[Footnote 13:  The priests wore the garland, when they sacrificed to the Heathen gods.]

But though unquestionably the idolatrous services, required of the soldiers of those times, hindered Christians from entering into the armies, and compelled those, who were converted in them, to leave them, nothing is more true, than that the belief, that it was unlawful for Christians to fight, occasioned an equal abhorrence of a military life.  One of the first effects, which Christianity seems to have produced upon its first converts, when it was pure and unadulterated, and unmixed with the interpretations of political men, was a persuasion, that it became them, in obedience to the divine commands, to abstain from all manner of violence, and to become distinguishable as the followers of peace.  We find accordingly from Athenagoras, and other early writers, that the Christians of his time, abstained, when they were struck, from striking again, and that they carried their principles so far, as even to refuse to go to law with those who injured them.  We find also, from the same Athenagoras, and from Theophilus Antiochenus, Tatian, Minucius Felix, and others, that they kept away from the shews of the gladiators.  This they did, not only because these shews were cruel; but because, as Theophilus says, “lest we should become partakers of the murders committed there.”  A similar reason is also given by Athenagoras on this occasion:  “Who is there, says he, that does not prize the shews of the gladiators, which your emperors make for the people?  But we, thinking that there is very little difference whether a man be the author or spectator of murder, keep away from all such sights.”  And here it may be observed, that the gladiators themselves were, generally prisoners of war, or reputed enemies, and that the murder of these was by public authority, and sanctioned; as in war, by the state.  Now what conclusion are we to draw from these premises?  Can we think it possible, that those, who refused to strike again, or to go to law with those who injured them, and who thought an attendance at the gladiatorial spectacles criminal on the principle, that he who stood by was a murderer, though the murder was sanctioned by law; should not have an objection to the military service, on the principle, that it was unlawful to fight?

In short, the belief of the unlawfulness of war, was universal among Christians in those times.  Every Christian writer of the second century, who notices the subject, makes it unlawful for Christians to bear arms.  And if the Christian writers of this age were of this opinion, contrary to all their sentiments before their conversion, and wholly from their knowledge of divine truths, why should not others, who had a common nature with these, be impressed, on receiving the same truths, in a similar manner?  And so undoubtedly they were.  And as this belief was universal among the Christians of those times, so it operated with them as an impediment to a military life, quite as much as the idolatry, that was connected with it, of which the following instances, in opposition to that of Marinus, may suffice.