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| Chapter XI.
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Chapter XI.
To begin with the real ground of the military
crown, I think we must first inquire whether warfare is proper at all
for Christians. What sense is there in discussing the merely
accidental, when that on which it rests is to be condemned? Do we
believe it lawful for a human oath417
| 417 [He plays on this word
Sacramentum. Is the military sacrament to be added
to the Lord’s?] | to be superadded
to one divine, for a man to come under promise to another master after
Christ, and to abjure father, mother, and all nearest kinsfolk, whom
even the law has commanded us to honour and love next to God Himself,
to whom the gospel, too, holding them only of less account than Christ,
has in like manner rendered honour? Shall it be held lawful to make an
occupation of the sword, when the Lord proclaims that he who uses the
sword shall perish by the sword? And shall the son of peace take
part in the battle when it does not become him even to sue at law? And
shall he apply the chain, and the prison, and the torture, and the
punishment, who is not the avenger even of his own wrongs? Shall
he, forsooth, either keep watch-service for others more than for
Christ, or shall he do it on the Lord’s day, when he does not
even do it for Christ Himself? And shall he keep guard
before the temples which he
has renounced? And shall he take a meal where the apostle has forbidden
him?418
And shall he diligently protect by night
those whom in the day-time he has put to flight by his exorcisms,
leaning and resting on the spear the while with which Christ’s
side was pierced? Shall he carry a flag,419
| 419 [Vexillum. Such words as
these prepared for the Labarum.] | too,
hostile to Christ? And shall he ask a watchword from the emperor
who has already received one from God? Shall he be disturbed in
death by the trumpet of the trumpeter, who expects to be aroused by the
angel’s trump? And shall the Christian be burned according to
camp rule, when he was not permitted to burn incense to an idol, when
to him Christ remitted the punishment of fire? Then how many
other offences there are involved in the performances of camp offices,
which we must hold to involve a transgression of God’s law, you
may see by a slight survey. The very carrying of the name over from the
camp of light to the camp of darkness is a violation of it. Of course,
if faith comes later, and finds any preoccupied with military service,
their case is different, as in the instance of those whom John used to
receive for baptism, and of those most faithful centurions, I mean the
centurion whom Christ approves, and the centurion whom Peter instructs;
yet, at the same time, when a man has become a believer, and faith has
been sealed, there must be either an immediate abandonment of it, which
has been the course with many; or all sorts of quibbling will have to
be resorted to in order to avoid offending God, and that is not allowed
even outside of military service;420
| 420 “Outside of the
military service.” By substituting ex militia for the
corresponding words extra militiam, as has been proposed by
Rigaltius, the sentence acquires a meaning such that desertion from the
army is suggested as one of the methods by which a soldier who has
become a Christian may continue faithful to Jesus. But the words
extra militiam are a genuine part of the text. There is no good
ground, therefore, for the statement of Gibbon: “Tertullian
(de Corona Militis, c. xi.) suggests to them the expedient
of deserting; a counsel which, if it had been generally known, was not
very proper to conciliate the favour of the emperors toward the
Christian sect.”—Tr. | or, last of all,
for God the fate must be endured which a citizen-faith has been no less
ready to accept. Neither does military service hold out escape from
punishment of sins, or exemption from martyrdom. Nowhere does the
Christian change his character. There is one gospel, and the same
Jesus, who will one day deny every one who denies, and acknowledge
every one who acknowledges God,—who will save, too, the life
which has been lost for His sake; but, on the other hand, destroy that
which for gain has been saved to His dishonour. With Him the faithful
citizen is a soldier, just as the faithful soldier is a
citizen.421
| 421 “The
faithful,” etc.; i.e., the kind of occupation which any one has
cannot be pleaded by him as a reason for not doing all that Christ has
enjoined upon His people.—Tr. | A state of faith
admits no plea of necessity; they are under no necessity to sin, whose
one necessity is, that they do not sin. For if one is pressed to the
offering of sacrifice and the sheer denial of Christ by the necessity
of torture or of punishment, yet discipline does not connive even at
that necessity; because there is a higher necessity to dread denying
and to undergo martyrdom, than to escape from suffering, and to render
the homage required. In fact, an excuse of this sort overturns the
entire essence of our sacrament, removing even the obstacle to
voluntary sins; for it will be possible also to maintain that
inclination is a necessity, as involving in it, forsooth, a sort of
compulsion. I have, in fact, disposed of this very allegation of
necessity with reference to the pleas by which crowns connected with
official position are vindicated, in support of which it is in common
use, since for this very reason offices must be either refused, that we
may not fall into acts of sin, or martyrdoms endured that we may get
quit of offices. Touching this primary aspect of the question, as to
the unlawfulness even of a military life itself, I shall not add more,
that the secondary question may be restored to its place. Indeed, if,
putting my strength to the question, I banish from us the military
life, I should now to no purpose issue a challenge on the matter of the
military crown. Suppose, then, that the military service is lawful, as
far as the plea for the crown is concerned.422
| 422 [He was not yet quite a
Montanist.] | E.C.F. INDEX & SEARCH
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