A large section of Christianity, any of those who belong to Protestantism, Christian Primitivist, or the LDS Restorationist movements, recognizes that at some point in the past the church went off the rails and wandered into heretical beliefs and apostasy, corrupting the teachings of Christ with the teaching of men. Those among the Catholic or Orthodox Churches would obviously disagree. This article is not about hashing out this difference, but rather to set it aside. Though there is much we all disagree about there is much that we do not. For the Catholics and Orthodox the following citations will be from Christians they consider some of the most influential and important leaders in their history. For the Protestants, Primitivists, and Restorationists these are citations from early highly influential and intelligent Christians who, despite other errors they may have made, maintained many of the pure truths of Christianity which have been handed down to us today, including the central role of rejecting violence in Christianity. For Latter-day Saints specifically we can see how our own teachings which command us to renounce all war and never kill another person, can be found in the earliest forms of post-New testament Christianity and continued for centuries afterwards.
Some of the oldest and most affirmed truths in all of Christendom are that Jesus Christ commands us to love our enemies, to renounce violence, and to reject all other worldly loyalties – be they nation, empire, or people – for the Church, the Gospel, and Jesus Christ Himself. These truths can been in the writings of the earliest surviving Christian leaders and writers. What follows below is a small sampling of these statements which I have tried to place within chronological order. Hopefully they will help the reader, whether Eastern Orthodox, Roman Catholic, Lutheran, Calvinist, Pentecostal, Christian Scientist, Latter-day Saint, etc. to understand the role of what we today call nonviolence, civil disobedience, rejection of world powers -what we today call the State, and loving and serving your enemy as central beliefs in the long history of Christianity ancient and modern.
The First Century (1-100 AD/CE)
The Didache (The Teaching) is possibly the oldest extant Christian text, originating possibly as early as 50 AD though there are arguments for later dates or later alterations to the text. The section below is at the very start of the Didache and seems to be among the earliest parts of it. Those who are familiar with the New Testament will immediately notice similarities between it and the words of Christ as found in the Gospels as it repeats His commandments to love and serve our enemies, even when they hate us, persecute us, steal our property, or use violence against us. I like that it connects the desires of the worldly flesh from which we should abstain with the desire to return violence for violence. Violence is a desire of the worldly flesh from which Christians must abstain.
There are two ways, one of life and one of death, but a great difference between the two ways. The way of life, then, is this: First, you shall love God who made you; second, love your neighbor as yourself, and do not do to another what you would not want done to you. And of these sayings the teaching is this: Bless those who curse you, and pray for your enemies, and fast for those who persecute you. For what reward is there for loving those who love you? Do not the Gentiles do the same? But love those who hate you, and you shall not have an enemy. Abstain from fleshly and worldly lusts. If someone strikes your right cheek, turn to him the other also, and you shall be perfect. If someone impresses you for one mile, go with him two. If someone takes your cloak, give him also your coat. If someone takes from you what is yours, ask it not back, for indeed you are not able. Give to every one who asks you, and ask it not back; for the Father wills that to all should be given of our own blessings (free gifts). Happy is he who gives according to the commandment, for he is guiltless. Woe to him who receives; for if one receives who has need, he is guiltless; but he who receives not having need shall pay the penalty, why he received and for what.
Roberts-Donaldson English Translation
Though called the Second Epistle of Clement, the following quotation is actually from the earliest surviving Christian sermon dating anywhere between 90 AD and 140 AD. (See The Apostolic Fathers: Greek Texts and English Translations, edited by Michael Holmes, pgs. 132–135) Throughout the unknown speaker/Clement quotes the scriptures in order to instruct Christians on how they are expected to live. In the below quotation he connects loving our enemies with loving God and hating our enemies with blasphemy against God. Love of our enemies is the heart of the Gospel and hatred of our enemies, and the actions that attend such hatred, make Christians look like hypocrites and their teachings just fairytales and lies.
For the Lord saith, My name is continually blasphemed among all the Gentiles; and again, Wherefore is my name blasphemed, whereby is it blasphemed? in that ye do not the things that I will. For the Gentiles, when they hear from our mouth the oracles of God, admire them as beautiful and weighty; but afterwards perceiving our deeds, that they are not worthy of the words that we say, they turn thereafter to blasphemy, saying that the matter is but fable and deceit.
For when they hear from us that God saith, There is no thanks for you if ye love them that love you, but there is thanks for you if ye love your enemies and them that hate you; when they hear these things, they wonder at the excess of the goodness. But when they see that we do not only not love those that hate us, but do not even love those that love us, they turn us to ridicule, and the Divine name is blasphemed.
