Jesus Forbids Oaths

Again, ye have heard that it hath been said by them of old time, Thou shalt not forswear thyself, but shalt perform unto the Lord thine oaths: But I say unto you, Swear not at all; neither by heaven; for it is God's throne: Nor by the earth; for it is his footstool: neither by Jerusalem; for it is the city of the great King. Neither shalt thou swear by thy head, because thou canst not make one hair white or black. But let your communication be, Yea, yea; Nay, nay: for whatsoever is more than these cometh of evil.

SUMMARY: While the Law demanded fulfilling vows and forbid swearing falsely, Christians must not swear at all and always speak the truth. This precept is to be literally observed. Prior to martyrdom, Polycarp was urged to “swear by the fortune of Caesar.” The great King is the one King and Lord, the Father of all. Those who color their hair do profane the word of the Lord, “You cannot make one hair white or black.” Light is light; and darkness, darkness; yes is yes; and no, no. Let an oath be absent in everything. He will everywhere guard the truth. Irenaeus: Jesus enjoined Christians not only not to swear falsely, but not even to swear at all.

IRENAEUS: And, “It has been said, 'Do not forswear yourself.' But I say to you, do not swear at all; but let your conversation be, 'Yes, yes,' and 'No, no.'”

TATIAN: “You have heard also that it was said to the ancients, 'Do not lie, but perform your oaths to God:' but I say to you, 'Do not swear at all; neither by heaven, for it is God’s throne; nor by the earth, for it is a footstool under his feet; nor yet by Jerusalem, for it is the city of the great King. Neither swear by your head, for you cannot make in it one lock of hair black or white.' But your word shall be either 'Yes' or 'No,' and what is in excess of this is of the evil one.”

CLEMENT OF ALEXANDRIA: The man of proved character in such piety is far from being apt to lie and to swear. For an oath is a decisive affirmation, with the taking of the divine name. For how can he, that is once faithful, show himself unfaithful, so as to require an oath; and so that his life may not be a sure and decisive oath? He lives, and walks, and shows the trustworthiness of his affirmation in an unwavering and sure life and speech. And if the wrong lies in the judgment of one who does and says something, and not in the suffering of one who has been wronged, he will neither lie nor commit perjury so as to wrong the Deity, knowing that it by nature is incapable of being harmed. Nor yet will he lie or commit any transgression, for the sake of the neighbor whom he has learned to love, though he is not on terms of intimacy. Much more, consequently, will he not lie or perjure himself on his own account, since he never with his will can be found doing wrong to himself. But he does not even swear, preferring to make confirmation, in affirmation by “yes,” and in denial by “no.” For it is an oath to swear, or to produce anything from the mind in the way of confirmation in the shape of an oath. It suffices, then, with him, to add to an affirmation or denial the expression “I say truly,” for confirmation to those who do not perceive the certainty of his answer. For he ought, I think, to maintain a life calculated to inspire confidence towards those without, so that an oath may not even be asked; and towards himself and those with whom he associates good feeling, which is voluntary righteousness. The Christian swears truly, but is not apt to swear, having rarely recourse to an oath, just as we have said. And his speaking truth on oath arises from his accord with the truth. This speaking truth on oath, then, is found to be the result of correctness in duties. Where, then, is the necessity for an oath to him who lives in accordance with the extreme of truth? He, then, that does not even swear will be far from perjuring himself. And he who does not transgress in what is ratified by compacts, will never swear; since the ratification of the violation and of the fulfillment is by actions; as certainly lying and perjury in affirming and swearing are contrary to duty. But he who lives justly, transgressing in none of his duties, when the judgment of truth is scrutinized, swears truth by his acts. Accordingly, testimony by the tongue is in his case superfluous. Therefore, persuaded always that God is everywhere, and fearing not to speak the truth, and knowing that it is unworthy of him to lie, he is satisfied with the divine consciousness and his own alone. And so he does not lie, nor does anything at all contrary to his compacts. And so he swears not even when asked for his oath; nor does he ever deny, so as to speak falsehood, though he should die by tortures.

