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MILITARY SERVICE IN THE CHURCH ORDERS

Alan Kreider

ABSTRACT The debate concerning the approach of the early Christians to the military can be advanced by paying attention to a genre of literature that scholars have largely ignored: the church orders. These documentsthe Apostolic Tradition, Canons of Hippolytus, Testament of Our Lord, and Apostolic Constitutionsare illuminating in that they deal with ethics within comprehensive treatments of worship, catechesis and pastoral life. They also are useful in that they, as variations upon a common original, are means of monitoring change across the third and fourth centuries. This article uses the church orders to assess four elements of a new consensus (David Hunter) on Christians in the military. By and large it confirms these, but at times it alters emphases and adds nuances. It argues that: (1) the church orders viewed killing as the big problem for Christians in the legions, not idolatry; (2) the church orders confirm that the pre-Christendom church was divided on Christian participation in the legions; (3) the church orders provide evidence for both discontinuity and continuity on the issue across the centuries, although the deepest continuity, based on John the Baptists rule of Luke 3.14, is between the pre-Constantinian laity and later theologians; (4) the church orders confirm a regional variation in attitude and practice. The church orders authority in practice is never clear. KEY WORDS: war, peace, military service, early church, church orders

MILITARY SERVICE IN THE EARLY CHURCH: to discuss this subject is to wander into a minefield.1 The Christian traditions, East and West, Catholic and Protestant, state church and free church, have not primarily been pacifist. But some Christian writers of the early centuries wrote things that could make it appear that the pre-Constantinian believers had been pacifist. A lapidary sample comes from Tertullian (De Idololatria 19): Christ, in disarming Peter, unbelted every soldier. Within the past century scholars in the pacifist pockets of the Christian churches have written substantial books to demonstrate that the early church was as pacifist as they; they have also attempted to explain how a once-pacifist church (to quote the title of one book on the subject) made its peace
1 The arguments in this paper were first presented in the Centre for the Study of Christianity and Culture, Regents Park College, Oxford, England, May 5, 1999.

JRE 31.3:415442.

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with war (Cadoux 1919; Driver 1988). These writings have irritated non-pacifist Christian scholars, who have attempted to respond with sounder scholarship and juster argument, thereby liberating us all from the burden of mistaken assumptions and misread history (Helgeland et al. 1985). In the latter half of the twentieth century the debate seesawed back and forth. In 1960 the pacifist side of the debate was strengthened by the appearance of the French Reformed scholar Jean-Michel Hornuss Evangile et Labarum, which was quickly translated into German and which many academic reviewers in Europe took with great seriousness (Hornus 1960; Hornus 1963). The English translation of 1980 and its Hungarian sequel of 1993 have made less impact.2 This is a pity, for Hornus made at least one contributionhe studied the church orders, thereby adding a potentially illuminating genre of evidence to the debate. But Hornus was weakened by his penchant for polemic, and by his belief that one could generalize about early Christianity. So he spoke about The Christian Attitude and about AntimilitarismThe Churchs First Official Position. Towards the end of his book he confidently referred to the views of those who queried the non-violence of the early Christians as the old orthodoxy and the former historical doctrine (Hornus 1980, 96, 158, 227, 232). Hornus thought that he had settled the question for good. Hornus was less successful than he imagined. In the two decades since his book was published prominent ethicists who have studied military service in the early church have either ignored his work or dismissed it (Cahill 1994; Johnson 1987, 6). And, on the part of historians, other studies have appearednotably by the Lutheran John Helgeland and the Roman Catholic Louis Swiftwhich have come to dominate the field.3 Helgeland has been especially influential. His study of Roman army religion convinced him that early Christians antimilitarism was primarily a response to the idolatry that permeated life in the legions, not a repudiation of killing; therefore after the conversion of the emperor Constantine I there was no need for Christians to rethink their position on participation in warfare. Swifts study was more mediating, finding that in the period before Constantine . . . both pacifist and non-pacifist positions existed side by side and . . . neither was able to supplant the other (Swift 1983, 79).
2 The English edition was easy to miss because it was published, not by a major theological publisher, but by a Mennonite denominational press (Herald Press); the Hungarian translation was privately printed by members of Bokor, a radical Catholic renewal movement. 3 Helgeland 1974; Helgeland 1979; Helgeland, et al., 1985; Swift 1979; Swift 1983.

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1. The New Consensus

Studies of the subject have continued to appear, and the literature is now immense (Brock 1988).4 David Hunter, a Roman Catholic theologian now at Iowa State University, has recently written two surveys of the literature which present a new consensus which he believes has emerged (Hunter 1992; Hunter 1994). The consensus is on three assertions: 1. Idolatry: the early Christians were as repelled by the idolatry of the Roman army as they were by killing, if not more so; and the most vocal of early Christian opponents of military service based their objections as much upon their abhorrence of Roman army religion as their rejection of shedding blood. 2. Division: at least from the end of the second century it is clear that various Christians had different approaches to warfare. Especially there was a divergence in Christian opinion and practice. 3. Continuity: Christians such as Augustine who justified participation in warfare for a just cause were in fundamental continuity with at least one strand of pre-Constantinian tradition. Quite a few scholars, I believe, would accept this summary of a new consensus. To it I would add a fourth assertion which I believe is widely attested in the literature: 4. Regional variation: attitudes and practices probably varied according to geographical location. Antimilitarist sentiment was strongest among Christians in the imperial heartlands and weakest on the borders (Karpp 1957, 500501; Young 1989, 491). I find much that is sensible in the new consensus. And it is persuasive not least because it allows for a degree of messiness and inconsistency in early Christian thought and practice. This is more credible than the attempts of Hornus and some anti-pacifist scholars as well to make the early Christians as coherent as they would like them to have been. No serious scholar can again write, as Hornus did, about The Christian Attitude.

2. The Church Orders and Their Use

But we must, of course, constantly test every consensus by the sources. And there is one genre of sources on which Hornus concentrated to which Johnson, Cahill, Helgeland, Swift and other recent scholars have
4 Brock 1988 lists 111 books, articles and chapters in books which appeared in the previous century.

