PART II

 

THE COMMANDMENT OF LOVE

 

Anyone who takes his stand on the New Testament will find there a most urgent call to firm kindness, to compassion without weakness, to forgiveness: in a word, to love.  The Gospel makes no qualifications on this subject: Christ calls us to love our neighbor as ourselves, as He has loved us, unconditionally.  'Whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them' (Matt.  7:12).  It would seem obvious that this love excludes the murder of one's neighbor whether it is a question of individual murder or the general killing represented by war.  Let us start then by examining this first proposition.

Chapter I

 

 

THE TEACHING OF CHRIST AND THE APOSTLES

 

FIRST of all, why do I take up my position on the ground of the New Testament?  Has the Old Testament nothing to tell us on the love of our neighbor Certainly it has.  But it cannot be disputed that Jesus came to inaugurate a new system relative to the old Covenant.  He summed up the law of the Kingdom of God 'which is come nigh unto you' (Luke 10:9) in the summary of the Law (Matt.  12:36­40), which is certainly taken from the Old Testament; but he gave these two precepts a meaning and scope which were completely new (Matt.  5:17): it is in Him that the believer will now be able to love God with all his heart, because 'the Son of Man is come to seek and to save that which was lost' (Luke 19: 10), because He 'came not to be ministered unto but to minister, and to give His life a ransom for many' (Mark 10:45), and because His blood, the blood of the new Covenant, has been poured out (Luke 22:20) for the reconciliation of men with their heavenly Father (I Cor.  1:30).  Love of one's neighbor on the other hand, which is the law and witness of the redeemed of Christ (John 13:35), takes on a new value through His person, because we cannot love except in so far as we are united to Jesus by a living faith (John 15).  This is why He can declare so strongly: 'A new commandment I give unto you, that ye love one another' (John 13:34), why He can proclaim with authority: 'Ye have heard that it was said to them of old time, thou shall not kill ...  but I say unto you, that whosoever is angry with his brother.  .  .’  (Matt.  5:21); 'Ye have heard that it was said, Thou shall love thy neighbor and hate thine enemy; but I say unto you, Love your enemies . . .’  (Matt.  5:43).  So it is certainly in the light of the New Testament ethic that we must seek an answer to our question.[10]

 

The Old Testament can illuminate the New, it cannot contradict it or challenge it.  'Moses,' wrote Luther, 'has no longer either value or authority in the New Testament.’  The Old Testament is normative for us Christians only in so far as it supports a Christological interpretation; it cannot be normative directly, without intermediary of

 

 

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the Gospel of the Cross.  For it speaks to us of Jesus Christ, not of morality.  So we must begin by looking for answers in the New Testament.

 

1.  Loving your neighbor

 

What does it mean to love your neighbor?  Jesus has explicitly replied to this question in the parable of the Good Samaritan (Luke 10:29).  To love my neighbor is to come to his aid, to give him what he may have need of, to forgive him for what he is and what he has done; it is to put myself at his service (John 13:15; Gal.  5:13).  It is to be really there for him, to bear his burdens (Gal.  6:2), to respect his calling and help him to realize it.  In a word, it is to give myself to him (I John 3:16), as Jesus gave Himself to me.  But it is not a matter of sentiment; it is a concrete attitude which expresses itself in acts (I John 3:18).  That is why Jesus confirmed the Ten Commandments of Sinai (Matt.  5:17‑19; Mark 10: 19), which with their rigorous precision preserve us from vagueness, illuminism, and arbitrary judgments.  He alone has truly observed them; it is only through Him, through faith in Him, that I can respect them myself.  He has given them to us as precious life‑lines, since we are not angels who would need only the formula: 'Love God and do what you like.’  So Jesus confirms for me that to love my neighbor means to respect his authority, his goods, his home, his reputation‑and his life (Gal.  5:14).  It means far more, but in any case that.

 

So one cannot kill with love.  Murder of any kind can never be anything but a refusal to love: it is the opposite of forgiveness.  One cannot kill while remaining in Christ's communion (John 15:10; 1 John 2:4; 3:12, 15; 4:8, 20), any more than one can remain in it while stealing, slandering, or deceiving one's wife.

 

Henry Bois, however, has maintained that it is possible to love the person you are killing.  'Physical death,' he explains,[11] 'has not in the thought of Jesus Christ the importance which certain of his disciples have often attributed to it. . . .’  In Bois' judgment, 'there is something more prejudicial to an individual than dying, and that is committing a sin or making others commit it.'[12] Surely such language has a smack of the Inquisition?  He then quotes Mark 9:42, and concludes that 'it is perfectly possible to hang a great millstone round the neck of such a sinner and cast him into the sea, and to act in this way from love, if it is to prevent him from committing a heinous crime.  Love for him, and not only for the victim I am saving.  Yes, I can resist the evil‑doer from love, and resist him by fire and the

 

 

 

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sword, with terrible severity.  I can kill my enemy without hating him, not only without hating him, but actually loving him. . . .’  'Yes, according to Jesus' precept, we must love our enemies, and pray for them.  Loving and praying are not absolutely incompatible with injuring or killing, because injuring and killing are external acts which can be dissociated from emotions of hatred and revenge....

