μια απόπειρα επιστημονικής προσέγγισης της ανθρώπινης θρησκευτικότητας
an attempt for a scientific approach of human religiosity "Sedulo curavi humanas actiones non ridere, non lugere, neque detestari, sed intelligere" —Spinoza, Tractatus Politicus 1:4
⏳ ⌛ First post: October 30, 2008 / Πρώτη ανάρτηση: 30 Οκτωβρίου 2008
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Friday, October 11, 2019
Roman A. Montero: The Early Christians and the Military /
Ρομάν A. Μοντέρο: Οι Πρώτοι Χριστιανοί και η Στράτευση
In modern times it may not even seem like an issue if a Christian can
or cannot serve in the military, clearly Christians today and for many
centuries do, so what would the issue be? On the other hand, anyone who
has honestly read the gospels must recognize that the issue of violence
is at the very least problematic in Jesus’s teachings. One would simply
have to point to the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5:38–47) or the Sermon
on the Plain (Luke 6:27–31), or his teaching on the one taking the
sword dying by the sword (Matthew 26:52), to recognize that Jesus tended
to reject violence.
There is of course Augustine’s Just War
theory, which was expanded by Thomas Aquinas. Much of this Just war
theorizing is based on Romans 13. However, as John Howard Yodar has
masterfully pointed out in his The Politics of Jesus, Paul
assumes that the governing authorities are completely distinct from the
audience of Romans 13; whereas what is found in Romans 12:9–21, right
before Romans 13, actually lays out the ethical norms for a Christian.
Romans 13 is not normative, it describes the reality, and discourages
rebellions, whereas Romans 12 is normative. So Romans 13 cannot be used
as a justification for a Christian doing violence in the military. Even
so, as David Bentley Hart pointed out in commonweal,[1] the word μάχαιρα
is a term that could be used to refer to a civil guard, police officer
or something like that as opposed to ξίφος, which refers to a sword used
to execute people.
How about the early Church though, there is evidence that people who
were soldiers became Christians very early on, although it’s not clear
what happened after they became Christians, but evidence for Christians
serving in the military comes at the end of the second century, and that
evidence is very meager. However, the early Christian literature on the
matter is almost unanimous, for example, Justin Martyr says:
“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.”[2]
Tertullian, echoing the same sentiment says:
“But now inquiry is made 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. . . . 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, disarmed every soldier. No dress is lawful among us,
if assigned to any unlawful action.”[3]
In another writing Tertullian says:
“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? . . . 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. . . . Indeed, if, putting my strength to the question, I banish from us the military life.”[4]
These sentiments are echoed in other early Christian writers such as
Origen and Clement of Alexandria … they are, basically, unanimous:
Christians do not serve in the military, they don’t go to war, and they
don’t kill under any circumstances—no exceptions. Caesar does what
Caesar does, but for the early Christians, that had no bearing on
Christian ethics. The interpretation of Jesus disarming Peter is clear
for Tertullian: Christians are not to take up the sword. Other writers
such as Clement of Alexandria and Athenagoras also tie Christian
pacifism directly to Jesus’s teachings. The aversion to military service
was so strong for many Christians that we have accounts of many
Christians preferring the death penalty to military service; such as
Maximillian in 295 C.E.; or Marcellus 3 years later, who actually was a
centurion but quit, on pains of death, his service due to his Christian
convictions. The record is clear; Christians for the first few centuries of their
history were opposed to military service, war, and violence, no matter
who sanctioned it. This should not be surprising, there is no reason why we shouldn’t
assume the early Christians took Jesus’s commands to “turn the other
cheek” or “love your enemies” or “happy are the peacemakers” literally.
