Didache (80‑90AD)
The way
of life is this: First of all, thou
shall love the God that made thee; secondly, thy neighbor as thyself. And all
things whatsoever thou wouldst not have befall thyself, neither do thou unto
another Now of these words the doctrine is this. Bless them that curse you, and
pray for you enemies and fast for them that persecute you for what thank is it,
if ye love them that love you? Do not even the Gentiles the same? Bu do ye love
them that hate you that hate you and ye shall not have an enemy.
Abstain thou from fleshly and bodily lusts. I
any man give thee a blow on thy right cheek turn to him the other also, and
thou shalt be perfect; If a man impress thee to go with him one mile, go with
him twain; if a man take away thy cloak, ive him thy coat also; if man take
away from thee that which is thy own, ask it not back, for neither art thou
able. (1.2‑4)
Ignatius
of Antioch (d. 110)
Epistle (110)
And pray ye without ceasing in
behalf of other men. For there is in them hope of repentance that they may
attain to God. See, then, that they be instructed by your works, if in no other
way. Be ye meek in response to their wrath, humble in opposition to their
boasting: to their blasphemies return your prayers; in contrast to their error,
be ye steadfast in the faith; and for their cruelty, manifest your gentleness.
While we take care not to imitate their conduct, let us be found their brethren
in all true kindness; and let us seek to be followers of the Lord (who ever
more unjustly treated, more destitute, more condemned?), that so no plant of
the devil may be found in you, but ye may remain in all holiness and sobriety
in Jesus Christ, both with respect to the flesh and spirit. (Epistle to the
Ephesians 10) Nothing is more precious than peace, by which all war, both in
heaven and earth, is brought to an end. (13.2) 1 therefore have need of
meekness, by which the prince of this world is brought to nought. (Epistle to
the Trallians 4)
From Syria even unto Rome I fight
with beasts, both by land and sea, both by night and day, being bound to ten
leopards, I mean a band of soldiers, who, even when they receive benefits, show
themselves all the worse. But I am the more instructed by their injuries [to
act as a disciple of Christ]; "yet am I not thereby justified." May I
enjoy the wild beasts that are prepared for me; and I pray that they may be
found eager to rush upon me, which also I will entice to devour me speedily,
and not deal with me as with some, whom, out of fear, they have not touched.
But if they be unwilling to assail me, I will compel them to do so. Pardon me
[in this] I know what is for my benefit. Now I begin to be a disciple. And let
no one, of things visible or invisible, envy me that I should attain to Jesus
Christ. Let fire and the cross; let the crowds of wild beasts; let tearings,
breakings, and dislocations of bones; let cutting off of members; let
shatterings of the whole body; and let all the dreadful torments of the devil
come upon me: only let me attain to Jesus Christ. (Epistle to the Romans 5,
Military persecuted Christians)
Ireneaus
(130‑202) writings
(181‑)
"For out of Zion shall go forth
the law, and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem; and He shall rebuke many
people; and they shall break down their swords into ploughshares, and their
spears into pruning‑hooks, and they shall no longer learn to fight."
If therefore another law and word, going forth from Jerusalem, brought in such
a [reign ofl peace among the Gentiles
which received it (the word), and convinced, through them, many a nation of its
folly, then [only] it appears that the prophets spake of some other person. But
if the law of liberty, that is, the word of God, preached by the apostles (who
went forth from Jerusalem) throughout all the earth, caused such a change in
the state of things, that these [nations] did form the swords and war‑lances
into ploughshares, and changed them into pruning‑hooks for reaping the
corn, [that is], into instruments used for peaceful purposes, and that they are
now unaccustomed to fighting, but when smitten, offer also the other cheek,
then the prophets have not spoken these things of any other person, but of Him
who effected them. This person is our Lord. (Against Heresies 4.34.4)
"For the Christians have changed their swords and their
lances into instruments of peace, and they know not how to fight."
