[674] For opinions of early Christian writers and the attitude of the Church on the soldier’s profession and the rightfulness of war, see Grotius, _Rights of War and Peace_, tr. Whewell, pp. 49 ff. [675] Harnack, _The Expansion of Christianity_ (1904), vol. ii, p. 205. [676] See above, p. 277. [677] Throughout the medieval ages and down almost to our own day these Old Testament records, misread, were used to justify many of the cruelties of war, and other atrocities: Plunder and pillage were supported by reference to the divinely approved “spoiling of the Egyptians” by the Israelites. The right to massacre unresisting enemies was based upon the command of the Almighty to the Jews in the twentieth chapter of Deuteronomy. The indiscriminate slaughter of whole populations was justified by a reference to the divine command to slaughter the nations round about Israel. Torture and mutilation of enemies was sanctioned by the conduct of Samuel against Agag, of King David against the Philistines, of the men of Judah against Adonibezek. Even the slaughter of babes in arms was supported by a passage from the Psalms, “Happy shall he be, that taketh and dasheth thy little ones against the stones.” Treachery and assassination were supported by a reference to the divinely approved Phinehas, Ehud, Judith, and Jael; and murdering the ministers of unapproved religions, by Elijah’s slaughter of the priests of Baal.--ANDREW D. WHITE, _Seven Great Statesmen_ (1910), pp. 85 f. [678] Lecky believes this to have been the main cause of the transformation in the Church. “The transition,” he says, “from the almost Quaker tenets of the primitive Church to the essentially military Christianity of the Crusades was due chiefly ... to the terror and the example of Mohammedanism” (_History of European Morals_, 3d ed., vol. ii, p. 252). But, as we have seen, the transition was already nearly complete before the rise of Islam. [679] In a portrayal of the character of the Scandinavians, the Church historian Schaff observes: “Their only enthusiasm was the feeling of duty; but the direction which had been given to this feeling was so absolutely opposed to that pointed out by the Christian morality, that no reconciliation was possible” (_History of the Christian Church_, vol. iv, p. 110). Yet in the important domain of ethics which we are here examining this is exactly what did happen. [680] _History of European Morals_, 3d ed., vol. ii, p. 253. [681] Josiah Royce, _The Philosophy of Loyalty_ (1908).