Think Peace - Part 3

Peace - flourishing in relation to one another

The third of six articles exploring the meaning of peace.

'Peace'

'The Peacekeeper is the most advanced strategic asset developed by the United States.'
The Claremont Institute [footnote 1]

Little could show more effectively than this statement why 'peace' is among the slipperiest of words. It refers to the Peacekeeper nuclear weapon with 200 to 300 times more explosive power than the Hiroshima bomb.[footnote 2]

On 9 July 1945, three days after the Hiroshima bomb, the Nagasaki bomb killed 73,884 people and injured 74,909, almost all women, children and elderly men. [footnote 3]That day, US President Truman told the nation that the new technology had been used 'against those who attacked us'. He said the bomb would be 'an overwhelming influence toward world peace' and thanked God that it had come 'to us, instead of to our enemies; and we pray that He may guide us to use it in His ways and for His purposes.' [footnote 4]

The description of a genocidal weapon in terms of 'peace' exemplifies the latitude with which the word is used. Similarly, there is more than a single meaning of 'peace' implied among such phrases as 'peace and quiet', 'peace treaty', 'peace enforcement operation', and 'peace be with you'.

This article seeks to tease apart a number of concepts for 'peace' by exploring its meanings in four languages: Latin's pax, the Semitic shalom/salaam/shlomo, Greek's eirene, and Sanskrit's priti. All these have brought their character to the English word 'peace'.

The dictionary definition of 'peace' is rather thin. The Oxford Concise Dictionary defines it as a state of being: quiet or tranquillity; mental calm or serenity; civil order; freedom from war. This definition of peace is one of absences and inactivity. Indeed, the dictionary reminds us that when we say someone is 'at peace', we mean that they are dead. This article will argue that we can understand peace more meaningfully as a positive value that speaks of the fullness of life, liberation from oppression, and opening to right relationship with God, the world and each other.

Pax

The dictionary definition is based on Latin's pax, which entered English in the 12th Century to become the word 'peace' we know today. In Latin, pax is based on the idea of agreement (cf. 'pact'). It was derived from the earlier Proto-Indo-European pak or pag, meaning 'fasten' or 'fetter', which seems to suggest that an agreement was seen as a tool to tie down dangerous forces in the context of havoc and war.

This underpins our most common understanding of peace in English today. The peace of pax suggests a state of agreement and the absence of violence and volatility. As such, we define peace in terms of what it is not, most generally as an absence of anything that upsets the equilibrium between things, with a particular concern about physical violence. We might therefore define pax as a static state of undisturbed relations, such as a tranquil afternoon spent by the river or the relationship between nations not at war.

We experience the need for pax when violence or the risk of it affects us: 'Leave me alone!' 'Stop the war!' 'Let's agree a non-aggression pact.' 'Let's sue for peace.' 'There will be no violence in this school.' In every example, peace implies the absence of what we conceive as bad.

Pax is a limited understanding of peace in three significant ways:

First, pax precludes acts of violence but it cannot by itself remove the will to violence or heal broken relationships. Pax is like a fire fighter who puts out the fire in your home. You call the fire brigade because this is the most immediate need but when the fire is out, you still have a home to rebuild. By focusing on the negative, pax says nothing about what a good state of relations would look like or how to achieve it. As such, it offers nothing to the oppressed and is not a term of salvation.

Second, a definition of peace based on the absence of disturbances would reinforce the common misconception that peace excludes conflict, confrontation and anger. These can be marks of a healthy relationship and we should distinguish them from the genuine relational problem of violence. To attempt to banish all disturbances would be to attempt to banish life; after all, the absence of all disturbances is a definition of death (cf. 'Rest in peace!'). We cannot flourish as individuals without listening inwardly to our own disturbances, for example. We cannot flourish in friendship if we are not open to others. We cannot flourish in communities unless we embrace the differences between the particulars that disturb the whole. To live well is to be disturbed often. Indeed, as the first article in this series suggested, the starting point for a commitment to peace is, for many, an experience of being spiritually shaken up.

Third, not only can conflict and disturbances be a healthy feature of everyday life, they are also often a necessary part of positive social change. The structures of violence that oppress most of the world in poverty need to be disturbed, not locked down and held fast in their present form. If peace (as pax) protects injustice, then it serves tyranny. A commitment to justice entails engaging in conflict when necessary, rather than avoiding it, for we can pursue conflict without violence.

