Christ and war / The reasonableness of disarmament on Christian, humanitarian and economic grounds. A peace study text-book
SS^S^^^^^MssS^MSS^^ ^^^^g^^^ ^V,- .A\ >w ^^<^'. ^W-^ \-^N ^ ' i\ 7 ,^ r\ B '^ Digitized by tine Internet Arciiive in 2007 witii funding from IVIicrosoft Corporation littp://www.arcli ive.org/details/cliristwarreasonaOOwilsiala CHRIST AND WAR Outline Programmes for the use of Study Circles reading " Christ and War " have been prepared and may be obtained of the Secretary of the Friends' Central Study Committee, Miss Elsie M. Smith, Lynhurst, Hoddesdon, Herta. id. each or gd. per dozen« CHRIST AND WAR THE REASONABLENESS OF DISARMAMENT ON CHRISTIAN, HUMANITARIAN AND ECONOMIC GROUNDS A PEACE STUDY TEXT-BOOK WILLIAM E. WILSON, B.D. lecturer at woodbrooke ; warden and tutor of kingsmead hostel j author of "atonement and non-resistance" WITH A PREFATORY LETTER BY Dr. RENDEL HARRIS REVISED EDITION (second impression) LONDON JAMES CLARKE & CO., 13 & 14 FLEET STREET THIS BOOK IS DEDICATED TO MY WIFE WITHOUT WHOSE HELP AND ENCOURAGEMENT IT WOULD MOT HAVE BEEN WRITTEN PREFATORY LETTER FROM DR. RENDEL HARRIS Chetwynd House, Selly Oak, Birmingham. Dear Mr. Wilson, — This book which you have written interests me by its method as well as in its subject. It is refreshing to find that you still believe in the validity of the prophetic teachings, and that you do not regard them as entirely displaced by the findings of modem economics, however much we may value and appreciate the corroborations and co-operations of the latter. You still find room in your teaching of peace for Isaiah — and for Jesus ! Well ! I think you are quite right in this, and that the method does not need much apologetic. If an inspired man tells us that we are not to learn war any more, it is quite safe to annotate him with the remark that " to this feature we must all come," even if we are painted inches thick with military red. It is the Isaian Quixotism and the Quaker Philadel- phianism that is going to win. If the Buddha really said that " never does hatred cease by hate : hatred ceases by love, that is its nature," then he too has shown us the way out and the way up. As soon as one begins to put this thought into action, the Quixotic labels are brought out : they will be put upon your book, my good friend, as thickly as the continental hotel-keeper dis- tributes his advertisements on one's travelling trunk. It is clear that you are Quixotic all over. But let us look at the matter a little more closely. I was recently reading again the splendid article in Prefatory Letter Hastings's Bible Dictionary, in which Professor Sanday discourses to a charmed world on the Hfe and teaching of Jesus Christ. Let us see what he says on the Quixotic method as it colours the Gospels from their centre outward. He tells us that " the world even outside Christianity is still God's world. It is a world in which the essential characteristic is that it is progressive. . .. May we not draw from this the augury that in the end, at some time which we cannot see, the social structure may be still more fully recast, under the influence of Christianity : ' Nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more.' . .. When that time comes, conduct tvhich now would he only Quixotic might be rational, and required by the public conscience " (D. B., Vol. H., p. 622). The only criticism I should make upon this peace programme of Professor Sanday is that, by the introduction of the indefinite time limit, the prophets are put off with a compliment, and (would it be too severe to say it) we come near to patronising Jesus Christ, when we might be expected to obey Him. Much has happened in the fifteen years that have elapsed since that article was written ; more wars have occurred, more misery has been accumulated, more denial of the Christian spirit has been recorded in the pages of history : but your little book shows that the gulf between the Quixotic and the rational is rapidly filling up (however wide it may have seemed when Dr. Sanday was writing), and you will greatly help us all in caUing the public conscience out of its inherited perversity or its habitual inertia. I wish that you may be fiercely attacked, and that you may find the Lord on your right hand, so that you may not be moved. RENDEL HARRIS. CONTENTS CHAPTER PAGE Introduction ix I. Letter and Spirit . . . . .13 Question asked, 13. Texts held to imply- that Jesus countenanced war, 15 — 19. Texts quoted against war, 20 — 24. " Resist not evil," 24 — 30. II. The Kingdom and the Father . . 31 The great ideas of Jesus : Kingdom of God, 31, Son of Man, 33. The Temptation, 34 — 40. Present Kingdom, 40. Parables, 41. Practice of Jesus, 43. Following Christ, 46. Fatherhood of God, 46 — 52. God's conduct to be copied, 49. The Christian power, 52. III. Members of the Body . . . -53 Do New Testament writers countenance war ? 54 — 57. New Testament writers oppose war, 57 — 69. Union in Death of Christ, 60. Body of Christ, 63. Christlike mind, 66. Primitive Church, 69 — 74. IV. Voices in the Wilderness ' • • 75 Christians in mediasval and Reformation times who opposed war, 75 — 85. Quakers, 85 — 100. Basis of Quaker Testimony against war, 86. Sufferings it entailed, 88. Charges against Quakers, 92. Pennsylvania, 93. Marvellous preservation, 95. Nazarenes, Doukhobors, Tolstoy, 100. vii Contents CHAPTER PAOX V. The Dawn of Hope ..... 