Saint Augustine of Hippo (/ɔːˈɡʌstɪn/; 13 November 354 – 28 August 430) was an early North African Christian theologian and philosopher whose writings influenced the development of Western Christianity and Western philosophy.
Augustine asserted that Christians should be pacifists as a personal, philosophical stance. However, peacefulness in the face of a grave wrong that could only be stopped by violence would be a sin. Defence of one's self or others could be a necessity, especially when authorized by a legitimate authority. While not breaking down the conditions necessary for war to be just, Augustine coined the phrase in his work The City of God. In essence, the pursuit of peace must include the option of fighting for its long-term preservation. Such a war could not be pre-emptive, but defensive, to restore peace. Thomas Aquinas, centuries later, used the authority of Augustine's arguments in an attempt to define the conditions under which a war could be just.
He rejected homicidal attitudes, quoting part of prophecy, namely "Slay them not, lest they should at last forget Thy law".
He wrote that God "did not intend that this rational creature, who was made in his image, should have dominion over anything but the irrational creation – not man over man, but man over the beasts". Thus he wrote that righteous men in primitive times were made shepherds of cattle, not kings over men.
Augustine asserted that Christians should be pacifists as a personal, philosophical stance. However, peacefulness in the face of a grave wrong that could only be stopped by violence would be a sin. Defence of one's self or others could be a necessity, especially when authorized by a legitimate authority. While not breaking down the conditions necessary for war to be just, Augustine coined the phrase in his work The City of God. In essence, the pursuit of peace must include the option of fighting for its long-term preservation. Such a war could not be pre-emptive, but defensive, to restore peace. Thomas Aquinas, centuries later, used the authority of Augustine's arguments in an attempt to define the conditions under which a war could be just.
He rejected homicidal attitudes, quoting part of prophecy, namely "Slay them not, lest they should at last forget Thy law".
He wrote that God "did not intend that this rational creature, who was made in his image, should have dominion over anything but the irrational creation – not man over man, but man over the beasts". Thus he wrote that righteous men in primitive times were made shepherds of cattle, not kings over men.
St. Augustine’s ideas towards the nature and morality of the state, which holds that far from being the positive good it was often assumed to be, it was in fact a necessary evil and in terms of morality the so called great emperors’ of the earth were in fact not much better than a common pirate, the difference between the two lied not in any real moral difference, but rather in the size of their respective forces.
By viewing the dominion of man over man as not a result of the natural order God intended as well as viewing the state to be a gang of robbers writ large and seeing war as inherently problematic and difficult to justify he laid down the groundwork that eventually became the classical liberal, libertarian and even anarchist movements.
