Defending Constantine: The Twilight of an Empire and the Dawn of Christendom (38 page)

The complication is that Lactantius later added a dedication to this very treatise, offering it to Constantine, whom he knew to be a soldier. The dedication praised Constantine as the "greatest of emperors" because he had "cast aside error" and determined "to acknowledge and honor the majesty of the one true God." Constantine "brought back justice, which had been overturned and blotted out," and "expiated the horrible crimes of other rulers," and Lactantius reminded him that the Father, a "very strict judge toward the wicked," would avenge persecutors in other parts of the world.47
He commended courage when "fighting for your country," and he celebrated the victory of Constantine at Milvian Bridge in the same tone as Eusebius: "With great rejoicing, let us celebrate the triumph of God; let us extol the victory of the Lord; day and night let us pour out our prayers in rejoicing; let us pray that he establish forever the peace that has been granted to his people after ten years."4S

Perhaps Lactantius was a power-hungry sycophant, ready to abandon pacifist convictions to trim his teaching when fresh political winds started blowing. Perhaps he was simply frightened of the strongman on the throne, whose claim to follow Jesus was less than wholly believable. If so, he was not alone in these sentiments, for there was, quite strikingly, no controversy over war and pacifism at the time of Constantine's conversion.49
The evidence we have of a controversy on these issues is from Tertullian, during Yoder's "proto-Constantinian" period. But even there the controversy did not engulf the church. We have only Tertullian on the one side and unnamed opponents, including Christians actually in the military, on the other. In any case, if the early church was uniformly pacifist, and pacifist by conviction, then the overnight adjustment to Constantine's conversion was a fall indeed, a breathtaking lapse of nerve. We might even call it a breathtaking lapse of attention. Did none of these convinced pacifists even notice what was happening? It would seem not.

As we have seen, though, there is a more likely explanation: the church was never united in an absolute opposition to Christian participation in war; the opposition that existed was in some measure circumstantial, based on the fact that the Roman army demanded sharing in religious liturgies that Christians refused; and once military service could be pursued without participating in idolatry, many Christians found military service a legitimate life for a Christian disciple. As for Lactantius, either he did not see any contradiction between the dedication and the treatise, or he modified his views in the light of the new circumstances that Constantine inaugurated. Even if he shifted his views, we cannot trace the sources of Lactantius's apparent shift in detail, though we can be sure he was neither a coward nor a relativist.

CHRISTIANS IN THE "CONSTANTINIAN" ARMY

The "afters" support this account of the "befores."

Constantine did not purge the military or his administration of pagans, and it is always important to remember the massive continuity of personnel between the Tetrarchy and Constantine. Some of the soldiers who enforced decrees against the Donatists, or who hurried Arius (and then Athanasius) off to exile, might well have participated in the persecution. Yet with a Christian on the imperial throne, promoting other Christians to high administrative positions, certain avenues of service-in the army and the civil service-opened for Christians as they had not before. Christians had been in these positions before, but they had had to ignore, sidestep or accommodate to the religious demands of imperial service. Constantine removed the requirement of sacrifice for civil service, so even Christians who were zealously antipagan could enter the service.

Bishops acknowledged the change by giving permission to Christians to join the army and to serve in Constantine's government. But the permission came with other instructions. The council of Arles in 314 did not, as Constantine hoped, solve the Donatist problem, but it issued several canons that indicate how the bishops were addressing the new political situation. As at earlier councils, the bishops strictly forbade Christians to participate in certain entertainments:

4. Concerning charioteers who are among the faithful, it is resolved that as long as they continue to drive in chariot races they be excluded from fellowship.

5. Concerning actors, it is also resolved that as long as they continue to carry on that occupation they be excluded from fellowship.

The canon on civil officials instructed them to be transferred in good order from one church to another in the case of transfer of office, so that the local bishop could give oversight:

7. Concerning officials who are among the faithful who take up government office, thus it is resolved that, when they be transferred, they receive letters of reference from their churches, so that, therefore, in whatever places they serve, care be administered them by the bishop of that place, and when they begin to act against the church's discipline, that only then they be excluded from fellowship.

8. Similarly also concerning those who wish to pursue a public career.

An earlier canon (56) from the Council of Elvira had declared that "magistrates are not to enter the church during the year in which they serve as duumvir,"50
presumably because the magistrate would be forced to participate in pagan rites. Since civil officials no longer had to sacrifice, the bishops now permitted Christians to remain in the church and participate in its fellowship, with the proviso that they were to conduct their public business under the oversight of a local bishop. One might see this as accommodation to the empire, but it is explicitly an assertion of ecclesiastical authority over civil officials, even in their civil capacity.51

The council also issued an unusual decree concerning Christians in military service: "Concerning those who lay down their weapons in peacetime it is resolved that they be excluded from fellowship." Various interpretations have been offered. Perhaps Christians had been tempted to desert during the persecutions, but now that Christianity had been legalized they were to retain their arms. But the canon seems to be splitting the difference more finely. Soldiers, the canon instructed, had to retain their
arms in peacetime, but, _link_ Hermann Dorries _link_ suggests, "he is not forbidden to do so in time of war."52
We cannot "look upon the decision at Arles as mere conformity to the will of the emperor." Instead of simply repudiating its principles, the church was attempting to make room for conscientious objectors while acknowledging the new political realities: "military service was not rejected per se and yet was not unconditionally endorsed."53
The date is important here. Arles took place only two years after Constantine's victory over Maxentius, but already the church was adjusting its pastoral counsel to meet the new situation. The fact that this took place without any apparent controversy is a sign that the church was already prepared for the eventuality.

