Annotation CLVI
”He that hath a purse, let him take it, and likewise a scrip: and he that hath not, let him sell his tunic, and buy a sword.” — Luke 22:36
Whether it is lawful for a Christian to wage war.
Hugh of Saint-Cher, expounding this passage in the Postil on Mark, is censured by Erasmus with a twofold charge: first, indeed, that most shamelessly twisting the saying of Christ, he asserted that he [Christ] warned the Apostles by these words that, when the storm of persecutions rushed on, they should fortify themselves with two things — namely, provisions and the defense of arms; then, that he made Chrysostom the author of so absurd a wresting — [Chrysostom] who everywhere rejects this fabrication. Erasmus condemns these [things] in the Annotations on the third chapter and on the twenty-second chapter of Luke, where, digressing from his purpose in a prolix discourse, he deplores, with almost tragic complaints, the judgment of the school-theologians; who, by their insipid (as he says) fabrications and frigid little distinctions, subvert the evangelical doctrine — teaching that the right of warring is not forbidden to Christians, but that it is lawful for Christians to wage war. Their opinion, indeed, he attacks, as impious, with a great number of testimonies — that those whom he cannot overcome by the weight of witnesses, he may at least overwhelm by [their] multitude. Among these the weightier are, that Christ in the gospel commanded his own1 not to resist evil, but to love [their] enemies; to pray for those who calumniate [them], to seek the peace of persecutors, to do good to enemies, to offer the other cheek to those who strike, and, to those who take away the tunic, to leave the cloak also besides; and,2 according to Paul’s precept, to burn up [their] adversaries with the flames of love and of kindnesses. To these he adds the authority of many ancient fathers, but first of all of Origen; who, in the seventh treatise on Matthew, explaining the present passage, pronounces that Christ’s discourse about buying a sword is pestilent, if it be taken to the letter. Then he compares Ambrose to Origen; whose explanation upon these words of Christ is read in the tenth commentary on Luke in this manner: “O Lord, why dost thou bid me buy a sword, [thou] who forbiddest me to strike? why dost thou command [me] to have [that] which thou forbiddest to be drawn forth? — unless perhaps that a defense be prepared, [and] vengeance not [be] necessary; and [that] I may seem to have been able to avenge [myself], but to have been unwilling. Yet the Law does not forbid me to strike back: and therefore perhaps, to Peter offering two swords, ‘It is enough,’ he says — as though it were lawful up to the Gospel, so that in the Law there be the instruction of equity, in the Gospel the perfection of goodness.” To many this
this [saying] seems unjust; but the Lord [is] not unjust, who, when he could avenge himself, chose rather to be sacrificed. To these he also joins Chrysostom, cited from the Catena Aurea of St. Thomas; who narrates this very discourse of Christ thus: “‘He that hath not, let him sell his garment, and buy a sword.’ What now [is] this? Does he arm the disciples — he who says, ‘If anyone strike thee on the right cheek, turn to him the other also’? —3 he who commanded that we bless those who assail us with reproaches, [that] we bear with [those] invading [us], [that] we pray for [our] persecutors — does he now arm [them]? and arm [them] with one sword only? And how are these [things] consonant with reason? For if there were altogether need of arms, [it ought] not [to be] with a sword alone; but he ought to have armed [them] also with a shield, and a helmet, and greaves. And indeed, if he had wished to dispense and act in these [matters] after the human manner, this precept was ridiculous. For, although they had possessed six hundred [countless] arms of that kind against the ambushes and assaults of peoples, tyrants, cities, nations: how would eleven [men] have been reckoned the stronger? Why, then, does he say these [things]? He wished to indicate the ambushes of the Jews — and [to do so] manifestly, and not by riddles, lest again they be confounded [confused] along with him.” Sulpicius Severus is put [as witness] in the last place, who, in the Life of Martin, brings him in refusing Caesar’s donative — which was wont to be paid out to the soldiers — with these words: “Hitherto, O Caesar, I have soldiered for thee: now permit that I may soldier for God. Let him who is about to fight receive thy donative: I am a soldier of Christ; it is not lawful for me to fight.” At last, after many [things], he [Erasmus] infers that a Christian man must fight not with bodily and iron arms, but with the spiritual and evangelical panoply with which Paul equips the soldier of Christ — that is, with the helmet of salvation, the shield of faith, and the sword of the spirit: which [thing], he says, Ambrose too openly declared, in the book On Widows, when he says: “The arms of the Church are faith; the arms of the Church are prayer, which conquers the adversary.”
