August 16, 2019 • 42 mins
- A huge thanks to Joseph McDade for his generous permission to use his music: https://josephmcdade.com/
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- “The Early Church on Killing:" https://www.amazon.com/Early-Church-Killing-Comprehensive-Sourcebook-ebook/dp/B008846P1I/ref=sr_1_1?keywords=the+early+church+on+killing&qid=1564738154&s=gateway&sr=8-1
- Phillip Mast
- patrick H
- Laverne Miller
- Jesse Killion
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Derek (00:06):
Welcome back to the Fourth Way podcast. This is our
3rd episode in our series Makinga Positive Case for Christian
Nonviolence. In the firstepisode I told you a little bit
about my story and where I camefrom, and how uncovering some of
my biases and presuppositionswas was, vital for me to
(00:31):
understand the case for nonviolence and to accept that. And
then in the last episode, Italked a little bit about the
Biblical framework, both OldTestament and New Testament, and
how we can take a look at whatwe see of non violence
throughout the Bible. Today, weare going to be talking about
Church history, and we'll bequoting quite a few Church
(00:53):
Fathers and getting into some ofthe context of the early Church.
So, before we get into that, I'dI want to lay out a little bit
about why church history is soimportant. And, if you're a
Protestant like I am, then youmight not be very familiar with
with church history. It's just abunch of old dead guys, what
(01:16):
does it really matter? Becausewhat matters now is is what we
believe. But that's not reallythe case, because in the early
church you have people who areeither directly speaking to
apostles, like Polycarp andJohn, or you have people who who
are directly speaking to peoplewho directly spoke to the
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apostles.
I mean, you've got people whoare are extremely close to the
time of Christ and to the timeof the apostles, and that is
going to be very valuable for usto see what were they adhering
to so close to the time ofChrist. And, what we're gonna
see today when we look at theChurch history of, the position
(02:01):
of non violence, we're going tosee that this is really powerful
for a number of reasons. And,the first reason is because, not
only because of proximity, whichwe just talked about, but
because the Church stands on nonviolence at least for the 1st
300 years, and we'll talk aboutthat change a little bit later,
(02:22):
but at least for the 1st 300years is univocal. And, what
what we mean by that is thatpretty much everybody agreed on
the position of non violence.You hardly ever find anybody who
who disagrees, and if you dofind any statement of
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disagreement, it's really kindof questionable, like, well,
what did what did the authorreally mean there?
Or, there's some context thattends to illuminate, what they
actually meant, and it doesn'tmean that they're advocating
violence. And there are only ahandful of those sorts of
quotes. So, I mean, we've got acase here for nonviolence, which
(03:03):
is all for nonviolence. Youdon't really see anything
against it. And that's a bigdeal because, especially in the
early early church well, I guessI shouldn't say especially
because even today I mean, whenare Christians univocal about
anything?
Never. And, in the early church,when they're kind of hashing
(03:24):
these things out and trying tofigure out what Orthodoxy is,
you just don't see them agreeingon things. They don't agree on
Hell, and whether that waseternal conscious torment or
annihilation or what. Theydidn't agree on the Trinity for
quite a while on on all thenuances of that. They didn't
agree on all of the canonicalbooks for quite some time, till
(03:49):
they had to to call a meetingfor that.
I mean, we've got we've gotpeople who largely disagree on
just about every issue you'regonna find disagreement. You
don't find that with the casefor nonviolence in the first 300
or so years of church history.The other reason, like I
(04:10):
mentioned, is, is that, it'searly, so proximity is a pretty
big deal. And then, the thethird reason we've got for the
importance of church history isthat there is a lot of power in
the fact that this case for nonviolence is not really a
(04:31):
formation of synthesis, but it'srather a formation by
preservation. What do I mean bythat?
Well, the Trinity was aformation by synthesis, and you
have people who are piecingtogether a lot of different
things, and they don't comeright out of the gate expressing
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the trinity. They're expressingJesus as God, but they I mean,
they're just really they're notsure how to work all that, and
especially with the Holy Spirit.I mean, it's it's just kinda
confusing, and they're kind ofsynthesizing all of these
separate pieces of informationtrying to figure out how they go
together. And it takes them awhile to be able to formulate
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something, to be able torecognize what's what's going
on. With the case fornonviolence, we don't really see
that come into play.
We don't have a synthesis wherethey have to kind of piece these
things together and they'refeeling things out. It's right
out of the gates they arenonviolent, and they're not
synthesizing anything becauseit's clear. This is what Jesus
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taught. So keeping all of thosethings in mind, as we hear some
of the the church fathers, speaka little bit later. It's gonna
be important to remember thosethings on on why the early
Church is very important.
Another thing that we need to toaddress before we get into some
(06:01):
of these quotes is that thereare really 2 views on why
violence is a problem. And, thefirst one's pretty basic and
what you'd expect, and that isthat life is not ours to take.
In the Old Testament, when youdo see killing, it any killing
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that is approved, that islegitimate tends to be approved
by God, by the by the authors ofthe Old Testament. Joshua
doesn't just go in and slaughterCanaanites. God says, look.
They're doing these wickedthings. They're they're burning
their children in the fires ofMolech and listening to them
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scream. You need to do somethingabout that, Joshua. Go take care
of that. And so any killing thatyou do see in the Old Testament,
it it is it is God's permissionthat validates it, on one view
at least, and we'll talk aboutmore views on the Old Testament
later.
But it it is, God's directivethat validates that. Life is not
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ours to take. And in the NewTestament, God certainly says
that vengeance is His, and Jesusnot only tells us to love our
enemies, but He shows us how todo it. And so, life is not ours
to take. We don't do that.
And that's what the earlychurch, many of the fathers will
kind of show us here. The secondthing is going to relate to,
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this idea of not doing thebidding of another kingdom. So,
there are some quotes that Ihave which aren't directly tied
to killing, they're more tied togovernment office. And there are
a lot of reasons that aChristian might not want to be
involved in Roman governmentoffice, ranging from the oaths
that they would have to take,the feasts that they would have
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to go to, the idolatry, themaybe kissing the bust of
Caesar, whatever it is that theyhad to do that dealt with with
idols and oaths. But, certainly,an aspect of it as well was was
killing.
And, and another aspect of itwas doing the bidding of another
kingdom. We are only servant toGod, and His kingdom is not of
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this world. We are aliens. Andwhat you're gonna see from some
of these church fathers is thatwe, we don't kill because not
only is that taking life, whichis not ours to take, but it's
also doing the bidding ofanother kingdom, and that's not
our position either. So, whenyou see something that's related
to government and not directlykilling, don't think, well, that
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has nothing to do with nonviolence.
Because, on the second view,this, and we talked about it in
the last episode, with Christ'skingdom not being of this world,
that has a lot to do with theway that we we fight enemies
here. Are we fighting againstflesh and blood? Can our flesh
and blood kingdom tell us whatwe're to do? Or do we have a
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different directive? Are we inChrist's kingdom, which is not
of this world, and do we havedifferent means at our disposal?
And, do we wait on God'svengeance? And, those are the
two lines of lines of thoughtthat you have to kind of keep in
mind when you hear these quotes.Finally, one of the other things
I love about the early Churchquotes that we've got here
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coming up is that there's a hugediversity of sources. We've got
sources that range from, like,ecumenical documents or, church
documents. So, these aredocuments that are are from
groups, not just individuals.