103 War an obstacle to advance of Christianity, 103. War barbarous, 105. War irrational, 107. War unprofitable, no. Ancient war- fare, III. Modem warfare, 112. Property of nations, 114, Investments, 114. Morocco difl&culty, 117. Franco- Prussian War, 119. Fallacies of conquest, 120. VI. Is IT Impossible ? . . . . .126 Answers to objections. War a selective agency, 127. War advances civilisation, 130. Decreed by natural law, 136. Good moral effects, 137. Necessary to settle disputes, 140. Justice requires war, 142. Barbarian invasion, 145. Human passion, 148. VII. Reason versus Force .... 152 Facts of modern life which make for peace, 152. Decrease in personal violence, 152. Slavery, 153. Torture, 154. Punishment, 155. Education, 156. Decreasing import- ance of war, 157. Modern movements require peace, 159. Cross division of society, 161. Arbitration, 163 — 167. Why war continues, 167. Vested interests, 169. Conscription, 171. Conscription in Austra- lasia, 174. VIII. What shall we do ? . . . .176 Summary, 176. Arguments converge, 177. Individual duty and public poUcy, 177. No blind fate, 178. Methods of working for peace, 178 — 202. Education, 179. Attempts to influence policy, 181. Arbitration, 182. Right of capture, 185. Disarmament, 187. Great Britain's opportunity, 191. Spirit of war, 195. Foreign missions, 196. Social betterment, 199. The Spirit of Peace, 201. Bibliography ...... 203 Index ....... 208 viii INTRODUCTION The author, in common with all who desire peace between the nations, owes a debt of gratitude to Norman Angell. For, whether one agrees or disagrees with his arguments in " The Great Illusion," it is undeniable that he has brought the question of peace and war prominently and freshly before the public in this and other countries. So that peace advocates no longer speak to deaf ears. Hitherto they have found the public unwilling to listen to them, and inclined to view their theories as a mild form of insanity. " The Great Illusion " has changed this attitude by showing that between civilised states war can bring no gain to the victor, and, under certain circumstances, may damage him even more than the vanquished. At once per- petual peace has become an ideal which the practical man can recognise as capable of realisation. The Christian and humanitarian peace advocacy claimed that war is wrong and should therefore be abolished. At this the practical man shook his head and said, " War is certainly horrible ; it is bad ; but it is necessary. It is part of the nature of things ; you can't abohsh it." Now, if Norman Angell is right in his main contentions, it is no longer possible to say that war cannot be abolished. For it is clearly to the advantage of all men to abolish it ; all that stands in the way is human ignorance and prejudice, and in every department of life these are constantly being overcome. The theories of Norman Angell and the theories of the older Pacifism are then in no sense contradictory but complementary. Each approaches the matter from its own side, but their conclusion is the same. The older Pacifism says, " War is wicked ; it ought to be abolished." The newer Pacifism says, " War is futile ; it can be dis- pensed with." Both unite in saying, " War must go." The object of the present work is then threefold : — I. To state clearly the Christian objection to war. II. To show how the Christian position is supported by the economic arguments of Norman Angell. ix Introduction III. To suggest that since the peace ideal is recog- nised as no longer entirely beyond the bounds of prac- tical politics, it may perhaps also be possible that the application of the ethical teaching of Jesus to our whole social life is not so impracticable as the practical man imagines. That, in short, it might even be advan- tageous to do right. A few words more on two of these points may help the reader to gain the best point of view for studying the succeeding chapters. I. This Christian objection to war may be approached from two sides, (a) It may be shown how the spirit of Christ, living and working in the lives of His followers, convinces those who trust His guidance that war is anti- Christian. For all men have in them a spark of the Divine, so that no man is entirely beyond the reach of love and persuasion. But the use of violence and war is the denial of this. In some such way the early Friends came to their " Testimony against all War." For the indi- vidual who experiences such divine leadings, this is, no doubt, an absolutely unanswerable argument against war. But others may quite rightly ask, " How am I to know that such suggestions come from the Spirit of God, and are not weak sentimental impulses of merely human origin ? " For a sufficient answer to such a question, an objective standard is needed. Christians beheve that God has revealed Himself to man in Jesus Christ, and therefore : — {b) In the life, teaching and death of Jesus Christ the criterion is given by which we are to judge