the Providence of God. If it brought happiness, it was received gratefully as a Divine blessing: if it brought pain or sorrow, it was submitted to resignedly as a Divine chastisement. Thus, even according to the Apocalyptist, "it was given" to the persecuting governor to persecute 1-he was in some sense allowed or authorized by God to do it for the achievement of some good end, such as the chastisement or discipline of the Church. On the other hand, when this great imperial government conferred on its subjects the benefits of law and order and security of life and property, then too it could be regarded as the agent of Divine love and justice. Again, prayer for rulers is common—or at least possible— to both extremes. When the rulers persecuted, the prayers were for their pardon and conversion; when they protected the innocent and repressed crime, the prayers were for their health, strength, and stability. Further, both extremes would have agreed in complying in practice with all government commands that did not involve disobedience to Christian faith and teaching, and in refusing compliance with such as did. And finally, both extremes believed that the Empire would in the near future be brought to an end and all evil-doers punished through the Parousia of Jesus and the Last Judgment.

The main difference between them lay in this. The Apocalyptist ignored the beneficent work of the government, and looked only at its official idolatry, its cruel persecutions, and its various other abuses these things stamped it as a Satanic institution. The loyal Christian in peaceful times ignored the persecution and the personal crimes of governors, and looked only at the wonderful Pax Romana' and the general system of law and order which he was glad to enjoy hence he could think and speak of the imperial rule as a Divinely ordained blessing.

Neither party as yet seems to have given much thought to the further problem, whether or how far a Christian could rightly cooperate as an official with the government, and how far the functions of an official--involving not only continual contact with idolatry, but also continual participation in acts of violence and cruelty (such as scourging and crucifixion)—could be combined with a faithful obedience to Christian ethical teaching. The silence of our records must not be taken as implying a verdict one way or another on this point. Except in the case of Flavius Clemens and possibly one or

1 See p. 181 nr.

2 Weinel SUS 17:

"Eine unbedingte Grenze für den Gehorsam aber mussten doch auch diese Friedensmänner gelten lassen," u.s.w.

two others, the question had not yet arisen: for the comparatively humble station and the unpopularity of the great mass of Christians -not to mention the ubiquity and prominence of the intolerable Kaiserkult—were alone sufficient virtually to debar them from official life.

CHAPTER V

WAR

THE CHRISTIAN LOVE OF PEACE.-Peace held a very high place in the Christian scale of values. Ignatius exclaims: "Nothing is better than peace, by which all war of those in heaven and those on earth is abolished." 1 With the question of the maintenance of peace and harmony within the Church we are not here immediately concerned, though it is worth noticing how inseparable a characteristic or accompaniment of Christianity peace was considered to be, and what serious and strenuous efforts were made to prevent it being disturbed or broken by dissension or strife.3 Christians also desired and endeavoured to be at peace with the outside world. They naturally wished to be kept safe from the assaults of their enemies.4 Their love for peace, however, went beyond a mere concern for their own tranquillity. In the liturgical prayer at the end of the epistle of Clemens of Rome occurs a petition for world-wide peace among men generally. Give concord and peace to us and to all who inhabit the earth, as Thou gavest to our fathers . . . we being obedient to Thine almighty and most excellent Name and to our rulers and governors upon the earth." 5 Then he prays specially for the rulers: "Give

1

1 Ig. E xiii. 2. Mention is made elsewhere of a heavenly army" (Lc ii. 13) and of war (Ap xii. 7f) and peace (Lc xix. 38) in heaven. Clemens enlarges on the peace with which the natural world and the living creatures fulfil their functions (1 Cl. xx. 1, 9-11; cf. lvi. 12).

2

E.g. Lc ii. 14 (cf. Moffatt in DAC ii. 650b); Ac x. 36; J xiv. 27, xvi. 33 ; B xxi. 9. Note also the repeated use of the word in greetings and farewells. * Mt xviii. 15-17; D xiv. 2, xv. 3 ; Β xix. 12 (οὐ ποιήσεις σχίσμα, εἰρηνεύσεις dè μaxoμévous σvvayayor similarly D iv. 3); 1 Cl. saepe; Ig. Ph. x. 1, T int. In 1 Cl. iii. 2, xlvi. 5, Jac iv. 1, the word Toleuos is used of dissension within the Church.

