Chapter 16: But is this historic Christianity? The things I've shared with you so far have probably spiritually stretched you a bit. In fact, they may have offended you. I realize that all of this is new territory for most Christians. But it's important that you realize that what I've been sharing with you isn't the personal viewpoint of David Bercot.
This isn't another one of those books where the author says that everyone else through the centuries has misunderstood the Bible, and he is the only one finally to get it right. There's no shortage of such books, and I have little use for them. No. What I have been sharing with you about war, non-resistance, and government is actually the historical position of the Christian Church.
These were the original teachings of the Church, and they remain the universal or near-universal view of all Christians until the time of Constantine in the 4th century. But I don't want you to take my word for this. I want you to hear this right from the horse's mouth. So on the pages that follow, I'm going to share with you the testimony of those Christians who lived closest to the time of the apostles. Please understand that these are not special proof text quotations.
I haven't carefully selected certain quotations from the early Christians while leaving out ones that support a different view. I have made the early Church my special field of study for the past 20 years, and I know of no one before the time of Constantine who expressed a view different from what is presented below. When the Church was still close to the time of the apostles, Christians truly lived in this world as strangers and foreign residents.
They lived by kingdom values, which made them noticeably different from the world around them. Because their focus was on Jesus Christ and His kingdom, the public affairs of this world were essentially irrelevant to them. Hermas, who wrote about the year AD 150, or perhaps earlier, from the city of Rome, had this to say: "You know that you who are the servants of God dwell in a strange land, for your city is far away from this one.
If then you know your city in which you are to dwell, why do you here provide lands and make expensive preparations and accumulate dwellings and useless buildings? He who makes such preparations for this city cannot return again to his own. Do you not understand that all these things belong to another and are under the power of another?
Take note, therefore, as one living in a foreign land, make no further preparations for yourself except what is merely sufficient, and be ready to leave this city when the master of this city will come to cast you out for disobeying his law." Tatian, who lived in the Middle East, wrote a Defense of Christianity around AD 160. In it, speaking on behalf of all Christians, he proclaims: "I do not wish to be a king. I am not anxious to be rich. I decline military command. I detest fornication.
I am not impelled by an insatiable love of financial gain to go to sea. I do not contend for chaplets. I am free from a mad thirst for fame. I despise death. Die to the world, repudiating the madness that is in it. Live to God." Clement of Alexandria was a Christian instructor in the Church in Alexandria, Egypt. His writings, which date to around AD 195, express the early Christian detachment from the politics, patriotism, and events of this world.
He summed up the early Christian spirit when he wrote: "We have no country on earth. Therefore, we can disdain earthly possessions." Tertullian, who wrote between the years AD 195 and 212, was a fiery author who belonged to the Church in Carthage, North Africa. Like his fellow Christians of that age, he testified that Christians have no interest in the political and governmental affairs around them. "All zeal in the pursuit of glory and honor is dead in us.
So we have no pressing inducement to take part in your public meetings. Nor is there anything more entirely foreign to us than the affairs of state. We acknowledge one all-embracing commonwealth, the world. We renounce all your spectacles. Among us, nothing is ever said, seen, or heard that has anything in common with the madness of the circus, the immodesty of the theater, the atrocities of the arena, or the useless exercise of the wrestling ground.
Why do you take offense at us because we differ from you in regard to your pleasures?" Addressing his fellow Christians, Tertullian wrote: "As for you, you are a foreigner in this world, a citizen of Jerusalem, the city above. Our citizenship," the apostle says, "is in heaven." Origen was one of the most brilliant men of his day. For several decades, he served as a teacher in the Church in Alexandria. Later, he moved to Caesarea, where he was ordained as an elder or presbyter.
One of Origen's most valuable works was his reply to Celsus, a pagan critic of Christianity. Celsus also urges us to take office in the government of the country, if that is necessary for the maintenance of the laws and the support of religion. However, we recognize in each state the existence of another national organization that was founded by the word of God, and we exhort those who are mighty in word and of blameless life to rule over churches.
It is not for the purpose of escaping public duties that Christians decline public offices. Rather, it is so they may reserve themselves for a more divine and necessary service in the Church of God, for the salvation of men. Cyprian served as bishop of Carthage around the year AD 250. He left a considerable body of correspondence with other Christians and with other churches, which gives us valuable insight into the beliefs of Christians in his day.
Corroborating what his fellow Christians were saying, he wrote: "We should ever and a day reflect that we have renounced the world and are in the meantime living here as guests and strangers." Not only did the early Christians distance themselves from government and other affairs of this world, they followed the teachings of Jesus on non-resistance quite literally. Here are some representative passages from the same writers I quoted from above.