CYPRIAN: We must not swear. In Solomon: “A man that swears much shall be filled with iniquity, and the plague shall not depart from his house; and if he swears vainly, he shall not be justified.” Of this same matter, according to Matthew: “Again, you have heard that it was said to them of old, 'Do not swear falsely, but perform your oaths to the Lord.' I say to you, 'Do not swear at all: neither by heaven, because it is God’s throne; nor by the earth, because it is His footstool; nor by Jerusalem, because it is the city of the great King; neither swear by your head, because you can't make one hair white or black.' But let your discourse be, 'Yes, yes;' 'No, no:' for whatever is fuller than these is of evil.” The Didache: You shall not forswear yourself, you shall not bear false witness, you shall not speak evil, you shall not bear a grudge.

POLYCARP: Now, as Polycarp was entering into the stadium, there came to him a voice from heaven, saying, “Be strong, and show yourself a man, O Polycarp!” No one saw who it was that spoke to him; but those of our brothers and sisters who were present heard the voice. And as he was brought forward, the tumult became great when they heard that Polycarp was taken. And when he came near, the proconsul asked him whether he was Polycarp. On his confessing that he was, the proconsul sought to persuade him to deny Christ, saying, “Have respect to your old age,” and other similar things, according to their custom, such as, “Swear by the fortune of Caesar; repent, and say, 'Away with the Atheists.'” But Polycarp, gazing with a stern countenance on all the multitude of the wicked heathen then in the stadium, and waving his hand towards them, while with groans he looked up to heaven, said, “Away with the Atheists.” Then, the proconsul urging him, and saying, “Swear, and I will set you at liberty, reproach Christ.” Polycarp declared, “Eighty-six years have I served Him, and He never did me any injury: how then can I blaspheme my King and my Savior?” The proconsul yet again pressed him, and said, “Swear by the fortune of Caesar.” Polycarp answered, “Since you are vainly urgent that, as you say, I should swear by the fortune of Caesar, and do not pretend to know who and what I am, hear me declare with boldness, I am a Christian. And if you wish to learn what the doctrines of Christianity are, appoint me a day, and you shall hear them.” The proconsul replied, “Persuade the people.” But Polycarp said, “To you I have thought it right to offer an account of my faith; for we are taught to give all due honor (which entails no injury upon ourselves) to the powers and authorities which are ordained of God. But as for these, I do not deem them worthy of receiving any account from me.”

HERMAS: Again he said to me, “Love the truth, and let nothing but truth proceed from your mouth, that the spirit which God has placed in your flesh may be found truthful before all men; and the Lord, who dwells in you, will be glorified, because the Lord is truthful in every word, and in Him is no falsehood. They therefore who lie deny the Lord, and rob Him, not giving back to Him the deposit which they have received. For they received from Him a spirit free from falsehood. If they give him back this spirit untruthful, they pollute the commandment of the Lord, and become robbers.” On hearing these words, I wept most violently. When he saw me weeping, he said to me, “Why do you weep?” And I said, “Because, sir, I do not know if I can be saved.” “Why?” he said. And I said, “Because, sir, I never spoke a true word in my life, but have ever spoken cunningly to all, and have affirmed a lie for the truth to all; and no one ever contradicted me, but credit was given to my word. How then can I live, since I have acted thus?” And he said to me, “Your feelings are indeed right and sound, for you ought as a servant of God to have walked in truth, and not to have joined an evil conscience with the spirit of truth, nor to have caused sadness to the holy and true Spirit.” And I said to him, “Never, sir, did I listen to these words with so much attention.” And he said to me, “Now you hear them, and keep them, that even the falsehoods which you formerly told in your transactions may come to be believed through the truthfulness of your present statements. For even they can become worthy of credit. If you keep these precepts, and from this time forward you speak nothing but the truth, it will be possible for you to obtain life. And whosoever shall hear this commandment, and depart from that great wickedness falsehood, shall live to God.”

JUSTIN MARTYR: And with regard to our not swearing at all, and always speaking the truth, He enjoined as follows: “Do not swear at all; but let your yes be yes, and your no no; for whatsoever is more than these comes of evil.”