These [things] Erasmus [says]: who, as in those [things] which he brought forth against the scholastic theologians he is vehemently deceived, so in that which he casts up against Hugh of Saint-Cher he is utterly mistaken. For, since here two [things] are numbered by Christ — namely, the fitting [provision] of the purse and scrip alike, and the buying of a sword — Hugh, expounding the first of these in the first place, says that Christ, by the admonition about the purse and scrip, granted the Apostles license that thereafter they might prepare for themselves certain [things] necessary for [their] sustenance, [things] which are signified by the name of “purse and scrip.” And he uses, for the confirmation of this interpretation, the testimony of Chrysostom, cited in truncated form for the sake of brevity. Which, lest anyone suspect [it to have been] falsely adduced, I will subscribe here the entire opinion of Chrysostom, from the homily on that [text] of the epistle to the Romans, “Salute Prisca and Aquila,” etc. — where, dissolving the question, why the Apostles, to whom Christ had by a law forbidden the purse, the scrip, shoes, and doubled tunics, used all these after Christ’s resurrection — he speaks in this manner:
“What, then, shall we say to these [things]? Christ did not wish the Apostles to be always bound by the necessity of this law, but he absolved them from this law, when he was now about to go to the saving cross. And whence is this clear? From the Savior’s discourses. For, about to undertake the Passion, having called them, he said: ‘When I sent you without purse and scrip, was anything lacking?’ But they, answer-
-ing said, ‘Nothing.’ But he said to them: ‘But now he that hath a purse, let him take it, and a scrip; and he that hath not, let him sell his garment, and buy a sword.’4 Now perhaps someone will say [that] the Apostles [are] by these words absolved from the charge. But further it is asked, why Christ commanded contrary [things]. For at one time he says, ‘Possess not a scrip’; but at another, ‘He that hath not a purse, let him take it, and a scrip.’ Why did he do this? Certainly he did these [things] very worthily, according to his wisdom and the care which he bore for the disciples. For from the beginning of [their] calling he did this — that the disciples might make trial of their [own] courage; and thereafter, [being] about to go out into the world, [that] animated by this example they might trust the more in him. But when they now began to recognize their own power, he willed that they themselves should furnish among themselves some specimen of virtue; and he permitted them to bear their own temptations — namely, lest they should sit perpetually idle, and be carried like children even to the end. For at the beginning he suffered them to endure nothing, but everywhere was present, fortifying and entrenching them about, and making all [things] flow to them abundantly: but when it was time that they themselves should declare their own manliness, he withdrew [his] benefit for a while, commanding them that they too should accomplish many [things] by themselves. And for this cause, when they had no shoes, nor girdle, nor staff, nor money, nothing was lacking to them. For he says, ‘Was anything lacking to you?’ and answering they said, ‘Nothing.’ But at the time when he permitted them to have a purse, and a scrip, and shoes, they were found both hungering, and thirsting, and going naked. Whence [it is] clear why he suffers them everywhere to be endangered and afflicted — namely, that they may have some reward. And just as birds, cherishing their young, sit so long in the nest until their feathers grow; and when they have seen [these] to have grown, they first teach them to flutter about the nests, then wholly leave them to their own support: so also did Christ. For in Palestine he nourished the disciples as in a nest, and taught them to fly, [being] present and carrying [them]: at last he permitted them to fly into the whole world, a command being given them, that they should not fail themselves.”
These words of Chrysostom [were] summarily culled by Hugh — not, however, as Erasmus charges, falsely and corruptly cited. Agreeing with which, Theophylact, in the exposition of the same passage, writes thus: “At the beginning of the preaching, indeed, the Lord, sending the Disciples into the towns and cities, sent [them] without the necessaries; nor did he give [them the things] of which they had need, nor did he wish them to bear [such] care — and in these [things] it was fitting that they learn his power. For, having care of them as of the weak, he made all necessaries flow to them abundantly, apart from their own care. But now he commands the contrary — not [being] contrary to himself, but showing them that up to this time he had carried them as little children, and had not made them solicitous about anything. But now it is needful for them that they attend to the [things] which are of grown men, and provide for themselves. ‘For I,’ he says, ‘your father, having care of you, now depart. From this time be prepared, and bear yourselves the care of your own affairs, and cast not all care upon me. For your works will not be so easy, and free from labor; but you will be subject to hunger, thirst, and many adversities. For these [things] are intimated by the purse and the scrip.’” From these
From these [things], then, it is clear that Hugh was unworthily condemned by Erasmus in this part.