 

It is the intention which gives the act its value Even when a soldier is shooting at the enemy, he must do so in an attitude of benevolence and justice. . . .'

 

I find such a way of arguing outrageous.  These distinctions between physical death and the death of the soul, between external acts and emotions, are contradicted by the whole of the Scriptures, which underline the bond uniting body and soul (e.g. Matt.  15:19).  As to the text, 'It were better for him that ...  he were cast into the sea,' it leaps to the eye that Bois is completely misusing it.  Jesus is merely describing the guilty person's objective situation in God's eyes, by no manner of means recommending his disciples to carry out such a judgment themselves!  Many of His words could be quoted, in fact, as excluding the possibility of such a deduction (Luke 9:55‑56; Matt.  13:29; John 8:7).  Finally, Bois' mistake is to see in love essentially an emotion independent of the acts which condition it or express it. 

 

To refuse the monstrous theory of 'killing with love', I cannot do better here than quote F.  J.  Leenhardt, who has devoted several pertinent and illuminating pages to the definition of Christian love.  Discussing the two fundamental verses, 'Thou shall love thy neighbor as thyself,' and 'Whatsoever ye would that men do unto you, do ye even so to them,' he writes:[13]  'Love of oneself is the most concrete and precise reality. . . . Whatever each one of us considers useful, desirable, necessary, urgent, pressing, where he is concerned himself, he is enjoined to realize that it is all those things equally for his neighbor as well....  I must measure my action to what I would expect from him if I were he and he were I....  To love your neighbor as yourself is to feel that his rights impose a duty on you....  Too often among Christians, brotherly love has lacked solidity and substance.  Too often it has been ineffective because uninformed by a knowledge of these rights of our neighbor which must be satisfied.  ...  You fall into romanticism, and the uncertainties of a generous improvisation, when you deprive Christian love of the substance given it by knowledge of the rights of your neighbor . . . Love of your neighbor is also the movement of the heart which

 

 

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overcomes all the obstacles separating and estranging man from man.'

 

This is far indeed from Bois' line of argument.  To claim that one can kill with love is to forget what these two words 'kin' and 'love' really mean.  It is also to forget that the Ten Commandments were given us precisely so that we should know what it means to love our neighbor

 

Perhaps I shall be reminded of that strange anecdote about a Christian in the Resistance who was charged with the duty of executing a man condemned to death, and who would not shoot till he had preached the Gospel to the man and prayed with him.  It is scarcely a convincing story, and it also leaves a nasty taste in the mouth: it is reminiscent of the so-called Christian who periodically resorted to a prostitute after having carefully preached the Gospel to her and got her to say she was converted.  In both cases there is a staggering incongruity between word and act.  In both cases, too, the man is saying: 'the Gospel is good for you, but not for me.’  Nor am I sure that the need impelling the former was so different from that impelling the latter: in both cases it was a need arising from the flesh and not the Spirit.  In both cases that need was decided after an arbitrary human judgment, and in both cases it was a very relative need!  One might also say that the anecdote really underlines how impossible it is for a Christian to make war‑since in the vast majority of cases he has no chance to 'justify himself' by preaching the Gospel to those he kills.

 

Should anyone object that I am comparing murder and adultery too often, I would reply that I happen to take the Decalogue seriously, and that I find it salutary to look at the seventh commandment as a method of checking the validity of interpretations given to the sixth.

 

Moreover, H.  Bois is setting his mind at rest too easily, I feel, when he writes that although it may be hard to kill with love, one can in any case kill without hate.  For here is something I find most disturbing of all, in fact horrifying.  Here is a result of technological advance which is scarcely a sign of moral progress.  The slaughters of the Old Testament, the massacres of Vassy or St. Bartholomew, the bayonet charges of 1917, could be carried out only by men who had first been infused with a burning hatred against those who had to be exterminated.  But the last traces of humanity in these men were to be found in this hatred.  If the man in the artillery or air force today kills without hate, it is because he is completely dehumanized.  In other days only the executioner used to kill without

 

 

 

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hate; but just for that reason he was a man apart, dreaded as a literally abnormal person from whom you kept away.  In that he was like the prostitute; for it is basically quite as abnormal to kill without hate as to give yourself without love.  Today almost all soldiers are executioners; human beings are killed in exactly the same way as rats are exterminated, coldly, without hate, without the executioner feeling any emotion.  Not seeing the men he is killing, it is hard for him to see human beings in them; and therein lies his own dehumanization.

 

In our day hundreds of men and women are first undressed‑for even a dirty, torn, and lousy garment is worth more than a human being‑and then crammed together in a building.  Someone turns on a tap somewhere, releasing a gas which will liquidate them all in a few seconds: all that is done without hate or anger.  It is a terrifying parody of the Sermon on the Mount: 'Ye have heard that it was said to them of old time, Thou shall not kill . . . but I say unto you, that whosoever is angry with his brother shall be in danger of the judgment . . .!  ‑‑so that Jesus would have sanctioned killing provided it was done without anger and without hatred!  By this reckoning the torturers of Auschwitz and Ravensbruck, the men who dropped the bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, were models of Christian morality.

