K. Cronick
INTRODUCTION
The
objectives of this essay[1]
In this essay I want to
begin to explore the cultural problem of peace, and I intend to follow it later
with other approaches like the legal dispositions and the existence of
international agreements. For now, I will do it from an historical/cultural
perspective, mostly with reference to the writings of Saint Augustine, the
Bishop of Hippo.
I call the culture of
peace a problem because, since the beginning of recorded history, the concept
and the practice of power has been closely aligned with conquest and war. There
have been, however, three cultural developments to challenge these ideals of
war.
First, the teachings of
Siddharta Gautama (Buddha, (6th or 5th century BCE) began to influence Far
Eastern thought. Buddhism has offered teachings on achieving peace -both spiritually
and politically. It teaches compassion and non-violence, and promotes the ideal
of community harmony.
Secondly, in the first
millennium BCE in what was to become Greece, there were disperse reflections
regarding the brutality of war. The poet Homer in the Iliad offered a thoughtful
and concerned examination of the motivations and personalities of the participants
that took part in the Trojan war. This poem is not a patriotic paean, because the
bard sympathizes with the fates of both the Greeks and Trojans. From the
beginning of his poem he warned his listeners that it would all end tragically
and there would be nothing left. That there would be no winners in the sense of
a lasting peace and prosperity.
Still in the context of
ancient Greek reflections, some centuries later in Athens, Aristotle considered
that military action was a natural means of acquiring merchandises: "War
itself is, in a way, a natural means of acquiring [goods...] it is a battle
that nature itself has made legitimate" (2017, p. 17-18). But other Greeks
mourned its destruction and death. For example, in "The Trojan Women"
Euripides (V century B.C./ 2015) lamented the loss
of Troy and the sad fate of its women who become the slaves of the conquering
Greeks. The author does so by arousing the empathy of the audience when they
hear the women’s laments in the voices of the performers in his play. There
were other approaches, also, for questioning military heroism. In Aeschylus’
cycle of plays, “The Oresteia” in 458 B.C.E.
(n.d. B) King Agamemnon’s life and legacy were questioned, together with those
of his whole family. It was a formidable expression of critical thinking to be
able to question a powerful king’s motives and actions in Athens at that time;
even though he had been a Spartan, he was one of the founding fathers of Greek
identity.
Thirdly, in the first
century of the CE, Christianity appeared in Western Culture with its ideals of compassionate
love and charity. It formed a community of belief that did not always share a physical
territory. As Saint Augustine said, “For the blessedness of a community and of
an individual flow from the same source; for a community is nothing else than a
harmonious collection of individuals” (City of God, B. 1, Ch. 15, p 50).
In these reflections I
will concentrate on the cultural importance of Christian influence, specifically
the writings of Saint Augustine, the Bishop of Hippo, with regard to Western
ethics and power structures. I will examine his thoughts about the tenets of
war and the nature of both divine and earthly power structures. I will consider
how his writings have influenced historical and existing practices, their
effects on the rhetoric of those times, and how they have continued to exist as
shadow-values ever since.[2]
It will be necessary
first of all to consider how his ideals (and those of early Christianity in
general) found a place in the Roman culture of his times.
The new
cultural mandate: love
With the advent of Christianity,
the mandate to love one’s neighbor was compelling, but not entirely new. In the
Old Testament it appears as an ethical directive to treat “one’s neighbors” with
compassion and respect. In Leviticus (19:18) we find this mandate:
“‘Do not seek revenge or bear a grudge against
anyone among your people, but love your neighbor as yourself. I am the Lord.
The context in which this was
formulated was the liberation of the Hebrews from Egyptian slavery and the
beginning of the nation of Israel as a social and political entity. It was
important for these people to see each other as “neighbors”, that is, people
belonging to one cultural heritage. There was a strong need to create a cohesive
society based on a sense of justice and community. It is not clear whether this
sense of belonging extended beyond their own cultural borders. Later, when King
Saul and King David became monarchs, they did engage in some rather brutal
wars.
