em, and only those
who are totally unacquainted with Roman history can wonder why it did
not make the attempt. It would have been a crime to abandon the
civilised provinces to barbarism.

This was the essential position of the Roman Empire: the civil wars of
the fourth century, by which its military system was abused, need not
be considered here. And the student of history must recognise with
equal candour that the new Christianity, which succeeded Paganism in the
fourth and fifth centuries, was equally powerless to abolish warfare.
What we may justly blame is that the triumphant Christianity of the
fourth century did not merely sanction the use of arms in defence of
civilisation; it employed them in its own interest. The earlier
Christians had exasperated the Romans by refusing to bear arms in the
service of the Empire, plain as the need was. To a slight extent this
was due to an aversion from the shedding of blood; for the most part
military service was refused because it was saturated with Pagan rites.
When the Empire became Christian, this objection was removed, and the
Christians freely entered the army. Unhappily, the Christian body
deteriorated with the new prosperity and base instincts were indulged.
It is an undoubted historical fact, recorded by St. Jerome himself, that
the election of Pope Damasus, his friend and benefactor, was accompanied
by bloody and fatal riots. From undoubted historical sources we know
that the Christian mob compelled the Prefect of Rome to fly from the
city, and there is very serious evidence (in a document written by two
Roman priests) that Damasus employed the swords and staves of his
supporters to secure his position. Damasus and subsequent Popes then
obtained or sanctioned the use of the Roman soldiers for the suppression
of heresy and schism and Paganism, and Christianity was installed by
violence throughout the Empire. In the Eastern Roman Empire things were
even worse. Violence became the customary device in the seething
religious quarrels of the time, and, literally, tens of thousands lost
their lives. The Byzantine or Greek Christianity entered upon a record
of crime and violence which disgraced it for many centuries.

This development did not augur well for the application of Christian
principles to warfare. We may, however, observe at once that for many
centuries the Roman Church had not the slightest chance of establishing
peace in Europe. The destruction of the Roman Empi