first professed to posit the conversion of all to Christianity—in itself a legitimate supposition—but immediately had to make an exception of the barbarians in order to manufacture some sort of a bogey. Origenes had no difficulty in pointing out that Celsus’ assumption of all doing the same as the Christian presupposed the conversion of the barbarians as well as the subjects of the Empire. Some modern writers have pointed to the attacks later made on the Empire by Christianized barbarians as if they proved the shortsightedness of Origenes 1 : but they do nothing of the sort, for the Christianity given to these barbarians was not the same article as that for which Origenes was bargaining; it was the Christianity of a Church that had made a compact with the powers that be and was accordingly obliged to sanction for its adherents the use of the sword at a ruler’s bidding. It was the Church’s failure to remain true to the full Christian ethic advocated by Origenes, which made possible the scene of Christian barbarians invading the Empire. The extraordinary supposition—which forms part of Origenes’ apologia—of a united and converted Empire holding its barbarian foes at bay by the power of prayer, was no part of his own programme: it concludes his reply to the illogical challenge of his opponent. Extravagant as that challenge was, he shows himself fully equal to meeting it, by a grand profession of the Christian’s confidence in God—a confidence not so foolish as it sounds to worldly ears, as the history of many a mission-field would be amply sufficient to prove.

The position of Cyprianus, bishop of Carthago, a universally respected and highly influential Churchman, is somewhat uncertain. On the one hand, he includes in his general complaint over the degeneracy and calamities of the time the fact that the numbers and efficiency of the soldiers were decreasing, 1 and never says in so many terms that a Christian ought not to serve in the legions, even when he has occasion to refer to two who had done so. 2 On the other hand, he says some remarkably strong things about war, which more than overbalance his casual and rhetorical allusion to the deficiency of soldiers. He speaks of the “wars scattered everywhere with the bloody horror of camps. The world is wet with mutual blood(shed): and homicide is a crime when individuals commit it, (but) it is called a virtue, when it is carried on publicly. Not the reason of innocence, but the magnitude of savagery, demands impunity for crimes.” 1 “God wished iron to be for the cultivation of the earth, and for that reason acts of homicide ought not to be committed.” 2 “Adultery, fraud, homicide is mortal sin (mortale crimen). . . after celebrating the eucharist, the hand is not (i.e. ought not to be) spotted with (the use of) the sword and with blood.” 3 Further than that, his immense respect for his fellow-countryman Tertullianus, whom he called his ‘master’ and whose ardent antipathy to secular things in general he evidently shared, creates a very strong presumption that he agreed with him as to the illegitimacy of military service for Christians. This presumption is supported by the fact that the body of Maximilianus, who was martyred at Teveste in Numidia in 295 a.d. for refusing to allow himself to be enrolled as a soldier, was conveyed by a Christian matron to Carthago, and buried near Cyprianus’ tomb. 4

The Neoplatonic philosopher Plotinos, writing about 268 a.d. , said: “God Himself ought not to fight on behalf of the unwarlike; for the law says that (men) ought to be brought safe out of wars by being courageous, but not by praying. For it is not those who pray, but those who attend to the earth, that (ought to) reap its produce.” 1 When we consider the connections of Plotinos with Egypt and Alexandria, the fact that both he and Origenes had been pupils of the philosopher Ammonios Sakkas, the reputation of Origenes in philosophic circles, and the standing hostility of the Neoplatonists to Christianity, we can hardly doubt that the passage just quoted is an allusion to the closing chapters of Origenes’ Contra Celsum , where the author defends the Christians for refusing military service on the ground of the intercessory prayers they offer. Such an allusion would be somewhat pointless, unless Plotinos believed that the position he was criticizing was at least fairly widespread among Christians.

In 295 a.d. occurred the famous and oft-told martyrdom of Maximilianus, to which allusion has just been made. He was a young Numidian Christian, just over twenty-one years old, and was brought before Dion the proconsul of Africa, as fit for military service. He refused to serve, or to accept the soldier’s badge, saying repeatedly that he could not do so, because he was a Christian and served Christ. Dion tried again and again to overcome his objections, but without success. It is fairly clear from the martyr’s own words that his objection was largely, if not solely, to the business of fighting. The question of sacrificing to idols or to the Emperor is not mentioned by either party. “I cannot serve as a soldier,” said maximilianus; “I cannot do evil; I am a Christian.” Dion told him: “In the sacred retinue of our lords Diocletianus and Maximianus, Constantius and Maximus, there are Christian soldiers, and they serve.” Maximilianus replied: “They know what is fitting for them: but I am a Christian, and I cannot do evil.” “What evil do they do who serve?” asked the proconsul. “Thou knowest what they do,” was the reply. 1 Nothing more could be done, and Maximilianus was sentenced to and suffered the death-penalty. His body, as has been stated, was taken to Carthago and buried near the tomb of Cyprianus; his father returned home thanking God that he had sent forward such a gift to the Lord 2 ; the story of his trial and death were speedily committed to writing; and he was ultimately received among the saints of the Church. All this shows what a large measure of sympathy and approval was evoked by the stand he took, among the Christians of his own and the immediately succeeding period. 3 There are, as far as I know, no grounds for supposing that Maximilianus had come more under the influence of Tertullianus than other Christians of northern Africa, or that Christians who refused to serve belonged for the most part to Montanistic sects. 1 It is probably true that such instances of refusal were sufficiently numerous to have helped to bring about that imperial suspicion and dislike, out of which sprang the great persecution of 303 a.d. 2