Centuries later the Christian
guidelines were wider. In the New Testament, in the Gospel according to Mathew,
Jesus is quoted as saying something similar to the Old Testament mandate:
´Love the Lord your God with all your heart and
with all your soul and with all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest
commandment. And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.' (Matthew
22:37-39)
For Christians, the
mandate to love one another is equivalent to theological law: “Love does no
harm to a neighbor. Therefore, love is the fulfillment of the law.” (Romans
13:10). And this requirement goes beyond the love one has for one’s own nationals;
it extends to one’s enemies as well: “But I tell you, love your enemies and
pray for those who persecute you” (Matthew 5:44).
These were new ways of
looking at community and even humanity as a shared experience. Again, this new
worldview did not stop wars of extermination or local atrocities even among
Christian kingdoms. But it did plant new seeds, and new ways of looking at
society.
The culture
of war and despotism before and after Augustine
The exercise of power throughout the millenniums has often implied brutal
repressions. From the conquest of Troy by the Greeks, to the destruction of Thebes
by Alexander the Great, to the siege of Carthage by the Romans, winning
warriors have looted, destroyed, and enslaved their enemies.
Saint Augustine’s message was different: he opens his “City of God” with
the Christian idea that mercy should be extended to one’s enemies, and all
people should be sheltered from violence, even military violence.
It had already happened that conquering armies had respected the lives
of the vanquished, although not because of a belief in charity. The motives
were more related to the monetary and economic benefits that defeated
populations could have. Refugees could be useful for dominant kingdoms: their
populations could be incorporated into the local workforce, the farming
population, and even into the army as foot soldiers.
With the advent of Christianity there was a brand-new, comprehensive value
being transmitted through a religious ideal: this innovative value was
universal love, which was being preached by this recently organized religion. It
was not related to either a new model of citizenship or to economic benefits.
It was an abstract ethical standard. Augustine observes how innovative this new
morality was, and he challenges his readers to find even one example of similar
behavior before Christian times:
[…There is not even] one instance in which,
when a city had been taken by foreigners, the victors spared those who were
found to have fled for sanctuary to the temples of their gods; or one instance in which a barbarian general
gave orders that none should be put to the sword who had been found in this or
that temple (City of God, B1, Ch.2, p. 23).
This happened -for the first time, in Augustine’s appreciation, during
the capture of Rome by the Goths in the fifth century, when the invaders spared
the Roman refugees in Christian temples. I will refer to this below.
The Christians have not always lived up to their ideal. One of the first
and most famous infractions of their own principle happened when they burned
the remnants of the Library at Alexandria together with its curators. It is
believed the main library had ben already destroyed -unintentionally- by a fire
set by Julius Cesar in 48 CE to facilitate his escape from the city. Later, the
“sister library” of the city, housed in a pagan temple called Serapeum, was burned on purpose by Christian fanatics.
This happened In the year 391 CE. The motives were both fanatical and
political: in 380 CE, when the emperor Theodosius I had declared that Christianity
would be the official religion of the Roman Empire, he ordered the destruction
of the remaining pagan temples. Following this order Theophilus, the bishop of
Alexandria, led an attack on the Serapeum. “His frenzied followers ran amok in
the temple, destroying and plundering. When the destruction was complete,
Theophilus ordered a church to be built on the site” (Abbadi, 2026).
In a related incident in 415 a
group of Christians killed the philosopher Hypatia who was associated with the
Neoplatonic school of philosophy at Alexandria. She was accused of heresy. Both
the hoards that did the killing and the leader who ordered it were Christians, and
the motives were related to the eradication of heresy. But there were other
probable political motives as well, such as: a) her friendship with the
traditional aristocracy of Alexandria, and b) her anger with Theophilus because
of the destruction and plunder of the library at Serapeum before in the year
391.