whether war sometimes may be Christian or is always anti-Christian. These two methods of approach are not entirely different. Both consist of the attempt to discover what the spirit of Christ teaches. It is the latter which has been used in the following pages, because it has the advantage of deahng more with outward facts than with inward feelings. The teaching of the New Testament alone has been taken as normative. For, on the one hand, the morality of the Old Testament, being founded on an incomplete revelation of God, is by that very fact Introduction admittedly imperfect. And, on the other hand, the teaching of the Christian Church in ages subsequent to Jesus Christ has at times fallen far below that of the New Testament. Jesus Christ, as shown us in the pages of the New Testament, must be our standard. III. As has been pointed out, starting from different data, the two forms of peace advocacy reach the same conclusion. Economics and a rational understanding of international relationship, confirm the Christian ideal in the matter of peace and war. Ought not this to be a cause of great general encouragement to all Christian people ? Does it not indicate that perhaps if we only had a suffi- cient knowledge of the facts we should find that in every moral and social problem the method that accords with the highest Christian ethics is also the method that will bring success and prosperity ? If we really believed that the God who in Jesus Christ has revealed Himself to us in human form, is also the Creator and Sustainer of the Universe, we should be confident that the only way to achieve real success or permanent prosperity is to take the principles which guided Jesus Christ and the methods He used as our principles and methods. The Christian, since he knows God in Jesus Christ, cannot believe that what is morally wrong can be necessary for the best interests of any man or nation. This belief is in process of being justified in one sphere of life. It will in the end be justified everywhere. But progress towards the complete realisation of the rule of God in the world will be slow if we are always to wait the halting processes of reasoning to confirm what the Spirit of God teaches, before we attempt to put it into practice. Nor can we suppose that, under present conditions, the right course of action will necessarily always lead to outward success and prosperity for the one who takes it. It is a fact that men have power to mar the Divine harmony, and that by their adherence to what is con- trary to their own best interests they can both hinder the Divine purposes and cause suffering to those who are working for better things. But the advance of mankind xi Introduction from disunity and anarchy towards the goal of the brotherhood of man under the rule of the Almighty Father depends on the willingness of those who see the better way to persevere in it to the end. They may be despised and hated, called traitors and fools, and their end may be death and apparent failure. Yet it is they who are saving the world, and if in so doing they them- selves perish, did not their Master meet that fate, too ? If, then, the struggle for any reform brings failure or death to those who lead in the struggle, that is no proof either that the desired good is unattainable, or that it is not worth the struggle. For Christ died, and through dying He conquered. Does not the Church ^ suffer to-day from lack of faith? Had she only beheved her Lord in the sense of beheving in His methods, and following Him, she would long ago have put an end not only to war but to many other forms of social evil. And faith is necessary for such a work. Faith, if appHed, will move the mountain long before experts have decided whether it can be moved or not. NOTE TO SECOND EDITION The present edition is a reprint of that issued in December, 1913. Statements therefore appear which assume we are at peace {e.g., p. 147). In a few cases a slight modification has been made in the text or a footnote added, but it has been thought best to make no great alteration, as we are not yet in a fosition to discuss the present war in all its bearings, t may, however, be said that the events of the past few months have confirmed the writer's chief contentions, that war is essentially unchristian, and that its abohtion can bring nothing but gain materially, morally and spiritually. In particular the hoary fallacy, " If you want peace, prepare for war," is discredited. November, 1914. > By Church is meant, here and elsewhere, not any par- ticular organisation, but the whole body of professing Christians. xii CHRIST AND WAR CHAPTER I LETTER AND SPIRIT At the present time we hear much of the New Pacifism, the contention associated with the name of Norman Angell, that the day of war is over, that conquest now can bring no profit to the conqueror, and that civilised states, if they were truly enlightened, would agree rapidly to disarm. Occasionally from those who speak of this New Pacifism one hears slighting rernarks about the Old Pacifism of the Peace Society, which was based on Christian or humanitarian grounds, as though it were useless and out of date. And amongst the sincere advocates of