In the latter part of the third century, the difficulty over idolatry, etc., in the army became acute. Regulations had long been in existence which forbade any who would not sacrifice to the Emperors to hold a commission in the army. While these regulations had been allowed by the authorities to fall into desuetude, the fact that they were still technically in force made it possible for any one to appeal to them, if a favorable opportunity arose; and when that was done, they had to be enforced. It is possible that the two soldiermartyrs mentioned by Cyprianus were the victims of some such occurrence. 3 However that may be, a clear instance occurred at Caesarea in 260 a.d. , when, after the cessation of persecution, a distinguished military officer named Marinus was about to be promoted to the rank of centurion, but, being denounced as a Christian by the next claimant to the vacancy and declared ineligible for promotion in view of the ancient laws, was given three hours for reflection, returned at the end of that time from an interview with his bishop (who told him he must choose between his sword and the Gospels), reaffirmed his Christianity, was sentenced to death, led away, and beheaded. 1 Marinus waited for the occasion of conflict to arise, and when it arose he seems neither to have had nor to have sought a chance of retiring from the service. But Marcellus the centurion, who was martyred at Tingi (Western Mauretania) in 298 a.d. , took the initiative himself, and insisted on resigning his office. On the occasion of the Emperor’s birthday, he cast off his military belt before the standards, and called out: “I serve (milito) Jesus Christ, the eternal king.” Then he threw down his vine-staff and arms, and added: “I cease from this military service of your Emperors, and I scorn to adore your gods of stone and wood, which are deaf and dumb idols. If such is the position of those who render military service, that they should be compelled to sacrifice to gods and emperors, then I cast down my vine-staff and belt, I renounce the standards, and I refuse to serve as a soldier.” While the objection to sacrifice thus appears as the main ground for the bold step Marcellus took, it is clear that he was also exercised over the nature of military service as such: for his last words to the judge were: “I threw down (my arms); for it was not seemly that a Christian man, who renders military service to the Lord Christ, should render it (also) by (inflicting) earthly injuries.” 2 When he was sentenced to death, Cassianus, the clerk of the court, loudly protected, and flung his writing-materials on the ground, declaring that the sentence was unjust: he suffered death a few days after Marcellus. 1

In the years preceding and following the outbreak of persecution in 303 a.d. , we come across several cases of Christian soldiers leaving the army or suffering martyrdom, either on the ground of a general sense of the incompatibility of their official functions with their religious duty, or else on the specific ground of refusing to offer heathen sacrifices. The doubtful ‘Acts of Typasius’ tells us that he was a soldier of Mauretania, who had served with credit, but, desiring to devote himself wholly to religion, refused a royal donative, and shortly after obtained from Maximianus an honourable discharge. Some years afterwards (305 a.d. or later) he was recalled to the ranks, but as he refused to re-enter the service, he suffered martyrdom. 2 Seleukos, a stalwart Cappadocian, who held a distinguished position in the army, at the beginning of the persecution had to endure scourging, but then obtained his discharge. 3 Tarakhos of Cilicia also obtained his discharge on the outbreak of persecution: at his subsequent trial at Tarsus, he told the governor that he had been a soldier, “but because I was a Christian, I have now chosen to be a civilian” 4 —words which suggest rather more than a mere objection to offer pagan sacrifices. The martyrdom of Nereus and Achilleus at Rome also probably falls to be included here. Pope Damasus (366-384 a.d. ), who took a great interest in the records and tombs of the martyrs, put up an epitaph (which has since been discovered) to two praetorian soldiers, Nereus and Achilleus, who, he says, “had given (their) name(s) to military service, and were carrying on (their) cruel duty,” but “suddenly laid aside (their) madness, turned round (and) fled; they leave the general’s impious camp, cast down (their) shields, helmets, and bloodstained weapons; they confess, and bear (along) with joy the triumph of Christ”: they were put to death with the sword. Uncertain as we are of the date of their martyrdom, the most reasonable supposition is that it fell in or shortly before the time of the persecution of Diocletianus—a supposition which is confirmed by the various other cases of a similar kind which we have just noticed. The references to the ‘impious camp’ and the ‘bloodstained weapons’ remind us both of the offence of idolatry and also of that of bloodshed. 1