After the Romans, with the appearance of the Christian kingdoms and empires
in Europe, there were wars either between Christian kings, o with organized Christian
armies that fought kingdoms that worshipped other dogmas, as happened during
the Crusades. Sometimes different Christian cults attempted to destroy each
other, as in the "Huguenot Wars" or the “Thirty-years War” that
affected the Holy Roman Empire in the XVII century. Again, Christianity chose
to ignore its central values of love and mercy, even though their churches were
full of paintings and allusions to the love predicated by Christ and of images
of the Virgin, often tenderly holding her baby, or exhibiting a red heart on
her breast.
This sociopolitical complexity continues today. The chief declared
religions of modern Europe and the American states are Christian, and
nevertheless, wars are waged with the declared purpose of exterminating each
side’s enemies.
In this essay I will try to examine the emergence of Christian love as
an historical achievement by reviewing some of Augustine’s writings.
SAINT
AUGUSTINE
Saint Augustine embraced Christianity in the year 386 of the CE, shortly
after Theodosius I declared Christianity to be the only acceptable religion for
the Roman Empire in the year 380. In 395
he became full Bishop at Hippo and remained in that position until his death in
430. It was a traumatic time for the Romans that still worshiped their Pantheon
of traditional gods. The Eternal City had changed and a belief structure that
had lasted centuries had collapsed.
In the year 410, during his tenure as the bishop of Hippo, the
“barbarian” Goths under Alaric their king, were invading Rome, and the Roman
citizens were panicked, looking for shelter wherever they might find it. The Christian churches were open to
these refugees, even when the victims did not share their beliefs. And the
invaders, some of whom were also Christian -including Aleric himself-,
respected these places.
It was historically unheard of. Augustin described these efforts to save
the Roman citizens, pagan or Christian. He distinguished between the city of
God and the earthly cities, and said that the latter should emulate divine
regency by assuming divine goals. Later when the traditional Romans would
complain about Christian dominance, he reminded them that they had been saved
from the invaders by the churches and cloisters that had taken them in and
protected them. Later, when the pagan Romans were complaining about the loss of
their Eternal City and their old culture, he admonished them:
For to this earthly city belong the enemies
against whom I have to defend the city of God. Many of them, indeed, being
reclaimed from their ungodly error, have become sufficiently creditable
citizens of this city; but many are so inflamed with hatred against it, and are
so ungrateful to its Redeemer for His signal benefits, as to forget that they
would now be unable to utter a single word to its prejudice, had they not found
in its sacred places, as they fled from the enemy’s steel, that life in which
they now boast themselves. Are not those very Romans, who were spared by the
barbarians through their respect for Christ, become enemies to the name of
Christ? The reliquaries of the martyrs and the churches of the apostles bear
witness to this; for in the sack of the city they were open sanctuary for all
who fled to them, whether Christian or Pagan. To their very threshold the
blood-thirsty enemy raged; there his murderous fury owned a limit. Thither did
such of the enemy as had any pity convey those to whom they had given quarter,
lest any less mercifully disposed might fall upon them (City of God, B.1, Ch.
1, p.21).
The City of God
Augustine cites numerous
Old Testament references to a City of God to show how the Hebrews were aware of
its existence even before the birth of Christ. It was based on love as its main
tenet.
From these and similar testimonies, all of which it were tedious to cite, we have learned that there is a city of God, and its Founder has inspired us with a love which makes us covet its citizenship (City of God, B. 10, Ch. 12, p. 568).
If the old social system
was crumbling away, in its place he saw the creation of a pure Christendom. In
this spiritual city there are profounder views of history. For him it was
possible from this perspective to understand how the community of God’s people
has coexisted with the world’s kingdoms. He considers that in this spiritual
city there exists a superior morality. He attributed the antagonism of these
two grand communities, that is, the earthly city and God’s city, to the fall of
the angels. For Augustine the city of God is an attempt to produce a valid philosophy
of history and to develop the spiritual idea of the Kingdom of God under both the
Jewish and Christian interpretations, in contrast with the declining kingdoms
of this world.
This conception was
profoundly comforting in rapidly changing world.
The City of God is, in his
conception immaterial, but contains angels. It was an extension of the
Christian God himself, although He was composed of three parts, a trinity.
