Sermon 180

SERMO 180

OF THE WORDS OF THE APOSTLE JAMES (5, 12):
"Above all, do not swear," etc.

An admonition about avoiding swearing.

The first reading from the Apostle James, which was recited to us today, has been offered to us for discussion and, in a way, mandated. For he made you attentive, admonishing before all things not to swear. It is a difficult question. Who does not hold himself guilty if swearing is a sin? For no one doubts that perjury is a sin, and a grave sin at that. But the Apostle, from whose reading we are discussing, did not say: Before all things, my brothers, do not commit perjury; but: do not swear. A similar admonition from the Lord Jesus Christ also preceded in the Gospel: You have heard, he says, that it was said to those of old: You shall not swear falsely. But I say to you: do not swear at all, neither by heaven, for it is the throne of God; nor by the earth, for it is the footstool of his feet; nor shall you swear by your head, for you cannot make one hair white or black. Let your speech be: Yes, yes; No, no. Anything more than this comes from evil. This dominical admonition is wholly consistent with the aforementioned reading of the Apostle, such that it seems God commanded nothing else; for no one else said this but he who spoke through the Apostle: Before all things, he says, my brothers, do not swear, neither by heaven, nor by earth, nor by any other oath. But let your speech be: Yes, yes; No, no. Except that he added: Before all things; which made many attentive and increased the difficulty of the question.

An oath, though taken by God, should be avoided by man. In how many ways perjury happens.

For we find that the saints have sworn, and firstly, the Lord Himself, in whom there is no sin at all. The Lord has sworn and will not repent: You are a priest forever according to the order of Melchizedek. He promised the eternity of the priesthood to the Son with an oath. You also have: By Myself I swear, says the Lord. And that is an oath: As I live, says the Lord. Just as a human swears by God, so God swears by Himself. Is it therefore not a sin to swear? This is hard to say; and since we have said that God has sworn, how blasphemous is it to say this? God swears, who has no sin; therefore, it is not a sin to swear; but it is more a sin to swear falsely. Perhaps someone may say that the example of oath-taking should not be proposed concerning the Lord God. For He is God, and perhaps it is fitting only for Him to swear, who cannot swear falsely. For humans swear falsely, either when they deceive or when they are deceived. For a man thinks that what is false is true and rashly swears; or he knows or thinks it is false, and yet swears as if it were true, and nevertheless swears with wickedness. However, these kinds of perjury differ, which I have mentioned. Suppose someone swears believing it to be true, for which he swears; he believes it to be true, and yet it is false. This one does not perjure himself from the heart; he is mistaken, he holds something false as true; he does not knowingly interpose an oath for a false matter. Consider another who knows it is false and says it is true; and swears as if it were true, which he knows is false. Do you see how detestable this beast is, and it must be exterminated from human affairs? For who would want this to happen? All people detest such things. Consider another, who thinks it to be false, and swears as if it were true, and perhaps it is true. For instance, so that you may understand: Did it rain in that place? you ask a man; and he thinks it did not rain, and to his business it belongs to say: It rained. But he thinks it did not rain. Is he told: Did it really rain? Truly, and he swears; and yet it rained there, but he does not know, and thinks it did not rain; he is perjured. The manner in which a word proceeds from the heart matters. The tongue is not guilty unless the mind is guilty. But who is there who does not err, even if he did not wish to deceive? Who is the man to whom falsehood does not creep? And yet the oath does not depart from the mouth, it is frequent; often there are more oaths than words. If a man examines how often he swears throughout the whole day, how often he wounds himself, how often he strikes and pierces himself with the sword of the tongue, what part of him is found healthy? Because, therefore, it is a grave sin to swear falsely, Scripture has given you a lesson: Do not swear.

The danger of perjury in oath-taking.

