Question 84 · How Christians lived

Could a Christian serve in the army or kill?

What the sources show

Tertullian c. 200–c. 211 · Origen of Alexandria c. 248 · Lactantius c. 313Refuse

Before Constantine, the writers who address it reject killing and military service: Tertullian ("in disarming Peter, the Lord unbelted every soldier"), Origen (we fight by prayer, not in the ranks), and Lactantius. Yet Christians did serve in the army, as Tertullian himself admits. ¹²³⁴

Augustine of Hippo c. 400 · Westminster Assembly 1648Just war

Augustine set out the just-war view: the evil in war is cruelty, lust for power and revenge, not the soldier's task. Most churches followed him. ⁶⁷

The answers given:

ApostolicBefore NicaeaNicaea and afterMiddle AgesReformation to today

Scroll through the centuries, or tap a dot. J K move between witnesses.

Before Nicaea

150–325

200c. AD

Refuse

Tertullian c. 155–c. 220 ADOn Idolatry 19.2–3

How will a Christian make war, indeed how will he serve as a soldier even in peace, without the sword, which the Lord took away? For although soldiers came to John and received a rule to keep, and a centurion believed, the Lord afterward, in disarming Peter, unbelted every soldier. No dress is lawful among us that is assigned to an unlawful act.

Tertullian also objects to the soldier's oath and to idolatrous army rites.

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211c. AD

Refuse

Tertullian c. 155–c. 220 ADOn the Crown 11.1–2

Shall it be lawful to make one's living by the sword, when the Lord declares that he who uses the sword will perish by the sword? Shall the son of peace take part in battle, when it is not fitting for him even to go to law? Shall he administer chains, prison, torture and punishment, when he does not avenge even his own wrongs?

Tertullian allows that soldiers converted in service face a hard case (11.4). Christians were already serving in the army by his time.

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248c. AD

Refuse

Origen of Alexandria c. 185–c. 254 ADAgainst Celsus 8.73

We, by our prayers, overthrow all the demons who stir up wars, break oaths and disturb the peace, and so help the emperors more than those who seem to fight. ... We fight for the emperor more than others; we do not serve in the army with him, even if he presses us, but we fight on his behalf, forming our own army of piety through our prayers to God.

Origen answers Celsus's charge that Christians will not defend the empire.

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313c. AD

Refuse

Lactantius c. 250–c. 325 ADDivine Institutes 6.20.15–17

When God forbids us to kill, he forbids not only robbery, which is not allowed even by public laws, but also what people think lawful. So it will not be lawful for a just man to serve as a soldier, since his warfare is justice itself, nor to accuse anyone of a capital crime, for it makes no difference whether you kill with the sword or with a word. ... Killing a human being, whom God willed to be a sacred creature, is always wrong.

Written just before Constantine's victory. Lactantius later tutored Constantine's son.

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Nicaea to Chalcedon

325–451

374c. AD

Just warIndirect: does not say it outright

Basil of Caesarea c. 330–379 ADLetter 188, to Amphilochius (First Canonical Letter) Canon 13

Our fathers did not count those who killed in war among murderers, granting pardon, I think, to those who fought in defence of chastity and religion. ... Yet perhaps it is well to counsel them, since their hands are not clean, to abstain for three years from communion alone.

From the same letter (374). Killing in war is not classed as murder, yet the hands are not clean either: Basil's tentative counsel ('perhaps it is well') became the Eastern pattern, three years away from communion. A disciplinary canon, not a theory of war. Quoted from the PG 32 scan (poor OCR).

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400c. AD

Just war

Augustine of Hippo 354–430 ADAgainst Faustus 22.74

What is blamed in war? That people die who will die some day anyway, so that the victors may live in peace? To blame that is for the timid, not the religious. The desire to harm, cruelty in revenge, a restless and implacable mind, savagery in rebellion, lust for domination and the like: these are what are rightly blamed in wars. ... Otherwise John, when soldiers came to be baptized and asked "And what shall we do?", would have told them to throw down their arms.

The root of the Western just-war tradition: the wrong in war is in the heart and the cause, not in soldiering as such.

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Reformation

1500–1700

1648AD

Just war

Westminster AssemblyWestminster Larger Catechism Q. 136

The sins forbidden in the sixth commandment are, all taking away the life of ourselves, or of others, except in case of public justice, lawful war, or necessary defense

Most churches after Augustine allow lawful war. Mennonites and Quakers keep the early refusal.

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Witnesses not in the library yet

These writers also matter for this question. Their texts will join the timeline above once they are translated.

215
Hippolytus (attributed), Apostolic Tradition 16
A soldier under authority must not kill; a catechumen who wants to be a soldier is rejected.
314
Council of Arles, Canon 3
Those who throw down their arms in peacetime are excommunicated.

How this page was made

Every early quote was read in its Greek or Latin and translated for this page by Claude (Opus 5.5) on 13 October 2026. Each line names the printed edition it was read from. A quote marked indirect does not state the answer outright; read its note. A writer's silence is never counted as an answer.