than offend God. But such action is in fact prescribed when it is necessarily demanded by God’s honor. Otherwise it is only advice, and sometimes not even that, for instance when offering the other cheek is of no use because the other person just repeats his sin. Such is the response of Gregory of Nazianzus in this passage, and Augustine’s in epistle 5 [138] to Marcellinus.
Second, they can oppose our argument with three decrees of the Church. The first is in the Council of Nicaea, canon 11, where a most serious punishment is inflicted against those who return to the army after leaving it.144 The second is in epistle 90 [167] of blessed Leo, to Rusticus, and it is found also in the canon “Contrarium, de poenitentia,” distinction 5.145 Leo says, “It is contrary to the ecclesiastical rules to return to a secular army after doing penance,” and later, “He who wants to involve himself in worldly warfare is not free from the Devil’s snares.” The third is Gregory’s canon “Falsas,” same distinction, where it is said that those who adopt an activity that cannot be done without sinning are not entitled to do penance unless they abandon such activity, and Gregory gives the example of a soldier.146
To the first I reply that it deals with those who because they confessed their faith were deprived by Diocletian or Licinius of their sword belt, and afterward they reclaimed it, ready to deny their faith. See Zonaras and Balsamon on that canon, and Rufinus, Historia, book 10, chapter 6, and what we wrote on this in book 2 of De Conciliis, chapter 8.
To the second and third I say that it deals with those who committed many sins occasioned by their military life and who therefore needed to do penance. In fact, those who return to military life knowing from experience that they cannot live it without sinning, are badly behaved because they themselves are evil, not the army; this is especially so when they have been commanded by a priest not to return. And that those canons do not in fact absolutely prohibit military life is clear from the ending of the canon, “Falsas,” where after saying that those who come back to the army after doing penance behave badly, it is added, “unless they come back upon suggestion of their bishops to defend justice.”
Third, many passages from the Fathers are set against our argument by Erasmus, and to those passages we add two, one by Tertullian and the other by Jerome. In De corona militis, second part [11], Tertullian asks whether military life is becoming to a Christian. And he replies: “Do we believe that it is lawful for a human oath to supersede a divine one? And to answer to another lord after Christ? Will it be lawful to live by the sword when God said that whoever takes the sword shall perish by the sword? And will a son of peace, to whom even lawsuits are not becoming, engage in battle?”
I reply that Tertullian does not condemn military life for being evil in itself. This is clear, first, from the passages above quoted from Apologeticus, chapters 5 and 42. Second, because in the book De corona militis he says that those who were soldiers before baptism can remain soldiers even after baptism, and he only teaches that he who is free must not enter military life after baptism, and he says: “Clearly, if faith afterward comes to those who have already entered military life, their situation is different from those whom John admitted to baptism, just like that very faithful centurion whom Christ approves of and Peter instructs in the Christian religion. For once the faith is accepted and sealed, one should either desert immediately or try every way possible not to do anything against God.” Third, it is clear because the chief reason he gives why Christians should not serve in the army is the danger of idolatry, for almost all princes were then pagans. Therefore Tertullian judges war to be contingently evil at that time: “Will he be guarding the temples he has renounced? Will he be eating with those who displease the apostle?147 Will he defend at night those demons that he rejected with exorcisms during the day? Will he bear a standard opposed to the standard of Christ? etc.” Moreover, his other reasons given above are only reasons of convenience, as is clear.
In the epistle to Ageruchia, De monogamia, Jerome says: “Once it was said to soldiers, ‘Tie your sword very firmly to your thigh’; now it is said to Peter, ‘Put up again thy sword into its place,’ etc.” But his point is that in the Old Testament wars were commanded by God and were necessary to acquire and preserve the promised land; in the New Testament not wars but peace is commanded, since weapons are not necessary to conquer the kingdom of heaven. Nevertheless, from this it does not follow that Christians, as citizens of the temporal commonwealth, cannot wage wars against those who wronged them.
Besides these, Erasmus opposes some other Fathers, and first Origen, who in Contra Celsum, book 2, just before the middle, says that Christ removed all wars; and in treatise 7 on Matthew, he explains in the passage of Luke 22, “He that hath no sword, let him sell his garment, and buy one,”148 saying that this passage is harmful for those who interpret it literally, thinking that they really must sell their garment and buy a sword.
I reply that in the first passage there is nothing supporting Erasmus, for when Origen says that Christ removed all wars, he does not mean that Christ prohibited all wars, but that with His providence He brought a general peace to the world at the time of His birth. Indeed here there is something against Erasmus, for Origen says that because of God’s providence it happened that with Christ’s coming all were subjects of the Roman emperor, for if there had been many kings, wars would have been necessary, as some would respond to the wrongs of others. Nor is anything said against war in the following passage, for the words of God must not be understood so literally that anybody should necessarily sell his garment and buy a sword. In that figure of speech the Lord wanted only to explain that the apostles would have had the same hardship and need as those who sell their garment and buy a sword to defend themselves. But what is inferred from this against war? Because our Lord in this passage did not truly command purchase of a sword, then is He understood to have prohibited war? When Origen himself, in his homily 15 on Joshua, says that physical wars must not be waged by Christians, he means that the Christian army under the command of Christ is not a physical army against men, as was the army of the Jews under Joshua, but a spiritual one against demons. However, from this it does not follow that waging wars is unlawful for Christians as citizens of the political commonwealth.
In the same manner the arguments that Erasmus takes from Chrysostom, Basil, and Theophylactus (drawing from St. Thomas’s Catena aurea, on Luke 22) can be disproved, since those passages show only that Christ did not order the apostles to really buy a sword.
Then he juxtaposes our arguments against those of Ambrose, who in book 10 of his commentary on Luke explains the passage “He that hath no sword, let him sell his garment and buy one.” Ambrose says: “O Lord, why do you order me to buy a sword and prohibit me from striking? Why do you command me to get what you forbid me to bring out? Maybe to prepare me for an act of defense and not authorize an act of revenge, so that I would decide not to take revenge even if I could. The law does not in fact forbid to strike back and therefore perhaps He said to Peter, who was offering two swords, ‘It is enough’ as if this were lawful until the Gospel, so that in the law there is the knowledge of justice, and in the Gospel the perfection of virtue.” I reply, first, that nothing is said in this passage against war that is waged by public authority; this passage deals with private defense or revenge. Second, even private defense, according to Ambrose’s statement, does not refer to the prohibition of the precept, but to the perfection of the advice, as is clearly indicated by the words, “so that in the law there be the discipline of equity, and in the Gospel the perfection of virtue.”149
Erasmus opposes also Augustine, who, he says, is not consistent, for while in some cases he defended war, in others he wrote against war, as in the commentary on Psalm 37 where he writes: “We must not pray for our enemies to die, but for them to amend themselves.” And in epistle 5 [138] to Marcellinus he writes many things against war; indeed in epistle 158 [133] and other places he beseeches the same Marcellinus to punish the Donatists without bloodshed.
However, Erasmus seems to have regarded those with whom he spoke as children, for what are these things to our purpose? Certainly in the commentary on