What shall I say to you, O man! Swear truly? Behold, swear truly, you do not sin; if you swear truly, you do not sin. But man, placed among temptations, clothed in flesh, treading the earth under the earth, while the body which is corrupted weighs down the soul, and the earthly habitation oppresses the mind thinking many things; among these many uncertain thoughts of yours, flying, human conjectures, human deceptions, when does something false not creep upon you, placed in the region of falsehood? Do you wish, therefore, to be far from perjury? Do not swear. For he who swears can sometimes swear truly; but he who does not swear can never swear falsely. Therefore, let God swear, who swears securely, whom nothing deceives, whom nothing escapes, who altogether does not know how to deceive, because He cannot be deceived. For when He swears, He makes Himself a witness. Just as you, when you swear, make God a witness; so He, when He swears, makes Himself a witness. When you make Him a witness, perhaps over your falsehood, you take in vain the name of the Lord your God. Therefore, do not swear falsely, do not swear. That is indeed the narrow way. Perjury is a precipice. He who swears is close; he who does not swear is far away. He sins and grievously who swears falsely; he does not sin who swears truly; but neither does he sin who does not swear at all. But he who does not swear and does not sin is far from sin; but he who swears truly does not sin, but he is close to sin. Imagine you are walking in a place where the land is spacious on the right hand and nowhere do you suffer narrowness; on the left is a precipice. Where do you choose to walk? On the edge of the land on the precipitous lip, or far from it? I think far from it. Likewise, he who swears walks on the edge; and walks with frail feet, because human. If you stumble, you go down; if you slip, you go down. And what awaits you? The penalty of perjury. Therefore, you wanted to swear truly; hear the counsel of God: Do not swear.

It is right to swear the truth; not to swear, safer.

If swearing were a sin, it would not be said in the old law: You shall not swear falsely but shall perform your oaths to the Lord. For a sin would not be commanded to us. But your God says to you: If you swear, I will not condemn you; if you swear truthfully, I will not condemn you. But will I condemn you if you do not swear? There are two things, He says, that I never condemn: a truthful oath and no oath; but I do condemn a false oath. A false oath is destructive, a truthful oath is dangerous, no oath is safe. I know it is a difficult question, and I confess to your Charity, I have always avoided it. But now when that same reading was recited with the duty of the Sunday sermon, I believed it was divinely inspired to me to address it. God wanted me to speak from here; He wanted you to hear from here. I beseech you not to scorn it, I beseech you to steady your heart, to change the shifting of your tongues. It is not entirely in vain, it is not empty that even though I have always wanted to avoid that question, it was imposed on my necessity, so that it might also be imposed on your Charity.

An oath administered by the Apostle.

So that you may know, it is not a sin to swear truthfully, we find that the Apostle Paul also swore; "I die daily, by your glory, brothers, which I have in Christ Jesus our Lord." "By your glory," is an oath. Not as if he said: "By your glory, I die," as if your glory makes me die; as if he were to say: "He died by poison, he died by the sword, he died by the beast, he died by the enemy;" that is, by the doing of the enemy, by the doing of the sword, by the doing of the poison, and the like; he did not say: "By your glory." The Greek language resolves the ambiguity. It is seen in the Greek Epistle, and there is found an oath which is not ambiguous: Νὴ τὴν ὑμετέραν χαύχησιν, where the Greek, having spoken, swears. You hear Greeks daily, and those who know Greek: Νὴ τὸν Θεόν; when he says: Νὴ τὸν Θεόν, it is an oath: "By God." Therefore, let no one doubt that the Apostle swore, when he said: "By your glory, brothers" (and let us not think that he swore by human glory) "which I have in Christ Jesus our Lord." There is another place where the oath is utterly certain and expressed: "I call God as a witness upon my soul." The Apostle says: "I call God as a witness upon my soul, that sparing you I have not yet come to Corinth." And in another place to the Galatians: "What I am writing to you, behold, before God, I do not lie."

Various ways of swearing.

