The determination of this question is connected and bound to other general questions. One is: Can it happen that a war be just on both sides? Piccolomini touched on [this] question in [book] 6, ch. 1, Philosophy 21 — but in such a way that, as if it were not clear [to him], he settled nothing. Not a few of old denied [it], to whom it seemed that, if someone justly wages war, the other resists unjustly; and even if someone justly resists, the other attacks unjustly. Nevertheless [these] affirm [it can be just on both sides]: Abulensis (on ch. 9 of this book, q. 15; ch. 11, qq. 11 & 12); Dominicus Soto (bk. 5 On Justice, q. 1, a. 7); the jurisconsults too — Fulgosius (law “Ex hoc iure,” Digest, “de iustitia [et iure]”) and Alciatus (bk. 2 Paradoxa, last chapter, & law 5 “de iustificatione”) — because what is truly just is either evident and clear to both parties, or obscure and unknown to both, or known to one [and] unknown to the other. In the first mode and the third, only one party wars justly, since it is settled to the other party that justice is being assailed by it. But in the second mode, justice is sought on both sides, and therefore the war [is] just on both sides. For just as in forensic [legal] affairs, when what is just lies hidden, the litigation is just on both sides, and the disputation before the Judge is just: so also the disputation of arms is not unjust, when each party judges that justice stands on its own side. “It happens,” says St Augustine (Exposition [Enarratio] 2 on Psalm 25), “that two men have a case before the servant of God. No one calls any cause just but his own. For if he thought his cause unjust, thou wouldst not seek a judge. And this one thinks he has a just cause, and that one [too]. They come to the judge; before the sentence is pronounced, both say: We embrace thy judgment, whatever thou shalt adjudge — far be it that we should reject [it]. What sayest thou too? Judge
[running head: Iosuæ.]
whatever [thou wilt], only judge. Utterly, if we resist in anything, may we be anathema. Both love the Judge before he judges.” And so, when the Hungarian legates were speaking rather vehemently against the Emperor, Pius II said to them that, in the dissension and controversy of the kingdom, neither the King of Hungary nor the Emperor was acting against [his] duty — since indeed each reckoned his cause just for himself. So [Cicero], in the oration Pro Marcello: “There was,” he says, “a certain obscurity; there was a contest among most illustrious Leaders. Many doubted what was best; many, what was fitting; some even, what was lawful.” So, in [book] 3 of the Rhetoric, Aristotle said that in almost all the states [types] of controversies it happens that neither party of the litigants is dishonest — except in the question “Whether the deed was done?” — the deed, I say, [done] by one of the litigants. For he who is conscious to himself of his own deed cannot cover this with the cloak of ignorance. Well, therefore — and in accordance with the judgment and mind of Abulensis, cited before — Covarruvias, on the Rule “Peccatum,” part 2, §10, at the last number [says]: “A war can truly be just [only] on one side, but in opinion just on both.” The former part is evident also from this, that in fact either this one or that one always has the true right, [but] never both. For since the foundation of the right, and, as it were, the sole [thing], is the matter about which the contest is: that [matter] is really owed either to this one or to that one, and there is in it a certain contradiction, so that if it really belongs to this one, it really does not belong to the other. But the latter part too is evident from what has been said, because what is true and just in the matter itself is obscure to the litigants; and each claims it for himself, not amiss — provided, however, that each has applied, in the search for truth, the diligence that is fitting. For it is not enough, for a thing to be just even in opinion, [merely] to think [it] just: but it is necessary to think [it just] with right reason. And that will never be [the case] unless each has explored the truth by [all] the ways and reasons he can. Otherwise the savagery and cruelty of those who — as [it is in] John [ch.] 16, verse 2 — would kill them [the saints] and think they were rendering service to God, would be just against His saints.
