5 CHARACTERISTICS OF EARLY CHRISTIAN NONVIOLENCE

In conclusion, I would like to simply highlight five characteristics of early Christian nonviolence.

1. Early Christian nonviolence was Biblical. It was not like Gnostic passivism that renounced violence out of antipathy for the flesh. It was consciously derivative of both OT and NT trajectories. Early Christians believed that, as in the Exodus tradition, YHWH was their warrior, and that therefore they did not need to fight, only to believe. They believed that the church age was the beginning of the fulfillment of the Isaianic prophecy of the peaceable kingdom, in which men are no longer trained for war. The church was to be the sign to the world of the inbreaking peaceable kingdom of God. They believed that the ethic of the Sermon on the Mount was not just an individualistic ethic for interpersonal relations; rather, they took it to be a political ethic for a nation--the church. They saw Jesus Christ as their sole "military commander," and his exhortation to "turn the other cheek" was understood by the early Christians as a prohibition against warfare, and every form of violence. Moreover, to varying degrees of consciousness, early Christians stood in continuity with the nonviolent witness of Paul, the writer of Hebrews, James, Peter, and John of the Apocalypse. As with Paul, early Christians saw conversion to Christianity as a coming out of violence into nonviolence. Indebted to the message of Peter and of the writer of Hebrews, the early Christians saw discipleship as an imitation of the nonviolent, suffering-servanthood of the Messiah. Following the exhortation of James, and of John in his Apocalypse, the early Christians endured suffering with patience and faithfulness, awaiting the great reversal at the end of the age. In sum, the early Christian ethic of nonviolence stood in strong continuity with the witness of the Scriptures, Old and New Testaments.

2. Early Christian nonviolence was Christological. As indicated above, not only was early Christian nonviolence biblical, it was a fortiori christological. The work of Christ was not reduced, as it would be later, to some theory of atonement, satisfaction, penal, or otherwise. The salvation wrought by Christ on the cross was more than just the salvation of individual souls from hellfire. According to the early Christians, salvation meant the constitution of a new kind of people, apart from the world, yet in the world. Salvation was as much about ethics in the present life as it was about existence in the afterlife. As such, the life and suffering example of Christ was seen by the early Christians as ethically normative. The life and teachings of Jesus Christ were seen as the beginning and end of Christian ethical reflection. The story of his suffering was the continued story of the church. And the reality of his victory over the powers was the hope that made sense of Christian suffering. Unlike Ambrose and Augustine at the dawn of Christendom, the early Christians did not turn to Roman political philosophy to underwrite their ethic. Christ and Christ alone was for the early Christians the epistemological foundation for the unprecedented ethic of nonviolence that pervaded the first Christian centuries.

3. Early Christian nonviolence was Eschatological. Insomuch as early Christian nonviolence was christological, it was eschatological. The early Christians saw in the coming of Christ the dawn of a new and final age. Christ marked the definitive turning point in history. In him the prophetic hopes of the Old Covenant are fulfilled, and the era of universal peace is ushered onto the world stage in the form of the Church of Christ, the product of the true transnational gospel over against the pretentions of Caesar's gospel, the Pax Romana. The early Christians attributed the increasing peace throughout the Roman Empire to the meekness and leavening influence of Christians. They saw in the work of the church the great hope for the world. Christians as early as Ignatius of Antioch saw the work of the church as the great undoing of the devil’s work—which is war. The church was the last great work of God before the end, the sign to the world of the promise ahead. As such, the church and the Christians constituting it were to be marked by peacefulness, nonviolence, absolute love of enemy—personal or political, individual or corporate. Whether Christians hoped for an imminent parousia, or simply reversal in the life to come, they were empowered to renounce violence for love of enemy in the knowledge that the God of Jesus Christ held history in his hand. The early Christians saw their nonviolence as an ethic of hope for a world on the verge of re-creation. As martyroi, the early Christians saw it as their God-given task to witness to the world to come. In the early church, in fact, the world to come had made its entrance already.

