The Pacifist and the Bible
by M.S.C., S.T.D. Leslie Rumble
The one-time militaristic glorification of war as a good thing in itself has surely gone forever. One no longer thinks of the battlefield as "the breeding-ground of heroes, putting the stamp of nobility on nations with the courage to face it." The scientific development of lethal weapons able to obliterate whole peoples at a vast distance has made war too much of a good thing for anyone to be enamored of it in these days.
With all of us, therefore, militarism has given way to pacifism at least to the extent of declaring war in itself to be wholly undesirable, and of insisting that other means of settling their differences must be found by the governments of all countries.
Growth of Pacifism
Forty years ago a tentative form of pacifism was adopted by the League of Nations, which had been established after the First World War in the name of collective security. The idea was to enforce peace by the pooling of the power of all member nations to resist any aggressor.
The Second World War, however, proved that an idle dream, and pacifism in an extreme form is becoming more and more widespread among the peoples of at least the democratic nations of the world. A just war under modern conditions is declared to be impossible. Under no circumstances at all, we are told, can it be morally lawful for anyone to participate in a war even of defense against an unjust aggressor. All citizens of all countries are obliged to become conscientious objectors, refusing to take up arms, and relying instead on a policy of non-resistance for the preservation of peace.
With the premises from which it is argued to such a conclusion we can all agree, whatever may have to be said of the conclusion itself. For war has ever been one of the great scourges of humanity. Among primitive savages it meant carnage without mercy; and it was not much better among the ancient Greeks and Romans, with all their culture, for the devastation wrought by their military exploits made Vae Victis proverbial. Nothing in past history, however, can compare with the calamity a full-scale and total war in this present scientific age would necessarily be. The Church has always prayed "a peste, fame et bello libera nos, Domine"; but the vision before him of all that modern war involves impelled Pope Pius XI to declare in 1930 that any nation so rash as to contemplate it would be guilty of monstrous homicide and almost certainly of suicide.
There were not wanting Catholics who saw in these words of the Pope a condemnation of all war as intrinsically evil, participation in any war, even one of self-defense, being nothing less than co-operation in mass-murder. But they read more into his declaration than was really there.
Disastrous even unimaginably disastrous though a war may be, Christian moral principles say that there are circumstances in which a defending nation may regard it as the lesser of two evils, opposing violent resistance to violent aggression; and that excludes the contentions of absolute pacifists.
Traditional Catholic Principles
That the traditional principles of Catholic theology in regard to war still hold good despite modern conditions was made quite clear by Pope Pius XII.
Those traditional principles are that it is morally lawful to engage in war provided there be a just and sufficiently serious reason; that all other means to secure redress have first been tried in vain; that the decision be made by the supreme national authority; that the resultant evils will not obviously be out of all proportion to those which would otherwise have to be endured; and that in the conducting of the war the lives and property of non-combatants are duly respected.
In his Easter Message for 1954, while saying, "For our part, We will tirelessly endeavor to bring about by means of international agreements the effective proscription and banishment of atomic, biological and chemical war-fare," Pope Pius XII was careful to add: "always in subordination to the principle of legitimate self-defense."
Four years later, May 21, 1958, addressing a convention of Italian women army-auxiliaries, he said: "No nation which wishes to provide for the security of its frontiers, as is its right and absolute duty, can be without an army proportionate to its needs, supplied with all indispensable material, ready and alert for the defense of the homeland should it be unjustly attacked."
It follows that if a government, as a last resort, declares military resistance against unjust aggression to be necessary for the nation's security and very existence, individual soldiers rightfully regard the State's right of self-defense as delegated to them in the fulfillment of their military duties.
Against this Catholic doctrine strong protests are made by pacifists, above all by Quakers and like-minded Protestants, in the name of the teachings of Holy Scripture. They insist that, according to the Bible, war is intrinsically evil and that no Christian can with a good conscience have any part in it.
