Old Testament reading
the Law to the Israelites.
The Rambam famously rules that members of the tribe of Levi do not fight in the army. Roots of Christian pacifism can be found in the scriptures of the
Old Testament according to Baylor University professor of religion, John A. Wood. Millard C. Lind explains the theology of warfare in ancient Israel as God directing the people of Israel to trust in him, not in the warring way of the nations, and to seek peace, not coercive power. Stephen B. Chapman expresses the Old Testament describes God's divine intervention, not human power politics, or the warring king, as key to the preservation of Israel. Lind asserts the Old Testament reflects that God occasionally sanctions, even commands wars to the point of God actually fighting utilizing the forces of nature, miraculous acts or other nations. Lind further argues God fights so that Israel does not have to fight wars like other nations because God delivers them. Pacifist God,
John Howard Yoder explains, sustained and directed his community not by power politics but by the creative power of God's word, of speaking through the law and the prophets. The scriptures in the Old Testament provide background of God's great victory over evil, sin and death. Stephen Vantassel contends the Old Testament exists to put the issue of war and killing in historical and situational context. The role of war is developed and changes throughout the Old Testament. Chapman asserts God used war to conquer and provide the Promised Land to Israel, and then to defend that land. The Old Testament explains that Israel does not have to fight wars like other nations because God delivers them. In Exodus 14:13,
Moses instructs the Israelites, "The Lord will fight for you; you need only to be still." The miraculous parting of the Red Sea is God being a warrior for Israel through acts of nature and not human armies. According to Old Testament scholar Peter C. Craige, during the military conquests of the Promised Land, the Israelites fought in real wars against real human enemies; however, it was God who granted them victory in their battles. Yoder affirms as long as Israel trusted and followed God, God would work his power through Israel to drive occupants from lands God willed them to occupy (Exodus 23:27–33). When Israel trusted and obeyed God, the nation prospered; when they rebelled, God spoke through prophets such as Ezekiel and Isaiah, telling Israel that God would wage war against Israel to punish her (Isaiah 59:15–19). War was used in God's ultimate purpose of restoring peace and harmony for the whole earth with the intention towards salvation of all the nations with the coming of the
Messiah and a new covenant. Jacob Enz describes God's plan was to use the nation of Israel for a higher purpose, and that purpose was to be the mediator between all the peoples and God.
Early Church Several
Church Fathers interpreted Jesus' teachings as advocating
nonviolence. For example,
Justin Martyr writes, "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," and, "we who were filled with war, and mutual slaughter, and every wickedness, have each through the whole earth changed our warlike weapons,—our swords into ploughshares, and our spears into implements of tillage,—and we cultivate piety...".
Tatian writes that, "I am not anxious to be rich; I decline military command[...] Die to the world, repudiating the madness that is in it"; and
Aristides writes that "Through love towards their oppressors, they persuade them to become Christians."
Hippolytus of Rome went so far as to deny
soldiers baptism: "A soldier of the civil authority must be taught not to kill men and to refuse to do so if he is commanded, and to refuse to take an oath. If he is unwilling to comply, he must be rejected for baptism."
Tertullian formed an early argument against
statolatry, "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
Cæsar," also writing, "the People warred: if it pleases you to sport with the subject. But how will a Christian man war, nay, how will he serve even in peace, without a sword, which the Lord has taken away?"
Origen, whose father
Leonidus was martyred during the persecution of the Roman emperor
Septimius Severus in the year AD 202, writes, "Jews[...] were permitted to take up arms in defence of the members of their families, and to slay their enemies, the Christian Lawgiver [has] altogether forbidden the putting of men to death[...] He nowhere teaches that it is right for His own disciples to offer violence to any one, however wicked." Further examples include
Arnobius, "evil ought not to be requited with evil, that it is better to suffer wrong than to inflict it, that we should rather shed our own blood than stain our hands and our
conscience with that of another, an ungrateful world is now for a long period enjoying a benefit from Christ";
Archelaus, "many [soldiers] were added to the faith of our Lord Jesus Christ and threw off the belt of military service";
Cyprian of Carthage, "The whole world is wet with mutual blood; and murder, which in the case of an individual is admitted to be a crime, is called a virtue when it is committed wholesale"; and
Lactantius, "For when God forbids us to kill, He not only prohibits us from open violence, which is not even allowed by the public laws, but He warns us against the commission of those things which are esteemed lawful among men. Thus it will be neither lawful for a just man to engage in warfare"; while
Gregory of Nyssa conveys the spirit of
anarchism, "How can a man be master of another's life, if he is not even master of his own? Hence he ought to be poor in spirit, and look at Him who for our sake became poor of His own will; let him consider that we are all equal by nature, and not exalt himself impertinently against his own race."
Saint Maximilian of Tebessa was executed by the order of the proconsul Dion for his refusal to serve in the Roman army as he thought killing was evil; he became recognized as a
Christian martyr. However, many early Christians also
served in the army, with multiple
military saints before the time of
Constantine, and the presence of large numbers of Christians in his army may have been a factor in the conversion of Constantine to Christianity.
Marcus Aurelius allegedly reported to the Roman Senate that his Christian soldiers fought with prayers instead of conventional weapons, which resulted in the Rain Miracle of the
Marcomannic Wars.