The Second Century (101-200AD/CE)
Justin Martyr was an early Christian writer who writings have had a major impact on Christian history. He was a convert from paganism and wrote multiple surviving accounts that defend Christianity and seek to prove its superiority to both Judaism and Roman Paganism. The quotes from him below are from various works which will be cited with each quotation.
We who were filled with war, and mutual slaughter, and every wickedness, have each through the whole earth changed our warlike weapons,–our swords into ploughshares, and our spears into implements of tillage,–and we cultivate piety, righteousness, philanthropy, faith, and hope, which we have from the Father Himself through Him who was crucified …Now it is evident that no one can terrify or subdue us who have believed in Jesus over all the world. For it is plain that, though beheaded, and crucified, and thrown to wild beasts, and chains, and fire, and all other kinds of torture, we do not give up our confession; but the more such things happen, the more do others and in larger numbers become faithful, and worshippers of God through the name of Jesus. For Just as if one should cut away the fruit-bearing parts of a vine, it grows up again, and yields other branches flourishing and fruitful; even so the same thing happens with us. For the vine planted by God and Christ the Saviour is His people.
The Dialogue with Trypho, Roberts-Donaldson English Translation
I love that Justin connects giving up violence with the courage to face persecution without returning violence for violence and how that was so powerful that it converted their enemies into their friends, such that for every Christian killed more sprung up to replace him. It reminds me of the people of Anti-Nephi-Lehi who would rather die than break their covenant of nonviolence with God and how their willingness to die without striking back converted their attackers to such a degree that thousands more of their attackers joined them than were slain of them. (See Alma 24)
We who formerly delighted in fornication, but now embrace chastity alone; we who formerly used magical arts, dedicate ourselves to the good and unbegotten God; we who valued above all things the acquisition of wealth and possessions, now bring what we have into a common stock, and communicate to every one in need; we who hated and destroyed one another, and on account of their different manners would not live with men of a different tribe, now, since the coming of Christ, live familiarly with them, and pray for our enemies, and endeavour to persuade those who hate us unjustly to live comformably to the good precepts of Christ, to the end that they may become partakers with us of the same joyful hope of a reward from God the ruler of all.
…We who formerly used to murder one another do not only now refrain from making war upon our enemies, but also, that we may not lie nor deceive our examiners, willingly die confessing Christ. For that saying, “The tongue has sworn but the mind is unsworn,” might be imitated by us in this matter. But if the soldiers enrolled by you, and who have taken the military oath, prefer their allegiance to their own life, and parents, and country, and all kindred, though you can offer them nothing incorruptible, it were verily ridiculous if we, who earnestly long for incorruption, should not endure all things, in order to obtain what we desire from Him who is able to grant it.
The First Apology, Roberts-Donaldson English Translation
In the First Apology, written by Justin to the Roman Emperor Antonius Pilus, Justin asserts that Christians have forsaken murder, killing, violence, even military service for Christ and that any true Christian would rather die that do any of those things because they would be a violation of his or her oath to God. Not only does Justin clearly assert here that Christian doctrine demands nonviolence but it is also in opposition to the State which demands subservience from the public. A Christian might never try and actively overthrow the emperor’s rule but the Christian refusal to obey means that the State’s rule is effectively nullified anyway.
Aristides of Athens was an early Christian convert who wrote what is know known as the Apology of Aristides to either Roman Emperor Hadrian or Antonius Pilus in an effort to demonstrate the truth of the Gospel of Jesus Christ and its superiority to pagan beliefs. he was eventually hung for refusing to renounce his beliefs. The following quotation is from Shane Claiborne and Dr. Chris Haw‘s translation of the Apology of Aristides as found in their Jesus For President:
It is the Christians, O Emperor, who have sought and found the truth, for they acknowledge God. They do not keep for themselves the goods entrusted to them. They do not covet what belongs to others. They show love to their neighbours. They do not do to another what they would not wish to have done to themselves. They speak gently to those who oppress them, and in this way they make them their friends. It has become their passion to do good to their enemies. They live in the awareness of their smallness. Every one of them who has anything gives ungrudgingly to the one who has nothing. If they see a travelling stranger, they bring him under their roof. They rejoice over him as over a real brother, for they do not call one another brothers after the flesh, but they know they are brothers in the Spirit and in God. If they hear that one of them is imprisoned or oppressed for the sake of Christ, they take care of all his needs. If possible they set him free. If anyone among them is poor or comes into want while they themselves have nothing to spare, they fast two or three days for him. In this way they can supply any poor man with the food he needs. This, O Emperor, is the rule of life of the Christians, and this is their manner of life.
You can read a fuller, alternate translation here.
