Caesar and the Lamb: Early Christian Attitudes on War and Military Service

Through the available patristic writings Caesar and the Lamb focuses on the attitudes of the earliest Christians on war and military service. Kalantzis not only provides the reader with many new translations of pre-Constantinian texts he also tells the story of the struggle of the earliest Church the communities of Christ at the margins of power and society to bear witness to the nations that enveloped them as they transformed the dominant narratives of citizenship loyalty freedom power and control. Although Kalantzis examines writings on war and military service in the first three centuries of the Christian Church in an organized manner the ways earliest Christians thought of themselves and the state are not presented here through the lens of antiquarian curiosity. With theological sensitivity and historical acumen this companion leads the reader into the world in which Christianity arose and asks questions of the past that help us understand the early character of the Christian faith with the hope that such an enterprise will also help us evaluate its expression in our own time. Kalantziss skills as a historian shine in this remarkable illuminating history. But his narration is much more than a fine historical survey; it is also a profound engagement with the theological and ethical reasons on why this history matters. Historians theologians ethicists and anyone interested in discovering the witness of the early church are in his debt for such careful work. Any future discussion on the early churchs response to war and the Constantinian shift that occurred must now pass through Caesar and the Lamb or be ignored as incomplete. --D. Stephen Long Professor of Systematic Theology Marquette University Caesar and the Lamb is a wonderful collection of pertinent voices from the early church on war and military service that will be of interest to laity students and scholars. But it is also much more than this. Kalantzis brings new insight to these texts with his brilliant introduction placing the conversation in its proper context of identities worldviews and ways of life. The result is a collection with surprising and refreshing relevance today. --Daniel M. Bell Jr. Professor of Theology and Ethics Lutheran Theological Southern Seminary Caesar and the Lamb offers a valuable deepening of our understanding not only of early Christian teachings and practices related to violence but also the social-cultural-religious practices of the Roman Empire and the Roman military. This book contains both a helpful collection of the primary Christian texts and a substantial interpretive discussion. A significant addition to a growing Christian library of resources on this critical issue. --David P. Gushee Professor of Christian Ethics Mercer University In this careful presentation of the evidence for early Christian attitudes and practices surrounding war and military service George Kalantzis questions the notions that objections to military service were narrowly religious in a modern sense or that nonviolence was the minority opinion of the churchs intellectual elite. . . . Kalantzis makes no claims about the relevance of the ancient Christian understanding for modern believers but the challenge to the contemporary church should be obvious. --L. Edward Phillips Associate Professor of Worship and Liturgical Theology Emory University George Kalantzis is Associate Professor of Theology at Wheaton College where he also directs The Wheaton Center for Early Christian Studies. He specializes in fourth- and fifth-century historical theology and has written extensively on Theodore of Mopsuestia Cyril and the Nestorian controversy. His has recently co-edited The Sovereignty of God Debate (Cascade 2009) Life in the Spirit: Spiritual Formation in Theological Perspective (2010) and Evangelicals and the Early Church: Recovery Reform Renewal (Cascade 2011).