There follows a second charge of Erasmus, accusing Hugh — that against the opinion of Christ he affirmed that Christ granted to the Apostles the power of warring, and the use of the sword, when he exhorted them that, [their] garment being sold, they should buy a sword; and again, that he ascribes this violent interpretation to Chrysostom, [who] manifestly disapproves it. Of which accusations the latter, indeed, is so far from the truth that in this part which pertains to the sword no mention of Chrysostom is found in Hugh. But the former accusation contains an open calumny. For although Hugh writes that Christ, by that discourse, gave the Apostles license to use the sword, yet he did not by this saying wish to signify what Erasmus imputes to him — namely, that Christ commanded the disciples to descend into battle girt with the sword, about to fight it out with their own hand against enemies: but he wished it to be understood that Christ granted to the Apostles the just use of the sword — not, indeed, in their own person, nor for that time, but in the person of the whole Church, and for the future time; because, at the outset of the nascent Church, the use of arms would be least fitting.
But lest anyone perhaps suspect that these [things] are fabricated by me either out of hatred of Erasmus, or in favor of Hugh, the very words of Hugh run thus: “Note, that although the Lord spoke specially to the primitive Church, yet the primitive Church did not have the sword, nor was it fitting for it to fight it out with the sword. For as long as the Church was new, it behooved that it be planted by two [things] — namely, by sufferings and miracles. But after, by the process of time, the Church was grown, those two are no longer necessary. But since the sword does not belong to the primitive Church: why did he command the Apostles to take up the sword in the time of persecution? — that it might appear that the faculty of defense was not lacking to them; and thus [that] the Lord was shown to come willingly to the Passion. And this is what follows in the Gloss of Bede: ‘He bids [them] either to take up a sword [already] had, or, if not had, to buy [one] — that readers may know that the faculty of resisting was not lacking to the disciples, but rather that in the Master there was the love of suffering.’ Likewise in the Gloss of Ambrose: ‘Why dost thou bid [me] buy a sword, [thou] who forbiddest [me] to strike? why dost thou command [me] to have [that] which thou forbiddest to be drawn forth? — unless perhaps that a defense be prepared, [and] vengeance not [be] necessary; and [that] I may seem able to avenge [myself], but to have been unwilling,’ etc.” Thus far Hugh.
There remains the last complaint of Erasmus against the more recent theologians — that against the evangelical and Apostolic philosophy they teach that it is lawful for Christians to soldier and to wage wars. Which complaint, indeed, is so unjust — not to say Manichaean and impious — that the accuser himself manifestly betrays himself an adversary of the evangelical discipline, and a subverter of the Christian polity, while he takes from Christians the rights of just defense — instituted by the laws of nature, and confirmed by the common consent and authority of all nations. For if war were altogether forbidden by the evangelical law, John, to the soldiers asking what would be expedient for them unto salvation,5 would have said, “Cast away [your] arms, desert this soldiery; strike no one” — but he did not say this. But he only admonished [them] that, content with their pay, they should abstain from calumny — being also,
moreover, about to prohibit the exercise of warring, if he had thought it unlawful. Again, when the Centurion tried to show the authority of Christ from the command which he himself had over his soldiers,6 Christ, having praised the soldier’s faith, did not command him the desertion of [his] soldiery — [Christ] who without doubt would have forbidden [it], if war were in no way lawful. Likewise to the Herodians asking whether it were lawful to give tribute to Caesar,7 he answered, “Render to Caesar the [things] that are Caesar’s.” Now for this cause tributes are rendered — that thence pay may necessarily be paid to the soldier for the preservation of peace. For thus says Paul, when he treats of the obedience to be shown to the prince:8 “Therefore be subject of necessity, not only for wrath, but also for conscience’ sake. For therefore also you pay tributes: for they are the ministers of God, serving unto this very thing.” Rightly, therefore, St. Augustine, in the fifth letter to Marcellinus, treating of Christian war, spoke thus: “For if Christian discipline blamed all wars, this counsel would rather be given in the gospel to those seeking salvation — that they should cast away arms, and withdraw themselves altogether from soldiery. But it was said to them: ‘Do violence to no one. Be content with your pay.’” To whom he commanded that pay ought to suffice, [and so] soldiering he certainly did not forbid. And in the letter to Count Boniface — which is number fifty — exhorting him to coerce the Donatists by war, he says: “Do not think that no one can please God who serves in the arms of war. Among these was holy David, to whom the Lord gave so great a testimony. Among these was that holy Centurion, who said to the Lord, ‘I am not worthy that thou shouldst enter under my roof.’ This, then, first consider, when thou art armed for battle: that thy valor, even the very bodily [strength], is a gift of God. For if thou wilt think of [it as] the gift of God, thou wilt not act against the Lord. For faith, when it is promised, must be kept even to the enemy against whom war is waged: how much more to the friend for whom [one] fights. To have peace is [a matter] of the will: but war ought to be [a matter] of necessity — that God may free [us] from necessity, and preserve [us] in peace. For peace is not sought that war may be exercised, but war is waged that peace may be acquired. Be therefore, [even] in warring, peaceful — that those whom thou overcomest, thou mayest, by conquering, lead to the peace of unity.”