The office of the judge and magistrate, though it shares with that of the soldier the infliction of bodily damage and death upon other men, yet exhibits this infliction in a less wholesale and indiscriminate, a less objectionable and shocking, form. Further than that, it resembles far more closely than the soldier’s position does those numerous and useful public services which involve nothing in the way of violence to others. While the element common to the law-court and the army made Christians sensitive in regard to the former as well as to the latter, the dissimilarity between them caused the objections to the one to be far more strong and definite than the objections to the other. The views of Christians in the latter part of the third century in regard to law-courts, magistracies, death-penalties, and so on, would form an interesting supplement to their views on military service. The evidence unfortunately is more scanty than we could wish. Two passages, however, of some interest may be quoted. The Didaskalia definitely forbids the Christian to sue a wrongdoer in a pagan court. “It is very high praise for a Christian to have no evil dispute with anyone: but if, through the work of an enemy, temptation arises against anyone, 1 let him try earnestly to be freed from him, even though he has to suffer some harm; only let him not go to the judgment of the gentiles. . . . Let not the gentiles know of your legal disputes; and do not accept evidence from them against yourselves: nor in your turn prefer suits in their courts.” 2 We have seen that the Canons of Hippolutos in their original form forbade the admission to the Church of a magistrate who wielded the power of the sword. We do not know how long this original regulation remained unmodified. Very probably the modifications took place at different times and rates in different places. We know that in the latter part of the third century it was certainly not universally observed; for in the times preceding 303 a.d. , there were Christian governors of provinces 3 : at Alexandria there was a Christian official who daily administered justice attended by a guard of soldiers 1 : in Spain there were Christian magistrates. But a regulation may remain in existence a long time after people have begun to break it, as the long survival of the Eastern Church-Orders proves; and even where it was felt that such a rule, however desirable as an ideal, could not be enforced in practice and ought not therefore to be authoritatively laid down, the sentiment of repulsion towards the penal and bloody side of a magistrate’s work still made itself felt. One of the Canons of the Synod of Illiberis (Elvira, in the south of Spain), which apparently met about 300 a.d. , ran: “Resolved, that it be laid down that a (Christian) magistrate, during the one year in which he holds the office of duumvir, should keep himself away from the church.” 2 Hefele regards the patronage of idolatry connected with the office as the ground of this decision, 3 but Dale rightly views this as insufficient. “Tertullian,” says Dale, “enumerates acts which, though part of the common experience of all magistrates and rulers during that age, were inadmissible in the true servant of Christ. “As to the duties of civil power,” he says, “the Christian must not decide on any one’s life or honour—about money it is permissible; he must bind no one, nor imprison and torture any.” It was considerations of this nature, rather than the idolatrous associations connected with the office, which led the Synod to exclude the official, during his year of tenure, from communion with the Church: for to sentence even a slave to death, to imprison the debtor, or to put the household of a suspected criminal to the rack, though the duty of a magistrate, would in the Christian be a sin.” 1 The sense of the incongruity of Christianity and political life in general, more particularly on its punitive and coercive side, expressed itself in the strong disapproval that was felt—even down to medieval and modern times—to the direct participation of the Christian clergy in any activities of this kind. 2

We conclude our study of this section of the subject with a few passages from two Christian authors who flourished towards the close of our period, viz. Arnobius and Lactantius. Arnobius speaks as if abstention from warfare had been the traditional Christian policy ever since the advent of Christ. The amount of war had been diminished, he said, not increased, since Christ came. “For since we—so large a force of men—have received (it), from his teachings and laws, that evil ought not to be repaid with evil, that it is better to endure a wrong than to inflict (it), to shed one’s own (blood) rather than stain one’s hands and conscience with the blood of another, the ungrateful world has long been receiving a benefit from Christ, through whom the madness of savagery has been softened, and has begun to withhold its hostile hands from the blood of a kindred creature. But if absolutely all. . . were willing to lend an ear for a little while to his healthful and peaceful decrees, and would not, swollen with pride and arrogance, trust to their own senses rather than to his admonitions, the whole world would long ago have turned the uses of iron to milder works and be living in the softest tranquillity, and would have come together in healthy concord without breaking the sanctions of treaties.” 1

Lactantius is still more definite and uncompromising. He explicitly rules out both military service and capital charges on the ground that, involving homicide, they are a violation of justice. We may recall a few salient passages. Referring to some indefinite earlier time, he says: “Fire and water used to be forbidden to exiles; for up till then it was thought a wrong to inflict the punishment of death on (those who,) though (they were) evil, (were) yet men.” 2 “If God alone were worshipped, there would not be dissensions and wars; for men would know that they are sons of the one God, and so joined together by the sacred and inviolable bond of divine kinship; there would be no plots, for they would know what sort of punishments God has prepared for those who kill living beings.” 3 Latterly the gentiles had banished justice from their midst by persecuting the good; but even “if they slew the evil only, they would not deserve that justice should come to them; for justice had no other reason for leaving the earth than the shedding of human blood.” 4 “Someone will say here: ‘What, therefore, or where, or of what sort is piety?’ Assuredly it is among those who are ignorant of wars, who keep concord with all, who are friends even to their enemies, who love all men as brothers, who know how to restrain (their) anger, and to soothe all fury of mind by quiet control.” 1 In controverting the argument that the just man is foolish, for, to save his own life, he will not in warfare take a horse away from a wounded man, Lactantius answers that, for one thing, the just man will never be faced with these circumstances. “For. . . why should he wage war, and mix himself up in other people’s passions—he in whose mind dwells perpetual peace with men? He. . . who regards it as wrong, not only to inflict slaughter himself, but even to be present with those who inflict it and to look on, will forsooth be delighted with. . . human blood!” 2 In criticizing patriotic wars, he says: “In the first place, the connection of human society is taken away; innocence is taken away; abstention from what is another’s is taken away; in fact, justice itself is taken away, for justice cannot bear the cutting asunder of the human race, and, wherever arms glitter, she must be put to flight and banished. . . . For how can he be just who injures, hates, despoils, kills? And those who strive to be of advantage to their country do all these things.” 3 “Whoever reckons it a pleasure that a man, though deservedly condemned, should be slain in his sight, defiles his own conscience, just as if he were to become spectator and sharer of a murder which is committed in secret.” 4 “When God prohibits killing, He not only forbids us to commit brigandage, which is not allowed even by the public laws; but He warns (us) that not even those things which are regarded as legal among men are to be done. And so it will not be lawful for a just man to serve as a soldier—for justice itself is his military service—nor to accuse anyone of a capital offence, because it makes no difference whether thou kill with a sword or with a word, since killing itself is forbidden. And so, in this commandment of God, no exception at all ought to be made (to the rule) that it is always wrong to kill a man, whom God has wished to be (regarded as) a sacrosanct creature.” 1 Lactantius does not either claim or suggest that there were no Christians in the army when he wrote; and his language may perhaps be held to imply that he is counteracting the opinions of other Christians: but he could hardly have written as he did, if his views were merely those of an inconsiderable handful of extremists. One would rather gather that he must have been conscious of having at his back a very large body of Christian sentiment and conviction.