Notice how Aristides connects the Golden Rule – treat others as you wish they would treat you – not only with loving your neighbor, but with how you put that professed love into action. Christians do not react to persecution with anger or violence, they treat and speak to their oppressors with gentleness. A Christian’s passion, the thing he or she loves to do above all else, is to turn his or her enemy into a friend. Christians give to those in need. They help bail each other out of prison. They treat foreigners as friends to be invited into their homes and cared for as family. If someone is hungry the Christian goes hungry to provide another with food. For Aristides it is not merely enough to refrain from violence and retaliation, the Christian solves the problems of the world through gentleness, sacrifice, and love – by “by long-suffering, by gentleness and meekness, and by love unfeigned.” (D&C 121:41-45)
The following series of quotations come from Tertullian, one of the most influential Christian writers from the second century. Of him it has been written, “Churchmen have not liked him – he is not easy reading for those who prefer compromise and ambiguity to truth, and of ecclesiasticism there is no trace in his works. …But his legacy was the very shape of Latin Christianity. St Cyprian never went a day without reading him, and called him ‘the master.’ He gave Christians the means with which to meet paganism on its own ground and defeat it.”
Now inquiry is made about this point, whether a believer may turn himself unto military service, and whether the military may be admitted unto the faith, even the rank and file, or each inferior grade, to whom there is no necessity for taking part in sacrifices or capital punishments. There is no agreement between the divine and the human sacrament [that is the oath one swear to God vs. the oaths one swears in military or government service], the standard of Christ and the standard of the devil, the camp of light and the camp of darkness. One soul cannot be due to two masters–God and Caesar. And yet Moses carried a rod, and Aaron wore a buckle, and John (Baptist) is girt with leather and Joshua the son of Nun leads a line of march; and the People warred: if it pleases you to sport with the subject. But how will a Christian man war, nay, how will he serve even in peace, without a sword, which the Lord has taken away? For albeit soldiers had come unto John, and had received the formula of their rule; albeit, likewise, a centurion had believed; still the Lord afterward, in disarming Peter, disarmed every soldier.
On Idolatry
Classic “Arab” Depiction 
Modern “African” depiction
To begin with the real ground of the military crown, I think we must first inquire whether warfare is proper at all for Christians. What sense is there in discussing the merely accidental, when that on which it rests is to be condemned? Do we believe it lawful for a human oath to be superior to one divine, for a man to come under promise to another master after Christ, and to abjure father, mother, and all nearest kinsfolk, whom even the law has commanded us to honour and love next to God Himself, to whom the gospel, too, holding them only of less account than Christ, has in like manner rendered honour? Shall it be held lawful to make an occupation of the sword, when the Lord proclaims that he who uses the sword shall perish by the sword? And shall the son of peace take part in the battle when it does not become him even to sue at law? And shall he apply the chain, and the prison, and the torture, and the punishment, who is not the avenger even of his own wrongs? Shall he, forsooth, either keep watch-service for others more than for Christ, or shall he do it on the Lord’s day, when he does not even do it for Christ Himself?
And shall he keep guard before the temples which he has renounced? And shall he take a meal where the apostle has forbidden him? And shall he diligently protect by night those whom in the day-time he has put to flight by his exorcisms, leaning and resting on the spear the while with which Christ’s side was pierced? Shall he carry a flag, too, hostile to Christ?
De Corona (On The Crown), Roberts-Donaldson English Translation
Tertullian’s powerful stance against Christian warmongering and violence is obvious. Christ disarmed Peter and in doing so disarmed all Christians and takes from them all justification for violence and war. Christians cannot serve in the military because Christ Himself took from them the authority to do that which the military demands – to fight and kill. But Tertullian goes even deeper than that. Christ alone is the Master of the Christian. Service to any other authority, including state/government authorities, is to violate the Christian’s covenant to serve Christ alone. No flag, no standard, no nation, no people, no law can have any call upon the loyalty of a Christian because a Christian has given him or her self entirely to Christ and His service, His Church, His kingdom. We are the children of peace who follow the Prince of Peace.
Irenaeus of Lyons was an early Church leader whose work Against Heresies was a major work against what were considered heretical and apostate doctrines from other Christian sects such as the Gnostics. It is in this context that his teaching that Christians have given up war and ” know not now how to fight” (as an alternative translation of the passage below puts it) is so important. War, for the Christian, is heresy and apostasy.
