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The tenth century was a time of change in the common attitude of Christians towards war; a change in fact so great as to be best understood as a swing from one extreme to another, and we should therefore have in mind from the outset two diametrically opposed points of view.
On the one hand, there is the uncompromising rejection of war and of military service by the early Christians. In the first two centuries after Christ, there was virtually no possibility of Christian participation in worldly conflicts between states. The militia Christi, the soldiers of Christ, were always contrasted with the militia saecularis, the soldiers of the world. The soldiers of Christ were to fight a spiritual battle with spiritual weapons, and the final victory was the victory of the martyr; the soldiers of the world fought with carnal weapons for base material ends, and were subject to the lusts of the flesh; there was nothing m common between the camp of light and the camp of darkness.
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- Copyright © 1963 Provincial Council of the English Province of the Order of Preachers
References
1 For a well-documented account of the attitude of the Early Church see C. J. Cadoux The Early Christian Attitude to War.
2 For a detailed discussion of the growth of the crusading spirit see K. Erdmann, Die Entstehung des Kreuzzugsgedenkeus.
3 According to Schmitz, Bussdisziplin, 40 days is prescribed by the Poenitentialia of Vaticellianum I and II, the Poenit. Casinense, the Poenit. Bedae, the Poenit. Cummeani and the Poenit. Parisiense.
4 Migne, P.L. 110,471.
5 Unless otherwise indicated in the text or footnotes, detailed references to the Life of St Edmund are to elements common to the original Latin of Abbo and the Old English version of Aelfric. For Abbo see Migne, P. L. 134, 507-520. For Aelfric see Walter Skeat's edition for the Early English Text Society. All the versions referred to in this article may be read together in a single volume in Lord Francis Hardy's Garland ofSt Edmund
6 In Abbo, not in Aelfric
7 In Aelfric's more sober version: ‘It was never my custom to take flight'.
8 In Abbo, not in Aelfric.
9 The account here given of the martyrdom is based on Abbo.
10 Odo, Vita S. Geraldi, Migne P. L., 133, 639
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