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85 Catechism of the Council of Trent, iii. 6. 5.

86 Adds and Arnold, Catholic Dictionary, p. 944.

87 Gibb, loc. cit. p. 90.

88 Augsburg Confession, i. 16. Second Helvetic Confession, xxx. 4.

89 Farrer, Military Manners and Customs, p. 208.

Nor did the old opinion that war is a providential institution and a judgment of God die with the Middle Ages. Lord Bacon looks upon wars as “the highest trials of right; when princes and states that acknowledge no superior upon earth shall put themselves upon the justice of God, for the deciding of their controversies by such success as it shall please Him to give on either side.”90 Réal de Curban says that a war is seldom successful unless it be just, hence the victor may presume that God is on his side.91 According to Jeremy Taylor, “kings are in the place of God, who strikes whole nations, and towns, and villages; and war is the rod of God in the hands of princes.”92 And it is not only looked upon as an instrument of divine justice, but it is also said, generally, “to work out the noble purposes of God.”93 Its tendency, as a theological writer assures us, is “to rectify and exalt the popular conception of God,” there being nothing among men “like the smell of gunpowder for making a nation perceive the fragrance of divinity in truth.”94 By war the different countries “have been opened up to the advance of true religion.”95 “No people ever did, or ever could, feel the power of Christian principle growing up like an inspiration through the national manhood, until the worth of it had been thundered on the battle-field.”96 War is, “when God sends it, a means of grace and of national renovation”; it is “a solemn duty in which usually only the best Christians and most trustworthy men should be commissioned to hold the sword.”97 According to M. Proudhon, it is the most sublime phenomenon of our moral life,98 a divine revelation more authoritative than the Gospel itself.99 The warlike people is the religious people;100 war is the sign of human grandeur, peace a thing for beavers and sheep. “Philanthrope, vous parlez d’abolir la guerre; prenez garde de dégrader le genre humain.”101

90 Bacon, Letters and Life, i. (Works, viii.), 146.

91 Réal de Curban, La science du gouvernement, v. 394 sq.

92 Taylor, Whole Works, xii. 164.

93 ‘The Sword and Christianity,’ in Boston Review devoted to Theology and Literature, iii. 261.

94 Ibid. iii. 259, 257.

95 Holland, Time of War, p. 14.

96 Boston Review, iii. 257.

97 ‘Christianity and War,’ in Christian Review, xxvi. 604.

98 Proudhon, La guerre et la paix, ii. 420.

99 Ibid.i.62; ii. 435.

100 Ibid. i. 45.

101 Ibid. i. 43.

In order to prove the consistency of war with Christianity appeals are still, as in former days, made to the Bible; to the divinely-sanctioned example of the ancient Israelites, to the fact that Jesus never prohibited those around Him from bearing arms, to the instances of the centurions mentioned in the Gospel, to St. Paul’s predilection for taking his spiritual metaphors from the profession of the soldier, and so on.102 According to Canon Mozley, the Christian recognition of the right of war was contained in Christianity’s original recognition of nations.103 “By a fortunate necessity,” a universal empire is impossible.104 Each nation is a centre by itself, and when questions of right and justice arise between these independent centres, they cannot be decided except by mutual agreement or force. The aim of the nation going to war is exactly the same as that of the individual in entering a court, and the Church, which has no authority to decide which is the right side, cannot but stand neutral and contemplate war forensically, as a mode of settling national questions, which is justified by the want of any other mode.105 A natural justice, Canon Mozley adds, is inherent not only in wars of self-defence; there is an instinctive reaching in nations and masses of people after alteration and readjustment, which has justice in it, and which arises from real needs. The arrangement does not suit as it stands, there is want of adaptation, there is confinement and pressure; there are people kept away from each other that are made to be together, and parts separated that were made to join. All this uneasiness in States naturally leads to war. Moreover, there are wars of progress which, so far as they are really necessary for the due advantage of mankind and growth of society, are approved of by Christianity, though they do not strictly belong to the head of wars undertaken in self-defence.106 A doctrine which thus, in the name of religion, allows the waging of wars for rectifying the political distribution of nationalities and races, and forwarding the so-called progress of the world, naturally lends itself to the justification of almost any war entered upon by a Christian State.107 As a matter of fact, it would be impossible to find a single instance of a war waged by a Protestant country, from any motive, to which the bulk of its clergy have not given their sanction and support. The opposition against war has generally come from other quarters.

102 See e.g., Browne, Exposition of the Thirty-Nine Articles, p. 827 sq.; Christian Review, xxvi. 603 sq.; Eclectic Magazine, xiii. 372.

