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Augustine on War and Killing: Another View

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  10 June 2011

Louis J. Swift
Louis J. Swift
Affiliation:
University of Kentucky, Lexington, Kentucky 40506
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Extract

Recently R. S. Hartigan examined Augustine's position on war and killing particularly in relation to the fate of the innocent. Although attention was rightly focused on some of the difficulties inherent in Augustine's views, Hartigan's handling of certain supportive texts is, in the view of this writer, open to question. It may be profitable, then, to reconsider his arguments and, more fundamentally, to question his structuring of the problem as a whole.

Type
Research Article
Information
Harvard Theological Review , Volume 66 , Issue 3 , July 1973 , pp. 369 - 383
Copyright
Copyright © President and Fellows of Harvard College 1973

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References

1 St. Augustine on War and Killing: The Problem of the Innocent, Journ. of the Hist, of Ideas XXVII (1966), 195–204Google Scholar. Some of the opinions expressed in this article reflect a view that Hartigan shares with others. He is not alone, for example, in arguing that Augustine saw the common soldier as an automaton without any moral responsibility. See Combès, G., La Doctrine Politique de Saint Augustin (Paris, 1927), 289–90Google Scholar, and Deane, H. A., The Political and Social Ideas of St. Augustine (New York, 1963), 163Google Scholar. Other scholars, while not holding such an extreme position, emphasize the subordinate's obligation of obedience but pay little or no attention to the distinctions that have to be made in this matter. See Bainton, R., Christian Attitudes toward War and Peace (New York, 1960), 97Google Scholar, and Monceaux, P., Saint Augustin et la Guerre, L'Eglise et le Droit de Guerre, ed. Batiffol, P. (Paris, 1920), 44 and 71Google Scholar.

2 Ed. Zycha, I., C.S.E.L., XXV (1891), 673–74Google Scholar.

3 In A Select Library of the Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, ed. Schaff, P., IV (Grand Rapids, 1956), 301Google Scholar. Hartigan (202) cites only part of the passage, leaving out the explanatory part cui quod jubetur … certum non est. It is curious that this same section is omitted by H. A. Deane (op. cit., 312, note 30), who also argues that Augustine “leaves no room for disobedience based upon the citizen's or soldier's individual decision that the command he receives is unjust or illegitimate” (163). Perhaps the reason for the omission in both instances is the fact that Stothert's translation (cited by both scholars) seems to raise no problem, whereas the original Latin text is more ambiguous and would seem to admit an interpretation quite contrary to Hartigan's or Deane's. Combes (op. cit., 290) also ignores this explanatory clause when he argues that the soldier has an absolute obligation to obey any command of a military kind.

4 The variant reading cum id quod is rejected in both Migne's edition (P.L., 42.448) and in Zycha's (C.S.E.L.). While accepting the traditional text, I am, in effect, arguing that the variant expresses Augustine's idea perhaps less equivocally. A translation similar to the author's is found (without comment) in Eppstein, J., The Catholic Tradition of the Law of Nations (London, 1935), 70Google Scholar. Cf. also Koesters, J., Le Droit des Gens chez Saint-Augustin, Revue de Droit International et de Legislation Comparee, 3me série, 14(1933), 668Google Scholar.

5 Ed. Dekkers, E. and Fraipont, I., Corpus Christ., XL (1956), 1841–42Google Scholar. On this passage see Dvornik, F., Early Christian and Byzantine Political Philosophy, II (Washington, 1966), 841–42Google Scholar.

6 Quicumque ergo legibus imperatorum, quae contra dei veritatem feruntur, obtemperare non uult, adquirit grande praemium … (ed. Al. Goldbacher, C.S.E.L., LVII [1911], 7). In light of such statements it is difficult to accept Deane's remarks (op. cit., 163) to the effect that like the citizen in relation to the laws of the state the military subordinate has no room for individual decision. I have been unable to find justification for Hartigan's statement (202, note 28) that “Augustine is quite explicit that soldiers need not investigate to determine the justice of the war they are required to fight.” Something must have gone awry in the reference he cites (Contra Faustum 12.75), since there are only 45 chapters in book 12 and there is nothing in 22.75 to prove his point.