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given very little attentionthe church orders.5 These documents, often claiming apostolic or even dominical authority, were manuals which purported to guide church leaders in ordering the liturgy, organization, communal life and discipline of early Christian communities. Some of these, such as the Didache and the Apostolic Tradition, have become well-known; and the Apostolic Tradition has had a formative role in the liturgical life of many Christian traditions in the past half century. Others, such as the Canons of Hippolytus, the Testament of our Lord, and the Apostolic Constitutions, have been less well publicized. But all of these, in my view, are important in the debate about early Christianity and warfare. The reason is simple. The church orders as a genre are cumulative. Many of them drew extensively on previous documents, adding, deleting, revising. In the 380s, for example, the Syrian compiler of the Apostolic Constitutions incorporated and revised materials from the secondcentury Didache, the third-century Didascalia Apostolorum, and the largely third-century Apostolic Tradition. Thus, across a period of several centuries, the church orders enable us to monitor the changing views of thinkers in several early Christian communities as they handled the same texts and dealt with similar problems. And specifically they enable us to observe changing approaches to the question of military service. In this paper I shall examine the church orders as they open windows to the cultures and practices of certain early Christian communities.6 Unlike Hornus, I will not claim that the church orders at any point represented the position of the Christian church as a whole; there was certainly much regional variation and the authority for practice of the church orders is, as I shall indicate, open to question. But I find the church orders to be both intriguing and significant. So how did the church orders treat the question of military service? Let us begin to answer this by examining the Apostolic Tradition, which speaks about military service explicitly.7

5 Johnson 1987 and Cahill 1994 deal with other patristic sources, but not the church orders. Helgeland 1979, 752 and Swift 1983, 47 each devote a single page to the Apostolic Tradition and say nothing about the subsequent church orders. The best introduction to this genre is Bradshaw 1992, chap 4. 6 My reading of these documents has been helped by the work of a cluster of scholars associated with the University of Notre Dame: Bradshaw 1992; Bradshaw, 1996; Johnson 1996; Yoder 1996. I have also built upon several parts of Hornus worknotably his comparatively extensive treatment of the church orders (Hornus 1961; Hornus 1980, chap 5). 7 For editions, see Apostolic Tradition 1968 (ed Dix/Chadwick); 1989 (ed Botte); 198 (ed Cuming); and 2001 (ed Stewart-Sykes). The Hermeneia edition, edited by Paul F. Bradshaw, Maxwell E. Johnson and L. Edward Phillips, has appeared since this article was accepted for publication (Bradshaw/Johnson/Phillips 2002), and I have made some slight alterations to my text in light of it. It is now the standard translation of the variant sources, and its editorial comments are learned and suggestive.

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THE APOSTOLIC TRADITION, c.16: In the Legions without Killing Apostolic Tradition c 16 (variant texts): Bradshaw/Johnson/Phillips 2002, 8890 Sahidic A soldier who has authority, let him not kill a man. If he is ordered, let him not go to the task nor let him swear. But if he is not willing, let him be cast out. Arabic A soldier in the sovereigns army should not kill, or if he is ordered to kill he should refuse. If he stops, so be it; otherwise, he should be excluded. Concerning those who wear red or believers who becomes soldiers or astrologers or magicians or such like: let them be excluded. One who has authority of the sword, or a ruler of a city who wears the purple, either let him cease or be cast out. One who has the power of the sword or the head of a city and wears red, let him stop or be excluded. A catechumen or a believer, if they want to be soldiers, let them be excluded because they distance themselves from God. Ethiopic They are not to accept soldiers of an official,

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and if he is given an order to kill he is not to do it; if he does not stop, he is to be expelled. Concerning other people, either a believer who becomes a soldier or an astrologer or magician or the like

An official who has a sword or a chief of appointed people and who wears purple is to stop or be expelled. A catechumen or believer, if they wish to become a soldier, are to be expelled because they are far from God.

A catechumen or faithful [person] if he wishes to become a soldier, let them [sic] be cast out, because they despised God.

John Helgeland and his colleagues, who argue that the early Christians were worried about idolatry in the Roman legions but not killing, have paid little attention to the Apostolic Tradition.8 Some liturgical scholars, in contrast, have paid immense attention to it, believing that it
8 Helgeland 1979, 752 comments that the Apostolic Tradition has two very brief statements, whose meaning is unclear: was the objection to enlistment on the basis of combat, idolatry, or some other reason? The document, says Helgeland, was clearly worried about the oath, which was probably its chief objection. The most fruitful approach, according to Helgeland, is to see the clauses about military service in the context of the Apostolic Traditions treatment of crafts and professions, in which concerns about immorality and idolatry

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provides nothing less than the official liturgy of the church of Rome in the third century. In part because of its purported Roman origin, the Apostolic Tradition has arguably been the most influential of early Christian writings in the reform of the eucharistic liturgy and the renewal of the catechetical processes of many contemporary churches. Recent scholarship, however, has established a more complex view of the documents origins (Metzger 1988; Metzger 1992; Metzger 1992a). Scholars have long known that the purported Greek-language original of the Apostolic Tradition doesnt exist; all that we have is versions in Latin, Sahidic (Coptic), Arabic and Ethiopicand for chapter 16, which concerns us, the best version, Latin, is lacking. Furthermore, scholars such as the team, led by Paul Bradshaw of the University of Notre Dame, who have just produced the Hermeneia commentary on the Apostolic Tradition, have studied the texts of these documents very closely. They now see this as an aggregation of material from different sources, quite possibly arising from different geographical regions and probably from different historical periods. Some of these materials may come from as early as the mid-second century, while other materials may come from as late as the mid-fourth century (Bradshaw/Johnson/Phillips 2002, 14).9 All of this complexity makes this an endlessly intriguing document. The documents significance is obvious: it was copied repeatedly, and altered by local churches to adapt it to immediate needs; it was, as we shall see, incorporated with adaptations into many later church orders. Its authority for practice is never clear. Nevertheless, in its bewildering variety of versions extending across several centuries, the Apostolic Tradition remains one of the most informative texts about the life and worship of early Christian communities.
were very clear. Helgeland, et al. 1985, 35-35 add: There is no reference whatever to prohibition of killing in combat whether in defense or in expansion of the empire. Helgeland and his colleagues, we may note, use the Dix translation, which, unlike other translations, renders execute instead of kill. They do not explain why the early Christians would have had theological or pastoral problems with capital punishment, but not with killing in warfare. Nor do they examine the later church orders as a means of understanding the concerns of the Apostolic Tradition. 9 Since I wrote this article, a new edition of the Apostolic Tradition has appeared (ed. Stewart-Sykes, 2001). This edition, which draws on the researches into the history of the church in Rome by Allen Brent of Cambridge, like the work of Bradshaw, Johnson and Phillips, sees the Apostolic Tradition as a multilayered work. But according to this analysis, all the layers come from Rome: some represent the ancient traditions of the Roman house churches; others reflect third-century trends in a church that has recently adopted monepiscopal leadership. Both of these layers are reconciled in the Apostolic Tradition which expresses the position of a united community under the leadership of Pontianus, bishop of Rome, who was martyred in 235 (see Stewart-Sykes 2001, 14, 4950). There will clearly be detailed debate between Bradshaw, Johnson and Phillips, on the one hand, and Stewart-Sykes and Brent, on the other. If the latter are correct, the Apostolic Tradition had considerably more authority than I in this article, following Bradshaw and his colleagues, have claimed.