Peace movements have often been criticised for these limitations of pax. We say that war is wrong but what can we say about what is right? We tell the oppressed that violence is the wrong means to liberate themselves but do we offer an alternative means for achieving justice? We need pax insofar as we need to prevent damaging forms of disturbance, such as violence, but peace is far more than this alone.

Shalom / Salaam / Shlomo

Just as we translate the Latin pax as peace, so we also translate shalom of the Hebrew Scriptures. Shalom is derived from a Semitic root and so has equivalents in Aramaic, which Jesus is thought to have spoken, as shlomo; and Arabic, where it is rendered by salaam. The concept of peace found in shalom is similar to that associated with salaam in Islamic traditions, however in the interests of brevity, these articles use the Hebrew version of the term as that most closely connected with the Judaeo-Christian tradition.

Shalom gives us the core biblical meaning of peace. It means being intact or whole and evokes the entirety of a person or thing. Considered as a quality of the personal, shalom implies the wholeness, integrity and well-being of a person. Considered socially, shalom implies social well-being and relational health, as in a whole community and the wholeness of humanity. The wholeness of shalom can also be considered as the process of being alive and healthy individually and together. In its biblical senses, shalom includes meanings of welfare, shared prosperity, salvation, reconciliation, satisfaction, contentment and a state of being safe and unharmed. Shalom therefore implies the absence of war but is not defined as this or limited to it.

A 'whole' person or community is one that flourishes, as opposed to an oppressed or fragmented one. A state of shalom is with us now insofar as we flourish as persons, communities, humanity and the ecosphere; it is absent insofar as we do not so flourish and are oppressed. Unlike pax, which is defined in the negative and as a static state, shalom's peace is positive and dynamic, suggesting a state of flourishing in relation to one another. The term 'peace' is used in this sense throughout this series of articles; that is, quite differently from how it is often used to mean the absence of war alone.

As well as thinking of shalom as a state of relational health, we can also think of it as a process, by which we come to flourish and become 'whole'. As a process, peace implies personal and social growth and, where there has been suffering, the particular type of growth that is healing, often facilitated by forgiveness.

The notion of peace as a process is reflected in its biblical uses, which include the Hebrew verbs 'to be peace [or wholeness]' (shalem) and 'to make peace' (shalam). [footnote 5] Writ large, shalam and shalem suggest the process in which the world is redeemed and celebrated in all its fullness. Therefore shalom, unlike pax, is a term of salvation, as its biblical uses indicate. (For the sake of simplicity, these articles use shalom to refer to peace as a state and as a process.)

Jesus spoke of the peace found in shalom, rather than that in pax. [footnote 6] When he said, 'My peace I give to you,' (John 14:27) for example, he was not talking about peace as an absence of violence but as a state of social and spiritual wholeness and abundance, as well as the process by which we move towards this. That is, he was first telling us that his person was an example of peace - an incarnation of shalom as a prophetic ideal. Second, he was giving us a vision of a society made whole, just and free from the tyranny of violence - the ideal of heaven made manifest on Earth. Third and perhaps most important, he was passing on to the early Christian community his way of building peace - how to live in ways that embody shalom and help make the world 'whole'. Love was central to Jesus' life and shalom was how he expressed it in the world. He showed that peace is what love does. As such, peace deserves to be at the heart of how a community professing Christian love understands its place in the world.

Yet to flourish is not to banish tragedy nor deny it. We should not expect shalom to exclude deadly and debilitating disease, natural disasters and personal loss; these are beyond the effect of the choices we can make. Nor does shalom exclude the grief that attends such tragedy, for grief is in any case an expression of love. As William Burroughs observed, we learn to live through love and suffering; both have their place in shalom. Nor, were a state of shalom to reign over the Earth, would conflict be abolished; some conflicts between us are among the times when we are most intimate. A friendship without conflict, for example, can be more avoidance than love. Also, were shalom to reign tomorrow, our limits in knowledge and power would remain with us and rightly so, for if shalom were to grant us an omniscience that deleted mystery, uncertainty and learning, then who would want it? Shalom is not a pristine utopia; it includes much of what makes life difficult, sometimes extremely so. It has places for conflict, grief, death and ignorance alongside birth, love, joy, wonder and freedom. Shalom may describe the here and now far more extensively than is often acknowledged.

