Welcome back to the Fourth Wave podcast. Today, we are continuing our series on nonviolence by looking at some examples of nonviolence employed in antiquity. I think there's often a common misconception that nonviolence as a group action strategy is something which only existed from Gandhi on, like Gandhi and then the civil rights movement and now people have kind of picked that up and and are using it. Only in the twentieth century did this start. However, as we're going to see today, non violence actually existed pretty far back in history.

This ignorance of the existence of nonviolence in history is often bemoaned in the nonviolent community. First, it's bemoaned because history always seems to record and emphasize the negative, right? We're always focused on wars and bad things that happen. It's a lot like the news. You only report something if it's newsworthy, and it's only newsworthy if it's bad, like impending doom.

Some stations have tried to change this in in the past decade or two by adding in like these community spotlights and things. But by and large, we see the news as a platform which tells us about the few terrible acts in our world while passing over the vast majority of wonderful, benevolent acts. To the non violent community, it seems like history is academia's news of sorts. It tends to do the same thing with violence that our our media does today. What's notable, what makes history is these speed bumps in time, it's not the the times when everything's functioning well and everything looks good.

So war is notable, peace is not. I think one of the other reasons that non violence gets ignored throughout history is that it wasn't a cohesive strategy until pretty recently. Like now, people are employing non violence all the time, like it's strategy. Whereas it it wasn't as cohesive before, it wasn't something that people maybe saw as a tool to be in their repertoire. It might have kind of just sprung up and happened, or it a lot of times like the examples that we're gonna see today, it sprung forth from the character of the people.

And one thing that I don't like about non violent action is that a lot of times what's gonna happen is people are going to try to separate, they're going to try to divorce the character and lifestyle from the strategy. So since we don't really see nonviolence employed as a strategy throughout history, when we study nonviolence, a lot of times you only start fairly recently. But when you view nonviolence as something that exudes out of a culture or out of a character, then that's just kind of, that's a cultural observation and it doesn't get lumped in with non violence. And I think that's maybe what happens with the two examples that I'm gonna give you today. In the non violent community, particularly the Christian non violent community, but even the secular one, you're going to find that people who talk about nonviolence are going to emphasize that while nonviolence might work without somebody having a character of nonviolence, like without loving, truly loving their enemies, it tends to work far better when non violence isn't implemented strictly as a strategy in a moment, but when it exudes from character and lifestyle, that's when it becomes powerful.

And you can see this very clearly in someone like MLK, and we've quoted Doctor. King a number of times throughout our series on this, and there are two specific quotes which stand out to me here. The one quote, he we've talked about a number of times, but he recounts how he gave up his weapons and armed guards to live consistently with the message that he was preaching, the message of non violence. So he recognized that this was not a move of strategy, but it was rather something which comported with who he was and who he wanted to be. So nonviolence kind of exuded from his character and ideology.

The other quote is where King, much like Frederick Douglass and other black writers, recognizes the racist whites as themselves being captives, though they were captives to an ideology rather than to a social structure. And rather than hate his white oppressors, as I so often struggle with when I think back to just the terrible things that white nationalists and just people during the civil rights era and in slavery, I think of the terrible things that they were doing, it's hard for me not to hate them in retrospect. King, while he was suffering persecution from them, viewed them as men and women in need of being freed themselves. His non violence therefore, it flowed out from a core ideology which viewed humanity, even the enemies, human enemies, it viewed them as image bearers of God worthy of love. King identified that we don't fight against flesh and blood, other humans are not our true enemies that we should seek to destroy.

Instead, it's principalities, powers, injustices and wicked ideas that we fight and it's those things that are truly keeping us in bondage even to King, his white brothers and sisters. And how you hold such a view while somebody is persecuting you and those you love, I don't know. But I don't know how else he could have been non violent if that wasn't who he was. Yet today, what we do is we tend to highlight King's work and we view it as a strategy that anyone could employ rather than an outpouring of character of who he was. And I'm sure those who don't have the same ideology as King could and did participate in the civil rights movement along with other movements, non violent movements throughout history.

However, viewing the core of historical non violent movements as something purely strategic and divorced from character isn't something that I as a Christian really view as ideal. I think that's gonna be difficult for you to do and to do consistently. The force of love infused into nonviolent strategy tends to add power to it and it tends to be what sustains many through the difficulties nonviolent action brings. In the heat of the moment, one's character will be invaluable to helping them maintain their nonviolent action. Now there are some groups who are currently training people to be nonviolent just like soldiers get trained to do violence, there are groups who are training people to be nonviolent as a strategy.

