Historical Just War Theory up to Thomas Aquinas Rory Cox From at least the first millennium B.C. ideas about the justice of war, as well as customary norms regulating combat, began to be developed by Western societies. From the agonistic struggles of Greek city-states, to Rome’s imperial wars of conquest, and on to the Christianised warfare of medieval Europe, war has been subjected to varying degrees of ethical analysis as well as being influenced by social pragmatism. The most important intellectual and legal product of these combined developments was (and is) the concept of the ‘just war’, positing that violence can be justified as a means to secure peace, justice, and order. Although separated by centuries, similarities in Western ethical treatments of war exist because (i) there exists a surprisingly stable intellectual genealogy from ancient Greece up to the present day, and (ii) most Western societies have sought to achieve broadly comparable objectives, utilising violence to realise political, economic, or religious ends, while at the same time wishing to regulate or restrict the use of violence (in a manner beneficial to themselves) by applying social, moral, or legal norms to the initiation and conduct of war. As a result, the concept of the ‘just war’ has enjoyed widespread acceptance and shown remarkable longevity. The West was not unique in its reflections on the ethical status of war and violent action. In the Sumerian Epic of Gilgamesh (early second millennium B.C.), the two heroes debate whether or not to kill their defeated enemy Humbaba. The fearsome Humbaba begs Gilgamesh for his life, but Enkidu eventually persuades Gilgamesh to slay their prisoner – an act looked upon unfavourably by the gods.1 Rules concerning proper conduct in war can be detected in the great Indian poem, the Māhabhārata, parts of which date back beyond 400 B.C..2 During the Warring States period (481-221 B.C.) the concept of yi bing was developed in China, which justified war as the highest form of judicial punishment, to be utilised by rulers alone. As such, the Chinese concept of yi bing focused on what the West would term ius ad bellum (justice to wage war), but had little to say about ius in bello (justice in war) norms. Much of the Chinese tradition was adopted in Japan, where war – even against foreign peoples – continued to be understood as an extension of domestic law enforcement 1 The Epic of Gilgamesh, trans. M. Gallery Kovaks (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1989), Tablet V, 44-7. 2 N. Allen, ‘Just War in the Māhabhārata’, in The Ethics of War: Shared Problems in Different Traditions, ed. R. Sorabji and D. Rodin (Aldershot, UK: Ashgate, 2006), 138-49. 1 throughout the medieval period.3 In the Islamic world, ideas corresponding to ius ad bellum and ius in bello were developed by theologians and jurists from the ninth century onwards, contributing to a complex and dynamic doctrine of jihad.4 While not wishing to ignore these (and other) alternative traditions, they must be laid aside. The development of just war theories in the Western tradition, from the classical period up to the completion of Thomas Aquinas’s Summa Theologiae (1265-1274), is the principal focus of this chapter. I use the plural theories here deliberately, as the term ‘just war theory’ misleadingly suggests a single coherent and monolithic doctrine. Just war theories, sharing certain criteria for legitimating the use of violence under legal, moral, and/or religious considerations, often developed parallel to one another, but could also diverge in numerous ways. James Turner Johnson has argued that a properly recognisable just war theory did not exist prior to 1500. Johnson particularly stresses the separation of the ius ad bellum and the ius in bello traditions, the former being largely the concern of academic theologians and canonists, with the latter belonging to the secular concerns of soldiers and chivalric law.5 This distinction has enjoyed general acceptance but, as has been recently highlighted, this modern distinction between ius ad bellum and ius in bello has been emphasised to the point of creating an artificially impermeable divide within pre-modern just war doctrine.6 While much of Johnson’s argument is persuasive, I believe it underestimates the implicit demands for proper conduct contained within theological and canonistic writings on war. It also underestimates the importance of proper authority and just cause contained in literature and legal writings ostensibly focused on the conduct of war, as well as the role played by clerics in establishing notions of combatant status and non-combatant immunity. It is the aim of this chapter, therefore, to revise the notion of a pre-modern just war doctrine bisected by the ius ad bellum/ius in bello distinction, and in doing so to provide an analysis of the key developments of the period. For the sake of economy, I shall simply use the term ‘just war doctrine’ in order to refer to the variety of classical and medieval writings which may be loosely gathered under the banner of thought on justifiable war. 3 M.E. Lewis, ‘The just war in early China,’ in The Ethics of War in Asian Civilizations: A Comparative Perspective, ed. T. Brekke (Abingdon, UK: Routledge, 2006), 185-200; K. Friday, ‘Might makes right: just war and just warfare in early medieval Japan’, in Ethics of War in Asian Civilizations, ed. Brekke, 159-84. 