Clement of Alexandria (150‑230 AD)
Writings (181-230 AD)
For He says, "Take no
anxious thought for tomorrow," meaning that the man who has devoted
himself to Christ ought to be sufficient to himself, and servant to himself,
and moreover lead a life which provides for himself, that each day by itself. For it is not in we are trained, but in
peace, that we are trained. War needs
great preparation, and luxury craves profusion; but peace and love, simple and
quiet sisters, require no arms nor excessive preparation, The Word is their
sustenance. (Paedagogus I, xii. 99)
In their wars, therefore, the
Etruscans use the trumpet, the Arcadians the pipe, the Sicilians the pectides,
the Cretans the lyre, the Lacedaemonians the flute, the Thracians the horn, the
Egyptians the drum, and the Arabians the cymbal. The one instrument of peace, the Word alone by which we honour
God, is what we employ. We no longer employ the ancient psaltery and trumpet,
and timbrel, and flute, which those expert in war and contemners of the fear of
God were wont to make use of also in the
choruses at their festive assemblies; that by such might raise their
dejected minds. (Paed. II iv)
But contrary to what is the case
with the rest of men, collect for thyself an unarmed, a bloodless, a
passionless' a stainless host, an unwarlike, pious old men, orphans dear to
God, widows armed with meekness, men, adorned with love. (Quis Dives Savetur?
34)
They also are peacemakers, who
teach those who war against the stratagems Of sin to have recourse to faith and
peace. (Stromata IV 6)
For we do not train our women
like Amazons to manliness in war; since we wish the men even to be peaceable. I
hear that the Sarmatian women practise war no less than the men;and the women
of Sacae besides, who shoot backwards, feigning flight as well as the men.
(Stromata IV 8)
Apocryphal Acts of John.
(160 AD?)
Wherefore, ye men of Ephesus, turn yourselves, knowing this
also, that kings, rulers, tyrants, boasters, and they that have conquered in
wars, stripped of all things when they depart hence, do suffer pain, lodged in
eternal misery.
Apocryphal
Acts of Paul (160‑170)
When Paul had arisen, he went
unto his brethren, and remained sorrowful? saying: What meaneth this vision?
And while Paul thought upon this, he saw Hermippus coming, having a sword drawn
in his hand, and with him many other young men with staves. And Paul said unto
them: I am not a robber, neither a murderer. The God of all things, the Father
of Christ, will turn your hands backward, and your sword into its sheath, and
your strength into weakness. (III)
Patroclus, art thou also a
soldier of that king? And he said: Yea, Lord Caesar, for he raised me when I
was dead. And Barsabas Justus of the broad feet, and Urion the Cappadocian, and
Festus the Galatian, Caesar's chief men, said: We also are soldiers of the king
of the ages. And he shut them up in prison, having grievously tormented them,
whom he loved much, and commanded the soldiers of the great king to be sought
out, and set forth a decree to this effect, that all that were found to be
Christians and soldiers of Christ should be slain.
Ill. And among many others Paul
also was brought, bound: unto whom all his fellow‑prisoners gave heed; so
that Caesar perceived that he was over the camp. And he said to him: Thou that
art the great king's man, but my prisoner, how thoughtest thou well to come by
stealth into the government of the Romans and levy soldiers out of my province?
But Paul, filled with the Holy Ghost, said before them all: 0 Caesar, not only
out of thy province do we levy soldiers, but out of the whole world. For so
hath it been ordained unto us, that no man should be refused who wishes to
serve my king. And if it like thee also to serve him (Lat. thou wilt not repent
thereof. but think not that the wealth, & c., which seems better), it is
not wealth nor the splendor that is now in this life that shall save thee; but
if thou submit and entreat him, thou shall be saved; for in one day (or one
day) he shall fight against the world with fire. And when Caesar heard that, he
commanded all the prisoners to be burned with fire, but Paul to be beheaded
after the law of the Romans. (X The Martyrdom)
Tatians(164)
You wish make war, and you take
Apollo as a counsellor of slaughter. You want to carry off a maiden by force,
and you select a divinity to be your accomplice. You are ill by your own fault;
and, as Agamemnon wished for ten councillors, so you wish to have gods with
you. Some woman by drinking water gets into a frenzy, and loses her senses by
the fumes of frankincense, and you say that she has the gift of prophecy.
Apollo was a prognosticator and a teacher of soothsayers: in the matter of
Daphne he deceived himself. An oak, forsooth, is oracular, and birds utter
presages! And so you are inferior to animals and plants! It would surely be a
fine thing for you to become a divining rod, or to assume the wings of a bird!
