Early in the third century A.D., the aforementioned Origen of Alexandria responded to charges made seventy years earlier by the social critic, Celsus, who claimed that Christians neglected the public welfare of the Roman empire. He criticized Christians, declaring "...if all were to do the same as you [Christians]...the affairs of the earth would fall into the hands of the wildest and most lawless barbarians..." (Against Celsus, IV.68). Origen's response? If everyone acted like Christians, there would simply be no barbarians. To the critique that Christians did not serve the common good through military service, but should, Origen's response deserves a full rendering:
"And to those enemies of our faith who require us to bear arms for the commonwealth, and to slay men, we can reply: 'Do not those who are priests at certain shrines and those who attend on certain gods, as you account them, keep their hands free from blood, that they may with hands unstained and free from human blood offer the appointed sacrifices to your gods; and even when war is upon you, you never enlist the priests in the army. If that, then, is a laudable custom, how much more so, that while others are engaged in battle, these too should engage as the priests and ministers of God, keeping their hands pure, and wrestling in prayers to God on behalf of those who are fighting in a righteous cause. . . .We do take our part in public affairs, when along with righteous prayers we join self-denying exercises and meditations, which teach us to despise pleasures, and not to be led away by them. And none fight better for the emperor than we do. We do not indeed fight under him, although he require it; but we fight on his behalf, forming a special army—an army of piety—by offering our prayers to God'" -Against Celsus
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