4 J. Kelsay, ‘Islamic tradition and the justice of war,’ in Ethics of War in Asian Civilizations, ed. Brekke, 81- 110. 5 J.T. Johnson, Ideology, Reason, and the Limitation of War: Religious and Secular Concepts 1200-1740 (Princeton and London: Princeton University Press, 1975); Just War Tradition and the Restraint of War: A Moral and Historical Inquiry (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1981). 6 O. O’Donovan, The Just War Revisited (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003), 14-15; N. Rengger, ‘The Ius in bello in Historical and Philosophical Perspective’, in War: Essays in Political Philosophy, ed. L. May (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008), 30-48, at 33-5. 2 The period up to Aquinas also witnessed the emergence of two other important doctrines regarding war. The first is pacifism, another heterogeneous doctrine, which was present in various forms within the early Church and later re-emerged among some heterodox Christian sects from the twelfth century onwards. The second doctrine is holy war, which developed alongside the crusading movement from the end of the eleventh century, and can be understood as a corollary of Christianised just war doctrine. Pacifism – essentially a rejection of the ethics of war – and holy war – an extension of just war doctrine – will not be discussed at length. A chapter covering nearly two thousand years of ethical reflection on war cannot hope to be exhaustive, but it can indicate the richness of thought in the period up to the publication of Aquinas’s Summa Theologiae. Many histories of just war theory, in their hurried journey towards the sixteenth century, have too often been guilty of using Aquinas as a convenient stepping-stone between Augustine and Vitoria. Not only does this ignore several centuries of thought on war, it also gives a false impression of Aquinas’s place within the history of just war doctrine. Aquinas’s contribution to the development of just war doctrine was undoubtedly significant but it was not his originality of thought, rather the clarity of his systematized presentation of pre-existing arguments, for which we owe him a debt. The Greco-Roman Tradition Informal socially mandated and enforced rules of war were developing in Europe as early as archaic Greece (800-480 B.C.), and by the late fifth century B.C. there appears to have been a set of established customs within intra-Hellenic warfare that included conditions such as formal declarations of war, periods of truce for sacred holidays, ransoming of prisoners, and, to some degree, the immunity of non-combatants.7 On the other hand, Thucydides’ famous account of the Melian Dialogue during the Peloponnesian War (431-404 B.C.), during which the Athenians inform the Melians that, “the standard of justice depends on the equality of power to compel and that in fact the strong do what they have the power to do and the weak accept what they have to accept”, has been taken as a classic example of political realism.8 7 Warfare in Ancient Greece: A Sourcebook, ed. M.M. Sage (London and New York: Routledge, 1996), 127-34; M. Goodman and A. Holladay, ‘Religious Scruples in Ancient Warfare’, The Classical Quarterly 36, no. 1 (1986): 151-71; J. Ober, ‘Classical Greek Times’, in The Laws of War: Constraints on Warfare in the Western World, ed. M. Howard, G.J. Andreopoulos, M.R. Shulman (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1994), 12-26, at 12-13. 8 Thucydides, The Peloponnesian War, trans. R. Warner (Harmondsworth, UK: Penguin, 1954), bk. 5. chap. 89. It remains a matter of debate whether Thucydides himself condoned this ‘realist’ attitude. 3 The works of Plato in the mid-fourth century B.C. offer the first clear engagement with war as an ethical problem. In the Republic, Socrates (the voice of Plato) identifies the desire for luxurious living, which necessitates the acquisition of resources from neighbouring communities, as the origin of war. Socrates goes on to make an important distinction between wars fought amongst Greeks, and wars fought between Greeks and barbarians (non- Hellenes): [W]hen Greeks fight with barbarians and barbarians with Greeks, we’ll assert they are at war and are enemies by nature, and this hatred must be called war; while when Greeks do any such thing to Greeks, we’ll say that they are by nature friends, but in this case Greece is sick and factious, and this kind of hatred must be called faction.9 This creates two distinct categories of conflict: the first is war ‘proper’, which is natural; the second is faction, which is unnatural. It is for the latter category of conflict that Plato introduces ideas of proper conduct – including what we would now identify as proportionality and