He who makes you fond of money also foretells your getting rich; he who excites
to seditions and wars also predicts victory in war. If you are superior to the
passions, you will despise all worldly things. Do not abhor us who have made
this attainment, but, repudiating the demons, follow the one God. "All
things were made by Him, and without Him not one thing was made." If there
is poison in natural productions, this has supervened through our sinfulness. I
am able to show the perfect truth of these things; only do you hearken, and he
who believes will understand.
I do not want to be a king: I do
not wish to be rich: I decline military service: I hate fornication. (Cadoux,
pg 103)
Justin
Martyr (d. 165)
writings (153‑160?)
martyred
And when you hear that we look
for a kingdom, you suppose, without making any inquiry, that we speak of a
human kingdom; whereas we speak of that which is with God, as appears also from
the confession of their faith made by those who are charged with being
Christians, though they know that death is the punishment awarded to him who so
confesses. For if we looked for a human kingdom, we should also deny our
Christ, that we might not be slain; and we should strive to escape detection,
that we might obtain what we expect. But since our thoughts are not fixed on
the present, we are not concerned when men cut us off; since also death is a
debt which must at all events be paid. (I Apology, 11)
And when the Spirit of prophecy
speaks as predicting things that are to come to pass, He speaks in this way:
"For out of Zion shall go forth the law, and the word of the Lord from
Jerusalem. And He shall judge among the nations, and shall rebuke many people;
and they shall beat their swords into ploughshares, and their spears into
pruning‑hooks: nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall
they learn war any more." And that it did so come to pass, we can convince
you. For from Jerusalem there went out into the world, men, twelve in number,
and these illiterate, of no ability in speaking: but by the power of God they
proclaimed to every race of men that they were sent by Christ to teach to all
the word of God; and we who formerly used to murder one another do not only now
refrain from making war upon our enemies, but also, that we may not lie nor
deceive our examiners, willingly die confessing Christ.
Pseudo‑Justin
Oration to the Greeks
(170‑200) Cohortatio ad Gentiles (200) (Both are normally attributed
to Justin Martyr)
Be instructed by the Divine Word, and acquaint yourselves with the
King immortal; and do not recognize those men as heroes who slaughter whole
nations. For our own Ruler, the Divine Word, who even now constantly aids us,
does not desire strength of body and beauty of feature, nor yet the high spirit
of earth's nobility, but a pure soul, fortified by holiness, and the watchwords
of our King, holy actions, for through the Word power passes into the soul. 0
trumpet of peace to the soul that is at war' 0 weapon that puttest to flight
terrible passions! (Address to the Greeks, 5)
And then we must also remind you
of what he further says of him whom ye consider the first of the gods, and whom
he often calls "the father of gods and men;" for he said:
Zeus, who is the dispenser of war
to men. indeed, he says that he was not only the dispenser of war to the army,
but also the cause of perjury to the Trojans, by means of his daughter; and
Homer introduces him in love, and bitterly complaining, and bewailing himself,
and plotted against by the other gods, and at one time exclaiming concerning
his own son:
Alas! he falls, my most beloved
of men! Sarpedon, vanquished by Patroclus, falls. So will the fates.