And yet shalom, as a state of relational health, clearly does not describe the totality of our life experience today. Shalom does exclude the genocide of millions of people every year from preventable, poverty-related causes. Shalom has no place for war or violence. Economic, environmental and political marginalisation is not shalom. Tyrannical governments have no place in shalom. Over-consumption is not shalom, environmental pollution is not shalom, the disproportionate power of multinational corporations is not shalom, and the unconstrained profit motive is not shalom. All these features of our world serve to divide us from one another or curtail our flourishing as individuals, communities, humanity and the ecosphere.

Eirene

We also translate the Greek eirene as peace. Homer used eirene (c. 750 BC) to refer to brief interruptions in the endless war then thought to be the norm. [footnote 7] Like the Latin pax, eirene was defined as an absence of adversity (and a fleeting one at that) rather than a state of well-being that might persist and grow.

However, by the time eirene was used for 'peace' in the New Testament, its meaning had begun to change, at least in its biblical context. This change was led by the translation of the Hebrew Scriptures into Greek as the Septuagint. In this, eirene was used to translate shalom and began to be associated with its affirmative meanings and religious significance. For example, eirene's biblical uses include meanings of 'welfare' and 'health', like shalom.

Shalom's sense of 'making whole' is also carried over into the Greek in the terms eirenopoieo, which is the verb 'to make peace', especially 'to reconcile'; and eirenopoios, which is 'peacemaker' or 'one who restores peace and reconciliation between persons and nations'. Hence, in a biblical context, eirene means much more than the absence of war and is broadly interchangeable with shalom for the same concept of positive peace.

Priti

Priti is a Sanskrit term based on the Indo-European root pri, which means essentially 'love'. Pri eventually turns up in English in the words 'friend', as one who loves and is loved in return; 'freedom', considered to be the result of love; and 'Friday', as the day of Frigg, a Nordic goddess associated with Venus.

Before Latin's pax entered English in the 12th Century to become 'peace', we derived our concept of peace from the Old English word frið, formed on pri. Although frið is now obsolete, its Germanic equivalents remain, such as Frieden in modern German. Through the lens of pri, therefore, we can see that love was thought to be the vital principle behind peace, friendship and freedom. Again, here is a strong suggestion that peace is what love does.

To be more specific, Frieden and frið are actually formed on the word priti, which is a noun based on pri meaning love, joy and satisfaction, especially as experience. It refers particularly to the joy and satisfaction experienced when things are accomplished or completed and as we feel they should be. For example, priti might refer to the satisfying experience of finishing a project at work or school.

As a basis for peace (in Frieden and frið), priti appears to refer to experiential character of love as joyful, rewarding and fulfilling. As such, peace as priti looks to the abundance of experience for its meaning, rather than to constructed notions of moral right and wrong. In this case, peace is more than a moral responsibility but rather includes everything we do that celebrates and enjoys - a joyful affirmation of existence.

A richer peace

Let us bring together in one word, 'peace', the absence of violence called for in pax, the personal and social well-being meant by the biblical shalom/eirene and the joy and satisfaction of the flourishing life suggested by priti. Here we have a much richer 'peace' to enjoy than common usage of the word would suggest. Since shalom/eirene, as the fullness of life, implies pax (as the absence of violence) and priti (as joy in things as they should be), I think it provides the concept to integrate all the meanings for 'peace' discussed here.

Revisiting 'pacifism'

The term pacifism is most commonly used to describe an ideological view that physical violence is always morally wrong and a commitment, arising from that view, never to take part in it. However, as John Lampen points out, the Latin root of pacifism is the combination of 'make' and 'peace'. As such, a pacifist is one who makes peace, rather than one who holds a particular view about peace. [footnote 8] Even so, pacifism as a word is still limited by its basis in Latin's pax - the quiet life. With shalom as our inspiration, we will be concerned primarily with the integrity and growth of relationships as a whole, rather than the absence of violence alone. Shalom excludes violence in any case, for violence results from, and generally perpetuates, a relational breakdown.