Augustine is arguably a one-self trinitarian. For him, the one God is the Trinity. And this one God is almost always addressed and described using singular personal pronouns. He is an object of our love, as much as our neighbors and ourselves, and he […] is a simple, timeless, and perfect self, a subject of complete knowledge, who freely creates all other things, and who exists in a truer or deeper way. (Augustine, Trinity, 227 [VII.3.9]; cf. City 425 [X.24], 462 [XI.10]) One must say “three persons”, but for Augustine these are not three selves (Tuggy, 2025).
This Mediator, having spoken what He judged sufficient first by the prophets, then by His own lips, and afterwards by the apostles, has besides produced the Scripture which is called canonical, which has paramount authority, and to which we yield assent in all matters of which we ought not to be ignorant, and yet cannot know of ourselves (City of God, B 11, Ch 3, p. 572).
Wickedness
Augustine devotes
continued reflections to the topic of sin. It is a logical and ecclesiastical
problem, because God created everybody, even the sinners. And He also dictated
that there should be universal love among all mankind.
And since no one is evil by nature, but whoever is evil is evil by vice, he who lives according to God ought to cherish towards evil men a perfect hatred, so that he shall neither hate the man because of his vice, nor love the vice because of the man, but hate the vice and love the man 8City of God, B.14, Ch. 6, p. 741).
Furthermore, in a world
created perfectly by a perfect God, how is sin to be explained? In Augustine’s
writings, indeed in all of Christian literature, free will is a problem. God
created all things, including wickedness, the fallen angels, the unbelievers,
and even the Devil himself.
"This leviathan whom Thou hast made to be a sport therein," that we may see that, even while God in His goodness created him good, He yet had already foreseen and arranged how He would make use of him when he became wicked (City of God, B 11, Ch17, p. 596, Augustine is quoting Psalm 104:26).
Nevertheless, Augustine
holds on to the idea of human will; God can be defied, even by creatures of His
own creation. Evil has “deficient causes” even though it is part of the
expression of free will which was a divine creation. Evil will be punished:
This I do know, that the nature of God can never, nowhere, nowise be defective, and that natures made of nothing can. […,] but in so far as they are defective in being, and consequently do evil (for then what is their work but vanity?) they have deficient causes. And I know likewise, that the will could not become evil, were it unwilling to become so; and therefore its failings are. justly punished, being not necessary, but voluntary. (City of God, B. 12, Ch. 8, p. 642).
It is He who gave to this intellectual nature free-will of such a kind, that if he wished to forsake God, i.e., his blessedness, misery should forthwith result. It is He who, when He foreknew that certain angels would in their pride desire to suffice for their own blessedness, and would forsake their great good, did not deprive them of this power, deeming it to be more befitting His power and goodness to bring good out of evil than to prevent the evil from coming into existence (B 22, Ch1 1, p. 1301).
Christian charity in government and times of war
Love, or charity, and
its synonyms in the Augustine’s writings are demanded of those who rule a
Christian nation. The despot does not rule, he benefits his own “pride” and
avarice.
He who resolves to love God, and to love his neighbor as himself, not according to man but according to God, is on account of this love said to be of a good will; and this is in Scripture more commonly called charity, but it is also, even in the same books, called love. For the apostle says that the man to be elected as a ruler of the people must be a lover of good (City of God, B. 14, Ch. 7, p. 742).
In the one, the prince sand the nations it subdues are ruled by the love of ruling; in the other, the princes and the subjects serve one another in love, the latter obeying, while the former take thought for all. The one delights in its own strength, represented in the persons of its rulers; the other says to its God (City of God, B. 14, Ch. 28, p. 788).
In his writings Augustine
makes a point of contrasting, on one hand, the Greek treatment of the conquered
Trojans, and the pre-Christian Roman rules of war, to the
way all the Romans were respected in the Christian temples during the invasion
by the Goths. The big change was due to Christian doctrine: Augustine says “That
the cruelties which occurred in the sack of Rome were in accordance with the custom
of war, whereas the acts of clemency resulted from the influence of Christ’s name”
(ibid, B. 1, Ch. 7. p.33).
