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The miles Christianus (Christian soldier) or miles Christi (soldier of Christ) is a Christian allegory based on New Testament military metaphors, especially the Armor of God metaphor of military equipment standing for Christian virtues [1] and on certain passages of the Old Testament from the Latin Vulgate. [2] The plural of Latin miles (soldier) is milites or the collective militia. [3]
By the 5th century, the Church had started to develop doctrines that allowed for Christian participation in battle, though this was limited by a requirement that the fighting must be undertaken to convert infidels or spread the glory of Christ. Christians were not to fight for conquest or personal glory. [4]
The concepts of miles Christi and militia Christi can be traced back to the first century AD. [4] The phrase miles Christi, derived from a letter from Paul the Apostle and much employed by Pope Gregory VII, also appeared in the Gesta Francorum in reference to the young Prince Tancred, Bohemond, Godfrey and Count Raymond of Toulouse, [5] each of whom were Christian leaders in the First Crusade.
The metaphor has its origins in early Christianity of the Roman Empire, and gave rise to the contrasting term paganus (hitherto used in the sense of "civilian," "one lacking discipline") for its opposite, i.e. one who was not a soldier of Christ. [6]
Chivalry as the idealized image of knighthood was a common moral allegory in early Christian literature. [4] During the Saxon Wars, Charlemagne's Christian knights attended mass, surrounded by relics, before battles. [4]
Fragments from 15th c. Polish chronicler Jan Długosz describe the sanctification of weapons and a concept of knighthood that was grounded in religion. [4] It became a theme in art during the High Middle Ages, with depictions of a knight with his various pieces of equipment identified with various virtues. This parallels the development of the understanding in medieval Christendom of the armed nobility as defenders of the faith, first emphasized by Gregory VII in the context of the Investiture controversy and later made even more explicit with the actual military expeditions of the crusades. Depictions of the miles christianus with the emblematic Armour of God however remained very rare in the medieval period and only became prominent after the Protestant Reformation. [7]
In the early modern period, the understanding of the term again became more metaphorical, but it survives in various Christian orders or confessions; it is especially pronounced among the Jesuits and in the Salvation Army, and it is the central theme of the 18th century hymn "Soldiers of Christ, Arise" and the 19th century hymn "Onward, Christian Soldiers."
There is a Korean-American religious group called the Soldiers of Christ, which became the center of a 2023 murder case. [8]
A knight is a person granted an honorary title of knighthood by a head of state or representative for service to the monarch, the church or the country, especially in a military capacity. Knighthood finds origins in the Ancient Greek hippeis (ἱππεῖς) and Roman equites.
Chivalry, or the chivalric code, is an informal and varying code of conduct developed in Europe between 1170 and 1220. It is associated with the medieval Christian institution of knighthood, with knights being members of various chivalric orders; knights' and gentlemen's behaviours were governed by chivalrous social codes. The ideals of chivalry were popularized in medieval literature, particularly the literary cycles known as the Matter of France, relating to the legendary companions of Charlemagne and his men-at-arms, the paladins, and the Matter of Britain, informed by Geoffrey of Monmouth's Historia Regum Britanniae, written in the 1130s, which popularized the legend of King Arthur and his knights of the Round Table. All of these were taken as historically accurate until the beginnings of modern scholarship in the 19th century.
Christian art is sacred art which uses subjects, themes, and imagery from Christianity. Most Christian groups use or have used art to some extent, including early Christian art and architecture and Christian media.
Athleta Christi was a class of Early Christian soldier martyrs or military saints, of whom the most familiar example is probably Saint Sebastian. It also could be used to refer to Christians with exemplary martial prowess, especially when fighting against non-Christians or heretics.
