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twenty-first century, Christians remained an antiwar cult. Christian writers emphasized the incompatibility of warfare with Christian teachings. Some characterized warfare as the work of evil spirits and weapons as cursed. They labeled the taking of human life in warfare murder. The Jewish War of A.D. 66–71 was viewed as God's punishment of the Jews for sinful ways, and the pursuit of war, and by extension the pursuit of power politics, was said to be activity for “the Gentiles,”unworthy of a Christian. They attacked the pomp of Rome as a glorification of warfare.
    The first-century Christian writer Ignatius called for an abolition of warfare. This would happen, according to him and other Christian writers, once the world embraced the teachings of Jesus Christ—to love one's enemies, to do good even to those who do evil, to respond to evil with goodness. Such determined love and goodness was not meant to be pacifistic but a program for actively fighting evil. Given their stance against soldiers and soldiering, even against police work, it is striking that Christians sought and got converts among the Roman Legions. Some historians believe that it was converted Roman soldiers who first brought Christianity to Britain.
    Origenes Adamantius, popularly known as Origen, the second-to-third-century Christian philosopher from Alexandria, clearly stated, “We Christians do not become fellow soldiers with the Emperor, even if he presses for this.” Christians would be loyal to the emperor, but they would not fight his wars. According to Origen, a Christian might pray for the success of a military state, even pray for the success of a military campaign, but could never participate in the military or in the government of a state that used military power. He did not condemn the military but only believed that it was forbidden for a Christian to participate. Christianity was about the promotion of love, and early Christians believed that love and killing were incompatible.
    Though no one doubted Origen's sincerity—after all, he had castrated himself in pursuit of personal purity—his was a dangerous position in a militarized state. Like many subsequent states, the Roman Empire was so invested in its military might that it found it difficult to conceive of a loyal citizen who would not participate in the central program—warfare. Origen understood this, since his father had been put to death for beliefs similar to his own. Origen himself, the most influential Christian thinker of his time, author of some 800 works, was imprisoned and tortured and died from his mistreatment shortly after being released, in about A.D. 254.
    Not all Christians were good Christians. Some were describedby other Christians as “behaving like Gentiles.” Starting in the mid-second century, under the reign of Marcus Aurelius, a notable persecutor of Christians, some Christians did become soldiers and others became magistrates. Apparently there was an attempt to force Christians into the military, for about this time the first evidence is found of Christians refusing to serve—Western history's first conscientious objectors.
    In general, Christians were becoming more troublesome rather than less. Their habit of seeking converts among the legions was a direct threat to empire building. Most soldiers, upon converting, refused to continue military service. Tertullian, a Roman centurian's son who converted to Christianity in 197, openly spoke of converting soldiers so that they would refuse to fight.
    Active practitioners of nonviolence are always seen as a threat, a direct menace, to the state. The state maintains the right to kill as its exclusive and jealously guarded privilege. Nothing makes this more clear than capital punishment, which argues that killing is wrong and so the state must kill killers. Mozi understood that the state's desire to kill had to do with power. He wrote: “Like unto these, too, are state officers and princes who make war on