It's undeniable that a huge consideration for the early church in regard to joining the military was based on oaths soldiers may have had to take, required god worship, participation in carnal feasts and partying, intimidating behavior through the use of power, and the list could go on. It's for some of these same reasons that other, seemingly harmless professions were judged wrong for a Christian. As one great example, you can see a quote from the early church (Hippolytus, I believe) which condemns Christians who become actors. Now part of this may have been because some actors put on plays in the Colosseum and sometimes used the condemned as props in battle reenactments (so deaths weren't acted, but real), but the condemnation was likely due to other aspects of the theater scene which couldn't be separated from the immorality in which they were saturated.
While all of these additional reasons for prohibiting individuals from joining the military may be true, it seems very difficult to say that doing violence wasn't one of the issues the early church had. You can look at many of the quotes in section 4 and see that violence against those found guilty for capital punishment, violence in general, violence allowed by public laws, violence in self-defense, and violence to the extremely wicked are all things some in the early church were vocal about condemning. You can also look at the context of some of the soldiers like Martin of Tours who stated his reason for leaving the army as an inability to fight. Sure, the early church may have had reasons other than violence to prohibit jobs which required one to do harm to others, but violence was certainly one of the central reasons for such a prohibition.
While all of these additional reasons for prohibiting individuals from joining the military may be true, it seems very difficult to say that doing violence wasn't one of the issues the early church had. You can look at many of the quotes in section 4 and see that violence against those found guilty for capital punishment, violence in general, violence allowed by public laws, violence in self-defense, and violence to the extremely wicked are all things some in the early church were vocal about condemning. You can also look at the context of some of the soldiers like Martin of Tours who stated his reason for leaving the army as an inability to fight. Sure, the early church may have had reasons other than violence to prohibit jobs which required one to do harm to others, but violence was certainly one of the central reasons for such a prohibition.
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