 

But someone may remind me that 'death is not the worst thing that can happen to a person; far worse is the loss of his soul'‑and object that I am according too much importance to the physical life of those we are likely to kill in war; as if I were obsessed exclusively with the need to save the body from death.  To such an objection I would make several replies.  First, my major concern is to be faithful to Jesus Christ.  I have always considered that the whole testimony of the Bible constrained me to consider life, a human being's physical life, as a blessing in itself, because it is the unique occasion for this creature of God's to hear the call of his Creator and to respond to it, to receive by faith the Son of God's forgiveness and salvation, and to glorify the Father by the obedience which the Holy Spirit wishes to bring about in his day‑to‑day existence.  'What is the principal aim of human life?' asks Calvin at the beginning of his catechism; and replies: 'To know God.’  The life of each human being has an inestimable price in God's eyes because Jesus Christ died for this man as well, so that he might know God.  So it is impossible for a Christian to consider human life without remembering the price it has in God's eyes.[14]

 

 

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Then again, God alone creates life.  We can only transmit it.  He alone is the master of life and death.  Is it not man's characteristic sin to usurp the right to destroy the life given by God, and with it the potentialities God has put into it?  Is it not here above all that man tries to take God's place?  Is it not just in the field of the sixth commandment that man, in his relations with his neighbor claims most brazenly to turn himself into God?

 

Thirdly, by participating in the war machine, I am not only afraid of causing my neighbor's death, but far more the death I shall bring on myself by my disobedience.  To return to the actual words of the objection I have imagined, I would say most forcibly: in war, death is not the worst thing that can happen to me, but the loss of my soul.  Shall I not be causing this by taking part in war‑and perhaps the loss of my neighbor's soul into the bargain, because he will be led to blaspheme the name of Jesus Christ through my denial of Him?  The real problem, in fact, remains very limited and precise: by killing my brother, am I not clearly showing that I do not believe Jesus is my Savior or my brother's Savior?  Does not my presence in the armed forces signify that I have denied Jesus Christ, have cast myself off from Him?

 

Fourthly, if this objection means anything, it is this: better for my enemy (by definition, of course, the wicked aggressor) that I put him to death rather than let him go on perpetrating his crime.  Both of us are therefore doing exactly the same thing; we are both obeying the government which has mobilized us to defend our country and our liberty; but he is a criminal, while I am both innocent and also conferring a benefit on him!  Better for him that his body should be destroyed, so that presumably his soul be ipso facto saved!  Why saved?  Because I shall have stopped him carrying out the very crime I am committing against him.  This is surely the most obvious sophistry, for my enemy could reason exactly the same way about me, But even allowing that I alone have the right to reason like this, what are we to think of this idea that it is better to kill someone than let him sin?  Were the Inquisitors right by any chance?  Did Calvin do well to have Servetus burned?  And if, to save their souls, all who sin should be killed, who will be left alive anywhere?  Where is the Good News in all this?

 

Frankly, I do not like such light‑hearted disregard for human lives, other people's lives.  For instance, certain Christian Churches carry their concern that human life be absolutely respected to the point of forbidding a Christian doctor to perform an abortion which

 

 

 

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will save the life of a future mother; yet they will authorize a Christian in the Air Force to drop a bomb exterminating thousands of human beings who ask only to live.  The flagrant contradiction between these two attitudes is an outrage not only to the intelligence, but above all to their faith.

 

Why does Christ call us to love our neighbor unconditionally?  Because in this way we can thank God for the salvation He has given us.  In this way we can show that we have grasped it by faith.  For faith without works is dead (James 2:14‑26).  Love of our neighbor is the recognition of our faith (I Tim.  1:5.) Anyone who has discovered that God so loved him that He gave His only Son for him cannot do otherwise than love God in return, and in consequence love his neighbor (John 15:12; Romans 15:7; 1 John 4:11).  Anyone who has been forgiven cannot himself refuse forgiveness to others (11 Cor.  2: 10‑11; Col.  3:13).  Anyone who has been saved cannot but bear witness of this salvation to others (Matt.  5:16; Mark 5:19; 1 Peter 2:12).  The whole Gospel strongly insists on the indissoluble link between the two commandments in the Summary of the law: you cannot love God without loving your neighbor (I John 2:9‑11; 3: 10; 4:2 1).  'By this we know that we love the children of God, when we love God and keep his commandments' (I John 5:2).  There seems little need to press the point further.

 

To stress that love of God and of our neighbor are a unity, Jesus has reminded us that we love Him in the person of our neighbor 'Inasmuch as ye did it unto one of the least of my brethren, ye did it unto me' (Matt.  25:40); see also Matt.  10:40; Luke 10:16; Acts 9:5; 1 Cor.  8:12.  To kill my neighbor is thus to cast myself off twice from Christ Himself, both subjectively and objectively, as it were: for when I kill, my personal attitude takes me away from His communion; and the person I kill is Jesus again.  For all our hairsplitting and fine distinctions, we shall never drown the cry of Christ: 'When you kill your brethren, you kill me.  When you take part in war, you crucify me.'