103 Mozley, ‘On War,’ in Sermons preached before the University of Oxford, p. 119.

104 Ibid. p. 112.

105 Ibid. p. 100 sqq.

106 Ibid. 104 sq.

107 On the principle of progress, Canon Mozley himself justifies (ibid. p. 110 sq.) not only the wars undertaken against two Eastern empires which have shut themselves up and excluded themselves from the society of mankind, but “two of the three great European wars of the last dozen years.” This was said in 1871.

There have been, and still are, Christian sects which, on religious grounds, condemn war of any kind. In the fourteenth century the Lollards taught that homicide in war is expressly contrary to the New Testament; they were persecuted partly on that account.108 Of the same opinion were the Anabaptists of the sixteenth century; and they could claim on their side the words of men like Colet and Erasmus. From the pulpit of St. Paul’s Colet thundered that “an unjust peace is better than the justest war,” and that, “when men out of hatred and ambition fight with and destroy one another, they fight under the banner, not of Christ, but of the Devil.”109 According to Erasmus “nothing is more impious, more calamitous, more widely pernicious, more inveterate, more base, or in sum more unworthy of a man, not to say of a Christian,” than war. It is worse than brutal; to man no wild beast is more destructive than his fellow-man. When brutes fight, they fight with weapons which nature has given them, whereas we arm ourselves for mutual slaughter with weapons which nature never thought of. Neither do beasts break out in hostile rage for trifling causes, but either when hunger drives them to madness, or when they find themselves attacked, or when they are alarmed for the safety of their young. But we, on frivolous pretences, what tragedies do we act on the theatre of war! Under colour of some obsolete and disputable claim to territory; in a childish passion for a mistress; for causes even more ridiculous than these, we kindle the flame of war. Transactions truly hellish, are called holy wars. Bishops and grave divines, decrepit as they are in person, fight from the pulpit the battles of the princes, promising remission of sins to all who will take part in the war of the prince, and exclaiming to the latter that God will fight for him, if he only keeps his mind favourable to the cause of religion. And yet, how could it ever enter into our hearts, that a Christian should imbrue his hands in the blood of a Christian! What is war but murder and theft committed by great numbers on great numbers! Does not the Gospel declare, in decisive words, that we must not revile again those who revile us, that we should do good to those who use us ill, that we should give up the whole of our possessions to those who take a part, that we should pray for those who design to take away our lives? The world has so many learned bishops, so many grey-headed grandees, so many councils and senates, why is not recourse had to their authority, and the childish quarrels of princes settled by their wise and decisive arbitration? “The man who engages in war by choice, that man, whoever he is, is a wicked man; he sins against nature, against God, against man, and is guilty of the most aggravated and complicated impiety.”110 These were the main arguments of reason, humanity, and religion, which Erasmus adduced against war. They could not leave the reformers entirely unaffected. Sir Thomas More charged Luther himself and his disciples with carrying the doctrines of peace to the extreme limits of non-resistance.111 But, as we have noticed, these peaceful tendencies only formed a passing phase in the history of Reformation, and were left to the care of sectarians.

108 Perry, History of the English Church, First Period, pp. 455, 467.

109 Green, History of the English People, ii. 93.

110 Erasmus, Adagia, iv. 1, col. 893 sqq.

111 Farrer, Military Manners and Customs, p. 185.

Among these the Quakers are the most important. By virtue of various passages in the Old and the New Testament,112 they contend that all warfare, whatever be its peculiar features, circumstances, or pretexts, is wholly at variance with the Christian religion. It is always the duty of Christians to obey their Master’s high and holy law—to suffer wrong, to return good for evil, to love their enemies. War is also inconsistent with the Christian principle that human life is sacred, and that death is followed by infinite consequences. Since man is destined for eternity, the future welfare of a single individual is of greater importance than the merely temporal prosperity of a whole nation. When cutting short the days of their neighbour and transmitting him, prepared or unprepared, to the awful realities of an everlasting state, Christians take upon themselves a most unwarrantable responsibility, unless such an action is expressly sanctioned by their divine Master, as was the case among the Israelites. In the New Testament there is no such sanction, hence it must be concluded that, under the Christian dispensation, it is utterly unlawful for one man to kill another, under whatever circumstances of expediency or provocation the deed may be committed. And a Christian who fights by the command of his prince, and in behalf of his country, not only commits sin in his own person, but aids and abets the national transgression.113

112 Isaiah, ch. ii. sqq. Micah, iv. 1 sqq. St. Matthew, v. 38 sqq.; xxvi. 52. St. Luke, vi. 27 sqq. St. John, xviii. 36. Romans, xii. 19 sqq. 1 Peter, iii. 9.