PART III: FORMS OF THE EARLY CHRISTIAN ACCEPTANCE OF WAR

Hitherto we have concentrated our attention on the various ways in which the Christian abhorrence and disapproval of war expressed itself. We have now to study the reverse side of the picture—the various conditions and connections in which war was thought of by Christian people without that association of reproach which so frequently attached to it. The contents of this reverse side of the picture are very heterogeneous, ranging from the use of military metaphors and similes up to the actual service of Christians in the legions. It will be our task to examine each phase of this side of the subject candidly and carefully, and to attempt an estimate of the precise value of each in its relation to that strong antipathy towards war, the various manifestations of which we have just been reviewing. We begin with

The Christian Use of Military Terms and Phrases to illustrate the Religious Life .—It was apparently Paul who introduced this custom of drawing from the military world metaphors and similes illustrative of different aspects of Christian, particularly apostolic, life. He urged the Thessalonians to put on the breastplate of faith and love, and to take the hope of salvation as a helmet. 1 He supported his right to subsist at the expense of the Church by asking: “Who ever engages in military service at his own expense?” 2 He spoke of his spiritual and disciplinary powers in the Church in the language of one holding a military command and suppressing a mutiny. 3 He spoke of his weapons of righteousness on the right hand and on the left, i.e. for attack and defence. 4 He called Epaphroditos and Arkhippos his fellow-soldiers and others his fellow-captives. 5 In a detailed enumeration of the items that make up the offensive and defensive equipment of a soldier, he elaborated the parallel between human warfare and the Christian’s struggle against evil angelic powers. 6 Further use of military metaphors is made in the Pastoral Epistles. There the author bids Timotheos join him in bearing hardship as a good soldier of Jesus Christ. “No one going on military service gets entangled in the affairs of (civil) life, (for his aim is) to please him who enrolled him.” 7 It is important to notice that Paul, as if aware of the liability of such language to misconstruction, twice went out of his way to remind his readers that in using it he was not referring to earthly warfare. “Though we walk in the flesh, we do not serve as soldiers according to the flesh; for the weapons of our military service are not those of the flesh, but powerful through God for the demolition of strongholds, demolishing theories and every rampart thrown up against the knowledge of God, and taking prisoner every project (to bring it) into obedience to Christ,” and so on. 1 Again, “our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the (angelic) rulers, against the (angelic) authorities, against the world-potentates of this darkness, against the spiritual (forces) of wickedness in the heavenly (regions). Wherefore take up the armour of God,” and so on. 2

The Gospel of Luke preserves for us the one explicitly military parable of Jesus, that of the two kings preparing for war. 3 Clemens of Rome says to the Corinthians: “Let us render service then, brothers, as strenuously as we can, under His faultless orders. Let us consider those who serve our governors as soldiers, in what an orderly, obedient, and submissive way they carry out their instructions. For all are not prefects or chiliarchs or centurions or captains of fifty, and so on; but each one in his own rank carries out what is ordered by the Emperor and the governors. The great cannot exist without the lower, nor the lower without the great. There is a union among all, and that is why they are (so) useful” ( ). 4 Ignatius writes: “Please Him whom ye serve as soldiers, and from whom ye receive wages. Let no one of you be found (to be) a deserter. Let your baptism abide as (your) weapons, faith as a helmet, love as a spear, patience as armour. Let your works be your deposits, in order that ye may receive the recompense due to you.” 1 It will be seen that, while Ignatius does not do more than use military metaphors, Clemens goes a good deal further. In two respects his allusion to military life is a novelty. Firstly, he draws from his illustration the lesson of subordination of Christians to Church-leaders; and secondly, he unquestionably feels a real admiration for the Roman army as such. We shall have occasion to refer later to this second point.

Justinus uses the military analogy in rather a striking way. “It would be a ridiculous thing,” he says to the Emperors, “that the soldiers engaged and enrolled by you should respect their agreement with you in preference to their own life and parents and country and all their friends, though ye can offer them nothing incorruptible, and that we, loving incorruptibility, should not endure all things for the sake of receiving what we long for from Him who is able to give (it).” 2 In the apocryphal ‘Martyrdom of Paul,’ both the author himself and the characters he introduces speak of Christians as soldiers in the service of God 3 : similar language is put into Peter’s mouth in his apocryphal ‘Martyrdom.’ 4 In the Gnostic ‘Excerpts from Theodotos,’ it is said: “(We) must be armed with the Lord’s weapons, keeping the body and the soul unwounded.” 5 Eirenaios refers, chiefly in Scriptural language, to the achievements of Christ under the figure of military exploits. 1 Clemens of Alexandria has a large number of military expressions and comparisons designating various features in the Christian life. 2 The pugnacious Tertullianus, despite his aversion to military service in actual life, was especially fond of using language of this sort. 3 It was adopted in fact far more readily and extensively in the Western than in the Eastern Church. The use of the one Latin word ‘sacramentum’ for the soldier’s oath and for certain important Christian observances facilitated the introduction of the military conception of Christianity. While nothing was further from Tertullianus’ real meaning than that Christians should actually take arms on behalf of their religion, yet the thought of Christians as soldiers was sufficiently vivid and real to him to enable him to play with the idea of an actual revolt. 4

