[CHAPTER VII.]
WAR AND CHRISTIANITY.
Etsi adierant milites ad Joannem et formam observationis acceperant, si etiam centurio crediderat, omnem postea militem Dominus in Petro exarmando discinxit.—Tertullian.
The war question at the time of the Reformation—The remonstrances of Erasmus against the custom—Influence of Grotius on the side of war—The war question in the early Church—The Fathers against the lawfulness of war—Causes of the changed views of the Church—The clergy as active combatants for over one thousand years—Fighting Bishops—Bravery in war and ecclesiastical preferment—Pope Julius II. at the siege of Mirandola—The last fighting Bishop—Origin and meaning of the declaration of war—Superstition in the naming of weapons, ships, &c.—The custom of kissing the earth before a charge—Connection between religious and military ideas—The Church as a pacific agency—Her efforts to set limits to reprisals—The altered attitude of the modern Church—Early reformers only sanctioned just wars—Voltaire’s reproach against the Church—Canon Mozley’s sermon on war—The answer to his apology.
Whether military service was lawful for a Christian at all was at the time of the Reformation one of the most keenly debated questions; and considering the force of opinion arrayed on the negative side, its ultimate decision in the affirmative is a matter of more wonder than is generally given to it. Sir Thomas More charges Luther and his disciples with carrying the doctrines of peace to the extreme limits of non-resistance; and the views on this subject of the Mennonites and Quakers were but what at one time seemed not unlikely to have been those of the Reformed Church generally.
By far the foremost champion on the negative side was Erasmus, who being at Rome at the time when the League of Cambray, under the auspices of Julius II., was meditating war against the Republic of Venice, wrote a book to the Pope, entitled ‘Antipolemus,’ which, though never completed, probably exists in part in his tract known under the title of ‘Dulce Bellum inexpertis,’ and printed among his ‘Adagia.’ In it he complained, as one might complain still, that the custom of war was so recognised as an incident of life that men wondered there should be any to whom it was displeasing; and likewise so approved of generally, that to find any fault with it savoured not only of impiety, but of actual heresy. To speak of it, therefore, as he did in the following passage, required some courage: ‘If there be anything in the affairs of mortals which it is the interest of men not only to attack, but which ought by every possible means to be avoided, condemned, and abolished, it is of all things war, than which nothing is more impious, more calamitous, more widely pernicious, more inveterate, more base, or in sum more unworthy of a man, not to say of a Christian.’ In a letter to Francis I. on the same subject, he noticed as an astonishing fact, that out of such a multitude of abbots, bishops, archbishops, and cardinals as existed in the world, not one of them should step forward to do what he could, even at the risk of his life, to put an end to so deplorable a practice.
The failure of this view of the custom of war, which is in its essence more opposed to Christianity than the custom of selling men for slaves or sacrificing them to idols, to take any root in men’s minds, is a misfortune on which the whole history of Europe since Erasmus forms a sufficient commentary. That failure is partly due to the unlucky accident which led Grotius in this matter to throw all his weight into the opposite scale. For this famous jurist, entering at much length into the question of the compatibility of war with the profession of Christianity (thereby proving the importance which in his day still attached to it), came to conclusions in favour of the received opinion, which are curiously characteristic both of the writer and his time. His general argument was, that if a sovereign was justified in putting his own subjects to death for crimes, much more was he justified in using the sword against people who were not his subjects, but strangers to him. And this absurd argument was enforced by considerations as feeble as the following: that laws of war were laid down in the Book of Deuteronomy; that John the Baptist did not bid the soldiers, who consulted him, to forsake their calling, but to abstain from extortion and be content with their wages; that Cornelius the centurion, whom St. Peter baptized, neither gave up his military life, nor was exhorted by the apostle to do so; that the Emperor Constantine had many Christians in his armies, and the name of Christ inscribed upon his banners; and that the military oath after his time was taken in the name of the Three Persons of the Trinity.