But there is a paradox: men must forgive each other and show mercy. But God punishes, even the righteous among his flock by inflicting disasters on everyone. Augustine attributes all men’s hardships to God’s punishment for their eventual “wickedness”.
First of all, they must humbly consider those very sins which have provoked God to fill the world with such terrible disasters; for although they be far from the excesses of wicked, immoral, and ungodly men, yet they do not judge themselves so clean removed from all faults as to be too good to suffer for these even temporal ills. For every man, however laudably he lives, yet yields in some points to the lust of the flesh. Though he do not fall into gross enormity of wickedness, and abandoned viciousness, and abominable profanity, .yet he slips into some sins, either rarely or so much the more frequently as the sins seem of less account (ibid, Ch. 9, p. 36).
[…] that the virtue which makes the life good has its throne in the soul, and thence rules the members of the body, which becomes holy in virtue of the holiness of the will; and that while the will remains firm and unshaken, nothing that another person does with the body, or upon the body, is any fault of the person who suffers it […] (Ibid, B.1, Ch 16. p.51).
The rape of the Sabine women
In Chapter 17, book 2 of
the City of God, Augustine opens himself to an onslaught of possible criticism
from any modern reader. Moral appreciations have changed since he wrote, and it
is unfair to appraise his views from the vantage point of the twenty-first
century. Nevertheless, and following his own appreciation, that it is wrong not
to question error, it becomes obligatory to comment on his comprehension of the
rape of the Sabine women.
Until the beginning of
the twentieth century, that is, until very recently, women had few rights. The
choice of their husbands was their fathers’ responsibility, and later their
places of residence, their economic situation, and many other things were
decided by their husbands. Thus, to look back at the beginnings of the Roman
empire with modern eyes is risky. Nevertheless, it is impossible to discuss the
Rape of the Sabine women with historical impartiality.
The abduction of Sabine
women occurred recently after the founding of Rome in the eighth century (BCE)
when Romulus became worried that his mostly-male population would not be able
to sustain the city for more than one generation. They made overtures to the
surrounding regions in search of wives with whom they could establish families.
The Romans were not successful in their negotiations, including with the
Sabines, who populated a neighboring area. The Sabines refused to allow their
women to marry the Romans.
The Romans planned a
subterfuge to solve their problem; they announced a festival of games to
attract people from all the nearby towns. During these games they had a plan to
abduct the Sabine women and fight off their men. They carried out this plan and
took a number of women by force. Then the Sabine men then went to war to avenge
this insult. The battle was vicious, and many Sabine men were killed.
The abducted Sabine
women threw themselves into the center of the battle. They implored both their
fathers and their new husbands to stop fighting, and to allow the marriages to
continue. The men ended the battle, and finally agreed to unite both
communities into one nation. The Sabine Titus Tatius jointly ruled with the
Roman Romulus for some five years, and the nation maintained its unity after
Tatius's death.
Augustine has strong,
male-biased, and imperial judgement of this event. He suggests that maybe the
Sabines were wrong to deny the Roman request for their daughters in marriage.
He even suggests that war might have been a more honorable response for the
Romans than abduction. He, of course, has no concern for the women’s own
opinions. He asks:
If the Sabines were wrong to deny their daughters when the Romans asked for them, was it not a greater wrong in the Romans to carry them off after that denial? The Romans might more justly have waged war against the neighboring nation for having refused their daughters in marriage when they first sought them, than for having demanded them back when they had stolen them (Ibid, B. 2, Ch. 17, p. 111).
The holiness of all life
Augustine
developed an ethic of respect for life, considering all life to be divine. He
said that “trampling” life is a desecration of God himself: “whatever one may trample,
he must trample a part of God, and in slaying any living creature, a part of
God must be slaughtered? (Ibid, B. 4, Ch.
12, p. 216).
Agustine offers a
musical metaphor for his idea of the ideal state. He has lamented what he
considers a licentious and corrupt state in Rome, almost from its beginnings.