The OTHER question is — not, indeed, in general, whether it is just to repel force with force (for this [principle] Cicero in the Pro Milone, and reason for the learned, and necessity for the barbarians, and custom for the nations, and nature itself for the wild beasts, has prescribed — that they should always repel every force, by whatever means they could, from [their] body, from [their] head, [and] from their life) — but specifically: Whether one may justly defend by force a force justly brought [upon him]? There are good and useful [things] which Abulensis hands down at the cited question 11 — but perhaps too many for [our] purpose, since, besides objections and various arguments, Alphonsus à Polo noted 42 conclusions in them. In a few [words], therefore, I say: FIRST, if the force that is brought [to bear] pertains to taking away only the goods of fortune and wealth, and it is settled for us that the force is just, [then] it cannot be warded off by force. For example, if a Judge, by himself or through his ministers, wished justly to coerce us by taking away pledges [pignora], or by some other loss of [our] property — the reason is: he who thus attempts to take away those goods by force does a lawful, good, and just work; and this our reason dictates to us. To hinder him, therefore, and to wish to kill or wound him, is a wickedness [nefas]. SECOND: If a just force likewise rages even to [the taking of] our life, or the wounding of the body, and we know it to be just — [then] no force which is opposed to it is just. The reason
(col. 725)
[running head: ad caput VI.]
[The reason is] the same. THIRDLY: If some force be brought [to bear] upon [our] fortunes or [our] life, and it be not known [to be] just — although otherwise it might be just — [then] to repel it by force is just, in that manner which was already set forth in the preceding little question: namely, as to an opinion in no way rash or imprudent. For such a person is convinced within himself that force is being applied to him through wickedness and injury, [and] that it is just to check it by [counter-]force.
As to the Canaanites, however, the common opinion is — which Abulensis taught in the same place — that, against the just arms of the Israelites, they justly bore arms; and that for one just cause: namely, because they were ignorant of the justice of the Israelite cause. For they did not know that the Israelites were sent by the supreme Judge as avengers of [their] crimes; that the whole region had been given to them by the supreme God; [and] that the manner and method had been commanded, by which these [Canaanites], on account of their own crimes, were to be punished, [while] these [Israelites] were to seize all their fortunes and wealth. To me, however, it seems [otherwise]:
FIRST: that the Canaanites either knew, or at least could and ought to have known, that the Israelites had been brought into their [land of] Canaan by the supreme and true God. For far and wide, certainly and constantly, there had reached those peoples the most illustrious report of the miracles which God had done in Egypt, at the Red Sea, and in the wilderness. They had also lately seen the admirable crossing of the same Israelites through the waves of the Jordan. Ought not so many and so great prodigies to have sufficed for them to acknowledge the true and supreme God, [and] to confess him [to be] the Leader, helper, and favorer of the Israelites? Recall to mind the confession of Rahab’s faith, which we heard above at chapter 2, verse 9: “I know,” she says, “that the Lord has delivered the land to you: for the terror of you has fallen upon us, and all the inhabitants of the land have grown faint. We have heard that the Lord dried up the waters of the Red Sea at your entrance, when you went out of Egypt; and what you did to the two Kings of the Amorites who were beyond the Jordan, Sihon and Og, whom you slew. And hearing this, we were greatly afraid, and our heart grew faint, nor did there remain in us spirit for [i.e., to withstand] your entrance: for the Lord your God, he himself is God, in heaven above, and on earth below.” Did she not pronounce this sentence against her own countrymen? Did she not show that they ought — and, had they willed, could — to believe and venerate the all-powerful one God, who governs and protects heaven and earth, the whole world, and above all the Israelites themselves? If they could be shaken by so great a fear and dread, why were they not bent toward some somewhat saner reflection? What of the things which might urge [them] to the true faith was present to Rahab, that was not present to the other Canaanites? The external [things] which invited [them] to faith were the same for all; and God’s grace, sufficient, was present to everyone. A nearly equal confession of the Gibeonites will meet [us] below at chapter 9. If Pharaoh, [being] obstinate, was held bound [to believe] — if any who either saw, or certainly and undoubtedly heard, some works of CHRIST God [were bound] — why not the Canaanites too? Wherefore these words of Abulensis, at the cited question 11, please [me] little: “Granted that the Canaanites should concede the Jews to have been sent by their God to the destruction of the Canaanites, nevertheless they were not compelled to confess them [the Israelites] to be their [rightful] judges: because they would say that the God of the Hebrews had not the power to [commit] any such destruction
[running head: ad caput VI.]