And then we've got, the churchfathers. Right? Individuals,
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theologians. And then we've gotenemy attestation, which is
always a good one to to be ableto see, because this isn't
Christians propping up their owncause, this is what are people
observing about Christians whohate Christians and aren't
really going to want to throwany Christians a bone? They're
not gonna wanna give them anycompliments or anything.
(10:12):
So let's let's hop on in. I'mgonna start with with, what I
think are some of the mostpowerful, examples. And the
first one we're gonna go with isan ecumenical council. We're
gonna look at canon 12 of the325 Council of Nicaea. And this
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is important because anecumenical council means that
you've basically got all of thechurches who are going to this
council, which are a lot fromall over the kingdom.
You've got all of these churchessaying, Yeah, we put our stamp
of approval on this, we agree tothis. That's huge, because this
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isn't just one, one guy writingand you can excuse and say,
Well, he was kinda kooky on thispoint. No. This is, this is the
church that has said this. Sohere we go.
Canon 12 of the Council ofNicaea, year 325. As many as
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were called by grace anddisplayed the first zeal, having
cast aside their militarygirdles, but afterwards returned
like dogs to their own vomit, sothat some spent money and by
means of gifts regained theirmilitary stations, let these
after they have passed the spaceof 3 years as hearers, be for 10
years prostrators. But in allthese cases, it is necessary to
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examine well into their purposeand what their repentance
appears to be. For as many asgive evidence of their
conversions by deeds, and notpretense, with fear and tears
and perseverance and good works,when they have fulfilled their
appointed time as hearers, mayproperly communicate in prayers,
and after that the bishop maydetermine that, yet more
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favorably concerning them. Butthose who take the matter with
indifference and who think theform of not entering the Church
is sufficient for theirconversion must fulfill the
whole time.
Alright, so what's he saying?He's saying that, look, we've
we've got a problem. If you'regonna cast aside this thing that
you first accepted, and you'regonna return to the military,
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like, quote, dogs to their ownvomit, that's a problem. You
don't go to the military as aChristian. You don't do that.
And now you could say there arelots of reasons for that, but
this is 325 and we've got anation that has is now friendly
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to Christianity. And they'resaying, no. We don't we don't
do, we don't do the military.Now, this is the last you're
really gonna see of of that kindof thing, because things in the
early 300 started to change forfor, a particular reason we'll
get to. But with the Council ofNicaea here, I mean, you've got
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them saying that the military isnot a good place to be.
The second document we've gothere is the Apostolic Tradition.
And, this was written around200, so it's quite a bit earlier
than the Council of Nicaea. And,as far as I know, it was not an
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ecumenical council, it's just adocument of, you know, a larger,
of a church, a group of people.One who is a gladiator or
teaches gladiators orswordsmanship or military skills
or weapons training should stopor be excluded. A soldier in the
Sovereign's Army should notkill, or if he is ordered to
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kill, he should refuse.
If he stops, so be it.Otherwise, he should be
excluded. Concerning those whowear red, or believers who
become soldiers, or astrologers,or magicians, or such like, let
them be excluded. Alright. So,what do we got here?
We see 2 things. The first oneis that, people who wear red are
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supposed to be excluded, whichis a generally agreed, is a
reference to, governmentalservice, wearing red or purple
sometimes references,governmental service, and so
that's kind of forbidden here bythe apostolic tradition. And,
the second thing you're gonnanotice is that, okay, he talks
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about gladiators andswordsmanship. Okay, well, we
get that. We can understand notbeing involved in that.
But they also say, or militaryskills or weapons training
should stop or be excluded, asoldier in the Sovereign's army
should not kill. And this thisshould kind of remind you of, or
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we'll we'll come back to thiswhen we talk about John the
Baptist telling the centurionswhat to do, and, you know, not
forbidding the centurions toremain in the army. And we see
here that being in the army isnot particularly forbidden, but
what is forbidden is that ifyou're in the army, you better
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not kill. If you're ordered tokill, you better refuse. So,
that is something to kind oftuck away and take note of.
Being an army was not forbidden,but killing was. Couple other
more, larger church documents,documents that represent, groups
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rather than individuals, you cansee the testament of our Lord,
the Didache, the canons ofHippolytus Hippolytus. Sorry if
I said that wrong. And we can wealso have an inferential
statement from the sonata ofArles. You can see those quotes
on my website, which I'll linkat the end, or I think all of
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those may be in, a book calledThe Early Church on Killing.
And, I will put a link to thatbook as well. So, that was
ecumenical or larger churchdocuments. Let's now talk about
examples of converts. What do wesee about people who were in the
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military, who, became Christianswhile in the military, or who
were in the military and maybeduring a time of peace and then
a time of war came and they wereasked to fight? Do we have any
examples of that?
And, yes, we do. We haveMarcellus the centurion,
supposedly the mid to late 200,and he is said to have left the
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armies of Diocletian. AndDiocletian was a pretty bad dude
who did lots of, persecuting.And, there's a very intense
persecution under him. So,Marcellus the centurion says, I
serve Jesus Christ, the eternalKing.
I will no longer serve youremperors. It is not right for a
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Christian to serve the armies ofthis world. Alright? Next one,
Maximilian of Tabesa, around thesame time as Marcellus. Why do
you want to know my name?
It is not permitted to me toserve in the military since I am
a Christian. I cannot serve inthe military. I cannot do wrong.
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I am a Christian. I will not doit.
I cannot serve in the military.I will not serve. Cut off my
head. I do not serve the world,but I do serve my God. 3rd quote
from an example of a convertfrom the Army is a Martin of
Tours.
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A Martin came a bit later, midto late 300, So, it would have
been a lot more acceptable forhim to be in the army. But I
guess depending on on, his hisconvictions that may have
carried over from preConstantine and Augustine, or
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maybe just those kingdomteachings hadn't kinda made it
around to him yet, the the kindof change in, change in
leadership. But Martin says,hitherto, I have served you as a
soldier. Allow me now to becomea soldier to God. Let the man
who is to serve you receive yourdonative.
I am a soldier of Christ. It isnot permissible for me to fight.
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Alright. So we've got, we've gotecumenical councils, we've got
larger church documents, andwe've got examples of people
coming out of the army. Whatelse do we have?
Well, we've got probably the thebulk of what we have is from
some of the major churchfathers. So who do we have?
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Well, there are quite a lothere. And, again, you're gonna
wanna go to to my website, orcheck out the book that I
recommended to see all of thesequotes. I am just picking out a
a very small portion here.
The first person that we have isLactantius, and he in particular
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has has a ton of good quotes,which, you need to go check out.
But Lactantius says, for whenGod forbids us to kill, he not
only prohibits us from openviolence, which is not even
allowed by the public laws, butHe warns us against the
commission of those beings whichare esteemed lawful among men.
Therefore, with regard to thisprecept of God, there ought to
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be no exception at all, but thatit is always unlawful to put to
death a man whom God willed tobe a sacred animal. Now I
believe Lactantius, as well as,some other individuals, would
say literally, there are noexceptions to kill. You're
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assaulted, you don't kill.
You are in the army, you don'tkill. It doesn't matter. Capital
punishment. You shouldn't be anexecutioner. You do not kill.
We cannot put people to death.That is not what people of the
kingdom of Christ do. That wasLactantius. Tertullian. I've got
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2 quotes from him.
We'll start with the extendedone. And, so I'm sorry.