Conversion of the Roman Empire After the Roman Emperor Constantine converted in AD 312 and began to conquer "in Christ's name", Christianity became entangled with the state, and warfare and violence were increasingly justified by influential Christians. For example,
St. Augustine of Hippo advocated for state persecution of
Donatists, while, according to
Athanasius, "it is not right to kill, yet in war it is lawful and praiseworthy to destroy the enemy; accordingly not only are they who have distinguished themselves in the field held worthy of great honours, but monuments are put up proclaiming their achievements." Some scholars believe that "the accession of Constantine terminated the pacifist period in church history." Nevertheless, the tradition of Christian pacifism was carried on by a few dedicated Christians throughout the ages, such as
Martin of Tours, who converted during the early days of Christianity in Europe. Martin, who was then a young soldier, declared in AD 336, "I am a soldier of Christ. I cannot fight." He was jailed for this action, but later released, eventually becoming just the third
Bishop of Tours.
Middle Ages Sacramentary,
Saint Boniface baptizing (top) and being
martyred (bottom) According to the Bonifacian
hagiography,
Boniface, in 754, set out with a
retinue for
Frisia, with the hope of converting the
Frisians. He baptized a great number and summoned a general meeting for confirmation at a place not far from
Dokkum, between
Franeker and
Groningen. Instead of his converts, however, a group of armed robbers appeared who slew the aged archbishop. The hagiography mention that Boniface persuaded his (armed) comrades to lay down their arms: "Cease fighting. Lay down your arms, for we are told in scripture not to render evil for evil but to overcome evil by good." Having killed Boniface and his company, the Frisian bandits ransacked their possessions but found that the company's luggage did not contain the riches they had hoped for: "they broke open the chests containing the books and found, to their dismay, that they held manuscripts instead of gold vessels, pages of sacred texts instead of silver plates." The
Peace and Truce of God was a movement in the
Middle Ages led by the Catholic Church and the first mass peace movement in history. The goal of both the and the was to limit the violence of
feuding endemic to the
western half of the former
Carolingian Empire – following its collapse in the middle of the
9th century – using the threat of spiritual sanctions. The
eastern half of the former Carolingian Empire did not experience the same collapse of central authority, and neither did England. The Peace of God was first proclaimed in 989, at the
Council of Charroux held at
Charroux, Vienne. It sought to protect ecclesiastical property, agricultural resources and unarmed clerics. The Truce of God, first proclaimed in 1027 at the Council of
Toulouges, attempted to limit the days of the week and times of year that the nobility engaged in violence. in Ascoli Piceno, Italy, by
Carlo Crivelli (15th century) By the
13th century,
Thomas Aquinas was bold enough to declare, concerning animals, "I answer that[...] it is lawful to kill dumb animals, in so far as they are naturally directed to man's use, as the imperfect is directed to the perfect." After becoming disillusioned with his own military service in the army of
Walter III, Count of Brienne, Saint
Francis of Assisi advanced an even more inclusive vision of Christian pacifism in his denunciation of the warfare which accompanied the
Fifth Crusade. In addition to reminding his followers that "Your God is of your flesh, He lives in your nearest neighbor, in
every man", Francis outlined a pacifistic vision in the
Canticle of the Sun which calls for a universal reverence of all living creatures in the natural world.
Cathars portraying the story of a disputation between
Saint Dominic and the Cathars (Albigensians), in which the books of both were thrown on a fire and Dominic's books were miraculously preserved from the flames
Catharism was a Christian
dualist or
Gnostic movement between the 12th and 14th centuries which thrived in
Southern Europe, particularly in
northern Italy and
southern France. Followers were described as Cathars and referred to themselves as Good Christians, and are now mainly remembered for a prolonged period of persecution by the
Catholic Church, which did not recognize their unorthodox Christianity. Catharism arrived in Western Europe in the
Languedoc region of France in the 11th century. While most information concerning Cathar belief was written by their accusers, and therefore may be inaccurate, purportedly they were strict pacifists and rigorous
ascetics, abjuring war, killing, lying, swearing, and carnal relations in accordance with their understanding of the
Gospel. Allegedly rejecting the Old Testament, Cathars despised dogmatic elements of Christianity, while their Priests (
Perfects) subsisted on a diet of little more than vegetables cooked in oil, or fish not a product of sexual union. is a phrase reportedly spoken by the commander of the
Albigensian Crusade, prior to the
massacre at Béziers on 22 July 1209. A direct translation of the
Medieval Latin phrase is "Kill them. The Lord knows those that are his own."
Lollardy is shown giving the Bible translation that bore his name to his Lollard followers.
The Twelve Conclusions of the Lollards, a 1395 document of
Lollardy, asserts that Christians should refrain from warfare, and in particular that wars given religious justifications, such as crusades, are blasphemous because Christ taught men to love and forgive their enemies.
Post-Reformation 's statue in
Chelčice As early as 1420,
Petr Chelčický taught that Christians must never use violence or killing. Chelčický used the
parable of the wheat and the tares (Matthew 13:24–30) to show that both the sinners and the saints should be allowed to live together until the harvest. He thought that it is wrong to kill even the sinful and that
Christians should refuse
military service. He argued that if the poor refused, the lords would have no one to go to war for them. Nearly a century later, the Catholic
humanist Erasmus adopted a similar pacifistic view against indiscriminate warfare in his
The Complaint of Peace (1517) by asserting that the only sufficient legitimate condition for waging war is whether it is
first supported by a vote of
all the people. Soon thereafter, the German theologian and mystic
Sebastian Franck argued in his
War Book of Peace (1539) that a "Just War" is as rare as "storkes in winter". Since then, many other Christians have made similar stands for
pacifism as the following quotes show:
Charles Spurgeon did not explicitly identify as a pacifist but expressed very strongly worded anti-war sentiment.
Leo Tolstoy wrote extensively on Christian pacifism, while
Mohandas K. Gandhi considered Tolstoy's
The Kingdom of God is Within You as the text to have the most influence in his life. in 1910.
Gandhi is in the middle, second row fifth from the right. ==Christian pacifist denominations==