non-combatant immunity – because Greeks, as natural friends and kin, must have a view to future reconciliation: “Therefore, as Greeks, they won’t ravage Greece or burn houses, nor will they agree that in any city all are their enemies – men, women, and children – but that there are always a few enemies who are to blame for the differences. And, on all these grounds, they won’t be willing to ravage lands or tear down houses, since the many are friendly…” “I [Glaucon]…agree that our citizens must behave this way toward their opponents; and toward the barbarians they must behave as the Greeks do now toward one another [i.e. without restraint].”10 Plato clearly created an ethical distinction between war proper, which is natural and unlimited, and war as ‘faction’, which is unnatural and in which destructive actions should be restrained. Aristotle followed Plato in stating that intra-Hellenic warfare was a disease, while the wars fought against barbarians were natural and therefore legitimate and virtuous. Aristotle’s emphasis on the importance of community and the common good led him to 9 Plato, The Republic of Plato, trans. A. Bloom (New York: Basic Books, 1968), bk. 5, 470c, p. 150. 10 Plato, Republic, bk. 5, 471a-b, p. 151. 4 support the use of force by autonomous political communities to defend themselves, especially against barbarians. The teleological purpose of the political community was the attainment of the life of virtue, or ‘good life’, for its citizens. Therefore, in order to safeguard the perfecting process of civic development that would lead to the good life, governments were obliged to possess military strength in order to defend the community against internal and external threats.11 War was not, however, an end in itself. Rather, Aristotle declared that “we wage war in order to have peace”.12 This influential maxim, deriving from Plato (Laws, 628e, 803d), was passed down to medieval theorists via Cicero (De Officiis, bk. 1, §35), Augustine (Letter 189 to Boniface), and Gratian (Decretum, Causa 23, q. 1 c. 3).13 Nor should war be used to threaten the good of other communities without cause. Military practice “is not to bring into subjection those not deserving of such treatment, but to enable men to save themselves from becoming subject to others”. On the other hand, liberty was not a universal right and belonged only to Greeks. Aristotle believed that slavery was the natural state of barbarian races and therefore considered wars which resulted in the conquest of “those who deserve to be the slaves” as morally legitimate. He also appears to have condoned wars for imperial expansion, as long as they were undertaken for the good of the governed rather than for the good of the ruler.14 It is clear that neither Plato nor Aristotle applied an egalitarian concept of justice to war; quite the opposite, their ethical analysis of war was deeply partisan, based principally on the disparity between Greek and non-Greek. Indeed, the classical Greek consideration of war highlights a major obstacle for just war doctrine in toto. Differing conceptions of justice produce divergent interpretations of what constitutes a justified war; but war is, by its nature, often a clash between societies with idiosyncratic interpretations of justice, each favouring its own interpretation and its own cause. As a result, the formulation of any universal and egalitarian definition of justice in war is hugely problematic. Nevertheless, it was Greek philosophy, particularly the Stoic school from the third century B.C., which provided a concept of natural law – as a universally applicable set of rules derived from reason – that was fundamental to later interpretations of justifiable warfare, beginning with Rome. 11 Aristotle, The Politics, ed. S. Everson (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998), bk. 1, 1252a.1-6; bk. 2, 1267a.20-23; bk. 3, 1280b.39; bk. 5, 1308a.25-30; bk. 7, 1328b. 12 Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics, trans. M. Ostwald (Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall, 1999), bk. 10, 1177b.5-6, p. 289; see also Aristotle, Politics, bk. 7, 1333a.34-35. 13 See also J. Barnes, ‘The Just War’, in The Cambridge History of Later Medieval Philosophy: From the Rediscovery of Aristotle to the Disintegration of Scholasticism 1100-1600, ed. N. Kretzmann, A. Kenny, J. Pinborg (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1982), 771-84, at 780. 14 Aristotle, Politics, bk. 7, 1333b.37-1334a.10, p. 178. 