Lactantius was around between250 and the early 300, and
Tertullian is around 150 to theearly 200. So, he's a bit
earlier than Lactantius. Butnow, inquiry is made about this
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point, whether a believer mayturn himself unto military
service, and whether themilitary may be admitted unto
the faith, even the rank andfile, or each inferior grade to
whom there is no necessity fortaking part in sacrifices or
capital punishments.
There's no agreement between thedivine and the human sacrament,
the standards of Christ and thestandards of the devil, the camp
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of light and the camp ofdarkness. One soul cannot be due
to 2 masters, God and Caesar.And yet, Moses carried a rod,
and Aaron wore a buckle, andJohn is girt with leather, and
Joshua, the son of Nun, leads aline of march, and the people
ward, if it pleases you to sportwith a subject. But how will a
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Christian man war? Nay, how willhe serve even in peace without a
sword which the Lord has takenaway?
For albeit soldiers had comeunto John and had received the
formula of their rule, albeitlikewise a centurion had
believed. Still, the Lordafterward, in disarming Peter,
unbelted every soldier, no dressis lawful among us if assigned
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to any unlawful action. SoTertullian there is essentially
saying that, look, if you canget into the army and you don't
have to do these sacrifices toidols and you don't have to do
capital punishment, you know, isit, is it okay for us to be in
in the armies? And he lists allof these people that, that were
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fighters throughout the Bibleor, held weapons or even John
the Baptist and dealing with acenturion. And he says, okay.
So we got all that, but you'vegot a bigger you've got a bigger
problem on your hand if you'retrying to argue violence. And
that is the last person that wesee and the clearest revelation
of God, Jesus Christ, he tellsPeter to sheathe that sword. And
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in doing that, he's telling usall to sheathe the sword.
Because, you know,metaphorically, okay, well,
Peter wasn't supposed to kill,but was that just a command for
Peter? And maybe it was in onesense, but then Jesus Christ
submits to death and does noviolence even though he could
have called 10,000 angels.
Right? So Tertullian is heresaying, no. Look. Peter the
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command for Peter to see thisword, that's for all of us. I
don't care.
All these other examples youwanna give me, go ahead and give
them. I give you Jesus. Thattrumps everything. What do you
got? You don't have anything.
That's that's what what I thinkTurtullian is saying. So let's
read a second quote from him. Tobegin with, the real ground of
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the military crown, I think wemust first inquire whether
warfare is proper at all forChristians. What sense is there
in discussing the merelyaccidental, when that on which
it rests is to be condemned? Dowe believe it lawful for a human
oath to be superadded to onedivine, for a man to come under
promise to another master afterChrist?
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Shall it be held lawful to makean occupation of the sword when
the Lord proclaims that he whouses the sword shall perish by
the sword? And shall the son ofpeace take part in the battle
when it does not become him evento sue it law? Indeed, if
putting my strength to thequestion, I banish from us the
military life. So, that one isone of the more clear, second
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lines of reasoning that wetalked about. Right?
A lot of the other ones aresaying, don't kill because
that's not our right. It's notour life to take. Chatelain here
is is arguing more from our,from kingship and our
allegiance. I've got a quotefrom Ambrose here. And,
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something that I want to sayabout Ambrose is that, The thing
about Ambrose is that he hassome quotes that are are really
good.
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But the problem with him is thathe he really wasn't a great
person to to point out pacifism.Because he was all for, like,
slaughtering the barbarians and,and just killing them. But what
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you're gonna see is that Ambrosedoes have a lot of interesting
quotes that are very pacifistic.And you think, well, well, how
could Ambrose be nonviolent butfor violence? And I I am not an
expert in the early churchfathers, and a lot of these
church fathers I mean, I haven'tread their works.
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It would take lifetimes to readall of their works, I'm sure.
So, definitely, I would defer tosomebody who's more of an expert
on this. But it seems likeAmbrose is willing to say
certain things of his ownpeople. Like, you know, I
wouldn't do this to a Romancitizen. But to barbarians,
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yeah, I would.
Because by the time we get toAmbrose, he's in Christendom. He
is in a state that is married tothe church, or at least getting
there. And so for him, you know,if you're in Christendom, and
I'm gonna assume that you're aChristian because we're in this
sacral society where we all gothrough the same rights, then
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okay. I'll treat you aparticular way. But those people
outside, they need to beconquered and brought into
Christendom.
And so it seems like he has thisdouble standard for, for his
personal enemies or for enemiesinside the church state and for
enemies outside the churchstate. Nevertheless, I think
that that these remnants ofpacifism, even for his own
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people, are are very insightfuland interesting that, you've got
a guy who's not opposed toviolence outside the walls, but
who's opposed to inside. Becauseby the time we get to the 21st
century, we don't care. We'llkill enemies wherever they are.
We'll kill them if they comeinto our house, and we'll kill
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them if they're in another land.
And, so let's take a look atAmbrose. He is in the mid to
late 300s. I've got 4 quotesI'll read from him since they're
pretty short. I do not thinkthat a Christian ought to save
his own life by the death ofanother. Just as when he meets
an armed robber, he cannotreturn his blows.
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Lest in defending his life, heshould stain his love toward his
neighbor. Quote 2. The soldiersof Christ require neither arms
nor spears of iron. 3rd quote,the servants of God do not rely
for their protection on materialdefenses, but on the divine
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providence. Alright.
I was wrong. I only have 3quotes. So anyway, that's
Ambrose. Interesting quotes. Butagain, he's kind of got a a
tainted, tainted view, I wouldsay.
Alright. We've got Origen.Origen is an interesting guy.
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Late 100 to mid 200. And Origensays, if everyone to were to act
the same as you Christians, thenational government would soon
be left utterly deserted andwithout any help, and affairs on
Earth would soon pass into thehands of the most savage and
wretched barbarians.
And that was Celsius, Celsusspeaking. So Celsus was just
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saying that, you know, look, YouChristians are no good for our
government. You're allabandoning abandoning it. You're
not doing anything. You wouldn'ttake part in it.
Like, if we let everything up toyou, man, we'd have we'd have no
government left. Well, how doeshow does, Origen respond? Origen
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says, you cannot demand militaryservice of Christians any more
than you can of priests. We donot go forth as soldiers with
the emperor, even if he demandsthis. But we do fight for him by
forming our own army, an army offaith through our prayers to
God.
So Origen's saying, look, we dowe do a lot of good for you
guys. We might not do good inthe way that you wish that we'd
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do good, but this is this is ourjob. And what I really love
about this is, Origen is notsaying, you're right, or he's
not saying, you're wrong. Wewould go in government. We do a
lot of good by trying to imposeour will on you and change
legislation.
He doesn't say that. He's like,yeah, you're right. You're
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right. We wouldn't go into thegovernment. We wouldn't do all
these sorts of things, becausewe serve this other master.
See? And we've got a differentrole, and you might not be able
to see the importance of thatrole. And we're not gonna fight
for you. We're not gonna takehigh positions of government,
but, hey, we're gonna supportyou. And this is that idea of of
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being able to support thegovernment, or or submit to it
and pray for its good and seekthe welfare of the city without
having to taint your hands bydoing evil yourself.
Another quote from Origen. Themore pious a man is, the more
effective he is in helping theemperors, more so than the
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soldiers who go out into thelines and kill all the enemy
troops that they can. We who, byour prayers, destroy all demons
which stir up wars, violateoaths, and disturb the peace are
of more help to the emperorsthan those who seem to be doing
the fighting. And though we donot become fellow soldiers with
the emperor, even if he pressesfor this, yet we are fighting
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for him and composing a specialarmy of piety through our
intercession to God. So thosewere just a smattering of the
early church fathers.
