Note 677 — Chapter XV · THE MORAL LIFE OF EUROPE DURING THE AGE OF CHIVALRY

Throughout the medieval ages and down almost to our own day these Old Testament records, misread, were used to justify many of the cruelties of war, and other atrocities:

Plunder and pillage were supported by reference to the divinely approved “spoiling of the Egyptians” by the Israelites. The right to massacre unresisting enemies was based upon the command of the Almighty to the Jews in the twentieth chapter of Deuteronomy. The indiscriminate slaughter of whole populations was justified by a reference to the divine command to slaughter the nations round about Israel. Torture and mutilation of enemies was sanctioned by the conduct of Samuel against Agag, of King David against the Philistines, of the men of Judah against Adonibezek. Even the slaughter of babes in arms was supported by a passage from the Psalms, “Happy shall he be, that taketh and dasheth thy little ones against the stones.” Treachery and assassination were supported by a reference to the divinely approved Phinehas, Ehud, Judith, and Jael; and murdering the ministers of unapproved religions, by Elijah’s slaughter of the priests of Baal.—Andrew D. White, Seven Great Statesmen (1910), pp. 85 f.