t J. Toutain, Lea Cultes paiens dans I'empire romain, ii. ri911] 131.
where He led and do their best, unhampered by any suspicion or doulit " of their lives being thrown away. When Christianity was to be put as a religion of loyalty, in which the oath of duty ruled out any personal choice or preference, the army furnished a telling set of ideas and words.
(c) A third element was proljablv the cohesion and new sense of brotherhood provided by the cults at their best, though this was by no means so prominent as the thought of renunciation. The initiates were taught to regard each other as comrades, fighting side by side in the ranks of their faith. A common religious hope bound them together. This is known to have been a feature of Mithraism, in theory if not in practice, and we might have expected it to flourish in the church. But it was not so. Early Christianity on the whole preferred other expressions for the solidarity and cohesion of the faithful; it went to the family, to architecture, or to the physical organism, rather than to the army, when it needed metaphors for unity ; 'brothers,' 'stones' in a building, or 'limbs' in the body were much more common than 'fellow-soldiers,' though the cults also used the first of these terms quite freely.
4. Attitude of the early church towards war. —
We now turn to sketch the attitude of the primitive Christians to war and the army as reaUties instead of analogies {cf. A. Harnack, Mission and Expan- sion of Early Christianity^, London, 1908, i. 308 f., ii. 52 f.). Down to the reign of Marcus Aurelius (A.D. 161-180) military service does not seem to have presented itself as a prohlem at all to the conscience of the Church ; it is only during this emperor's reign that indications of a dithculty are to DC noted for the first time. But, in order to appreciate the situation which was now rising, we must glance at the preceding period, when the political and social conditions of the life of Jesus were passing or had passed away, and when Chris- tians were no longer in the environment of those to whom the words of Jesus had been spoken. A wider situation was emerging than that of Jews in a small subject province of the empire.
Daring the Apostolic Age the iirst non-Jew to enter tlie Christian Church was a Koman officer. Tlie Ethiopian treasurer of queen Candace had indeed been baptized previously by Philip, but he disappears in the south, far from any fellowship of the Church. On the other hand, Cornelius (cf. DAC i. 259), the captain of the Italian regiment stationed at Csesarea, comes before us definitely in St. Luke's history as a convert whose case led to a new development of the Church's policy. Nothing is said about his profession being inconsistent with the faith. It was the fact that he was uncircuni- cised, not that he was in the army, that raised suspicion and opposition in the conservative party of the Church at Jerusalem. This forms a fresh proof, if proof were needed, that, if the gospel did not start by encouraging war, it certainly did not prohibit from the outset any connexion with the army as absolutely inconsistent with the faitli. No one dreamt of any problem here, any more than in the case of marriage or of slavery.
The first war undertaken by a man of God in the Bible was Abraham's campaign again.st Chedorlaomer for the liberation of Lot (Gn 14^'*'*), in which he proved himself effective, loyal, and generous, both as a general and as an ally ; but this daring exploit is not selected by the author t of Hebrews (cf. 11^'^^) as an instance of his faith. He did not pass it over, however, |rom any sense of embarrassment, for he goes on to recount other military events in the story of Israel with un- hesitating entliusiasm, from tlie downfall of Jericho to the Maccabgean struggle (IP"^*, 'men who by faith conquered kingdoms, administered justice, . . . escaped the edge of the sword, from weakness won to strength, proved valiant in war- fare, and routed hosts of foreigners'). Tliis frank
* ' II y a, sous les amies, une grande dignity de vie. ... II faut Hre prfitre ou soldat pour ne pas coniiaitre les angoisses du doute ' (Anatole France, Le Livre de mun ami"^^, Paris, 1S06, p. G9).
t In Sirach's hymn of praise (44i9f-) the same omission is made, though the martial note is frequently struck farther on (45=^3C 46if. 47-n"-).
WAR
WAli
6G1
recognition of the historical .connexion hetween war and reli;;ion deserves to be contrasted with one of the most nauseous )iieces of sophistry in .losophus, i.i\ tile appeal whiih he says (hat he made to his feHow-eonntrymen at the siego of Jerusalem to surrender to tlio liomans. Ho actually advised them not to (iKht, on the ground that Israel had never suceeedeii in war, and that all she needed to do was to trust in (iod, if her cause was just — which this renegade Jew, from the shelter of tlie legions, coolly denied. In the old days, said Josepluis to his indignant country- men, '(!od carried on these campaigns for our fathers, because they dispensed witli active service and arms and committed their case to Hiui to vindicate. . . . In short, our fathers won no success by war and never failed to succeed when they alijured war and committed all to God ' {BJ v. 3SG, .'WO). Pacilist special pleading like this was untrue alike to historj' and to the OT. The author of Hebrews took a more sane view of Israel's record, and included martial exploits in his list of honour. These achievements * are ranked in the same class as the martyrdom of Ahel and the pa.ssive glories of Lsaac and .loseph. It is true that the writer ' seems with a tender instinct to avoid anything like stress on the exploits of warriors. Of tlie twelve persons having a share in the detailed expositions, David is the only warrior, and his character as a man of war is eclipsed by his neater attributes as a propliet, or declarer of the Divine counsels. It is yet more noteworthy that Joshua, who had so fair a fame, but who was only a warrior, is never named in the cha]iter, and we are simply told that " by faith tlie walls of Jericlio fell down, after they had been compassed about seven times." Bnt the series of four names, which are given without any specification of their title to appear in the list, are all names of distinguished warriors. They had all done great acts of faith and patriotism against the enemies of Israel — Gideon against tlie Midianites, IJarak against the hosts of Syria, Samson ag.ainst the Philistines, and Jephth.'ih against the children of Amnion. Their title to a|ipear in the list at all is in their acts of war.'t At the same time there is not the slightest hint that in the peojile of God who live under the s]iirit and hope of Jesus any successors of these martial saints were expected to arise. The promise of Ut SI" and Jos 1° is taken out of its very militant setting and transformed into a word of encourage- ment for those who needed to be freed from worldly anxiety about their possessions (He IS'*: ' I will never leave thee, nor forsake thee '). The situation of the community to which the writer addresses himself was too remote from public atlairs to suggest any ditficulties about such matters as the relation of Christians to the army or to any other function of the Kmpire. At this stage, indeed, no difficulties were felt at all.