Pay attention, I ask, and heed; even if the discourse is not so pleasing to you, because of the difficulties of the question, it is still useful if it reaches your innermost parts. Behold, the Apostle has sworn. Let not those deceive you who, somehow wanting to distinguish these oaths, or rather not understanding, say that it is not an oath when a man says: God knows, God is my witness, I call upon God upon my soul that I speak the truth. He has called upon, they say, God, he has made God a witness; does he not swear? Those who say this wish nothing else but to lie with God invoked as a witness. Is it truly so, whoever you are of a depraved and perverse heart, that if you say: By God, you swear; if you say: God is my witness, you do not swear? For what is: By God, if not: God is my witness? Or what is: God is my witness, if not: By God?

To swear an oath, what that is.

What is it to swear an oath, if not to give due justice to God when you swear by God; to give due justice to your own wellbeing when you swear by your own wellbeing; to give due justice to your children when you swear by your children? But what justice do we owe to our wellbeing, our children, our God, if not that of charity, truth, and not falsehood? Especially when it is done by God, it is the very truth of swearing; because when anyone says, “By my own wellbeing,” they obligate their wellbeing to God; when they say, “By my children,” they pledge their children to God, so that whatever comes from their mouth may come upon their heads; if true, true; if false, false. Therefore, when anyone in an oath names their children, or their own head, or their wellbeing, whatever they name they obligate to God; how much more so when they perjure by God Himself? For they fear to swear falsely by their child, and do not fear to swear falsely by their God? Perhaps saying in their mind: I fear to swear falsely by my child, lest they die; but to God who does not die, even if false is sworn by Him, what evil occurs? Indeed you say rightly, nothing evil occurs to God when you swear falsely by God; but much evil occurs to you, who deceive your neighbor, to whom you invoke God as a witness. If you were to do something with your child as witness, and say to a friend or neighbor or any person: I did not do it, and touch your child’s head, by whom you did it as witness, and say: By the wellbeing of this one, I did not do it; perhaps your child would cry out trembling under the paternal hand, not trembling at the paternal hand, but at the divine: Father, do not let my wellbeing be worthless to you; you invoked God over me, I saw you, you did it, do not perjure; I indeed have you as a father, but I fear our Creator, both yours and mine, more.

Perjury is deadly to the soul. The life of the body is the soul, the life of the soul is God.

But because God, when you swear by Him, doesn't say to you: I saw you, do not swear, you did it; but you fear that the other might kill you, you kill yourself first; therefore, does He not say: I saw you, do you think that He did not see? And where is it said: I kept silent, I kept silent; will I always keep silent? And yet He often says: I saw you; but it is different when He avenges the perjurer. But He does not avenge everyone; thus, people are edified by example. I know, he swore falsely to me, and he lives. He swore falsely to you, and he lives? He swore falsely, and he lives; he swore falsely to you. You are deceived. If you had eyes to see this one's death, if you were also in that state of dying and not dying, you would not be deceived, and you would see his death. And now attend to the Scripture; and there you will find lying the one whom you think is living. Because he walks on feet, because he touches with hands, because he sees with eyes and hears with ears, uses the other functions of the limbs well, you think he is alive. He lives, but his body; however, his soul is dead, what is better in him is dead. The dwelling lives, the dweller is dead. How, you ask, when the body lives, is the soul dead; when the body would not live, unless animated by the soul? How then is the soul dead, by which the body lives? Hear then, and learn: the body of man is God's creature, and the soul of man is God's creature. God breathes life into the flesh from the soul; again He breathes life into the soul from Himself, not from the soul itself. Therefore, the life of the body is the soul; therefore, the life of the soul is God. The body dies when the soul departs; therefore, the soul dies if God departs. The soul departs when the body is struck by the sword; and do you think that God does not depart when the soul itself is struck by perjury? Do you want to see that the one you speak of is dead? Read the Scripture: The mouth that lies kills the soul. But you think God is a present avenger if the one who deceived you with a false oath immediately expires. If he expires before your eyes, his flesh has expired. What does it mean, his flesh has expired? It has expelled the spirit by which it was animated. That is, he expired by expelling the spirit by which the flesh lived. He perjured, he expelled the spirit by which the soul lived. He expired, but you do not know; he expired, but you do not see. For you see the flesh lying without the soul, you cannot see the miserable soul without God. Therefore believe, apply the eyes of faith. No perjurer is unpunished; indeed no one is, his punishment is with him. If he had a torturer of the flesh in his chamber, he would be punished; he has a torturer of his conscience in the secrecy of his heart, and is he called unpunished? And yet, what do you say? He lives, he rejoices, he indulges who swore a lie to me; what is it that you send me to the invisible? Because even the God by whom he swore is invisible. He swore by the invisible, he is struck by an invisible punishment. But he lives, he says, and in a way luxuriates and boils in luxury. If so, what luxuriates, boils in luxury, are the worms of a dead soul. Finally, every prudent man, who watches such luxuriating perjurers, with a healthy scent of the heart, turns away, does not want to see, does not want to hear. From where does this health turn itself away, unless because the dead soul stinks?

