Hardly any passage is so vivid with military allusions, ex- cept the description • of the Christian armour in 1 Th 5^ and Ejih 6i**''-. The former reference to faith and love as the coat of mail, and the hope of salvation as the helmet of the Christian, implies (I) that faith in God and nmtual love are a unity, and that, instead of retjuiringto be protected, they form the real protection of the Christian character against the moral dangers tliat threaten the church in the last days; they are ours to be used, not to be admired or laid aside as loo good and delicate for contact with the rough world. (2) What protects tlie vital centre of the Christian lite is hope of the future salva- tion which is imminent; this is a Christian addition to the OT imagery which St. Paul probably has in mind ; to lose hope is to lose everything. He is saying metaphorically wliat is put otherwise in Lk 21'-^ (' when these things begin to happen, look up and raise your heads; for your release is not far distant'), in Ei>h 6i0f' the details are much enlarged, and the supernatural opponents are brought into the foreground. ' Be strong in the Lord and in the strength of his might ; put on God's armour [hest description of the Roman Travon-Aia in Polyb. vi. xxiii. 2f.] so as to be able to stand against the stratagems of the devil ' [as the inspirer of heresies — cf. 41^— and persecutions]. The devil, I say, 'for we have to struggle, not with blood and flesh but with the angelic Rulers, the angelic Authorities, the potentates of the dark present, the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly sphere. t So take God's armour J [a military phrase; cf. Jth 143; Jos. Ant. xx. 110, etc.], that you may be able to make a stand upon the evil day and hold your ground by over- coming all the foe. Hold your ground, tighten the belt of truth [which keeps everything in its place] about your loins, wear integrity as your coat of mail, and have }'our feet sho(i with the stability § of the gospel of peace ; above all [' the Roman n-at'oirAta consists first of all in the shield'— five feet by two and a half (Polybius)l, take faith as your shield, to enable you to quench all the fire-tipped darts II flung by the evil one, put on salvation as your helmet, H and take the Spirit as j'our s'vord ' ; i.e., the writer adds, 'the word of God'— the idea being, ap- parently, that an apt and .ready memory of Scripture would form an effective means of counteracting and defeating evil suggestions (cf. the use of the OT by Jesus in His temptations). The long passage closes by an appeal for prayer** as a further means of success in the Christian conflict. With prayer there is(v.iy, eis TouTO aypvnvovvTes) the suggestion, though it is no more than a suggestion, of alertness, as of a sentry on duty; this is also hinted at in other semi-military passages likeRo isl- and 1 Th 56f-, but the most direct allusion to the divine sentinel is one which occurs in Ph 4^ (' God's peace shall keep guard over your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus ') — a thought echoed by Francis Thompson in ' A Fallen Yew ' :
*The hold that falls not when the town is got, The heart's heart, whose immurtsd plot Hath kej's yourself keep not 1
Its keys are at the cincture hung of God ; Its gates are trepidant to His nod ; By Him its floors are trod.'
* Like Wis S^'f-, it is modelled on the description of fhe Divine Warrior in Is 59i7f-, but, unlike Wis., it applies the imagery to the individual saint. The details of the armour, in Roman days, are discussed in bk. iii. of Justus Lipsius, De Militia Romana (editio ultima, Amsterdam, 1604, with illustrations).
t The difficulty of this phrase, iv toi? cTrovpavtois, led to the Syriac (pesh.) v'l. uTroupai'iois, and also to the idea (Chrysostom, Theodoret, etc.) that the words meant, *our struggle is for (possession of) the heavenly sphere.' Origen, in his Ulh Homily on Joshua (110), explamsthat perfect Christians like St. Paul fight aiiainst the spirit-forces of demons, whereas the immature Christian has still to fight against flesh and blood (i.e the passions).
J i.e. be fully equipped — a metaphorical use, already popular (e.g. Tacitus applies the simile to an orator \^Dial. 32], and Philostratus to the serious arguments of a philosopher [ Vita Apull. vi. 16]). The Roman confessors (Cyprian, £pp. xxxi. 5) apply this text to themselves, as they await martyrdom in A.D. 250 during the Decian persecution ; they are being trained by Christ as an army in their prison, before being called upon to meet the foe in the open, i.e. in martyrdom.
§ Plutarch says that Marcus Cato 'showed himself effective with his hands in battle and sure and steadfast of foot' (jU. Cato, i.), i.e. he never slipped and so failed to get in his blows. Officers usually wore leather boots ; ordinary soldiers had thick, nailed sandals.
II The TTvpofioKa mentioned by Plutarch (Camillus, xxxiv.). Cf. Livy's description of the phalarica used at the siege of Saguntum : ' etiamsi haesisset in scuto, nee penetrasset in corpus, pavorem faciebat, quod, qnnni medium accensum mit- teretur, conceptumque ipso motu multo majorem ignem ferret, arma omilti cogebat, nudumque militem ad insequentes ictus praebebat ' (xxi. 9). The metaphor of repelling darts is used by Seneca in the last paragraph of the 53rd of his Epistles: 'In- credibilis Philosophiae vis est ad omnem fortuitam vim retun- dendain. Nullum telum in corpore eius sedet ; munita est et solida ; quaedam defatigat ; et velut levia tela laxo sinu eludit ; quaedam discutit, et in enm usque qui miserat respuit.'