Peace on Christian grounds there is sometimes to be observed a little uneasiness in contemplating this economic Peace advocacy. They appear to think that to prove war unprofitable goes far to proving that it cannot be wrong. It is in the firm conviction that these two lines oi Peace advocacy are complementary to one another and ought to be mutually helpful that these pages have been written. In the later chapters the New Pacifism will be considered ; at present our business is with the Old, and the question which we have to answer is : Are those Peace advocates right who maintain that the spirit from which war springs is the opposite of that 13 Christ and War presented by the life, teaching, and death of Jesus Christ, and that in so far as a Christian takes part in war he is falling away from the standard of Christ and allowing his life to be ruled by the power which opposes the Divine work in the world ? It will be observed that we do not ask in the first instance " May a Christian country rightly wage war ? " but " May the individual Christian take part in war, or (what from a moral point of view is much the same thing) countenance it ? " In answering this question we need an objective standard by which we may judge of the Christian's duty. The historical Chnst in His teaching and example gives us such a standard. The position towards Jesus Christ taken up by this book is Christian in the full sense of the term. That is to say, that in Him it is held that we have the supreme revelation of God. This revelation, though in itself a unity, may be regarded in a number of different ways, of which the following appear to the writer the most important. Jesus Christ brings us : — (i) Forgiveness, that is, restoration of communion with God. (ii) An example and teaching which are the basis and standard of right conduct for His followers, (iii) The Divine power to carry out that teaching. It is with the second and third of these that we shall here be concerned. When we speak of His example and teaching we do not mean to imply that in His life all the problems were presented to Him that we have to face, nor that in His sayings every conceivable circumstance of life is contemplated. We rather mean that we can recognise in His conduct the practical working out in the particular circumstances in which He lived of fundamental moral principles, and, further, that 14 Letter and Spirit these principles are to be discovered in His teaching, not stated, it is true, in the scholastic form suitable to a text book of ethics, but rather in the more concrete manner of e very-day life. Therefore in studying His life and teaching we must endeavour to discern the spirit through the letter. It will not be sufficient to bring forward a number of separate texts which, on the face of them, may be held to show that our Saviour would have His followers take no part in war — we must rather endeavour to gain some insight into the thoughts and ideals which were fundamental to Him, and to discover what bearing these have on the question under discussion. But, while we do not intend to base our arguments on proof texts, we shall do well to discuss both those generally quoted to show that our Lord disapproved of war, and those which are held to prove that in certain circumstances it has His approval. We will take the latter first. The contention that Jesus Christ countenanced war is supported by passages which may be conveniently classified under three heads : — I. Sayings which appear definitely to encourage resort to arms. II. Parables in which military metaphors and similes are used. III. Passages which relate how Christ had iealings with military men and does not appear to have reproved them for their occupation. I. Three verses are very frequently quoted in proof of this contention. {a) Mark xiii. 7 (and parallels in Matthew and Luke) : " And when ye hear of wars and rumours of wars be not troubled ; these things must needs come to pass." It is argued from these words that our Saviour prophesied wars in the future, and that, 15 Christ and War therefore, they will and must continue, and that to do anything to prevent them continuing would be impious. To this we answer that even if the validity of this argument be granted (and we shall see reason to doubt its vaUdity), it is not proved that He desired His followers to take part in wars. In fact the study of the context shows that wars are but one item amongst many in the tale of the woes that He foresaw, and that His purpose in mentioning them was that His disciples might not be needlessly terrified in these times of trouble, but might trust in God. All through this chapter the Church is looked upon as the sufferer, never as the infiicter of evils. And, further, it is to be noted that the early part of the chapter, at least where the words in question occur, appears to apply to the destruction of Jerusalem — and has therefore already been fulfilled. We may, then, say in answer to this argument : — (i) Jesus did not in these words either desire His disciples to fight or countenance their doing so. (ii) The events He foresaw and spoke of happened nearly 1,850 years ago, and we have, therefore, no right to