IRENAEUS: No doubt, if anyone is unwilling to follow the Gospel itself, it is in his power to reject it, but it is not expedient. For it is in man’s power to disobey God, and to forfeit what is good; but such conduct brings no small amount of injury and mischief. And on this account Paul says, “All things are lawful to me, but all things are not expedient” referring both to the liberty of man, in which respect “all things are lawful,” God exercising no compulsion in regard to him; and by the expression “not expedient” pointing out that we “should not use our liberty as a cloak of maliciousness” for this is not expedient. And again he says, “Every man speak truth with his neighbor.” And, “Let no corrupt communication proceed out of your mouth, neither filthiness, nor foolish talking, nor vulgarity, which are not fitting, but rather giving of thanks.” And, “For you were sometimes darkness, but now are you light in the Lord; walk honestly as children of the light, not in revelry and drunkenness, not in lewdness and lust, not in anger and jealousy. And such were some of you; but you have been washed, but you have been sanctified in the name of our Lord.” If then it were not in our power to do or not to do these things, what reason had the apostle, and much more the Lord Himself, to give us counsel to do some things, and to abstain from others? But because man is possessed of free will from the beginning, and God is possessed of free will, in whose likeness man was created, advice is always given to him to keep fast the good, which thing is done by means of obedience to God.

CLEMENT OF ALEXANDRIA: Whoever sells or buys anything should not name two prices for what he buys or sells; but stating the net price, and studying to speak the truth, if he does not get his price, he gets the truth, and is rich in the possession of righteousness. But, above all, let an oath on account of what is sold be far from you; and let swearing, too, on account of other things be banished.

TERTULLIAN: Of false swearing I am silent, since even swearing is not lawful.

TERTULLIAN: Christ prescribes that there is to be no swearing.

ORIGEN: And with respect to the precepts enjoined in the Gospels, no doubt can be entertained that very many of these are to be literally observed, as, for example, when our Lord says, “But I say to you, do not swear at all.”

ORIGEN: When this oath is required of us, let us remember him who taught us: “But I say unto you, Swear not at all.”

CYPRIAN: You are constrained to curse, which the divine law forbids; you are compelled to swear, which is not lawful.

IRENAEUS: Listen to Him when He says, “The kingdom of heaven is like a king who made a marriage for his son, and he sent forth his servants to call them who were bidden to the marriage.” And when they would not obey, He goes on to say, “Again he sent other servants, saying, Tell them that are bidden, Come, I have prepared my dinner; my oxen and all the fatlings are killed, and everything is ready; come to the wedding. But they made light of it, and went their way, some to their farm, and others to their merchandise; but the remnant took his servants, and some they treated despitefully, while others they slew. But when the king heard this, he was angry, and sent his armies and destroyed these murderers, and burned up their city, and said to his servants, 'The wedding is indeed ready, but they which were bidden were not worthy. Go out therefore into the highways, and as many as you shall find, gather in to the marriage.' So the servants went out, and collected together as many as they found, bad and good, and the wedding was furnished with guests. But when the king came in to see the guests, he saw there a man not having on a wedding garment; and he said to him, 'Friend, how did you come in here, not having on a wedding garment?' But he was speechless. Then the king said to his servants, 'Take him away, hand and foot, and cast him into outer darkness: there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth.' For many are called, but few are chosen.” Now, by these words of His, does the Lord clearly show that there is one King and Lord, the Father of all, of whom He had previously said, “Do not swear by Jerusalem, for it is the city of the great King;” and that He had from the beginning prepared the marriage for His Son, and used, with the utmost kindness, to call, by the instrumentality of His servants, the men of the former dispensation to the wedding feast; and when they would not obey, He still invited them by sending out other servants, yet that even then they did not obey Him, but even stoned and slew those who brought them the message of invitation. He accordingly sent forth His armies and destroyed them, and burned down their city; but He called together from all the highways, that is, from all nations, guests to the marriage feast of His Son.