For the first couple of centuries the Christians had no power over the
state, nor did they seek it; they had no allegiance to the state, in
fact, they shunned it. Given this, it is absolutely clear and logical
why the early Christians were more or less pacifists. What changed? Well
one thing is simply power, Augustine in Contra Faustum Manichaeum 22 writes:
“For there is no power but of God, Romans 13:1 who either
orders or permits. Since, therefore, a righteous man, serving it may be
under an ungodly king, may do the duty belonging to his position in the
State in fighting by the order of his sovereign — for in some cases it
is plainly the will of God that he should fight, and in others, where
this is not so plain, it may be an unrighteous command on the part of
the king, while the soldier is innocent, because his position makes
obedience a duty, — how much more must the man be blameless who carries
on war on the authority of God, of whom every one who serves Him knows
that He can never require what is wrong?”[5]
And a little later:
“we have seen Christian emperors, who have put all their
confidence in Christ, gaining splendid victories over ungodly enemies,
whose hope was in the rites of idolatry and devil-worship. There are
public and undeniable proofs of the fact, that on one side the
prognostications of devils were found to be fallacious, and on the
other, the predictions of saints were a means of support; and we have
now writings in which those facts are recorded.”[6]
In the first quote, we see the argument from Romans 13, which
completely ignores Romans 12. The second quote is I think ultimately the
issue, at this point in time, there were Christian Emperors, they
fought wars—so unless we are going to proclaim them sinful in their
waging of wars and call for them to either dismantle the empire or give
up their power, we have to accept that these wars were ordained by God.
Another issue for Augustine is his extreme anti-Pelagianism and his
spiritualizing of Christian ethics, for example earlier in Contra Faustum Manichaeum he writes:
“The real evils in war are love of violence, revengeful
cruelty, fierce and implacable enmity, wild resistance, and the lust of
power, and such like; and it is generally to punish these things, when
force is required to inflict the punishment, that, in obedience to God
or some lawful authority, good men undertake wars, when they find
themselves in such a position as regards the conduct of human affairs,
that right conduct requires them to act, or to make others act in this
way.”[7]
According to Augustine, Jesus’s ethics are not about action, they are
about internal disposition. It is clearly the case that Jesus did care
about internal disposition, however it is not the case that he didn’t
care about action or that he thought internal disposition could be
separated from action. Augustine here, and in much of his ethics, is
simply overturning what the standard interpretation of Christian ethics
had been, and what the teachings of Jesus clearly were, to make
Christianity safe for the Roman Empire. Nevertheless, pre-Augustine the
standards were clear, Jesus expected his followers to shun violence,
Paul opposed violence, and the early Fathers opposed violence; including
violence done through the military. Notes: [1] Christians & the Death Penalty [2] Justin Martyr, Apology, 39. [3] Tertullian, On Idolatry, 19. [4] Tertullian, De Corona, 11. [5] Augustine, Contra Faustum Manichaeum 22.75 [6] Augustine, Contra Faustum Manichaeum 22.76 [7] Augustine, Contra Faustum Manichaeum 22.74
oJehovah’s Witnesses love to portray their stance as a return to the “purity” of the early Church, marshaling quotes from historians and cherry-picked patristic sources as if the universal Christian tradition uniformly condemned all military service until the “Great Apostasy.” This narrative is utterly misleading. While it is true that some early Christians refused to serve in the Roman army, the real picture is far more nuanced—and far removed from Watchtower mythology.
The early Christian aversion to the Roman military was rooted not in some timeless pacifism, but in the idolatrous nature of Roman military service. Soldiers were required to offer sacrifices to the emperor and to the Roman gods, swearing allegiance that was incompatible with Christian monotheism. When those requirements were relaxed or absent, Christian participation in military service increased dramatically. That is why military service is not absolutely condemned in the early Church, and Christians who served were not universally barred from communion. The notion that “no true Christian could ever serve in the military” is an anachronistic Watchtower fabrication.
When Catholics look at the question of Christian involvement in soldiering we begin, not with a single proof-text, but with the whole arc of revelation and the lived memory of the Church. The New Testament certainly preserves some demanding sayings of Jesus about loving enemies, turning the other cheek, and refusing personal vengeance. It also preserves, alongside those, scenes in which Roman soldiers approach John the Baptist and Christ Himself without being told to abandon their calling (Lk 3:14; Mt 8:5-13). The apostles send greetings to “the saints… and those of Caesar’s household” (Phil 4:22), implying that Christians were already serving the empire while remaining “blameless and innocent, children of God” (Phil 2:15). In other words, the inspired canon does not give us a simple pacifist manifesto; it places the Sermon on the Mount into the larger question of how disciples live in a world still marked by coercive power.