 

The obedience of our faith is the fruit of the Holy Spirit in us.  But the Holy Spirit cannot contradict the Scriptures (11 Tim.  3:16; Acts 17:11), or we are in the realm of illuminism and have left the Christian faith behind.  The Scriptures are quite categorical: besides all the texts I have quoted, they specify that the fruit of the Spirit is kindness, gentleness, compassion, peace, love.  (Gal.  5:22; Col.  3:12 & Titus 3:2); whereas bitterness, anger, strife, seditions, murders, anger are castigated as the work of the flesh (Gal.  5:20; Eph.

 

 

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4:31; Rom.  1:29; 13:13; 1 Cor.  3:3; Col.  3:8; 1 Tim.  1:9).  Everything that is not the product of the faith is sin, the apostle insists (Rom.  14:23); and who will dare say that his faith impels him to kill, under the inspiration of the Spirit?  The whole New Testament proclaims that such language is impossible, nay blasphemous.

 

2.  Loving Your Enemies

 

I dare say I shall be told that all this is theoretically true, but that we live in a cruel world where our very existence is threatened by implacable enemies, and that the Gospel does not expect us to be so far in the clouds that we refuse to defend ourselves.  We must take care here not to substitute a human wisdom for the wisdom of Christ.  For after all were Jesus and the apostles living in a world less cruel than ours?  The New Testament is surely full of this admittedly tragic problem: what should be the Christian's attitude towards his enemies?

 

According to the Gospel, to love your neighbor is also and more particularly to love your enemies: we should know this already from the parable of the Good Samaritan.  But Jesus expressly commands us: 'Love your enemies,[15] bless them that curse you, pray for them that persecute you' (Matt.  5:44; Luke 6:27‑28; Rom.  12:14).  'For if ye love them that love you, what do ye more than others?’  (Matt.  5:45‑48; Luke 6:31‑36).  When evil men do grave harm to us by word or deed, Jesus asks us to forgive them (Matt.  6:14‑15; 18:35; Mark 11:25), over and over again (Matt.  18:21‑22).  'Ye have heard that it was said: an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth; but I say unto you, resist not him that is evil' (Matt.  5:38‑42).  In fact the whole of the New Testament calls on Christians not to return evil for evil, but to overcome evil with good (Matt.  5:44; Rom.  12:17‑21; 1 Thess.  5:15; 1 Peter 3:9).  'Behold,' says Jesus, 'I send you forth as sheep in the midst of wolves' (Matt.  10: 16).  For there are certainly wolves, but the sheep of the Good Shepherd must count only on God to give the wolves their deserts (Rom.  12:19‑20; 16:20), for retribution depends on Him alone (Col.  3:23‑25; James 5:9).  While awaiting the last judgment, Christians must persevere in the path of peace and goodness (I Peter 4:12‑19; 11 Peter 2:18‑25).  The disciples, who are not more than their Master, must bear in silence all persecutions and injustices, following the example of their Master (Matt 10:24‑25; John 15:18‑21; 1 Peter 2:18‑25), who urges them to have no fear of death itself (Matt.  10:28; Phil.  1:28).  For patience in their afflictions

 

 

 

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is their best witness amidst the pagans all round them (Matt.  10:17‑20; Luke 21:12‑19; 1 Peter 2:12; 3:8‑17).  It is a grace and a joy for them to be unjustly maltreated, while continuing to do good from love of their Master (Matt.  5:10‑12; 11 Cor.  12:10; James 5:9‑11; I Peter 4:12‑19).

 

Remarkably enough, it is never in the New Testament a question of 'defending yourself' from your enemies by your own strength or with arms.  This term is never used except to designate Christians' verbal defense before a tribunal (Luke 12:11; 21:15; Acts 22:1; 24:10; 25:16; 26:1; 1 Cor.  9:3; 11 Tim.  4:16).  It is surely disturbing to find that this idea of defense, self‑defense, which is the basis of the traditional militarist[16] doctrine has no Biblical support, and that the expression itself does not appear a single time in the New Testament.  No single text can be invoked that would explicitly justify 'self-defense'; on the contrary, Jesus seems to have excluded it (Luke 9:24; 17:33).  In fact there is not even a passage positively justifying or recommending the legitimacy of active and violent ,resistance' to injustice.  In the New Testament, if there is a question of resisting, it is only resisting the devil, or God, never of resisting men.[17]

 

3.  The Distinction of the Two Orders

 

Another objection might run like this: in all these New Testament passages it is always a question of the struggle of pagans against the rise of Christianity, against the Church as such.  When the Gospel is threatened, Christians must endure everything in silence, even martyrdom.  But you cannot conclude from that that Christians should keep this same attitude of non‑resistance in the material affairs of this world.  You are confusing the order of redemption, in which the Church is called to preach without any violence the Gospel of reconciliation, and the order of conservation, in which justice should be defended forcibly, if need be, by the city's magistrates, or if that fails by the citizens themselves.  Armed defense is obviously legitimate only in this second context, but it becomes legitimate immediately it ceases to be a question of propagating the faith.

