Page:Cecil John Cadoux - The Early Christian Attitude to War.pdf/11

 FOREWORD

is a book which stands in need of no introduction; it will make its own way by the demand for such a work, and by the exact and patient scholarship with which that demand has here been met. For we have no work in this country which effectively covers this subject; Harnack’s Militia Christi has not been translated, but it will probably be found that the present work fills its place.

But it is not only the need for this work (of which scholars will be aware), but the serious importance of the subject, which will make the book welcome. Argument for and against the Christian sanction of war has had to be conducted in the past few years in an atmosphere in which the truth has had small chance of emerging. Dr. Cadoux has his own convictions on this subject, which he makes no attempt to conceal; he believes that he is supported by the early uncorrupted instincts of Christianity, which here he sets out before us; but his personal conviction has never been allowed to conceal facts or make them out to be other than they are. He not only gives all the evidence on the opposite side, but he everywhere allows for influences and motives which might weaken the force of the facts which seem to support his own position. The work is impartial in the only way such a work ever can be, not because the