5 Cicero’s On Duties (44 B.C.) is probably the most cogent exposition of the Roman concept of just war; it is certainly the most cited. Cicero’s treatment of war in On Duties, and in his earlier On the Commonwealth (54/53 B.C.), centred on two key criteria: just cause and proper authority.15 These criteria remain fundamental to just war doctrine up to the present day. Cicero stressed that justice and warfare must be closely related.16 The end of every just war was a restoration of peace, in the Platonic-Aristotelian sense, but in the Roman legal sense it was also the restoration of justice, essentially a restoration of the status quo ante bellum.17 This process began with the religious tradition of fetial law (ius fetiale), which demanded that for a just war to be formally declared, the guilty party should have thirty-three days to redress the wrong done or make a restoration of goods. If no redress was forthcoming after this time had elapsed, then war was declared with the approval of the gods.18 The right to declare war was restricted to the public authority in possession of imperium (sovereignty/authority), but the importance of possessing authority also extended to those who fought in wars. Cicero stated that “it is not lawful for one who is not a soldier to fight with the enemy”.19 Perhaps the most important aspect of Cicero’s ethical analysis of war was his clear understanding that there must exist a just cause in order for a just war to be declared and subsequently waged. The condition of just cause was based upon three assumptions: firstly, the right to defend oneself and repel force with force (vim vi repellere); secondly, a material right to recover lost property (rebus repetitis); and thirdly, a punitive right to avenge injuries and punish wrongdoers (iniuriae ulciscuntur). These three assumptions derived from ideas about natural law and customary law (ius gentium ‘law of nations’), with Cicero positing an intimate relationship between what is natural and what is just. A fundamental precept of natural law was the instinct for self-preservation and, as an extension of this, the right of self- defence. To defend oneself – as a natural inclination – was a just act, as was defending one’s associates.20 If one also takes the Aristotelian idea that man is naturally a political animal, 15 Plato had earlier stated that war and peace must be controlled by the public authority not private individuals. Violations of this law were punishable by death: Plato, The Laws, trans. T.J. Saunders (Harmondsworth, UK: Penguin, 1975), bk. 12, 942, 955. 16 Cicero, On Duties, ed. M.T. Griffin and E.M. Atkins (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991), bk. 1, §34. 17 F.H. Russell, The Just War in the Middle Ages (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1975), 18-19. 18 Cicero, Duties, bk. 1, §36. See also A. Watson, International Law in Archaic Rome: War and Religion (Baltimore and London: John Hopkins University Press, 1993), 27-8, 62-3. 19 Cicero, Duties, bk.1, §37, p. 16. 20 Ibid., bk. 1, §11 and §13. 6 then it is a short step to justify defence of the state on similar natural principles of self- defence. Nevertheless, violence was only to be utilised if provoked by injustice: “Wars, then, ought to be undertaken for this purpose, that we may live in peace, without injustice; and once victory has been secured, those who were not cruel or savage in warfare should be spared.”21 The natural defence of material goods was slightly more problematic since, according to a strict interpretation of the law of nature, all goods should be held in common. Custom, however, had clearly legitimated private property holding, and thus the ius gentium provided a convenient vehicle to justify private ownership. Cicero also appears to have made room for the expansion of imperial power for the sake of glory as a just cause to wage war. While wars for empire might seem to contradict the principle that ‘war is for the sake of peace’, Cicero argued that increased Roman imperium would produce greater security and consequently such wars could be understood as defensive, in that they defended Rome against rivals and guaranteed peace.22 Regarding proper military conduct, certain ius in bello restraints were included in Cicero’s understanding of just war. Cicero recommended that states should conduct themselves honourably at all times (thereby maintaining virtue), emphasising that faith should be kept with the enemy, that the use of poison or treachery should be rejected, and that justice should be maintained “even towards the lowliest”.23 Enemies who had refrained from cruelty should be spared, even those who refused to surrender immediately: And while you must have concern for those whom you have conquered by force, you must also take in those who have laid down their arms and seek refuge in the faith of generals, although a battering ram may have crashed against their wall.24 Virtue demanded that men acted reasonably and with moderation, and this extended to “inflicting such punishment as fairness and humanity allow”.25 Punishment, therefore, should be governed by reason not by cruelty. Cicero also explained that when Rome was engaged in “fighting for empire and seeking glory through warfare,” such wars should be waged less bitterly than defensive wars against mortal enemies, because in this latter type of warfare, 21 Ibid., bk.1, §35, pp. 14-15; see also bk. 1, §§20, 23, 80; bk. 3, §§22-3; Cicero, De Re Publica, trans. C. Walker Keyes (London: William Heinemann, 1927), bk. 3, §23.34. 22 Cicero, Duties, bk. 1, §§34-8; bk. 2, §§26-9; bk. 3, §§46-9, 86-8. 23 Ibid., bk. 1, §§35, 39-41; bk. 3, §99. 