 

Luther in his 'Table Talk' admirably expresses this distinction: 'If anyone breaks into my home, tries to do violence to my family or myself, or to cause us harm, I am bound to defend myself and them in my capacity as master of the house and head of the family.  If brigands or murderers had tried to harm me or do me wrongful violence, I should have defended myself and resisted them in the

 

 

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name of the prince whose subject and servant I am.  These people would not have been attacking me because of the Gospel, as a minister and member of the Church of Christ, but as a subject of the prince and obedient to his authority.  So then I must help the prince to purge his country of bad subjects; and if I have the strength to cut this bandit's throat, it is my duty to take the knife to him, and I shall feel no remorse on receiving the sacrament.  For it is part of my duty to save a good citizen from peril, and still more to save my prince's country.  But if I am attacked on account of the divine word, in my capacity as preacher, then I must endure it and leave God to punish him and avenge me.  A preacher must not defend himself.  So you do not see me taking a poniard when I go up into the pulpit, but only when I go on a journey or a walk in the country.  As to the Anabaptists, I despair of these bad subjects: they refuse to bear arms and boast of their unlimited patience.'

 

Now, first of all, however well Luther's distinction between the preacher and the citizen may be founded, it is impossible to find a single text in the New Testament justifying this right and 'duty' he claims, 'if I have the strength to cut the bandit's throat, to take the knife to him.'

 

But does the New Testament really call believers to non‑resistance only in cases where sufferings are imposed on them because of Jesus and on the occasion of their preaching the Gospel?  Among the many exhortations to non‑resistance quoted above, there are some, it is true, which apply beyond dispute to those who are persecuted because of the Gospel; it does not follow, however, that these exhortations have no validity at all for believers who may be persecuted for reasons independent of their being Christians.  And there are also exhortations to non‑resistance which do not specify the cause of the ill‑treatment to be endured (1 Peter 2:18‑20; 3:9; Rom.  12:17‑21; 1 Thess.  5:15; Matt.  6:14‑15; 18:21‑22): by what authority can it be asserted that these texts are strictly concerned with persecutions undergone by Christians because of their faith, and that consequently they do not apply to so‑called cases of 'self‑defense'?  Finally there are exhortations concerned with attacks clearly not provoked by preaching the Gospel, which are therefore clearly part of the order of conservation (Matt.  5:38‑41; Luke 6:27‑30; 1 Cor.  6:7‑8).

 

The whole Gospel condemns the use of murderous violence to defend ourselves against injustice, without specifying what injustice.  So what can one think of the distinction illustrated by Luther?  It is not so easy to distinguish between the order of redemption and that of

 

 

 

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conservation, between the preacher and the citizen.  There may be a shade of difference useful for clear thinking, but no sharp, unambiguous dividing line can be drawn between them.  If Luther is attacked by a brigand, will he have the time to call to the brigand, before deciding what attitude he should take: 'Whom are you attacking, the preacher or the citizen?’  For after all, he is still a citizen when in the pulpit, nor in the street does he cease to be a preacher.  If a demented lunatic hurls himself on Luther during his sermon, has he not the 'duty of saving a good citizen from peril'?  And if he is attacked in a forest, must he not proclaim Christ to the brigand by his attitude of firm kindness and non‑violence, since preaching is also carried out in every act of our daily lives?  And if instead of taking a preacher as example, Luther had spoken of an ordinary believer, the distinction would have been still more obscure.

 

No, religion and politics are not so easily distinguishable.  When the Churches are persecuted, whether by Nero, Louis XV, Hitler, or Stalin, which part of the ills they suffer, and the causes of those ills, come under the order of conservation and which under the order of redemption?  For the Church is also a natural community and the book you are now reading is at once political and theological!

 

The distinction cannot be rigorously applied to life.  'It is radically false,' writes Ch.  Westphal,[18] 'to say that religion is a private matter, as if there were a religious domain independent of life's other domains.  Man is not divided, and here one can say that Christ is not divided ...  the religious part is everywhere, or it is nowhere.’  There is no subtlety which will refute the Gospel's express testimony 'Render to no man evil for evil' (Rom.  12:17).

 

4.  The Unity of the Church

 

All the above is further confirmed when we consider the universality of the Church.  In accepting the salvation of Christ, I find myself thereby reconciled not only with my heavenly Father but also with my brethren in the faith (Gal.  3:27; Eph.  2:13‑18); united with them by His forgiveness, I discover that I am united with each one of them whatever his race (Rom.  10:12; Rev.  7:9), his nationality, (Col.  3:11), his social situation (Gal.  3:28), by the love we owe each other because of Him.  There is a single body (John 10:16;11: 52; 1 Cor.  12:12; Eph.  4:4‑6; 2:19‑22; Col.  3:15), Christ's body, and I know that we are all members of that body[19] (Rom.  12:4‑5; 1 Cor.  12:20‑27).  Nothing in my attitude should risk breaking, or even

 

 

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weakening this unity of the children of God (Eph.  4:25; 1 Cor.  1:10; Phil.  2:1‑5).  All the barriers which may otherwise estrange me from my brother believers must therefore be overcome by the charity which is our fundamental bond (I Cor.  13; Eph.  4:1‑3).  To be estranged from a brother believer is to be estranged from the Church (I Cor.  12:21).  Brutally to oppose a brother believer is to break Christ's body (I Cor.  1:13; 3:16‑17; Rom.  14:19‑20).

