Parlant de la carrière terrestre du Sauveur, Augustin dit: “ainsi apparut-il, un homme d'entre les hommes, Dieu caché.” Cette formule saissisante met en relief l'aspect particulier sous lequel le ministère de Jésus se présente dans les évangiles canoniques. Selon les hagiographes, Jésus cherchait à cacher sa nature véritable, ses miracles, sa doctrine, sa présence même, et, pourtant, il ne cessa pas de se manifester. “Il ne voulait pas qu'on le sût, mais il ne put demeurer caché” (Mc. 7, 24). Les pères de l'église, de Justin à Athanase et Chrysostome, insistaient sur ce clairobscur dans l'image évangélique du Fils de Dieu. Les miracles et les faits de Jésus révélaient depuis le baptême la divinité cachée dans la chair, dit à ce propos Méliton de Sardes. Mais les esprits forts haussaient les épaules. Si Jésus veut ne pas être reconnu et pourtant on le reconnait, c'est donc que sa volonté est impuissante.

The attitude of the early church toward the problem of participation in warfare has been not a little studied and controverted. The data with regard to participation and the attitude toward it have been assiduously compiled by a series of investigators among whom four may be mentioned for their distinctive and permanent contributions. Adolf Harnack in his Militia Christi pointed out that the early Christians rejected the militia of the world in favor of the militia of Christ. In theory the Church was pacifist until the time of Constantine though in practice some Christians were in the legions. James Moffatt in the course of a fruitful survey called attention to the shift in early Christianity from marital to martial metaphors. Whereas in the Old Testament infidelity was called adultery, in the New Testament and the early church it is described as desertion. Such militant terminology could be used by the early Christians “without the slightest risk of misconception” because their pacifist principles were so well known. C. J. Cadoux in The Early Christian Attitude to War set the entire problem in the broad context of theological and political thinking. His work remains the indispensable point of departure for all subsequent investigation. Leclercq supplied in French translation the recorded acts of the soldier martyrs and the texts of the extant inscriptions which mention Christians in the army.

The object of this short note is to check the date of the ‘Historia Augusta,’ which is usually determined from a number of very special allusions, by its attitude towards a matter of universal interest — religion.