7 As evidence for this innocence Hartigan cites the passage from the Contra Faustum discussed above. In arguing against Hartigan's concept of the soldier as an automaton I am not trying to show that every individual combatant in an aggressive army is “guilty of a volitional commitment to an injustice” which would make him a proper object of retribution. I am merely trying to indicate that there are limits to his obligation to obey; hence, there comes a point where he is liable for his actions. As will become evident, this subjective liability of the common soldier is not the issue in deciding whether one can kill him in a just war.

8 See Quaestiones in Heptateuchum 6.10, where just wars are described as those “which avenge injuries if a nation or state against whom war is to be waged, has neglected to punish a crime committed by its citizens or to return what has been unjustly taken” (quae ulciscuntur iniurias, si qua gens uel ciuitas, quae bello petenda est, uel uindicare neglexerit quod a suis improbe factum est uel reddere quod per iniurias ablatum est [ed. Fraipont, I., Corpus Christ., XXXIII (1958), 319]Google Scholar).

9 The Modern Library (New York, 1950), 27.

10 Ed. Dombart, B. and Kalb, A., Corpus Christ., XLVII (1955), 23Google Scholar. The section omitted here is a list of examples (Abraham, Iephte, and Samson) from the Old Testament who were actually or presumably ordered by God to take human life. This point is not related to our argument here.

11 In the Latin text the aut of line 8 connects the two perfects gesserunt (line 8) and punierunt (line 11). The bifurcation, then, is between those “who waged war” (at God's command) and those “who have punished.” At the risk of overly subtle analysis, it would seem to this writer that this division emphasizes the active role of punishing which naturally falls to a public magistrate or executioner rather than the role of being an instrument of public authority (a point which is put into the subordinate gerund phrase gerentes … imperium) and, by virtue of that fact, engaged in punishing evildoers.

12 That soldiers fall into the same general category of public officials as do magistrates is not here being questioned. See for example De Libero Arbitrio 1.4.9.25, 1.5.12.34, Epist. 153.6.16, and Epist. 47.5. What is being questioned is the view that they perform the same function with the same presuppositions about the personal guilt of those upon whom they exercise their might. In raising this objection, I am aware that Augustine did conceive of wars as a means of punishing evils. In the Contra Faustum 22.74 he mentions the real evils of war (e.g., the love of violence, vengeful cruelty, etc.) and goes on to say the following: “Most often it is for the justifiable punishment of these things that good men in the face of violent resistance undertake wars at the command of God or of legitimate authority when they find themselves in a situation where public order rightly impels them to act in this way or to require others to do so” (quae plerumque ut etiam hire puniantur, aduersus uiolentiam resistentium, sine deo sine aliquo legitimo imperio iubente gerenda ipsa bella suscipiuntur a bonis, cum in eo rerum humanarum ordine inueniuntur ubi eos uel iubere tale aliquid uel in talibus oboedire iuste ordo ipse constringit [C.S.E.L., XXV, 672]). Although the vices he speaks of do not exist in themselves apart from the men guilty of them, it should be noted that Augustine speaks in very generic terms. It is easy enough and in one sense quite accurate to speak in a broad general way about punishing evildoers among an offending nation. Undoubtedly if the war undertaken by good men is successful, it naturally results in the vices being punished, and the general purpose is achieved. But this is different from ascribing personal individual responsibility to the enemy troops and proceeding to punish them as criminals. Such a procedure involves an act of discrimination that for the most part is impossible and therefore irrelevant.

13 In De Libero Arbitrio 1.4.9.25 Evodius speaks of instances in which human life can be taken without sin: “for it seems to me that the soldier who slays the enemy and the judge or his deputy who puts to death the criminal … do not sin when they take human life” (nam et miles hostem et index uel minister eius nocentem … non mihi uidentur peccare, cum hominem occidunt [ed. Green, W. M., Corpus Christ., XXIX (1970), 216Google Scholar]). No attempt is made here to equate hostem with nocentem in terms of personal guilt.

