thief even if he gives back what he stole, but the king can out of mercy.
The reason for the latter is that war is a very grave punishment, by which not only he who sinned is punished, but many innocent people are also involved accidentally. Christian charity seems, therefore, always to demand that the war should end when he who did the wrong offers due satisfaction, unless perhaps something else is accidentally involved, for instance, if the enemy against whom one fights is such that it benefits the common good that he is subject to another or that he is completely destroyed. Such enemies were the Amorites, whom God ordered to be eliminated completely (Deuteronomy 20).
Second, it is to be noted that this third condition differs from the first two, because if those are absent, the war is unjust, but if this one is missing, the war is evil, but not properly speaking unjust. Whoever wages war without authority or just cause sins not only against charity, but also against justice, and he is not so much a soldier as a robber; but whoever has authority and just cause, and nevertheless fights for love of revenge or to enlarge the empire or for any other evil end, does not act against justice, but only against charity, and he is not a robber, but an evil soldier.
From this it is deduced that when only the third condition is lacking, soldiers and kings are not obliged to make any restitution but only to do penance, while when the first or the second condition is lacking, all are obliged to make restitution for damage caused, unless they are excused by an invincible ignorance. For just as a crass and guilty ignorance does not excuse from sin, so it does not excuse from restitution, as we explain in the last chapter, regarding injuries and damage inflicted. But whoever suffers from an invincible ignorance is not obliged to make restitution for as long as he suffers from such ignorance. But when he realizes that the war was unjust, he is obliged to make restitution not for the damage inflicted at the time of the war, but for anything he has gotten out of the war that was not his. If he has no possessions but has become richer by selling things, he is obliged to give back as much as he gained, for something that does not belong to him cannot be kept even if it has been acquired in ignorance and without sin; it must be given back to the owner, if he is known, or to the poor.
The fourth condition is the appropriate way of proceeding, which consists chiefly in this, that no innocent should be harmed, which John the Baptist explained in Luke 3: “Do violence to no man, neither accuse any falsely; and be content with your wages.”154 With these words John prohibits the injuries that soldiers usually inflict upon innocent people either by force or by treachery, either against their person or against their property. When he says, “Do violence to no man,” he prohibits the injury that people inflict with brutal violence, as when they kill the peasants if they do not readily obey. When he says, “neither accuse any falsely,” he prohibits the injury that is inflicted with treachery and calumny, as when they say that somebody is a traitor or an enemy, even if they know the contrary to be true, and with this accusation either rob him or kill him or bring him to the commander or the prefects. Indeed, when he adds, “and be content with your wages,” he prohibits the injury inflicted on somebody not to their person, but to their goods, as when they rage and pillage wherever they can, or demand and extort things from those who owe them nothing.
However, it must be observed that there are three kinds of people on whom soldiers cannot inflict any damage, according to the rule of John the Baptist. The first is composed of all those who do not belong to the commonwealth of the enemies, and from this rule soldiers who inflict some damage on citizens or friendly peasants with whom they are quartered or whose land they are passing cannot be excused. And neither are they excused if they say that they have not received their pay, for this does not entitle them to the goods of private citizens. The citizen or peasant should not pay the price if the king or commander sins by not paying stipends to the soldiers, unless, for just cause, the inhabitants of a certain place are condemned to this form of punishment, that is, of providing for the soldiers, but that happens rarely. The second kind of people are those who, even if they belong to the commonwealth of the enemies in some capacity, nevertheless are exempted by the chapter “Innovamus, de tregua et pace,” where it says: “We decree that priests, monks, those who live in convents, pilgrims, merchants, peasants who come or go or work in the fields, and the beasts by which they plow or bring the seeds to the field, should enjoy a fitting security.”155 Here “merchants” does not seem to mean those who live in the city of the enemies and are part of that city, but only those who are there in transit or who are going to market, but are not part of the city.
The third kind is composed of the people not suited for war, such as children, elderly people, and women, for such people, even if they can be captured and robbed since they are part of the city, nevertheless cannot rightfully be killed, unless they are killed by chance and by accident. Thus when a soldier shoots into a battalion of enemies and by chance kills a child or a woman or even a priest, he does not sin, but when he kills them intentionally and has the means, if he wishes, to avoid killing them, then he sins. In fact, natural reason teaches this, and God also commands the Hebrews in Deuteronomy 20 to spare children and women, and Theodosius was gravely reproached by Ambrose because when he wanted to punish the Thessalonians, he ordered all those who were in his way to be killed without discrimination, as Theodoretus reports in his Historia, book 5, chapters 17 and 18. The fact that Moses also sometimes ordered women and minors to be killed, as appears in Deuteronomy 2 and 3 and other places, does not mean that the same is lawful for our soldiers, as Moses clearly knew from God’s revelation that God wanted it, and to God no man can say, What doest thou?156
It is lawful for Christians to fight against the Turks
The question of the war against the Turks could certainly have been omitted if Luther among his other paradoxes had not brought forth this proposition and attempted also to defend it: that it is not lawful for Christians to wage war against the Turks. This is clear from the article that is condemned in the bull of Pope Leo, that is, article 34.157 Theodorus Bibliander seems to agree with Luther in Chronologia, table 13, where he says: “Urban, that most cruel tornado, driven by an evil spirit to indulge in homicide, started a war to regain Judea.”
However, it must be observed that Luther does not say that the war against the Turks was unlawful because he thinks that every war in general is unlawful, for in the assertio of his article he recommends war against the Pontiff who, he says, is a most Turkish Turk, and neither does he judge in this way because he thinks that Christians have no just cause, since it is evident to everybody that the Turks occupied the lands of the Christians without any right. Every day they want to occupy more land, and it is also evident that the Turks want to eliminate all religion and to see to it that men convert from Christianity to Islam. Finally, it is evident that ancient Pontiffs such as Urban II, Paschal II, Eugene III,158 and many others, together with general councils such as the Lateran, the Council of Lyon, the Council of Vienne, and others, declared a general war against the Muslims; and St. Bernard and other holy men in public speeches stirred the peoples to that war, and they strengthened their speech with miracles, as blessed Bernard himself indicates modestly at the beginning of book 1 of De consideratione. Luther does not deny any of these things, but there are three other reasons why he thought that it was not lawful to fight against the Turks.
First, because the will of God seems to be that we should be punished by the Turks as by a divine punishment, and it is not lawful for us to resist God’s will. That this is indeed God’s will he proves in the assertio of article 34, where he argues that experience shows that so far the war against the Turks has not given any benefit to the Christians.
But this first reason has little value, for even if God’s will is that our sin be punished through the Turks, nevertheless it is not His will that we should not resist the Turks; indeed His will is for us to resist, which is proved from the final cause. For God does not allow the Turks to rage against us so that we may die but so that we may convert, for we are led to converting when we try to resist the Turks who are assaulting us; and by resisting we suffer, and by suffering we recognize our weakness, and hence we turn to God with our whole heart and we beg Him for help. Therefore, from the final cause for which God allows the Turks