The Impact of Christianity on Roman Military Service Part I

The fourth and fifth centuries were a period of considerable change for the Roman Empire but perhaps the most important and long-lasting change came in the realm of religion. In the year 300, Diocletian and his fellow tetrarchs presided over a staunchly polytheistic Empire and had no reason to presume that that would change any time soon. However, within twenty-five years, the Christianising Constantine was sole Augustus and by the end of the century, Theodosius was promoting the Unam Sanctam Catholicam Apostolicam Ecclesiam as the one true religion of the Roman Empire. This was to be a pivotal moment in world history. However, at the time it also had potentially vast consequences for the recruiting resources of that bastion of traditional Roman conservatism, the army. The beliefs of Christians hardly seemed compatible with a military career and as the population of the Empire Christianised at a faster rate than the institutions of the army, it could have undermined the numbers of men willing to enlist and severely affected the make-up and fighting strength of the Roman army.

The most obvious tenet of Christian belief that appears to prohibit its followers to take up military service is the Commandment – ‘You shall not kill.’[1] However, even this seemingly simple order has caused debate regarding its exact meaning. The controversy lies in the translation of the original Hebrew word רצח (retzach). While many translations consider it to mean ‘kill,’ the Hebrew word for ‘kill’ is הרג (harog). The word רצח (retzach), and its subsequent derivation לא תרצח (lo tirtzach), found in the original Ten Commandments, is better translated as ‘murder.’ While this may seem like trivial pedantry, it has important consequences for the morality of a devout Christian entering military service and therefore Roman recruiting from among the Christian community. Because ‘kill’ is a far more general term than ‘murder,’ it could be suggested that any kind of killing is considered wrong from crimes of passion to the slaying of animals for food and would certainly include taking a life in battle. However, the connotations of the translation ‘murder’ are quite different. Would killing in war be considered ‘murder?’ If Christians living under the Roman Empire thought not then they would not be morally compromised by serving in the army.

However, that the meaning of even the seemingly most straightforward of commands can be rendered ambiguous by the slightest deviation in translation demonstrates the potential pitfalls. While several passages of the Old Testament[2] are used to counter Christian opposition to military activity by Augustine,[3]  Lactantius claimed that there was ‘no exception at all [as] it is always unlawful to put to death a man’[4] and by making no reference to the manner in which death is inflicted he appears stricter than Biblical teachings seem to warrant. The New Testament also contains many ambiguous statements regarding the morality of killing during military service. Passages urging ‘turn the other cheek’, ‘love your enemies’ and ‘those who draw the sword, die by the sword’ clearly seem to be in opposition to a military career.[5] However, there are other passages that could be construed as accepting military service as a necessary part of society. Jesus interacted with Roman centurions and at no stage ridiculed their career.[6] John the Baptist went as far as to encourage baptised soldiers to continue to do their duty.[7] On numerous occasions, Christians are told to submit to worldly authorities[8] perhaps most famously with the advice ‘Give to Caesar what is Caesar’s.’[9] This is normally seen as encouraging Christians to pay Roman taxes but it could easily be construed as meaning that serving the Roman Empire, including in the military, was part of a Christian’s obligation.

With Biblical ambiguities verging on the contradictory, it must have caused confusion amongst the burgeoning Christian community regarding a military service. At no stage did the Christian hierarchy get involved in the argument as Church infrastructure had not yet reached a level to present a united front for or against Christians joining the army.[10] This left the conundrum in the hands of clergy and learned individuals of different theological presuppositions, leading to numerous regional interpretations. Many of these early Christian theologists such as Origen, Marcion, Montanists and Novatianists would have been considered heretics by the Church. This rag-tag group did not quite know what they themselves believed, never mind trying to explain the intricacies of Christianity to others, coming up with a multitude of ethical and moral misgivings about war. However, none preached pacifism. While violence was seen as far from ideal, war was recognised as being not always avoidable and was perhaps inescapable. They also do not suggest that a Christian should not join the army because of having to kill in war.

Tertullian is a prime example of this uncertainty. In his early works, Tertullian saw the necessity of conflict and thought that Rome’s greatness was a spoil of war and because she had conquered such an empire suggesting that God must be on Rome’s side.[11] He could not foresee a world without the Roman Empire.[12] However, he did maintain a consistent opposition to Christians serving in the army.[13] Sometime in the early third century Tertullian converted to Montanism, becoming more opposed to governmental institutions including the military.[14] As one of the few early Christian scholars to have had any real knowledge of the Roman army,[15] Tertullian expounded upon the pagan rituals and idolatry as being particularly offensive to Christian sensibilities. Military standards were venerated as much as deities,[16] while pay parades included sacrifices and iconography.[17] As a major facet of Roman military service, Tertullian felt that a good Christian could not remain pure if he were exposed to these rites.[18] 

Capital punishment for breaches of military discipline was also seen as an obstacle to Christians serving in the army,[19] despite Biblical passages to the contrary.[20] The taking of the military oath, the sacramentum, required unquestioning obedience to the emperor as the highest authority in a civil, military and religious sense. This was deemed unacceptable as ‘one man cannot serve two masters’,[21] as would the occasional oath to legionary standards.[22] The discovery of the Feriale Duranum, a calendar of religious festivals, shows the extent to which everyday life in the Roman army was dominated by paganism and how impossible it would have been for any Christian soldier to escape this environment. Soldiers who partook in the idolatry or give the sacrementum may have found themselves rejected by fellow Christians[23] or incorporating different convictions and practices into their own personal beliefs.[24] However, it is difficult to say how representative men like Hippolytus, Origen or Tertullian were of the views of Christianity as a whole. It is possible that Christians in the army were not viewed any differently.