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The excerpt from chapter 16, which I have included here, survives in three languagesSahidic, Arabic and Ethiopic. The provenance of these, in location and date, is uncertain. The severest of the three versions is the Ethiopic, which refuses to admit soldiers into the catechumenate even if they refuse to kill. The Cistercian scholar Eoin de Bhaldraithe sees this as the earliest, primitive formulation (De Bhaldraithe 2001, 170). Together with the somewhat more lenient Sahidic and Arabic versions, which are willing to catechize and baptize lower-ranked soldiers who commit themselves to refrain from killing, the Ethiopic version may reflect a church policy prior to and somewhat less flexible than that to which Tertullian refers in his De Idololatria and De Corona.10 The Sahidic and Arabic texts would thus be thinkable for early third-century North Africa, and these may parallel Roman practice (De Bhaldraithe 2001, 170). Let us note four things about these texts. First, the location of these texts within the Apostolic Tradition is significant. They occur in the midst of a section (chaps. 1516) which provided guidance for teachers who were screening people for their suitability as potential catechumens. The early churches, unlike most churches today, did not welcome prospective members with open arms. Instead church leaders assessed each candidate by asking questions about their commitments and lifestyle. The catechists concern was not to determine whether their behaviour was sinful or wrong; it was rather to find out whether they were living in such a way that they were, in the words of chapter 15, able to hear the word.11 So when the catechists inquired into the marital state of their candidates, their relationship to their masters (if they were slaves), and their crafts and professions, their primary concern was: were these such as to enable them to hear the word? Actors, for example, who gave pagan theatrical performancescould these hear the word in a community which vigorously repudiated polytheism? Gladiators, who killed in the arenacould these hear the word in a community which forbade the taking of life? Prostitutescould these hear the word in a community that emphasized chastity and continence? All of
10 Tertullian (De Idololatria 19; De Corona 11) sees Christians as sons of peace for whom service in the military is intrinsically difficult. He recognizes that two conditions mitigate the difficulties: a) when a soldier is in the rank and file, in which case there is no necessity for taking part in sacrifices or capital punishments, which were harder for the upper ranks to avoid; b) when a soldier is serving even in time of peace, doing guard duty, in which case he could serve without a sword, which the Lord has taken away, in contrast to war-time service. Tertullian admits that a soldier may be admitted to the faith, but would ideally like a newly-baptized soldier immediately to abandon military service, or all sorts of quibbling will be necessary. He does not allow for a believer to enlist. Nevertheless, it is clear that things werent always happening as Tertullian wished. 11 For another explanation of the churchs refusal to admit catechumens, see Dickie, 2001.

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these needed to leave their professions or be rejected as potential Christians; their professional commitments rendered them unable to comprehend the life and message of the Christians. Were they to be admitted as catechumens, they simply could not hear the word. The Apostolic Tradition adjudged members of certain other professions, however, to be capable of hearing the word if they took the socially-costly steps of modifying their behaviour. Sculptors or painters, for example, could be accepted as catechumens if they refrained from depicting pagan themes. And this is where the soldiers enter. The Apostolic Tradition assessed soldiers, like the members of other professions, by their capacity to hear the word: did their external professional commitmentsthe tasks and milieux and religious concomitants of their jobsenable them to receive the Christian good news in churches in which reconciliation with the alienated brother was a precondition for prayer (e.g. Cyprian, Lords Prayer 23)? The Apostolic Traditions assumption is clear. Inner and outer are inextricable; if you live in a certain way outside of the church you cannot hear, comprehend, or live the gospel that the Christian community is seeking to embody as well as teach. Second, the three strands of the Apostolic Tradition dealt separately with soldiers who were under orders (a soldier who has authority [Sahidic])12 and soldiers who gave orders (One who has authority of the sword [Sahidic]). All three versions refused to admit soldiers in positions of command to be catechumens or members; but the Sahidic and Arabic versions did admit the rank-and-file soldiers to catechesis, under certain conditions. Third, all three strands of the Apostolic Tradition forbade catechumens or believers to enlist voluntarily as soldiers; if they did so, they were adjudged to have despised God, and hence were to be rejected dismissed if they were catechumens and (it appears) excommunicated if they were believers. Finally, the Apostolic Tradition in all strands indicated certain behavior, characteristic of military service, which disqualified men from admission to the Christian community. The Sahidic text forbade the soldier to swear; the soldiers sacramentum was incompatible with the Christians sacramentumhis baptismal commitment to the Lord. Further, in all three strands there is a manifest concern with killing. A

12 The translation of these texts varies. The literal translation of the Sahidic text would seem to be a soldier in command, and this is how Dix translated it (1968, 26); Bradshaw/Johnson/Phillips render the text a soldier who has authority (2002, 88). But as Stewart-Sykes following Botte points out, the context would indicate that the soldier in question is not in command but under the authority of a superior (Stewart-Sykes 2001, 102; Botte 1989, 37n). Cuming (1987, 16) renders this meaning in his translation: a soldier under authority.