But, that I be not longer, I pass over what the same Augustine wrote on the right of Christian war in almost innumerable places — especially in book 22 Against Faustus, from chapter 74 up to 79 — and what Gregory, Bernard, and very many other ancient Fathers said in favor of Christian soldiery. But I come to those [things] which Erasmus opposes. First, from the Evangelical and Apostolic writings, by which we are forbidden to resist evil, are commanded to remit injuries, to love enemies, to seek peace with these, to pray well for those who curse [us], to do good to persecutors, to offer the right [cheek] also to be struck to [him who] strikes the left, and other [things] like these, which seem to explode the rights of warring. To this objection we answer: [that] of those [things] which have been enumerated, some are precepts, but some counsels. But it is indeed a precept, in a certain way and in general [in the disposition of the heart], to love enemies, to love foes, not to forsake the persecutors of the help of prayer, to wish and seek their peace and good will. Which precepts, indeed, [do not take away] the right and facul-
-ty and exercise of fighting — [these precepts] neither take [them] away, nor always hinder [them]. For those wars are just and truly Christian which are waged by peaceful warriors — that is, by those seeking peace — with love of the enemies, for the defense of justice and the attainment of peace, according to that rule of Augustine: “War is waged, that peace may be acquired. Be therefore, in warring, peaceful — that those whom thou overcomest, thou mayest, by conquering, lead to the benefit of peace.” Moreover, among these [things] are counsels: not to resist evil, not to defend oneself, to render good for evil, to offer even the left [cheek] to [him who] strikes the right, to let go the cloak also, besides, to [him who] snatches the tunic, to follow with a doubled number of paces [him who] drags [thee] one mile, and very many other [things] of that kind; which, apart from the crisis of necessity — as Augustine says — are not precepts of the deed, but of the disposition, to be kept in the preparation of the mind: that we may, namely, be always ready not to resist evil, but to conquer evil with good, and to repay a kindness for a wrong, if that be needful. But if it be otherwise expedient — whether for the common good, or for the benefit of those who assail us — then, as Augustine writes in the letter to Marcellinus, many [things] must be done, even the unwilling being chastised with a certain benign severity. For he from whom the license of iniquity is taken away is usefully conquered: “Since nothing is more unhappy than the good fortune of sinners, by which penal impunity is nourished, and the evil will, as an interior enemy, is strengthened.”
But to that which Erasmus objects — that the Christian must fight with prayers and supplications — we confess indeed that to the just warrior prayers and supplications, poured out to God with the whole heart, are necessary first of all: because, as that noble Maccabee said, “the victory of war is not from the multitude of the army, but strength is from heaven.” But after these [things], even if necessity press, arms must be taken and battle entered: since, while Moses prayed on the mountain, the army of the Amalekites is overcome by Joshua fighting.
Lastly, to those [things] which are brought forward by Erasmus from the fathers: first I answer to the passage of Ambrose, that his words are not to be so taken as if he means war to be unlawful to all these who profess the gospel — but [only] to those men (according, however, to the common rule) who have given themselves wholly to the divine worship, and hold a more eminent perfection of goodness, placed in the observance of the counsels: which Ambrose himself not obscurely indicates, saying, “that there may be in the gospel the perfection of goodness.” To the same sense, too, are to be referred the words of Chrysostom. For indeed, since the Apostles stood on the highest summit of evangelical purity, it was not lawful for them to put on arms, to gird [themselves] with the sword, to lay [their] hand on the sword, and to be besprinkled with another’s blood. Whence Origen deservedly said that Christ’s discourse, exhorting to the sword, is pestilent to those who understand it according to the letter — that is, to those who think that Christ, by that saying, commanded his Apostles to arm themselves for battle; whereas that would not befit men holding the citadel of all perfection. Nor does the answer of Martin depart from this aim, who declined soldiery not only for this cause, but also for another far graver — namely, because he judged [it] a wickedness that a Christian soldier should soldier under an impious and apostate Emperor.
For Julian, having openly deserted the religion of Christ, had fallen away to paganism.
These [things], perhaps, [have been] said at greater length than would suit the present purpose, [but] out of a zeal for piety, against Erasmus — whom, lest I seem to have utterly stripped him of his defense, I will not be silent [in noting] that he, after a long and pernicious digression by which he wounded the reader’s mind, at last, at the end of the discourse, added: “And we wish these [things] to be held as matters disputed, not as [things] asserted” — namely, that by such a paint [pretense] he might provide for himself, and, as it is said in the adage, might hide his hand, the stone [having been] cast.
From those [things] which have been said in this Annotation, [those things] are most easily refuted which John Ferus wrote against the Christian right of warring, in the Commentaries on the twenty-sixth chapter of Matthew. These read above, Annotation 115.