Not according to Ambrose. Louis Swift writes that, for Ambrose, “even in the private sphere the Christian is not only vindicated in defending another, but actually has a serious obligation in this matter: qui enimn on repellita socio injuriams, i potest, tam est in vitio quam quifacit (De Off. Min. 1.36.178 [PL 16.8I]). Thus, Moses’ slaying of the Egyptian is not simply to be condoned, but to be regarded as an act of virtue. Precisely here, of course, we have a new problem in that violent action is not merely permitted, but in certain circumstancesa ctually demandedo n moral grounds.”
On the other hand: “If the use of physical force was thought compatible with Christian love in the matter of preventing injury to another, such was not the case with self-defense. In this area Ambrose was a pacifist . . . [he] denies to an individual in his own case a right which he must exercise in behalf of another. The evil of self-defense-as distinct from defense of another-lies in the fact that it necessarily destroys pietas elsewhere called caritas( In Luc. 5.77)-which establishesa man’s spiritual relationship with God and which is the foundation of all virtue. In short, resisting an attacker amounts to preferring the human to the divine. By destroying the interior disposition of love it vitiates the natural good of preserving one’s own life.”
On Ambrose’s political ethics in general, Swift concludes: “Ambrose’s opposition to violence in the matter of self-defense, his comments on the evangelical principle of turning the other cheek, and his concept of the brotherhood of man despite national or religious differences all militate against any simple baptizing of the Roman tradition of the just war or any wholesale endorsement of Roman nationalistic principles. If the realities of political and social development prevented Christians from maintaining the pacifist emphases of earlier centuries, pacifist arguments retained much of their old vigor, and the dilemma of Christian violence and love remained to a considerable extent unresolved.”