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rank-and-file soldier shall not kill a man (Sahidic).13 Not even if he is commanded to do so: If he is ordered, let him not go to the task. The Apostolic Tradition did not forbid the soldier who was a catechumen to burn incense to the legions gods; it forbade him to kill. If idolatry had been the primary issue, and if army religion was as unavoidable as some scholars have indicated (the Christian in the army was caught in a religious net of exceedingly fine mesh; Helgeland et al. 1985, 51)), it is hard to see how any Christians could have stayed in the army. But the document assumes that it was possible to be a rank-and-file soldier in the Roman legions without committing acts of idolatry (a tacit assumption) and without killing (an explicit assumption). It is killing that the Apostolic Tradition expressly proscribes.14

3. Divergent Early Christian Arguments and Practices

Soldiers in the imperial legions who for Christian reasons didnt kill was this thinkable? From the late second century onwards there is evidence that some Christians found it possible to justify being both a Christian believer and a Roman legionary. In 176 there is the famous story of the Thundering Legion from Asia Minor, whose prayers preceded (and elicited?) a colossal rainstorm which defeated their opponents. From this time onwards there are reports, growing in number as the third century progressed, of Christians in the legions.15 These may have been more numerous in the East than the West, and more on the fringes of the empire (e.g. on the eastern frontiers) than in the imperial heartlands. According to a recent study the congregation which met in the famous domus ecclesiae of Dura Europos was primarily made up of soldiers (Wischmeyer 1992, 37). Already in Tertullians day, in North Africa, there were Christians who were serving as soldiers, and they (possibly with others) were beginning to develop a Christian rationale for their military calling. Tertullian (De Idololatria 19) was not impressed by their thinking (he called it making sport with the subject), so he did not
13 Dixs edition (p. 26) translates the Sahidic as execute men, as if the import was capital punishment and not combat; Cumings translation is the more general shall not kill a man (p. 16). According to Maxwell E. Johnson, one of the editors of the Hermeneia edition, the words in context may have to do with capital punishment, but linguistically they do not restrict themselves to capital punishment, and their import is general: if someone is in the military already at the time he is converted, then he has to agree to stop killing people, even under orders (personal communication 22 April 1999). 14 According to Tertullian (De Idololatria 19), both killing and idolatry seem to have been inescapable for soldiers of the upper ranks; they faced the necessity for taking part in sacrifices or capital punishments. 15 Eusebius, Historia Ecclesiastica 5.5.14; Tertullian, Apology 5.6; for comment, Harnack 1908, II, 5264 (The spread of Christianity in the army).

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report it in detail; but he provided an outline of their arguments. These Christians appealed to the Old Testament (Joshua the son of Nun leads a line of march; and the people warred); in the New Testament they found encouragement from a centurion who had believed (Mt 8.5ff or Lk 7.1ff or Acts 10?). But their chief argument seems to have been an appeal not to Jesus but to John the Baptist. When soldiers came to John, he had not forbidden them to kill, but had given them the formula of their rulethey were not to engage in extortion or threats and they were to be contented with their wages (Luke 3.14). Prior to Constantine I have not found theologians and writers who elaborated upon these arguments (Bainton 1960, 66), but they may have been common among Christians in the legions, and they certainly were to have a great future in the Christianized empire. In contrast, the theologians of the pre-Constantinian church vigorously, and with considerable unanimity, forbade killing in its many guises pf 1958).16 In Athens Athenagoras (Legatio 35) argued that Chris(Scho tians could not endure to see a man being put to death even justly, and distanced believers from gladiatorial contest, abortion, and the exposure of infants. We are altogether consistent in our conduct, he proclaimed. In Palestine the mature Origen (Contra Celsum 3.7) stated of warfare: the lawgiver of the Christians . . . [forbade] entirely the taking of human life.17 Similar texts are numerous, and are not in doubt. They are congruent with the traditional Christian emphasis upon loving the enemy, and with the attempts of church leaders to construct Christian communities as cultures of peace (Ferguson 1999). The question is: how did this fit together with the apparently small but growing number of Christians in the legions? 3.1 Militare without bellare The Apostolic Tradition attempted to provide a way for Christians to be in the legions without taking life. In its Sahidic and Arabic variants it realistically accepted that there would be Christians in the legions, but it attempted to equip them to be there without abandoning the values and the theology of the Christian church. Christians could be soldiers, but they were not to fight. It is hard to assess how this worked out in practice, but socio-political realities of the third century may have made it possible. Forty years ago
16 Scho pf 1958, 242243, who however argues that the pre-Constantinian Christians were less than unanimous about capital punishment and were at times equivocal about warfare. 17 For other early Christian texts on shedding blood, see Minucius Felix, Octavius 30.6; Tertullian, Apology 37; Lactantius, Divine Institutes 5.18, 6.20; Arnobius, Adversus Nationes 1.6.

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Yale ancient historian Ramsay MacMullen argued that in the late second century the emperor Septimius Severus sought to promote military recruitment and social stability by lowering the barriers between soldiers and civilians; troops, who had been confined to camps, were now found in the imperial cities, where they became involved in a wide variety of activities that we would call civil service. Many, for their full twenty-five years, did nothing but write; many attended magistrates as messengers, ushers, confidential agents, and accountants, measuring their promotion from chair to chair. By this process, the later empire was progressively militarized (MacMullen 1963, 155157, 176). In certain parts of the empire, it was possible for Christians to think of being in the legions but not fighting, of being willing to serve (militare) but not to kill (bellare) tan 1914; Rordorf 1969, 109110; Brock 1994). (Secre A picture of what this might have been like comes from John Chrysostom, catechizing in Antioch a century later, but reflecting a reality that would have been familiar earlier (Baptismal Instructions 8.17). He refers to Christians, among them soldiers, who gathered in Antioch at dawn for prayer. After prayers, strengthened with Gods assistance, each one scattered to his daily tasks, one hastening to work with his hands, another hurrying to his military post, and still another to his post with the government. During the day they avoided idle talk, indecent thoughts, and failure to control [their] eyes. In the evening they returned to church to render account for their days activities. The soldier in this account appears to have had an office job, and Chrysostom didnt express the concern that he might have to kill. In Antioch it was evidently possible for soldiers to live without warring, although Chrysostom recognized that wars were occurring in the distance, on the borders of the Roman Empire (Comm on Isaiah 2.4). There soldiers might have to take life, but in the imperial heartland even at the end of the fourth century it seemed possible for the Apostolic Traditions apparent solution to workto serve but not to kill, militare but not bellare. CANONS OF HIPPOLYTUS, c. 1314: Penance in event of killing
Concerning the Magistrate and the Soldier they are not to kill anyone, even if they receive the order: they are not to wear wreaths. Whoever has authority and does not do the righteousness of the gospel is to be excluded and is not to pray with the bishop. Whoever has received the authority to kill, or else a soldier, they are not to kill in any case, even if they receive the order to kill. They are not to pronounce a bad word. Those who have received an honour are not to wear wreaths on their heads. Whoever is raised to the authority of prefect or to

