17. In Joannis Evangelium, CXV, 2.
INTRODUCTION XIX most emphatic utterances on the subject, he thus paraphrases and interprets the words of Jesus before Pilate: "Hear then, ye Jews and Gentiles; hear, O circumcision; hear, O uncircumcision; hear, all ye kingdoms of the earth: I interfere not with your government in the world." Worldly rulers, he says, have Christ's assurance that He and His people constitute no danger to them:
Cherish ye not the utterly vain terror that threw Herod the elder into consternation when the birth of
Christ was announced, and led him to the murder of so man> infants in the hope of including Christ in the fatal number, made more cruel by his fear than by his anger: "My kingdom," He said, "is not of this world." What would you more? [And] He proved this by saying, "If my kmgdom were of this world, then would my servants fight, that I should not be delivered to the Jews."
Because they are not of this world. Christians do not interfere with its rule; yet it is plain, from the Scriptures, that they are to remain in the world: they are not to attempt to Hve apart. St. Augustine cites the words of Jesus to the Father:
"I pray not that Thou shouldest take them out of the world, but that Thou shouldest keep them from evil";^^ and also St. Peter's admonition to the faithful: "Submit yourselves to every ordinance of man for the Lord's sake; whether it be to the king as supreme; or unto governors, as unto them that are sent for the punishment of evil doers." ^^ Christians, he holds, are under religious obligation to cooperate with the earthly city in its efforts to check violence with violence.
It is not that they require the restraints of coercive
17. In Joannis Evangelium, CXV, 2.
18. Ibid.
19. I Peter, II. 13.