“Peace should be the object of your desire; war should be waged only as a necessity, and…”
Peace should be the object of your desire; war should be waged only as a necessity, and waged only that God may by it deliver men from the necessity and preserve them in peace. For peace is not sought in order to the kindling of war, but war is waged in order that peace may be obtained. Therefore, even in waging war, cherish the spirit of a peacemaker.
Augustine of Hippo · Letters · NPNF1 I, Letters, Letter CLXXXIX (to Boniface), 6
Written in about 418 to Boniface, the Roman commander in Africa, who had asked whether a soldier could be a Christian. It is the passage the later doctrine of the just war is drawn from, and its whole weight falls on the word necessity.
How this is known
These words were matched, word for word, against this project’s own copy of the volume cited.
The project holds the volume this row cites, NPNF series 1 vol. 1, and the build matches these words against its bytes at every rebuild. The four sentences are contiguous in the volume; a first draft of this row joined the first and the last and the build refused it, which is what the verbatim check is for.
Read in Cunningham, NPNF series 1 vol. 1 (1886) · J. G. Cunningham, M.A.
Also by
- Augustine of Hippo every saying recorded of this person, and their page