Later, in the early part of the 3rd cent., ]Minu- cius Feli.v, the Roman lawyer, betrays a genuinely humanitarian view in his dialogue ; he drops several remarks about war — e.g. about the rapa- cious policy of invasion and oppression which h.ad built up the Roman state (25), about the frequency of it (' When "was there ever an alliance of empires, which began in good faith and ended without bloodshed ? ' [18]), and about the melancholy truth which the Greek tragedians had already noted, that 'in the heat of battle it is the better men who generally fall ' [5], but he boldly claims the Chris- tian martyr as the true conqueror (37). So does the author of 4 Maccabees (e.g. 1" IS''), which was a f.avourite book in some circles of early Christi- anity ; but the point is different. The Jewish homilist reflects that the endurance of Eleazar and his brother as martyrs for the Torah defeated the tyrant by rousing the martial spirit of the Macca- biean figliters, who so resented the cruelties inflicted by Antiochus on their patient lirethren that they broke into successful revolt. Minucius Felix takes anotlier view of the victory won by a martyr.
' How fair a spectacle it is to God when the Christian joins battle with pain, when he is arrayed against threats, punish- ments, and torture, when in triiimph^and victory he exults over the very man who has sentenced him ! For he conquers who obtains the object for which he contends. What soldier would not be emboldened to challenge danger under the eyes of his general [in de Bell. Gall. ii. 25, when Cassar was rallying his right wing against the Nervii, his very appearance nerved the troops. ' Cuius adventu spe inlata inilitibus ao redinte- grate animo, cum pro se quisque in conspectu imperatoris etiam in extremis suis rebus operam navare cuperet '] 1 For no one
with,' as in Lucian's ^et« Tragoedus (17), where Zeus observes that the Athenian sophist Timocles was on the side of the gods in the debate and championed their interests (to. ritiirfpa 6 TtfiOKKris ei^pdi'et Ka't iiTrepe^ajftt). It is more practical and real championship that the apostle demands, however. A fuitlier illustration of ^ipovelv in this sense occurs in Aristopb. Pax, 638f.— a passage which exemplifies the false accusations noted below (p. 658).
receives a reward before he is put to the proof ; and yet a general does not give what he does not possess; he can only glorify military service, he cannot preserve life. Whereas the soldier of God is neither forsaken in pain nor put to an end by death.'
The concentration of the soldier idea upon the martyrs * was inevitable ; in the long jieriod of persecution the martyrs came to be regarded more and more as the fighting-line of the church against the devil, and, if tlie cimception of the Christian life as a warfare was not reserved for them, it acquired, in connexion with them, an accent and emphasis of its own.
Two extracts will serve to bring this out, both from the literature of the 2nd century. Thus, in .i.D. 17", the churches of Lyons and Vienne, describing the outburst of local persecu- tion as due to the devil, add that Christians were enabled to bear the brunt of the att.ack, because ' the grace of God acted as their general against him (avTeuTpaTriyizt 5ij ri vapis roi) ScoO) . . . and they joined battle with him ' (Eus. HE v. 1), i.e. by their passive resistance to the violence of the mob and by their adhesion to Christ in face of dreadful sufferings and tiireats. The refusal to apostatize is the weapou of the Christian, and his inspiration is the grace of God, which suggests and main- tains these tactics of defence. Then, again, Tertuilian writes as follows in a.d. 197 to Christians who were lying in prison awaiting martyrdom (ad Mart. 3) : ' Granted, O blessed men that a prison is irksome even to Christians. We were sum- moned iio the active service (?fti7ifiam = campaigning) of the living God at the very moment when we repeated the words of the sacrament [sacrameitH verba, i.e. the baptismal confes- sion, regarded as the Christian's oath of fealty and allegiance]. No soldier takes luxuries with him on a campaign ; he goes out to battle not from a bedroom, but from narrow, pitched tents, where all sorts of hard, rough, and unpleasant experiences abound.' When he turns to encourage the women, he develops the figure of training for the athletic games, but the male Christians are reminded of their oath of loyalty to Christ as general, in the deadly warfare against evil. Their very har- mony— and Tertullian {ib. 1) pleads for this, since even martyrs sometimes quarrelled in those days as afterwards — is an effect- ive weapon of war against the devil ; Sat<an w'ins a triumph if he can succeed in making imprisoned Christians fall out among themselves.
In fact, by the 3rd cent., especially through the Latin Christians of Northern Africa, the rituiil and organization of the church began to be infused with military expression.s. Thus, 'burden' in Mt IP" is rendered snrcina, the soldier's load, by Tertullian. A term like cicarifiov had been used by Ignatius (ad Smyrn. 1), echoing the OT — e.g. Is 49^^ 62^°, where Jahweh raises His standard in Jerusalem for men to rally round ; Jesus, saj's Ignatius, was crucified ' in order to. raise an ensign for all ages by means of his resurrection, for his saints and loyal people.' It is not far from this to the cognate use of vexilln, and, after the cross had been set upon the st.-indards of the army by Con- stantine, the vogue of rpdiraiov became increasingly popular in the vocabulary of Christian writers. Feixtrum had been already used metaphorically by Tertullian, practically as equivalent to 'trophy' ; in lauding the virtues of Job (de Paticntia, 14), he excl.aims : ' What a trophy (feretmm) God set up over the devil in a man like tliat ! What a banner (vexilium) did He raise over the Adversary of His glory, when this man, in reply to all the load of bad news, uttered nothing but tlianks to God ! . . . And so he who worked hard for the victory of God, rejielling all the darts of temptation by the breast- plate and shield of his patience, presently received ids health of body from God's hand.' But words of still greater importance were to be taken over from the troops. 'Legion' had already become a popular term for a large and powerful number (cf. DCG ii. 23). This, however, was only the first of such borrowed words, and one of the least signifi- cant. A far more vital case was that of -iacrnmen- turn. If this term for a binding promise was not adopted by the church on account of its apt associa- tions as the oath of loyalty, it was the military