St. Augustine on Peace and War

If good people feel disgust at a nation which-simply with a view to extending its dominion-spontaneously provokes a war with neighbouring States which are at peace with it and have done them no harm-then I can only say that I applaud their praiseworthy feelings.'-De Civitate Dei, IV, xiv.Remarkably little seems to have been written on this subject. Yet Augustine is quite justly described as the Father of the Philosophy of History,' and even if he had not treated of the subject almost 'ex professo '-as we hope to show-no remarks of his on the part war has played in the history of the world could fail to be of interest. So far the only discussion on his attitude to the problems are a Paper by Fr. Vincent Scully, C.R.L., in the Clergy Review for Feb., 1932, and also Ypres de la Brière, La Conception de la Paix et de la Guerre chez S. Augustin, Revue de la Philosophic, 1916. See too R. Regout, S.J., La doctrine de la guerre juste de S. Augustin ii nos jours d'apres les théologiens et les canonistes catholiques, 1935, though the author is more concerned with Franciscus de Victoria who has, he thinks, broken with scholastic teaching on the requisites for a just war.The above passage-so peculiarly apropos to the events of to-day-shows us what the Bishop of Hippo's reactions to the present crisis would have been. Yet to gentle, peace- loving Augustine, ever absorbed in the needs spiritual as well as temporal of his flock, war was--as indeed it must be to every thinking man--something unspeakably horrible

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