 

This is why the New Testament insists so strongly on the need to drive quarrels and divisions out of the Church (I Cor.  12:23; Rom.  16:17‑18; Gal.  5‑15).  For the Church, by its ecumenical unity, must be in the world a striking witness to the truth of the Gospel (John 17:21‑23; 1 Peter 2:9‑10), and even more a sign of the Kingdom of God.  That is why the Christian's membership of the community of the Church should take precedence over every other human bond, every other natural community he may belong to (Acts 2:40; 11 Cor.  6:14‑18; Phil.  3:20; Heb.  11: 13‑16; 13:13‑14; 1 Peter 2:11; 11 Peter 3:13).

 

It would therefore seem impossible for believers to take up men's necessarily carnal quarrels to the point of tearing asunder the body of Christ.  It would seem impossible for a French believer, on the grounds that his government was in conflict with the German government, to resign himself to taking part in the slaughter of Germans, when there are believers among them who like him form part of Christ's body.  For, after all, in the last resort war between Christian nations is nothing else but the introduction of carnal quarrels and divisions into the bosom of the Church.  If we are shocked by such language, it is because theology is suspect today and we have grown used to thinking that the national community takes precedence over the community of Christ's body, the State over the Church.

 

We shall see later on that the State does have an importance in the context of the Kingdom of God; but to give it priority over the Church is to take a position beyond the limits set by the Scriptures.  When there is a conflict between the demands of the Church and those of the State, it is the former which must prevail (Acts 5:29).  Nothing in the Scriptures gives the Christian authority to tear apart the body of Christ for the State or anything else.  Do we believe in the Universal Church, in the communion of Saints, or do we believe in the eternal mission of our country?  One cannot believe in both at once; one cannot be Christian and nationalist.

 

'Christians of all denominations, languages, and races,' Daniel

 

 

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Parker proclaims[20], 'must stir up their respective clergies, and work, with the violence of the faith, to re‑establish in the international community of Christians the sense of deep solidarity which unites all His disciples in Christ.'

 

J.  Conclusion

 

Of course this non‑resistance to evil is disconcerting to the admirers of force, the worshippers of Mars, the fanatical pragmatics that most of us are.  In any case, perhaps we should rather talk of non-violent action or even non‑violent resistance; for the nonviolence of the Gospels never implies acquiescence in evil.[21]  All the texts I have just quoted present mostly the negative side of an attitude which is in fact very positive and active‑the attitude described in amazingly concrete terms in the Beatitudes (Matt.  5) and the hymn to Charity (I Cor.  13): the attitude of Christ and the apostles.  These two texts have always been known to give a vivid portrayal of the charity of Jesus Himself.  It is therefore something quite different from passive resignation and weak surrender to someone stronger.  The Christian is certainly not disarmed in the struggle he must carry on; but his arms are those of the Spirit‑unless we say that the Crucified and the martyrs were passive cowards.  But this brings me to my second point. 


 

 

Chapter 2

 

 

THE EXAMPLE OF CHRIST AND THE APOSTLES

 

 

 

1.  They Always Refused to Fight

 

HAVING considered the teaching of Christ and the apostles, let us now look at how they put into practice this Truth they preached: one is immediately struck by the way in which they sometimes Red from the enemies who wished to kill them.  And when eventually caught by such enemies, instead of defending themselves, as would seem natural for men with any 'guts,' they let themselves be manhandled, tortured, executed, without trying to hit back.  Indisputably, they practiced as well as preached the refusal to take part in murderous strife.

 

On several occasions the Gospels relate how Jesus, directly threatened with death, rather mysteriously 'passed through the midst' of His enemies and 'escaped from them' (Luke 4:30; Matt.  12:15; John 8:59; 10:39; perhaps also Matt.  14:13).  It is incontestable that He several times sought refuge in hiding (Mark 7:24; 11:19; 14:12‑16; Matt.  21:1‑3; 26:30; John 7:1‑10; 11:54).  So long as His hour was not come, He always avoided the danger without committing any violence (John 7:6 and 30:8‑20).  Then, on the eve of the Passover, He let Himself be caught, when He could have escaped a thousand times over, and literally offered Himself to the tortures and execution which He knew awaited Him (Matt.  26:47‑50, et al.).  His cross was the consecration of this non‑resistance, this nonviolence which He had preached (Luke 23:33‑34); it was just because of it that He was mocked at Golgotha (Matt.  27:29‑44).

 

Jesus stopped His disciples using violence against their adversaries and rebuked them for having wished to use it (Luke 9:51‑56; John 18:11).  He expressly instructed them not to persist in face of their hearers' hostility (Matt.  10: 14) and even to flee from the persecutions that would threaten them (Matt.  10:23).  And it must be said that before that first Pentecost they obeyed the instructions an too well, for their successive flights seem to have been more an expression of cowardice than of concern to obey their Master's command (Matt.  26:56 and 75; 27:55).

