ABSTRACT
Saint Augustine is particularly concerned with the situation in which an individual is allowed by law to kill an unjust aggressor, that is, one who is directly attacking his person or property without moral or legal justification. Any elaboration of the traditional just war doctrine must consider at some point the pronouncements of St. Augustine on war and on the legitimacy of killing in war. One of the long accepted premises of the Christian doctrine of just war has been that innocent or noncombatant civilians ought not to be slaughtered intentionally. It is most surprising, therefore, to turn to the actual statements of St. Augustine on the permissibility of killing innocents in war and to discover that he exhibited an unexpected degree of harshness and seeming indifference to the fate of the innocent. Augustine's position on the matter of private self-defense was therefore unqualifiedly pacific.
