Lay Down Your Arms 62

Lay Down Your Arms 62

“To a conference with you? Do not you understand? That is to serve me as

material for study. I want to hear once more--and this time to take note

of--the arguments by which priests defend public murder. I put you

forward as the leader in the fray. It better becomes a young lady to

nourish a doubt from the Christian point of view as to the lawfulness of

war than a ‘gallant colonel’!”

 

“But you know that my doubt is not from a religious, but a humanitarian

point of view.”

 

“We must not lay this at all before the reverend consistorial

councillor, or else the discussion would be transferred to a different

field. The efforts after peace of free thinkers suffer from no internal

inconsistency, but it is this very inconsistency existing between the

maxims of Christianity and the orders of military authorities which I

should like to hear explained by a military chaplain, _i.e._, a

representative of militant Christianity.”

 

The clergyman was punctual in his arrival. The prospect was evidently an

inviting one for him of having to preach a sermon of instruction and

conversion. I on the contrary looked forward to the conversation with

somewhat painful feelings, for the part assigned to me in it was a

dishonest one. But, for the good of the cause to which Frederick had

devoted his services henceforth, I was easily able to put some

constraint on myself, and comfort myself with the proverb: “The end

justifies the means”.

 

After the first greetings--we were all three seated on low, easy-chairs

before the fire--the consistorial councillor began thus:--

 

“Allow me, dear lady, to enter on the object of my visit. The matter is

to remove from your soul some scruples, which are not destitute of some

apparent grounds, but which can easily be refuted as sophistical. You

think, for example, that Christ’s command to love your enemies, and also

the text, ‘He who takes the sword shall perish by the sword,’ are

inconsistent with the duties of a soldier, who no doubt is empowered to

injure the enemy in body and life.”

 

“Certainly, reverend councillor, this inconsistency seems to me

irreconcilable. Then there occurs also the express command of the

Decalogue, ‘Thou shalt not kill’.”

 

“Oh, yes, to a superficial judgment there is some difficulty in that,

but on penetrating deeper all doubt vanishes. As regards the fifth

commandment, it would be more correctly given (as it is actually in the

English version of the Bible): ‘Thou shalt not murder’. Killing for

necessary defence is not murder. And war is in reality only necessary

defence on a large scale. We can and we ought, following the gentle

precept of our Saviour, to love our enemies, but that does not mean

that we are not to venture to defend ourselves from open wrong and

violence.”

 

“Then does it not follow of course from this that only defensive wars

are justifiable, and that no sword-stroke ought to be given till the

enemy has invaded the country? But if the opposing nation proceeds on

the same principle, how then can the battle ever begin? In the late war

it was your army, reverend councillor, which first crossed the frontier,

and----”

 

“If one wishes to keep the foe off, dear lady, as we have the most

sacred right to do, it is utterly unnecessary to put off the favourable

opportunity, and to wait until he has first invaded one’s country. On

the contrary, the sovereign must, under all circumstances, have freedom

to anticipate the violent and unjust. In doing so he is following the

written word: ‘He who takes the sword shall perish by the sword’. He

presents himself as God’s servant and avenger on the enemy, because he

strives to make him, as he has taken the sword against him, perish by

the sword.”

 

“There must be some fallacy in that,” I said, shaking my head. “It is

impossible that these principles should justify both parties equally.”

 

“And as to the further scruple,” pursued the clergyman, without noticing

my remark, “that war is of and by itself displeasing to God, this must

depart from every Christian who believes in the Bible, for the Holy

scriptures sufficiently prove that the Lord Himself gave commands to the

people of Israel to wage wars, in order to conquer the promised land,

and He granted them victory and His blessing on their wars. In Numbers

xxi. 14, a special ‘book of the wars of the Lord’ is spoken of. And how

often in the Psalms is the assistance celebrated which God has granted

to His people in war! Do you not know what Solomon says (Proverbs xxi.

31): ‘The horse is prepared against the day of battle, but safety is of

the Lord’? In Psalm cxliv. David thanks and praises the Lord, his

strength, ‘who teacheth his hand to war, and his fingers to fight’.”

 

“Then a contradiction prevails between the Old and the New

Testament--the God of the ancient Hebrews was a warlike Deity, but the

gentle Jesus proclaimed the message of peace, and taught love to

neighbour and to enemy.”

 

“In the New Testament also, Jesus speaks in a figure (Luke xiv. 31)

without the least blame of a king who is going to make war against

another king. And how often, too, does not the Apostle Paul use figures

from the military life? He says (Rom. xiii. 4) that the magistrate does

not bear the sword in vain, but if God’s servant--a revenger on him that

doeth evil.”

 

“Well, then, in that case the contradiction I mean exists in the Holy

scripture itself. By your showing me that it is present in the Bible you

do not remove it.”

 

“There one sees the superficial and at the same time arrogant method of

judgment which seeks to exalt one’s own weak reason above the Word of

God. Contradiction is something imperfect, ungodlike; and if I show that

a thing is in the Bible the proof is complete that in itself--however

incomprehensible it may be to the human understanding--it can contain no

contradiction.”

 

“Unless the presence of contradiction does not much rather prove that

the passages in question cannot possibly be of Divine origin.” This

answer trembled on my lips, but I suppressed it, in order not to change

entirely the object of the discussion.

