ishment means not only physical suffering, but also purification, ennoblement, catharsis. Now, this is the view the Jewish Prophets time and again take of war. War is punishment - not only in the sense of causing physical suffering for spiritual and social transgressions, but also in the sense of purification of bringing home to men those ethical and spiritual lessons which they seem unable to learn by more peaceful methods.

In fine, we may sum up the attitude of the Bible towards war as follows:

First, it recognizes the necessity of war under certain conditions, though it is dominated by the ideal of peace.

Secondly, it differentiates between noble and ignoble wars, commanding the former and condemning the latter, and

Thirdly, it affirms the value of war as an ethical corrective and a means of spiritual purification.

THE ETHICS OF WAR IN THE BIBLE

CRITICISM of the ethical standards of the Old Testament is quite common. In this regard the Old Testament is held to be inferior to the New. Champions of the former have often deemed it their duty to defend it against its detractors. But I have never seen a defense of the ethics of the Old Testament that had touched one particular point. As a rule, people ignore this important fact: that there is a vast difference between the ethics of peace and the ethics of war in the Old Testament. As for the ethics of peace, few will deny that it reaches its acme in the Old Testament. Righteousness is the master-word of its pages. It tests all life by the rule of Righteousness. Though in some details we may have to revise or to amplify Old Testament conceptions, we must nevertheless admit that every page, every line, of it is impregnated with the spirit of righteousness. The ethics of peace taught by the lawgivers and the prophets of Israel has never been surpassed.

But it is different when we come to the ethics of war. The New Testament in this regard has the advantage over the Old in that it does not deal with the subject of war. This it does not do because its attitude to war is other than that of the Old Tes

tament. It condemns neither war nor the soldier's occupation. On the contrary, the good soldier's conduct is commended by no less a man than St. Paul as an exemplar of the spiritual life. "Thou therefore endure hardship," he writes to Timothy, "as a good soldier of Jesus Christ. No soldier on service entangleth himself in the affairs of this life, that he may please him who enrolled him as a soldier." In the Epistle to the Ephesians, St. Paul employs martial imagery for the depiction of the religious life.

"Put on the whole armour of God, that ye may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil. For our wrestling is not against flesh and blood, but against the principalities, against the powers, against the worldrulers of this darkness, against the spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places. Wherefore take up the whole armour of God, that ye may be able to withstand in the evil day, and, having done all to stand. Stand therefore, having girded your loins with truth, and having put on the breastplate of righteousness, and having shod your feet with the preparation of the gospel of peace; withal taking up the shield of faith, wherewith ye shall be able to quench all the fiery darts of the evil one. And take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God.'

The New Testament, thus, does not seem to spurn war as such. It does not deal with the subject of war, however, for a good reason. The New Testament is almost entirely a personal book, rather than a national. Its chief theme is personal salvation, and

the ordering of one's own spiritual life. The Old Testament, on the other hand, is preeminently a national book, and much of it is devoted to the story of the growth of the nation, with all its wanderings and wars. Now, when a comparison is made between the ethics of the Old Testament and of the New, this is what usually happens. The different character of the two works is overlooked and the best parts of the New Testament are compared with the worst parts of the Old. We are told of the spirit of love that prevails in the New Testament, and of the hate and hostility that are found in parts of the Old, without being reminded of the real reason of the disparity. This is due not to a difference between the ethical standards of the two works, but rather to the difference between the ethics of peace and the ethics of war among the people of the Bible.

The ethical conduct of war is, in a way, a measure of civilization. Of course, there are those who hold that all warfare is uncivilized, that it is but a relic of barbarism, and whether there is more or less ethics connected with it is a sheer accident. Time was when people held that war suspended the reign of law, and that whatever was done in the course of it, was fair. To this very day the necessity of war prompts the doing of things which would not be tolerated at any other time. That the conduct of war, also, is subject to ethical law, is a realization that has come to humanity but by

degrees. Even slower has been the improvement of the standards of war-time ethics. To-day it is commonly accepted, however, that, though war be a relic of savagery, those that engage in it must not relapse into savagery, and are still bound by the ethical law. The higher the ethics of a nation in war, the higher its civilization. Its progress is certified by its war-time ethics even more than by its ethics of peace. Nothing has hurt the Germans so much, nor so served to array the world against them, as the demonstration that their martial morality was so low, and so far beneath the standards of the Allies.

What was, we may ask, the war ethics of the Bible? The only true answer, much as we may regret it, is that, judged from the modern standpoint, it was not very high. As we read the account of how the Israelites dealt with their enemies, and the laws given them for the conduct of war, we cannot help feeling that they were severe and cruel toward their national foes, and that their attitude was untempered by any sense of the common humanity of man. The book of Deuteronomy, for example, is commonly considered a most humane interpretation of the Hebrew law. It is full of the spirit of kindness and humanity. All its ordinances and observances are colored by humane sentiment. Yet, when it comes to the discussion of war, what does it contain? Humane provisions for its own people: no man shall be allowed to join in a war who has good