The Peace Christ Brings

Who, then, has done this? Who has united in peace people who hated one another, except the beloved Son of the Father, the common Savior of all, Jesus Christ, who by his own love endured everything for our salvation? For even long ago the peace he was to bring in was prophesied, where the Scripture says: “They will beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into sickles, and nation will not take up the sword against nation, and they will not learn war any more.” And this is at least not incredible, since even now the barbarians who have an inborn savagery of manners, while they still sacrifice to the idols of their country, are mad against one another and cannot bear to be a single hour without weapons. But when they hear the teaching of Christ, at once they turn from fighting to farming, and instead of arming their hands with weapons they raise them in prayer. In a word, instead of fighting among themselves, from then on they take up arms against the devil and against evil spirits, subduing them by self-restraint and virtue of soul. [a]

Now this is at once a proof of the divinity of the Savior, since what people could not learn among idols they have learned from him, and no small exposure of the weakness and nothingness of demons and idols. For the demons, knowing their own weakness, used for this reason to set people at war with one another, for fear that, if they stopped fighting among themselves, they would turn to battle against the demons. Indeed, those who become disciples of Christ, instead of making war on each other, stand in battle array against demons by their habits and their virtuous actions. They rout them and mock their captain, the devil. So in youth they are self-controlled, in temptations they endure, in labors they persevere, when insulted they are patient, when robbed they make light of it; and, wonderful as it is, they despise even death and become martyrs of Christ.