Oaths, Contracts, and Idols

Living by God’s rule is put at risk not only by what we do but by what we say. It is written, “Look at the man and his deeds,” and also, “By your own words you will be counted righteous.” So we have to remember that idolatry can force its way in through our speech as well, and must be guarded against there too — whether it comes in by the pull of habit or by plain fear. The law forbids the gods of the nations to be named. It does not mean that we may never pronounce their names; ordinary conversation drags them out of us. People constantly have to say, “You will find him at the temple of Aesculapius,” or “I live on Isis Street,” or “He has been made a priest of Jupiter,” and much else of the same kind — men are given names like these as well. I do Saturn no honor by calling a man by that name, when it is his own name; I honor Saturn no more than I honor Marcus when I call a man Marcus. But the law says, “Do not make mention of the name of other gods; do not let it be heard from your mouth.” What it commands is this: that we not call them gods. [a]

In the first part of the law, too, he says, “You shall not use the name of the Lord your God for a worthless thing” — that is, for an idol. So anyone who honors an idol with the name of God has fallen into idolatry. If I do speak of them as gods, then something has to be added to make it clear that I am not calling them gods. Even Scripture says “gods,” but adds “their” — “of the nations.” David does exactly that: having named “gods,” he says, “But the gods of the nations are demons.” I have laid all this down as a foundation for what comes next. Now: it is a fault of habit to say “By Hercules!” or “So help me the god of good faith!” — and to the habit is added the ignorance of people who do not even know that they are swearing by Hercules. And what is an oath in the name of gods you have renounced but a private arrangement between faith and idolatry? Who does not honor the beings he swears by?

It is a mark of fear, on the other hand, when another man puts you under an oath in the name of his gods, or binds you by some other form of attestation, and you keep quiet because you are afraid of being found out. By keeping quiet you affirm their majesty exactly as he does — the very majesty by which you will look to be bound. What difference does it make whether you affirm the gods of the nations by calling them gods or by hearing them called that? Whether you swear by idols yourself, or agree when someone else puts you under oath by them? Why should we not see through Satan’s cleverness? What he cannot bring off with our own mouth he means to bring off with the mouth of his servants, letting idolatry into us by way of our ears. In any case, whoever the man is who puts you under oath, he binds you to himself either as a friend or as an enemy. If as an enemy, you are being called out to a fight, and you know you have to fight. If as a friend, how much safer it is to transfer the pledge to the Lord, so that you dissolve the hold of the man the Evil One was using to attach you to the honor of idols — which is idolatry. Putting up with anything of that kind is idolatry. You honor beings whose authority you accepted when it was pressed on you. [f]

I know a man — may the Lord pardon him — who was told in public, during a lawsuit, “Jupiter be angry with you.” He answered, “No — with you.” What else would a pagan have done who believed Jupiter to be a god? Even if he had not thrown the curse back in Jupiter’s name, or some other god’s, simply by returning a curse he would have confirmed that Jupiter is divine, since he showed himself stung by a curse spoken in Jupiter’s name. What is there to be angry about in a curse spoken in the name of someone you know to be nothing at all? If you rage, you have granted on the spot that he exists, and the fear you have just admitted to becomes an act of idolatry. And how much more, when you throw the curse back in Jupiter’s own name, are you paying Jupiter the same honor the man who provoked you paid him! A believer ought to laugh at things like this, not rage at them — indeed, according to the command, not to return a curse even in God’s name, but to bless generously in God’s name, so that you both pull down idols and preach God, and carry out the discipline.