14 The Just War (New York, 1968), 159–60Google Scholar.

15 “Surely it is not in vain that we have such institutions as the power of the king, the right of life and death exercised by the judge, the hooks of the executioner, the weapons of the soldier, the stringency of the overlord and even the severity of the good father. All these things have their own methods, reasons, motives and benefits. When they are feared, evil men are held in check, and the good live more peacefully among the wicked” (nee ideo sane frustra instituta sunt potestas regis, ius gladii cognhoris, ungulae carnificis, arma militis, disciplina dominantis, seueritas etiam boni patris. habent ista omnia modos suos, causas, rationes, utilitates. haec cum timentur, et coercentur malt, et quietius inter malos uiuunt boni. [ed. Goldbacher, Al., C.S.E.L., XLIV (1904), 413Google Scholar]). Cf. Epist. 47.5, where Augustine justifies the taking of human life by a magistrate or soldier “inasmuch as he does this not for himself but for others or for his own state, having lawfully received a power that is appropriate to his position” iut non pro se hoc facial sed pro aliis uel pro ciuitate, ubi etiam ipse est, accepta legitima potestate, si eius congruit penonae [ ed. Goldbacher, Al., C.S.E.L., XXXIV (1898), 135Google Scholar]).

16 The concept of adequate punishment in the subjective sense is at best a nebulous affair. See AUGUSTINE'S statement in De Natura Boni 9: “The type and extent of punishment that is due any sin is a matter of divine rather than human judgment” (qualis autem et quanta poena cuique culpae debeatur diuini iudicii est, non humani [C.S.E.L., XXV, 858]).

17 Sed hoc perfectorum est, ut non oderint in peccatoribus nisi peccata, ipsos autem homines diligant (C.S.E.L., XXV, 171). He goes on then to say that punishment should be inflicted non acerbitate saeuitiae, sed moderatione iustitiae, his whole point being that without such justitia uncontrolled vengeance would dominate, and the rectification of the evil done would only produce a greater one. The next step in this process is to go beyond justitia to misericordia, a step which, as is evident elsewhere, Augustine hesitates not at all to take. For the same distinction between sinner and sin cf. Contra Faustum 19.24, where the bishop says that it is Christ who teaches us “how at one and the same time we can hate a man for his wrongdoing and love him for his humanity” (quonam modo possemus unum eundemque hominem et odisse propter culpam et diligere propter naturam [C.S.E.L., XXV, 524]). Cf. Sermo 382.5, Enarr. in Ps. 30 3.2, Enarr. in Ps. 37 14. The classic example of such mercy is that exercised by David toward Saul. See Contra Adimantum 17.6.

18 Facile est enim atque prodiue malos odisse, quia malt sunt, rarum autem et pium eosdem ipsos diligere, quia homines sunt, ut in uno simil et culpam improbes et naturam probes ac propterea culpam iustius oderis, quod ea joedatur natura, quam diligis. non est igitur iniquitatis, sed potius humanitatis societate deuinctus, qui propterea est criminis persecutor, ut sit hominis liberator, morum porro corrigendorum nuttus alius quam in hac uita locus; nam post hanc, quisque id habebit, quod in hac sibimet conquisierit. ideo compellimur humani generis caritate interuenire pro rets, ne istam uitam si finiant per supplicium, ut ea finita non possint finire supplicium (C.S.E.L., XLIV, 398).

19 I do not wish to oversimplify the matter. Augustine does not say that the lives of all criminals must be spared or that those responsible for an unjust attack cannot and should not be punished. I am merely trying to show that by calling for mercy Augustine is not as inconsistent as Hartigan would have it.

20 De Civ. Dei 1.4, 5 and 7. Augustine not only recounts these atrocities, as Hartigan notes, but clearly condemns them.

21 That is, in a war of aggression or, presumably, a war in which one was fighting against those who took up arms in a just cause. See note 8.

22 I am not arguing that no one is responsible for the unjust war. Obviously the ruler, commander, or perhaps even a large number of the enemy forces are subjectively guilty. Were these “formal aggressors,” as Ramsey (op. cit., 159) calls them, apprehended, they would be proper objects of punishment. Even here, however, the principle of mercy towards sinners, which was discussed above, might well come into play when the public peace is no longer threatened. But the main point, and one which we must always return to, is that determining the subjective volitional commitment of the common soldier is an impossible task and is therefore no criterion at all for taking his life with justice.

23 No doubt an easier task in Augustine's day than in ours, when a nation's technological, economic, and political structures are so intertwined.

24 See note 20.

25 Ecce manifestum Deum cum dilectione corrigere, non solum infirmitatibus et aegritudinibus sed etiam mortibus temporalibus eos, quos non uult damnare cum mundo (C.S.E.L., XXV, 168).

26 See Markus, R. A., Saeculum: History and Society in the Theology of St. Augustine (Cambridge, 1970), 99–100Google Scholar.