Readings in the History of Education | Page 9

by the following example:
THAT IT IS LAWFUL TO KILL A MAN, AND THE OPPOSITE THESIS.
_Jerome on Isaiah, Bk. V._ He who cuts the throat of a man of blood, is not a man of blood.
_Idem, On the Epistle to the Galatians:_ He who smites the wicked because they are wicked and whose reason for the murder is that he may slay the base, is a servant of the Lord.
_Idem, on Jeremiah:_ For the punishment of homicides, impious persons and poisoners is not bloodshed, but serving the law.
_Cyprian, in the Ninth Kind of Abuse:_ The King ought to restrain theft, punish deeds of adultery, cause the wicked to perish from off the face of the earth, refuse to allow parricides and perjurers to live.
_Augustine:_ Although it is manslaughter to slaughter a man, a person may sometimes be slain without sin. For both a soldier in the case of an enemy and a judge or his official in the case of a criminal, and the man from whose hand, perhaps without his will or knowledge, a weapon has flown, do not seem to me to sin, but merely to kill a man.
_Likewise:_ The soldier is ordered by law to kill the enemy, and if he shall prove to have refrained from such slaughter, he pays the penalty at the hands of his commander. Shall we not go so far as to call these laws unjust or rather no laws at all? For that which was not just does not seem to me to be a law.
_Idem, on Exodus ch. xxvii:_ The Israelites committed no theft in spoiling the Egyptians, but rendered a service to God at his bidding, just as when the servant of a judge kills a man whom the law hath ordered to be killed; certainly if he does it of his own volition he is a homicide, even though he knows that the man whom he executes ought to be executed by the judge.
_Idem, on Leviticus ch. lxxv:_ When a man is justly put to death, the law puts him to death, not thou.
_Idem, Bk. I of the "City of God":_ Thou shall not kill, except in the case of those whose death God orders, or else when a law hath been passed to suit the needs of the time and express command hath been laid upon a person. But he does not kill who owes service to the person who gives him his orders, for he is as it were a mere sword for the person who employs his assistance.
_Likewise:_ When a soldier, in obedience to the power under which he is legitimately placed, kills a man, by no law of the state is he accused of murder; nay if he has not done it, he is accused of desertion and insubordination. But if he had acted under his own initiative and of his own will, he would have incurred the charge of shedding human blood. And so he is punished if he does not do when ordered that for which he would receive punishment if he did it without orders.
_Idem, to Publicola:_ Counsel concerning the slaying of men pleaseth me not, that none may be slain by them, unless perhaps a man is a soldier or in a public office, so that he does the deed not in his own behalf, but for others and for the state, accepting power legitimately conferred, if it is consonant with the task imposed on him.
_Likewise:_ It has been said: let us not resist the evil man, let not the vengeance delight us which feeds the mind on others' ill, let us not neglect the reproofs of men.
_Idem, to Marcella:_ If that earthly commonwealth of thine keep to the teachings of Christ, even wars will not be waged without goodwill, for with pitying heart even wars if possible will be waged by the good, so that the lusts of desire may be subdued and those faults destroyed which ought under just rule to be either rooted out or chastised. For if Christian training condemned all wars, this should rather be the advice given in the gospel for their safety to the soldiers who ask for it, namely to throw aside their arms and retire altogether from the field. But this is the word spoken to them: Do violence to no man, neither accuse any falsely; and be content with your wages.
He warns them that the wages that belong to them should satisfy them, but he by no means forbids them to take the field.
_Idem, to his comrade Boniface:_ "I will give thee and thine a useful counsel: Take arms in thy hands; let prayer strike the ears of the creator; because in battle the heavens are opened, God looks forth and awards the victory to the side he sees to be