The PREFACE.

...expedition into Africa, where he tells his army that valor never achieves victory unless it is accompanied by justice. And in another speech of his, before the battle fought near Carthage, he says, “We appeal to God as our witness, the smallest atom of whose power is able to outweigh all human strength. He, as we believe, weighing the causes of the war justly, will give successes to this battle that are due to both parties.” The truth of this saying was undoubtedly proven shortly after by the remarkable outcome of that fight. Similarly, Totilas King of the Ostrogoths (r. 541–552 AD) spoke to his Goths, saying, “It is impossible—I say, it is absolutely impossible—that those who use violence and injustice should gain honor in battle.”

Book 2.

“But as a man’s life is, so is his fortune in war” original Latin: Sed prout vita cuique est, ita ei obtingit belli fortuna. It was therefore well-advised by Agathias a 6th-century Greek poet and historian that injustice and contempt for God are to be abhorred as dangerous at all times, but especially when the fortune of war is to be decided by a battle.

The good success of wicked designs should not discourage us.

Neither should any person be discouraged because of the prosperous success of some wicked plans. It is enough that the righteousness of a cause has a very great power to inspire valor and stir one to action, even though that power (as often happens in human affairs) is sometimes hindered and frustrated in its effects by the interference or opposition of other causes. Besides, the reputation that men have—that a war is neither started recklessly nor managed unjustly—is very effective in building alliances contract friendship, from which both private individuals and nations and kingdoms reap infinite advantages.

The justice of our cause sometimes gains friends.

For no one will willingly associate themselves with those who have no regard for justice, piety, or faithfulness.

The author's motives to undertake this work.

Now, based on the reasons recited above, and concluding for myself that there was a certain law common among nations that guides them both in entering into and conducting wars, I had many—and very significant—motives that induced me to compile this treatise on the subject. For I saw throughout the Christian world such a widespread license for making war, and for resorting to arms for every trivial cause (and sometimes for no cause at all), that even barbarians would have

1. A general license in making war; and in managing it without restraint.

been ashamed to admit to it. I also saw that once arms were taken up, there was no respect at all for laws, whether divine or human. It was as if some Fury in Greek and Roman mythology, Furies were goddesses of vengeance who brought madness and destruction had been sent out to kill and destroy; once war began, a general license was granted to commit every kind of mischief whatsoever.

The consideration of this barbarous cruelty led many good men to teach that it is not lawful for a Christian (whose religion primarily consists of promoting love and charity among all people) to take up arms. Johannes Ferus a 16th-century Franciscan preacher and our countryman Erasmus Desiderius Erasmus, the famous Dutch humanist and pacifist

Erasmus and Jo. Ferus.

seem to agree with this at times, as both were great lovers of peace, both in the church and the state. But, as I see it, they did this with the same intent we usually have when we bend a crooked stick far to the opposite side so that when it returns, it might become straight. However, this strategy of extreme opposition is so far from doing good that it actually does much harm. This is because we can easily see that by pushing these arguments too far, they undermine their own authority in other matters...