So certainly, training can and does provide some effectiveness. But again, as a Christian, divorcing enemy love from nonviolence, I don't think is a good thing and I think pragmatically, which doesn't justify something, but pragmatically I don't think it's going to work as much as enemy love. And that's because going back to our last episode, if God created the world a particular way, then the more we're in line with that world, the more things probably will end up working for the better in the long run. So I can just do something pragmatically to fix somebody else in an attempt to fix somebody else, and it might work, but the truest, deepest reconciliation and restoration is going to come if I'm more in line with the good universe that a good God created. And so if I love my enemies, my non violent action should be more powerful than if I am just trying to objectify them for my own purposes without killing them.

Alright, I think that's enough of an introduction for now, so let's jump into the episode at hand. Today we're talking about non violent actions in antiquity, and for this episode, I'm going to largely be using an old book which you can get in the public domain, I'll link that below in the show notes. And the book is called Victories Without Violence. It's a compilation of a bunch of pretty short stories, I think like a hundred or so throughout ages. Most of them come from modernity, well not modernity, but you know, up through like the eighteen hundreds and maybe early nineteen hundreds.

But it does have a couple of stories from antiquity. And you're going to see the two stories that I mentioned, at least one of them mentioned quite a quite a bit, but the other one, maybe not so much. So let's start with the the lesser known one. And this one is pulled directly from the Bible. We get it from two Kings six.

Now again, I want you to understand that I am not claiming that this is going to show a non violent strategy of sorts. There's not this nonviolent movement that's implemented. However, the action that was employed was consistent with nonviolent action, and it was seemingly foolish, yet it created a positive result. So this is non violent action that worked even if it wasn't intended to be non violent action that works. So in the story, Aram goes to attack Israel, and Elisha prays to God, God blinds the enemy and Elisha leads the enemy into the city walls where they're captured.

Now the king turns to Elisha and says, Hey, do I kill these guys or what? Like we've we've got them right where we want them. And Elisha says, No, don't do that. You wouldn't kill those you captured in battle with your sword or bow, so don't kill these prisoners. Now it does strike me as a little bit odd when in the rest of the Old Testament, it's filled with a different sort of ethic where you're just like killing man, woman and child apparently.

And here Elisha's like, No, we don't we don't kill our prisoners. So that would be something interesting to explore why Elisha says that, that the ethic change was were some of the older passages using hyperbole. So there'd be some stuff to explore there. But Elisha basically argues, hey, it's our ethic not to kill those that we've captured. And so instead of slaughtering this enemy force that came to kill and raid Israel, they provide a feast for these enemy soldiers, for the prisoners, and then they send them back.

And the passage ends with this quote, The bands of Aram stopped raiding Israel's territory, end quote. Now obviously, we don't get a full glimpse into the rationale of either side. Why did Aram stop? Was it because of this? Seems like it, but maybe it wasn't.

How long did they stop attacking? How good were their relation? There's a lot that we don't know. But in in this particular story, it sure seems like it's framed so that we see a particular ethic from Elisha and and the king at the time, and we see a non violent action, and we see the result is peace. So this foolish act of feeding your enemy and releasing a large enemy force which has continued to raid Israel throughout your history, not only did they employ this non violent action but it ended up pacifying the enemy.

So that's pretty cool. Okay. Another story from antiquity, and this involves a famous person that you all probably know, and that is Pontius Pilate. Now if you listen to my case study on Pilate in our consequentialism series, then you've heard me reference this story as a background for who Pilate was and how he's a consequentialist, I think. One of the reasons that Pilate may have been such a pushover when it came to the crucifixion of Jesus was because of an earlier interaction that he had with the Jews, and that's the interaction that we want to look at today.

Pilate had come into the region heavy handed against the Jews, and he tried to abolish some of the Jewish laws, and he tried to bring in idolatrous images of Caesar. He snuck in those idolatrous images at night under the noses of the Jews. And the Jews did not like it at all. They petitioned Pilate for days and days until Pilate got sick of it. And so on the last day that that they were coming to petition, Pilate actually hid his army and then when a large crowd of Jews came to petition petition Pilate, he brought out his army because he could see that they weren't going to give up.

He told the Jews that they needed to go away or they'd be killed immediately by the sword. Well, the Jews in unison responded by lying down and laying their necks bare for the Roman soldiers. They said they were willing to die on the spot but that they couldn't allow their laws to be transgressed. So Pilate relented and removed the idolatrous images. Now I'm not sure what Pilate's reasoning was here.