Christian opposition to military service and terminology was far from universal. Clement of Alexandria refused to demand that converted soldiers leave the army[25] while the New Testament and the Church extensively used military analogies to describe the militia Christi. Faith in God acted as armour, shield and sword for the battle against the evil one.[26] Clement of Rome and Cyprian spoke of how Jesus Christ was the imperator of this spiritual army and all Christians are his soldiers,[27] while Ignatius of Antioch wrote of how a Christian should ‘be pleasing to him in whose ranks you serve, from whom you receive your pay – let none of you be found a deserter. Let your baptism remain as your arms, your faith as a helmet, your love as a spear, your endurance as your panoply, let your works be your deposits that you may receive the back-pay due to you.’[28] The baptismal sacrament could also be compared with the military oath, the sacramentum, while heretics and schismatics were considered rebels and deserters.[29] This suggests that Christian ideology was not necessarily at odds with the Roman military but with the pagan and disciplinary practices that it observed.

[1] Depending on religion and denomination “You shall not kill” is either the Sixth (Jewish, Anglican, Non-Lutheran Protestants, Orthodox) or the Fifth Commandment (Roman Catholic, Lutheran).

[2] Josh 6:21; 8:24; 2 Sam 22:35; Ps 144:1; Eccl 3:8.

[3] Augustine of Hippo, contra Faustum (Goldbacher, A. ed. CSEL XXV.251-797) 22.74-75; Epistulae (Goldbacher, A. ed. CSEL XXXIV, XLIV, LVII 1895-1923) 189.4.

[4] Lactantius, Divine Institutes VI.20 (McDonald, M. F. translation, 1964).

[5] Matt 5:38-48; Luke 6:27-38; Matt 26:52.

[6] Matt 8:5-13; Acts 10.

[7] Luke 3:14.

[8] Rom 13:1-6.

[9] Matt 22:21.

[10] Douglas Lee, War in late antiquity, Oxford 2007, 180.

[11] Tertullian, Apologeticus (Glover, T.R. translation, Loeb Classical Library, 1931) 25.14; 26.2.

[12] Tertullian, Apol. 32.1; De Resurrectione Carnis (Holmes, P. translation, 1869) 24.18.

[13] John Helgeland, Robert Daly and James Patout Burns, Christians and the military: the early experience, London 1985, 21-30 using Tertullian, De fuga in persecutione (Thelwall, S. translation, 1869) 13.3.

[14] Jose Ubiña, Cristianos y militares: la iglesia Antigua ante et ejército y la Guerra, Granada 2000, 257-70; Timothy Barnes, Tertullian: a historical and literary study, Oxford 1971,132-135.

[15] Helgeland, Daly and Burns, Christians, 734.

[16] Tertullian, Apol. 16.8; Idol. 19; Ad nationes (Holmes, P. translation, 1869) 12.

[17] Josephus, Bellum Judaicum (Whiston, W. translation, 1987) V.349-351; Gregory of Nazianus, Orationes (Daley, B. translation, 2006) IV.82-84.

[18] Tertullian found this paganism so offensive and contrary to a Christian way of life that he assigned an entire exposition to it – De idololatria (van Winden, J.C.M. translation, 1987).

[19] Hippolytus, Apostolic Tradition (Dix, G. and Chadwick, H. translation, 1968) 16.17.

[20] Gen 9:5-6.

[21] Tertullian, Idol. 19; Hippolytus, Apost. 17.

[22] Clarence Brand, Roman Military Law, London 1968, 92.

[23] Hippolytus, Apost. 16, 17.

[24] The most famous example of this syncretising of beliefs is the emperor Constantine following his ‘conversion’ in 312.

[25] Clement of Alexandria, Exhortations (Butterworth, G.W. translation, Loeb Classical Library, 1919) 10.100.2.

[26] Eph 6:10-18; 1 Thess 5:8; 2 Cor 6:4-7.

[27] Clement of Rome, First Letter to the Corinthians (Glimm, F.X., Marique, J.M-F. and Walsh, G.G. Translation, 1947) 37:1-3; Cyprian, Epistulae (Brent, A. translation, 2007) 10.

[28] Ignatius of Antioch, To Polycarp (Glimm, F.X., Marique, J.M-F. and Walsh, G.G. Translation, 1947) 6.2.

[29] Augustine of Hippo, Ep. 185.1; Ignatius of Antioch, Poly. 6.2.