What are the views of the scholar Origen on participating in military service?

The scholar Origen states, “[God] nowhere teaches that it is right for His own disciples to offer violence to any one, however wicked. For He did not deem it in keeping with such laws as His, which were derived from a divine source, to allow the killing of any individual whatever.”⁹⁵³

Origen was asked to refute a book by the pagan philosopher Celsus, in which he attacked Judaism and Christianity by every means possible. One of Celsus’ accusations was that if everyone behaved like the Christians, the Emperor would be forsaken and abandoned by all, and would fall into the hands of the lawless barbarians.⁹⁵⁴ It is possible that Celsus may have come across Christians who had resigned from military service after accepting the Christian faith, or Christians who refused to join the military; but given that there were Christians in the Roman army, his argument is quite unconvincing. In fact, the earliest record of the Thundering Legion⁹⁵⁵ under the leadership of Marcus Aurelius in the year 173 A. D. dates to the same period as that in which Celsus wrote his work. After this period, we find copious evidence of the increase of Christians in the military ranks.⁹⁵⁶

In refuting this accusation, Origen does not ask the Christians to join the Roman army, but rather to support the Emperor in the capacity of a spiritual army of Christ ranged against the devil who stirs up wars. Origen believes that the service that a Christian can offer to the Emperor is in the realm of the spirit, not the realm of war and murder. He says, “Do not those who are priests at certain shrines, and those who attend on certain gods, as you account them, keep their hands free from blood, that they may with hands unstained and free from human blood offer the appointed sacrifices to your gods; and even when war is upon you, you never

950 St. Cyprian of Carthage, Treatise 5: An Address to Demetrianus 3, 17 (ANF 5:458, 463).

951 St. Cyprian of Carthage, Epistles 72.10 (ANF 5:381).

952 St. Cyprian of Carthage, Treatise 11: Exhortation to Martyrdom, Addressed to Fortunatus 13 (ANF 5:506).

953 Origen of Alexandria, Against Celsus 3.7 (ANF 4:467).

954 Origen of Alexandria, Against Celsus 8.68–69 (ANF 4:666–667). 955 See the comments on the Twelfth Legion in Section 1280 above.

956 Everett Ferguson (ed.), Christian Life: Ethics, Morality, and Discipline in the Early Church (Studies in Early Christianity: Vol. 16) (Garland Publishing Inc., 1993): p. 196.

enlist the priests in the army. If that, then, is a laudable custom, how much more so, that while others are engaged in battle, these too should engage as the priests and ministers of God, keeping their hands pure, and wrestling in prayers to God on behalf of those who are fighting in a righteous cause, and for the king who reigns righteously, that whatever is opposed to those who act righteously may be destroyed! And as we by our prayers vanquish all demons who stir up war, and lead to the violation of oaths, and disturb the peace, we in this way are much more helpful to the kings than those who go into the field to fight for them … And none fight better for the king than we do. We do not indeed fight under him, although he require it; but we fight on his behalf, forming a special army—an army of piety—by offering our prayers to God.”⁹⁵⁷

Elsewhere he says, “For we no longer take up ‘sword against nation,’ nor do we ‘learn war any more,’ having become children of peace, for the sake of Jesus, who is our leader, instead of those whom our fathers followed, among whom we were strangers to the covenant.”⁹⁵⁸