It is undeniable that the early church was unswervingly nonviolent. Their initial interpretation of the words and life of Jesus was such that they bore the brunt of the sword without retaliation.
They were less concerned with the practicality of nonviolence and much more concerned with their faithfulness to The Way. To live and respond as the early church did to the oppression and terrorism that they experienced was not rational.
It was faith. It’s what prompted the reformed Christian killer to write in Ephesians 2:14
For he himself is our peace, who has made us both one and has broken down in his flesh the dividing wall of hostility
Christ was peace among them. He had reshaped, re-created and transformed them into people of peace: people who lived the way of the cross and not the sword. They knew that Jesus had not saved them from physical death, but had rescued them from eternal death redeeming them from the spectre of fear.
And this message of hope and reconciliation was intended for all people. No longer were the children of God to be defined by nationality, ethnicity or belief. ALL were invited to come. The gentile was no longer the enemy, he was the co-heir of God’s eternal promise.
As Paul wrote in Colossians 1:19–20: For in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, making peace by the blood of his cross.
The early Christians were renowned for being peaceful. The second century letter to Diognetus had this to say about those early disciples (emphasis mine):
They pass their days on earth, but they are citizens of heaven. They obey the prescribed laws, and at the same time surpass the laws by their lives. They love all men, and are persecuted by all. They are unknown and condemned; they are put to death, and restored to life. They are poor, yet make many rich; they are in lack of all things, and yet abound in all; they are dishonoured, and yet in their very dishonour are glorified. They are evil spoken of, and yet are justified; they are reviled, and bless; they are insulted, and repay the insult with honour; they do good, yet are punished as evil-doers. When punished, they rejoice as if quickened into life; they are assailed by the Jews as foreigners, and are persecuted by the Greeks; yet those who hate them are unable to assign any reason for their hatred.
That’s who they were. They were marked not by the nations of this world but by a Kingdom that was not from this world. They were less concerned with “reality” and “practicality” and more concerned with faithful witness. They endured persecution and martyrdom for the sake of the cross.
Will Durant wrote:
There is no greater drama in human record than the sight of a few Christians, scorned and oppressed by a succession of emperors, bearing all trials with a fierce tenacity, multiplying quietly, building order while their enemies generated chaos, fighting the sword with the word, brutality with hope, and at last defeating the strongest state that history has known. Caesar and Christ had met in the arena, and Christ had won.
Do you see that? The message of Christ was propagated not by the sword, but by the cross. They were not trying to Christianize the world. They were offering a different world altogether. They were not seeking for a Christian nation-state. They were living the Kingdom come.
The agenda for the church today is to do just that: not to Christianize the world but to offer a different world, where there is no Jew or Greek, slave or free, American or Iranian.
But if we make the Kingdom a political objective then the Kingdom is lost. It is not of this world and was never meant to be.
If we truly long to be a restoration movement then we have to take into account the life of the early church. Origen, who lived in the late second and early third centuries, wrote “for we no longer take up sword against nation, nor do we learn war any more, having become children of peace, for the sake of Jesus.”
For almost 285 years the early church resisted war and violence. Ignatius called for warfare to be abolished. The only way that could be done, he stated, was to embrace the teachings of Christ. There were exceptions as some Christians “behaved like Gentiles.” But the way of the early church was that of peace.
Read this stirring passage by Lawrence Apsey:
The Roman Empire during the first three centuries of Christianity equaled modern dictatorships in ruthlessness, paganism and violence. Nevertheless, during this period, Christianity, by its witness of love and sacrifice, grew from a tiny Jewish sect to become a religion professed by the majority in the most populous areas of mankind. In the words of K.S. Latourette, a leading historian of the period, ‘Never in so short a time has any other religious faith or, for that matter, any other set of ideas, religious, political or economic, without the aid of physical force or of social or cultural prestige, achieved so commanding a position in such an important culture.’
During this period, Christians refused service in the army; and there is no direct evidence that they ever used force against the bloodthirsty persecutions to which they were subjected. While paying lip servie to the mythology of the ancients, most people in the Empire at the time of Jesus recognized no responsibility to a divine power beyond themselves, and their rulers spared no cruelty in the ten major persecutions which were launched against the Christians. Under Nero, Christians were torn by dogs or nailed to crosses and set on fire to serve at night as living torches. Under Valerian, the death penalty was enforced for meeting in church and entering cemetaries. Christian leaders were exiled for not doing homage to the pagan gods. Clerics were put to death, others deprived of property, enslaved or burned at the stake. Christians were happy, without resistance by force, to share the martyrdom of Jesus; and this had a tremendous effect in converting those who witnessed their suffering.
If we have any claims or interest in being a part of a restoration movement, then the legacy of nonviolence that the early church left behind cannot be dismissed out of hand. No matter how distasteful or untenable we might find nonviolence to be, the example is there.
Those who were just a few short years removed from the life, words, teachings and example of Jesus interpreted that life as a prescription for a nonviolent life.
It wasn’t until Christianity was co-opted that that changed.