Maybe he was moved emotionally, I don't know. However, with as heavy handed as he was, and with the background knowledge that we have of the region and who he was, I have different suspicions. It doesn't seem like Pilate was from the ruling class initially. He couldn't afford a rebellion, which is what he'd have on his hands if he killed all all of the Jewish leaders who weren't resisting. Surely, a lot of the Jews would have risen up in in anger if he had just slaughtered their leaders who weren't even fighting.

At the same time, Pilate made a miscalculation because for him to bring the image of Caesar in and then withdraw it was disrespectful to the image of Caesar. It would have just been better off if he had not brought the image in at all because then he could just say, well, you know, we're choosing not to bring the image in. But if you bring the image in and then it gets sent back, that's a slight against Caesar. So it's quite possible that this event put Caesar on shaky ground with Rome while also giving the Jews the knowledge that they had power over Pilate. They knew that they could move him.

And this Podunk people used non violence to effectively keep their customs against the strongest army and ruler in the world. It's a really interesting story and I'll put a link to Pilate's, the YouTube video that's really interesting on Pilate's in the show notes. Now our final story here. This is the story of the ruler Caligula. Now Caligula was upset that the Jews had torn down the statue which had been set up to him twice.

Therefore, he ordered a statue of himself set up in the Jewish temple, directly in the temple. Knowing that this would cause outrage among the Jews, he sent several legions and auxiliary troops under the command of Petronius to enforce the erecting of this statue. Obviously, the Jews wanted nothing of the sort, so they met the army with a large multitude of, not soldiers, but men, women and children. And here's what transpired, and this is going be a lengthy quote but it's so interesting, so listen up. Here's the quote.

Quote, and when they insisted on their law and the custom of their country and how it was not permitted them to make either an image of God or indeed of a man and to put it in any despicable part of their country, much less in the temple itself. Petronius replied, and am not I also, said he, bound to keep the laws of my own Lord? For if I transgress it and spare you, it is but just that I perish, while he that sent me, and not I, will commence a war against you, for I am under command as well as you. Hereupon the multitude cried out that they were ready to suffer for their law. Petronius then quieted them and said to them, will you then make war against Caesar?

The Jews said, we offer sacrifices twice every day for Caesar and for the Roman people, but that if he would place the images among them, he must first sacrifice the whole Jewish nation, and that they were ready to expose themselves together with their children and wives to be slain. At this, Petronius was astonished and pitied them on account of the inexpressible sense of religion the men were under, that courage of theirs which made them ready to die for it. So they were dismissed without success. End quote. So the courage of an unarmed group of men, women and children who fought with their willingness to self sacrifice basically stopped Petronius' legions in their tracks and turned them around.

And so, word got back to Caligula and obviously when he found out about it, he was not very happy. He ordered Petronius to be killed. However, the story goes that the Jews did pray fervently for Petronius and it just so happened that the ship carrying execution orders for Petronius got shipwrecked due to bad weather. While a ship sent several months later with the news of Caligula's untimely death actually made it to Petronius a full month before the execution orders eventually reached him. So I just imagine how crazy that is that Petronius finds out Caligula is dead and then a month later, he gets a letter that Caligula orders him killed.

That's humorous for sure. He was miraculously saved from death or maybe it was just a coincidence, I don't know. But either way, he avoided death from that situation. There are a number of things that I want to point out from from these stories here from antiquity. First, obviously, not all encounters with Rome turned out so wonderfully.

Rome crucified a lot of people. And I'm not saying that non violence would have always worked or did always work, but you have to at least admit that it sometimes works. Arguably, even when it doesn't work, it tends to lead to less severe consequences, and, in the last episode we did talk about how it, at least through current research, does seem to work more often and better. Now in this podcast, we have talked time and time again about the cycle of violence. How violence breeds fear, how violence escalates problems, it's cyclical.

Violence may provide short term victories, but in the end, it ends up losing in terms of long term results. The destruction of Jerusalem came in seventy AD in large part when the Jews used physical violence against the Romans and attempted to usurp their authority. That started around '66. Unlike the Jews in the story of Caligula who made sacrifices for the emperor and for Rome, which is reminiscent of Paul telling us to pray for all people, unlike those Jews, the Jews prior to the siege of Jerusalem usurped authority and did physical violence against Rome. They didn't just disobey some orders that conflicted with their religion, they attempted to wrest power from the government.

Two very, very different things. So though I'm not saying here that nonviolence always works and that there are never negative consequences for being willing to sacrifice yourself, I am saying that it can work, it can work a lot better and it tends to lead to smaller scale consequences if there are consequences. Now again, let me reiterate that consequences don't make something moral or immoral, but just for those of you who are consequentialists and think that you can't even start to look into non violence, I'd rather have a consequentialist who doesn't kill people and doesn't want to kill people than a consequentialist who kills, right? Seems better to me. So if this starts you down the path, great.