Why is it said that one must abstain from swearing above all things?

So briefly listen, my brothers, I will conclude my sermon, fixing a healthy care in your hearts: Above all, do not swear. Why: Above all? If it is a great offense to swear falsely, but there is no fault in swearing truly, why: Above all, do not swear? For he should have said: Above all, do not swear falsely. Above all, he says, do not swear. Is swearing worse than stealing? Is swearing worse than committing adultery? I am not saying swear falsely; I say swearing: is swearing worse than killing a man? By no means. Killing a man, committing adultery, stealing, is a sin; swearing is not a sin; but to swear falsely is a sin. Why then: Above all? By this word that he says: Above all, he has made us cautious against our tongue. Above all, he says, that you may be attentive above other things, that you may be vigilant lest the habit of swearing should creep upon you. As in a mirror, he has placed you against yourself: Above all, he has lifted you over other things whence you may be attentive. For consider you swearing: By God, by Christ, I will kill him; and these how many times a day, how many times an hour? You do not open your mouth except for such swearing. Wouldn't you want him to say to you: Above all, to make you most vigilant against the habit, to examine all your actions, to guard all the movements of your tongue very diligently, to be the guard of your bad habit, to restrain it? Listen: Above all. You were asleep, I prick, above all, I move thorns. What is it: Above all? Above all be vigilant, above all be intent.

Sometimes subject to the custom of swearing an oath, Augustine. An oath should be administered under this condition.

We too have sworn at random, we had that most terrible and deadly habit. I say to your Charity: since we began to serve God, and we saw how great the evil is in perjury, we feared greatly, and we restrained the most sluggish habit with fear. Restrained it is restricted, restricted it languishes, languishing it dies, and good succeeds the bad habit. Finally, we do not say to you, do not swear. For if we say this, we lie. As far as I am concerned, I swear; but as it seems to me, compelled by great necessity. When I see that I am not believed unless I do so, and that it is not expedient for him who does not believe me that he does not believe, with this weighed reasoning and balanced consideration, with great fear I say: Before God; or: God is my witness; or: Christ knows that this is in my mind; and I see that it is more, that is, that it is more than: Yes, yes; No, no; but what is more comes from evil; and if not from the evil of the one who swears, it comes from the evil of the one who does not believe. Finally, he does not say: If one does more, he is evil; and: Let your word be: Yes, yes; No, no; if anyone does more, he is evil; but: Let your word be: Yes, yes; No, no; and what is more comes from evil. But inquire of whose comes evil. But yet another thing is the most evil human custom. And when you are believed, you swear; and when no one demands, you swear; and to horrified people, you swear; you do not keep silence by swearing, you are barely safe by not perjuring. Unless, brothers, you perhaps think that if the Apostle Paul knew that the Galatians believed him, he would add an oath and say: What I write to you, behold before God, that I do not lie. He saw there those who believed; he also saw others who did not believe. Therefore do not say: I do not swear, if it is demanded. For what you do is from evil; but from the one who demands it. For you do not have a way to excuse yourself, you do not find a way to satisfy the pressing matter. But it is one thing, when an oath is demanded; another, when it is offered; and this itself that is offered, another when offered to one who does not believe; another when offered to and believed.

