f Cf. Orenfell and Hunt, Oxyrhynehu* Papyri, xL tlBlt"! 190-220.
660
WAR
WAR
enrol himself in this iioly warfare ('da nomen sanctae iiuic niilitiae' [xi. 15]), and he adores the goddess as his saviour from fate and sin, as the deity who can shut and open the lower and the upper worlds.
The moral aspirations and hopes which were expressed in this ttancta militia of the cults, and for which the military organiza- tion was felt to be an extremely suitable imajre, were three-fold.
(a) III the first place, a confidence in the deity, an unshaken faith that the divine bein^ who presided over the cult was able to ensure his devotees' triumph over the 'slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,' over the powers of darkness and immor- ality in this worhl and the terrible, mysterious dangers which beset the soul as it passed at death into the circles of the upper air or the lower world. As the Roman legions held sway over the world, so these initiates believed that their respective cults represented the (iominant powers, from a religious point of view. The victories of the army, wliich were assumed to be due to the emperor, and which were often won by his personal general- ship,* sjnnbolized the triumph of a cult-deity like Mithra, the •Sol invictus,' or like Isis, the ' orbis totius domina,' 'victrix,' Mnvicta.' For these deities were cosmopolitan in their sway. They claimed to control the universe. The cults breathed into their adherents the sense of participating in the triumph of a sovereign power, not of a mere local and provincial sect, and this is not invalidated by the fact that such a belief was more pious than well-based. The early Christians also put this faith into their martial imagery, to express their absolute confidence in the Lord, who would enable them to master demons with their onset of persecutions and heresies, and to overcome the fear and power of death itself. The term 'Lord' included this; the terms 'king of kings' and 'imperator' brought it out.
(6) This supremacy of redeeming power, guaranteed by the deity, required from men a devotion and loyalty like that accorded by soldiers to their generals. It was a confidence which implied moral surrender and absolute dedication. The mystery-religions gave the individual a new sense of his value, but his personality was realized through service and self- sacrifice. This was the second note in the military conception which pervaded the cults. To a modern the methods and aims do not always seem particularly moral, and they are tinged by superstitious elements which eventually proved their weakness. But as a rule the relation of the individual to the deity was characterized by a thoroughgoing allegiance, which made stringent demands upon him— demands so stringent that their nearest analogy was felt to be the binding tie of the soldier to his military superiors. In the case of Mithraism, especially, this tie involved a moral earnestness. It was attained through ritual, but 'one of the conditions indispensable to the final victory of good was purity,' t and few contemporary' cults, if any, pressed this requirement so stringently and sharply on their votaries. Here, also, the martial symbolism served Christianity (see above, p. 659). It was accentuated by the fact that the itacramentum, or oath of allegiance, was supposed to be taken to the commander in person, and was renewed by all the troops on the emperor's birthday and on the 1st of January every year. Eventually it was extended to civilians as an oath of allegiance, but teclinically and originally it denoted the army's loyalty to its leader ; the sacram^'iiUnii was for the campaign, and was renewed for a fresh term of active service under new leaders. Personal devotion to one's leader, in fact, became more and more characteristic of military service. The general or officer could inspire and exact obedience ; the soldier followed and fought, without asking questions. A modern writer puts it thus: 'Alan was in the right trade as a soldier ; this is the officer's part to make men continue to do tilings, they know not wherefore, and when, if the choice was offered, they would lie down where they were and be killed. And I daresay I would have been a good enough private ; for in these last hours it never occurred to me that I had any choice but just to obey as long as I was able, and to die obeying' (R. L. Stevenson, Kidnapped, ch. xxii.). This absolute and unqualified devotion corresponds to the Roman ideal in the early centuries of the church (cf., e.g., Seneca, Ep. Mot. xcv. : 'Quemadmoduni primum niilitiae vinculum est religio et signorum amor, et deserendi nefas, tunc deinde facile cetera exiguntur mandanturque jusjurandum adactis, ita in his quos velis ad beatam vitam perducere, prima fundamenta jacienda sunt, et insinuanda virtus'), and it readily suggested the devotion of the Christian to his Lord and Leader, the unqualified demands made upon him for self-sacrifice and detachment from other ties, and at the same time the satisfac- tion of abandoning himself without reserve to One who would reward all service, who would take all responsibilities for His soldiers, and who was personally interested in them. The issue and strategy of the campaign were His ; theirs only to follow
* As far back as the Ist cent. b.o. the military reforms are said to have produced a concentration of the soldier's devotion to his general ; he was detached more than ever from the ties of civilian hfe. 'The soldier learnt to owe allegiance to the man who led and fed him, his affections were centred on the only home which he knew— the camp ' (E. H. Alton, in A Companion to Latin Stvdies^, Cambridge, 1913, p. 463).