12. Early Christians – Their belief
– Their practice – Early Christian writers
The opinions of the earliest professors of Christianity upon the lawfulness of war are of importance,
because they who lived nearest to the time of its Founder were the most likely to be informed of his intentions and his will, and to practice them without those adulterations which we know have been introduced by the lapse of ages.
During a considerable period after the death of Christ, it is certain, then,
that his followers believed he had forbidden war, and that, in consequence of this belief, many of them refused to engage in it – whatever were the consequences, whether reproach, imprisonment, or death.
These facts are indisputable.
“It is as easy,” says a learned writer of the 17th century, “to obscure the sun at mid- day, as to deny that the primitive Christians renounced all revenge and war.”
Of all the Christian writers of the 2nd century, there is not one who notices the subject, who does not hold it to be unlawful for a Christian to bear arms. “And,” says Clarkson, “it was not until Christianity became corrupt that Christians became soldiers.”
Our Saviour inculcated mildness and peacefulness:
We have seen that the apostles imbibed his spirit and followed his example, and the early Christians pursued the example and imbibed the spirit of both.
“This sacred principle, this earnest recommendation of forbearance, lenity, and forgiveness mixes with all the writings of that age. There are more quotations in the apostolic fathers of texts that relate to these points than of any other. Christ’s sayings had struck them.
‘Not rendering,’ says Polycarp, the disciple of John, ‘evil for evil, or railing for railing, or striking for striking, or cursing for cursing.’”
Christ and his apostles delivered general precepts for the regulation of our conduct. It was necessary for their successors to apply them to their practice in life.
And to what did they apply the pacific precepts that had been delivered?
They applied them to war. They were assured that the precepts absolutely forbade it. This belief they derived from those very precepts on which we have insisted.
They referred expressly to the same passages in the New Testament and, from the authority and obligation of those passages, they refused to bear arms.
A few examples from their history will show with what undoubting confidence they believed in the unlawfulness of war, and how much they were willing to suffer in the cause of peace.
Maximilian, as it is related in the Acts of Ruinart, was brought before the tribunal to be enrolled as a soldier. On the proconsul’s asking his name, Maximilian replied, “I am a Christian, and cannot fight.”
It was, however, ordered that he should be enrolled, but he refused to serve, still alleging that he was a Christian.
He was immediately told that there was no alternative between bearing arms and being put to death. But his fidelity was not to be shaken: “I cannot fight,” said he, “if I die.”
The proconsul asked who had persuaded him to this conduct.
“- My own mind,” said the Christian, “and He who has called me.”
It was once more attempted to shake his resolution by appealing to his youth and to the glory of the profession, but in vain:
“I cannot fight,” said he, “for any earthly consideration.” He continued steadfast to his principles, sentence was pronounced upon him, and he was led to execution.
The primitive Christians not only refused to be enlisted in the army, but when they embraced Christianity while already enlisted, they abandoned the profession at whatever cost:
Marcellus was a centurion in the legion called Trajana:
While holding this commission he became a Christian, and believing, in common with his fellow Christians, that war was no longer permitted to him,
he threw down his belt at the head of the legion, declaring that he had become a Christian, and that he would serve no longer.
He was committed to prison, but he was still faithful to Christianity:
“It is not lawful,” said he, “for a Christian to bear arms for any earthly consideration,” and he was in consequence put to death.
Cassian, who was notary to the same legion, gave up his office almost immediately afterwards. He steadfastly maintained the sentiments of Marcellus, and like him was consigned to the executioner.
Martin, of whom so much is said by Sulpicius Severus, was bred to the profession of arms, which, on his acceptance of Christianity, he abandoned.
To Julian the apostate, the only reason that we find he gave for his conduct was this: “I am a Christian, and therefore I cannot fight.”
The answer of Tarachus to Numerianus Maximus is in words nearly similar:
“I have led a military life and am a Roman, and because I am a Christian, I have abandoned my profession of a soldier.”
These were not the sentiments, and this was not the conduct, of the insulated individuals who might be actuated by individual opinions, or by their private interpretations of the duties of Christianity:
Their principles were the principles of the body. They were recognized and defended by the Christian writers who were their contemporaries.
Justin Martyr and Tatian talk of soldiers and Christians as distinct characters, and Tatian says that the Christians declined even military commands.
Clemens of Alexandria calls his Christian contemporaries the “Followers of Peace,” and expressly tells us that “the followers of peace used none of the implements of war.”
Lactantius, another early Christian, says expressly, “It can never be lawful for a righteous man to go to war.”
About the end of the 2nd century, Celsus, one of the opponents of Christianity, charged the Christians with refusing to bear arms even in case of necessity.
Origen, the defender of the Christians, does not think of denying the fact. He admits the refusal, and justifies it, because war was unlawful.
Even after Christianity had spread over almost the whole of the known world, Tertullian, in speaking of a part of the Roman armies, including more than one third of the standing legions of Rome, distinctly informs us that “not a Christian could be found among them.”