Martin of Tours apparently operated by the principle articulated in the Arles canon. Converted while serving in the Roman military in a campaign in Gaul in 336, he remained in the Roman army until the day before a battle. When his turn came to receive the donative, he said, "Hitherto I have served you as a soldier: allow me now to become a soldier to God: let the man who is to serve you receive your donative: I am the soldier of Christ: it is not lawful for me to fight." His commander charged that Martin had withdrawn "from fear of the battle" rather than "from any religious feeling." Martin, however, offered to stand at the front of the battle without shield or helmet, protected only by the cross. He was arrested overnight, and plans were made to make good on his offer the next day. Before that could happen, the enemy sought peace and Martin was released.54

Ambiguity continued to mark the church's relation with the military after the church was thoroughly integrated into public life. Late in the fourth century, Basil claimed that the church had not condemned killing in war as murder and that it did not in his time exercise discipline against active soldiers: "Homicide in war is not reckoned by our Father as homicide; I presume from their wish to make concession to men fighting on behalf of chastity and true religion." Yet Basil also advised that it may be well to
counsel that those "whose hands are not clean only abstain from communion for three years."55
With Athanasius, ambiguity yielded to endorsement of military virtues and the military life: "Whereas killing is otherwise forbidden, in war it is legitimate and even praiseworthy to kill enemies. He who distinguishes himself in this receives great honor."56
Eventually things turned full circle, and pagans were excluded from the army.

JUST WARRIORS

Even so, the church did not become a hotbed of militaristic mania. The very writers who formulated the Christian version of "just war" theory continued, in fact, to emphasize some of the main points, and use the same passages, that the early fathers had. Ambrose defended violence not only on the part of civil officials in war and punishment but even in some private circumstances, when one acted-as Moses did-to defend the innocent against the oppressor.57
At the same time, Ambrose renounced selfdefense and claimed that even the "thought of warlike matters seems to be foreign to the duty of our office," the office of priests. It is not the priest's business to "look to arms, but rather to the forces of peace.."5S
He famously faced down the emperor Theodosius, forbidding him to receive the Eucharist with the blood of innocents on his hands. It is inaccurate to say that he is simply giving a Christian gloss to the just war tradition of Roman political thinkers. Even in Ambrose, "pacifist arguments retained much of their old vigor, and the dilemma of Christian violence and love remained to a considerable extent unresolved."59

Ambrose did not penetrate the problem with anything like the depth of Augustine. Like Ambrose, Augustine is often accused of adopting a thinly Christianized version of the Roman defense of war, but that does little justice to the profundity of his wrestling with questions of war and peace. Against the Manichaean Faustus, Augustine argued that the Old Testament retains its authority and gives sanction to war and even to religious
coercion. As he grew older he became less sanguine about politics, more cynical about the uses of violence. While he continued to defend the necessity of war and violent coercion, in the City of God he did it in the context of a radical subversion of Christian national and ethnic loyalties.60

Even where he defended the use of violence and coercion, he consciously defended it from within a Christian framework, with Jesus' demand for love of enemies always at the forefront of his mind. Turning the other cheek

does not forbid punishment which serves as corrective. In fact, that kind of punishment is a form of mercy.... The only person suitable for inflicting punishment is the man whose love has driven out that normal hatred which rages in us when we have a desire for revenge. We do not have to fear, for instance, that parents seem to hate their young son if he has done wrong, and they box his ears to prevent a recurrence.... This example is the best illustration of the fact that one can love and punish a son all at the same time.
61

Augustine appealed to the same analogy to draw a conclusion about war. When "the earthly city observes Christian principles," then it wages war "with the benevolent purpose that better provision might be made for the defeated to live harmoniously together in justice and godliness." Freedom is not the ultimate good, and restraining freedom can be a good when the freedom is being use to do evil. If possible, "wars would be waged as an act of mercy by good men so that by controlling unbridled passions they could stamp out those vices that ought to be removed or suppressed by any responsible government."62

Augustine was no jingoist, and he knew that warfare was most often perverted with pride, greed, lust for domination. He knew that the wars waged for just causes were few and far between. For Augustine, war had to be waged, when it was waged, for the sake of peace. Peace, not war, was still the Christian vision of the world subdued by the gospel.

CONCLUSION

Yoder claims that the church slid or fell into Constantinianism from an earlier renunciation of violence and war. In fact, things are more messy and complicated, and therefore Yoder is wrong. Where Yoder needs an unambiguous consensus in the earlier church, the evidence is instead small, divided and ambiguous. Where Yoder needs a uniform pro-Constantinian consensus after the fourth century, the evidence continues to be divided and ambiguous. There was certainly a shift. After Constantine, when the Roman emperors began to look to the church for ethical guidance, the church began to be more overt in making the discriminating decisions that characterize the "just war" tradition. But the shift is more plausibly a result of a change in the church's political position than a result of a fundamental theological modification. Some Christians after Constantine maintained the pacifist views expressed by some of the earlier fathers, and even the theologians most responsible for the development of mainstream Christian views on war and violence were hardly warmongers. In short, the story of the church and war is ambiguity before Constantine, ambiguity after, ambiguity right to the present. Constantine is in this respect a far lesser figure than Yoder wants to make him.

So far the argument about war and peace. What about early Christian views of empire, and later views of the empire and Christian mission? That is the subject of the next chapter.