Definitely check out, some more,on my website. We've got quotes
from Irenaeus, Clement,Athanasius, Hippolytus, Just a
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Martyr, and Cyprian. K. Finalcategory. We've got enemy
attestation.
What does the enemy say aboutwhat Christians are doing? We
saw a little bit of a glimpsefrom, Celsius up, in Origen's
quote. What do we see from someother people? So Marcus
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Aurelius, around 150. Aureliussays, I summoned those who among
us go by the name of Christians.
And having made inquiry, Idiscovered a great number and
vast host of them, and ragedagainst them, which was by no
means becoming. For afterwards,I learned their power, wherefore
they began the battle, not bypreparing weapons, nor arms, nor
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bugles, for such preparation ishateful to them on account of
the god they bear about in theirconscience. So Aurelius, I I
mean, I guess you couldinterpret this a number of
different ways, but it seemslike he's saying, look, I was
pretty ticked off at theseChristians because I'm getting
ready for battle here andthey're not doing anything.
(32:38):
They're not getting any weapons.They're not they're not doing
things that an army should do.
They are just kinda sitting ontheir butts, and they've got
this conscience thing that'sgetting in the way of me trying
to win battles and fight people.And so that's his observation of
(32:58):
Christianity. Okay. MarcusMinucius Felix, another enemy
attestation around 200. Andwhat's interesting about him is
he actually ended up convertingto Christianity over time.
But this quote is while he wasan enemy. Their alliance
(33:19):
consists in meeting at nightwith solemn rituals and inhuman
revelries. They replace holyrites with inexplicable crimes.
They despise temples as if theywere tombs. They disparage the
gods and ridicule our sacredrites.
They look down on our priestsall although they are pitiable
themselves. They despise titlesof honor and the purple robe of
(33:42):
high government office, thoughhardly able themselves to cover
their nakedness. Just like arank growth of weeds, the
abominable haunts where thisimpious confederacy meets are
multiplying all over the worlddue to the daily increase of
immorality. Root and branch, itshould all it should at all
costs be exterminated andaccursed. They recognize each
(34:03):
other by secret signs andsymbols.
They love one another beforebeing acquainted, so to speak.
Everywhere they practice a kindof religious cult of lust,
calling one another brother andsister indiscriminately.
Alright. From Marcus, we, fromFelix, Marcus Felix, we see
(34:25):
that, he doesn't really mentionnonviolence per se, but he he
does talk about the high the thepurple robes of high office and
talk making this observationthat Christians are not engaging
in politics, especially higherlevels which would require
coercive force. So, okay, we'vegot all of these quotes and just
(34:52):
about all of them, except formaybe Ambrose, came from prior
to 300.
And that's for a reason. Andand, again, when you go to, go
check out all of the quotes,most of the ones that I have are
are prior to 300. And the reasonfor that is because when you get
(35:19):
Constantine and his, hisacceptance of Christianity and
his his realization that hecould really use Christianity as
a power tool to be able torevamp the kingdom and and pull
in on a lot of a lot of theseindividuals from this this
(35:43):
religion that was becomingpopular. He recognized the power
of Christianity. Now whether hewas a true Christian or not, I
can't say.
But he certainly had some somemajor issues, and on top of
that, he almost certainly hadwas using certain things for
political advantage. So even ifhe did become a Christian, he
(36:07):
was manipulating things, itseems. And after Constantine,
you, you have Christians whobegin to kind of side with him,
Augustine and others. And that'skind of understandable because
you had Christianity just comeout of this huge persecution
(36:28):
with lots of different emperors,but then especially, I think the
most recent recent one was withDiocletian. And they're just
tired, and this thought of beingable to be in control and to
have power and to not bepersecuted, it was alluring.
(36:48):
And it was alluring toConstantine, who recognized a
huge force he could use to tomobilize, as fighters, and it
was alluring to Christians whowere tired of being killed or
always being under threat. And,what, what all these quotes help
to show you is that you've got aunivocal church who is saying
(37:13):
that violence is not an optionfor any reason. Most people are
saying that, or or I should saysome people in the quotes are
saying that. But most people aresaying that the army, for sure,
is is off limits and highgovernment offices is off
limits. And then all of asudden, you've got this
(37:37):
explosion of the acceptance ofviolence.
And it starts with Ambrose, likewe see with Ambrose. It starts
with something that's outsidethe walls. Okay, well, you know,
if you're part of the emperor'sarmy you know Romans 13. Right?
Well, the emperor's a Christian,and so he can kill people.
(37:57):
And if you join up, you can killpeople too. Outside the walls.
Right? Not not people inside thewalls because we're christened
them inside the walls. And it'sjust a slippery slope from
there.
And what what kind of shows methat this is this is really a
contrivance that that comeslater is that, you know, a lot
(38:19):
of times, intelligent designpeople will point to, or
different forms of creationistswill point to the Cambrian
explosion. You know, you've gotthis fossil record and you've
got all of these just really,really simple creatures, and
then all of a sudden, boom,you've got very complex
(38:39):
creatures in the fossil record.And, you know, you've got
different theories, likepunctuated equilibrium and all
these other things, but therejust isn't really an adequate
explanation, creationists wouldargue, other than something
interjected here. Somethingsomething, intervened. And
(39:03):
that's gotta be God, becausethere's no naturalistic
explanation for why all of asudden you have this this super
complex structure that wasn'tthere before and all of a sudden
is.
Well, I think we kind of have aCambrian explosion of violence,
and we see that happen around300. We see it happen
coincidentally or causally. Idon't know. Around the time of
(39:28):
Constantine and the marrying ofthe the church and the state,
and all of the different motivesthat kind of come with that on
on the side of the state as wellas the side of the church. And
you had this very simple,univocal, stance up until that
point, and then all of a suddenyou have all this complexity
(39:50):
and, well, how to explain how awar is just and all these
rationalizations and just wartheory and all these kinds of
things come on the scene.
And to me, an adequateexplanation is not like with the
trinity. Oh, they'resynthesizing something and it's
developing over time and it'sit's unraveling and see now we
(40:14):
realize this this thing that waskind of hidden, it was always
there, but we just weren't quitesure how to nuance it. That's
not what happens here withnonviolence becoming just war
theory. We've got this Cambrianexplosion. We've got this thing
that just that just jumps.
And that's not explained by,progressive unraveling. That's
(40:34):
explained by something moredramatic than that. And I think
that's that's the marriage ofthe church and the state. So I
think that is, that is about itfor this episode. And, I, I
(40:55):
really hope that you will havegiven church history a good a
good year.
I hope that you'll go read allof the quotes because there are
really a ton of good ones that Ihave not gotten to here. And
quotes, these quotes from thechurch fathers really need to be
read instead of heard because,you have to read them a number
of times and kind of go throughthem and through them and
(41:17):
through them to to really graspwhat they're saying. Hopefully,
I've I've picked up some of themost interesting ones and helped
you to format that with anunderstanding of what their
overall, framework was. And, inthe next episode, I will be
trying to take a look at, somepersonal ex not personal
(41:40):
examples, but, individualexamples of pacifism played out
and what that looks like. Sothat's all for now.
Peace because I'm a pacifist.When I say it, I mean it.