113 Gurney, Views & Practices of the Society of Friends, p. 375 sqq.

It must be added that views similar to these are also found independently of any particular form of sectarianism. According to Dr. Wayland, all wars, defensive as well as offensive, are contrary to the revealed will of God, aggression from a foreign nation calling not for retaliation and injury, but rather for special kindness and good-will.114 Theodore Parker, the Congregational minister, looks upon war as a sin, a corrupter of public morals, a practical denial of Christianity, a violation of God's eternal love.115 W. Stokes, the Baptist, observes that Christianity cannot sanction war, whether offensive or defensive, because war is an “immeasurable evil, by hurling unnumbered myriads of our fellow-men to a premature judgment and endless despair.”116 Moreover, those who compare the state of opinion during the last years with that of former periods, cannot fail to observe a marked progress of a sentiment antagonistic to war in the various sections of the Christian Church.117 Yet, speaking generally, the orthodox are still of the same opinion as Sir James Turner, who declared that “those who condemn the profession or art of soldiery, smell rank of Anabaptism and Quakery”;118 and war is in our days, as it was in those of Erasmus,119 so much sanctioned by authority and custom, that it is deemed impious to bear testimony against it. The duties which compulsory military service imposes upon the male population of most Christian countries presuppose that a Christian should have no scruples about taking part in any war waged by the State, and are recognised as binding by the clergy of those countries. With reference to the Church of England, Dr. Thomas Arnold asks, “Did it become a Christian Church to make no other official declaration of its sentiments concerning war, than by saying that Christian men might lawfully engage in it?”120

114 Wayland, Elements of Moral Science, pp. 375, 379.

115 Parker, Sermon of War, p. 23.

116 Stokes, All War inconsistent with the Christian Religion, p. 41.

117 Cf. Gibb, loc. cit. p. 81.

118 Turner, Pallas Armata, p. 369.

119 Erasmus, op. cit. iv. 1. 1. col. 894.

120 Arnold, On the Church, p. 136.

The protest against war which exercised perhaps the widest influence on public opinion came from a school of moralists whose tendencies were not only anti-orthodox, but distinctly hostile to the most essential dogmas of Christian theology. Bayle, in his Dictionary, calls Erasmus’ essay against war one of the most beautiful dissertations ever written.121 He observes that the more we consider the inevitable consequences of war, the more we feel disposed to detest those who are the causes of it.122 Its usual fruits may, indeed, “make those tremble who undertake or advise it, to prevent evils which, perhaps, may never happen and which, at the worst, would often be much less than those which necessarily follow a rupture.”123 To Voltaire war is an “infernal enterprise,” the strangest feature of which is that “every chief of the ruffians has his colours consecrated, and solemnly prays to God before he goes to destroy his neighbour.”124 He asks what the Church has done to suppress this crime. Bourdaloue preached against impurity, but what sermon did he ever direct against the murder, rapine, brigandage, and universal rage, which desolate the world? “Miserable physicians of souls, you declaim for five quarters of an hour against the mere pricks of a pin, and say no word on the curse which tears us into a thousand pieces.”125 Voltaire admits that under certain circumstances war is an inevitable curse, but rebukes Montesquieu for saying that natural defence sometimes involves the necessity of attack, when a nation perceives that a longer peace would place another nation in a position to destroy it.126 Such a war, he observes, is as illegitimate as possible:—“ It is to go and kill your neighbour for fear that your neighbour, who does not attack you, should be in a condition to attack you; that is to say, you must run the risk of ruining your country, in the hope of ruining without reason some other country; this is, to be sure, neither fair nor useful.”127 The chief causes which induce men to massacre in all loyalty thousands of their brothers and to expose their own people to the most terrible misery, are the ambitions and jealousies of princes and their ministers.128 Similar views are expressed in the great Encyclopédie:—“La guerre est le plus terrible des fléaux qui détruisent l’espèce humaine: elle n’épargne pas même les vainqueurs; la plus heureuse est funeste. … Ce ne sont plus aujourd’hui les peuples qui déclarent la guerre, c’est la cupidité des rois qui leur fait prendre les armes; c’est l’indigence qui les met aux mains de leurs sujets.”129

121 Bayle, Dictionnaire historique et critique, vi. 239, art. Erasme.

122 Ibid. ii. 463, art. Artaxata.

123 Ibid. i. 472, art. Alting (Henri).

124 Voltaire, Dictionnaire philosophique, art. Guerre (Œuvres complètes, xl. 562).

125 Ibid. p. 564.

126 Montesquieu, De l’esprit des lois, x. 2 (Œuvres complètes, p. 256).

127 Voltaire, loc. cit. p. 565.

128 Ibid. pp. 466, 564. For Voltaire’s condemnation of war, see Morley, Voltaire, p. 311 sq. I have availed myself of Lord Morley’s translation of some of the passages quoted.