But the point is nonviolence can work and produce better results. The second thing I want to draw from the story is what I think is a beautiful pre Jesus depiction of submission to government alongside obedience to God. The Jewish refusal to participate in Rome's idolatry and celebrations didn't mean they necessarily failed to bring Rome before God. We see Jesus and Paul advocate the same thing as well as some Anti Nicene fathers who talk about praying for the country though they don't provide the nation with soldiers. So this seems to me to be a beautiful depiction of what it looks like to submit to government but obey God.

They are not trying to gain power over Rome, they're not trying to become their own rulers, they're just saying, Hey look, you know, we'll we'll go along with what you got but not when it not when it's gonna conflict with our our serving of God. American Christians could take special note of of this aspect of the story. Finally, in these stories, we see a God who makes a way out of no way. A common Christian retort to non violence today is that if our whole nation were non violent, then we'd be overrun and destroyed and conquered. And maybe that's true, but if we had a whole country willing to not kill enemies who are then taken as captives and dispersed throughout the world, I'm pretty sure that such radical Christians would transform the world in a generation.

I mean, what compelling lives that would be. So if that's the worst thing that could happen, that God disperses us and spreads the gospel, if that's the way that He's gonna do it, then so be it. Even that, I think is a pessimistic view of God's protective hand. I mean, we see in the Old Testament that kings were supposed to, not supposed to accrue the implements of war like chariots, and that there wasn't supposed to be a standing army. David and others even had to hire out commander positions to train Israel how to do war.

And when David did number his army, God got ticked and seventy thousand people ended up dying. Israel, God's people, were always supposed to be dependent on God. And we, who are living in Christ's kingdom now, who Jesus reigns, sits at the right hand of the throne of God now and rules and power, I would say we're probably supposed to do the same thing, live in faithful integrity and allow the ends to be determined by God and we just maintain our faithfulness to the means. The story of Petronius shows us that God can make a way out of no way and there was no way that Petronius should have had his head kept on because he disobeyed the emperor. Yet, and then not even that but considering, okay, it was possible that Caligula died before he got the news of Petronius.

And well, that didn't happen. Petronius', maybe not betrayal, but Petronius' failure made it back to Caligula and Caligula sent to have him killed. But somehow, I think the time was like three months, three months this letter was sidetracked because of shipwreck and such and the letter that came three months following this for a total of four months because then the execution letter made it a month after the death letter. I mean, that's crazy. That's crazy that the execution letter got sidetracked four months for this exoneration to come to Petronius.

Now God didn't owe that Petronius and doing the right thing doesn't mean that God's always going to protect you. But the Jews were interceding for Petronius as Petronius had asked and God worked out a miracle in that situation. And so faithfulness isn't always going to produce the results that we like, but we can be faithful because we know that God is in control and He can save us. And if He doesn't, then He's got something else in the works and that's okay. You can find some more examples of nonviolent action in antiquity in the books Victories Without Violence and Nonviolent Action.

There are also stories in Is There No Other Way? And I think that covers like some from India and China. You know, you can't find a plethora of examples like you can from the twentieth century onward. And as we discussed, part of that might be a progressive movement away from violence as a solution, or at least viewing non violence as an option, a strategy. Part of that might be due to a loss of accounts through time, and part of it's probably due because peaceful acts don't really produce road bumps in history and aren't noted by historians.

And they note the evil, the bad, the speed bumps. So as this series progresses, I think you'll begin to see how even in modernity, we tend to frame our stories and our histories, the ones that we we should have written accounts about, we tend to frame them to exclude the peaceful way. And we're going to see this especially in World War II, but also in the American Revolution and the Cold War. We're going to see how we write out non violence, we write non violence out of history. I remember when I first came to read more about non violent history, I mean, was flabbergasted all of the accounts that there were that I had never heard of, like on large scales.

One of the ones that we're gonna get to, I don't want to ruin it, but I have to tell you, like if you go Google this, the Baltic Way, never heard a thing about it, never. And when you see it, it's it's just one of the most moving things like holy cow. Like the the guts that these people had and the number of people that were involved, like just amazing. So I'm excited to get into some of these stories as we move through this season. Hopefully this episode provides you with two concrete examples, three I guess, if you count the second Kings one, concrete examples of non violence from antiquity.

I know it's not much, but I think it's enough to show you that non violence did exist throughout history, and it's a I hope it's enough to get you questioning how we approach history. That's going to be something that we come back to and reference a lot, I think, throughout this season. Well, that's all for now. So peace, and because I'm a pacifist, when I say it, I mean it.