Origenes found the idea of the Christian life as a spiritual warfare of great value in that it furnished a key to much in the Old Testament that would have been repugnant to him, had he felt obliged to accept it in its literal meaning. Military metaphors appear in his best-known works, but are naturally most fully worked out in his Homilies on the books of Numbers, Joshua, and Judges. In the Homilies on Joshua, he says: “If those carnal wars did not carry a figure of spiritual wars, the books of Jewish history would, I believe, never have been handed down by the apostles (as) fit to be read in the churches by the disciples of Christ, who came to teach peace.” 1

Other writings of the first half of the third century containing military phrases and illustrations are Hippolutos’ treatise against Noetos, 2 the apocryphal ‘Acts of Thomas,’ 3 the Pseudo-Cyprianic ‘De Pascha Computus,’ 4 and the ‘Octavius’ of Minucius Felix, which has a fine rhetorical comparison of the steadfast martyr to a victorious soldier. 5

From the middle of the third century onwards the frequency with which military language is used to describe phases of Christian life and experience becomes very noticeable, particularly in Latin writers. Christians are spoken of as Christ’s soldiers; Christ is the imperator; the Church is his camp; baptism is the sacramentum; heretics and schismatics are rebels and deserters, and so on. A multitude of military phrases occur in the portrayal of Christian trials and achievements, particularly in connection with persecution. A detailed analysis of the passages would tell us very little in regard to our main enquiry: some of them are simply edifying rhetoric; in some the parallel is carried out in great detail; in others it consists of a bare illustrative analogy. 1 We observe that the military metaphor commended itself most strongly to Cyprianus and those who corresponded with him, 2 Commodianus, 3 and the authors of the martyr-acts, 4 that it was on the whole more popular with the Latin or Western 5 than with the Eastern 6 writers; and that fondness for it was greatly stimulated by persecution. 7 The way in which the word ‘paganus,’ which originally meant civilian as distinct from soldier—a sense which it kept till after 300 a.d. , came eventually to mean non-Christian, indicates how strongly the idea of the Christian as the soldier par excellence permeated the mind of Latin Christianity. 8

Most of the passages in which military metaphors and similes are used are obviously quite non-committal as to the writer’s attitude to earthly warfare, though there are certainly some in which the analogy is put in such a way as to suggest that the writer accepts the rightness of war. Thus cyprianus says: “It is a good soldier’s (business) to defend the camp of his commander against rebels and enemies: it is the business of a proud general to keep the standards entrusted to him,” and he goes on to plead accordingly for the rebaptism of heretics. 1 Or again: “If it is a glorious thing for earthly soldiers to return in triumph to their country after conquering the enemy, how much more excellent and great is the glory of returning in triumph to Paradise after conquering the devil!” 2 Lactantius reinforces a strong appeal to the reader to enter upon the toilsome spiritual warfare against the devil by drawing an elaborate parallel between the demands of that conflict and the wisdom of enduring, for the sake of peace and security in the future, the bother of having to prepare to defend oneself and one’s home against an earthly foe. 3 But despite appearances, passages like these cannot be taken as more than mere illustrations. For the purpose of pointing an argument or decorating a lesson, a writer will sometimes use rhetorical analogies which seem likely to carry weight, but which do not represent his own considered opinions on that from which the analogy is drawn. We know, for instance, that Lactantius, despite these glowing words on the obvious need of self-defence, as a matter of fact totally disapproved of all bloodshed, including capital punishment and military service: and it seems practically certain that Cyprianus did the same. 4

At the same time, the frequent and unrestricted use of military metaphors was not without its dangers. Harnack remarks: “When the forms of military life are taken over into the higher religions, the military element appears at first to be thereby converted into its exact opposite, or to be changed into a mere symbol. But the form too has a logic of its own and its own ‘necessitates consequentiae.’ At first imperceptibly, but soon more and more clearly, the military element, which was received as a symbol, introduces also the thing itself, and the ‘spiritual weapons of knighthood’ become the worldly (weapons). But even where it does not get as far as that, there enters in a warlike disposition which threatens the rule of meekness and peace.” 1 And again later, of the Latin Christianity of the third century: “A tone that was on the one hand fanatical and on the other hand bombastic entered into the literature of edification in the West. The Christian threatened to become a ‘miles gloriosus.’ Even though it might all through be a question of spiritual warfare, (yet) an earthly delight in battle and strife, in plunder and victory in the ordinary sense, could (quite easily) develop itself in this fashion. Military speech was not by any means justified by the actual circumstances, apart from the intermittent persecutions: it (just) became the fashion. The martyr-acts that were written in the great persecution under Diocletian and his colleagues, and still more those that were written later, are often enough lacking in the peace and prudence which was prescribed to the Christians in their classic documents—except the Apocalypse. But who can criticize the attitude of people who were handed over to the executioner and went to meet a dreadful death? Their biographers only are open to criticism.” 2 We may say therefore, with regard to this first department of Christian thought in which war stood for something good, that while it lent itself to abuse and misconstruction, particularly in the case of the cruder minds and harsher spirits in the Church, it dealt strictly speaking only with warfare in its purely spiritual sense, and comprised nothing that was necessarily at variance with the most rigid abstention from the use of arms.

