Who were the first Christian soldiers?
When I was at divinity school as a student veteran, I heard a lot of theologians try claim that there was no evidence of soldiers in the Church until the 2nd century. It always made me feel like I was in the Twilight Zone. What definition of the word “church” excludes the New Testament; had they not heard of Cornelius?
Turns out they didn’t know WTF they were talking about, even if there is debate as to whether Cornelius was a soldier or a veteran. The fact is that there are plenty of soldiers who joined the Church before it was even born on Pentecost. Some are more debatable than others, and I’ve included my reasons for including them in this list. Links are provided to their ☧eople page.
Rakes are lovable scoundrels, like the soldiers accompanying a tax collector to the River Jordan, where John the Baptizer gives them a piece of his mind in Luke 3:14. It was there that Jesus was baptized. We are told in Luke 7:29 that everyone had “been baptized with the baptism of John.” In other words, Jesus was baptized beside soldiers - you can’t get any earlier in Church history than that!
Three gospels depict different versions of an occasion that makes Jesus “marvel” at the great faith of a military official. Matthew 8 and Luke 7 describe him as a centurion, but John 4 is closer to the mark by calling him a “royal official.” There were no Roman legionaries in Capernaum, Herod relied on local aristocrats to train and lead local recruits and hired guns.
Loginus is the name given to a character in the Gospel who may be two different people. The first is the Roman soldier who pierces Jesus’ side to hurry his death in John 19:32-34. In the synoptic gospels, he is a centurion who witnesses miracles upon Jesus’ death and says, “Truly this man was God’s Son” in Matthew 27:54 and Mark 15:39 and “Surely this man was innocent” in Luke 23:47.
Cornelius was a centurion of the Cohors II Italica Civium Romanorum mentioned in Acts 10. He and his family were the first gentile converts to Christianity (the Ethiopian eunuch’s religious status is unclear), and oral tradition holds that he became the first bishop of Caesarea, the capital of the Roman Province of Judea.
This governor of Cyprus commanded all Roman forces on the island, which was also home to a large Jewish population. In Acts 13, he is converted to the faith after a visit from Psaul and Barnabas.
Dez was the desmophylax, or jailer, of Philippi in Acts 16, a position unlikely to be filled by a civilian in the most politically significant of Roman veteran colonies. When an earthquake miraculously frees his prisoners, Psaul and Silas, he is so afraid of what his superior officers will think of his failure that he attempts suicide. After Psaul convinces him he has good reason to live, Dez and his entire family are baptized.
Onesimus and Philemon
Philemon was a leader in a Christian community in Asia Minor and the addressee of Psaul’s letter of the same name. The letter was written on behalf of Philemon’s runaway slave, Onesimus. Given Philemon’s circumstances (wealthy resident of a veteran colony, possessed slaves, etc.), it’s entirely plausible that Onesimus and Philemon fought on opposing forces in battle, with the former being taken as spoil by the latter.
Caesar’s saints
In Psaul’s epistle to the Christian military community in Philippi, the Apostle to the Gentiles sends his greeting to “all the saints… of Caesar’s household.” (v.4:22) These letters are the earliest writings that made it into the Christian canon, meaning Christians who served in the military before Luke 3:14 testified to their presence several decades later.