And at another time
concerning Hector:
Ali! I behold a warrior
dear to me
Around the walls of Ilium driven,
and grieve For Hector... These and such like things did Homer teach you; and
not Homer only, but also Hesiod. So‑that if you believe your most
distinguished poets, who have given the genealogies of your gods, you must of
necessity either suppose that the gods are such beings as these, or believe
that there are no gods at all. (Horatory Address to the Greeks, 2)
Athenagoras
'Legatio pro Christianis & De
Resurrectione (177‑180)
For the robber, or ruler, or
tyrant, who has unjustly put to death myriads on myriads, could not by one
death make restitution for these deeds; and the man who holds no true opinion
concerning God, but lives in all outrage and blasphemy, despises divine things,
breaks the laws, commits outrage against boys and women alike, razes cities
unjustly, burns houses with their inhabitants, and devastates a country, and at
the same time destroys inhabitants of cities and peoples, and even an entire
nation‑‑how in a mortal body could he endure a penalty adequate to
these crimes, since death prevents the deserved punishment, and the mortal
nature does not suffice for any single one of his deeds? It is proved,
therefore, that neither in the present life is there a judgment according to
men's deserts, nor after death. (The Resurrection of the dead, 19)
How, then, when we do not even
look on, lest we should contract guilt and pollution, can we put people to
death? And when we say that those women who use drugs to bring on abortion
commit murder, and will have to give an account to God s for the abortion, on
what principle should we commit murder? For it does not belong to the same
person to regard the very foetus in the womb as a created being, and therefore
an object of God's care, and when it has passed into life, to kill it. (A Plea
for the Christians, 35)
Tertullian's Writing’s (198‑220)
On Idolatry
Mindful of this rule, we
can render service even "to magistrates and powers," after the
example of the patriarchs and the other forefathers, who obeyed idolatrous
kings up to the confine of idolatry. Hence arose, very lately, a dispute
whether a servant of God should take the administration of any dignity or
power, if he be able, whether by some special grace, or by adroitness, to keep
himself intact from every species of idolatry; after the example that both
Joseph and Daniel, clean from idolatry, administered both dignity and power in
the livery and purple of the prefecture of entire Egypt or Babylonia. And so
let us grant that it is possible for any one to succeed in moving, in
whatsoever office, under the mere name of the office, neither sacrificing nor
lending his authority to sacrifices; not farming out victims; not assigning to
others the care of temples; not looking after their tributes*, not giving
spectacles at his own or the public charge, or presiding over the giving them;
making proclamation or edict for no solemnity; not even taking oaths: moreover
(what comes under the head of power), neither sitting in judgment on any one's
life or character, for you might bear with his judging about money; neither
condemning nor fore‑condemning; binding no one, imprisoning or torturing
no one‑‑if it is credible that all this is possible. (21)
But now inquiry is made e about this point, whether a
believer may turn himself unto military service, and whether the military may be admitted unto the faith, even the
rank and file, or each inferior grade, to whom there is no necessity for taking
part in sacrifices or capital
punishments. There is no agreement between the divine and the human sacrament, the standard of Christ and the standard of the devil, the camp of light and the camp of darkness. One soul
cannot be due to two masters‑‑God and Caesar. And yet Moses carried a rod, and Aaron wore a buckle, and John (Baptist) is girt with leather
and Joshua the son of Nun leads a line of march; and the People warred: if it
pleases you to sport with the subject. But how will a Christian man war, nay,
how will he serve even in peace, without a sword, which the Lord has taken
away? For albeit soldiers had come unto John, and had received the formula of
their rule; albeit, likewise, a centurion had believed; still the Lord
afterward, in disarming Peter, unbed every soldier. No dress is lawful among
us, if assigned to any unlawful action. (19)
('the
De Idolotria' is the earliest evidence we have for the enlistment in the army
of Christians who were already baptized. He mentions transferring one's name
from the camp of light to the camp of darkness. Any Christian soldier mentioned
in earlier documents, may well have consisted, for all we know to the contrary,
of men converted when already engaged in military life) Cadoux pg. 113.
Mindful of this rule, we
can render service even "to magistrates and powers," after the
example of the patriarchs and the other forefathers, who obeyed idolatrous
kings up to the confine of idolatry. Hence arose, very lately, a dispute
whether a servant of God should take the administration of any dignity or
power, if he be able, whether by some special grace, or by adroitness, to keep
himself intact from every species of idolatry; after the example that both
Joseph and Daniel, clean from idolatry, administered both dignity and power in
the livery and purple of the prefecture of entire Egypt or Babylonia. And so
let us grant that it is possible for any one to succeed in moving, in
whatsoever office, under the mere name of the office, neither sacrificing nor
lending his authority to sacrifices; not farming out victims; not assigning to
others the care of temples; not looking after their tributes; not giving
spectacles at his own or the public charge, or presiding over the giving them;
making proclamation or edict for no solemnity; not even taking oaths: moreover
(what comes under the head of power), neither sitting in judgment on any one's
life or character, for you might bear with his judging about money; neither
condemning nor fore‑condemning; binding no one, imprisoning or torturing
no one‑‑if it is credible that all this is possible. (21)
On
Patience
"He to whom, had He willed it, legions of angels would
at one word have presented themselves from the heavens, approved not the
avenging sword of even one disciple.