Biblical Debate
It must be admitted that many biblical texts, taken at their face value, seem to provide overwhelming support for such contentions; so much so that any Catholic entering into public debate with pacifists before an ordinary audience of people utterly lacking in critical biblical scholarship must resign himself to the likelihood that the popular verdict will be given against him. For the average man will think that to take the texts quoted other than literally, to refuse to hold fast to exactly what they say, is not to explain them, but rather to explain them away and rob them of any real significance.
Unfortunately there is no way such as by the swallowing of a few capsules before the debate begins of providing such an audience with the background of knowledge necessary for an intelligent appreciation of the true sense of scriptural citations. Yet the Protestant biblical scholar, Dr. W. K. Lowther Clarke, remarks in the introduction to his Concise Bible Commentary (1952): "To understand the Bible thoroughly one needs an equipment of wide and varied knowledge compared with which that needed by, say, a Shakespearean scholar is modest!"
Principles of Interpretation
One thing is certain. Surface meanings are not enough. We have to keep asking ourselves what given biblical expressions meant to those who originally heard them.
Now to Semitic audiences of two thousand years ago and more, the literalness to which we today are accustomed was quite foreign. Symbolical and proverbial forms of speech prevailed a fact ignored by those who seek literal legislation for our own times in isolated scriptural quotations.
For example, extravagant expressions of which a literal application would mean a reductio ad absurdum are clearly symbolical. Thus, intending it, literally, to bid a man, "If one takes thy coat, give him thy cloak also" (Matt., 5:40), would be to require him to deprive himself of all clothing in public, since the normal dress of the time consisted of two garments only, an outer coat and an inner cloak, or tunic!
Equally symbolical was the admonition, if struck on one cheek, to turn the other (Matt., 5:39); proof positive of that being afforded us by the fact that Christ Himself, during His trial, did not turn the other cheek when struck with a blow by the servant of the High Priest (John 18: 23).
The same cautions are necessary in regard to the use of proverbial sayings. In all nations advice is often illustrated by extreme examples which are not strictly true as they stand, nor meant to be. It is not literally true that "well begun is half done," nor that, if we "take care of the pence, the pounds will look after themselves."
Particularly in regard to the Sermon on the Mount one must pay close attention also to what Our Lord set out to do. He deliberately challenged accepted standards, startling His hearers by demanding the apparently impossible in what St. Ambrose called the "paradoxes of Christ." The goal He set before them was unattainable, and He knew it; but it was not impractical, for it served to create discontent with present low standards and enkindle aspirations toward higher ones, luring them on to ever loftier ideals. The proverbial method, however, forbids interpreting such maxims literally as hard and fast rules.
Our Lord was not concerned with giving a code containing detailed rules of behavior. His aim was to inculcate an inner spirit of sincerity and generosity, as opposed to the Pharisaic standards of external conformity to the letter of the law and to Rabbinical traditional conventions.
Need of Church-Guidance
It must also be noted that even apart from this preliminary background of general knowledge, the Catholic is bound to be talking at cross-purposes with those who think to solve all problems by an appeal to isolated texts from the Bible alone.
Individual passages of Scripture must be understood not only in the light of all the rest of its teachings, but also in that of the constant doctrine of the Church.
Protestant scholars are beginning to realize this for themselves. Thus, in a recent Protestant symposium, Biblical Authority for Today (1951), pp. 141-2, we read:
The fundamentalists deceive themselves when they believe that they can tie themselves purely to the Word of God . . .When this occurs without reference to church doctrine, one frequently falls into a boundless capriciousness. Any part of Scripture or a certain interpretation of a certain text once accepted is proclaimed as the only norm with astounding obstinacy.
Then, too, pacifists claim to be expounding a law which they claim to have discovered in the pages of Holy Writ. But where laws are concerned, authentic interpretation by a duly qualified authority is necessary. Even where civil legislation is concerned men do a long course of legal studies at a university to qualify as lawyers, so that they may explain to untrained minds the real significance of this or that law, and to what particular cases it would apply. It should not be a matter of surprise, then, if the true interpretation of divinely-revealed law is not at once evident to the average man and if he fails to find in isolated texts taken at their face value what Catholic theologians and exegetes declare them to mean.