TERTULLIAN: I see some women turn the color of their hair with saffron. They are ashamed even of their own nation, ashamed that their procreation did not assign them to Germany and to Gaul: thus, as it is, they transfer their hair there! Ill, yes, most ill, do they herald for themselves with their flame-colored head, and think that graceful which in fact they are polluting! No, moreover, the force of the cosmetics burns ruin into the hair; and the constant application of even any undrugged moisture, lays up a store of harm for the head; while the sun’s warmth, too, so desirable for imparting to the hair at once growth and dryness, is hurtful. What “grace” is compatible with “injury?” What “beauty” with “impurities?” Shall a Christian woman heap saffron on her head, as upon an altar? . . . But, God says, “Which of you can make a white hair black, or out of a black a white?” And so they refute the Lord!

CYPRIAN: Are sincerity and truth preserved, when what is sincere is polluted by adulterous colors, and what is true is changed into a lie by deceitful dyes? Your Lord says, “You cannot make one hair white or black;” and you, in order to overcome the word of your Lord, will be more mighty than He, and stain your hair with a daring endeavor and with profane contempt. With evil foreshadow of the future, you make a beginning to yourself already of flame-colored hair; and sin (oh, wickedness!) with your head—that is, with the nobler part of your body! And although it is written of the Lord, “His head and His hair were white like wool or snow,” you curse that whiteness and hate that hoariness which is like the Lord’s head.

TERTULLIAN: Light is light; and darkness, darkness; yes is yes; and no, no; “whatever is more than these comes of evil.”

TERTULLIAN: Always bear in mind that this is the rule of faith which I profess; by it I testify that the Father, and the Son, and the Spirit are inseparable from each other, and so you will know in what sense this is said. Now, observe, my assertion is that the Father is one, and the Son one, and the Spirit one, and that They are distinct from Each Other. This statement is taken in a wrong sense by every uneducated as well as every perversely disposed person, as if it predicated a diversity, in such a sense as to imply a separation among the Father, and the Son, and the Spirit. I am, moreover, obliged to say this, when extolling the Monarchy at the expense of the Economy they contend for the identity of the Father and Son and Spirit, that it is not by way of diversity that the Son differs from the Father, but by distribution: it is not by division that He is different, but by distinction; because the Father is not the same as the Son, since they differ one from the other in the mode of their being. For the Father is the entire substance, but the Son is a derivation and portion of the whole, as He Himself acknowledges: “My Father is greater than I.” In the Psalm His inferiority is described as being “a little lower than the angels.” Thus the Father is distinct from the Son, being greater than the Son, inasmuch as He who begets is one, and He who is begotten is another; He, too, who sends is one, and He who is sent is another; and He, again, who makes is one, and He through whom the thing is made is another. Happily the Lord Himself employs this expression of the person of the Paraclete, so as to signify not a division or severance, but a disposition of mutual relations in the Godhead; for He says, “I will pray the Father, and He shall send you another Comforter . . . even the Spirit of truth,” thus making the Paraclete distinct from Himself, even as we say that the Son is also distinct from the Father; so that He showed a third degree in the Paraclete, as we believe the second degree is in the Son, by reason of the order observed in the Economy. Besides, does not the very fact that they have the distinct names of Father and Son amount to a declaration that they are distinct in personality? For, of course, all things will be what their names represent them to be; and what they are and ever will be, that will they be called; and the distinction indicated by the names does not at all admit of any confusion, because there is none in the things which they designate. “Yes is yes, and no is no; for what is more than these, comes of evil.”

CLEMENT OF ALEXANDRIA: Again, with the Lord’s saying, “Let your yes be yes, and your no be no,” may be compared the following: “But to admit a falsehood, and destroy a truth, is in no way lawful.” With the prohibition, also, against swearing agrees the saying in the tenth book of the Laws of Plato: “Let praise and an oath in everything be absent.”

CYPRIAN: It is not fitting for the dignity of priests to be blamed for the levity of a changeable and inconstant mind, when the Lord teaches and says, “Let your communication be, Yes, yes; No, no.”

LACTANTIUS: It is a part of the same law not to utter false witness, and this also itself has a wider meaning. For if false witness by falsehood is injurious to him against whom it is spoken, and deceives him in whose presence it is spoken, we must therefore never speak falsely, because falsehood always deceives or injures. Therefore he is not a just man who, even without inflicting injury, speaks in idle discourse. Nor indeed is it lawful for him to flatter, for flattery is pernicious and deceitful; but he will everywhere guard the truth.