The Patience of the Lord was wounded in (the wound of) Malchus. And so,
too, He cursed for the time to come the works of the sword. (3)
To
exhibit impatience at all losses is the Gentiles' business, who give money the
precedence perhaps over their soul. For so they do, when, in, their cupidities
of lucre, they encounter the gainful perils of commerce. On the sea; when, for
money's sake even in the forum, there is nothing which damnation (itself) would
fear which they hesitate to essay; when they hire themselves for sport and the
camp; when, after the manner of wild beasts, they play the bandit along the
highway. (7)
An answer to the Jews
For the wont of the old law was to avenge itself by
the vengeance of the glaive, and to pluck out "eye for eye," and to
inflict retaliatory revenge for injury.
But the new law's wont was to point to clemency, and to convert to tranquility
the pristine ferocity of "glaives" and "lances," and to remodel the pristine execution of
"war" upon the rivals and foes of the law into the pacific actions
of “ploughing" and
"tilling" the land. Therefore
as we have shown above that the coming cessation of the old law and of the
carnal circumcision was declared, so, too, the observance of the new law and
the spiritual circumcision has shone out into the voluntary obediences of
peace. (3)
Against Marcion
But who shall produce these results (truth,
gentleness, and justice) with the sword, and not their opposites rather‑‑deceit,
and harshness, and injury‑which, it must be confessed, which are the
proper business of battles? Let us see, therefore, whether that is not some
other sword, which has so different an action. (3,14)
And
these shall rebuke a large nation," that of the Jews themselves and their
proselytes. "And they shall beat their swords into ploughshares, and their
spears into pruning‑hooks;" in other words, they shall change into
pursuits of moderation and peace the dispositions of injurious minds, and
hostile tongues, and all kinds of evil, and blasphemy. "Nation shall not
lift up sword against nation," shall not stir up discord. "Neither
shall they learn war any more," that is, the provocation of hostilities;
so that you here learn that Christ is promised not as powerful in war, but
pursuing peace.
De
Corona
To
begin with the real ground of the military crown, I think we must first inquire
whether warfare is proper at all for Christians. What sense is there in
discussing the merely accidental, when that on which it rests is to be
condemned? Do we believe it lawful for a human oath to be superadded to one
divine, for a man to come under promise to another master after Christ, and to
abjure father, mother, and all nearest kinsfolk, whom even the law has
commanded us to honour and love next to God Himself, to whom the gospel, too,
holding them only of less account than Christ, has in like manner rendered
honour? Shall it be held lawful to make an occupation of the sword, when the
Lord proclaims that he who uses the sword shall perish by the sword? And shall
the son of peace take part in the battle when it does not become him even to
sue at law? And shall he apply the chain, and the prison, and the torture, and
the punishment, who is not the avenger even of his own wrongs? Shall he,
forsooth, either keep watch‑service for others more than for Christ, or
shall he do it on the Lord's day, when he does not even do it for Christ
Himself.? And shall he keep guard before the temples which he has renounced?
And shall he take a meal where the apostle has forbidden him? And shall he
diligently protect by night those whom in the day‑time he has put to
flight by his exorcisms, leaning and resting on the spear the while with which
Christ's side was pierced? Shall he carry a flag, too, hostile to Christ? And
shall he ask a watchword f rom the emperor who has already received one from
God? Shall he be disturbed in death by the trumpet of the trumpeter, who
expects to be aroused by the angel's trump? And shall the Christian be burned
according to camp rule, when he was not permitted to bum incense to an idol,
when to him Christ remitted the punishment of fire? Then how many other
offences there are involved in the performances of camp offices, which we must
hold to involve a transgression of God's law, you may see by a slight survey.
