But the 3rd cent, witnessed the rise of didiculties for Christian soldiers on a serious scale, which pro- duced a certain reaction against the service. Some part of the repugnance obviously felt by Christians for military service may have been due to the fact that jlitlir.aism was one of the favourite religions among the troops. I<"rom Memphis to the south of Scotland, from Armenia and the Balkans to Spain, the presence of the legions has left more or less distinct traces of this cult ; from the reign of Commodus onwards, it was patronized by various emjierors as the fnutor imperii stii ; .some- times, as under the reactionary policy of Julian, it was favoured actually as a counter-weight to
Is 2* is being visibly fulfilled. Formerly the entire life of bar- barians ' used to be spent under arms ; their staff was a sword, and it was their stay in all emergencies . . . but when they hear the teaching of Christ, they at once turn from war to agriculture . . . and, instead of fighting among themselves, take arms against the devil and evil spirits, subduing them by self-control and by the soul's virtue.' It was in fear of war turning against themselves that the demons incited men to war against men I
Christianity, and all this may have sharpened the distaste of tiie Church for a branch of the public service which was so closely iilentilied with the rival and belligerent cult of Milhra. But the reasons for the Chiistian hesitation lay deeper. Some Christians felt (see above, p. 6G'J) that the sixth commandment forbade the takinjjof human life at all, and that the soldier's trade was no better than murder. Tliis had never been the aim of the OT command, of course, and a man like Athanasius (Ep. xlviii. ) frankly recognized the ditlerence between murder as prohibited by the sixth com- mandment and the duty of the soldier to kill his enemies. Still, under a Christian regime which discouraged and had to discourage murder, it was inevitable that such a conclusion should occasion- ally be drawn. Far more serious was the difficulty raised by t he compromising association of the Koman army with polytheism and the State-reliyion. These ottered a real obstacle to some early Chris- tians, and it was on this score that the issue was sharply raised. The allegiance of the army was bound up with a statutory recognition of the Em|ieror as the semi-divine head of the State ; the military standards, decorated with gold and silver images of gods and emperors, were set up periodi- cally as sacra to be venerated ; and altars were erected, from the reign of Gallienus onwards, to the genius of the Emperor and subsequently to the genius of the Koman people. Camp religion, said Tertullian, is notliing but a veneration of the standards ; the whole camp swears by them, and sets them up above all other gods {Apol. 16).* The ' genii of the legion,' the ' genii of the cohort,' and so forth, made >ip a military religion of their own, alongside of the Capitoline deities. On the other hand, all this 'religious' side of the army could be, and evidently was, regarded by many Christians as a purely formal and official business ; it was an unpleasant and distasteful item in the organization, but it could be judged from the point of view of patriotism, and many who were not Cliristians at all showed that they did not take it seriously. Church-parades were even then what they are often now. Besides, the oflering up of the pre- scribed sacrifices was the duty of the officers ; the rank and file had no direct personal share in the ceremony, although they tacitly assented by their presence on parade. And Cliristian officers cannot have been very numerous, at any rate in the 2nd century. At the same time, the army obviously was a place of special danger to the Christian who wished to be perfectly consistent. The situ.ation was undoubtedly equivocal. The pagan Ca-ciliiis, in the dialogue of Minucius Felix (6), proudly claims that the Roman service had a distinctly religious accompaniment: ' Exercent in armis virtutem religiosam . . . cultu religionis armati.' Trouble was almost inevitable before long for members of the Church who had to face the religious rites of the camp in the light of what .some Chris- tian authorities were saying about idolatry. For example, a Christian soldier was put to death at Csesavea under Callienus (Eus. JJE vii. 15) for refusing to offer the usual sacrifice to the emperors, which was required of all officers. Marinus had been elected to the position of centurion, but his election was challenged by a rival, who objected that Marinus could not take the honour as he was a Christian and therefore unable to perform the due sacrifice. On examination this was found to be correct, and the Christian forfeited his life. The local bishop, Theoteknus, came to him during the three hours given him for reconsidering his position, and, taking him into the church, asked
" Germanicus cheered on hia troopg to 'follow the Roman bircLs [i.e. the eagles], the special deities of the legions '(' pro- pria legionum nuniina' (Tac. Ann. ii. 17J).
him to choose between the sword at his side and the gospels which the bisliop put before him. The .sohiier took the gospels. Once again, a case of voluntary death on tlie part of two Christian soldiers is chronicled in the f.amous inscription of Pope Damasus on the Appian Koad (cf. H. Achelis, in TU XI. ii. [1894] 43 f., where their later Acta are discussed), which commemorates the martyr- dom of Nereus and Achilleus ; they were buried in the cemetery of Domitilla, the niece of Domi- tian. The exact date of their death is uncertain. But they certainly felt that their Christian faith was incompatible with their profession, and acted upon their feeling ('conversi fugiunt ducis iiiipia castra, reliquunt clypeos, faleras, telaque cruenta, confessi gaudent Christi portare triuniphos '). In like manner, there were isolated cases of men refusing to take part in the pagan religious rites which the army practised. One of these is known to have taken place at Tangiers, where a centurion called Marcellus, during some ceremony of sacri- fice in honour of the Emperor's birthday, suddenly threw oil' his military belt and declared that he was a soldier of Jesus Christ the eternal King. ' From this time,' he shouted, ' I cease to be a soldier of your emperors, and as for worshipping your gods of wood and stone, I scorn to do it ; they are deaf and dumb idols.' For this breach of discipline he was arrested and beheaded (cf. T. Kuinart, Acta Primorum Martyrum, Amsterdam, 1713, p. 343 f.). Marcellus suffered under Maxi- mian and so did the Christian soldiers of the Thebaic legion (i.e. from Thebais, in Upper Egypt), which is said to have been twice decimated for refusing to participate in some pagan rite ; both officers and men died for thus incurring the charge of insubordination.