129 Encyclopédie méthodique, Art militaire, ii. 618 sq.

However vehemently Voltaire and the Encyclopedists condemned war, they did not dream of a time when all wars would cease. Other writers were more optimistic. Already in 1713 Abbé Saint-Pierre—whose abbotship involved only a nominal connection with the Church—had published a project of perpetual peace, which was based on the idea of a general confederation of European nations.130 This project was much laughed at; Voltaire himself calls its author “un homme moitié philosophe, moitié fou.” But once called into being, the idea of a perpetual peace and of a European confederation did not die. It was successively conceived by Rousseau,131 Bentham,132 and Kant.133 But on the other hand it met with a formidable enemy in the awakening spirit of nationalism.

130 Saint-Pierre, Projet de Traité pour rendre la paix perpétuelle entre les souverains Chrétiens.

131 Rousseau, Extrait du Projet de paix perpétuelle, de M. l’Abbé de Saint-Pierre (Œuvres complètes, i. 606 sqq.).

132 Bentham, A Plan for an universal and perpetual Peace (Works, ii. 546 sqq.).

133 Kant, Zum ewigen Frieden.

The Napoleonic oppression called forth resistance. Philosophers and poets sounded the war trumpet. The dream of a universal monarchy was looked upon as absurd and hateful, and the individuality of a nation as the only possible security for its virtue.134 War was no longer attributed to the pretended interests of princes or to the caprices of their advisers. It was praised as a vehicle of the highest right,135 as a source or national renovation.136 By war, says Hegel, “finite pursuits are rendered unstable, and the ethical health of peoples is preserved. Just as the movement of the ocean prevents the corruption which would be the result of perpetual calm, so by war people escape the corruption which would be occasioned by a continuous or eternal peace.”137 Similar views have been expressed by later writers. War is glorified as a stimulus to the elevated virtues of courage, disinterestedness, and patriotism.138 It has done more great things in the world than the love of man, says Nietzsche.139 It is the mother of art and of all civil virtues, says Mr. Ruskin.140 Others defend war, not as a positive good, but as a necessary means of deciding the most serious international controversies, denying that arbitration can be a substitute for all kinds of war. Questions which are intimately connected with national passions and national aspirations, and questions which are vital to a nation’s safety, will never, they say, be left to arbitration. Each State must be the guardian of its own security, and cannot allow its independence to be calmly discussed and adjudicated upon by an external tribunal.141 Moreover, arbitration would prove effective only where the contradictory pretensions could be juridically formulated, and these instances are by far the less numerous and the less important.142 And would it not, in many cases, be impossible to find impartial arbiters? Would not arbitration often be influenced by a calculation of the forces which every power interested could bring into the field, and would not war be resorted to where arbitration failed to reconcile conflicting interests, or where a decision was opposed to a high-spirited people’s sense of justice? These and similar arguments are constantly adduced against the idea of a perpetual peace. But at the same time the opponents of war are becoming more numerous and more confident every day. Already after the fall of Napoleon, when there was a universal longing for peace in the civilised world, the first Peace Societies were formed;143 and the idea of Saint-Pierre, from being the dream of a philosopher, has become the object of a popular movement which is rapidly increasing in importance. There is every reason to believe that, when the present high tide of nationalism has subsided, and the subject of war and peace is no longer looked upon from an exclusively national point of view, the objections which are now raised against arbitration will at last appear almost as futile as any arguments in favour of private war or blood-revenge. There is an inveterate tendency in the human mind to assume that existing conditions will remain unchanged. But the history of civilisation shows how unfounded any such assumption is with reference to those conditions which determine social relationships and the extent of moral rights and duties.

134 Fichte, Reden an die deutsche Nation. Cf. Idem, Ueber den Begriff des wahrhaften Krieges.

135 Arndt, quoted by Jähns, Krieg, Frieden und Kultur, p. 302.

136 Anselm von Feuerbach, Unterdrückung und Wiederbefreiung Europens.

137 Hegel, Grundlinien der Philosophie des Rechts, § 324, p. 317 (English translation, p. 331).

138 See, e.g., Mabille, La Guerre, p. 139.

139 Nietzsche, Also sprach Zarathustra, i. 63.