The very carrying of the name over from the camp of light to the camp of
darkness is a violation of it. Of course, if faith comes later, and finds any
preoccupied with military service, their case is different, as in the instance
of those whom John used to receive for baptism, and of those most faithful
centurions, I mean the centurion whom Christ approves, and the centurion whom
Peter instructs; yet, at the same time, when a man has become a believer, and
faith has been sealed, there must be either an immediate abandonment of it,
which has been the course with many; or all sorts of quibbling will have to be
resorted to in order to avoid offending God, and that is not allowed even
outside of military service; or, last of all, for God the fate must be endured
which a citizen‑faith has been no less ready to accept. Neither does
military service hold out escape from punishment of sins, or exemption from
martyrdom. Nowhere does the Christian change his character. There is one
gospel, and the same Jesus, who will one day deny every one who denies, and
acknowledge every one who acknowledges God,‑‑who will save, too,
the life which has been lost for His sake; but, on the other hand, destroy that
which for gain has been saved to His dishonour. With Him the faithful citizen
is a soldier, just as the faithful soldier is a citizen. A state of faith
admits no plea of necessity; they are under no necessity to sin, whose one
necessity is, that they do not sin. For if one is pressed to the offering of
sacrifice and the sheer denial of Christ by the necessity of torture or of
punishment, yet discipline does not connive even at that necessity; because
there is a higher necessity to dread denying and to undergo martyrdom, than to
escape from suffering, and to render the homage required. In fact, an excuse of
this sort overturns the entire essence of our sacrament, removing even the
obstacle to voluntary sins; for it will be possible also to maintain that
inclination is a necessity, as involving in it, forsooth, a sort of compulsion.
I have, in fact, disposed of this very allegation of necessity with reference
to the pleas by which crowns connected with official position are vindicated,
in support of which it is in common use, since for this very reason offices
must be either refused, that we may not fall into acts of sin, or martyrdoms
endured that we may get quit of offices. Touching this primary aspect of the
question, as to the unlawfulness even of a military life itself, I shall not add
more, that the secondary question may be restored to its place. Indeed, if,
putting my strength to the question, I banish from us the military life, I
should now to no purpose issue a challenge on the matter of the military crown.
Suppose, then, that the military service is lawful, as far as the plea for the
crown is concerned. (11)
Is
the laurel of the triumph made of leaves, or of corpses? Is it adorned with
ribbons, or with tombs? Is it bedewed with ointments, or with the tears of
wives and mothers? It may be of some Christians too; for Christ is also among
the barbarians. Has not he who has carried (a crown for) this cause on his
head, fought even against himself? (12)
On
the Pallium
"I owe no duty to the
forum, the Election ground, or the senate house; keep no obsequious vigil,
preoccupy no platforms, hover about no Praetorian residences; I am not odorant
of the canals, am not odorant of the lattices, am no constant wearer out of
benches, no wholesale router of laws,
no barking pleader, no judge,no
soldier, no king:
Cyprian
(200‑252) converted (246)
Consider the roads blocked up by
robbers, the seas beset with pirates, wars scattered all over the earth with
the bloody horror of camps. The whole world is wet with mutual blood; and
murder, which in the case of an individual is admitted to be a crime, is called
a virtue when it is committed wholesale. Impunity is claimed for the wicked
deeds, not on the plea that they are guiltless, but because the cruelty is
perpetrated on a grand scale. And now, if you turn your eyes and your regards
to the cities themselves, you will behold a concourse more fraught with sadness
than any solitude. The gladiatorial games are prepared, that blood may gladden
the lust of cruel eyes. The body is fed up with stronger food, and the vigorous
mass of limbs is enriched with brawn and muscle, that the wretch fattened for
punishment may die a harder death. Man is slaughtered that man may be
gratified, and the skill that is best able to kill is an exercise and an art.
Crime is not only committed, but it is taught. What can be said more inhuman,‑what
more repulsive? Training is undergone to acquire the power to murder, and the
achievement of murder is its glory. What state of things, I pray you, can that
be, and what can it be like, in which men, whom none have condemned, offer
themselves to the wild beasts‑‑men of ripe age, of sufficiently
beautiful person, clad in costly garments? Living men, they are adorned for a
voluntary death; wretched men, they boast of their own miseries. They fight
with beasts, not for their crime, but for their madness. Fathers look on their
own sons; a brother is in the arena, and his sister is hard by; and although a
grander display of pomp increases the price of the exhibition, yet, oh shame!
even the mother will pay the increase in order that she may be present at her
own miseries. And in looking upon scenes so frightful and so impious and so
deadly, they do not seem to be aware that they are parricides with their eyes.