Welcome back to the Fourth Way podcast. This is our
3rd episode in our series Makinga Positive Case for Christian
Nonviolence. In the firstepisode I told you a little bit
about my story and where I camefrom, and how uncovering some of
my biases and presuppositionswas was, vital for me to
(00:31):
understand the case for nonviolence and to accept that. And
then in the last episode, Italked a little bit about the
Biblical framework, both OldTestament and New Testament, and
how we can take a look at whatwe see of non violence
throughout the Bible. Today, weare going to be talking about
Church history, and we'll bequoting quite a few Church
(00:53):
Fathers and getting into some ofthe context of the early Church.
So, before we get into that, I'dI want to lay out a little bit
about why church history is soimportant. And, if you're a
Protestant like I am, then youmight not be very familiar with
with church history. It's just abunch of old dead guys, what
(01:16):
does it really matter? Becausewhat matters now is is what we
believe. But that's not reallythe case, because in the early
church you have people who areeither directly speaking to
apostles, like Polycarp andJohn, or you have people who who
are directly speaking to peoplewho directly spoke to the
(01:38):
apostles.
I mean, you've got people whoare are extremely close to the
time of Christ and to the timeof the apostles, and that is
going to be very valuable for usto see what were they adhering
to so close to the time ofChrist. And, what we're gonna
see today when we look at theChurch history of, the position
(02:01):
of non violence, we're going tosee that this is really powerful
for a number of reasons. And,the first reason is because, not
only because of proximity, whichwe just talked about, but
because the Church stands on nonviolence at least for the 1st
300 years, and we'll talk aboutthat change a little bit later,
(02:22):
but at least for the 1st 300years is univocal. And, what
what we mean by that is thatpretty much everybody agreed on
the position of non violence.You hardly ever find anybody who
who disagrees, and if you dofind any statement of
(02:42):
disagreement, it's really kindof questionable, like, well,
what did what did the authorreally mean there?
Or, there's some context thattends to illuminate, what they
actually meant, and it doesn'tmean that they're advocating
violence. And there are only ahandful of those sorts of
quotes. So, I mean, we've got acase here for nonviolence, which
(03:03):
is all for nonviolence. Youdon't really see anything
against it. And that's a bigdeal because, especially in the
early early church well, I guessI shouldn't say especially
because even today I mean, whenare Christians univocal about
anything?
Never. And, in the early church,when they're kind of hashing
(03:24):
these things out and trying tofigure out what Orthodoxy is,
you just don't see them agreeingon things. They don't agree on
Hell, and whether that waseternal conscious torment or
annihilation or what. Theydidn't agree on the Trinity for
quite a while on on all thenuances of that. They didn't
agree on all of the canonicalbooks for quite some time, till
(03:49):
they had to to call a meetingfor that.
I mean, we've got we've gotpeople who largely disagree on
just about every issue you'regonna find disagreement. You
don't find that with the casefor nonviolence in the first 300
or so years of church history.The other reason, like I
(04:10):
mentioned, is, is that, it'searly, so proximity is a pretty
big deal. And then, the thethird reason we've got for the
importance of church history isthat there is a lot of power in
the fact that this case for nonviolence is not really a
(04:31):
formation of synthesis, but it'srather a formation by
preservation. What do I mean bythat?
Well, the Trinity was aformation by synthesis, and you
have people who are piecingtogether a lot of different
things, and they don't comeright out of the gate expressing
(04:54):
the trinity. They're expressingJesus as God, but they I mean,
they're just really they're notsure how to work all that, and
especially with the Holy Spirit.I mean, it's it's just kinda
confusing, and they're kind ofsynthesizing all of these
separate pieces of informationtrying to figure out how they go
together. And it takes them awhile to be able to formulate
(05:14):
something, to be able torecognize what's what's going
on. With the case fornonviolence, we don't really see
that come into play.
We don't have a synthesis wherethey have to kind of piece these
things together and they'refeeling things out. It's right
out of the gates they arenonviolent, and they're not
synthesizing anything becauseit's clear. This is what Jesus
(05:37):
taught. So keeping all of thosethings in mind, as we hear some
of the the church fathers, speaka little bit later. It's gonna
be important to remember thosethings on on why the early
Church is very important.
Another thing that we need to toaddress before we get into some
(06:01):
of these quotes is that thereare really 2 views on why
violence is a problem. And, thefirst one's pretty basic and
what you'd expect, and that isthat life is not ours to take.
In the Old Testament, when youdo see killing, it any killing
(06:21):
that is approved, that islegitimate tends to be approved
by God, by the by the authors ofthe Old Testament. Joshua
doesn't just go in and slaughterCanaanites. God says, look.
They're doing these wickedthings. They're they're burning
their children in the fires ofMolech and listening to them
(06:42):
scream. You need to do somethingabout that, Joshua. Go take care
of that. And so any killing thatyou do see in the Old Testament,
it it is it is God's permissionthat validates it, on one view
at least, and we'll talk aboutmore views on the Old Testament
later.
But it it is, God's directivethat validates that. Life is not
(07:09):
ours to take. And in the NewTestament, God certainly says
that vengeance is His, and Jesusnot only tells us to love our
enemies, but He shows us how todo it. And so, life is not ours
to take. We don't do that.
And that's what the earlychurch, many of the fathers will
kind of show us here. The secondthing is going to relate to,
(07:34):
this idea of not doing thebidding of another kingdom. So,
there are some quotes that Ihave which aren't directly tied
to killing, they're more tied togovernment office. And there are
a lot of reasons that aChristian might not want to be
involved in Roman governmentoffice, ranging from the oaths
that they would have to take,the feasts that they would have
(07:57):
to go to, the idolatry, themaybe kissing the bust of
Caesar, whatever it is that theyhad to do that dealt with with
idols and oaths. But, certainly,an aspect of it as well was was
killing.
And, and another aspect of itwas doing the bidding of another
kingdom. We are only servant toGod, and His kingdom is not of
(08:20):
this world. We are aliens. Andwhat you're gonna see from some
of these church fathers is thatwe, we don't kill because not
only is that taking life, whichis not ours to take, but it's
also doing the bidding ofanother kingdom, and that's not
our position either. So, whenyou see something that's related
to government and not directlykilling, don't think, well, that
(08:43):
has nothing to do with nonviolence.
Because, on the second view,this, and we talked about it in
the last episode, with Christ'skingdom not being of this world,
that has a lot to do with theway that we we fight enemies
here. Are we fighting againstflesh and blood? Can our flesh
and blood kingdom tell us whatwe're to do? Or do we have a
(09:06):
different directive? Are we inChrist's kingdom, which is not
of this world, and do we havedifferent means at our disposal?
And, do we wait on God'svengeance? And, those are the
two lines of lines of thoughtthat you have to kind of keep in
mind when you hear these quotes.Finally, one of the other things
I love about the early Churchquotes that we've got here
(09:27):
coming up is that there's a hugediversity of sources. We've got
sources that range from, like,ecumenical documents or, church
documents. So, these aredocuments that are are from
groups, not just individuals.
And then we've got, the churchfathers. Right? Individuals,
(09:49):
theologians. And then we've gotenemy attestation, which is
always a good one to to be ableto see, because this isn't
Christians propping up their owncause, this is what are people
observing about Christians whohate Christians and aren't
really going to want to throwany Christians a bone? They're
not gonna wanna give them anycompliments or anything.
(10:12):
So let's let's hop on in. I'mgonna start with with, what I
think are some of the mostpowerful, examples. And the
first one we're gonna go with isan ecumenical council. We're
gonna look at canon 12 of the325 Council of Nicaea. And this
(10:32):
is important because anecumenical council means that
you've basically got all of thechurches who are going to this
council, which are a lot fromall over the kingdom.
