From Irenaeus to Grotius: A Sourcebook in Christian Political Thought
Oliver O’Donovan and Joan Lockwood O’Donovan
Number of quotes: 5
Book ID: 92 Page: 2
Section: 3A4C
b. There were Christians serving in the army from the second century on, and a number of military martyrs are known.….
…difficulties for a considerable time. It is unlikely that they were all converted after entering upon military service, as Tertullian wished to believe.
Quote ID: 2372
Time Periods: 234
Book ID: 92 Page: 3
Section: 3A3,3A4C
c. The difficulty in military service was twofold: (1) the military oath, the offensiveness of which was not confined to its quasi-religious implications, symbolized in the offensive “chaplet” worn as ceremonial dress; (2) responsibility for bloodshed, which made the civil tasks of keeping the peace certainly as offensive, if not more so, than service in battle. Civil magistracy, therefore, was also problematic for the same reason. It is, however, rare to find Christians saying that judicial bloodshed is wrong simpliciter, as distinct from being wrong for Christians.d. The opinion of Christian teachers changed imperceptibly. There is no reason to think Tertullian idiosyncratic for the second and third centuries, Montanist though he was, except in the aggressiveness of his rhetoric. Fourth-century writers, however, found no moral difficulty with military service in war, unaware, apparently, of the gulf dividing their attitudes from earlier ones. (“Homicide in war is not reckoned by our fathers as homicide,” Basil, Ep. 188). This is in striking contrast to the conscientious anxiety which frequently surfaced in the fourth and fifth centuries about responsibility for capital punishment.
e. This general unawareness of the change of attitude makes it unlikely that the modification of the church’s stance was at all self-conscious. An act like that of the Council of Arles (314), discouraging Constantine’s soldiers from leaving the service in peacetime, should be seen as an improvised response and an interesting measure of what some Christian opinion had come to expect by that point, but not as a decisive reversal of traditional judgments. Difficulties over the place of senior magistrates in the church continued to arise in the early Christian empire from their official duty to impose capital punishment and to take evidence under torture.
Quote ID: 2373
Time Periods: 2345
Book ID: 92 Page: 8
Section: 4A
The earliest Christian reflection on the nature of society and its political and its politics, after that of the New Testament itself, arose in the context of apologetics - that is, in the course of the young church’s struggle for toleration by a suspicious and antagonistic pagan society.
Quote ID: 2374
Time Periods: 2
Book ID: 92 Page: 8
Section: 4A
Justin, from modern Nablus in Palestine, who died a martyr around A.D. 165, illustrates one pole of the apologetic endeavor: Christians are described as philosophers, a category of independent- minded citizens well recognized within Hellenistic society.….
…he came to Christianity as the “only reliable and helpful philosophy.” It was also congenial to the moment in political history at which he was writing. For the successors of Trajan attempted to consolidate the empire on the basis of a program of philosophic enlightenment.
Quote ID: 2375
Time Periods: 2
Book ID: 92 Page: 14
Section: 2D3B
From Theophilus of Antioch, To Autolycus, Book 1PJ Note: About 175
11. Accordingly, I will pay honour to the emperor not by worshipping him but by praying for him. I worship the God who is the real and true God, since I know that the emperor was made by him. You will say to me, “Why do you not worship the emperor?” Because he was made not to be worshipped but to be honored with legitimate honour. He is not God but a man appointed by God, not to be worshipped but to judge justly. For in a certain way he has been “entrusted with a stewardship” (1Cor. 9:17) from God. He himself has subordinates whom he does not permit to be called emperors, for “emperor” is his name and it is not right for another to be given this title. Similarly worship must be given to God alone. You are entirely mistaken, O man. “Honour the emperor” (1 Pet. 2:17) by wishing him well, by obeying him, by praying for him, for by so doing you will perform “the will of God’ (1Pet. 2:15); the law of God says, “Honour my son, God and the king, and be disobedient to neither one; for they will suddenly destroy their enemies” (Prov. 24:21f.)
Quote ID: 2376
Time Periods: 2
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