The Wars of the Old Testament and of Hebrew History .—The broad fact that meets us here is the ease with which the early Christian was able, whenever necessary, to keep his own ethic and that of the Old Testament in different compartments of his mind, without being seriously disturbed by—and even without noticing—the discrepancies between them. The Scriptures were for him divinely inspired; the history they recorded had been divinely controlled; whatever was narrated and approved by the Biblical authors was regarded as sacred, and as such not a proper subject for human criticism—it was accepted with childlike and unquestioning reverence. The reader had no trained historical sense with which to discern development in man’s knowledge of God’s Will: hence he lacked, not only the inclination, but also the means, of properly relating the ethic of his own faith to that of a long distant foretime. The soundness of his own moral intuitions saved him from presuming to follow indiscriminately the example of those great ones of old, of whom he read and spoke with such genuine reverence and admiration. No greater mistake could be made than to suppose that the early Christian would have permitted himself or his fellow-Christians to do whatever he could peruse without censure or even with approval in the pages of Scripture. An instance will suffice to make this point clear. Concubinage and prostitution were practices which early Christian sentiment strongly condemned as sinful. Whatever might be the frailty of his flesh, no early Christian ever seriously thought of advocating or even defending such practices in his own day—least of all from the pages of Scripture. Yet we find Paul referring to the concubinage of Abraham without a hint that it was sinful, 1 and James and the author of Hebrews alluding to Rahab the harlot, not only without censure, but even in terms of high praise. 2 Similarly with the subject of war. For the early Christian the warlike habits of ‘the great of old’ and his own peaceful principles formed two separate realms, both of which he recognized without attempting—or feeling any need to attempt—to harmonize them. He could recall with complacency, and even with a devout admiration, the wars of the ancient Israelites, totally unconscious of any problem presented to him by their horrors, and without in any way committing himself to a belief in the propriety of similar action on his part. Thus it was that Stephen and Paul both recalled with a glow of patriotic enthusiasm how God had subdued and destroyed the Canaanites before their ancestors under Joshua, 3 and the author of Hebrews spoke proudly of Abraham returning from the slaughter of the kings, reminded his readers how “by faith the walls of Jericho fell down,. . . by faith Rahab the harlot was not destroyed with the disobedient, because she had received the spies in peace,” and mentioned in his catalogue of the heroes of faith “Gideon, Barak, Samson, Jephthah, David, Samuel, and the prophets, who by means of faith subdued kingdoms,. . . escaped the edge of the sword, out of weakness were made strong, became mighty in war, routed armies of foreigners.” 1 Clemens of Rome tells in detail the story of Rahab and the spies, making the scarlet thread she bound in the window a type of the Lord’s redeeming blood. 2 ‘Barnabas’ finds a type of the cross in the hands of Moses extended above the battle between Israel and Amalek, and a type of Jesus himself in Joshua, whom Moses ordered to record God’s determination to destroy Amalek. 3 Justinus quotes to Truphon the words of Moses: “The Lord thy God, who goeth before they face, He shall destroy the nations,” and says: “Ye, who derive your origin from Shem, came, according to the judgment of God, upon the land of Canaan, and took possession of it” 4 : he reminds him how the angel of the Lord slew 185,000 Assyrians before Jerusalem in Hezekiah’s time. 5 Like the other writers just mentioned, he sees types of Christ, the cross, etc., in military incidents, objects, and persons that appear in the Old Testament, in Joshua, in Moses’ outstretched arms, and the stone he sat on, in Rahab’s scarlet thread, and in the horns with which Joseph would push the nations (Deut. xxxiii. 17). 6

While the juxtaposition of the discrepant standards of Scripture and of the Christian life created no difficulty for the childlike mind of the first generations of Christians, yet it was obviously bound sooner or later to attract attention. As soon as the Church began to develop her thinking powers and to face the tangled and perplexing problems of practical life, the antinomy had to be reckoned with. That the sanction of war in the Old Testament had some influence on Christian practice by the time of Tertullianus, we know; though we cannot say how soon that influence began to make itself felt. In the realm of theology, however, the difficulty came to a head in the heresy and schism of Markion, about the middle of the second century. Markion’s theory was that all divinely ordained wars, judgments, penalties, and so on, were to be referred, not to the Supreme Being, the good God who was the Father of Jesus, but to an inferior Deity, the just God of the Jews. This dualism the orthodox Christians rejected and resisted with horror, and indeed it was as easy to find disproof of it, as support for it, in Scripture. Neither Markion nor his opponents had the modern key, viz. the theory of the progressive revelation of the Divine character to men; and the orthodox, in meeting his arguments, were driven to seek for warlike features in the God of the New Testament, and thereby gravely imperilled one of the most essential features of the Christian gospel. 1