You've got all of these churchessaying, Yeah, we put our stamp
of approval on this, we agree tothis. That's huge, because this
(10:54):
isn't just one, one guy writingand you can excuse and say,
Well, he was kinda kooky on thispoint. No. This is, this is the
church that has said this. Sohere we go.
Canon 12 of the Council ofNicaea, year 325. As many as
(11:15):
were called by grace anddisplayed the first zeal, having
cast aside their militarygirdles, but afterwards returned
like dogs to their own vomit, sothat some spent money and by
means of gifts regained theirmilitary stations, let these
after they have passed the spaceof 3 years as hearers, be for 10
years prostrators. But in allthese cases, it is necessary to
(11:37):
examine well into their purposeand what their repentance
appears to be. For as many asgive evidence of their
conversions by deeds, and notpretense, with fear and tears
and perseverance and good works,when they have fulfilled their
appointed time as hearers, mayproperly communicate in prayers,
and after that the bishop maydetermine that, yet more
(12:00):
favorably concerning them. Butthose who take the matter with
indifference and who think theform of not entering the Church
is sufficient for theirconversion must fulfill the
whole time.
Alright, so what's he saying?He's saying that, look, we've
we've got a problem. If you'regonna cast aside this thing that
you first accepted, and you'regonna return to the military,
(12:24):
like, quote, dogs to their ownvomit, that's a problem. You
don't go to the military as aChristian. You don't do that.
And now you could say there arelots of reasons for that, but
this is 325 and we've got anation that has is now friendly
(12:45):
to Christianity. And they'resaying, no. We don't we don't
do, we don't do the military.Now, this is the last you're
really gonna see of of that kindof thing, because things in the
early 300 started to change forfor, a particular reason we'll
get to. But with the Council ofNicaea here, I mean, you've got
(13:08):
them saying that the military isnot a good place to be.
The second document we've gothere is the Apostolic Tradition.
And, this was written around200, so it's quite a bit earlier
than the Council of Nicaea. And,as far as I know, it was not an
(13:30):
ecumenical council, it's just adocument of, you know, a larger,
of a church, a group of people.One who is a gladiator or
teaches gladiators orswordsmanship or military skills
or weapons training should stopor be excluded. A soldier in the
Sovereign's Army should notkill, or if he is ordered to
(13:53):
kill, he should refuse.
If he stops, so be it.Otherwise, he should be
excluded. Concerning those whowear red, or believers who
become soldiers, or astrologers,or magicians, or such like, let
them be excluded. Alright. So,what do we got here?
We see 2 things. The first oneis that, people who wear red are
(14:15):
supposed to be excluded, whichis a generally agreed, is a
reference to, governmentalservice, wearing red or purple
sometimes references,governmental service, and so
that's kind of forbidden here bythe apostolic tradition. And,
the second thing you're gonnanotice is that, okay, he talks
(14:37):
about gladiators andswordsmanship. Okay, well, we
get that. We can understand notbeing involved in that.
But they also say, or militaryskills or weapons training
should stop or be excluded, asoldier in the Sovereign's army
should not kill. And this thisshould kind of remind you of, or
(14:57):
we'll we'll come back to thiswhen we talk about John the
Baptist telling the centurionswhat to do, and, you know, not
forbidding the centurions toremain in the army. And we see
here that being in the army isnot particularly forbidden, but
what is forbidden is that ifyou're in the army, you better
(15:17):
not kill. If you're ordered tokill, you better refuse. So,
that is something to kind oftuck away and take note of.
Being an army was not forbidden,but killing was. Couple other
more, larger church documents,documents that represent, groups
(15:38):
rather than individuals, you cansee the testament of our Lord,
the Didache, the canons ofHippolytus Hippolytus. Sorry if
I said that wrong. And we can wealso have an inferential
statement from the sonata ofArles. You can see those quotes
on my website, which I'll linkat the end, or I think all of
(16:00):
those may be in, a book calledThe Early Church on Killing.
And, I will put a link to thatbook as well. So, that was
ecumenical or larger churchdocuments. Let's now talk about
examples of converts. What do wesee about people who were in the
(16:20):
military, who, became Christianswhile in the military, or who
were in the military and maybeduring a time of peace and then
a time of war came and they wereasked to fight? Do we have any
examples of that?
And, yes, we do. We haveMarcellus the centurion,
supposedly the mid to late 200,and he is said to have left the
(16:47):
armies of Diocletian. AndDiocletian was a pretty bad dude
who did lots of, persecuting.And, there's a very intense
persecution under him. So,Marcellus the centurion says, I
serve Jesus Christ, the eternalKing.
I will no longer serve youremperors. It is not right for a
(17:11):
Christian to serve the armies ofthis world. Alright? Next one,
Maximilian of Tabesa, around thesame time as Marcellus. Why do
you want to know my name?
It is not permitted to me toserve in the military since I am
a Christian. I cannot serve inthe military. I cannot do wrong.
(17:31):
I am a Christian. I will not doit.
I cannot serve in the military.I will not serve. Cut off my
head. I do not serve the world,but I do serve my God. 3rd quote
from an example of a convertfrom the Army is a Martin of
Tours.
(17:52):
A Martin came a bit later, midto late 300, So, it would have
been a lot more acceptable forhim to be in the army. But I
guess depending on on, his hisconvictions that may have
carried over from preConstantine and Augustine, or
(18:12):
maybe just those kingdomteachings hadn't kinda made it
around to him yet, the the kindof change in, change in
leadership. But Martin says,hitherto, I have served you as a
soldier. Allow me now to becomea soldier to God. Let the man
who is to serve you receive yourdonative.
I am a soldier of Christ. It isnot permissible for me to fight.
(18:40):
Alright. So we've got, we've gotecumenical councils, we've got
larger church documents, andwe've got examples of people
coming out of the army. Whatelse do we have?
Well, we've got probably the thebulk of what we have is from
some of the major churchfathers. So who do we have?
(19:04):
Well, there are quite a lothere. And, again, you're gonna
wanna go to to my website, orcheck out the book that I
recommended to see all of thesequotes. I am just picking out a
a very small portion here.
The first person that we have isLactantius, and he in particular
(19:25):
has has a ton of good quotes,which, you need to go check out.
But Lactantius says, for whenGod forbids us to kill, he not
only prohibits us from openviolence, which is not even
allowed by the public laws, butHe warns us against the
commission of those beings whichare esteemed lawful among men.
Therefore, with regard to thisprecept of God, there ought to
(19:49):
be no exception at all, but thatit is always unlawful to put to
death a man whom God willed tobe a sacred animal. Now I
believe Lactantius, as well as,some other individuals, would
say literally, there are noexceptions to kill. You're
(20:11):
assaulted, you don't kill.
You are in the army, you don'tkill. It doesn't matter. Capital
punishment. You shouldn't be anexecutioner. You do not kill.
We cannot put people to death.That is not what people of the
kingdom of Christ do. That wasLactantius. Tertullian. I've got
(20:36):
2 quotes from him.
We'll start with the extendedone. And, so I'm sorry.
Lactantius was around between250 and the early 300, and
Tertullian is around 150 to theearly 200. So, he's a bit
earlier than Lactantius. Butnow, inquiry is made about this
(20:56):
point, whether a believer mayturn himself unto military
service, and whether themilitary may be admitted unto
the faith, even the rank andfile, or each inferior grade to
whom there is no necessity fortaking part in sacrifices or
capital punishments.
