somebody, or to enlarge the empire, or to show their prowess in war, or for a reason other than the common good, sin gravely, even if the authority is legitimate and the cause is just. So in the epistle to Boniface (no. 207 or 205 [189]), blessed Augustine says: “The will should want peace, only necessity should bring war, so that God may free us from the necessity and preserve us in peace. For peace is not sought in order that war might be undertaken, but a war is undertaken so that peace might be acquired. Therefore you should be peaceful even when fighting, so that by winning the war you may bring those whom you conquer into the unity of peace”; and in Contra Faustum, book 22, chapter 74: “Lust for harming, cruelty in seeking revenge, an unpacified and implacable spirit, brutality in rebelling, lust for power, and similar things are rightly condemned in war.”
But there are two things to be noted. First, since war is a means to peace, but a very serious and dangerous one, a war must not be undertaken immediately when there is cause; peace must first be sought in other less dangerous ways, such as a peaceful request to enemies for the satisfaction that they owe: Deuteronomy 20: “When thou comest nigh unto a city to fight against it, then proclaim peace unto it,”153 and blessed Augustine, epistle 207 [189] to Boniface: “The will must want peace, only necessity should bring war.”
But you will ask, if the enemy at first does not want to give satisfaction, but soon, with the war already begun, asks for peace and offers to give satisfaction, will the other be bound to desist from war? Cajetan at the entry “war” says that he is not bound to end the war when it has already begun, but he would be obliged to accept satisfaction before beginning the war. But (with the proviso of a better judgment) it seems that we must say that he who has a just cause is never bound in justice to accept satisfaction either before the beginning of the war or after, but in both cases he is bound to do so out of charity. The reason for the former is that a prince who has a just cause for war functions as judge of the other prince, who wronged him, but a judge is not bound in justice to pardon a guilty man who is condemned to death even if he offers satisfaction; nevertheless he could pardon him out of mercy, if he is the supreme judge. For example, a king is not bound to spare the life of a thief even if he gives back what he stole, but the king can out of mercy.
The reason for the latter is that war is a very grave punishment, by which not only he who sinned is punished, but many innocent people are also involved accidentally. Christian charity seems, therefore, always to demand that the war should end when he who did the wrong offers due satisfaction, unless perhaps something else is accidentally involved, for instance, if the enemy against whom one fights is such that it benefits the common good that he is subject to another or that he is completely destroyed. Such enemies were the Amorites, whom God ordered to be eliminated completely (Deuteronomy 20).
Second, it is to be noted that this third condition differs from the first two, because if those are absent, the war is unjust, but if this one is missing, the war is evil, but not properly speaking unjust. Whoever wages war without authority or just cause sins not only against charity, but also against justice, and he is not so much a soldier as a robber; but whoever has authority and just cause, and nevertheless fights for love of revenge or to enlarge the empire or for any other evil end, does not act against justice, but only against charity, and he is not a robber, but an evil soldier.
From this it is deduced that when only the third condition is lacking, soldiers and kings are not obliged to make any restitution but only to do penance, while when the first or the second condition is lacking, all are obliged to make restitution for damage caused, unless they are excused by an invincible ignorance. For just as a crass and guilty ignorance does not excuse from sin, so it does not excuse from restitution, as we explain in the last chapter, regarding injuries and damage inflicted. But whoever suffers from an invincible ignorance is not obliged to make restitution for as long as he suffers from such ignorance. But when he realizes that the war was unjust, he is obliged to make restitution not for the damage inflicted at the time of the war, but for anything he has gotten out of the war that was not his. If he has no possessions but has become richer by selling things, he is obliged to give back as much as he gained, for something that does not belong to him cannot be kept even if it has been acquired in ignorance and without sin; it must be given back to the owner, if he is known, or to the poor.
The fourth condition is the appropriate way of proceeding, which consists chiefly in this, that no innocent should be harmed, which John the Baptist explained in Luke 3: “Do violence to no man, neither accuse any falsely; and be content with your wages.”154 With these words John prohibits the injuries that soldiers usually inflict upon innocent people either by force or by treachery, either against their person or against their property. When he says, “Do violence to no man,” he prohibits the injury that people inflict with brutal violence, as when they kill the peasants if they do not readily obey. When he says, “neither accuse any falsely,” he prohibits the injury that is inflicted with treachery and calumny, as when they say that somebody is a traitor or an enemy, even if they know the contrary to be true, and with this accusation either rob him or kill him or bring him to the commander or the prefects. Indeed, when he adds, “and be content with your wages,” he prohibits the injury inflicted on somebody not to their person, but to their goods, as when they rage and pillage wherever they can, or demand and extort things from those who owe them nothing.
However, it must be observed that there are three kinds of people on whom soldiers cannot inflict any damage, according to the rule of John the Baptist. The first is composed of all those who do not belong to the commonwealth of the enemies, and from this rule soldiers who inflict some damage on citizens or friendly peasants with whom they are quartered or whose land they are passing cannot be excused. And neither are they excused if they say that they have not received their pay, for this does not entitle them to the goods of private citizens. The citizen or peasant should not pay the price if the king or commander sins by not paying stipends to the soldiers, unless, for just cause, the inhabitants of a certain place are condemned to this form of punishment, that is, of providing for the soldiers, but that happens rarely. The second kind of people are those who, even if they belong to the commonwealth of the enemies in some capacity, nevertheless are exempted by the chapter “Innovamus, de tregua et pace,” where it says: “We decree that priests, monks, those who live in convents, pilgrims, merchants, peasants who come or go or work in the fields, and the beasts by which they plow or bring the seeds to the field, should enjoy a fitting security.”155 Here “merchants” does not seem to mean those who live in the city of the enemies and are part of that city, but only those who are there in transit or who are going to market, but are not part of the city.
The third kind is composed of the people not suited for war, such as children, elderly people, and women, for such people, even if they can be captured and robbed since they are part of the city, nevertheless cannot rightfully be killed, unless they are killed by chance and by accident. Thus when a soldier shoots into a battalion of enemies and by chance kills a child or a woman or even a priest, he does not sin, but when he kills them intentionally and has the means, if he wishes, to avoid killing them, then he sins. In fact, natural reason teaches this, and God also commands the Hebrews in Deuteronomy 20 to spare children and women, and Theodosius was gravely reproached by Ambrose because when he wanted to punish the Thessalonians, he ordered all those who were in his way to be killed without discrimination, as Theodoretus reports in his Historia, book 5, chapters 17 and 18. The fact that Moses also sometimes ordered women and minors to be killed, as appears in Deuteronomy 2 and 3 and other places, does not mean that the same is lawful for our soldiers, as Moses clearly knew from God’s revelation that God wanted it, and to God no man can say, What doest thou?156
It is lawful for Christians to fight against the Turks
The question of the war against the Turks could certainly have been omitted if Luther among his other paradoxes had not brought forth this proposition and attempted also to defend it: that it is not