4 Lc i. 71, 74, 79; 1 Cl. lvi. 9, lx. 3. They knew, however, that, except by unfaithfulness to Christ, a certain amount of conflict with the world was inevitable (Mt x. 34ff=Lc xii. 51ff).

"I Cl. lx. 4.

them, Lord, health, peace, concord, stability, in order that they may administer without offence the government that has been given them by Thee. . . . Do Thou, Lord, direct their counsel . . . in order that they, administering piously in peace and gentleness the authority given them by Thee, may find favour with Thee." 1 Reflection is cast on the incessant wars of men in the 'Vision of Isaiah.' The prophet ascends to the firmament, " and there I saw Sammael and his hosts, and there was great fighting therein, and the angels of Satan were envying one another. And as above, so on the earth also; for the likeness of that which is in the firmament is here on the earth. And I said unto the angel (who was with me): (What is this war and) what is this envying?' And he said unto me: So has it been since the world was made until now, and this war (will continue) till He whom thou shalt see shall come and destroy him.' " 2

While thus in general terms peace was praised and strife and contention deprecated as unchristian, and while also much in a practical way was done by Christians in cultivating habits of peace both among themselves and also in their relations with the world outside, yet the Christian mind stopped short of pronouncing an unqualified condemnation of war. The verdict of disapproval was subject to limitation in three directions.

THE WARS OF HEBREW HISTORY.-As has already been pointed out, the Hebrew Scriptures, taken over and held sacred by the Church, were regarded as sanctifying and exempting from human criticism all that was not actually censured by the biblical authors themselves. Christians thus read and thought of the wars of the Old Testament without any notion of a conflict between the ethical standard of past times and that of their own. Luke recalls the patriotic allusions made by both Stephen and Paul to the conquest of Canaan by the Israelites. Clemens tells in detail the story of Rahab and the spies, making the scarlet thread she bound in her window a type of the Lord's redeeming blood.4 Barnabas' finds a type of the cross in the hands of Moses extended above the battle between Israel and Amalek, and a type of Jesus himself in 'Joshua

"

1 I Cl. lxi. If.

2 VI ap. AI vii. 9-12 (the bracketed words are found only in the Latin version). Cf. x. 29-31, where Christ, descending through the heavens, comes to the firmament where the ruler of this world dwells, but is not recognized, for "they were envying one another and fighting; for here there is a power of evil, and envying about trifles." When he passes the angels of the air, one was plundering and doing violence to another."

3 Ac vii. 45, xiii. 19.

4 Cl. xii: cf. the laudatory allusion to her in Jac ii. 25.

whom Moses ordered to record God's determination of eternal war against the same national foes of Israel.1 It must not, of course, be assumed that whatever Christians revered or left uncensured because it was scriptural, they would be prepared to practise themselves. The ancient Hebrew wars were simply kept in a different compartment of the mind from the principles of daily Christian life, and at first the former in all probability exercised absolutely no influence on the latter.2 At the same time, one must note that, when participation in war became a Christian problem, the fact that the Old Testament wars were traditionally justified had some effect in preventing a unanimous decision against such participation.

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THE MESSIANIC WARS. The Messianic wars-already partly accomplished in the Roman conquest of Judæa and the fall of Jerusalem-formed a second department in which the Christian mind contemplated war without any suggestion of moral disapprobation attaching to it. Luke and Matthew,' in their versions of the apocalyptic discourses of Jesus, represent the Jewish war and the siege and destruction of Jerusalem as part of the punishment to be meted out to the nation as a result of their rejection of Christ.5 'Barnabas' says that the Temple of the Jews was destroyed by their enemies because they went to war. In the 'Sibylline Oracles' the destruction of the Temple is represented as a punishment for the murders and ungodliness of which the Jews were guilty."

