Mr. Turn-the-Other-Cheek-Only-to-a-Point.
And in the blue corner, mocked and spat upon for his weakness, rejected by zealots, with a sign nailed over his head saying, "The son of a liberal":
Mr. Clement Athenagoras
What, then, are those teachings in which we are brought up? “I say unto you, Love your enemies; bless them that curse you; pray for them that persecute you; that you may be the sons of your Father who is in heaven, who causes His sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the just and the unjust.” Allow me here to lift up my voice boldly in loud and audible outcry, pleading as I do before philosophic princes. For which of those [smart, intelligent, elite philosophers and rhetoricians]…have purged their souls so that, instead of hating their enemies, they love them? And instead of speaking ill of those who have reviled them (to abstain from which is of itself an evidence of no mean forbearance), to bless them; and to pray for those who plot against their lives? …But among us you will find uneducated persons, and artisans, and old women, who, if they are unable to prove with words the benefit of our doctrine, yet by their deeds they exhibit the benefits that arise from their persuasion of its truth: they do not rehearse speeches, but exhibit good works; when struck, they do not strike again; when robbed, they do not go to law; they give to those that ask of them, and love their neighbors as themselves. Athenagoras, Plea on Behalf of the Christians 11
For when they know that we cannot endure even to see a man put to death, though justly; who of them can accuse us of murder or cannibalism? Who does not reckon among the things of greatest interest [are] the contests of gladiators and wild beasts, especially those which you [the emperor] sponsor? But we, deeming that to see a man put to death is much the same as killing him, have forbidden ourselves such spectacles. How then, when we do not even watch it so as to avoid guilt and pollution, can we put people to death? And when we say that "those women who use drugs to bring on abortion commit murder, and will have to give an account to God for the abortion," on what principle should we commit murder? For it is not fitting that the same person who regards the very fetus in the womb as a created being and an object of God's care, to be willing to kill it well after its birth. Athenagoras, Plea on Behalf of the Christians 35
Will not Christ, who has blared a song of peace to the very ends of the earth, gather together His own soldiers of peace? Indeed, O people, he did assemble a bloodless army by His blood and His word, and to them he entrusted the kingdom of heaven. Christ’s trumpet is His gospel. He blew it, and we heard. Let us put on the armor of peace: putting on the breastplate of righteousness and taking up the shield of faith and putting on the helmet of salvation. Let us sharpen the sword of the Spirit which is the word of God. This is how the Apostle arranges us in the battleline of peace. These are our invulnerable weapons. Armed with them, let us take our position against the evil one. Clement of Alexandria, Exhortation to the Greeks 11
The Etruscans use the trumpet [to charge into] war, the Arcadians use the pipe, the Lacedemonians the flute, the Thracians the horn, the Egyptians the drum, and the Arabs the cymbal. But as for us, we make use of one instrument alone: only the Word of peace, by whom we honor God, no longer with ancient harp or trumpet or flute which those trained in war use. Clement of Alexandria, Christ the Educator 2.4.42:2-3
Do not be deceived, you who have tasted of truth and have been deemed worthy of the great redemption! Contrary to the rest of the people, gather for yourself an army without weapons, without war, without bloodshed, without anger, without stain; an army of pious old men, of orphans loved by God, of widows armed with gentleness, of men adorned with love…whose Commander is God; for whose sake a sinking ship rises, steered by the prayers of saints alone; and disease at its height is subdued, put to flight by the laying on of hands; and the attack of robbers is disarmed, its weapons stripped by pious prayers…. Clement of Alexandria, Salvation of the Rich 34:3
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