All the considerations so far mentioned to justify the assertion that, before an audience of average people, especially if they be non-Catholics, the debating advantages will rest with the pacifist who glibly quotes his series of biblical texts, rather than with a scholarly Catholic opponent who relies on a scientific biblical knowledge and the traditional teachings of his Church.
But let us turn now to Scripture itself.
Mission of Christ
Nowhere in the whole of the Bible from beginning to end is there any text which can rightly be interpreted as declaring participation in a just war to be morally wrong. Indeed, that armed resistance and even aggression can be just is evident from the occasions in the Old Testament on which God Himself not only sanctioned but even commanded both defensive and punitive wars.
Most Christian pacifists, however, say that the Old Law was abrogated by the New Law, and that they base their case on the New Testament and the spirit of the Gospels.
No military campaigns, they say, were authorized by Christ, the Messiah, as they had been in ancient Jewish times. Also, did not the angels sing at His birth: "Peace on earth to men of good will"? Surely that meant that He, the Prince of Peace, would do away with all war and discord among the nations!
But a this-worldly view accounts for such wishful thinking which quite misunderstands the mission of Christ and ignores actual facts.
Not as a Temporal King
Christ did not come as a temporal ruler, to establish a Utopia on earth. "My kingdom," He said, "is not of this world" (John 18:36).
On one occasion, where the temporal concerns of an individual were involved, He simply ignored the issue and drew the attention of listeners to their higher eternal interests. A man had said to Him: "Master, speak to my brother, that he divide the inheritance with me." But Jesus replied: "Man, who hath appointed me judge or divider over you?" (Luke 12:13-14). He did not say that the man's claim was unjust. He merely declared the matter outside the scope of His mission, and one to be settled by other and ordinary human means.
So, too, He left the temporal administration of earthly kingdoms to earthly rulers. Although He Himself gave no military commands, nowhere did He forbid earthly rulers to engage in wars which they deemed necessary for their country's survival. In fact, He predicted "wars and rumors of war" (Matt. 24:6), warned His disciples that "in the world you shall have distress" (John 17:33), and declared that His peace would not be "as the world giveth peace" (John 14:27). What Our Lord did promise was interior and spiritual peace to those of good will who would accept and practice His teachings, despite their still having to live in this troubled world.
There was a remarkable similarity between the attitude of detachment on the part of Christ toward military affairs in this world, and that of His precursor, St. John the Baptist. When soldiers came to John asking, "What shall we do?", he told them: "Be content with your pay" (Luke 3:14). He did not denounce all warfare as necessarily wrong, telling them that they had to abandon their profession as soldiers. So, too, with Our Lord Himself. When the Jews asked Him to cure the centurion's servant because the centurion, although not one of themselves, had built them a synagogue, He did so without making the slightest suggestion that he should abandon his military career as an evil thing (Luke 7:5).
He even chose analogies from earthly warfare in order to illustrate His higher teachings, treating it as quite a normal event incidental to the imperfections of this worldly existence given over to the administration of men. "What king," He said, "about to make war upon another king, does not first think whether he be able with ten thousand to meet him that, with twenty thousand, cometh against him?" (Luke 14:31). Accepting this as human prudence, He warns us to use similar prudence, anticipating the cost of taking up one's cross in order to follow Him, and bravely facing the self-denial which our own personal sanctification will involve.
"Christ with a Bayonet!"
Confronted with this apparently detached attitude of Our Lord in regard to war, pacifists ask us whether we can picture Him grasping a bayonet dripping with blood, which He has just withdrawn from the body of some poor enemy victim. The appeal here, of course, is to imagination and sentiment; and it goes without saying that we cannot envisage any such thing. But this is not because participation in warfare is necessarily wrong.
It is because Jesus, as our Redeemer came for the spiritual welfare of the souls of men, abstracting from their material and earthly pursuits. He was interested in our eternal and heavenly destiny rather than in our worldly affairs. He came to teach us detachment from earthly concerns, although He never condemned a moderate and necessary attention to them. But for Him they were of secondary interest, and He bade us seek first the kingdom of God and His justice. We can no more imagine Him wielding a bayonet on a battlefield than we can imagine Him frequenting the Stock Exchange in order to try to amass an earthly fortune. His kingdom might be in this world, but it was not to be of this world. And it is impossible to imagine Him absorbed by any of the affairs of this world.