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the magistracy and does not put on the righteousness of the Gospel is to be excluded from the flock and the bishop is not to pray with him. A Christian is not to become a soldier. A Christian must not become a soldier, unless he is compelled by a chief bearing the sword. He is not to burden himself with the sin of blood. But if he has shed blood, he is not to partake of the mysteries, unless he is purified by a punishment, tears, and wailing. He is not to come forward deceitfully but in the fear of God. Canons of Hippolytus, 1314: Bradshaw 1987

It is fascinating to trace the revisions which the fourth-century church orders made in this passage from the Apostolic Tradition. In these church orders we can observe writers in Christian communities, mainly in the East, as they tried to come up with coherent Christian approaches to warfare in a changing environment. Not surprisingly, these documents record both continuity and change. The earliest of these is the so-called Canons of Hippolytus. This was written in Egypt between 336 and 340 and was then translated from Greek into Coptic and finally Arabic, in which it survives.18 Like the Apostolic Tradition, the Canons of Hippolytus (chaps 314) assumed that there would be catechumens and believers in the legions. However, unlike the Apostolic Tradition (Sahidic and Arabic), the Canons of Hippolytus did not make a distinction between the magistrate and the soldier; and, it assumed that Christians who issued commands as well as those who received commands would be in the legions. The Canons insisted that all Christians in the legions must do the righteousness of God. For example, it states twice that they were not to wear wreaths; they were not to pronounce a bad word (swear an oath?). And above all, they were not to kill in any case, even if they receive the order to kill. The final paragraph states that the Christian soldier was not to burden himself with the sin of blood. But the author of the Canons was aware that Christians were living in a world they could not control. So the Christian was not to become a soldier, unless he is compelled by a chief bearing a sword. A similar adjustment was provided for soldiers who transgressed against the apparently well-established Christian refusal to shed blood by introducing a significant innovationan early version of the system of canonical penance. If a Christian soldier took life, he was to be excluded from the mysteries until he had been purified by a punishment, tears, and wailing. The Canons did not stipulate how long this period of penitential exclusion was to last; but soon writers in other communities were being more specific. In the 370s in Cappadocia, for example, Basil of Caesarea (Ep 188.13)
18 English translation by Carol Bebawi, in Bradshaw 1987; for comment, see Bradshaw 1992, 9293.

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counselled that those whose hands are unclean. . . abstain from communion for three yearswhich, as the twelfth-century canonist Balsamon observed (Commentary on the Canons 13.2.65), if enforced, would mean that combatants who are engaged in successive wars would never partake the divine Sanctified Elements. This, according to Balsamon, was unendurable and required revision (Viscusso 1995). In the West, Councils and penitential documents, in similar fashion to the Canons of Hippolytus in the East, also excluded soldiers who killed from the eucharists for varying periods (Vanderpol 1925, 116118). TESTAMENT OF OUR LORD, 2.2: Luke 3.14 for catechumens
If anyone be a soldier or in authority, let him be taught not to oppress or to kill or to rob, or to be angry or to rage and afflict anyone. But let those rations suffice him which are given to him. But if they wish to be baptized in the Lord, let them cease from military service or from the [post of ] authority. And if not let them not be received. Let a catechumen or a believer of the people, if he desire to be a soldier, either cease from his intention, or if not let him be rejected. For he hath despised God by his thought and, leaving the things of the Spirit, he hath perfected himself in the flesh, and hath treated the faith with contempt. Testament of our Lord, 2.2, Syriac version: Cooper & Maclean 1902

Later in the fourth century, an author penned a second revision of the Apostolic Tradition, this time claiming dominical authority. This document, the Testament of Our Lord, was probably written in Greek, very possibly in Asia Minor, and has survived in Syriac and Ethiopic versions, of which I use the Syriac.19 The Testament, like the Canons of Hippolytus, both continued and altered the emphases of the Apostolic Tradition. Like the Ethiopic version of the Apostolic Tradition, but unlike the Sahidic and Arabic versions, the Testament (2.2) makes no distinction between the rank-and-file soldier and the soldier in authority. Both could be taught, evidently as catechumens, what appropriate behaviour might be for a soldier who wanted to become a catechumen. This advice is familiar to usit is an amplified version of John the Baptists instructions to soldiers. The Testaments amplification is significant. It forbade not only robbing and discontentment with wages, as in Luke 3.14, but also
19 English translation by Cooper and Maclean 1902. The Ethiopic version of the passage on military service is, according to the French translation of Robert Beylot, very similar on essential points to the Syriac (Beylot 1984, 214215). For the documents date and place of place of origin, see Sperry-White 1991, 6. The documents refusal of military service and its repeated mention of prophetic and charismatic gifts would seem to be additional evidence pointing to a fourth- rather than fifth-century date for the document.

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various misdeeds which it evidently viewed as characteristic of soldieringto oppress or to kill or to rob, or to be angry or to rage and afflict anyone. In keeping with the Apostlic Tradition, among the actions which the Testament prohibited was killing. This teaching, however, was only for the catechumens. If soldiers of any rank wished to be baptized and become believers, they must cease from military service or from the [post of ] authority. If they did not they were to be rejected. So John the Baptists counsels were provisional, for catechumens while they were learning; these counsels were to be superceded by a more complete fidelity specified by Christian teachingwhich must have been imparted in the catecheseswhich forbade military service and killing. In denying that Christians may be soldiers, the Testament is similar in its severity to the Ethiopic version of the Apostolic Tradition. And the distaste with which the Testament viewed the military is indicated by its emendations to the clause which prohibited catechumens or believers to enlist as soldiers. Such a person, leaving the things of the Spirit, . . . hath perfected himself in the flesh . . . . THE APOSTOLIC CONSTITUTIONS, 8.32.10: Luke 3.14 for all
If a soldier come, let him be taught to do no injustice, to accuse no one falsely, and to be content with his allotted wages; if he submit to those rules, let him be received; but if he refuse them, let him be rejected. Apostolic Constitutions, 8.32.10: Donaldson 1989

