Christians Towards War in the Late 4th and Early 5th Centuries

Abstract

From the beginning, the ancient Church leaned carefully on the issue of violence. This was due not only to the fundamental command in this matter flowing from the Decalogue, “Thou shalt not kill,” but also because of rapidly advancing historical, geographic and social changes. These changes made it necessary to look at the previous teaching of the Church, and with it the attitude of Christians, and consequently the evolution of the Church's position towards such a sensitive context of violence as war. This issue is the subject of this article. The purpose of the presentation is to analyze the changing position of the Church towards war at the turn of the 4th and 5th centuries. The time caesura is related to the dominant changes that took place at that time in the territories of the Western Roman Empire, namely the victory of Christianity and the slow collapse of the Empire caused by the influx of barbarian peoples into the territories of today’s Europe, which led to the beginning of a completely new era, both from a social and military point of view.