Page 269 - Encyclopedia Of World History Vol IV
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1570 berkshire encyclopedia of world history



                                                                 There will be peace on earth when there is peace among
                                                                        the world religions. • Hans Küng (b. 1928)





            state religion of the Empire, forbidding the worship of  being brutally slaughtered in the name of Christ. One
            the Roman gods entirely. As Christians for the first time  crusader reports, “Wonderful sights: piles of heads,
            began to ascend to positions of political power, the reli-  hands, and feet. It was a just and splendid judgment of
            gion began to consider anew the question of bearing  God that this place should be filled with the blood of
            arms. Aurelius Augustine (354–430 CE), the Catholic  unbelievers” (Baran 1998, 1).
            bishop of the city of Hippo in North Africa who is later  With the end of the Crusades, placed variously by
            canonized as St. Augustine, produced one of the most  scholars between the fourteenth and sixteenth cen-
            influential works in the history of Christianity, City of  turies, came the rise of the Christian just-war tradition.
            God, in which he argued that the state was an instru-  Over the course of several centuries, so-called Scholas-
            ment provided by a loving God to help keep human sin-  tic authors such as Francisco Suarez (1548–1617) and
            fulness in check until Christ’s return.             Hugo Grotius (1583–1645) built upon the foundation
              While a kingdom of true and eternal peace will ulti-  established by Augustine and Thomas Aquinas (1225–
            mately be established by God, in the interim “the natu-  1274) to develop a set of moral principles which, while
            ral order which seeks the peace of mankind ordains that  allowing Christian warfare, attempted to place strict
            the monarch should have the power of undertaking war  limits on its conduct—limits which presumably would
            if he thinks it advisable, and that the soldiers should  prevent the barbaric excesses of the Crusades. These
            perform their military duties in behalf of the peace and  principles, which would eventually serve as an impor-
            safety of the community” (Christopher 1994, 40).    tant impetus for the founding of international law, con-
            Augustine defines “just wars” as those which “avenge  sist of the  jus ad bellum—rules which establish the
            injuries... punish wrongs...or restore what has been  circumstances under which Christians may enter war—
            unjustly taken” (Christopher 1994, 40). Augustine him-  and the jus in bello—rules covering the ethical conduct
            self would come to advocate Christians participating as  of war once it has been initiated. Central to the jus in
            both soldiers and military commanders in wars to fend  bello, for instance, is the principle of discrimination,
            off the attackers of the Roman Empire, even though he  which holds that Christians may kill even noncombat-
            acknowledged that grave injustices would inevitably be  ants as long as the deaths are unintentional: “ The death
            committed.                                          of the innocent must not besought for its own sake, but
              The notion of war as an instrument of the Christian  it is an incidental consequence; hence it is not consid-
            God would reach its logical, if bloody, conclusion in the  ered as voluntarily inflicted but simply allowed...”
            Crusades. The Crusades were a series of Christian mil-  (Suarez 1944, 847–848).
            itary expeditions prompted by papal declarations and  In the twenty-first century, although Christians con-
            aimed, at least initially, at the recovery of the Holy Land  tinue to debate various historical attitudes toward war-
            from Muslim control. Initiated by Pope Urban II     fare, the just-war perspective has come to gain the
            (c. 1035–1099) at the Council of Clermont in 1095   support of the vast majority of individual Christians and
            and extending for several centuries, the Crusades prom-  Christian institutions, with jus ad bellum criteria such as
            ised participants the remission of their sins if they took  “just cause” and “last resort” emerging as central aspects
            up the cross and defended the faith. (The Latin word for  of public debate on initiating war.
            cross, crux, is the root of the word “crusade.”) Tens of
            thousands of European Christians answered the call.  Islam: War and Tolerance
            Eventually this “defense” of the faith included attacks  Islam is often depicted as a religion that not only allows
            not only upon Muslims but upon all alleged enemies of  for but embraces warfare. In reality, the history of the reli-
            the church, including European Jews and Christian   gion is complex and surprisingly pluralistic with regard
            heretics, with perhaps hundreds of thousands of people  to issues of violence.
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