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The Early Christian Attitude to War
The Early Christian Attitude to War
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Scanned, proofed and corrected from the original edition for your reading pleasure. It is also searchable and contains
hyper-links to chapters.
***
An excerpt from the beginning of the INTRODUCTION:
While ethics, in the usual sense of the word, do not exhaust the content of Christianity, they form one of its largest and most important phases. And inasmuch as ethics are concerned with the practical duties of human life, it is not unnatural that Christian thought should have included among its various activities many investigations into the rules and principles of personal conduct, and should have carried these investigations to an advanced degree of speciality and detail. The quest however has only too often been marred by errors, oversights, and misunderstandings, with the result that ‘casuistry’ has fallen into bad odour and has become suggestive of unreality and pedantry—if not of positive hypocrisy. But a moment’s thought will show us that every sincere and practical Christian must, however he may dislike the word, be a casuist at least for himself; he must think out the practical bearing of his principles, weigh up pros and cons, balance one principle against another whenever (as is continually happening in the complexities of actual life) they come into conflict, and so work out some sort of a code of laws for his daily guidance. Further than that, Christianity imposes upon its adherents the duty of explaining, defending, inculcating, and propagating the Christian virtues, as well as that of living them out: and this duty is not completely met even by the strong witness of a good example, nor is it cancelled by the important modifications introduced by the subjective differences between oneself and one’s neighbour. Casuistry therefore, when properly understood, must always remain an important branch of Christian study, as the science which is concerned with the determination, within duly recognized limits, of the practical duties of the Christian life.
Of this science the history of Christian ethics will necessarily be a very important part. The example of our Christian forefathers indeed can never be of itself a sufficient basis for the settlement of our own conduct to-day: the very variations of that example would make such dependence impossible. At the same time the solution of our own ethical problems will involve a study of the mind of Christendom on the same or similar questions during bygone generations: and, for this purpose, perhaps no period of Christian history is so important as that of the first three centuries. It is true that during that period the Christian mind was relatively immature: it was still in the simplicity of its childhood; it was largely obsessed and deluded by mistaken eschatological hopes; it was not faced with many of the urgent problems that have since challenged the Church and are challenging it to-day; it seems to us to have been strangely blind and backward even on some matters that did face it, e.g. the existence of slavery, and of various other social anomalies. But over against all this we have to set the facts that the first three centuries were the period in which the work of the Church in morally and spiritually regenerating human life was done with an energy and a success that have never since been equalled, when the power springing from her Founder’s personal life pulsated with more vigour and intensity than was possible at a greater distance, when incipient decay was held in check by repeated purification in the fires of persecution, and when the Church’s vision had not been distorted or her conscience dulled by compromises with the world.
Among the many problems of Christian ethics, the most urgent and challenging at the present day is undoubtedly that of the Christian attitude to war. Christian thought in the past has frequently occupied itself with this problem; but there has never been a time when the weight of it pressed more heavily upon the minds of Christian people than it does to-day. The events of the past few years have forced upon every thoughtful person throughout practically the whole civilized world the necessity of arriving at some sort of a decision on this complicated and critical question—in countless cases a decision in which health, wealth, security, reputation, and even life itself have been involved. Nor—if we look only at the broad facts of the situation—would there seem to be much doubt as to the solution of the problem. Everywhere by overwhelming majorities Christian people have pronounced in word and act the same decision, viz. that to fight, to shed blood, to kill—provided it be done in the defence of one’s country or of the weak, for the sanctity of treaties or for the maintenance of international righteousness—is at once the Christian’s duty and his privilege.
hyper-links to chapters.
***
An excerpt from the beginning of the INTRODUCTION:
While ethics, in the usual sense of the word, do not exhaust the content of Christianity, they form one of its largest and most important phases. And inasmuch as ethics are concerned with the practical duties of human life, it is not unnatural that Christian thought should have included among its various activities many investigations into the rules and principles of personal conduct, and should have carried these investigations to an advanced degree of speciality and detail. The quest however has only too often been marred by errors, oversights, and misunderstandings, with the result that ‘casuistry’ has fallen into bad odour and has become suggestive of unreality and pedantry—if not of positive hypocrisy. But a moment’s thought will show us that every sincere and practical Christian must, however he may dislike the word, be a casuist at least for himself; he must think out the practical bearing of his principles, weigh up pros and cons, balance one principle against another whenever (as is continually happening in the complexities of actual life) they come into conflict, and so work out some sort of a code of laws for his daily guidance. Further than that, Christianity imposes upon its adherents the duty of explaining, defending, inculcating, and propagating the Christian virtues, as well as that of living them out: and this duty is not completely met even by the strong witness of a good example, nor is it cancelled by the important modifications introduced by the subjective differences between oneself and one’s neighbour. Casuistry therefore, when properly understood, must always remain an important branch of Christian study, as the science which is concerned with the determination, within duly recognized limits, of the practical duties of the Christian life.
Of this science the history of Christian ethics will necessarily be a very important part. The example of our Christian forefathers indeed can never be of itself a sufficient basis for the settlement of our own conduct to-day: the very variations of that example would make such dependence impossible. At the same time the solution of our own ethical problems will involve a study of the mind of Christendom on the same or similar questions during bygone generations: and, for this purpose, perhaps no period of Christian history is so important as that of the first three centuries. It is true that during that period the Christian mind was relatively immature: it was still in the simplicity of its childhood; it was largely obsessed and deluded by mistaken eschatological hopes; it was not faced with many of the urgent problems that have since challenged the Church and are challenging it to-day; it seems to us to have been strangely blind and backward even on some matters that did face it, e.g. the existence of slavery, and of various other social anomalies. But over against all this we have to set the facts that the first three centuries were the period in which the work of the Church in morally and spiritually regenerating human life was done with an energy and a success that have never since been equalled, when the power springing from her Founder’s personal life pulsated with more vigour and intensity than was possible at a greater distance, when incipient decay was held in check by repeated purification in the fires of persecution, and when the Church’s vision had not been distorted or her conscience dulled by compromises with the world.
Among the many problems of Christian ethics, the most urgent and challenging at the present day is undoubtedly that of the Christian attitude to war. Christian thought in the past has frequently occupied itself with this problem; but there has never been a time when the weight of it pressed more heavily upon the minds of Christian people than it does to-day. The events of the past few years have forced upon every thoughtful person throughout practically the whole civilized world the necessity of arriving at some sort of a decision on this complicated and critical question—in countless cases a decision in which health, wealth, security, reputation, and even life itself have been involved. Nor—if we look only at the broad facts of the situation—would there seem to be much doubt as to the solution of the problem. Everywhere by overwhelming majorities Christian people have pronounced in word and act the same decision, viz. that to fight, to shed blood, to kill—provided it be done in the defence of one’s country or of the weak, for the sanctity of treaties or for the maintenance of international righteousness—is at once the Christian’s duty and his privilege.
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