4. Early Christian nonviolence was Normative. Despite all the theological, doctrinal disagreement in the early Christian centuries, it is remarkable that we find no evidence, prior to the post-Constantinian era, of any theological/ethical dispute on the matter of Christian participation in violence. As we have seen, the vast majority of the major ecclesiastical leaders, as well as several “smaller” voices, spoke on the matter, and unanimously stood in condemnation of Christian participation in or complicity with violence. Before AD170-180, there is no evidence whatever for a Christian presence in the military. After that time, the number of Christians in the military would steadily increase. Nevertheless, it is precisely at this time that the theologians and ecclesiastical leaders began to condemn Christian violence with exacting clarity. (Prior to this the condemnations were clearly present, but were more general, not in response to Christian presence in the military but to Roman accusations of political irresponsibility, or political insurrection.) Moreover, the evidence that Christians in the military continued, as soldiers, to renounce violence far outweighs any evidence that points to the contrary. Christians were not permitted to join the military, but soldier converts to Christianity were permitted to finish their terms of service so long as they were able to abstain from violence. This was facilitated by a longstanding, relative era of peace (absence of war) throughout the empire, and the availability of other service options for Roman soldiers such as firefighting, administrative work, and mundane police duties. Over a period of time, as the conversion process became more lax, and as Christians began to enjoy more political influence throughout the empire, many Christians-in-name began to take up the sword when called upon by Rome. Nevertheless, church authorities and theologians continued to condemn Christian violence right up until the time of Constantine, and some beyond. It was not until c. AD380, in a church manual called the Apostolic Constitutions, that an official church document explicitly permitted Christian participation in warfare. (This was more than half a century after the ascent of Constantine.) This document did so by intentionally erasing the distinction clear in the pre-Constantinian church orders between an ethic for baptized Christians and an ethic for seekers. The ethic for baptized Christians forbade the use of the sword, as well as any position of high ranking authority in the military. The ethic for seekers was an ethic prescribed predominantly in peacetime, and it commanded seeker-soldiers not to do any injustice, not to pillage, to rob, or to instigate violence (all things for which Roman soldiers were notorious). After baptism, the new converts were expected to renounce the sword once and for all. In the Apostolic Constitutions of c. AD380, this distinction between the two ethics is erased, and one ethic is given for all, Christian and non-Christian alike. However, within another fifty years or so, no man could serve in the Roman army who was not a baptized member of the Church. Yet the evidence is clear. Prior to the time of Constantine, the ecclesial authorities and theologians were in unanimous agreement in taking up for themselves and prescribing for all Christians a radical, biblical, christological, and eschatological ethic of nonviolence.

5. Early Christian nonviolence was Prophetic. Finally, and not least importantly, early Christian nonviolence was prophetic. It was not a nonviolence of political irresponsibility, despite such accusations from Roman propagandists such as Celsus and others. Early Christian nonviolence was neither passive nor quietistic. The Christians saw their nonviolence as in several ways beneficial to the broader Roman society. First, the presence of faithful, ethical Christians dispersed throughout the empire brought God’s hand of protection over the land. Second, the active good deeds and community-building efforts of the Christians created a more stable peace which prior to the advent of Christianity was unheard of in the Roman Empire. Third, the Christian witness to nonviolent agape showed the Romans a better, more lasting way to peace. Fourth, Christian missionary efforts were able to make friends among the barbarians where Roman strategy could not. Moreover, far from representing an ethic of withdrawal, the early Christians spoke out prophetically against the expansionist agenda of Rome, and leveled devastating critiques against Roman "just-war" propaganda, displaying that what Rome called "just" wars were nothing short of criminality, gross inhumanity. Thus, whether in word or in deed, the early Christians came together in one prophetic voice, speaking out against Roman injustice while exampling the justice necessary for Rome truly to establish peace.

Sadly, as time went on, the church came more and more to resemble the Rome on whose behalf it was commissioned to prophesy. Some speak of the eventual conversion of Rome by Christianity, but in fact the converse is the historical reality. Christianity itself, excepting faithful remnants throughout the centuries, was converted by Rome. The church eventually fell prey to the allure of political power, and with its post-Constantinian descent into Romanism, the church as a whole would lose its distinctive prophetic voice. It has not been regained since then.