Tlieyaro ranked next to the a|>OKtlefl and the prophets: (hey are also promoted at doatli mon* rapidly than the rank and flic of the C^iurch militant. Titus, or at any rate JoM|>liuit (IIJ vi. 47). is sure that ' the »ouIh of hravc men, which are purled from their bodien hy the swortl in battle, are taken up by the ether, the purest of the element*, and set among the HtarB, where they shine forth as beneficent daemons and her'>e« frienilly to their posterity.* This Is an almost exact parallel to tlie early Christian belief almut the martyrs tut M)ldieni of God who \\a\e died in battle, or been biirrie<l, Itoheaderl, and (laved alive for their Leader. They jMUis iminediut«ly into glory. For example, the Scillitan nuirtyrs, on receiving their death-sentence and on the point of being led away to execution, thuiik God : *To-diiy we are in heaven.* The 8pe<rial honour thus ]>uid to the martyr in early Christian eschatology does not seem to be paralleled by any corresponding feature in rabbinic eNchatoIogy. It is a distinctive homage olTered by the Church to herchampions in the early battles against luiganism.
This rich and varied use of military metnnluirs, however, throws no light upon the opinions cherished by tlie early Christians alotit war in itself. Three of the writers wlio explicitly oppose war, Tertullian, Origon, and Cyprian, are in fact lavish in their use of military terms. Ori^'en, in his homilies on Joshua and Judj^es, e.g.j dciii^dited to allegorize the most martial passages in the OT, and Cyprian did more than almost any one else to domicile tlie idea of the church as the army of God, with Christ as its impcraior^ the martyrs and confessors as the leaders, the sacra- vicntmn of baptism, the slationes of fasts and vigils, and heretics or schismatics as rebels against the castra dei. Origen's allegorizing of the OT enabled him, of course, to counter Marcion's repudiation of it as too militant for the Christian church. As a pacifist he uses military language, just as Bernard, the celibate, loved the vocabulary and ideas of marriage — thougli, unlike liernard, Origen did not allow the vocation in question to any one. Similarly, Lucretius detested war (i. 28 f.), but he employs military ligures witli force in order to illustrate his theme {e.g. in ii. 5f., 40f.). These illustrations from St. Paul onwards merelj- indicate the martial environment of the new religion within the Uoman world of the tirst three centuries; they no more prove that the church encouraged or even approved of war than the less frequent allusions to the games and the theatre i)rove that these were sanctioned by the conscience of the primitive Christians. Besides, the use of militaiy illustrations is not coniined to Christian writers by any means. The newer advocates and exponents of moral philosophy, and in especial of Cynicism and Stoicism, frequently employ metaphors culled from the Koman army to adorn their semi-religious convictions.
The disciple of Poseidonius who wrote the pscudo-Aristotelfiin treatise de Mxtndo about a.d. I(t0(7) declares that * God is in the universe as the helmsman is in the ship, the general in the army* (400^'), the only diflference being that Gmrs rule causes Iliiu no trouble or fatigue. Seneca could compare human life to a campaign (* vivere, Lucili, miliiare est' [Bp. .Vor. xcvi. 3]), which absorbed the serifmaman (' nobis quoque milltandum est: et quidem genere militiae, quo numquam quies, numquam otium, datur. . . . Quidni malit, quisquis vir est, somnum 8uum classico quam symj)honia rumpi?' [ib. II. 5]); he could Bununon men to cheerful resignation under the divine flisciplino by reminding them that ' it is a poor soldier who whines as he follows his captain * (ib. cvii. 9) ; he is particularly deliirhteil (i^*. lix. 6: ' movit me imago ab illo iK>sito') with a military simile of Q. Sextius, who compared the wise man deploying his virtues agamstevil to an army marshalled against an envelojiiniratt-ack ; be insists that the moral life is promoted not hy coaxing and subtle addresses but bv such manly demands as thr»se of an otliccr to his troops ('m aciem ducturus exercitum, pro con- jugibus ac liberis mort<?m obiturum, quomodo exhortabitur? . . . Oux ille Romanus, qui ad occupandum locum milites missos, quum per ingentem hostium exercitum iluri e-*aent. sic adlocutus est: ire, commilitones, illo necessc est undc rediro non est nccesse 1 Vides quam simplex et im|>eriosr. Virtus eit ' [ib. Ixxxii.]). The Cynic philosopher, in Lucian's liiCtv Xlpaer** (S), declares that he ' fights like Hercules, against pleasures, not as a conscript but as a volunteer, his aim being to purify human life." The slave-philosopher PZpictetus also draws some of his most inqiressive appeals from the terminology of the militAry profession. Thus, after explaining that evt-rj' man has a guaniian angel or indwelling spirit {6atV«ui'), he proceeds (i. 14) :
You ought to swear an oath to this divine being Just as the