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The 9th century Irish monk, Sedulius Scottus,
wrote an interesting parable that interacts with the heart of just war and the
Book of Mormon that I explained in my latest
book. In his work he compares a righteous prince who sought peace for his
enemies even after war with an evil prince.[1]
In contrast with this righteous prince, the wicked prince continued to fight
after refusing a sincere offer of peace. Sedulius wrote this to illustrate and
expand upon the concept of the peaceful heart first elucidated by Augustine and
Isidore of Seville.
This interacts with the Book of Mormon and illustrates key
concepts of just war within the text. The prince that prays for peace and his
enemies even after war recall the Nephites who were “sorry” and “reluctantly
compelled” to take up arms against the Lamanites (Alma 48:21-24). The Nephite
felt sorry because they had to send so many unrepentant sinners into the
afterlife. And they displayed the kind of hearts that welcomes Lamanite
converts like the Anti Nephi Lehis and prisoners who make a covenant of peace into
their midst (Alma 62:16-17), even after the many murders that the latter had
committed. This reinforces the idea that the heart of the important wielding
the sword is paramount and provides an illustration of the peaceful and violent
heart.
I described the violent heart of the second wicked prince in
my first
book. The story of a leader whose heart is so hard and warlike that they
refused peace is found both within the Jaredite civil war and the Chinese War
of the Eight Princes. Coriantumr saw the slaughter of the civil war which
prompted him to repentance (Ether 15:2-6).
This story contains the often-ridiculed number of two
million people. Before we consider that number, it shows that critics would
rather pettifog an inconsequential detail and miss the much more important
morale of the story. Indulging that trivial detail, the number isn’t as
implausible as the critics contend and shows us the savagery of the war and
God’s wrath on the people. Ether 15 doesn’t refer to a single battle, but to
the massive slaughter described in Ether 14. The losses of two competing
factions over at least 8 battles of Ether 14,[2]
plus numerous cities being overthrown (Ether 14:17), and multiple instances of
women and children being slaughtered (Ether 14:17, 22), mean that two million
is an entirely plausible
number of dead. The ancient capital of China, Luoyang, had a population of
600,000 but only held a few thousand by the end of the War of the Eight Princes
(see below.) If the Jaredites had a few
cities even a fraction of that size, the extirpation of “many” cities described
in Either 14:17 and 22 easily accounts for many of those supposedly ludicrous
“millions” of deaths.
Returning to the more important moral of the story, after
that slaughter Coriantumr began to repent, and wrote the leader of the side
trying to find peace. But Shiz, showing the stone heart of the unrighteous
warrior, demanded Coriantumr give himself up to be slain. The latter naturally
refused, and both continued to fight until the bitter end.
When I first studied this civil war, I compared it to the
Chinese War of the Eight Princes because it had a very similar example. One of
the eight princes in the civil war, Sima Yong, executed Zhang Fang and sent the
head to the rival prince, Sime Yue, as part of a peace offer to no effect. The
offer of peace might not have been sincere, but it was a chance to stop a war
that was so devastating it turned one of the ancient great capitals of the
world into a graveyard where “bleached bones covered the field.”
The story shows the creativity of this Irish monk and
reinforces the importance of Alma 48:21-24. I find those verses in Alma the
most important of the war chapters and the most important scripture about
warfare. The Title of Liberty really enthralls with its martial glory, but I’ve
witnessed too many militant militia members with the Title of Liberty on their
wall to fully rely on this story without significant caution from Alma 48. Being
reluctant warriors is more important but far less romantic and hence less well
known. It is only reading Sedulius that I realized those verses in Alma contrast
with the rejected peace deal in Ether 15, to show different kinds of hearts.
On a final note, it shows me once again that my instincts
are very good. I’m not very famous. I can’t even make a list of lesser known Mormon
scholars. (I’m Starlord
man… Come on.) My posts on social media have more scammers than actual people
liking them. I don’t have the right letters by my name, and I don’t work for
any organizations that impress you. Lots of people look at my lack of worldly
fame, credentials, and obscurity even within the Mormon community, and they
cast me aside with a chortle and a few insults.
But my ideas are solid. I regularly express ideas that are
later validated by impressive scholars. The day I wrote this piece Robert
Kagan, holding some endowed chair of geopolitics, agreed with my analysis
on the use of human shields. In this
and this
post I explain key details about preemptive war that I later found in academic
literature on the subject. I intuitively grasped the heart of just war here
(about halfway
down) and refuted the “renounce war, proclaim peace” cudgel a decade before
I read any Christian thinkers.
The tale of the two princes highlights my intuitive grasp of
the heart found in Alma and Ether. The story from Seludius further solidifies
and shows examples of the hearts that renounce war and proclaim peace, but also
shows how the righteous wield the sword. It contrasts with those that are
hardened beyond feeling, even though the warfare of both types of people might
look similar. I hope it helped you think more deeply about the matter. Thanks
for reading.
************
[1]
Sedulius Scottus, Liber De rectoribus Christianis, 47.
[2]
Ether 14:3, 4, 5 (a siege with combat), 11, 14, 16, 22 (multiple slaughters of
soldiers and civilians, “shedding blood to shedding blood”), and 26.