But the Jewish war of 70 A.D. had not exhausted the military element in Christian Messianism. Jerusalem indeed had fallen, but the Lord was not yet come; and the latter event, no less than the former, was due to be heralded by various wars. "Ye will hear of wars and rumours of wars : see (to it); be not amazed: for (this) must happen, but the end is not yet. For nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom, and there will be famines and earthquakes in divers places. All these things are the beginning of birth-pangs." 8 This theme of Messianic warfare appears in a multitude of different manifestations in the pages of the Apocalypse. The opening of the first, second, and fourth

1 B xii. 2, 8f.

2 See above, p. 118 n 2.

3 Harnack MC 11, quoted below, p. 187 n I. 4 Cf. Moffatt in DAC ii. 649b-653a.

Mt xxiv. 1f, 6-8, 15-22; Lc xvii. 31-37, xix. 41-44, xxi. 5f, 9-11, 20–24. Cf. Mt xxiii. 34–36||.

B xvi. 4.

7 Sib. Orac. iv. 115-118, 125-127.

• Mt xxiv. 6-8=Lc xxi. 9–11. According to the 'Vision of Isaiah' (AI yii. 12), the war continues incessantly from the Creation to the Parousia,

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seals usher in disastrous wars.1 Christ is represented as a conqueror, having a sharp two-edged sword issuing from his mouth : he threatens to make war with it upon the Nicolaitans, and to slay Jezebel's children. A tremendous conflict is about to come, in which Christ will conquer the Beast and the kings of the earth with terrific slaughter. After Christ's millennial reign, there will be further wars against Gog and Magog." Luke represents Jesus in the parable of the Pounds as describing the king on his return summoning into his presence for execution those who did not. wish him to reign over them.8 [The idea of war as an element in God's punitive justice appears in other less distinctively apocalyptic passages in the literature of our period. Thus Clemens speaks of God as the champion and defender of those who serve Him, and quotes the Isaianic threat: "If ye are unwilling and will not hear me, the sword shall devour you.'

"' 10

The idea of a victorious war to be waged by Christ against his enemies was an element in Christian belief taken over directly from Jewish apocalyptic. With the Jews such a belief might at any time take practical form in the proclamation of a holy war against the foes of God's chosen people. When transplanted to Christian soil, the risk of an attempt to anticipate by force of arms the Messiah's final triumph virtually disappeared. It was not till long after the present period that a holy war was proclaimed in Christendom. The Christian took no part as an earthly warrior in fighting for Messiah's victory. The warrior-Christ would win his victories with armies of angels. Nevertheless, this belief 2 Ap iii. 21, v. 5, vi. 2: cf. J xvi. 33. Ap ii. 16.

1 Ap vi. 1-8.

3

Ap i. 16, ii. 12, xix. 15, 21.

5 Ap ii. 23.

11

* 1 Cl. xlv. 7 (ὑπέρμαχος καὶ ὑπερασπιστής).

Cf. 4th Ezra xiii. for the

8 Lc xix. 27.

10 I Cl. viii. 4; Isa i. 20.

11 The whole question is fully discussed by Moffatt in DAC ii. 652f and by Harnack in MC 8-12. I transcribe a few sentences from the latter: "Die Heerscharen aber, welche ihn" (Christ) "dann begleiten und unter seiner Führung streiten werden, sind nicht Menschen, sondern Engel. . . . Infolge davon wurde die Stimmung der Gläubigen von hier aus keine kriegerische oder vielmehr eine kriegerische im passiven Sinn. Der Jude zog in der letzten Not wirklich das Schwert und griff dem Messias vor; er hatte ja auch ein Land, eine heilige Stadt und einen Tempel zu verteidigen. Der Christ aber war angewiesen, auf seinen Christus-victor zu warten. Wohl füllte sich seine Phantasie, wie die Johannes-Apokalypse zeigt, auch mit kriegerischen Bildern des Hasses und der Rache; aber er muss immer Geduld haben und sehnsüchtig auf den Moment ausblicken, in welchem er Zuschauer des grossen Kampfs und Siegs sein wird" (9f). He then utters a warning against overestimating the importance of the eschatological point of view, and proceeds: "Man darf auch die psychologische Tatsache nicht vergessen, dass die Welt der Phantasie