As the prophets said: “For out of Zion shall go forth the law, and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem; and He shall rebuke many people; and they shall break down their swords into ploughshares, and their spears into pruning-hooks, and they shall no longer learn to fight.” If therefore another law and word, going forth from Jerusalem, brought in such a [reign of] peace among the Gentiles which received it (the word), and convinced, through them, many a nation of its folly, then [only] it appears that the prophets spake of some other person. But if the law of liberty, that is, the word of God, preached by the apostles (who went forth from Jerusalem) throughout all the earth, caused such a change in the state of things, that these [nations] did form the swords and war-lances into ploughshares, and changed them into pruning-hooks for reaping the corn, [that is], into instruments used for peaceful purposes, and that they are now unaccustomed to fighting, but when smitten, offer also the other cheek, then the prophets have not spoken these things of any other person, but of Him who effected them.
Against Heresies, Book IV, Section 34
I cannot pass up the opportunity to note that Irenaeus calls the Word of God the Law of Liberty. In this he is absolutely correct. Living the Gospel of Jesus Christ not only frees us from the evils of sin and our own carnal, natural lusts, but also from the fallen and false laws of man. So liberated, the Christian is no longer is dominated by his natural lusts for violence and is no longer a war-maker, but a peacemaker. Not only does he no longer know how to fight because fighting is no longer something he takes part in, but he actively works for peace by refusing to engage in retaliation. As Christians are more fully converted to Christ and abandon every perverted idea of man that justifies any form of sin, such as justifications for war and violence, then more fully, truly, and completely does peace come to the Earth. War is eliminated as people truly live the Gospel of Christ. As Irenaeus notes, their unwillingness to engage in war is actually proof that Christ is the Messiah, which conversely means that a refusal to engage in violence or war is proof of ones conversion to Christ.
To conclude Part 1 in this series, I want to quote Theophilus of Antioch, a Christian Bishop/Patriarch. Writing to his pagan friend Autolycus in an effort to convert him to Christianity, Theophilus makes two comments that sum up very well the idea of Christian love and why nonviolence is at the heart of Christianity:
I am a Christian, and bear this name beloved of God, hoping to be serviceable to God. For it is not the case, as you suppose, that the name of God is hard to bear; but possibly you entertain this opinion of God, because you are yourself yet unserviceable to Him. But if you say, “Show me thy God,” I would reply, “Show me yourself, and I will show you my God.”
…And that we should be kindly disposed, not only towards those of our own stock, as some suppose, Isaiah the prophet said: “Say to those that hate you, and that cast you out, Ye are our brethren, that the name of the LORD may be glorified, and be apparent in their joy.” And the Gospel says: “Love your enemies, and pray for them that despitefully use you. For if ye love them who love you, what reward have ye? This do also the robbers and the publicans.” And those that do good it teaches not to boast, lest they become men-pleasers. For it says: “Let not your left hand know what your right hand doeth.”
To Autolycus, Book I, Section 2 and Book III, Section 14.
Here Theophilus joins three separate threads of scripture – Matthew 25: 31-46, a slightly different version of Isaiah 66:5 (evidencing the variations, alterations, and differences between ancient and modern biblical texts), and what appears to be an abbreviated version of Matthew 5:44-46 – to come to the supreme conclusion: What we do to others is what we do to Christ, not for the praise of men but the Love of God. When we love and serve others then we are loving and serving Christ. When he hate, hurt, or kill others then we are hating, hurting, and killing Christ. It is in this context that the sobering warnings of D&C 42:18 and D&C 132:27 should be understood:
And now, behold, I speak unto the church. Thou shalt not kill; and he that kills shall not have forgiveness in this world, nor in the world to come.
D&C 42:18
The blasphemy against the Holy Ghost, which shall not be forgiven in the world nor out of the world, is in that ye commit murder wherein ye shed innocent blood, and assent unto my death, after ye have received my new and everlasting covenant, saith the Lord God; and he that abideth not this law can in nowise enter into my glory, but shall be damned, saith the Lord.
D&C 132:27
When a member of the Church kills another person they have committed a sin which Christ has said that He will forgive neither in this world nor in the world to come. True, murder specifically is equated with blasphemy against the Holy Ghost, but the scriptures taken together testify that no killing of another human shall be forgiven. And why? Because in doing so we murder Christ. Christ is in the stranger, the foreign, the competitor, and our enemy. When we mock, spit upon, hit, beat, abuse, bomb, shoot, or kill another person then we are spitting upon, hitting, beating, abusing, bombing, shooting, and killing Jesus Christ. We have, in the words of D&C 76: 34-35, “crucified him unto [our]selves and put him to an open shame.” The Romans and Jewish leaders of the past had at least a cloak of ignorance in which to hide their sins and by which to hope for forgiveness. We do not. And we will be judged accordingly.
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That is all for Part 1. Part 2 will post next Wednesday, Feb. 10th, 2021, wherein I will finish off the Second Century AD/CE and continue into the Third Century. I will also discuss what changes in the Third Century that transforms much of Christianity into the tool of warmongering nationalism that we unfortunately see so often today.