In the same way, a man who has been initiated into Christ will not put up with being blessed in the name of the gods of the nations. He will always refuse the unclean blessing and clean it out for himself by turning it toward God. To be blessed in the name of the gods of the nations is to be cursed in the name of God. Suppose I have given money to someone in need, or done him some other kindness, and he prays that his gods, or the Genius of the colony, may look kindly on me. My gift, or my act, has instantly become an honor paid to idols, since it is in their name that he pays me back with a blessing. But why should he not be told that I did it for God’s sake, so that God may be glorified instead and demons not be honored in what I did for God? If God sees that I did it for his sake, he sees just as clearly that I was unwilling to show I did it for his sake, and that I have in a way made his own command an offering to idols. Many people say, “No one is obliged to give himself away.” I say that no one ought to deny himself either. Whoever covers himself up, in any cause whatever, does deny — because he lets himself be taken for a pagan. And of course every denial is idolatry, just as every idolatry is denial, whether in what we do or in what we say. [h]

But there is one thing in this class with a double edge, sharpened in deed and in word and dangerous on both sides, although it flatters you as if it were safe on both: it does not look like a deed, because it is never caught as a word. When they borrow money from pagans on pledged security, Christians put their name to a guarantee under oath and then deny that they have done it. Of course the time of the prosecution, the place of the judgment seat, and the person of the judge sitting there settle that they knew perfectly well what they had done. Christ lays it down that there is to be no swearing at all. “I wrote it,” says the debtor, “but I said nothing. It is the tongue that kills, not the written letter.” [j]

Here I call Nature and Conscience as my witnesses. Nature first: even if the tongue lies still and silent while a man dictates, the hand can write nothing that the soul has not dictated — though what the soul dictates to the tongue itself may be either something it thought up on its own or something handed to it by someone else. Then, in case anyone says, “Someone else dictated it,” I appeal to Conscience: whatever another man dictated, does the soul not take it in and pass it on to the hand, whether the tongue joins in or stays out of it? It is enough that the Lord has said offenses are committed in the mind and the conscience. If craving or malice has come up into a man’s heart, he says it counts as a deed. You gave the guarantee, then. It plainly “came up into your heart,” and you can argue neither that you did not know about it nor that you did not want it: when you gave the guarantee you knew you were giving it, and knowing it, of course you were willing. You did it in act as much as in thought. Nor can you use the lighter charge to shut out the heavier one, as though the thing were made false by your guaranteeing something you do not actually perform.

“Still, I have not denied, because I did not swear.” But you did swear. Even if you had done no such thing, you would still be said to swear once you had consented to it. A silent voice is no plea where there is writing, and a soundless mouth is no plea where there are letters. Zechariah, punished with the loss of his voice for a time, talks it over with his own mind; he goes around his useless tongue, dictates from his heart with his hands, and pronounces his son’s name without his mouth. He speaks in his pen; he is heard in his wax tablet — a hand clearer than any sound, a letter with more voice than any mouth. Ask whether a man has spoken, when everyone understands that he has spoken. Let us pray the Lord that we may never be hemmed in by any need for a contract of that kind; and if it does fall out so, that he give our brothers the means to help us, or give us the steadiness to break off any such necessity — so that those denying letters, standing in for our mouth, are not produced against us on the day of judgment, sealed now not with the seals of witnesses but with the seals of angels.

Among these reefs and inlets, these shallows and narrows of idolatry, Faith sails on with her canvas filled by the Spirit of God: safe if she is careful, secure if she keeps a hard watch. But for those washed overboard there is a deep no one swims out of; for those run aground, a wreck no one gets clear of; for those pulled under, a whirlpool with no air in it — and all of it is idolatry. Every wave of it smothers; every eddy of it drags a man down to the dead. Let no one say, “Who could ever keep himself as safe as that? We would have to go out of the world!” As if going out were not just as well worth it as standing in the world as an idolater. Nothing is easier than guarding against idolatry, if the fear of it is the fear that leads all the rest; any “necessity” whatever is a small thing next to a danger like that. [n]

When the apostles met to take counsel in those days, the Holy Spirit loosened the bond and the yoke for us for this very reason: that we might be free to give ourselves to keeping clear of idolatry. This will be our law, and the more fully to be enforced the more it lies ready to hand — a law that belongs to Christians, the one by which pagans recognize us and put us to the test. It must be set before people who are coming to the faith and drilled into those who are entering it, so that in coming they may think it over, in keeping it may hold out, and in not keeping it may give up the name. We shall see about it, if, after the pattern of the ark, there turn out to be raven and kite and dog and serpent in the church. At any rate no idolater is found in the pattern of the ark: no animal was shaped to stand for an idolater. Let there not be in the church what was not in the ark.