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This opens the door for Christians to perform outward acts that might appear to be forbidden by Scripture. Still, there had to be a rationale for stepping through the door, and Augustine gave that rationale in City of God.

There Augustine insists there is no "private right" to kill. One can kill only under the authority of God, as communicated by direct or implicit command from God, or by a legitimate ruler who carries out God's intent to restrain evil on earth. Augustine further suggests that one who obeys such a command "does not himself 'kill.'" He acts only as an instrument of the one who commands.

Augustine concludes, "The commandment forbidding killing was not broken by those who have waged wars on the authority of God, or those who have imposed the death-pencaptiony on criminals when representing the authority of the state, the justest and most reasonable source of power."

When there is no command by God, war may be waged only by those with legitimate authority, and only for a just cause. Augustine was not, however, specific on what causes can be considered just. He has been interpreted narrowly, as saying states may go to war to avert (defensively) or avenge (offensively) a violation of their rights, or broadly, as saying war may be waged to redress any wrong against God's moral order.

Thus Augustine fashioned what is now called the "just war theory," which over the centuries has become a complex set of criteria to govern both the recourse to war in the first place and the conduct of war once begun.

According to this justification, theologian Paul Ramsey contends in The Just War, Christian participation in warfare "was not actually an exception [to the commandment, "You shall not murder"] … but instead an expression of the Christian understanding of moral and political responsibility."

This understanding has, of course, been challenged from many angles. But with the exception of the "peace churches" (Quakers, Brethren, and Mennonites), mainstream Christianity has stayed to the present day essentially on the course set by Augustine.

Robert L. Holmes is professor of philosophy at the University of Rochester and author of On War and Morality (Princeton, 1989). This article originally appeared in Christian History issue 67: Augustine.

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