 

 

 

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But after Pentecost, although the Holy Spirit had filled them with boldness and courage, we see the Apostles stiff following their Master's tracks on the path of non‑violence: they too fled before threats of death (Acts 8:1, 4; 9:25, 30; 14:6; 17:10‑14); and when they were brought to bay by their adversaries, they let themselves be taken without resistance (Acts 4:3; 5:26, 41; 21:30‑33) and put to death without opposition (Acts 7:54‑60; 12:2).  Sometimes beneath the blows they feigned death (Acts 14:19‑20); Paul even escaped by appealing to human justice (Acts 22:25; 25:10‑12); but these were certainly not instances of recourse to violence or going back on their moral rule.  For the non‑violence of the Gospels certainly does not imply abdication before injustice.  Many were killed; like their Master, they were martyrs (literally, in the Greek, 'witnesses'), in that their death was in itself the best way of preaching the Gospel as, afterwards, with the martyrs of the first century and those of the Reformation.

 

2.  Except at Gethsemane, They Never Bore Arms

 

Their only arms were in effect the arms of the light (Rom.  13:12) and of justice (11 Cor.  6:7), all the panoply of God so proudly enumerated by the apostle Paul (Eph.  6:10‑17; 1 Thess.  5:8).  They were certainly not of the flesh (II Cor.  10:4), let alone material arms!  In fact, there is not a single text in the New Testament to show that Christ or the apostles ever 'bore arms,' in the usual sense, apart from the exceptional and obscure episode of the two swords of Gethsemane (Matt.  26:51‑54; Luke 22:35‑38, 49‑51; John 18:10‑11).  This is exceptional, because it is absolutely the only mention of arms being born and used by the disciples; and obscure, because it contains elements which are hard to explain and reconcile with each other.  Three different interpretations have been suggested:

 

(a) Luke's account contains an explanation given by Jesus Himself for His surprising order: 'He that hath no sword, let him sell his garment and buy one.  For I say unto you, that this which is written must yet be accomplished in me: And he was reckoned among the transgressors; for the things concerning me have an end.’  By this interpretation Jesus was impelled by His desire to accomplish the Scriptures, a desire which is particularly evident during the last period of His ministry; He therefore asked His disciples at this tragic hour to obtain purses and swords, so that when He was arrested and executed it could be said of Him that He was considered as a criminal, having been taken among people who were suspect and armed.  In

 

 

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fact He asked them to play the part of criminals, so that it would afterwards be recognized that the prophecy of Isaiah 53:12 did apply to Him, and that He was therefore the Messiah.

 

This interpretation has a double advantage: it is drawn from the Scriptures, in fact from the text itself; and it also accords well with the sequel.  It is then perfectly understandable that Jesus is content with two symbolic swords (only two swords to defend twelve men); also that when one of the disciples, not having understood His intention, effectively uses his sword, Jesus stops him at once: 'Put up the sword,' He cries.  And to demonstrate that He had only meant the disciples to make a show of these swords, He there and then heals the ear of the injured servant.  This bloodshed has resulted from an action contrary to His real intention.

 

If we adopt this explanation, what conclusions can be drawn?  That Jesus considers as transgressors the citizens who carry a sword!  That He rebukes murderous violence!  That in any case, even if He asked His disciples to buy swords, He certainly did not want them to use the swords in earnest.  The episode would then cease to be unique of its kind.  Far from invalidating my thesis that the disciples never bore arms and never used them, the text confirms it: that evening Jesus was presenting a symbolic scene of Messianic significance, but He neither recommended nor authorized the use of arms.

 

The interpretation is open, however, to two serious criticisms.  For one thing it seems hard to reconcile the express command Jesus gives all His disciples, that they each buy a sword, with the symbolic and harmless demonstration, the little 'play' He intends to produce, for which He needs only two swords.  For another thing, it is rash to base the interpretation of so obscure and difficult an episode on a prophetic text which might very well be a gloss by the Evangelist himself.

 

(b) According to the second interpretation, when Jesus gave all His disciples the command to buy a sword, He was speaking seriously and unambiguously.  He gave His express approval to their bearing arms, and implicitly to their using arms.  Obviously this literal interpretation is the one the defenders of traditional militarism fall back on; and, if it can be shown to be tenable, the testimony of all the rest of the New Testament concerning the apostles' arms certainly loses a great deal of its weight.

 

But this explanation of the episode faces difficulties which in my opinion are insurmountable.  First of all, one may wonder whether Jesus really thought His disciples would find a chance to obtain

 

 

THE EXAMPLE OF CHRIST AND THE APOSTLES                          39

 

twelve swords, except by barter, at the late hour when He asked them to buy the swords.  The fact that among the crowd which came to arrest Him there were men armed only with staves (Matt.  26:47) suggests that it was relatively difficult to obtain arms at that time, no doubt because of the Romans' surveillance.

