The Origin and Development of the Moral Ideas. Edward Westermarck

be lawful for the righteous man, whose warfare is that of righteousness itself.”4 Tertullian asks, “Can it be lawful to handle the sword, when the Lord Himself has declared that he who uses the sword shall perish by it?”5 And in another passage he states that “the Lord by his disarming of Peter disarmed every soldier from that time forward.”6 Origen calls the Christians the children of peace, who, for the sake of Jesus, never take up the sword against any nation; who fight for their monarch by praying for him, but who take no part in his wars, even though he urge them.7 It is true that, even in early times, Christian soldiers were not unknown; Tertullian alludes to Christians who were engaged in military pursuits together with their heathen countrymen.8 But the number of Christians enrolled in the army seems not to have been very considerable before the era of Constantine,9 and, though they were not cut off from the Church, their profession was looked upon as hardly compatible with their religion. St. Basil says that soldiers, after their term of military service has expired, are to be excluded from the sacrament of the communion for three whole years.10 And according to one of the canons of the Council of Nice, those Christians who, having abandoned the profession of arms, afterwards returned to it, “as dogs to their vomit,” were for some years to occupy in the Church the place of penitents.11

      1 St. Matthew, v. 9, 39, 44. Romans, xii. 17. Ephesians, vi. 12.

      2 Isaiah, ii. 4.

      3 Justin Martyr, Apologia I. pro Christianis, 39 (Migne, Patrologiæ cursus, Ser. Graeca, vi. 387 sq.).

4 Lactantius, Divinæ institutiones, vi. (‘De vero cultu’) 20 (Migne, op. cit. vi. 708).

5 Tertullian, De corona, 11 (Migne, op. cit. ii. 92).

6 Tertullian, De idolatria, 19 (Migne, op. cit. i. 691).

7 Origen, Contra Celsum, v. 33; viii. 73 (Migne, op. cit. Ser. Graeca, xi. 1231 sq., 1627 sq.).

8 Tertullian, Apologeticus, 42 (Migne, op. cit. i. 491).

9 Le Blant, Inscriptions chrétiennes de la Gaule, i. 84 sqq.

10 St. Basil, Epistola CLXXXVIII., ad Amphilochium, can. 13 (Migne, op. cit. Ser. Graeca, xxxii. 681 sq.).

11 Concilium Nicænum, A.D. 325, can. 12 (Labbe-Mansi, Sacrorum Conciliorum collectio, ii. 674).

A divine law which prohibited all resistance to enemies could certainly not be accepted by the State, especially at a time when the Empire was seriously threatened by foreign invaders. Christianity could therefore never become a State-religion unless it gave up its attitude towards war. And it gave it up. Already in 314 a Council condemned soldiers who, from religious motives, deserted their colours.12 The Fathers of the fourth and fifth centuries did not altogether disapprove of war. Chrysostom and Ambrose, though seeing the difficulty of reconciling it with the theory of Christian life which they found in the New Testament, perceived that the use of the sword was necessary to preserve the State.13 St. Augustine went much farther. He tried to prove that the practice of war was quite compatible with the teachings of Christ. The soldiers mentioned in the New Testament, who were seeking for a knowledge of salvation, were not directed by our Lord to throw aside their arms and renounce their profession, but were advised by him to be content with their wages.14 St. Peter baptised Cornelius, the centurion, in the name of Christ, without exhorting him to give up the military life,15 and St. Paul himself took care to have a strong guard of soldiers for his defence.16 And was not the history of David, the “man after God’s own heart,” an evidence of those being wrong who say that “no one who wages war can please God”?17 When Christ declared that “all they that take the sword shall perish with the sword,”18 He referred to such persons only as arm themselves to shed the blood of others without either command or permission of any superior or lawful authority.19 A great deal depends on the causes for which men undertake war, and on the authority they have for doing so. Those wars are just which are waged with a view to obtaining redress for wrongs, or to chastising the undue arrogance of another State. The monarch has the power of making war when he thinks it advisable, and, even if he be a sacrilegious king, a Christian may fight under him, provided that what is enjoined upon the soldier personally is not contrary to the precept of God.20 In short, though peace is our final good, though in the City of God there is peace in eternity,21 war may sometimes be a necessity in this sinful world.

      12 Concilium Arelatense I. A.D. 314, can. 3 (Labbe-Mansi, op. cit. ii. 471). Cf. Le Blant, op. cit. i. p. lxxxii.

13 Gibb, ‘Christian Church and War,’ in British Quarterly Review, lxxiii. 83.

14 St. Augustine, Epist. CXXXVIII., ad Marcellinum, 15 (Migne, op. cit. xxxiii. 531 sq.).

15 St. Augustine, Epist. CLXXXIX., ad Bonifacium, 4 (Migne, op. cit. xxxiii. 855).

16 St. Augustine, Epistola XLVII., ad Publicolam, 5 (Migne, op. cit. xxxiii. 187).

17 St. Augustine, Epist. CLXXXIX., ad Bonifacium, 4 (Migne, op. cit. xxxiii. 855).

18 St. Matthew, xxvi. 52.

19 St. Augustine, Contra Faustum

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