All this is explicit. The evidence of the following facts is, however, yet more determinate and satisfactory.
Some of the arguments which, at the present day, are brought against the advocates of peace, were then urged against these early Christians, and these arguments they examined and repelled.
This indicates investigation and inquiry and manifests that their belief in the unlawfulness of war was not a vague opinion, hastily admitted, and loosely floating among them,
but that it was the result of deliberate examination, and a consequent firm conviction that Christ had forbidden it.
Tertullian says:
“Though the soldiers came to John, and received a certain form to be observed, yet Jesus Christ, by disarming Peter, disarmed every soldier afterwards; for custom never sanctions any unlawful act.”
“Can a soldier’s life be lawful,” says he in another work, “when Christ has pronounced that he who lives by the sword shall perish by the sword?
Can anyone who possesses the peaceful doctrine of the gospel be a soldier, when it is his duty not so much as to go to law?
And shall he, who is not to revenge his own wrongs, be instrumental in bringing others into chains, imprisonment, torture, and death?”
The very same arguments that are brought in defence of war in the present day were brought against the Christians 1600 years ago, and 1600 years ago they were repelled by these faithful contenders for the purity of our religion.
It is remarkable, too, that Tertullian appeals to the precepts from the Mount in proof of those principles on which this essay has been insisting:
that the dispositions which the precepts inculcate are not compatible with war, and that war, therefore, is irreconcilable with Christianity.
If it is possible, a still stronger evidence of the primitive belief is contained in the circumstance that some of the Christian authors declared that the refusal of the Christians to bear arms was a fulfilment of ancient prophecy.
The peculiar strength of this evidence consists in this: that the fact of a refusal to bear arms is assumed as well known and unquestioned.
Irenaeus, who lived about the year 180, affirms that the prophecy of Isaiah, which declared that men should turn their swords into ploughshares and their spears into pruning hooks, had been fulfilled in his time:
“For the Christians,” says he, “have changed their swords and their lances into instruments of peace, and they know not now how to fight.”
Justin Martyr, his contemporary, writes,
“That the prophecy is fulfilled, you have good reason to believe, for we, who in times past killed one another, do not now fight with our enemies.”
Tertullian, who lived later, says,
“You must confess that the prophecy has been accomplished, as far as the practice of every individual is concerned, to whom it is applicable.”
It has been sometimes said that the motive that influenced the early Christians to refuse to engage in war consisted in the idolatry that was connected with the Roman armies.
One motive this idolatry unquestionably afforded;
but it is obvious, from the quotations that we have given, that their belief in the unlawfulness of fighting, independent of any question of idolatry, was an insuperable objection to engaging in war.
Their words are explicit:
“I cannot fight if I die.” “I am a Christian, and, therefore, I cannot fight.”
“Christ,” says Tertullian, “by disarming Peter, disarmed every soldier,” and Peter was not about to fight in the armies of idolatry.
So entire was their conviction of the incompatibility of war with our religion, that they would not even be present at the gladiatorial fights “lest,” says Theophilus, “we should become partakers of the murders committed there.”
Can anyone believe that they who would not even witness a battle between two men, would themselves fight in a battle between armies?
And the destruction of a gladiator, it should be remembered, was authorized by the state as much as the destruction of enemies in war.
It is, therefore, indisputable that the Christians who lived nearest to the time of our Saviour, believed, with undoubting confidence, that he had unequivocally forbidden war, that they openly avowed this belief, and that, in support of it, they were willing to sacrifice, and did sacrifice, their fortunes and their lives.
Christians, however, afterwards became soldiers. And when?
- When their general fidelity to Christianity became relaxed;
- when, in other respects, they violated its principles; when they had begun “to dissemble” and “to falsify their word” and “to cheat;”
- when “Christian casuists” had persuaded them that they might “sit at meat in the idol’s temple;”
- when Christians accepted even the priesthoods of idolatry.
- In a word, they became soldiers, when they had ceased to be Christians.
The departure from the original faithfulness was, however, not suddenly general. Like every other corruption, war crept in by degrees:
During the 1-2 hundred years, not a Christian soldier is upon record.
In the 3d century, when Christianity became partially corrupted, Christian soldiers were common.
The number increased with the increase of the general profligacy, until at last, in the 4th century, Christians became soldiers without hesitation, and, perhaps, without remorse.
Here and there, however, an ancient father still lifted up his voice for peace; but these, one after another, dropping from the world, the tenet that war is unlawful ceased at length to be a tenet of the church.
Such was the origin of the present belief in the lawfulness of war. It began in unfaithfulness, was nurtured by profligacy, and was confirmed by general corruption. We seriously and solemnly invite the conscientious Christian of the present day to consider these things.
Had the professors of Christianity continued in the purity and faithfulness of their forefathers, we should now have believed that war was forbidden, and Europe, many long centuries ago, would have reposed in peace.
Let it always be borne in mind by those who are advocating war that they are contending for a corruption that their forefathers abhorred;
and that they are making Jesus Christ sanction crimes which his purest followers offered up their lives so that they would not commit them.