But the wisdom that is from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, willing to yield, full of mercy and good fruits, without partiality and without hypocrisy. Now the fruit of righteousness is sown in peace by those who make peace. (James 3:17-18)
That Christ and Christianity have something to do with peace is obvious in many New Testament passages. In the above quote, St James says God’s wisdom is ‘peaceable’ and the ‘fruit of righteousness” is sown by those who make peace. The Lord Jesus said the peacemakers will be called God’s children (Matthew 5:9) just as He, the Prince of Peace, is God’s Son.
‘May the God of peace Himself sanctify you wholly, and may your spirit and soul and body be kept sound and blameless at the Coming of our Lord Jesus Christ,’ writes St Paul to the Thessalonians (1 Thessalonians 5:23). Similarly, Peter points to the ‘gentleness‘ and ‘peace‘ of the ‘hidden man of the heart’ (1 Peter 3:4).
Nevertheless, this peace is not a withdrawal into oneself. Man is called to share in the very life of the Trinity: ‘That they may be one, even as we are one,‘ (John 17:11) said Jesus to His Father whom He had made ours. . . . The key text here is the Beatitude about the peacemakers, those who work to make peace (Matthew 5:9) – who ‘shall be called sons of God,’ adopted in the Son, therefore literally ‘deified.’ Thus, the disciples of Jesus are ‘to be at peace with one another‘ (Mark 9:50) and with all men. (Romans 12:18; 2 Corinthians 13:11). (Fr Hildo Bos & Jim Forest, FOR THE PEACE FROM ABOVE, p 348)
St Basil opines that ‘nothing is so characteristically Christian as being a peacemaker, and for this reason our Lord has promised us peacemakers a very high reward.'[Matthew 5:9] (Fr Hildo Bos & Jim Forest, FOR THE PEACE FROM ABOVE, p 388)
Fraternized 