Clement of Alexandria wrote: "Christians are not allowed to use violence to correct the delinquencies of sins." Tertullian confirmed this saying: "For what difference is there between provoker and provoked? The only difference is that the former was the first to do evil, but the latter did evil afterwards. Each one stands condemned in the eyes of the Lord for hurting a man. For God both prohibits and condemns every wickedness. In evil doing, there is no account taken of the order. The commandment is absolute.
Evil is not to be repaid with evil." Again, Tertullian wrote: "The Lord will save them in that day, even His people, like sheep. No one gives the name of sheep to those who fall in battle with arms and hands, or those who are killed when repelling force with force.
Rather, it is given only to those who are slain, yielding themselves up in their own place of duty and with patience, rather than fighting in self-defense." Lactantius was a well-educated Christian who wrote in the early part of the 4th century, saying: "When we suffer such ungodly things, we do not resist even in word. Rather, we leave vengeance to God." And again, the Christian does injury to no one. He does not desire the property of others.
In fact, he does not even defend his own property if it is taken from him by violence. For he knows how to patiently bear an injury inflicted upon him. And: "We do not resist those who injure us, for we must yield to them." Another early Christian writer to whom I have not introduced you is Athenagoras. He wrote a Defense of Christianity around AD 175, in which he said: "We have learned not to return blow for blow, nor to go to law with those who plunder and rob us.
Not only that, but to those who strike us on one side of the face, we have learned to offer the other side also." There is no evidence in either Christian or secular Roman writings that any Christian served in the Roman armies prior to AD 170. However, despite the early Church's condemnation of war and killing, the testimony of history clearly reveals that after AD 170, there were some Christians in the Roman army.
Some writers have pointed to this fact, and from it they have tried to argue that the early Christians were not opposed to war after all. However, that's not an honest presentation of history, since the unanimous testimony of all the early Christian writers is that all Christians refused to engage in killing. So how do we reconcile this seeming contradiction? An early Christian work entitled The Apostolic Tradition, compiled by Hippolytus around AD 200, clarifies the matter.
In describing how the Church should handle applicants for baptism, Hippolytus states: "A soldier of the civil authority must be taught not to kill men and to refuse to do so if he is commanded, and to refuse to take an oath. If he is unwilling to comply, he must be rejected for baptism. A military commander or civic magistrate who wears the purple must resign or be rejected.
If an applicant or a believer seeks to become a soldier, he must be rejected, for he has despised God." It appears, then, that after AD 170 or so, the general policy of the Church was that if a soldier was converted to Christ, he did not have to leave the army to be baptized. Rather, he had to agree never to use the sword or take an oath. However, if a Christian civilian voluntarily joined the army, or if a discharged soldier willingly returned to the military, that person was put out of the Church.
Even as late as the early 4th century, this was still the general policy of the Church. Why did the Church not require newly converted soldiers to leave the army before they could be baptized? Because normally a soldier enlisted for 25 years. Usually, his only way out of the military was either by death or by the completion of his commission. Remaining in the army without using the sword wouldn't have been as difficult as it might seem to us today.
It should be remembered that the Roman Empire was at relative peace during this early period of Christianity, so it was quite feasible that a Christian could spend his entire life in the army and never be required to shed blood or use violence against anyone. In fact, during the period of early Christianity, soldiers primarily served in the capacities of civil peacekeepers and engineers, building roads, city walls, and aqueducts.
In fact, the earliest record of Christians being in the army, AD 170, specifically states that the Christians refused to use their swords, but only prayed. God answered their prayers by bringing a heavy rain that caused the invaders to retreat without any battle. Please understand that I'm not saying that the position of the early Church after AD 170 toward newly converted soldiers was necessarily the correct position.
I'm only saying that the Church's position represented neither an acceptance of war nor an express rejection of non-resistance. Because it is not of this world, God's kingdom typically clashes with the kingdoms of this world. Like Peter and the apostles, the early Christians refused to break any of Jesus' commandments, even when Caesar demanded it. Origen wrote: "What if the law of nature, that is, the law of God, commands what is opposed to the written law?
Does not reason tell us to bid a long farewell to the written code, and to give ourselves up to the legislator, God?
This is so even if in doing so it may be necessary to encounter dangers, countless labors, and even death and dishonor." Lactantius added: "When men command us to act in opposition to the law of God, and in opposition to justice, we should not be deterred by any threats or punishments that come upon us, for we prefer the commandments of God to the commandments of man." In short, non-resistance and separation from the world were the historic practices of Christianity.