Christians in the Roman Army

[dwilkins]

I thought this might be an interesting attempt to focus on the military function of Christians in the early church. Of the observations in the article I thought the strongest was that there was no written record of Christians being prosecuted for refusal to fight. The silence of that sort of evidence is deafening.

https://gatesofnineveh.wordpress.com/20 ... narrative/

[Paidion]

It seems that there were many pacifists in the early church.

In the following Wikipedia article on Christian Pacifism, scroll down to "Early Church" and you will find quotes of eight who espoused pacifism, some of whom refused to engage in military service.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christian_pacifism

There are various sites which claim that pacifism was the stance of the early church, and other sites which claim that this was not the case.

Here is a website that gives arguments both for and against the stand that early church taught pacifism:
http://oneinjesus.info/2009/10/pacifism ... ly-church/

I am inclined to think that some of the early Christians refused to participate in war, while others did participate. I am of the opinion that the former outnumbered the latter.