Quakers and peace

The previous article suggested that within the Quaker tradition, a commitment to peace is experienced as emerging from a 'present sense' of God within and among us. As such, it depends on, and testifies to, a deepening relationship with the life and power of God.
But in what kind of 'peace' do Quakers and other Judaeo-Christian peace traditions take interest - pax, shalom/eirene, priti, or some other understanding? We can answer this question in a Quaker context at least by looking at the way Quaker writings describe the peace testimony. These appear to show it as a whole of two halves.

The first part is clearly a commitment to what this article has called pax - that is, the commitment not to support violence in any way. As Wolf Mendl observed, from the earliest times of the movement, Quakers were told explicitly what not to get involved with; '…not to join the militia, not to arm ships, not to make profit out of war'. [footnote 9] A statement made in London in 1744 - the time of the War of the Austrian Succession - epitomises this sentiment:

We entreat all who profess themselves members of our Society to be faithful to that ancient testimony, borne by us ever since we were a people, against bearing arms and fighting… [footnote 10]

The way that Quaker Faith and Practice presents the peace testimony today includes several passages like this, warning against participating in violence. If this were the sum total of the peace testimony, it may be nothing more than a self-serving ideology, but it is not. Other passages describing the peace testimony emphasise something quite different: power and change. For example:

…I lived in the virtue of that life and power that took away the occasion of all wars… (George Fox, 1651, QF&P 24.01)

'Let us then try what Love will do… Force may subdue, but Love gains: and he that forgives first, wins the laurel.' (William Penn, 1693, QF&P 24.03)

'Thus while love, joy, peace, gentleness and holiness are the teaching of the life and death of our Lord, it is to these that we are also impelled by the indwelling of the divine in men [sic]. (London Yearly Meeting, 1915, QF&P 24.08)

All these passages are used to describe the peace testimony today, yet their subject is not a state of peace as such. Rather, they concern the nature of positive transformation and the power 'within us, but not of us' that brings it about. This aspect of the peace testimony seems more like a 'testimony of transformation', a 'testimony to divine power' or a 'testimony of/to love' than one to any conception of peace as a state.

Crucially, the passages that focus on power and transformation suggest in their ways that, once one has been touched by this power, to live by anything else but love would be to turn one's back on everything that now matters: God, the world, life itself. The authentic way to live is seen to be in love and for love, grounded in the truth that is shaking us awake from living a lie. In the light of this power of love and truth, the commitment to pax is given weight, context and meaning, and makes a claim upon our lives. In particular, unless love and violence can be reconciled, a commitment to pax is an inevitable consequence of a commitment to love, yet one that only the fire of adversity can truly test and temper.

Unsurprisingly, then, many of the passages in Quaker Faith and Practice join the commitment to pax with that to the power of nonviolence as two aspects of the same experience and commitment. For example, the famous 1660 Declaration first explains Friends' commitment to pax:

…[The] spirit of Christ which leads us into all Truth will never move us to fight and war against any man [sic] with outward weapons …

Then it links this with an understanding of how real change takes place:

…but we do earnestly desire and wait, that by the word of God's power and its effectual operation in the hearts of men the kingdoms of this world may become the kingdoms of the Lord and his Christ… (QF&P 24.04)

For the Quaker peace tradition, these two aspects of the peace testimony have been the discernment of what love does, practised experimentally. But is there a disconnect here between the peace testimony and the peace of which Jesus and the prophets spoke, in shalom? I don't believe so. Shalom finds expression in the vision, which the Quaker tradition shares, of 'the kingdom of heaven' made real on Earth. I would argue that the very meaning of 'the kingdom' is found in shalom - the world flourishing in relation to itself and to God. The Quaker testimonies, when taken as the coherent whole they are meant to be, characterise a process of shalom-making: truth and integrity, peace (pax) and nonviolence, simplicity and plainness, equality and community. All these concern the integrity of relationships and personal and social well-being. As such, we might describe the practice of shalom as living simply and truthfully, seeking a radical equality with others, developing diverse communities, and celebrating and preserving the integrity of creation. Even so, I suspect there is more to shalom than even these values can stretch to. What of joy, abundance, creativity and love? And what of brokenness, pathos and compassion? These surely also belong to the peace that truly saves and celebrates - shalom, salaam, shlomo.