Forty or fifty years later, the situation had developed. We find indeed, as before, many allusions to the ancient Hebrew wars without any question being raised as to their incompatibility with Christian usage. Joshua continues to be represented as a type of Jesus, and the massacres he is said to have perpetrated are complacently referred to. Moses is praised as a great general, his outstretched arms are taken as a sign of the cross, the Maccabees’ decision to fight on the Sabbath is quoted, and so on. 1 But the importance and urgency of the question raised by Markion were more than ever realized, for his church was still strong and flourishing. Lengthy exposures of his errors were penned by Eirenaios, Tertullianus. and Hippolutos. More significant for our immediate purpose—for these replies to Markion deal only incidentally with the question of wars—is the fact revealed by Tertullianus, that the Old Testament was now being used by certain Christians in order to justify themselves for bearing arms. The plea does not seem to have been always very intelligently framed, for we are told that these Christians appealed not only to the wars of Joshua and the Israelites, but also to Moses’ rod, Aaron’s buckle, and John the Baptist’s leather girdle! 2 How utterly and seriously misleading this reverence for the Old Testament could be for simpleminded Christians—particularly of the less scrupulous and puritanical sort—we gather from a treatise belonging to about the middle of the third century, and probably written by Novatianus, in which certain Christians are referred to who justified themselves for attendance at the public shows in the amphitheatre on the ground that David had danced before the ark and Elijah had been the charioteer of Israel. 1 But even among the more intelligent and sincere Christians, who lived in the times when participation in warfare had become a Christian problem, the fact that the Old Testament wars were traditionally justified had some effect in preventing a unanimous decision against such participation. 2

One way out of the difficulty was to regard the Old Testament wars as parables, allegories, and types, descriptive of the spiritual life. Many Christians, we are told, regarded these difficult narratives as types, though they were not quite clear as to what they were types of. 3 It needs a special insight, Origenes contends, to enable one to interpret these passages aright: “strangely enough, by means of the history of wars and of conquerors and of (the) conquered, certain mysteries are made clear to those that are able to test them.” 4 What large use Origenes himself made of this method of interpretation we have already seen. We may note that, great as was his confidence in it, his historical sense prevented him from applying it completely; and not having the one clue to the problem, he had eventually to leave the discrepancy between the two dispensations unresolved. Thus, when Celsus pointed out the contradiction between the Old Testament promises of wealth and dominion and precepts for the conduct of war, on the one hand, and the teaching of Jesus on the other, Origenes argued that the former are to be taken in a spiritual sense, as the Jews themselves eventually took them, the literal sense being in many cases obviously impossible. The promises of the Law were never literally fulfilled; the Jews therefore would not have remained so zealous for the Law, had they understood it—as Celsus does—literally. At the same time, Origenes recognizes that the Law had a literal, as well as a spiritual, meaning, that the Jews understood the laws permitting them to punish offenders and to fight against their enemies literally and not spiritually, and that they were allowed to do so, as otherwise they would have perished as a nation. Yet he also argues that the promise that the Jews should slay their enemies cannot be taken literally, and points out that the destruction of Jerusalem proved that God did not wish the Jewish State to stand any longer. 1 It is easy enough to see the unresolved contradiction in Origenes’ position—indeed, one can hardly believe that he himself could have been quite satisfied with it: but further advance was impossible without the more modern ideas of the part played by man’s subjective conditions in the determination of human duty and the consequent necessity of a progressive, i.e. a changing, revelation of the divine Will. A further point along this very line was reached by a Christian writer (the author of the ‘Dialogus de Recta Fidei’) of the early years of the fourth century, in connection with the closely allied problem of the contradiction between the Mosaic Law of Retaliation and the Sermon on the Mount. That problem, however, is still more closely connected with the question of the justifiability of judicial penalties than with the question of war, and will accordingly have to be considered later. 1 We may, however, notice here the full approval which this author gives to the spoliation of the Egyptians by the Israelites and to Moses’ punishment of the rebels: “It does not therefore seem at all undeserved that those, who had waged war unjustly, should be despoiled like enemies by the laws of war. . . . It was just that those who had revolted should be slain like enemies and conspirators. . . . We have shown concerning those, who wage war unjustly, that the proper result is that they should receive what is (usually) given (ea quae. . . referuntur) by the law of war; whence we have taught that Christ also ordered (his) enemies to be thrust into outer darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.” 2

Apart from this author and Origenes and those who touch on the problem of the Lex Talionis, no other writer makes any contribution to the settlement of the difficulty of Old Testament wars. 3 This difficulty however did not bulk so large but that authors of even the latest part of our period could refer to those wars in the same happy and unconscious way as their predecessors. Minucius Felix speaks of the military successes of the Jews, as long as they worshipped God: “(though) unarmed, they pursued armed men as they fled, (and) overwhelmed (them) by the command of God and with the help of the elements.” 4 In Cyprianus we once more find mention of Moses making the sign of the cross 1 and other allusions to Old Testament wars, 2 as well as commendations of Cornelius, the centurion-convert of the New Testament. 3 Lastly, Joshua appears as a type of Jesus in the ‘Divine Institutes’ of Lactantius. 4

Summing up, we may say that all orthodox Christians agreed in regarding the wars waged by the ancient Hebrews as having been waged with the Divine sanction, if not always at the Divine bidding; that few of them were concerned, and none fully succeeded, in harmonizing the divergent views of the Old and New Testaments in regard to the use of violence, but that, inasmuch as the approval accorded to ancient Hebrew wars was—whether the Christian fully recognized the fact or not—relative to the ancient Hebrew mind, i.e. relative to subjective human conditions which were very different from those of the Christians themselves, the instinct which withheld the latter from copying the military precedents of Scripture was perfectly sound, and could have been logically justified if the requisite philosophical apparatus had been available; that the use normally made of these stories of ancient times was simply that of edifying types or allegories of Christ and the Christian life; that the use of them in order to justify Christians in bearing arms was in many cases the product of an extremely crude habit of mind; that it satisfied both sides of the question even less than did the view of the rigid abstentionist (in that it could give no account of its departure from the teaching of Jesus), and that it involved the subtle fallacy of supposing that what God permits or enjoins for men in one stage of development, He equally permits or enjoins for men in quite a different stage.