It was the words of John the Baptist from Luke 3.14 which pointed the way forward for Christians as they entered Christendom. The Apostolic Constitutions, probably compiled in or near Antioch in the 380s, represents a more accommodating approach to warfare than any earlier church order in the Apostolic Traditions tradition.20 It is fascinating to compare the Apostolic Constitutions with the prior documents which it incorporates and revises. In book 7, for example, it revises the Didaches two ways teaching. Whereas the Didache (1.4) had said If anyone gives strikes you on the right cheek, turn your other one to him too, the Apostolic Constitutions added, Not that revenge is evil, but that patience is more honorable (7.2). Do not murder, the Didache had stated, quoting the decalogue (2.2), which the Apostolic Constitutions also nuanced: Not as if all killing were wicked, but only that of the innocent; but the killing which is just is reserved to the magistrates alone (7.2).21 Soldiers, it is
20 English translation by James Donaldson repr. 1989; but see also the critical edition of Metzger 19851987, along with Metzger 1992, which presents his French translation in one volume. 21 Similar nuancing took place in the Apostolic Constitutions softening of the Didaches

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clear, were now a part of the Apostolic Constitutions immediate world of experience. They could still seem threatening, so the community prayed at the eucharist for the king and all in authority, for the whole army, that they may be peaceable towards us (8.12). But soldiers were now giving gifts to the church. The third-century Didascalia Apostolorum, a Syrian church order, viewed soldiers among the reprehensible persons whose polluted donations, if received at all, could only be used for firewood (162163 [4.5]). In contrast, the Apostolic Constitutions 4.6 was happy to accept accept donations from a soldier, provided he could meet the familiar standards of John the Baptist; the church must, however, turn down the gifts of a soldier who is a false accuser and not content with his wages, but does violence to the needy, a murderer, a cut-throat . . . Luke 3.14 also was the means by which the Apostolic Constitutions justified receiving soldiers as catechumens and members. Compared to the Apostolic Tradition and the other church orders we have examined, the Apostolic Constitutions stated an approach that is shorter and less complex. Gone is all concern about distinctions between soldiers in positions of command and those in the rank-and-file; gone is all worry about Christians joining the forces; gone is any articulated worry about killing. Instead the Apostolic Constitutions now adopted John the Baptists requirements for repentant soldiers as its rules. The church was to teach soldiers not to do injustice, not to accuse people falsely, and to be content with their wages. That was enough. If soldiers refused this, they were to be rejected. Of course, as Ramsay MacMullen has pointed out, in view of the typical behaviour of Roman legionaries these stipulations must have made some soldiers squirm as they examined their consciences and careers (MacMullen 1988, 130132, 153, 160). It is also clear that some churches which were influenced by the Apostolic Constitutions viewed these rules as too lax. The Ethiopic version of the so-called Alexandrine Sinodos, a fifth-century variant of the Apostolic Constitutions, still required that a potential catechumen have left that [military] occupation.22 Nevertheless, the Apostolic Constitutions, by making Luke 3.14 central to its provision re soldiers and by deleting reference to killing, indicated the way in which the church would go. John the Baptists requirements became a central proof-text in the anti-pacifist argumentation of many theologians. Augustine was typical here. In correspondence with

prohibitions of anger with a brother (without a cause) and of swearing oaths (But if that cannot be avoided, thou shalt swear truly)(2.53; 7.3). 22 If there is a man of the army, and if he wishes to come in and know (the Faith), and if he came into our law, let him leave his robbery and violence and calumny and transgression and folly, and he shall be content with his pay, and if he left that occupation he shall be received, otherwise he shall be rejected (Horner 1904, 149, 208).

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Count Boniface (Ep 189.4), who was troubled by the (traditional?) idea that it was impossible for any one to please God while engaged in active military service, Augustine appealed to Luke 3.14. The sacred forerunner of the Lord, he wrote, certainly . . . did not prohibit them to serve as soldiers when he commanded them to be content with their pay for the service.23 But Augustine was also aware of the potential of this passage to critique military behaviour; in Sermon 302.15 he quoted it to rail at soldiers by whom the poor are oppressed. At their best, the moralists of Christendom would not provide carte blanche for soldiers.

4. The New Consensus in Light of the Church Orders

Having surveyed one category of early Christian writingthe church ordersover a period of a century and a half, let us revisit the four points of the new consensus with which we began: idolatry, division, continuity, and regional variation. Have the church orders brought any illumination? 4.1 Idolatry: in the early church orders, killing was the prohibited abuse Was the fear of unavoidable idolatry as important a reason to avoid army life as the possibility of unavoidable blood-letting? About idolatry the church orders say a lot, but with reference to other professionssuch as sculptors and pagan priestsand not to soldiering. Hints of idolatry occur in references to the soldiers sacramentum, which the Sahidic Apostolic Tradition repudiated (as also in the bad word which the Canons of Hippolytus prohibited); conceivably also in the wreaths which the Canons rejected. The discomfort with the Christian serving as magistrate which is evident in many of the church orders may have had as much to do with idolatry (which the documents do not mention) as with the use of the sword (which they do mention in this connection). But the church orders main concern, which they expressed repeatedly in their treatment of military service, was with killing. All variants of the Apostolic Tradition explicitly express this concern, as do fourth-century church orders long after idolatry had ceased to be a major issue in the army. A soldier, as the Canons of Hippolytus put it, has burdened himself with blood,
23 Cf Augustines Ep 138 to Marcellinus: For if the Christian religion condemned wars of every kind, the command given in the Gospel to soldiers taking counsel as to salvation would rather be to cast away their arms, and withdraw themselves wholly from military service. Augustine then quotes Luke 3.14, observing the command to be content with their wages manifestly implying no prohibition to continue in the service. For another fifth-century bishops use of Luke 3.14, see Maximus of Turin, Sermon 26.1 (1989, ed Ramsey, 63).

