Chapter I. WHAT IS WAR?
NOW it is fitting that I should reply to the first question : " What is war ? " And I answer, following the master in law, that war is nothing other than discord or conflict that has arisen on account of certain things displeasing to the human will, to the end that such conflict should be turned into agreement and reason, and there is a law which proves this.

Chapter II. WHERE DID WAR FIRST EXIST AND WHY? NEXT, I ask in what place war was first found, and I disclose to you that it was in Heaven, when our Lord God drove out the angels. He made one of them so beautiful, noble, and glorious, that he surpassed in beauty all other celestial beings, and his beauty so shone that it set low all other beauty, just as a great candle burning abases the light of a little candle. And when he saw himself thus noble and beautiful, he thought to mount to the highest place in Heaven, and to set his seat there so as to be like God his Creator. So soon as he had thus determined, war had begun ; that is, between him and those of his opinion, and the good angels, who would by no means sustain this opinion, and who so acted that Lucifer and all his adherents were discomfited, as is more fully related by our lord Pope Saint Gregory in the Book of Moralities. Hence it is no great marvel if in this world there arise wars and battles, since they existed first in Heaven. So we must consider how wars and battles have happened in this world, and especially wars against the Christian Faith, and Holy Church.

We shall see, first, how in times past the Christian Faith and the Church have been in great wars and discords. And we must first consider the evils of schisms and war in their beginnings, and in the time before the Incarnation of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God ; although a very long story would be wanted to relate in order all the schisms and wars of that time. Hence I will mention only the most grievous, and will describe them, making my language brief.

I find that in the Bible, in the time of Moses, there was great war between him and King Pharaoh, who persecuted the people of God, although they were long under his subjection. Similarly, that was no slight schism in Moses' day, as the Bible and Decretals tell, when the people wished to make a golden calf and worship it as God; and what a schism there was against the faith in the time of Abdon, through the false belief of King Jeroboam ! And that was no little war that God made on his people, when that perverse man Jeroboam, King of Israel, held power, as history tells us in the Decretals, nor was the schism a small one when the holy people of Israel could not depart from that false and schismatic race called the jebusites, but were constrained to dwell with them, whether they would or not, as we find also in the Decretals. And that was no light war and tribulation brought by King Nebuchadnezzar on the people of God whom he put into servitude. And, not content with this, he caused an image of fine gold to be made in his semblance, which he wished all the world to worship as God, as is related in the Holy Scripture. Then Nebuchadnezzar caused three holy persons, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, to be thrown into the fiery furnace, because they would not worship the image of gold. After this he caused all the parts of Egypt to be destroyed, and did many other things in his time against the Church of our Lord, which I refrain from relating on account of their length. But it is not good to forget entirely the schism that was in the days of Malachi, for he, with his own holy hand, put to death several false schismatics who believed that this image was God, as history in the Decretals informs us. Later, in the time of Joshua, that was no little war against the people of God, in which, by the sin of one, the whole people was discomfited and delivered into the hand of their enemies. It would take me too long to tell if I were to mention here all the wars and schisms that the Church sustained in the Old Testament, for the whole Bible is filled with them. I will be silent thereon for the present, for I am content to prove that the holy faith of God, and the Church, bore many tribulations, wars, and schisms, before the coming of Jesus Christ our Lord, son of God the Father.