He did not, however, hesitate to wield a scourge in order to drive the money-changers from the Temple, protesting against their desecration of His Father's house (John 2:15).
Sermon on the Mount
We come now to the Sermon on the Mount which undoubtedly constitutes the most formidable aspect of the pacifist's biblical case against war. Here there seems indeed to be a clear break with Old Testament standards standards which Our Lord quotes expressly in order to refute them.
Yet once again we must ask what purpose Our Lord had in mind throughout the whole of His discourse. That purpose was to explain the personal dispositions which those individuals who wish to be His disciples must cultivate, and what their attitude must be in private relationships with their neighbors.
In no way was He attacking the principle of justice, nor exempting persons in authority from the duties incumbent upon them by virtue of their official position.
In family life parents retain their obligation to preserve good order in their homes, to exact obedience from their children, and to correct their faults, punishing them when necessary.
Civil authorities also are obliged to safeguard the welfare of the community, forbidding crimes within society and imposing appropriate penalties upon those guilty of them, and taking all measures essential for the State in order to protect it against unjust aggression by external enemies.
Indeed, nowhere in the Sermon on the Mount is there any question of advice or commands intended for public authorities in the exercise of their official duties; and not a single word in it can rightly be quoted in regard to war, which is a conflict between nations and not a matter of personal relationships between individuals.
It is in the light of all these considerations that each of Our Lord's statements must be interpreted.
"Peacemaker" Confused with "Pacifist"
It is true that Our Lord tells us to be "merciful" (Matt. 5:7), to be sensitive to the distress of others, and to be willing to relieve their needs and alleviate their sufferings. But it would not be mercy to stand by, watching a child flogged into a state of unconsciousness by some brutal sadist; nor would it be mercy for a State's authorities to expose its citizens to the ravages of a merciless aggressor. It must not be overlooked that God declares the merciful blessed because they "shall obtain mercy." There is a threat there. God will have no pity on the pitiless. He is Love, yes; but love in defense of the weak can do grim things. War is dreadful to contemplate; but unrestrained and ruthless aggression is a more dreadful thing still.
In the same way, "Blessed are the peacemakers" (Matt. 5:9) does not necessarily mean "Blessed are the pacifists." One can have peace personally by avoiding a dispute and leaving it to others to stand up for the right; but such a one is not a peacemaker. The true peacemaker often has to be a fighter, refusing to content himself with unjust conditions in this world as they are.
Let us remember that He who said, "Blessed are the peacemakers," said of Himself: "Do not think that I came to send peace upon earth: I came not to send peace, but the sword" (Matt. 10:34). The peace-at-any-price people, crying, "Peace, Peace, when there is no peace" (Jer. 8:11), may quite well be enemies of real peacemaking.
"Resist Not Evil"
Probably the most outstanding passage which seems at first sight to favor pacifism it is certainly the most frequently quoted is that in which Christ told His listeners: "You have heard it said, An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth. But I say to you not to resist evil: but if one strike thee on thy right cheek, turn to him also the other" (Matt. 5:38-9). Here again, however, a crude literalism will not provide us with the true sense of Our Lord's words. It is but another example of His efforts to impress general principles on His listeners without going into detailed explanations and applications. Opposing the teaching of the Pharisees that it is always right to exact an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth, He gives in a vivid axiomatic way the contrary teaching that our dispositions personally should be to endure wrongs not only with patience, but even gladly.
However mild our interior dispositions, we are nevertheless not dispensed from prudence in practice. It would certainly be wrong to observe the injunction literally if doing so would bring contempt upon God or do harm to another person by encouraging him in sinful conduct, or cause evils to society itself.
That Our Lord interpreted His own words as a figurative illustration of a general principle has already been mentioned. When struck by the servant of the High Priest during His trial, He rebuked the striker (John 18:23). St. Paul also, when Ananias the High Priest commanded that he should be struck on the mouth, did not "turn the other cheek," but said to him: "God shall strike thee, thou whited wall" (Acts 23:3). St. Paul, of course, was there concerned with vindicating God's honor rather than his own personal dignity.