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and the church ordersat least prior to the Apostolic Constitutions in the 380sfound this intolerable. 4.2 Division: the church orders stated conservative but mediating positions in a divided church Were the Christians of the first three centuries divided on the question of warfare and military service (Hunter 1994, 179)? The church orders were authoritative-sounding directives for church leaders, so we might not expect them to record differences of approach; and generally they did not do so. However, if as we read them we bear in mind the evidence of other sources that Christians were in fact in the legions, and if we recall the arguments which Tertullian reported that other Christians were deploying, the church orders might be viewed as one sidethe conservative sideof an argument. Who were the parties to the argument? Some scholars, such as Jacques Zeiller, have argued that in the early centuries there was a conflict between certain intellectuals, who in their ivory towers were out of touch with real life, and the ecclesiastical magisterium, which never adopted pacifist-sounding positions (Zeiller 19461947, 11561159).24 This is a possibility. The theologians such as Tertullian, Origen and Lactantius who wrote about Christianity and warfare argued their positions in different ways, butas we have noted earlierno Christian theologian before Constantine justified Christian participation in warfare. But what about the position of the magisterium? That is harder to discern. Do the church orders represent that? In the past some scholars have accorded great weight to the church orders, presenting them as virtual offical handbooks of their churches and, in the case of the Apostolic Tradition, of the church in Rome. Scholars at the forefront of research into the church orders today have become more cautious.25 Paul Bradshaw, for example, sees the church orders as the work of armchair liturgists, of people, no doubt men, who would like to have ordered the life and liturgy of their various communities but apparently lacked the power to do so. These authors may have been indulging in an idealizing dreamprescribing rather than describing. On the other hand, there was, according to Bradshaw, undoubtedly some foundation based on the reality either of the local tradition or of influences from other churches. So what the church orders describe, on any matter of liturgy or pastoral
24 Cf. Young 1989, 496, who finds concern about bloodshed at least in rigorist groups; lou 1964, 140141 who contrasts the intellectuals who imagined an ideal also Jean Danie Church with prelates aware of the conditions of the real Church and who were engaged in a quest for a realistic Christianity. 25 Although cf. the new work of Alastair Stewart-Sykes and Allen Brent, in the formers 2001 edition of the Apostolic Tradition.

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discipline, may represent local practiceor again it may not. We cannot be sure. The church orders may provide a window into the teaching and policies of the bishops on questions of military service, or the church orders may have been perfectionist and out of touch. As Bradshaw (1992, 72, 107108) emphasizes, if we are to accord complete credence to the witness of a church order as to what was actually going on in a given church we must seek corroboration from other sources. So what other sources can we turn to for insight into the views of the bishops? As far as the surviving sources are concerned, the bishops seem to have been silent on the question of Christian participation in the legions, idolatry and killing. This is puzzling. If the bishops really wanted to distance themselves from the intellectuals, if they were eager to give support (cautious or otherwise) to Christians in the legions, they left no surviving records to that effect. Equally no record has survived in which bishops, writing in their own names, struggled with the reality of Christians in the legions and attempted to provide pastoral guidance for them so that they would not kill or commit acts of idolatry. Various sources enable one to hazard a guess as to their position. In North Africa, Tertullian, in De Corona 1, longs for a decisive Christian disavowal of violence and idolatry, and is impatient with the soldiers pastors who are lions in peace, deer in the fight; Tertullian seems to have felt that the bishops were on his side but were too cautious by half ! Another hint, this time from the East, comes from the Passio of St Marinus, in which Theotecnus, student of the pacifist Origen and bishop of Caesarea, confronted the legionary Marinus, on trial for his life, with the choice between his sword and the gospel (Musurillo 1972, 241). The Acta Maximiliani provide a third indication. The decision which it reports of the church in Carthage to bury the anti-military martyr Maximilian next to the body of the martyr Cyprian may indicate that the currents of anti-militarism ran deep in the spirituality and practice of the North African church (Musurillo 1972, 249).26 Yet another indication comes from early fourth-century Spain: Canon 57 of Elvira ordered, evidently with episcopal authority, Christian magistrates to keep away from the church during the one year of their term as duumvir, which may indicate an offical repudiation of killing (Dale 1883, 232235; Hefele 1907, I, I, 252).27
26 For comment, see Brock 1994, 198, drawing upon the careful work of Siniscalco 1974; also Spanneut 1970. 27 Canon 3 of the Synod of Arles of 314 (Concerning those who throw down their arms in time of peace, we have decreed that they should be kept from communion) is also relevant and has elicited a wide variety of comment which there is insufficient space to unpack here. tan (1914, 360) got it right: Christian leaders, grateful though they I think that Henri Secre were for imperial toleration, were unable to censure the soldier who, in a campaign, refused to use his arms. For a contrasting view, see Ryan 1952, 28; Helgeland, et al. 1985, 7172.

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This is not much. What church leaders might have done, had they wished to distance the church from military violence, is indicated by the response of leaders of a modern peace churchthe Mennonite Church in the United States during World War II. Despite the four-century old pacifist tradition of the Mennonites, thirty per cent of Mennonite men of draft age went into either combatant or noncombatant forces.28 Faced with this reality, Mennonite leader Harold S. Bender thundered, Only seventy per cent loyal! . . . Is this a passing grade for the Mennonite Church in Gods great record book? Bender and other Mennonite leaders responded to this by a systematic programme of pacifist education in Mennonite churches. And many Mennonite congregations responded to their coreligionists who were soldiers by excommunicating them and making them very uncomfortable; as one Mennonite soldier reported, when he came home a fellow member ran me down and really chewed me out (Bush 1998, 87, 98, 121122). No comparable recordsof episcopal outrage or lay displeasurehave survived for the early centuries. There are, as I have said, indications of soldiers in the legions; this is not surprising, and may simply be an expression of acculturation, no more an indication of the responsibility or bellicism of the early Christians than is the presence of Mennonites in the American forces in World War II. Tertullian, however, posited that some Christians were presenting biblical and theological arguments for participation in the legions. In De Idololatria 19 he listed these: Moses carried a rod, and Aaron wore a buckle, and John (the Baptist) is girt with leather, and Joshua the son of Nun leads a line of march; and the people warred . . . soldiers had come unto John, and had received the formula of their rule. This rule, to which he also referred in De Corona 11, is that of Luke 3.14: Do not extort money from anyone by threats or false accusation, and be satisfied with your wages. Who was it who advanced these arguments? Were they soldiers and lay people? We cannot tell, nor can we know how many people were arguing in this way. But this was the settingof a growing, missional church, of spreading Christian participation in the legions, and of debates among the Christians about military servicein which the church orders were written. The church orders show that some people, who styled themselves (depending on the church order) as bishops or apostles, were monitoring
28 This fact alone is enough to put into perspective the presence of Christians in the Roman legions. Although this may prove that the early Christians had no principled objection to military service, it may equally be an example of the capacity of Christians in all ages to do what they want regardless of the traditions of their churches or the admonitions of their leaders. For similar evidence from the Society of Friends in World War I, see Smith 1998, 4-5. I owe this reference to Susan Sawtell.

