Table Of ContentThe Quest for Peace
James Turner Johnson
The Quest
for Peace
Three Moral Traditions in
Western Cultural History
PRINCETON UNIVERSITY PRESS
Copyright © 1987 by Princeton University Press
Published by Princeton University Press, 41 William Street,
Princeton, New Jersey 08540
In the United Kingdom: Princeton University Press,
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found on the last printed page of this book
ISBN 0-691-07742-8 (cloth)
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CONTENTS
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS VII
INTRODUCTION x1
CHAPTER I. Christian Attitudes toward War and Military
Service 1n the First Four Centuries 3
A. Were the Early Chnsttans Pacifists? 3
B. The Rejection of Violence and Bloodshed I I
C. The Reject10n of War by Prominent Authors 17
D. Early Christian Service in the Roman Army 30
E. The Anatomy of the Constantmian Synthesis 47
CHAPTER II. Peace, War, and the Rejection of Violence 1n
the Middle Ages 67
A. A New Cultural Context 67
B. The Problem of Limiting Violence in a V10lent Society 75
C. Sectanan Pacifism 91
D. The Peace of the Heavenly City on Earth I 09
E. Conclusion 127
CHAPTER Ill. The Political Use of Force 1n the Renaissance-
Reformation Era I 33
A. The M1htary and Political Context 133
B. The Just War Inheritance 141
C. Humanistic Pacifism: Erasmus's Argument against War 153
D. Pacifism m Radical Rehgious Reform: The Anabaptists of the
Schleitheim Confession 162
E. Conclus10n I 70
CHAPTER IV. "Perpetual Peace" and Limited War 173
A. The Coalescence of Pacifist Tradition 173
B. The "Perpetual Peace" Ideal 176
C. The Limitation of Warm the Enlightenment Era 198
VI CONTENTS
CHAPTER V. The Quest for Peace in the Age of
Modern War 210
A. Abolition, Restraint, or Total War 210
B. The Renewed Quest for Peace 226
C. Internationalism and Universal Peace 253
CONCLUSION. Moral Ideals and the Quest for Peace 278
SELECT BIBLIOGRAPHY 285
INDEX 297
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
While the first ideas that led to this book are rooted in my
earlier historical studies in Western moral doctrine on war, the
process of concentrated research and writing that produced
these pages extended from 1982, when I first began to explore
sectarian and utopian pacifism in their Renaissance-Reforma
tion forms, to early 1986, when final revisions were made to
the typescript. Most of the actual writing, as well as a good
deal of the research, was done during two periods of fellow
ship support: in the summer of 1983, when I held a Summer
Stipend from the National Endowment for the Humanities,
and during a year of academic leave in calendar year 1984
made possible by a John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foun
dation Fellowship. My especial gratitude thus extends to the
National Endowment and to the Guggenheim Foundation,
without whose support this project would have been far more
difficult to complete. My thanks also to Rutgers University for
the Competitive Fellowship Leave given me in conjunction
with the Guggenheim Fellowship and to the Department of
Religion at Princeton University, which welcomed me as a vis
iting fellow during 1984.
Research for this book was done principally in the collec
tions of six libraries: at Rutgers, the Alexander and Douglass
Libraries; the Gardner Sage Library of New Brunswick Theo
logical Seminary; Princeton University's Firestone Library; the
Speer Library of Princeton Theological Seminary; and the Ban
gor Theological Seminary Library. This last was an invaluable
source during summer vacation times in Maine. I depended on
all the libraries near my home base in New Jersey about
equally, and had any one of them been lacking, this book could
not have turned out as it did. In particular, since my work al
ways crosses the familiar lines of division between the religious
and the secular, I could not have done without both of the two
sorts of library collections represented here: university and
VIII ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
theological seminary. My thanks to all the staff members of
these various repositories of wisdom who aided me at various
times.
A person's ideas, I think, are always better conceived when
honed against the perspectives of others. Thus I am especially
glad to have had a number of kinds of interaction, structured
and casual, with knowledgeable people (some of whom
agreed, and some of whom disagreed, with me) during the pe
riod when I was working on this study. The casual contacts
will have to be left anonymous, since there have simply been
too many worthwhile ones to list them all here. The structured
ones have been very numerous, too. I am grateful for a whole
group of invitations to lecture on Western moral tradition on
war at various colleges, universities, and professional meetings
from 1983 to 1985, largely in connection with the particularly
hot debate over United States defense policy that was being
carried on during that period. These occasions brought me, as
an interpreter of just war tradition, into close contact with per
sons who thought of themselves as pacifists of one or another
sort, as well as with people who used just war modes of rea
soning (or something akin to them) to reach pacifist conclu
sions. Among all these occasions I must mention several as
particularly valuable for honing my thoughts: at Georgetown
University in March 1983 and March 1984; at Duquesne Uni
versity in March 1983; at Princeton University in May 1983;
at the United States Military Academy in June 1983; at the
University of Colorado in November 1984; at Wesleyan Uni
versity in February 1985; and at the United States Army War
College in April and September 1985. In addition I gave two
"lounge seminars" on portions of this book in the Princeton
University Department of Religion in 1984 and 1985, as well
as a colloquium on another portion sponsored by my own de
partment at Rutgers in 1985. Finally, I have benefited over the
years from discussions in the Interest Group on War, Peace,
Revolution, and Violence of the Society of Christian Ethics.
No mention, however, of any of the above should be taken
to imply that anybody but myself is responsible for the inter-
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS ,x
pretations of Western moral traditions concerning the quest
for peace that I advance in this book.
As always, I am grateful to my wife, Pamela, and our chil
dren, Christopher and Ashley, for their forbearance and tol
erance as well as their support and quiet pride in a husband
and father who never strays far from reading other people's
books and essays and writing more of his own.
Finally, my thanks to Sandy Thatcher, Editor-in-Chief of
Princeton University Press, who has shepherded two previous
books of mine into publication, for his encouragement while I
was engaged in writing this one.