It is clear, then, that the axiom does not always apply in external practice. Above all, that a Christian should bear patiently injuries done to himself does not mean that he should not resist evil being done to others. An individual is free to practice heroic meekness and patience where his own rights are concerned if he so desires. But when smitten on one cheek, it must be his own cheek he turns to endure further injuries, not somebody else's.
Nowhere does Christ teach that we must allow others to suffer unjustly. The father of a family may have the patience of Job in his own trials, but he has the duty to defend his wife and children from harm at the hands of others. Responsible leaders in civil society are obliged to see that the lives and property and welfare of the citizens are preserved from danger. St. Paul makes it clear that rulers "bear not the sword in vain," and that they are God's ministers and avengers "to execute wrath upon him that doth evil" (Romans 13:14). And if, owing to the evil designs of other nations, a country has no means of preserving its very existence save my taking up arms, a Christian cannot exempt himself from military duties demanded of him, pleading as an excuse the axioms of personal and individual ethics given us in the Sermon on the Mount.
The precept "Love your enemies: do good to them that hate you" (Matt. 5:44) falls within this same category of personal ethics. The military duties allotted to a soldier are not undertaken on his own responsibility, although he has the obligation to keep within the rules of legitimate warfare. But in his personal dispositions he has no need to be actuated by any hatred or vindictiveness. He must so love the persons of enemy soldiers that he will treat them with the respect due to them as soon as they cease to be active combatants; and, above all, he will desire their spiritual and eternal good, making what provision he can for it. Again and again on the battlefield opportunities present themselves for sublime acts of charity toward enemy soldiers; and the record of such actions proves that soldiers who are Christians have not forgotten to love their enemies.
"Put Away Thy Sword"
Leaving the Sermon on the Mount, we are reminded that Our Lord, at the time of His arrest, forbade St. Peter to resort to violent defensive measures, saying to him: "Put away thy sword into its place: for all that take the sword shall perish with the sword" (Matt. 26:52).
But from these words no conclusion of any kind can be drawn concerning the morality of war. The reason why Our Lord forbade St. Peter to use his sword was not because violent defense against unjust aggression is wrong in itself, but because He knew that the time had come according to His Father's will when He should enter upon His passion, and it was not right that St. Peter should seek to hinder God's plan. Nor did He need such defense, for if He wished to escape the danger that threatened Him, He could easily have done so, being able to call "twelve legions of angels" to His aid.
When He said, "All that take the sword shall perish with the sword," He was merely asserting as history confirms that it is the normal lot of men of violence and unjust aggression to meet with ultimate and deserved retribution. That cannot be interpreted as a condemnation of the right to self-defense. That right was clearly implied in His words to Pilate: "If my kingdom were of this world, my servants would certainly fight that I should not be delivered to the Jews" (John 18:36). Were His intention to establish an earthly kingdom, then it would be normal and right that they should do so.
At most we may conclude from Our Lord's words to St. Peter that it is unlawful and futile for us to attempt to spread Christianity by force, the Church, as the kingdom of heaven on earth, being not of the world.
St. Paul's Teaching
One other New Testament passage favored by pacifists should, perhaps, be mentioned. Writing to the Romans, St. Paul sets the ideal before them: "To no man rendering evil for evil . . . if it be possible, as much as is in you, have peace with all men. Revenge not yourselves . . . but give place to wrath, for it is written: Revenge is mine, I will repay, saith the Lord . . . Be not overcome by evil, but overcome evil by good" (Rom. 12: 17-21).
They are words which, as a matter of fact, are wholly irrelevant to the question of military activities undertaken by States seeking redress of serious injuries. St. Paul is dealing with the personal dispositions of individual Christians toward unfriendly or hostile people met with in the ordinary course of their daily lives, forbidding anger and vindictiveness, and inculcating charity.
At the time of writing, St. Paul was not so much as thinking of the rights and obligations of State authorities to suppress evils within the community and repel unjust aggression by external enemies.