to be delegated to the Jews, since he himself had not power over the Canaanites. And that was a legitimate excuse. But if thou sayest that all were obligated to know the one God, whose knowledge is naturally implanted, as is plain [in the Epistle] to the Romans, chapter 1: it must be answered that, although they were obligated to know and to believe that there is one true God, nevertheless they were not obligated to believe that this [God] was the God of the Hebrews, or of the Sidonians, or of the Canaanites — because it was not implanted in the nature of things that God should be more in that people than in others. Therefore, just as the Canaanites could legitimately reckon that Chemosh, the god of the Moabites, or Astarte, the goddess of the Sidonians, were not gods having power over them, so they could reckon concerning the God of the Jews — since nothing more was established from the nature of things — until, through the operations of miracles, something should be made known.” But assuredly so many and so great operations of miracles had already gone before, that there ought to be no doubt about the supreme excellence and truth of the God of the Jews above all other gods. For if before the crossing of the Jordan Rahab spoke thus, what ought all [the Canaanites] to have said after it?
SECONDLY: The Canaanites were ignorant of the divine will as to many [things] which in no way forbade them to prepare force and defense against the Israelites. For, first, they did not know whether the Lord had brought them [the Israelites] so wonderfully across the Jordan in order that they might press on to yet other lands and merely pass through Canaan, or in order that they might fix [their] seat in it and make an end of the journey undertaken. For this [passing through] both could have been done by them, and indeed had been done among several other nations through which they passed. Secondly: [even] granted that the Canaanites knew that the Israelites wished to remain in Canaan, they nevertheless did not know how, or on what condition — namely, whether they [the Canaanites] ought to yield the whole region to them and depart into other lands, or to remain and dwell together with them in it. If they had to depart, they did not sufficiently see whether the Lord would give other dominions in compensation for the fatherland they would forsake, and what those [dominions] would be, or where; whether they ought to be scattered and dispersed into various places, and in what manner; whether into [places] which each might choose at his own discretion, or which would be assigned [to them]; and again, whether to set out like colonies [colonists], or to rush headlong away in precipitate flight and hide wherever [they could]. But if they had to remain and dwell in the same Canaan together with the Israelites, they did not see whether [it would be] by equal right with them — namely, that they should remain free alongside the free, and that either mixed together with them, or gathered into certain parts of the land and still kept separate from them — or by another right, namely, that they should be made either slaves or tributaries to them. But most of all of everything, they were ignorant that, by the just judgment of God, they were to perish utterly, and to be stripped of fatherland and life at once. For neither had this divine sentence been proclaimed to them, nor was there anything from which they could certainly gather it. For what if perchance the Israelites should sin, and — ungrateful after so many and so great benefits of God — should themselves be [the ones] to be chastised by the sword of the Canaanites? What if God should only permit, and not also command, that they [the Israelites] assail the Canaanites with war and cut [them] down? What if these [Israelites], comparing their own depravity with the impiety of the other nations, should [not] find themselves more worthy of punishment and death? What if these same [Canaanites] should do penance, [and] destroy their idols,
(col. 727)
[running head: Iosuæ.]