Apocalyptic Wars .—But Scripture spoke of other wars than those of past history. The Jews looked forward to an approaching cataclysm, a great intervention of God in human affairs, involving a general resurrection and judgment, the reward of the righteous, the punishment of sinners, and the establishment of a divine kingdom under the regency of the Messiah. It seems to have been generally expected that the occurrence of terrific wars, involving the overthrow and slaughter of the enemies of the Chosen People and their Messiah, would form a part of this series of events, though there was no unanimity as to the details of the programme. The Christian Church practically took over the Jewish apocalyptic beliefs en masse: hence we find war entering into their hopes and expectations of the future. Mark includes in the apocalyptic discourse of Jesus the following passage: “When ye hear (of) wars and rumours of wars, be not amazed: (this) must happen, but the end is not yet. For nation shall rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom; there shall be earthquakes in divers places; there shall be famines. These things (are the) beginning of (the Messianic) birth-pangs.” Matthew and Luke report the same or similar words. 1 Luke represents Jesus in the Parable of the Pounds as describing the king on his return summoning into his presence for execution those who did not wish him to reign over them. 1 Paul says that the Lord Jesus will destroy the Lawless One (i.e. Antichrist) with the breath of his mouth, and bring him to nought by the manifestation of his coming. 2 This theme of Messianic warfare appears in a multitude of different shapes in the Apocalypse. The openings of the first, second, and fourth seals usher in disastrous wars. 3 Christ is represented as a conqueror, 4 having a sharp two-edged sword issuing from his mouth 5 : he threatens to make war with it upon the Nikolaitans, 6 and to slay Jezebel’s children. 7 A tremendous conflict is about to come, in which he will conquer the Beast and the kings of the earth with terrific slaughter. 8 After his millennial reign, there will be further wars against Gog and Magog. 9 The Book of Elkesai, written apparently during the reign of Trajanus, prophesied that, when three more years of that reign had elapsed, war would break out among the ungodly angels of the north, and a convulsion of all ungodly kingdoms would ensue. 10 Justinus quotes several passages from the Old Testament, speaking of a warlike triumph on the part of God or of the Messianic King. 11 In the apocryphal ‘Acts of Paul,’ the apostle tells Nero that Christ “is going one day to make war upon the world with fire.” 1 In the Gnostic ‘Excerpts from Theodotos,’ we read of a great battle going on between the rebel ‘powers’ and the angels, the former fighting against, the latter—like soldiers—for, the Christians: God rescues the Christians from the revolt and the battle and gives them peace. 2 The Montanist prophetess Maximilla foretold wars and anarchy. 3 Tertullianus, in his Apology, assures the pagans that the events going on around them—“wars, bringing external and internal convulsions, the collision of kingdoms with kingdoms, famines, and pestilences, and local massacres”—had all been foretold in Scripture 4 ; and in his reply to Markion he quotes Jesus’ announcement of eschatological wars, etc., as demonstrating his connection with the severe and terrible Creator, inasmuch as he says that they must come to pass, and does not concern himself to frustrate them, as he would have done had they not been his own decrees. 5 Hippolutos quotes the passage in Daniel where Michael is said to have been sent to make war on the prince of Persia 6 ; he speaks in some detail of the warlike character and doings of Antichrist, 7 and refers generally to the wars that are to be the prelude of the Last Things. 8 The Didaskalia quotes for the guidance of the Christian bishop the passage in Ezekiel, where the watchman is bidden warn the people when God is bringing a sword upon the earth, and adds: “So the sword is the judgment, the trumpet is the gospel, the watchman is the bishop appointed over the Church.” 9 Cyprianus told his people that the wars and other calamities, which had been foretold as due to occur in the Last Times, were then actually occurring, showing that the Kingdom of God was night. 1 Victorinus of Petavium, in his Commentary on the Apocalypse, said: “Now the white horse and (the One) sitting on it shows our Lord coming with a heavenly army to reign; and at his coming all the nations will be gathered together and will fall by the sword. But the other (nations), that were more noble, will be kept for the service of the saints, and they themselves also will have to be slain at the last time when the reign of the saints is over, before the judgment, when the Devil has been again sent away. Concerning all these things the prophets uttered predictions in like manner.” 2 Lactantius refers to the wars and troubles of the Last Times, particularly those of the time of Antichrist, 3 and quotes in connection with them a passage from the Hermetic writings, which says that God, “having recalled the wandering and purged away the wickedness, partly (by) flooding (it) with much water, partly (by) burning (it) up with sharpest fire, sometimes casting (it) out by wars and pestilences, led his own world (back) to (its) ancient (state) and restored it.” 4