# Lehre und Wehre_St. Louis Missouri_Februar 1864_S47
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

Church Service and Military Service. 47

...bishop a soldier — unknown in the ancient church."*) This dissertation, however, yields little for our purpose, since it has almost solely the aim of deservedly scourging the bishops and other dignitaries of the Roman church who, as church history reports, only too often voluntarily seized carnal weapons instead of the sword of the Spirit, and, instead of waging the spiritual wars of the Lord, waged wars over mine and thine; for this reason, too, Ziegler has gathered almost only the testimonies of Roman canon law against the waging of war by bishops, and has demonstrated and censured, from the history of the Roman prelates, the transgression of their own canonical statutes.

To be sure, the so-called Apostolic Canons undoubtedly do not belong to the first century; but without exercising criticism here, let the 83rd Canon be the first testimony from the Christian church that we communicate here concerning military service on the part of servants of the church. It reads as follows: "A bishop, or presbyter, or deacon, who occupies himself with military service (στρατείᾳ σχολάζων) and wishes to retain both — the Roman office (ῥωμαϊκὴν ἀρχὴν) and the priestly diocese — is to be deposed; for what is Caesar's is Caesar's, and what is God's is God's." On this the old Lutheran theologian and philologist Elias Ehinger (d. at Regensburg, 1653) makes the following remark: "This canon too cannot be rejected. But not all papal bishops could have endured this canon, especially those who themselves took part in war. But the papists eagerly accept, from the old writings, whatever pleases them; whatever displeases them they boldly and brazenly despise and reject."

A second testimony from the church against the rendering of military service by servants of the church is found in the apologetic writing composed by Origen against Celsus in the year 247. There it says, namely, according to Mosheim's translation: "Celsus hereupon exhorts us that we should assist the emperor with all our might, take upon ourselves a part of his lawful labors, take up arms for him, march into the field under him when necessity requires it, and lead the army together with him. To this we answer that we gladly render the emperor help, when it is necessary, but a divine help; since we have put on the armor of God. And in this we follow the command of the apostle: I exhort therefore that, first of all, supplications, prayers, intercessions and thanksgivings be made for all men, for kings and for all who are in authority. The more godly, then, anyone is, the more help he renders to kings and princes, and he accomplishes more by his assistance than the soldiers who march into the field and kill as many enemies as they can. Otherwise we can

*) The treatise is written in Latin and bears the title: Σιδηρόξυλον ecclesiasticum, sive episcopus miles, in veteri ecclesia invisus [An Iron-Wood (Absurdity) of the Church, or a Soldier-Bishop, Unknown in the Ancient Church]. Wittenberg, 1672. Quarto.

**) Compare Κανόνες τῶν ἀποστόλων καὶ τῶν ἁγίων συνόδων [The Canons of the Apostles and of the Holy Councils], edited by M. Elias Ehinger of Augsburg. Wittenberg, 1614. Quarto. p. 34.