Early Christian Attitude
We are sometimes told that in the primitive Christian Church all these passages that have been quoted from the New Testament were taken literally, and that many of the early Christians as conscientious objectors to military service found themselves in trouble with the Roman authorities.
We know from Eusebius, however, that many Christians did enroll in the Roman armies during the first three centuries. According to Harnack, the Protestant authority on the first ages of the Church, very few Christians became soldiers up to the time of Marcus Aurelius, 170 A.D., after which compromise began to set in, all scruples disappearing as soon as Christianity was recognized by the State under Constantine, who even inscribed the name of Christ on his military standards.
The apparent change in the views of the early Christians, however, was not due merely to the altered relations between the Church and the civil power; nor was previous reluctance to serve in the army based on conscientious objections to a military occupation as such. A great deal of misunderstanding has arisen in this matter.
Some early Christians renounced all secular interests and fled into the deserts to live as hermits; but this arose from a thoroughgoing other-worldliness which was altogether too extreme to survive for very long. Objections to military service as such had nothing to do with it.
Where such objections to serving in the army are recorded, the constantly recurring complaint is that, the State being profoundly pagan, the soldiers were compelled to associate themselves with pagan worship, offering sacrifice to the gods. Tertullian, therefore, in his De Corona, warns Christians against the dangers to their faith in a military career, and insists on their obligation to refuse the homage to the gods demanded of them by superior officers. Nevertheless, in his Apologia, addressed to the Prefects of the Roman Provinces, he defends Christians against charges of disloyalty, segregation, and want of the spirit of true citizenship. Side by side with yourselves, he told them, we are sailors and soldiers, farmers and fellow businessmen. Navigamus et nos vobiscum, et militamus, et rusticamur, et mercamur. (Apol. c. 42).
It is true that the thirteenth Canon of the Council of Nicea, 325 A.D., imposed thirteen years of penance on those who, having abandoned the army, returned to it; but, as Hefele points out, this referred to those who resigned because pagan sacrifices were demanded of them, yet who returned for the sake of the pay, consenting to do homage to the gods.
Patristic Doctrine
It was the above factor that accounts for any apparent hesitation on the part of the early Christian writers, a hesitation which disappeared as soon as such dangers to the faith became a thing of the past.
The Fathers were not ignorant of Holy Scripture. They deduced from the precepts of justice and charity the obligation of those with authority in the State to protect and defend the subjects they governed, an obligation which in certain circumstances could easily render war a grim necessity; and they stressed the duty of the governed to obey the decisions of lawful rulers. Nothing can be found in the earliest writers, such as Justin Martyr, Origen, Athenagoras and Tertullian, which necessarily implied general disapproval of a military career; and the fourth century found St. Augustine explicitly and authoritatively formulating the ethical principles which are valid to this day. If all war were wrong, he says, St. John the Baptist would not have told the soldiers who appealed to him to be content with their pay. Distinguishing clearly between just and unjust wars, St. Augustine refutes at great length the absolute pacifism of the Manichean heretics who held that war of any kind is sinful.
Granted a just war, there is no room for conscientious objection on the part of Christian citizens.
Papal Teaching Today
It is a long step from the fourth century to our own days, and conditions are not now so simple as they were then.
Yet, despite our vastly different epoch, and with full advertence to the possible horrors of a nuclear war as a result of scientific progress and efficiency, Pope Pius XII did not hesitate to say in his 1956 Christmas Message:
It is clear that in the present circumstances there can be verified in a nation the situation wherein, every effort to avoid war being expended in vain, war for effective self-defense and with the hope of a favorable outcome against unjust attack could be considered lawful.If, then, a body representative of the people and a government both having been chosen by free elections in a moment of extreme danger decide . . . on defensive precautions and carry out the plans which they consider necessary, they do not act immorally.
Therefore a Catholic citizen cannot invoke his own conscience in order to refuse to serve and fulfill those duties the law imposes.
No words could more clearly declare that absolute pacifism is opposed to Catholic principles; and no truly Catholic mind could accept as sound the interpretation of any biblical passages which is in conflict with the living voice of the Church.
© Joseph F. Wagner, Inc.
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