Note: I started a series on Christian pacifists throughout the ages on Reddit (r/Christianpacifism). Because I started on there, I will keep posting there as well, but I’m going to C&P each post for this blog because linking to the Reddit is tedious.

Introduction

First a quick rundown of what exactly I aim this series to be. When I first became convinced that Christianity teaches pacifism, I looked for resources from other Christians in history. One thing that I saw quite frequently was the claim that Christianity was a completely peaceful religion which rejected war entirely during the first several hundred years of its existence. Rarely did I ever see any evidence or sources for the claims though. Occasionally people would quote someone or even makes big collections of anti-violence quotes from the church fathers.. but again, no sources or context.

I decided to dig a bit deeper. I read a few books and am slowly working my way through the original writings of these influential Christians now. I am making this series as a simple resource for others to learn about the actual thoughts and arguments used from pacifist Christians throughout history as well as give sources so others know where they can learn more.

The aim of this work is not to give all the gritty theology and details of each Christian, but enough of their life and historical setting that we can put their teachings on peace in the correct context, to quote some of their actual arguments for peace, to point out some resources for further study and to list the verses they often quote. It is my hope that this helps the pacifist Christian community become more literate in its history and capable of defending its views.

I am an amateur and am relatively new at this research, so please let me know of any errors I make along the way so we stay on the path to truth.

Rome

It all started with a priestess, Rhea Silvia, daughter of a former king of Alba who had been displaced by his brother. As a vestal virgin, she had taken a vow of chastity in order to study how to correctly observe state rituals. She gave birth to twins, however, after she was visited and impregnated by Mars, the god of war. The boys, Romulus and Remus, were hunted down by their great-uncle to ensure they would never steal the throne from him. It was in hiding that they were kept alive by a she-wolf. Eventually they were adopted by a shepherd and reentered human society. They later learned of their true identities and helped overthrow their great-uncle and reinstate their grandfather to the throne.

Afterwards, the two set off to start their own city. After a disagreement over which hill to build their city, they asked the gods. Romulus won divine approval, but not Remus’. Eventually the dispute between the two reached a peak and Romulus killed Remus, his own brother. Thus, the city of Rome was built.

Though obviously a myth, it shows how Rome was thought to have been started through religion and the meddling of the gods (the god of war no less), rivalries and betrayal, and murder. This is the world that early Christianity grew up in. Society was at the mercy of the warlike gods and maintained through murderous and brutal politics.

At the time of Jesus’ death, Julius Caesar was ruler. He had instated what was known as Pax Romana (literally Roman peace). After what was centuries of war, Rome finally had a time of peace, though peace means different things to different people. For the Romans, it meant victory; The enemies were squashed and the Romans “piously followed a leader”. 1 How was this peace maintained? Fear. Although the Romans did allow a great deal of freedom, religious freedom for example, if one were deemed an enemy of the state, pain and death awaited.

We’ll get into this a bit more when we talk about the martyr tradition within the early church, but Rome was very good at propagating fear to keep everyone in line. Crucifixions, often given to rebels, were done not only to inflict great pain upon the victim and thus ‘convince’ others not to rebel, but the bodies were displayed along the roads leading into Rome so no one would ever forget what happened to Rome’s enemies. Executions, especially later on, were filled with theatrical pomp and a propaganda filled message of Rome always destroys its enemies. This is (perhaps surprisingly) shown well in the movie The Gladiator when the gladiators are forced to dress up as Rome’s enemies while others, well armed of course, represented Roman soldiers. It was all overhanded propaganda to keep people in line.

Now I did mention religious freedom, so how does this all tie in with Christianity? We can get a clue from the Roman magistrate, Pliny the Younger. But first a word about Roman religion. In ancient Rome, religion was not at all concerned about truth, but with fulfilling certain practices and rituals. In fact, there are stories of confused and even somewhat distraught leaders in the army towards certain Christians under their command who refused to sacrifice to the gods. They stressed to the protester that they need not believe in the Roman gods nor to disbelieve in the Christian god, but must simply follow through with the ritual. Belief had nothing to do with it. However, the religious rituals were deeply important to Rome and its army and were believed to be the reason for its success. So it was better to kill a few Christian dissenters who refused to sacrifice to the gods than to damn the entire army and empire through apathy towards the gods.

Which brings us back to Pliny. Christians were not systematically persecuted (not at this time anyway), but were dealt with on a case by case basis. Christians refused to sacrifice to the emperor, instead holding sacramental ceremonies to their own Lord, which was seen as undermining Roman authority. As we can see in Pliny’s letter to Trajan, they were to be punished if they proved to be Christian, but absolved of all guilt if they renounced their Christianity and sacrificed to the Roman gods.2 Christians, though, saw Jesus as their Lord, not Caesar. Although some certainly did back down, most Christians refused to sacrifice to the Roman gods because, despite promises death and torture. They maintained that it was their Lord who reigned and that Rome held no real power.

And now we are at a point in which we can look finally at these early Christian writers. They were under the control of an empire run on fear that demanded sacrifice to idols. Those who refused, were persecuted. When we discuss these writers’ views on war, it must be remembered that being part of the army meant sacrificing to the gods to ensure victory (at least for higher ranks). Thus, some argue that the early Christians’ distaste for war and the army was primarily focused on anti-idolatry rhetoric and was not anti-war in and of itself. Frankly, that is beyond the scope of this series.

I am not here to claim that all Christians were pacifists, and certainly not pacifists in the sense we commonly think it. It is also important to note that, though we have many writings from Christians rejecting violence and absolutely none that I’m aware of supporting it, that does not mean that all Christians refused to use violence. We simply cannot say what the masses believed. In fact, we do know that there were Christians in the military, increasingly so as time went on. Are we then to dismiss any notion that early Christianity was against using violence? I don’t think so, but it’s irrelevant to the series. This is not a scholarly work or opinion piece, but a resource.