David Gee, Quaker Peace & Social Witness

Questions for reflection and discussion

Can you identify the difference between the senses of peace described here? Which speak(s) to your condition?
When politicians and people of faith and talk about 'peace', what kind of peace do they imply?
What can you most strongly agree with in the article and what do you disagree with?

What do you think peace means?

The purpose of this article is to help feed a conversation about the meaning of peace. Please tell us what you think about this article or send your own views about what peace means.

Write to Disarm, Quaker Peace & Social Witness, Friends House, 173-177 Euston Road, London NW1 2BJ
Email disarm@quaker.org.uk
Fax 020 7663 1049

Notes

Unless otherwise stated, the following works were used as sources for the etymological content of this article.

The Concise Oxford Etymological Dictionary
Harper, Douglas (ed.): 'Online Etymological Dictionary', published at http://www.etymonline.com/, 2001
Monier-Williams Sanskrit-English Dictionary, published online at http://students.washington.edu/prem/mw/p.html
Moore, John: 'A Lexical Study of Peace', published at South West School of Bible Studies web site at http://www.swsbs.edu/pages/writings/Moore/peace.html
Strong, James (revised and corrected Kohlenberger, John R and Swanson): 'The Strongest Strong's - Exhaustive Concordance of the Bible' (Grand Rapids, Michegan, USA: Zondervan, 2001)
Vine, W E (ed.): 'Vine's Expository Dictionary of the Old and New Testament Words' (Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 1985)

1. 'Peacekeeper', MissileThreat.com, Clarmont Institute (no date) published online at http://www.missilethreat.com/missiles/peacekeeper_usa.html [Go back to text]

2. ibid. [Go back to text]

3. Committee on Damage by Atomic Bombs in Hiroshima and Nagasaki: 'Hiroshima and Nagasaki: The Physical, Medical, and Social Effects of the Atomic Bombings' (New York: Basic Books, 1981), cited in Bird, Kai and Sherwin, Martin: 'Letter To The Smithsonian Museum, 31 July 1995', published online at, for example, http://www.doug-long.com/letter.htm - accessed 11 March 2005; also cited in Levine, Philip: 'A Photo-Essay on the Bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki', published online at http://www.english.uiuc.edu/maps/poets/g_l/levine/levine.htm - accessed 11 March 2005. [Go back to text]

4. US President Truman: 'Report To The Nation On The Potsdam Conference, 9 August 1945', published online at ibiblio, http://www.ibiblio.org/pha/policy/1945/450809a.html - accessed 11 March 2005. [Go back to text]

5. Shalem: for example, 'So he finished [made complete/whole] the house.' 1 Kings 9:25. Shalam: for example, 'When a man's ways please the Lord, he maketh even his enemies to be at peace with him.' Prov 16:7. [Go back to text]

6. Jesus is thought to have been multilingual; however, it is not known which languages he knew between Aramaic, Greek and Hebrew. Even so, whether he used the Hebrew shalom, the Aramaic equivalent or the Greek eirene (which had taken on the meaning of the Hebrew), any of these would have implied the meaning of shalom, rather than anything like pax or the original meaning of eirene. E.g. Smith, Amanda: 'What Language Did Jesus Speak?' [Interview with Ian Young, University of Sydney], in Lingua Franca (online), published at http://www.abc.net.au/rn/arts/ling/stories/s1066733.htm - accessed 12 October 2004 [Go back to text]

7. Brown, Colin (ed.): 'The New International Dictionary of New Testament Theology, Vol. II (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans Publ, 1978), pp.400-420, cited in Moore, John, op.cit. - accessed 12 October 2004 [Go back to text]

8. Lampen, John: 'The Gospel of Peace: The Biblical basis of pacifism' (London: Fellowship of Reconciliation, 1995) [Go back to text]

9. Mendl, Wolf: 'Prophets and Reconcilers' (Swarthmore Lecture, 1974), (London: Friends Home Service Committee, 1974), p.14 [Go back to text]

10. Britain Yearly Meeting of the Religious Society of Friends, 'Quaker Faith & Practice' (London: Britain Yearly Meeting, 1995), 24.05 [Go back to text]

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