Was the Early Church Pacifist?

Lots of people recently have been convinced by John Howard Yoder that the pre-Constantinian church fathers were all pacifists and then, in the fourth century, like the French Communist Party receiving news of the new party line from Moscow in 1941, abruptly reversed themselves and suddenly people like Augustine became rabid theocrats. So the answer to the question in the title of this post would be "Yes!" First they were pacifists and then suddenly they did a 180 degree turn over night. Is this a convincing reading of early church history?

In this post at First Thoughts a while back, Matthew Lee Anderson tentatively suggested that J. Daryl Charles just might be right - and John Howard Yoder wrong - about the stance of the church fathers on pacifism. Yoder famously said that the fathers up to the end of the third century were pacifists (though he thought that their convictions unfortunately weakened a bit during the "long peace" in the second half of the third century between the 9th and 10th great waves of persecution). In opposition to this view, Anderson reports, Charles argues that there is a great deal of ambiguity in the teachings of the Fathers on the issue of serving in the Roman army and pacifism with no evident consensus.

Now, we also must remember that Yoder famously lumped Augustine in with Eusebius and Constantine as creators of what he called "Christendom," which according to Yoder means something like a totalitarian theocracy - kind of like contemporary Iran with bishops replacing the mullahs.

Anderson quotes me offering a rebuttal to Peter Leithart on the meaning of the term "Constantinianism" in Yoder's writings. I pointed out that for Yoder, Constantinianism is an eschatological heresy, not an historical conclusion about what happened in the fourth century. For Yoder, Constantinianism is an illegitimate attempt to reach forward into the future and pull the kingdom of God into the present as if the kingdom had already come in its fullness. This idea is wrong whenever it pops up in history and if it isn't in a particular century or place that does not affect its existence as a theological idea. Well, I still think that is true, but I think Yoder also did contend that the church from the fourth century onward did fall into Constantinianism and Leithart is right about that.

So is Yoder right about the pre-Constantinian Fathers? Is he right about Augustine? Is he right about the "Constantinian Shift"? Is he right about "Constantinianism" being an eschatological heresy? Let's go one at a time.

1. Is Yoder right about the pre-Constantinian Fathers being pacifists? I now think that Charles and those who see more ambiguity in the first three centuries have the better of the argument. It is difficult to be categorical but the most I think we can say is that some early Christians took a pacifist position. But there is nothing decisive like the inclusion of the homoousion in the Nicene Creed to prove that it was an agreed upon doctrine of the ecumenical church. Yoder's view is not supportable by the facts.

2. Is Yoder right about Augustine? I have now read Augustine for myself and I am a bit embarrassed to report that Yoder is spectacularly wrong to lump Augustine in with Eusebius. Yes, the young Augustine got caught up in the excitement of the Theodosian settlement after his conversion in 386. But from about the middle of the 390s onward he gradually worked his way free of these assumptions through his biblical studies and by 410 was in a position to articulate his mature eschatology in The City of God. He renounced Eusebian postmillennialism and adopted his amillennial eschatology of the two cities, in which the State becomes part of the secular - that which belongs to this age - and is thoroughly desacralized. The doctrine of the separation of church and state is rooted in Augustine's thought and there is no basis for theocracy in The City of God.

3. Is Yoder right about the "Constantinian Shift"? I have to say that I think it is overblown by Yoder for one very good reason. Although there is a shift in that the church embraces the state to a considerable extent, the pacifist impulse continues in the form of monasticism while the impulse of the church to partner with the state has more precedents in pre-third century thought that Yoder would have us believe. So there is evolution but not a sudden, wrenching, 180 degree about face.

4. Is Yoder right about "Constantinianism"? I think he is both right and wrong about what he calls "Constantinianism." I think that the term is unfortunate, as is the tendency to equate "Christendom" with "Theocracy." More is obscured by this terminology than is illumined. First, the theologically illegitimate reaching forward and pulling the kingdom back into the present is a perennial temptation of both liberal and conservative, or, better, Romantic Utopian and Coercive Theocratic theologies.

Liberal Pacifism is an example of the former tendency and it is heretical because it envisions the perfection of human nature by the reform of political institutions, which is impossible. The Spanish conquest of the Americas and forced conversion of native peoples is an example of Coercive Theocracy.

I do believe there are examples of tendencies toward theocracy in Western history, although one hates to say so just because the Left unfairly blows them all out of proportion and defines theocracy as Christian morality having any influence on public affairs whatsoever. But where theocratic tendencies do pop up, they are betrayals of Augustinian theology, not implementations of it.

The Bottom Line
The really important point to see is that both Romantic-Utopian and Coercive-Theocratic theologies are both rooted in the same postmillennialist attempt to bring about the kingdom of God here and now within history and without the spectacular Divine intervention the NT refers to as the Return of Christ.

One of the implications of this insight is that Romantic-Utopian and Coercive-Theocratic theologies are not as different from each other as proponents of both might think. Certainly, all attempts to impose Utopian schemes in history tend to degenerate quickly into coercion and violence. This is true of medieval millennial movements, the 16th century peasants revolts and various kinds of Marxist revolutions in the 20th century.

In contrast to all these stands the Augustinian amillennialist, two cities doctrine in which the state and church are kept separate and the state is seen as potentially good and potentially evil in this age. Christians are encouraged to work within the state, but not to sacralize it. Between pacifism and revolution lies the just war doctrine to guide moral decision-making on issues of defending good and repelling evil while realizing that the final defeat of evil will not occur within this age of history as we know it.

The bottom line is that the Church Fathers were neither Utopian pacifist nor warmongering theocrats and we ought to follow their example.

On Why We Should Read the Church Fathers

This is a tremendous lecture on why busy pastors should read the church fathers by Dr. Ligon Duncan at the Together for the Gospel conference held earlier this week. It is 71 minutes long, so you need to book some time for it. But it is well worth it. He is an engaging speaker and has a lot of valuable insights to offer, especially for the novice approaching the fathers for the first time.