Because the revealed sources speak in harmony but from different angles, the Church has always relied on the regula fidei—Scripture read within tradition—to discern how apparently competing duties (reverence for life, responsibility for the innocent, obedience to lawful authority) are held together. A glance at the earliest centuries bears this out. Yes, one hears strong anti-military rhetoric from Tertullian and Lactantius, but those same authors opposed second-marriages and all artistic depiction as well; their rigorism was not shared universally. Origen—often cited as a pacifist witness—praised Christian soldiers who prayed while others fought, yet in the same breath admitted that the empire “has need of its army” (Contra Celsum VIII, 73). The famous epitaph of the soldier-martyr Julius the Veteran (A.D. 303) records that he laid down his life for Christ “in the army,” honoured by his bishop as a martyr, not a sinner. Archaeology has recovered dozens of Christian names inscribed by soldiers in the camps along the Rhine and Danube decades before Constantine. There is, then, no unanimous early condemnation of military service; rather there is a tension between a radical personal demand for holiness and a gradual discernment of legitimate public coercion.
That tension matured in the fourth and fifth centuries when persecution ceased and bishops suddenly had to advise Christian magistrates. Augustine did not “invent” an ethic of war to make Christianity safe for empire; he wrestled—pastorally and exegetically—with the same texts his predecessors read, but now in a context where Christians bore direct responsibility for protecting widows, cities, and the liturgy itself. His insight, drawn from the Fathers before him, was that caritas can require the sword when the innocent are threatened and no other remedy is at hand—provided the intention is defensive, proportionate, and ultimately medicinal. That insight, refined by Aquinas, is not a repudiation of Jesus’ commands; it is an attempt to obey the whole gospel under new historical conditions.
To suggest that the post-Constantinian Church simply surrendered to power also forgets how often bishops excommunicated Christian rulers who misused force: Ambrose against Theodosius after the massacre of Thessalonica; Leo I against the rapacious Roman generals; Gregory VII against Henry IV. Nor does it reckon with the monastic movements, the Peace and Truce of God, or the penitential canons that forbade wanton killing and required soldiers to do penance. The tradition crafted limits for war precisely because it continued to hear Christ’s warning that “all who take the sword”—that is, who rely on violence as an end in itself—“will perish by the sword.”
Finally, the charge that Romans 13 cannot apply to Christians themselves misunderstands Paul’s argument. The apostle, having exhorted believers in chapter 12 not to avenge themselves, immediately shows in chapter 13 that God delegates the task of public order to the “servant” (διάκονος) of the sword. The same Spirit who warns disciples against private retaliation affirms that legitimate authority “is God’s minister for your good” when it punishes wrongdoing. The early Church saw no contradiction in that double witness: individual Christians must renounce hatred, yet some may serve the common good as soldiers or magistrates under strict moral limits.
Catholic teaching therefore does not pit the Sermon on the Mount against public justice, nor does it idolise the state. It confesses, with the martyrs who were soldiers and with the saints who laid weapons aside, that every disciple must discern his vocation under the Church’s guidance. Some are called to radical non-violence as a sign of the Kingdom already present; others, no less obedient to Christ, may bear arms in defence of the weak. Both rely on the same grace and both are judged by the same Lord who commanded Peter to sheath the sword yet praised the faith of the centurion.
2 comments:
oJehovah’s Witnesses love to portray their stance as a return to the “purity” of the early Church, marshaling quotes from historians and cherry-picked patristic sources as if the universal Christian tradition uniformly condemned all military service until the “Great Apostasy.” This narrative is utterly misleading. While it is true that some early Christians refused to serve in the Roman army, the real picture is far more nuanced—and far removed from Watchtower mythology.
The early Christian aversion to the Roman military was rooted not in some timeless pacifism, but in the idolatrous nature of Roman military service. Soldiers were required to offer sacrifices to the emperor and to the Roman gods, swearing allegiance that was incompatible with Christian monotheism. When those requirements were relaxed or absent, Christian participation in military service increased dramatically. That is why military service is not absolutely condemned in the early Church, and Christians who served were not universally barred from communion. The notion that “no true Christian could ever serve in the military” is an anachronistic Watchtower fabrication.