There's no agreement between thedivine and the human sacrament,
the standards of Christ and thestandards of the devil, the camp
(21:18):
of light and the camp ofdarkness. One soul cannot be due
to 2 masters, God and Caesar.And yet, Moses carried a rod,
and Aaron wore a buckle, andJohn is girt with leather, and
Joshua, the son of Nun, leads aline of march, and the people
ward, if it pleases you to sportwith a subject. But how will a
(21:39):
Christian man war? Nay, how willhe serve even in peace without a
sword which the Lord has takenaway?
For albeit soldiers had comeunto John and had received the
formula of their rule, albeitlikewise a centurion had
believed. Still, the Lordafterward, in disarming Peter,
unbelted every soldier, no dressis lawful among us if assigned
(22:03):
to any unlawful action. SoTertullian there is essentially
saying that, look, if you canget into the army and you don't
have to do these sacrifices toidols and you don't have to do
capital punishment, you know, isit, is it okay for us to be in
in the armies? And he lists allof these people that, that were
(22:26):
fighters throughout the Bibleor, held weapons or even John
the Baptist and dealing with acenturion. And he says, okay.
So we got all that, but you'vegot a bigger you've got a bigger
problem on your hand if you'retrying to argue violence. And
that is the last person that wesee and the clearest revelation
of God, Jesus Christ, he tellsPeter to sheathe that sword. And
(22:52):
in doing that, he's telling usall to sheathe the sword.
Because, you know,metaphorically, okay, well,
Peter wasn't supposed to kill,but was that just a command for
Peter? And maybe it was in onesense, but then Jesus Christ
submits to death and does noviolence even though he could
have called 10,000 angels.
Right? So Tertullian is heresaying, no. Look. Peter the
(23:18):
command for Peter to see thisword, that's for all of us. I
don't care.
All these other examples youwanna give me, go ahead and give
them. I give you Jesus. Thattrumps everything. What do you
got? You don't have anything.
That's that's what what I thinkTurtullian is saying. So let's
read a second quote from him. Tobegin with, the real ground of
(23:39):
the military crown, I think wemust first inquire whether
warfare is proper at all forChristians. What sense is there
in discussing the merelyaccidental, when that on which
it rests is to be condemned? Dowe believe it lawful for a human
oath to be superadded to onedivine, for a man to come under
promise to another master afterChrist?
(24:01):
Shall it be held lawful to makean occupation of the sword when
the Lord proclaims that he whouses the sword shall perish by
the sword? And shall the son ofpeace take part in the battle
when it does not become him evento sue it law? Indeed, if
putting my strength to thequestion, I banish from us the
military life. So, that one isone of the more clear, second
(24:25):
lines of reasoning that wetalked about. Right?
A lot of the other ones aresaying, don't kill because
that's not our right. It's notour life to take. Chatelain here
is is arguing more from our,from kingship and our
allegiance. I've got a quotefrom Ambrose here. And,
(24:47):
something that I want to sayabout Ambrose is that, The thing
about Ambrose is that he hassome quotes that are are really
good.
(25:08):
But the problem with him is thathe he really wasn't a great
person to to point out pacifism.Because he was all for, like,
slaughtering the barbarians and,and just killing them. But what
(25:34):
you're gonna see is that Ambrosedoes have a lot of interesting
quotes that are very pacifistic.And you think, well, well, how
could Ambrose be nonviolent butfor violence? And I I am not an
expert in the early churchfathers, and a lot of these
church fathers I mean, I haven'tread their works.
(25:57):
It would take lifetimes to readall of their works, I'm sure.
So, definitely, I would defer tosomebody who's more of an expert
on this. But it seems likeAmbrose is willing to say
certain things of his ownpeople. Like, you know, I
wouldn't do this to a Romancitizen. But to barbarians,
(26:18):
yeah, I would.
Because by the time we get toAmbrose, he's in Christendom. He
is in a state that is married tothe church, or at least getting
there. And so for him, you know,if you're in Christendom, and
I'm gonna assume that you're aChristian because we're in this
sacral society where we all gothrough the same rights, then
(26:41):
okay. I'll treat you aparticular way. But those people
outside, they need to beconquered and brought into
Christendom.
And so it seems like he has thisdouble standard for, for his
personal enemies or for enemiesinside the church state and for
enemies outside the churchstate. Nevertheless, I think
that that these remnants ofpacifism, even for his own
(27:03):
people, are are very insightfuland interesting that, you've got
a guy who's not opposed toviolence outside the walls, but
who's opposed to inside. Becauseby the time we get to the 21st
century, we don't care. We'llkill enemies wherever they are.
We'll kill them if they comeinto our house, and we'll kill
(27:25):
them if they're in another land.
And, so let's take a look atAmbrose. He is in the mid to
late 300s. I've got 4 quotesI'll read from him since they're
pretty short. I do not thinkthat a Christian ought to save
his own life by the death ofanother. Just as when he meets
an armed robber, he cannotreturn his blows.
(27:47):
Lest in defending his life, heshould stain his love toward his
neighbor. Quote 2. The soldiersof Christ require neither arms
nor spears of iron. 3rd quote,the servants of God do not rely
for their protection on materialdefenses, but on the divine
(28:07):
providence. Alright.
I was wrong. I only have 3quotes. So anyway, that's
Ambrose. Interesting quotes. Butagain, he's kind of got a a
tainted, tainted view, I wouldsay.
Alright. We've got Origen.Origen is an interesting guy.
(28:29):
Late 100 to mid 200. And Origensays, if everyone to were to act
the same as you Christians, thenational government would soon
be left utterly deserted andwithout any help, and affairs on
Earth would soon pass into thehands of the most savage and
wretched barbarians.
And that was Celsius, Celsusspeaking. So Celsus was just
(28:53):
saying that, you know, look, YouChristians are no good for our
government. You're allabandoning abandoning it. You're
not doing anything. You wouldn'ttake part in it.
Like, if we let everything up toyou, man, we'd have we'd have no
government left. Well, how doeshow does, Origen respond? Origen
(29:15):
says, you cannot demand militaryservice of Christians any more
than you can of priests. We donot go forth as soldiers with
the emperor, even if he demandsthis. But we do fight for him by
forming our own army, an army offaith through our prayers to
God.
So Origen's saying, look, we dowe do a lot of good for you
guys. We might not do good inthe way that you wish that we'd
(29:37):
do good, but this is this is ourjob. And what I really love
about this is, Origen is notsaying, you're right, or he's
not saying, you're wrong. Wewould go in government. We do a
lot of good by trying to imposeour will on you and change
legislation.
He doesn't say that. He's like,yeah, you're right. You're
(29:59):
right. We wouldn't go into thegovernment. We wouldn't do all
these sorts of things, becausewe serve this other master.
See? And we've got a differentrole, and you might not be able
to see the importance of thatrole. And we're not gonna fight
for you. We're not gonna takehigh positions of government,
but, hey, we're gonna supportyou. And this is that idea of of
(30:23):
being able to support thegovernment, or or submit to it
and pray for its good and seekthe welfare of the city without
having to taint your hands bydoing evil yourself.
Another quote from Origen. Themore pious a man is, the more
effective he is in helping theemperors, more so than the
(30:46):
soldiers who go out into thelines and kill all the enemy
troops that they can. We who, byour prayers, destroy all demons
which stir up wars, violateoaths, and disturb the peace are
of more help to the emperorsthan those who seem to be doing
the fighting. And though we donot become fellow soldiers with
the emperor, even if he pressesfor this, yet we are fighting
(31:08):
for him and composing a specialarmy of piety through our
intercession to God. So thosewere just a smattering of the
early church fathers.