 

“Look here, reverend councillor,” said Frederick, now mingling in the

conversation, “a chief captain of artillery in the seventeenth century

has laid down much more forcibly than you have done the justifiability

of the horrors of war by an appeal to the Bible. I extracted the passage

and have read it to my wife, but she did not sympathise with the spirit

expressed in it. I confess the thing seems to me--well, a little

strong--and I should like to hear your view about it. If you will allow

me I will fetch the paper.” So he took a sheet of paper out of a drawer,

unfolded it, and read:--

 

War was invented by God Himself and taught to men. God posted the

first soldier with a two-edged sword in front of Paradise, to keep

out of it Adam, the first rebel. You may read in Deuteronomy how

God, by means of Moses, gives people encouragement to victory and

even gives them His priests for advanced guard.

 

The first stratagem was practised at the city of Ai. In this war of

the Jews the sun had to stand and show light in the firmament for

two whole days together in order that the war and the victory might

be followed up, and many thousands put to the sword and their kings

hung up. All the horrors of war are permitted by God, for the whole

of Holy Writ is full of them, and proves satisfactorily that

regular war is an invention of God Himself, and that therefore

every man can with a clear conscience serve in it, and can live and

die in it. He is permitted to burn his enemy, or brand him, flay

him, shoot him down, or hack him to pieces. All this is just, let

others judge as they please about it. God in these passages has

forbidden nothing, but has permitted the most horrible ways of

destroying men.

 

The prophetess Deborah nailed the head of Sisera, the leader in

that war, to the earth. Gideon, chosen by God as the leader of the

people, revenged himself on the princes of Succoth, who had refused

him some provisions, like a soldier; sword and fire were too poor,

they were thrashed and torn in pieces with thorns; and, as before,

this was righteous in the sight of God. The royal prophet David, a

man after God’s own heart, invented the most cruel tortures for the

vanquished children of Ammon at Rabboth--he had them hewed with

sabres, caused chariots to drive over them, cut them with knives,

and dragged them through the places where they made the bricks, and

so did he in all the towns of the children of Ammon. Besides this----

 

“That is horrible, abominable!” broke in the chief chaplain. “It could

only be a rough soldier of the savage times of the Thirty Years’ War to

whom it would appear natural to produce examples like these out of the

Bible, in order to found thereon a justification for their cruelties

against the enemy. We preach quite other doctrine now--nothing more is

to be striven for in war than to make your adversary incapable of

harm--even up to his death--but without any evil design against the life

of any individual. If any such design enters in, or even any murderous

desire or any cruelty against those who are defenceless, in such a case

killing in war is exactly as immoral and as impermissible as in peace.

No doubt in past centuries, when the adventurous delight in feud and

quarrel prevailed, when leaders of Landsknechts and vagrant persons

carried on war as a trade, in such times an artillery captain might

write in that style; but in the present day armies are not put into the

field for gold and booty, not without knowing for whom or for what, but

for the highest ideal objects of mankind--for freedom, independence,

nationality; for justice, faith, honour, purity and morality----”

 

“You, reverend consistorial councillor,” I interposed, “are at least

milder and more humane than the artillery captain. And thus you have no

proofs out of the Bible to allege for the lawfulness of cruelty, in

which our forefathers of the middle ages, and presumably also the

ancient Hebrews, took a pleasure; and yet it is the same book, and the

same Jehovah, and He cannot have become milder--and everybody still gets

from Him as much support as suits his views.”

 

On this I received a slight sermon of rebuke for my want of reverence

for the Word of God, and for my want of judgment in reading it.

 

Still I succeeded in leading the conversation back again to our especial

subject; and now the consistorial councillor launched out into a long

dissertation, and one which this time was allowed to be uninterrupted,

about the connection between the military and Christian spirits; he

spoke of the religious devotion “which is indwelling in the oath to the

standard, when the colours are carried solemnly, with the accompaniment

of music, into the church, with the guard of honour of two officers with

drawn swords; and there the recruit marches out for the first time in

public with helmet and side-arms, and for the first time follows the

colours of his company, unfolded now before the altar of the Lord torn

as they are and stained with the honourable marks of the battles in

which they have been carried”. He spoke of the prayer offered every

Sunday in church: “Preserve the royal commander of the army, and all

true servants of their king and country. Teach them as Christians to

think of their end, and grant that their service may be blessed, to the

honour and the good of the country.” “God with us,” he went on, “is, as

you know, the motto on the belt-buckle with which the foot-soldier

buckles on his side-arms, and this watchword should give him confidence.

If God be with us, who can be against us? Then there are also the

universal days of public prayer and humiliation which are ordered at the

commencement of a war that the people may beg for God’s help in prayer,

both in the comfortable hope of His support and in the confidence

through that support of gaining a victorious termination. What devotion

does there not lie in this for the departing warrior! How mightily does

this exalt his delight in battle and in death! He can with comfort enter

into the ranks of the warriors when his king calls for him, and can

reckon on victory and blessing for the cause of right. God the Lord will

no more deprive our people of this than His people Israel of old, if

only it is with prayers to Him that we carry on the work of battle. The

intimate alliance between prayer and victory, between piety and valour,

easily follows--for what can more assure one of joy in the prospect of

death than the confidence that if our last hour should strike in the

confusion of the battle we shall find favour at the hands of the Judge in heaven? Fidelity and faith, in union with manliness and warlike virtue, belong to the oldest traditions of our people.”