When Catholics look at the question of Christian involvement in soldiering we begin, not with a single proof-text, but with the whole arc of revelation and the lived memory of the Church. The New Testament certainly preserves some demanding sayings of Jesus about loving enemies, turning the other cheek, and refusing personal vengeance. It also preserves, alongside those, scenes in which Roman soldiers approach John the Baptist and Christ Himself without being told to abandon their calling (Lk 3:14; Mt 8:5-13). The apostles send greetings to “the saints… and those of Caesar’s household” (Phil 4:22), implying that Christians were already serving the empire while remaining “blameless and innocent, children of God” (Phil 2:15). In other words, the inspired canon does not give us a simple pacifist manifesto; it places the Sermon on the Mount into the larger question of how disciples live in a world still marked by coercive power.
Because the revealed sources speak in harmony but from different angles, the Church has always relied on the regula fidei—Scripture read within tradition—to discern how apparently competing duties (reverence for life, responsibility for the innocent, obedience to lawful authority) are held together. A glance at the earliest centuries bears this out. Yes, one hears strong anti-military rhetoric from Tertullian and Lactantius, but those same authors opposed second-marriages and all artistic depiction as well; their rigorism was not shared universally. Origen—often cited as a pacifist witness—praised Christian soldiers who prayed while others fought, yet in the same breath admitted that the empire “has need of its army” (Contra Celsum VIII, 73). The famous epitaph of the soldier-martyr Julius the Veteran (A.D. 303) records that he laid down his life for Christ “in the army,” honoured by his bishop as a martyr, not a sinner. Archaeology has recovered dozens of Christian names inscribed by soldiers in the camps along the Rhine and Danube decades before Constantine. There is, then, no unanimous early condemnation of military service; rather there is a tension between a radical personal demand for holiness and a gradual discernment of legitimate public coercion.
That tension matured in the fourth and fifth centuries when persecution ceased and bishops suddenly had to advise Christian magistrates. Augustine did not “invent” an ethic of war to make Christianity safe for empire; he wrestled—pastorally and exegetically—with the same texts his predecessors read, but now in a context where Christians bore direct responsibility for protecting widows, cities, and the liturgy itself. His insight, drawn from the Fathers before him, was that caritas can require the sword when the innocent are threatened and no other remedy is at hand—provided the intention is defensive, proportionate, and ultimately medicinal. That insight, refined by Aquinas, is not a repudiation of Jesus’ commands; it is an attempt to obey the whole gospel under new historical conditions.
To suggest that the post-Constantinian Church simply surrendered to power also forgets how often bishops excommunicated Christian rulers who misused force: Ambrose against Theodosius after the massacre of Thessalonica; Leo I against the rapacious Roman generals; Gregory VII against Henry IV. Nor does it reckon with the monastic movements, the Peace and Truce of God, or the penitential canons that forbade wanton killing and required soldiers to do penance. The tradition crafted limits for war precisely because it continued to hear Christ’s warning that “all who take the sword”—that is, who rely on violence as an end in itself—“will perish by the sword.”
Finally, the charge that Romans 13 cannot apply to Christians themselves misunderstands Paul’s argument. The apostle, having exhorted believers in chapter 12 not to avenge themselves, immediately shows in chapter 13 that God delegates the task of public order to the “servant” (διάκονος) of the sword. The same Spirit who warns disciples against private retaliation affirms that legitimate authority “is God’s minister for your good” when it punishes wrongdoing. The early Church saw no contradiction in that double witness: individual Christians must renounce hatred, yet some may serve the common good as soldiers or magistrates under strict moral limits.
Catholic teaching therefore does not pit the Sermon on the Mount against public justice, nor does it idolise the state. It confesses, with the martyrs who were soldiers and with the saints who laid weapons aside, that every disciple must discern his vocation under the Church’s guidance. Some are called to radical non-violence as a sign of the Kingdom already present; others, no less obedient to Christ, may bear arms in defence of the weak. Both rely on the same grace and both are judged by the same Lord who commanded Peter to sheath the sword yet praised the faith of the centurion.
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