Whom to Kill....

Though, for the moment, the threat--absurd, useless, and repugnant as it was--to attack Syria seems to have abated for the time being, the questions raised by that prospect--as well as other recent US military endeavors in Iraq, Afghanistan, and elsewhere--are major questions of lasting significance. They are not new questions as Christians have grappled with them from the beginning. One answer to them has already been suggested by Stanley Hauerwas, who used to keep on his door at Duke a poster which read: "A Modest Proposal for Peace: Let the Christians of the World Agree That They Will Not Kill Each Other."

Last year Ron Sider put together a collection of texts from various early Christian and patristic sources on the uses of violence. Sider seems to be one of those evangelicals who, in the last three decades, has, to some extent, "discovered" the Christian East, as this collection suggests: The Early Church on Killing: a Comprehensive Sourcebook on War, Abortion, and Capital Punishment (Baker Academic, 2012), 224pp.

About this book we are told:

Noted theologian Ron Sider lets the testimony of the early church speak in the first of a three-volume series on biblical peacemaking. This volume offers a thorough, comprehensive treatment on topics of perennial concern--war, abortion, and capital punishment--providing English translations for all extant data directly relevant to the treatment of these issues by the early church until Constantine. Primarily, it draws data from early church writings, but other evidence, such as archaeological finds and Roman writings, is included. The book contains brief introductions to every Christian writer cited and explanatory notes on many specific texts. The Early Church on Killing will be a helpful text in courses on ethics, theology, and church history.

We are also given the table of contents: 

Introduction
Part 1: Christian Writers before Constantine

1. Didache

2. The Epistle of Barnabas

3. First Clement

4. Second Clement

5. Apocalypse of Peter

6. Justin Martyr

7. Tatian

8. Irenaeus

9. Athenagoras

10. Clement of Alexandria

11. Tertullian

12. Minucius Felix

13. Didascalia apostolorum

14. Julius Africanus

15. Origen

16. St. Cyprian

17. Gregory Thaumaturgus

18. Dionysius of Alexandria

19. Archelaus

20. Adamantius, Dialogue on the True Faith

21. Arnobius of Sicca

22. Lactantius

Part 2: Church Orders and Synods

23. Apostolic Tradition

24. Three Later Church Orders

25. Synod of Arles

Part 3: Miscellaneous Items

26. The Infancy Gospel of Thomas

27. Paul of Samosata

28. The Acts of Xanthippe and Polyxena

Part 4: Other Evidence of Christian Soldiers before Constantine

29. "The Thundering Legion"

30. A Third Century Christian Prayer Hall Near a Military Camp

31. Epitaphs

32. Military Martyrs

33. Eusebius's Ecclesiastical History

34. An Early Christian Kingdom?

Afterword

Indexes