De arte praedicatoria

To soldiers John the Baptist says: Do not shake anyone down, do no injury to anyone: be content with your wages.¹ Let soldiers have as an example of their life the blessed martyr Sebastian, a soldier, who under the emperor Diocletian so exercised temporal military service that he did not abandon the spiritual struggle: rendering to Caesar what was Caesar's, and to God what was God's. Also the blessed Victor, the blessed Hippolytus, and many others, who through strenuously performed material military service, merited to be happily raised to the eternal military service of the highest King. The Theban cohort also so outwardly wore the belt of military service, that inwardly it served God devoutly. For outward military service is a figure of the inward military service, and without the inward, the outward is empty and vain. Now just as there are two parts of man, bodily and spiritual, so there are two swords pertaining to repelling the various assaults upon man; the material, by which injuries are repelled; and the spiritual, by which vexations of the mind are repelled. Whence it is said: Behold, here are two swords.²

Let the soldier therefore be girded outwardly to restore the violent peace of the times; and inwardly also with the sword of the word of God, to restore the peace of his own breast. Soldiers were specially instituted for this, that they might defend their fatherland, and repel from the Church the injuries of the violent, but now soldiers have become plundering leaders of others, have become cattle rustlers; nor do they now practice military service, but robbery, and under the guise of a soldier, they take on the cruelty of a bandit: nor do they so much fight against enemies as rage against the poor; and those whom they ought to protect with the shield of military defense, they persecute with the sword of savagery. Now they prostitute their military service, they fight in order to profit; they take up arms in order to plunder. Now they are not soldiers, but thieves and plunderers; not defenders, but invaders. They sharpen their swords into the bowels of mother Church, and the force which they owe to expend on enemies, they expend on their own; but their enemies (either cast down by sloth, or terrified by fear) cease to be invaded, and they compel their swords to rage against the unwarlike servants of Christ.

To honest military service both temporal gifts are owed, and the wages of eternal reward are not denied. And although certain men are bound by office to exercise bodily military service, all are bound by precept to take up spiritual military service. The material soldier dwells in camps, abstains from the embraces of his wife, is content with meager food, intent on watches, clothed in arms, resisting enemies, providing for his fellow soldiers. Such ought every man to be in spirit, as the material soldier is in act. Of the soldier of Christ it is said: The life of man upon earth is a military service.³ And elsewhere: We have no lasting dwelling here.⁴ Likewise the Apostle says that here we are guests and strangers, yet in the future, citizens of the saints and members of the household of God.⁵ The Christian, therefore, in the pilgrimage of this life, ought to live as if in camps, so that he may not think he has a lasting dwelling here, but await an eternal habitation in the heavens. Of these habitations it is said: In my Father's house there are many dwellings.⁶ That he may live as if about to die at any moment, that he may dwell in the tabernacle of the flesh as if about to depart at any moment, let him be free from the embraces of earthly delight, let him flee the flood of gluttony; let him watch against the snares of the spiritual thief, let him be clothed with spiritual arms, let him put on the breastplate of faith, let him be girded with the sword of the word of God, let him be armed with the lance of charity, let him take up the helmet of salvation. Thus armed, let him fight against a threefold enemy: against the devil, lest he plunder; against the world, lest it entice; against the flesh, lest it desire unlawful things. Let him provide for his fellow soldiers, that is, the faithful: giving generously, if they are in need; admonishing, if they lack; sympathizing with the sick, rejoicing with the healthy.