apply His words to the present or future, (b) " Think not that I came to send peace on the earth : I came not to send peace, but a sword " (Matt. X. 34). This can scarcely be a sober statement of the pur- pose of Christ's coming, for as such it is irreconcilable with most of His teaching. And the words which follow it, " I came to set a man at variance against his father, and the daughter against her mother, and the daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law," if looked upon as giving the real intention of Christ's coming, make it impossible to believe that He said, " Love your enemies," and enunciated the Golden i6 Letter and Spirit Rule. Obviously if we are to take the first part of the saying literally we must take the second part literally too. If it is seriously argued that Jesus intended wars to result from His coming, and intended His followers to take part in them, we are forced to conclude that family quarrels and the sharing in them of His disciples was also in His purpose. May we not rather say that He uses here a common figure of speech by which the result of an action (in this case only a small part of the result) is spoken of as its purpose ? ^ (c) In Luke xxii. 36 Jesus, in solemn words at the last supper, tells His disciples to sell theii garments and buy swords. It is probable that we no longer possess the means of understanding this saying, but that it implies that Jesus intended His followers then or later to resort to arms seems unlikely, because : — (i) It is quite clear from the Gospels that Jesus knew He was going to His death, and did not attempt to evade it. (ii) Jesus also appears to have said that two swords were enough (v. 38) : this they cer- tainly were not if intended for the defence of twelve men. (iii) When one disciple used his sword, Jesus sternly rebuked him (Matt, xxvi. 51, 52). (iv) There is no trace in any account we have of the early Church that its members defended themselves against persecutors. That the early Church was perplexed by this verse may be seen by the passages in which the Fathers explain away its evident discordance with * Compare Mark iv. 12, where " that seeing they may see and not perceive," etc., clearly implies not purpose, but result. 17 B Christ and War the faith and practice of the Church. The most striking example of this is, perhaps, to be found in the comment of one of the great Syrian com- mentators to the following effect : — "Our Lord allowed them to take wallets and swords, like men who cease from confidence in Him, saying, ' It is not My word that ye are thus about to do.' In many copies, instead of 'let him buy a sword and take it, it is written, ' Pray for your enemies.' " ^ Generally it must be said of all these passages that they can only be understood in the light of the total impression of all that Jesus Christ said and was. II. The use of military figures in parables. (a) Luke xiv. 31 : " What king, as he goeth to encounter another king in war, will not sit down and take counsel whether he is able with ten thousand to meet him that cometh against him with twenty thousand ? " Here the forethought of the king in such matters is recommended. So ought the disciples of Jesus to realise the difficulties which they have to face. Such a passage is simply an illustration drawn from ordinary Ufe of what our Saviour had to teach in the spiritual sphere. It gives us no clue whatever to the attitude which He occupied towards war. (b) Luke xi. 21 — 22 : " When the strong man fully armed guardeth his own court, his goods are in peace : but when a stronger than he shall come upon him and overcome him, he taketh from him his whole armour wherein he trusted, and divideth his spoils." This simile of the strong man armed is frequently quoted by those who desire us to increase our arma- ments. It appears to be thought that Jesus by mentioning him approves of him. But if one reads * This paragraph was supplied by Dr. Rendel Harris. 18 Letter and Spirit the preceding verses carefully, it becomes quite clear that the " strong man " in question is none other than the devil. If then we are still to apply the simile to a nation that arms against invasion, we find ourselves com- paring the action to the conduct of the prince of darkness. But, of course, this simile has nothing whatever to do with the question under discussion. Its clear meaning is simply that the fact that Jesus, " the stronger man " of the parable, had power to cast out evil spirits proved that He had conquered the kingdom of darkness. This conquest was no conquest of the violent by violence, but was achieved through trust in God and love to man. We shall later on see reason to think that this con- quest was begun when He passed scatheless through temptation, and was consummated when His trust in God led Him through suffering and death. III. Jesus had to do with soldiers, as had John the Baptist before Him, and His disciples after Him. Yet neither He nor they ever appear to have re- proved any soldier for his profession, and Jesus himself in one case very heartily commends the faith of an officer (Luke vii. 9 ; Matt. viii. 10). It is suggested, then, that if Jesus had really dis- approved