24 Ibid., bk. 1, §35, p. 15. 25 Ibid., bk. 2, §18. 7 “the question was not who would rule, but who would exist.”26 Ultimately, Cicero relied on an ethic of honour to limit the conduct of war, based on the assumption that all just wars were for the sake of justice and peace. He recommended that soldiers should be moved by the principles of humanitas and honestum, and while they were not legally enforceable rules of engagement, it cannot be denied that they were concerned with ius in bello principles. The Early Church The historicity of an uncompromisingly pacifist early Church was challenged by Adolf Harnack as long ago as 1904, and a revisionist approach has gained further support since the 1970s. It has been argued that although principles of non-violence were apparent in the early centuries of Christianity, this did not necessarily entail a universal rejection of violence nor a rejection of military service.27 Early Christian discussion on the topic of war appears to have focussed not on the ethics of war per se, but on the problem of whether or not Christians could participate in Roman military service. Modern attempts to reconstruct an early Christian ethic of war are further problematized by the fact that the Roman army’s requirements for oath-taking and idol-worship, rather than a common Christian doctrine of pacifism, may have provided the principal stumbling blocks for Christian military service. What seems likely is that early Christian attitudes to military service and violence were dependent upon geography and time, with different communities throughout the empire adopting and developing their own approach.28 Moreover, early Christian writings on war, including the works of Augustine of Hippo, are not in the form of extended or dedicated analyses. Many of the remarks concerning war and military service are incidental and couched within ethical discussions of virtue, justice, and the wider role of Christians within 26 Ibid., bk. 1, §38. 27 A. Harnack, Militia Christi: The Christian Religion and the Military in the First Three Centuries, trans. D. McInnes Gracie (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1981) [originally published as Militia Christi: die christliche Religion und der Soldatenstand in den ersten drei Jahrhunderten (Tübingen, 1904)]; J. Helgeland, ‘Christians and the Roman Army A.D. 173-337’, Church History 43, no. 2 (1974): 149-200; J. Helgeland, R.J. Daly, and J. Patout Burns, Christians and the Military: The Early Experience (London: SCM Press, 1987); J.T. Johnson, The Quest for Peace: Three Moral Traditions in Western Cultural History (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1987), 5-65; J.H. Yoder, ‘War as a Moral Problem in the Early Church: The Historian’s Hermeneutical Assumptions’, in The Pacifist Impulse in Historical Perspective, ed. H.L. Dyck (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1996), 90-110; A. Kreider, ‘Military Service in the Church Orders’, The Journal of Religious Ethics 31, no. 3 (2003): 415-42. 28 For example Tertullian, De Idolatria, chap. 19 and De Corona Militis, chap. 11, printed in The Early Fathers on War and Military Service, ed. and trans. L.J. Swift (Wilmington, DE: Michael Glazier, 1983), 41-2, 43-4; S. Gero, ‘Miles Gloriosus: The Christian and Military Service according to Tertullian’, Church History 39, no. 3 (1970): 285-98, at 294-8. See also The Ethics of War: Classic and Contemporary Readings, ed. G.M. Reichberg, H. Syse, E. Begby (Oxford: Blackwell, 2006), which provides an extremely useful selection of material in translation, inclusive of the early Church and the Middle Ages. 8 Roman society. Therefore to say that the early Church developed a specific ‘doctrine’ on war would be to endow an artificial sense of coherence and maturity on what was still an inchoate, constantly evolving, collection of thoughts about violence. The potentially conflicting attitude of early Christians is apparent in the writings of two Christian apologists, Tertullian (c.160-c.220) and Origen (c.184-c.253). Both of these writers expressed a deeply felt distaste for violence, but arguably both accepted war as an inevitable and potentially legitimate activity. Tertullian objected to military service as idolatrous and decried the killing and destruction concomitant with war,29 but he could not deny the legitimate power of the state to wage war because, according to Romans 13, the emperor came to power by the will of God.30 Similarly, Origen argued that Christians should not be polluted by the shedding of blood, but went on to explain that Christians could pray to God, “striving for those who fight in a righteous cause and for the emperor who reigns righteously”.31 Certain wars were justifiable because the safety and expansion of Christianity ultimately depended upon the Pax Romana, which was itself dependent upon the use of force.32 Therefore, while elements of early Christian thought can justifiably be described as pacifist, their pacifism was probably what Martin Ceadel has described as ‘exemptionist’, in so far as the stipulations for non-violence