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the life of the church and were thinking about the its witness and pastoral strategy. Further, they were trying to find mediating approaches (staying in the legions, but not killing; later, prescribing penance for those who killed) without surrendering fundamental convictions. The strategies of the Apostolic Tradition (Sahidic and Arabic) make sense of the situation that Tertullian described: Christians in the legions were facing challenges which differed in peacetime and in wartime, as rank and file and as officers; further, these soldiers were struggling against the understandable danger that they might have to sacrifice or kill. We cannot know what authority the Apostolic Tradition and the subsequent church orders had in the churches. But their provisions concerning military service show them to be, not extreme statements of a theoretical ideal, but practical attempts to be pastorally helpful. I find it quite possible to imagine that at least in certain places on some issues the church orders represented views which the magisterium had held in the past and may still have held. 4.3 Continuity: Augustine ratifies the argument of the laity Were there continuities of emphasis and approach between the preand post-Constantinian Christians? The answer to this must be nuanced. On the one hand, the church orders are evidence of an astonishing continuity, extending over a period of more than a century and a half. They demonstrate that there was no sudden volte-face when the emperor Constantine emerged on the ecclesiastical scene. Almost all the church orders show a recurring objection to Christians voluntarily choosing the military career, and they do this well into the fifth century (through the Alexandrine Sinodos, but not the Apostolic Constitutions). Furthermore, time and again the church orders reiterated an objection to taking life. But in the late fourth-century Apostolic Constitutions something new is evident. With regard to the taking of life the compiler of the Apostolic Constitutions broke with earlier church orders. He no longer merely accepted Christians who were already in the military when they became believers; he now allowed baptized Christians and catechumens voluntarily to enlist in the military; he tacitly accepted that they might have to kill; and he justified this by quoting John the Baptists advice to soldiers from Luke 3.14. But it is intriguing: by doing this, the compiler of the Apostolic Constitutions affirmed another form of continuitywith Christians (most likely lay Christians in the legions and possibly civilians as well) who from Tertullians time onwards had been developing a rationale for service in the army based especially upon this passage. In the Syria of the Apostolic Constitutions the author, adjusting to changed

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circumstances, thus adopted a position which the laity had argued for, even if this acceptance meant that the leadership had to change its position. A similar change was likely taking place in other parts of the empire. In the West Augustine of Hippo eloquently ratified this position. So was Augustine in continuity with the earlier Christians? Of course, but not with the earlier position of the theologians or of the Apostolic Tradition and the other church orders. Instead, he was in continuity with the laity in the legions. Is this the only time, one might wonder, in which change in the church has filtered upwards, and in which bishops and theologians have eventually blessed the practice and thinking of the laity? 4.4 Regional variation Was there a variety of thought and practice from place to place? Of course, although we have less evidence than we would like. The Apostolic Tradition reflects the teaching of churches in the third-century West (North Africa and Rome); and subsequent church orders (Canons of Hippolytus, Testament of Our Lord, Apostolic Constitutions) which developed its provisions reflect teaching in various parts of the fourth- and fifth-century East. We do not know how representative these were of practice in either West or East. Paul Bradshaw (1992, 67) has cautioned, Authoritative-sounding statements are not always genuinely authoritative. So we do not know to what extent bishops actually sought to give effect to the church orders prescriptions, nor to what extent these prescriptions made a difference in the lives of lay Christians. Records have survived of Christian soldiers in the legions who killed; no records that I know of have survived of bishops who disciplined catechumens or members who transgressed the teachings of the church orders by taking life.29 To understand regional variation more fully, we really need more research.

Conclusion
So this paper leaves us with questions. Some of these are historical. The evidence in this article demonstrates that the teaching of the
29 Julius the Veteran, a soldier-martyr who went on seven military campaigns, and never hid behind anyone nor was I the inferior of any man in battle (Passio Iuli Veterani 2, in Musurillo 1972, 261) represents the Christian combatants, of whom there must have been some (Jones 1963, 2324). Martin of Tours represents the probably smaller number of Christians in the legions who refused, declaring it is not lawful for me to fight (Sulpicius Severus, Vita Martini 4; Hornus 1980, chap. 4). Cf the interaction of Bishop Theotecnus with the legionary Marinus (Martyrdom of St Marinus, in Musurillo 1972, 241).

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church orders on warfare shifted between the Apostolic Tradition and the Apostolic Constitutions. But the relationship between church orders and the bishops, and between both of these and the laity, requires further investigation. If my findings have helped, even slightly, to liberate us from the burden of mistaken assumptions and misread history, and if they are a stimulus to additional research, I will be grateful. Other questions are theological, ethical and pastoral. I close with one. Up to now, ethicists and historians have argued at length about the stance of the early Christians towards military service and killing. These arguments will continue. But scholars have given little attention to peace as a theme in the common life of the early churches, a peace which needed to be tended as well as taught.30 I sense that this is changing, and that it is no longer possible to say much that is interesting about Christian ethics that is not somehow related to worship and pastoral life (Kreider 1995). The church orders can help us here. They demonstrate an approach to ethics which was integrated in a comprehensive treatment of worship, catechesis and common life. Encouragingly, David Hunter, the formulator of our new consensus, is alert to this: in his article on early Christian approaches to warfare he asserted that the evidence of the first three centuries suggests that there was a strong and consistent tradition that saw peacemaking as a primary mark of the church (Hunter 1995, 180). When we listen to the early Christians disciplines of worship and dayto-day peacemaking together with their approaches to participation in warfare, we will come much closer to understanding how their life and witness coheredand to assessing their challenge to our life and thought today.

REFERENCES
Apostolic Constitutions 1989 Ed James Donaldson, in Ante-Nicene Fathers, 7. Repr Grand Rapids: Eerdmans. 19851987 Ed Marcel Metzger. Les Constitutions apostoliques. Sources tiennes, 320, 329, 336. Paris: Cerf. chre 1992 Ed Marcel Metzger. Les Constitutions apostoliques. Paris: Cerf. Apostolic Tradition 1968 The Treatise on the Apostolic Tradition of St Hippolytus of Rome. Ed Dom Gregory Dix, rev. Henry Chadwick. London: SPCK. 1987 Hippolytus: A Text for Students. Rev ed by G. J. Cuming. Bramcote, Notts: Grove Books.

30

A pioneering statement of this is interrelationship is Lohfink 1986.

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1989 2001 2002

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