 

Secondly, if Jesus has expressed the wish that all His disciples should get themselves a sword, it is strange, to say the least, that He should show Himself so quickly satisfied‑'he said unto them, it is enough'‑when they tell Him they already have two swords, or more likely have just found them while rummaging in the house (as suggested by the text: 'behold, here are two swords).  Whatever may be the exact sense of 'it is enough' (I shall return to this later), Jesus is obviously disinterested in the ten other swords which He has declared necessary just before.  In the space of a few seconds (by this interpretation) He contradicts Himself blatantly enough to make one wonder whether He really knows what He wants; moreover, how could two swords be enough for twelve men?  Jesus was not a fool, and we can hardly suppose He was playing a trick on the disciples; so the words 'it is enough' remain inexplicable.

 

H.  Bois[22] Suggests that Jesus was momentarily overcome by the frenzy of His disciples, 'terrified as they were by the turn events had taken.  But the idea of resisting by arms was only a passing idea, a temptation soon rejected by Him....  As soon as He sees the two swords His disciples hasten to bring Him, He pulls himself together . . . changes his mind.  And when He says, It is enough, He is really contradicting his previous order.’  This explanation, though psychologically ingenious, nevertheless assumes that at least for a few moments Jesus succumbed to temptation, which seems inadmissible, as is the insinuation that Jesus was no longer in control of Himself and His words, since He contradicts Himself pathetically within a few minutes.  Finally, it implies that the thought of having recourse to arms was in itself a temptation for Jesus‑which at once eliminates all possibility of invoking this text to justify the use of arms!

 

But here is a new contradiction: when Peter at the critical moment effectively uses his sword, Jesus stops him at once, rebukes him severely, and miraculously cures the servant's ear.  Why should Jesus have asked the disciples to take swords if He was then going to stop them using the swords at the opportune moment?  Could it be that He preferred to give Himself up, having established at a glance that His enemies were too numerous, so that the battle was lost in advance?  But in that case why was He satisfied with the two wretched

 

 

40                                                        WAR AND THE GOSPEL

 

swords?  Obviously, however, these suppositions would make Jesus a faint-hearted coward, and they are all quite untenable.

 

So it cannot really be thought that He asked His disciples to get swords for the purpose of opposing His arrest.  Some will try to bolster up the literal interpretation of the 'two swords' episode by suggesting that Jesus was thinking of the period after His arrest, which would be a tragic one for His disciples. This would certainly make better sense of the spirit and words of Jesus' recommendations in Luke 22:36. The same question still comes up at once, however: what was His precise intention, what purpose were these swords to serve after His own disappearance?

 

One is lost at once in improbable guesses: were the disciples to avenge the Master's death by summary executions?  Or were they to join up with the Zealots as a 'Maquis' and form an armed band of patriots who would assassinate Roman soldiers?  Were they to seize Jerusalem by violence after Christ's death, so as to set up the Messianic rule there?  But then why only two swords?  Why did Jesus let Himself be arrested so meekly?  Moreover, He had expressly declared that His Kingdom was not of this world, and so His disciples should not fight for Him (John, 18:36). Was He contradicting Himself, and lying to Pilate?  On the contrary, His proud reply to Pilate disposes once and for all of the suppositions I have just enumerated, already absurd in themselves.

 

One possibility remains: Jesus authorized His disciples to resort to self-defense after His arrest.  But against whom would the disciples have needed to defend themselves?  Against the police who would come to arrest them as well?  But all Jesus' teaching, and the whole of the New Testament, calls on the contrary for submission to the proper civil authorities; He was to give them an example of complete submission before the police; so He cannot have recommended them to armed insurrection. (Calvin rightly says of Peter's ill-considered act: 'By doing violence to the police, he acts like a brigand, because he is resisting the power God has ordered.' And further: 'It was by no means lawful for a private man to rise against those who were furnished with public authority.')[23]

 

Perhaps it will be suggested that Jesus allowed them to defend themselves against personal enemies who might attack them individually. But who would have an interest in attacking them?  They were neither rich nor powerful, and it was clear that after their Master had gone they would represent absolutely no danger to anyone. (In the passage quoted above Calvin, who cannot be

 

 

THE EXAMPLE OF CHRIST AND THE APOSTLES                          41

 

suspected of weakness, continues: 'So let us refrain from repulsing our enemies by force or violence, even when they give us wrongful provocation, unless the law permits it.' And if it is the Gospel someone might want to destroy by attacking the disciples, that raises a very delicate problem: would Jesus have allowed them to defend His teaching by arms?  It would be most surprising, but I shall return to the point later. Anyhow, one can scarcely admit that Jesus was ready, by arming His disciples, to issue a blatant challenge to the Romans: obviously like all armies of occupation, they could not tolerate the bearing of arms by private individuals. The literal interpretation imputes to Jesus an offence against the de facto authority, an offence of insubordination which would come very near to being a sin.

 

So one cannot see at all what Jesus might have meant by recommending His disciples to get swords for possible use after His arrest; and there are three more decisive objections to such an interpretation. First, He tells them to buy swords now, not for some time in the future: ‘But now ... he that hath no sword . . .’ also, in