applied to Christians as a spiritual elite, but did not necessarily apply beyond the sect.33 By the fourth century, Christian writers were moving closer to an identifiable ethics of just war. Ambrose of Milan (d.397), combining Ciceronian thought with Christian theology, played an influential role in producing a more detailed Christian interpretation of ethically acceptable warfare.34 Ambrose agreed with Cicero that wars to defend the patria were lawful, as were those that defended associates against attacks from barbarians or brigands.35 Courage, as discussed by Ambrose, “consists not in doing people an injury but in protecting them”. This moral obligation to defend third-parties even extended into the private sphere: 29 Tertullian, De Patientia, chap. 3 and chap. 7, in Patrologia Latina, ed. J.P. Migne (Paris, 1844-55) [henceforth PL], 1:1254 and 1:1262; Tertullian, Adversus Marcionem, bk. 3, chap. 14, in PL, 2:340; Tertullian, Apologeticus Adversus Gentes pro Christianis, chap. 25, in PL, 1:431; De Corona, chap 12, in PL, 2:94-5. 30 Helgeland, ‘Christians and the Roman Army’, 150-2; Helgeland et al, Christians and the Military, 21. 31 Origen, Contra Celsum, trans. H. Chadwick (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1953), bk. 8, chap. 73, p. 509. For examples of Origen’s ‘pacifism’: ibid., bk. 3, chap. 8; bk. 5, chap. 33; bk. 7, chap. 26. 32 Origen, Contra Celsum, bk. 2, chap. 30; J.F. Childress, ‘Moral Discourse about War in the Early Church’, The Journal of Religious Ethics 12, no. 1 (1984): 2-18, at 10. 33 M. Ceadel, ‘Ten Distinctions for Peace Historians’, in The Pacifist Impulse in Historical Perspective, ed. H.L. Dyck (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1996), 17-35, at 29-30. 34 See also L.J. Swift, ‘St. Ambrose on Violence and War’, Transactions and Proceedings of the American Philological Association 101 (1970): 533-43. 35 Ambrose De Officiis, ed. and trans. I.J. Davidson, 2 vols. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002) [all references are to vol. 1], bk. 1, chap. 28, §129. 9 “the person who fails to deflect an injury from his neighbour, when he is in a position to do so, is as much at fault as the one who inflicts it.”36 In such a case, the right of the innocent not to suffer harm outweighed the right of the guilty not to have harm done to them. The moral duty to protect the innocent led Ambrose to condone defensive violence as an act of Christian charity (caritas), because justice is “born for others rather than itself”.37 Logically, this justified the use of force by the public authority in order to protect its subjects. Ambrose’s concern was not only with just cause and proper authority. Like Cicero, he stressed that even warring parties must maintain justice: promises made to the enemy should be honoured, no unfair advantage should be seized on the battlefield, and the defeated should be shown mercy.38 These sentiments have a ‘chivalric’ tone to them that would not appear out of place in the writings of Honoré Bouvet or Christine de Pizan. Where Ambrose differed significantly from the classical tradition was his understanding of private self-defence. In the Greco-Roman tradition the justification for waging war stemmed in large part from the natural law principle that everything possessed a right to self-preservation, from the individual to the political community. The Christian justification of war, however, did not follow this logic. Despite the legal and moral justifications that Ambrose extended to those defending their associates or the patria, he did not extend the same legitimacy to individual Christians faced with violence against their own person or property.39 Doing violence to another in order to save oneself displayed an egotistical love rather than a brotherly love, and the Christian should prefer the spiritual good of salvation over corporeal health.40 This prioritisation of spiritual health applied especially to the clergy, whom Ambrose prohibited from using arms. This polarity in Ambrose’s thought hinders any simplistic categorisation of Ambrose as either a defender of classical just war doctrine or a pacifist. Nevertheless, he made an important step in Christian thought by drawing a distinction between specific uses of violence that were morally justified – even laudatory – and others that were not. This would be of crucial importance to the emergence of a state-centred Christian ethic of war under Augustine. While few modern commentators would still call Augustine’s contribution to the ethics of war “revolutionary”,41 all would agree that Augustine’s contribution was fundamental to the 36 Ambrose Officiis, bk. 1, chap. 36, §§178-9. Cf. Cicero, Duties, bk. 1, §7. 37 Ambrose, Officiis, bk. 1, chap. 28, §136. 38 Ambrose, Officiis, bk. 1, chap. 29, §§139-140; bk. 2, chap. 7, §33; bk. 3, chap. 14, §§86-8; chap. 15, §91. 39 Swift, ‘St. Ambrose’, 537. 40 Ambrose, Officiis, bk.1, chap. 28, §131; bk. 3, ch. 4, §27. 41 P. Monceaux, ‘Augustine’, in P. Batiffol et al, L’Église et le Droit de Guerre (Paris: Bloud and Gay, 1920), 40-77, at 76. 10