(ad Donatus, 6f)
Didaskalia
(250)
Forbids the receipt of monetary help from' any of the
magistrates of the Roman empire, who are polluted by war.' (IV, 6)
Apostolic Tradition of Hippolytus (Hippolytan Canons 330 AD)
Inquiry shall likewise be
made about the professions and trades of those who are brought to be admitted
to the faith. … A gladiator
or a trainer of gladiators, or a huntsman in the wild beast shows, or anyone
connected with these shows, or a public official in charge of gladiatorial
exhibitions must desist or be rejected. A heathen priest or anyone who attends
to idols must desist or be rejected. A soldier of the civil authority must be
taught not to kill men and to refuse to do so if he is commanded, and to refuse
to take an oath; if he is, unwilling to
comply, he must be rejected. A military commander or civic magistrate that
wears the purple must resign or rejected. If a catechumen or a believer seeks
to become a soldier, they must be
rejected for they have despised God.
Lactantius' writings (305‑315) ****Too numerous to cite****
For they despise valour in an
athlete, because it produces no injury; but in the case of a king, because it
occasions widely‑spread disasters, they so admire it as to imagine that
brave and warlike generals are admitted to the assembly of the gods, and that
there is no other way to immortality than to lead armies, to lay waste the
territory of others, to destroy cities, to overthrow towns, to put to death or
enslave free peoples. Truly the greater number of men they have cast down, plundered,
and slain, so much the more noble and distinguished do they think themselves;
and ensnared by the show of empty glory, they give to their crimes the name of
virtue. I would rather that they should make to themselves gods from the
slaughter of wild beasts, than approve of an immortality so stained with blood.
If any one has slain a single man, he is regarded as contaminated and wicked,
nor do they think it lawful for him to be admitted to this earthly abode of the
gods. But he who has slaughtered countless thousands of men, has inundated
plains with blood, and infected rivers, is not only admitted into the temple,
but even into heaven. In Ennius Africanus thus speaks: "If it is permitted
any one to ascend to the regions of the gods above, the greatest gate of heaven
is open to me alone." Because, in truth, he extinguished and destroyed a
great part of the human race. Oh how great the darkness in which you were
involved, Africanus, or rather 0 poet,
in that you imagined the ascent to heaven to be open to men through slaughters
and bloodshed! And Cicero also assented to this delusion. It is so in truth, he
said, 0 Africanus, for the same gate was open to Hercules; as though he himself
had been doorkeeper in heaven at the time when this took place. I indeed cannot
determine whether I should think it a subject of grief or of ridicule, when I
see grave and learned, and, as they appear to themselves, wise men, involved in
such miserable waves of errors. If this is the virtue which renders us
immortal, I for my part should prefer to die, rather than to be the cause of
destruction to as many as possible. If immortality can be obtained in no other
way than by bloodshed, what will be the result if all shall agree to live in
harmony? And this may undoubtedly be realized, if men would cast aside their
pernicious and impious madness, and live in innocence and justice rice. Shall
no one, then, be worthy of heaven? Shall virtue perish, because it will not be
permitted men to rage against their fellow‑men? But they who reckon the
overthrow of cities and people as the greatest glory will not endure public
tranquillity: they will plunder and rage; and by the infliction of outrageous
injuries will disturb the compact of human society, that they may have an enemy
whom they may destroy with greater wickedness than that with which they
attacked. (Divine Institutes 18)
When the agreement of men is
taken away, virtue has no existence at all; for what are the interests of our
country, but the inconveniences of another state or nation? ‑that is, to
extend the boundaries which are violently taken from others, to increase the
power of the state, to improve the revenues ‑‑ all which things are
not virtues, but the overthrowing of virtues: for, in the first place, the
union of human society is taken away, innocence is taken away, the abstaining
from the property of another is taken away; lastly, justice itself is taken
away, which is unable to bear the tearing asunder of the human race, and
wherever arms have glittered, must be banished and exterminated from thence...
Whoever, then, has gained for his country these goods ‑as they
themselves call them ‑‑ that is, who by the overthrow of cities and
the destruction of nations has filled the treasury with money, has taken lands
and enriched his country‑men ‑‑ he is extolled with praises
to the heaven: in him there is said to be the greatest and perfect virtue. And
this is the error not only of the people and the ignorant, but also of
philosophers, who even give precepts for injustice,
test
folly and wickedness should be wanting in discipline and authority. Therefore,
when they are speaking of the duties relating to warfare, all that discourse is
accommodated neither to justice nor to true virtue, but to this life and to
civil institutions. (Divine Institutes IV, 6)