of war under all circumstances — if He had occupied towards it anything approaching the Quaker position — He could not have failed to recom- mend this officer to desert his profession. At first sight this suggestion sounds probable, but it is really based on a misunderstanding of the method of Christ's teaching. His words in the Gospels are not a series of commands and prohibi- tions. The object of His teaching was not to deliver to men a higher and better law than the Mosaic. It was to bring them into a new life by communicating to them a measure of His own consciousness of rela- 19 B 2 Christ and War tionship with God. In this, as in many cases, we receive most light on the teaching of Jesus from the writings of His greatest apostle. Paul teaches us that in Jesus Christ the law as an exterior stan- dard to which man must conform is set on one side, while at the same time its essential object is fulfilled by the new life in Christ which produces in the lives devoted to Him those virtues which the law demanded and yet never could produce.^ Applying this principle to the case of the cen- turion, we may believe that the spirit of Christ working in him would in time show him the incom- patibility of his profession with that spirit, and cause him to resign his commission. We have cases on record in the early Church in which this happened,^ 1 It would indeed not be far from the truth to say that Jesus Christ only gave His followers one command, a com- mand which already stood in the Jewish law, " Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself." The rest of His moral teaching is comment on this. He enlarged the meaning of the term " neighbour," and enriched our idea of Love. ' Jesus is not recorded to have reproved soldiers, neither is He recorded to have reproved harlots. In fact we quite clearly are given to understand that the Pharisees dis- approved of Him because He did not do so. Neither in this case where Jesus had to do with a soldier, nor in the cases where His disciples had dealings with them (Acts x. and elsewhere), is there any reference to the legitimacy of the military profession or to right conduct in it ; in one passage only in the New Testament does any- thing of the sort occur, viz., Luke iii. 14, where John the Baptist, at the request of the soldiers who heard him preach, instructed them as to their duty. Seeing that he did not tell them to desert their profession, this passage has been construed as a justification of war. But the command " Do violence to no man ! " is not compatible with the ordinary methods of war. Understood as applying to the conduct of soldiers in war, it is a command which cannot be obeyed ; but the Roman soldiers of John's time were police far more than fighting soldiers. Andf the command can be understood Letter and Spirit We now consider the texts which are most fre- quently quoted to show that Jesus Christ forbade to His followers all participation in war. They are the following : — {a) " All things whatsoever ye would that men should do unto you, even so do ye also unto them " (Matt. vii. 12). (b) " Love your enemies " (Matt. v. 44). (c) " Blessed are the peacemakers " (Matt. v. 9). (d) " All that take the sword shall perish with the sword" (Matt. xxvi. 52). (e) " My kingdom is not of this world. If my kingdom were of this world, then would my servants fight " (John xviii. 36). (/) " Resist not evil " (Matt. v. 39). In discussing passages quoted on the opposite side, we endeavoured to see how far their apparent meaning was borne out by their context, the cir- cumstances under which they were uttered, and their agreement or otherwise with other sayings of Jesus ; and we must subject these passages to a similar scrutiny. In the case of three of them, (a), {b), and (c), the meaning is obvious, and is in no sense modified by a consideration of the context ; in fact, in the case of (&), " Love your enemies," the context distinctly emphasises the natural meaning of the words. If love under the Mosaic law was to be confined to men of one's own race, under the rule of Christ as a reference to that side of the soldier's work. " Carry out your police work, and do it without violence " may be taken to be the meaning of the words. Far, then, from justifjdng war, which always will and must use violence on men, Jolm's words justify police work, but only in so far as that does not use violent methods. Not only is war in no way countenanced, but even methods of violence in keeping the peace are discouraged. 