But he imagines the possibility of a State that might be described in this way:
As among the different sounds which proceed from
lyres, flutes, and the human voice, there must be maintained a certain harmony
which a cultivated ear cannot endure to hear disturbed or jarring, but which
may be elicited in full and absolute concord by the modulation even of voices
very unlike one another; so, where reason is allowed to modulate the diverse
elements of the state, there is obtained a perfect concord from the upper, lower,
and middle classes as from various sounds; and what musicians call harmony in
singing, is concord in matters of state (Ibid, B. 2, Ch. 21, p. 119).
Thus a true sacrifice is every work which is
done that we may be united to God in holy fellowship, and which has a reference
to that supreme good and end in which alone we can be truly blessed. And
therefore even the mercy we show to men, if it is not shown for God’s sake, is
not a sacrifice. For, though made or offered by man, sacrifice is a divine
thing, as those who called it sacrifice meant to indicate (Ibid, B. 10, Ch.6. p.514).
If, then, the body, which, being inferior, the soul uses as a servant or instrument, is a sacrifice when it is used rightly, and with reference to God, how much more does the soul itself become a sacrifice when it offers itself to God, in order that, being inflamed by the fire of His love, it may receive of His beauty and become pleasing to Him, losing the shape of earthly desire […] (Ibid, B. 10, Ch.6, p. 514).
CLOSING THOUGHTS
In this essay I have
reviewed some of the philosophical and religious questions that were being
posed in Rome in the fourth century after its conversion to Christianity and after
the invasion of the Goths. They included: a) the historical antecedents for
respecting peace, b) the mandate to love “one’s neighbor” and even one’s
enemies, c) the relationship between the exercise of power and charity, d) Augustine’s
idea of the city of God and the Roman transition to Christianity, and e) the
contradiction between the perfection of creation and free will.
I have called the Christian values of shared love and charity “shadow values”. Since they were introduced by Biblical sources and philosophers and by clerics like Augustine, they have never been completely forgotten. Even so, they have seldom been practiced. They were important in the thinking of some of the protestant reformists and for the enlightenment writers. They reappeared in the ideology of human rights proponents, and in the twentieth century they were certainly present in the founding charters of both the European Union (officially established on 1st of November, 1993), and the United Nations (June 26, 1945). The preamble of the United Nations’ Charter begins with these words:
WE THE PEOPLES OF THE UNITED NATIONS DETERMINED to save succeeding generations from the scourge of war, which twice in our lifetime has brought untold sorrow to mankind, and to reaffirm faith in fundamental human rights, in the dignity and worth of the human person, in the equal rights of men and women and of nations large and small, and to establish conditions under which justice and respect for the obligations arising from treaties and other sources of international law can be maintained, and to promote social progress and better standards of life in larger freedom, AND FOR THESE ENDS to practice tolerance and live together in peace with one another as good neighbors, and to unite our strength to maintain international peace and security, and to ensure, by the acceptance of principles and the institution of methods, that armed force shall not be used, save in the common interest, and to employ international machinery for the promotion of the economic and social advancement of all peoples… (n.d.).
But the tendency to
solve both domestic and international difficulties by means of armed repression
and war continues. Many community and non-governmental organizations promote
peace, wellbeing, community understanding, even in the face of declared
repression. Those who denounce abuses have many outlets to do so, even though
this often involves personal risk.
We can say that the slow
elimination of the violence of war and tyranny has been, and is a social mandate
with a long history. It has never been abandoned, even when it has been
ignored.
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[1] There are certain clarifications I
must make from the beginning: a) the quotes to Augustin’s City of God employ
the three identifiers: a) the book citied, the chapter and the page numbers
that appear on the left margin of the copy I have employed; the citings appear
as B, Ch, and p, each with its appropriate number; b) I have not cited all the
Internet sources I have used to obtain the dates of the events I have
described. They usually have been obtained through Google questions. c) I often
refer to human beings as “men”; I recognize that this is a problem, but my
sources, being classical and medieval, do so, and I am following their
texts.
[2] I call the “shadow-values” because
they have seldom been salient, and they have had little influence the generation
of political policy.