[destroy their idols,] correct [their] wicked ways? What if they should indeed believe themselves guilty, and not undeserving of death — but yet [death] in such a way that they ought to die in the field and battle-line, and not basely give up [their] spoils and lay down [their] life without blood and sweat? For truly, before the will and sentence of the Judge is clearly manifest, many [things] of this kind — especially when [the matter] concerns life, than which no one has a greater or dearer temporal good in this world — can come into mind, which can rightly be done, and sometimes ought [to be]. So that, from ignorance — not that former [ignorance, of Israel’s mission], but this latter [ignorance, of the manner of God’s will] — I think the Canaanites could, not unjustly, defend and protect themselves by arms against the invasion of the Israelites. For no one is bound to cast away and squander his goods and life, or to fail to defend and preserve [them], unless he clearly knows the will and command of him who has right over what is ours and over us ourselves — [namely] that we be thus stripped even now of our goods and life. But when this is clearly established (namely, by that clarity which morally suffices for a prudent judgment), then indeed it is most just to endure patiently and bravely all despoilings, torments, and deaths — as so many holy confessors and martyrs did, when in the profession of faith and justice they knew the divine will from a divine precept; likewise that thief on the cross, and thereafter innumerable other malefactors, when by their Magistrates they were cast out of [their] goods, bound in fetters, shut in prisons, punished with exile, [and] put to death on gibbets, wheels, and flames. But a question still remains.
Whether the Canaanites not only COULD resist the invading Israelites, as has been said, but also OUGHT to have? As to [their] goods, Abulensis affirms that they only could [resist]; as to life, that they even ought [to have]. For those [goods], since they are goods of a lower grade, we are not so [strictly] obliged to retain and protect; but it is otherwise with life, since, as has been said, it is in the highest grade of temporal goods. When, however, it would not be altogether manifest that [life] was being unjustly snatched from us, and some probable reasons should teach [us] that — God willing and commanding (although in truth he only permitted [it]) — swords were being brought against us: I should believe that we are not indeed bound to refrain from resisting; but that we can also refrain from resisting, and endure the inflicted death with an even and patient mind. Because [in that case] we would then establish no injustice in the strikers, nor would we rashly expose [our] life, or basely desert [it]; but, from the supreme right which is ours, we would remit a little, out of reverence for the divine will and command — [known] not indeed certainly, but probably. Wherefore I conclude that the Canaanites could [choose] not to defend both their lands and their life against the justly-invading Israelites; yet [that] they could justly, for the causes set forth before, have defended [them]. Hence, further, it appears how detestable Luther was, when in his article 4 he wrote that “war is not to be waged by Christians against the Turks.” For if against the justly-invading Jews the Canaanites could rightly and justly defend themselves, why should not Christians resist the Turks — who wage most unjust wars — by a most just war? If against the people of God — hedged about by his protection, renowned by miracles — the arms of an impious and profane nation could be just, how [could] the war of Christians against the Turks,
[running head: Iosuæ.]
of the faithful against the infidels, of defenders against invaders, of dogs against wolves, be a wicked assault [i.e., how could it be criminal]? See Bellarmine, book On the Laity, ch. 16. It is well, however, that he [Luther] sang a palinode [recantation] in the Saxon Visitation — except that certain Calvinist Ministers, mad with a more-than-Vatinian hatred of Catholics, seem not to disapprove that former opinion. For [in] controversy 5, book 2, ch. 16, Franciscus Junius so explains it (κατά τι, “in a certain respect”) that he still grants there are no [just] causes for waging war against the Turks. He rejects Cochlaeus in [his] history as hostile to Luther; on the contrary he praises Sleidan; he accuses the Popes of being “more Turkish than the Turks”; nay, even in the rank of a public council pertaining to the public administration of the kingdom, he calls most Christians “worse than those same Turks,” and exclaims in these words: “Would that — and again would that — this thing were not so utterly true!” Whence even at this present time, when most of the Lutherans offer money and bodies against those same enemies [the Turks] not a little more eagerly than of old, we see it come about that the Calvinists more willingly betake themselves to the Dutch rebellions and brigandages. But of the many [things] which pertain to this [subject], my Anti-Turkish [writings] treat: read them, judge [them], and — if thou canst do nothing else — groan with me, and for our Germany pray to God, the Best and Greatest. For what more useful [thing] can we, private and poor [men], do?