Miles Christi or Milites Christi may refer to:
The crusading movement was a framework of ideologies and institutions that described, regulated, and promoted the Crusades. Members of the Church defined the movement in legal and theological terms based on the concepts of holy war and pilgrimage. Theologically, the movement merged ideas of Old Testament wars that were instigated and assisted by God with New Testament ideas of forming personal relationships with Christ. The concept of crusading as holy war was based on the ancient idea of just war, in which an authority initiates the war, there is just cause, and the war is waged with pureness of intention. Adherents saw Crusades as special pilgrimages – a physical and spiritual journey under the authority and protection of the Church. Pilgrimage and crusade were penitent acts and they considered participants part of Christ's army. While this was only metaphorical before the First Crusade, the concept transferred from the clergy to the wider world. Crusaders attached crosses of cloth to their outfits, marking them as followers and devotees of Christ, responding to the biblical passage in Luke 9:23 which instructed them to carry one's cross and follow Christ. Anyone could be involved and the church considered those who died campaigning martyrs. After the First Crusade the movement became an important part of late-medieval western culture, impacting politics, the economy and society.
In some strains of Christian theology, the Christian Church may be divided into:
In Christian tradition, the Four Evangelists are Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, the authors attributed with the creation of the four canonical Gospel accounts. In the New Testament, they bear the following titles: the Gospel of Matthew; the Gospel of Mark; the Gospel of Luke; and the Gospel of John. These names were assigned to the works by the early church fathers in the 2nd century AD; none of the writers signed their work.
In Catholic tradition, the Five Holy Wounds, also known as the Five Sacred Wounds or the Five Precious Wounds, are the five piercing wounds that Jesus Christ suffered during his crucifixion. The wounds have been the focus of particular devotions, especially in the late Middle Ages, and have often been reflected in church music and art.
Church music is Christian music written for performance in church, or any musical setting of ecclesiastical liturgy, or music set to words expressing propositions of a sacred nature, such as a hymn.
Sophia is a central idea in Hellenistic philosophy and religion, Platonism, Gnosticism and Christian theology. Originally carrying a meaning of "cleverness, skill", the later meaning of the term, close to the meaning of phronesis, was significantly shaped by the term philosophía as used by Plato.
The four senses of Scripture is a four-level method of interpreting the Bible. This method originated in Judaism and was taken up in Christianity by the Church Fathers.
The Military Saints, Warrior Saints and Soldier Saints are patron saints, martyrs and other saints associated with the military. They were originally composed of the Early Christians who were soldiers in the Roman army during the persecution of Christians, especially the Diocletianic Persecution of AD 303–313.
Christians have had diverse attitudes towards violence and nonviolence over time. Both currently and historically, there have been four attitudes towards violence and war and four resulting practices of them within Christianity: non-resistance, Christian pacifism, just war, and preventive war. In the Roman Empire, the early church adopted a nonviolent stance when it came to war because the imitation of Jesus's sacrificial life was preferable to it. The concept of "just war", the belief that limited uses of war were acceptable, originated in the writings of earlier non-Christian Roman and Greek thinkers such as Cicero and Plato. Later, this theory was adopted by Christian thinkers such as St Augustine, who like other Christians, borrowed much of the just war concept from Roman law and the works of Roman writers like Cicero. Even though "Just War" concept was widely accepted early on, warfare was not regarded as a virtuous activity and expressing concern for the salvation of those who killed enemies in battle, regardless of the cause for which they fought, was common. Concepts such as "Holy war", whereby fighting itself might be considered a penitential and spiritually meritorious act, did not emerge before the 11th century.
The phrase Christian soldier may refer to:
The New Testament uses a number of military metaphors in discussing Christianity, especially in the Pauline epistles.
"Soldiers of Christ, Arise" is an 18th-century English hymn. The words were written by Charles Wesley (1707–1788), and the first line refers to the armour of God in Ephesians 6:10–18.
Christ in the winepress or the mystical winepress is a motif in Christian iconography showing Christ standing in a winepress, where Christ himself becomes the grapes in the press. It derives from the interpretation by Augustine and other early theologians of a group of passages in the Bible and is found as a visual image in Christian art between about 1100 and the 18th century, as well as in religious literature of many kinds. The image in art underwent a number of changes of emphasis, while remaining fairly consistent in its basic visual content, and was one of the relatively few medieval metaphorical or allegorical devotional images to maintain a foothold in Protestant iconography after the Reformation.
Militant Christianity may refer to:
The history of Christian flags encompasses the establishment of Christian states, the Crusader era, and the 20th century ecumenical movement.