Definitely check out, some more,on my website. We've got quotes
from Irenaeus, Clement,Athanasius, Hippolytus, Just a
(31:30):
Martyr, and Cyprian. K. Finalcategory. We've got enemy
attestation.
What does the enemy say aboutwhat Christians are doing? We
saw a little bit of a glimpsefrom, Celsius up, in Origen's
quote. What do we see from someother people? So Marcus
(31:52):
Aurelius, around 150. Aureliussays, I summoned those who among
us go by the name of Christians.
And having made inquiry, Idiscovered a great number and
vast host of them, and ragedagainst them, which was by no
means becoming. For afterwards,I learned their power, wherefore
they began the battle, not bypreparing weapons, nor arms, nor
(32:15):
bugles, for such preparation ishateful to them on account of
the god they bear about in theirconscience. So Aurelius, I I
mean, I guess you couldinterpret this a number of
different ways, but it seemslike he's saying, look, I was
pretty ticked off at theseChristians because I'm getting
ready for battle here andthey're not doing anything.
(32:38):
They're not getting any weapons.They're not they're not doing
things that an army should do.
They are just kinda sitting ontheir butts, and they've got
this conscience thing that'sgetting in the way of me trying
to win battles and fight people.And so that's his observation of
(32:58):
Christianity. Okay. MarcusMinucius Felix, another enemy
attestation around 200. Andwhat's interesting about him is
he actually ended up convertingto Christianity over time.
But this quote is while he wasan enemy. Their alliance
(33:19):
consists in meeting at nightwith solemn rituals and inhuman
revelries. They replace holyrites with inexplicable crimes.
They despise temples as if theywere tombs. They disparage the
gods and ridicule our sacredrites.
They look down on our priestsall although they are pitiable
themselves. They despise titlesof honor and the purple robe of
(33:42):
high government office, thoughhardly able themselves to cover
their nakedness. Just like arank growth of weeds, the
abominable haunts where thisimpious confederacy meets are
multiplying all over the worlddue to the daily increase of
immorality. Root and branch, itshould all it should at all
costs be exterminated andaccursed. They recognize each
(34:03):
other by secret signs andsymbols.
They love one another beforebeing acquainted, so to speak.
Everywhere they practice a kindof religious cult of lust,
calling one another brother andsister indiscriminately.
Alright. From Marcus, we, fromFelix, Marcus Felix, we see
(34:25):
that, he doesn't really mentionnonviolence per se, but he he
does talk about the high the thepurple robes of high office and
talk making this observationthat Christians are not engaging
in politics, especially higherlevels which would require
coercive force. So, okay, we'vegot all of these quotes and just
(34:52):
about all of them, except formaybe Ambrose, came from prior
to 300.
And that's for a reason. Andand, again, when you go to, go
check out all of the quotes,most of the ones that I have are
are prior to 300. And the reasonfor that is because when you get
(35:19):
Constantine and his, hisacceptance of Christianity and
his his realization that hecould really use Christianity as
a power tool to be able torevamp the kingdom and and pull
in on a lot of a lot of theseindividuals from this this
(35:43):
religion that was becomingpopular. He recognized the power
of Christianity. Now whether hewas a true Christian or not, I
can't say.
But he certainly had some somemajor issues, and on top of
that, he almost certainly hadwas using certain things for
political advantage. So even ifhe did become a Christian, he
(36:07):
was manipulating things, itseems. And after Constantine,
you, you have Christians whobegin to kind of side with him,
Augustine and others. And that'skind of understandable because
you had Christianity just comeout of this huge persecution
(36:28):
with lots of different emperors,but then especially, I think the
most recent recent one was withDiocletian. And they're just
tired, and this thought of beingable to be in control and to
have power and to not bepersecuted, it was alluring.
(36:48):
And it was alluring toConstantine, who recognized a
huge force he could use to tomobilize, as fighters, and it
was alluring to Christians whowere tired of being killed or
always being under threat. And,what, what all these quotes help
to show you is that you've got aunivocal church who is saying
(37:13):
that violence is not an optionfor any reason. Most people are
saying that, or or I should saysome people in the quotes are
saying that. But most people aresaying that the army, for sure,
is is off limits and highgovernment offices is off
limits. And then all of asudden, you've got this
(37:37):
explosion of the acceptance ofviolence.
And it starts with Ambrose, likewe see with Ambrose. It starts
with something that's outsidethe walls. Okay, well, you know,
if you're part of the emperor'sarmy you know Romans 13. Right?
Well, the emperor's a Christian,and so he can kill people.
(37:57):
And if you join up, you can killpeople too. Outside the walls.
Right? Not not people inside thewalls because we're christened
them inside the walls. And it'sjust a slippery slope from
there.
And what what kind of shows methat this is this is really a
contrivance that that comeslater is that, you know, a lot
(38:19):
of times, intelligent designpeople will point to, or
different forms of creationistswill point to the Cambrian
explosion. You know, you've gotthis fossil record and you've
got all of these just really,really simple creatures, and
then all of a sudden, boom,you've got very complex
(38:39):
creatures in the fossil record.And, you know, you've got
different theories, likepunctuated equilibrium and all
these other things, but therejust isn't really an adequate
explanation, creationists wouldargue, other than something
interjected here. Somethingsomething, intervened. And
(39:03):
that's gotta be God, becausethere's no naturalistic
explanation for why all of asudden you have this this super
complex structure that wasn'tthere before and all of a sudden
is.
Well, I think we kind of have aCambrian explosion of violence,
and we see that happen around300. We see it happen
coincidentally or causally. Idon't know. Around the time of
(39:28):
Constantine and the marrying ofthe the church and the state,
and all of the different motivesthat kind of come with that on
on the side of the state as wellas the side of the church. And
you had this very simple,univocal, stance up until that
point, and then all of a suddenyou have all this complexity
(39:50):
and, well, how to explain how awar is just and all these
rationalizations and just wartheory and all these kinds of
things come on the scene.
And to me, an adequateexplanation is not like with the
trinity. Oh, they'resynthesizing something and it's
developing over time and it'sit's unraveling and see now we
(40:14):
realize this this thing that waskind of hidden, it was always
there, but we just weren't quitesure how to nuance it. That's
not what happens here withnonviolence becoming just war
theory. We've got this Cambrianexplosion. We've got this thing
that just that just jumps.
And that's not explained by,progressive unraveling. That's
(40:34):
explained by something moredramatic than that. And I think
that's that's the marriage ofthe church and the state. So I
think that is, that is about itfor this episode. And, I, I
(40:55):
really hope that you will havegiven church history a good a
good year.
I hope that you'll go read allof the quotes because there are
really a ton of good ones that Ihave not gotten to here. And
quotes, these quotes from thechurch fathers really need to be
read instead of heard because,you have to read them a number
of times and kind of go throughthem and through them and
(41:17):
through them to to really graspwhat they're saying. Hopefully,
I've I've picked up some of themost interesting ones and helped
you to format that with anunderstanding of what their
overall, framework was. And, inthe next episode, I will be
trying to take a look at, somepersonal ex not personal
(41:40):
examples, but, individualexamples of pacifism played out
and what that looks like. Sothat's all for now.
Peace because I'm a pacifist.When I say it, I mean it.
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