Demanding an oath from another, how he sins.

Therefore, restrain your tongue and habit, as much as you can; not like some, when they are told: "Do you speak the truth? I do not believe it. Did you not do it? I do not believe it: May God judge, swear to me." And the very person who demands the oath, it makes a significant difference whether he does not know that he will falsely swear, or he does know. For if he does not know, and therefore says: "Swear to me, so that it may be believed;" I do not dare say it is not a sin, yet it is a human temptation. But if he knows he did it, he knows he did it, he saw him do it, and he forces him to swear, he is a murderer. For he kills himself by his own perjury; but this one both extended and pressed the hand of the killer. But when some wicked thief hears: "Swear if you did not take it, swear if you did not do it," from someone who does not know if he did it; then, it is not permissible for a Christian to swear; when an oath is demanded from him, it is not permissible to swear; I am a Christian, it is not permitted for me. Capture such a one, turn away from him, avoid the matter about which you were speaking; mix in other stories, and you will find him swearing a thousand times, who did not want to swear once. Therefore, this daily, frequent habit of swearing without cause, with no one compelling, and no one doubting your words, drive it away from yourselves, cut it off from your tongues, circumcise it from your mouth.

The custom of swearing must be resisted more diligently.

But it is the custom, it is usually said. It is usually said when I do not say. This is: Above all. What is: Above all? Be wary before others, more intent on this than on other matters. Greater custom demands greater intent, not the custom of something trivial. If you were doing something with your hand, it would be easier to command your hand not to do it; if you had to walk somewhere with your feet, with laziness holding you back, you would stir yourself to get up and go. The tongue has the ease of movement, being placed in a slick environment, it easily slips on the slippery. The faster and easier it moves, the more you should be steadfast against it. You will subdue it if you stay alert; you will stay alert if you fear; you will fear if you consider yourself to be a Christian. For swearing has so much evil that those who worship stones fear to swear falsely by stones; do you not fear the present God, the living God, the knowing God, the remaining God, the God avenging the contemptible? He closes the temple over a stone and goes to his home; he himself has shut up over his god, and yet when it is said to him: Swear by Jupiter, he fears the eyes of the present.

To swear falsely by idols is perjury.

And behold, I say to your Charity, that even he who swears by a false stone is perjured. Why do I say this? Because many are deceived in this matter, and think that since it is nothing by which they swear, they are not held in the crime of perjury. You are certainly perjured because you swear falsely by that which you consider sacred. But I do not consider it sacred. It is considered sacred by the one to whom you swear. For when you swear, you do not swear to yourself, nor to the stone; but you swear to your neighbor. You swear to a man before a stone; but is it not also before God? The stone does not hear you speaking; but God punishes you for deceiving.

How the custom of swearing an oath is overturned.

Above all, therefore, my brothers, I beseech you, that God has compelled me to speak these things not without cause. For I say before Him what I have said, often I have avoided this question; I feared that by warning and advising I would make more guilty those who would not listen; however, today I feared more that I would refuse to speak, when I was commanded to speak. As though the fruit of this labor of mine is small, if all who have applauded me also cry out against themselves, so that they may not falsely swear against themselves; if so many people who have listened to me very attentively be attentive against their own custom, and remind themselves today, when they have come to their homes, when by a slip of the tongue they repeat their habit; let each neighbor remind the other: This is what we heard today, this is what we are bound to. Let it not be done today, certainly while the speech is fresh: I speak from experience; let it not be done today, it is more sluggish to accomplish tomorrow. If it is not done even tomorrow, the one who keeps watch labors less; for he is aided by the custom of the previous day. In three days the plague from which we suffer dies; and we will rejoice in your fruit; because you will abound with great good, if you will be free from such a great evil. Turned to the Lord, etc.