21 Christ and War there is no such restriction, but rather an expansion to embrace all men, even those who are opposed to us. It is difficult to reconcile either this command or the Golden Rule with the practice of warfare. Passage (c), " Blessed are the peacemakers," it is true, does not forbid war ; it rather emphasises the positive duty of conciliation and prevention of war. All Christians, whether they believe that war is entirely forbidden them or not, can and must unite in being peacemakers. The other three verses quoted must be considered more closely. {d) " All they that take the sword shall perish with the sword " (Matt. xxvi. 52). This is part of our Lord's rebuke to Peter when he had used his sword in defence of his Master — surely the noblest use to which sword was ever put ! Of this passage Tertullian says : " The Lord, by His disarming of Peter, disarmed every soldier from that time forward." On this passage, too, J, Weiss, in his popular commentary on the Gospels,^ remarks, " Defence with the sword is not only contrary to the spirit of Jesus but to that of the whole of primi- tive Christianity." It is clear, then, that in both ancient and modern times this passage has been looked upon as decisive of the attitude of Jesus towards war. It also shows that Jesus held that violence can never produce righteousness and peace. For those who take the sword perish either by the sword at the hand of other men, or still having to use their sword (the words are capable of either interpretation) — that is to say, no finality is reached. Either they fall victims to the violence which has been raised up to oppose their own violence, or they ' J. Weiss in " Schriften des Neuen Testaments neu tibersetzt und ftir die Gegenwart erklart," Bd. I., p. 392. 22 Letter and Spirit are compelled continually to use violence to keep that which violence has obtained for them. {e) "My kingdom is not of this world: if my kingdom were of this world, then would my servants fight, that I should not be delivered to the Jews " (John xviii. 36). On the face of it this passage appears to contain the very definite implication that the servants of Christ may not fight. But apparently it is not always so understood. It is said : " Certainly the servant of Christ may not fight for the Kingdom of God ; that Kingdom is not one of the kingdoms of the world, and cannot be advanced by war ; but in so far as the servant of Christ also belongs to one of the kingdoms of the world he is, by this verse, expressly allowed to fight." Thus we get the view that we are forbidden to fight for what is most important, but are allowed to fight for things of lesser value. This in itself is such an astonishing conclusion as to make a sober thinker doubt whether it can be valid. And a closer study of the teaching of Jesus and of the attitude of the early Church towards the Kingdom of God and the kingdoms of the world shows that it cannot be accepted. By such a study two points become clear : — (i) Jesus regarded the Kingdom of God as the one supreme object of desire and effort of His dis- ciples, in which all other things necessary to life are contained. (ii) The early Church saw a very distinct opposi- tion between the Kingdom of God and the kingdoms of the world. No divided allegiance was possible to the disciples of Christ. If the demands of the emperor conflicted with the demands of Christ, Christ alone must be obeyed, and that at any cost. Not a few Christians in the first few centuries are 23 Christ and War known to have suffered martyrdom for refusal to serve in the army. We are then to understand this verse as strongly emphasising the difference between the Kingdom of God and the kingdoms of the world. The latter use warlike weapons, their power is based on out- ward compulsion, and on oppression and fear. The former does not use warlike weapons ; its " weapons are not of the flesh, but mighty before God " (2 Cor. X. 4), and its power is based on an inward change and love that takes away all fear (i Johniv. 18), and brings a new and freer life to man. The obvious meaning of our text is, then, that the servants of Christ do not fight, and that any attempt to find in it permission to fight under certain circum- stances, or for certain objects, postulates a divided allegiance — the service of both God and Mammon — which Jesus expressly says is impossible (Matt. vi. 24). (/) " Resist not evil " (Matt. v. 39). Of all the sayings of Jesus understood to prohibit war this is the most frequently quoted, and probably the most important. But it is clearly the duty of every Christian to resist all moral evil and at least some sorts of physical evil. Was not Christ's victory over temptation a resistance of moral evil ? Was not His healing of the sick a resistance of physi- cal evil ? It is plain, then, from the best com- mentary we possess on the words of Jesus — His actions — that these words are not to be taken in their widest possible sense. A literal rendering of the Greek in this verse would give us " Resist not the evil one," which, if the words are to bear their ordinary meaning, is impossible. But it is probable that the revisers have given the intention of the passage by translating " him that is evil " — in other words, " an evil-doer." The text deals with our atti- 24 Letter and Spirit tude towards persons. But instances occur to us at once where resistance offered to a person appears not only for the general good, but even for the good of the one to whom it is offered. For instance, it is wise and kind to keep a drunkard locked up or under the charge of someone who may on occasion have to use forcible means to restrain him from obtaining what can only be the ruin of his life. Similarly, for their own good, as well as that of the community, lunatics are kept under restraint. And probably even the most advanced educationalists would agree that