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Exodus 32 and the Theory of Holy War: The History of a Citation

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  10 June 2011

Michael Walzer
Michael Walzer
Affiliation:
Harvard University
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Extract

Throughout much of the history of political thought in the West, the Bible was at once a constitutional document and a kind of case book, putatively setting limits to speculation as well as to conduct. Theologians and political theorists were forced to be judges interpreting a text or, more often, lawyers defending a particular interpretation before the constituted powers in church and state or before the less authoritative court of opinion. The Bible became, like other such texts, a dissociated collection of precedents, examples and citations, each of which meant what the lawyers and judges said it meant.

Type
Research Article
Information
Harvard Theological Review , Volume 61 , Issue 1 , January 1968 , pp. 1 - 14
Copyright
Copyright © President and Fellows of Harvard College 1968

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References

1 Compare, for example, Numbers 11:1, 11:4–34, 16:41–49, 21:5–6.

2 Exodus 18:21.

3 Winnett, F. V., The Mosaic Tradition (Toronto, 1949), 48–50Google Scholar, 146f, 161; Cook, S. A., Critical Notes on Old Testament History (London, 1907), 75Google Scholar; Meek, T. J., Hebrew Origins (New York, 1960), 134ffGoogle Scholar. But see the different view of Albright, W. F., From the Stone Age to Christianity (New York, 1957), 299ffGoogle Scholar.

4 The development of Augustine's thought on persecution is carefully traced by Deane, Herbert A., The Political and Social Ideas of St. Augustine (New York, 1963), Chapter VIGoogle Scholar.

5 Augustine, City of God, Book XVIII, 2 and XIX, 7, 12 (trans. Walsh, Zema, et al.).

6 City of God, Book XV, 5.

7 Letter XCIII, paragraph 8 (trans. J. G. Cunningham). It is necessary to distinguish this struggle of wicked men and good men from that defense of the peace of the earthly city (described above) which Augustine calls “just” (City of God, Book XIX, 7). Good men may fight against wicked men in a just war, but they do so as members of the earthly city and so represent only the limited goodness that pertains to that city. Hence they fight a limited war. A just war has a beginning: it begins with a specific violation of worldly peace. And it has an end: it ends when that peace has been restored (not improved upon) by defensive action. But the war of the wicked and the good has no beginning or end, or rather, it is coterminous with the earthly city itself, which had its beginning at the Fall. It is not started anew by each particular aggression, nor is the activity of the good necessarily defensive (or limited). The theories of the just war and the holy war (or crusade) represent two radically different Christian defenses of the use of violence. Both have their origins in Augustine and a long history thereafter. For a discussion of the two traditions in later history, see Roland Bainton, Congregationalism: From the Just War to the Crusade in the Puritan Revolution, Andover Newton Theological School Bulletin 35:3 (April, 1943), 1–20.

8 Letter XCIII, paragraph 6.

9 See Aristotle's Politics, Book III, C. VII.

10 Oeuvres Complètes de Saint Augustin (Paris, 1873), Vol. 23, 279Google Scholar.

11 Deane, Political and Social Ideas, 215ff.

12 See the discussion in Deane, p. 199 and references there. One of the criteria for a “just war” is that it be waged at the command of a legitimate sovereign.

13 Villey, Michel, La Croisade: essai sur la formation d'une théorie juridique (Paris, 1942), 30ffGoogle Scholar.

14 Villey, 36ff.

15 Villey, 39.

16 Aquinas, Summa Theologica, 2a, 2ae, Q. 40.

17 The following paragraph is based on an interpretation of Summa Theologica, 2a, 2ae, Q. 64, Articles 3 and 4.

18 Summa Theologica, 1a, 2ae, Q. 105, Article 1.

19 De Jure Belli ac Pacts, Book II, XX, xxxix.

20 De Jure Belli ac Pacis, Book II, XX, ix and xiv.

21 The imagery of warfare was frequently employed in Calvin's sermons to describe the activity of the saints and the response of Satan and his worldlings; for some examples, see Commentaries upon the Prophet Daniel (London, 1570)Google Scholar, Sig. B2; Sermons on the Epistles of St. Paul to Timothy and Titus (London, 1579)Google Scholar, Sermon 9 on Timothy, p. 100.

22 Sermons on the Fifth Book of Moses (London, 1583), p. 1203Google Scholar. In his Commentaries on the Four Last Books of Moses (Edinburgh, 1854), Vol. III, 351ff.Google Scholar, Calvin denies that there is anything cruel in the slaughter of brethren: “Moses only wished to condemn that absurd regard to humanity whereby judges are often blinded …” It should be said that the long discussion of Exodus 32 in the Commentaries is not directly relevant here, since Calvin is not citing the passage in the course of an argument, but expounding it in detail. Citation depends, to a degree, on previous exposition, but often the exigencies of argument will lead a writer to use a particular passage in a way not yet canvassed by the expositors.

23 Knox, John, Works, ed. Laing, D. (Edinburgh, 1846–48), Vol. III, 311fGoogle Scholar.

24 The Institutes of the Christian Religion, Book IV, XX, x (trans. John Allen).

25 See for example the remarkable sermon which John Owen preached just after the execution of Charles I, Works, ed. Goold, W. H. (Edinburgh, 1862), Vol. VIII, 127ffGoogle Scholar.

26 Faircloth, Samuel, The Troublers Troubled (London, 1641), 24fGoogle Scholar.

27 Aubrey's Brief Lives, ed. Dick, O. L. (Ann Arbor, 1962), 157Google Scholar. See also the entry “Moïse” in Voltaire's Dictionnaire philosophique.