circumstances do arise when force of some sort has to be used on children. For a true understanding of the text we must look at the context. It occurs in the Sermon on the Moimt, where Jesus contrasts the demands of the old law with His demands. The essential point of all these contrasts is that the demands of Jesus go deeper than those of the Mosaic code. He requires not merely that outward wrongdoing — murder, adultery, false swearing — be abandoned, but much more, that no anger or lust or lying be cherished in the heart. So in this contrast we may expect to find something more spiritual than the Mosaic enactment. Coming to the section, v. 38 — 42, we notice that the Mosaic law of satisfaction is now entirely done away. It is fulfilled by being abolished, paradoxical as that sounds, for its real intention was to prevent an injured party inflicting on the injurer a greater injury than he himself had received — that is, it taught some consideration even for an offender. The law of Christ teaches free forgiveness for an offender. This is what is meant by " Resist not evil." An adequate paraphrase would be " Forgive the evil- doer." The thought is then developed. If one 25 Christ and War forgives an injury, it means that one allows a repetition of that injury, hence one must " turn the other cheek," or allow a man who has already wrongfully possessed himself of one's shirt to have one's overcoat too. These directions do not pre- clude reasoning with the offender or attempting to make him see that he is doing wrong ; but they cannot be reconciled with hating him or desiring to be revenged upon him. There are two points to be noted about the treat- ment of the opposer allowed in the Mosaic law with which this command of Jesus is contrasted : — (i) The punishment — which may be thoroughly deserved — is inflicted by the injured party himself — that is, he is judge in his own quarrel. (ii) The punishment is simply retributive — it is revenge pure and simple ; there is no thought of remedial treatment which will save the sinner. Instead of this, Jesus suggests a mode of treat- ment which springs from love. The evil-doer is not to be resisted ; he is rather to be allowed to repeat the injury. But this is not because the sufferer regards what is done as of no consequence, nor because he relies on God's vengeance and therefore will not himself retaliate. The real motive is two-fold. (i) The injured party as a follower of Christ must not retaliate, because so doing is inconsistent with true love to the injurer, whom, by his Lord's com- mand, he is bound to love. It may be, it will be, difficult for him under the circumstances to feel that love ; but if he refrains from letting hate overcome him and express itself in his action, and if he carries out his Master's Golden Rule to " do as he would be done by," he will put himself on God's side and lay open the channel by which God's love may flow through him to his enemy. Thus, from the point of view of allowing himself 26 Letter and Spirit to be a channel of Divine grace to others, non- resistance has been the right course for him. (ii) If he does resist evil — if, instead of turning the other cheek, he hits back, what happens ? There is a fight. Instead of one man with a bruised cheek, or even two bruised cheeks, there will be two men much more bruised, and perhaps seriously injured — that is to say, from a merely material point of view, more damage is done. And what about the spiritual state of the two ? Both will be filled with anger, hatred, and schemes of revenge, whereas if the Christian has taken Christ's way he will have conquered his own evil passions, and who can say that he may not have won the other to a better state of mind? In other words, the method suggested by Jesus Christ tends to lessen the evil in the world. It is, therefore, clearly in the path of advance towards the ideal state of affairs which He called the Kingdom of God. These two aspects are closely connected. The law of love working in the individual tends to pro- duce the state of things in which the law of love will be supreme in the world. In taking up the attitude of non-resistance to his personal enemy, the Christian resists moral evil in himself and overcomes it. He is then in no sense taking up a passive attitude. For the conquest of self entails the hardest of all warfares, and that is the conquest to which the Christian is called. To sum up, then, this saying indicates what is in certain circumstances the expression in practice of the great law of love, which is applicable to all cir- cumstances. Therefore its applicability or other- wise in special cases is to be judged, not by any external standard, but by the endeavour to discover what action true love will prompt. To the question, 27 Christ and War then, " Is war compatible with the teaching of Jesus in this saying ? " we reply uncompromisingly, No, unless it can be shown that to make war or to defend ourselves against anyone is an expression of love, springing from a sincere wish to do to others as we would that they should do to us. The more we recognise what war really means the less can we suppose that it can ever spring from such a root. 