contributions be agreed upon, this, where there is neither false declaration nor reticence of what ought to have been said, is in exterior actions held for equality. And thus, as by the Civil Law before Diocletian there was no action before a court of law for such inequality, so now among those who are connected only by the Law of Nations, there is no demand or compulsion allowed on that account. This agrees with what Pomponius says, that in the price of selling and buying, it is naturally allowed to men to circumvent one another: where allowed means, not that it is right, but that there is such permission that no remedy exists against him who offers such a defense.

2 Naturally, in this place, as in some others, is put for what is everywhere a received custom: as St Paul says that nature herself teaches us that it is shameful for a man to have long hair; though it is not repugnant to nature, and is the usage among many peoples. (1 Cor. xi. 14.) So the Author of the Book of Wisdom calls the worshippers of idols (not all men) vain by nature (xiii. 1), and St Paul, by nature the children of wrath (Eph. ii. 3), not speaking so much in his own character, as in that of the Romans, among whom he was then living. So Euenus, Galen, Thucydides, Diodorus: and so the Greeks spoke of naturalized virtues and vices. So Pomponius, when he says that a civilian could not die both testate and intestate, adds that the two things are naturally at variance: although that rule depends solely on the customs of the Romans, and has no place among other peoples, and not even among the Romans in soldiers' testaments.

3 The utility of introducing such rules as I have mentioned is evident, in order to obviate infinite controversies, which could not have been put on clear grounds in consequence of the uncertain prices of things among those who have no common judge, and which would have occurred if it had been reckoned lawful to depart from pacts on account of the inequality of conditions. So the Imperial Laws recognize Buying and Selling as being the result of long haggling and final agreement. So Seneca, and Andronicus Rhodius.

4 The writer of the life of Isidore calls this, injustice allowed by law.

I. 1

A

MONG all peoples, and in every age, the force of Oaths in proposals, promises, and contracts, has always been very great. So Sophocles in the Hippodamia; Cicero.

2 And a heavy punishment was understood to await the perjured: so Hesiod. So that the posterity would have to expiate the crime of their ancestors, which was only believed in the case of the greatest crimes and it was believed that even the will to commit perjury, without the deed, would bring down punishment. See Herodotus in the story of Glaucus, and Juvenal.

3 Cicero says well, An Oath is a religious affirmation: what you promise solemnly, God being referred to as witness, is to be kept. What he adds, For then the matter pertains, not to the anger of the gods, for there is no such feeling, but to justice and good faith, is not to be rejected, if by anger he understands a perturbation, a passion: but if a purpose or will of punishing, is by no means to be received, as Lactantius proves.

Let us now see whence the force of an Oath arises, and to what it tends.

II. First, that has place here, which we said of promises and contracts, that there is required a mind master of its reason and deliberate. Hence if any one, not thinking to swear, utters the words of an oath, it is not swearing. See in Ovid the story of Cydippe, [who read aloud on an apple which Acontius her lover had thrown at her, I swear that I will marry Acontius.] So Euripides in the Hippolytus.

But if any one, willingly swearing, wished not to bind himself, he is not the less obliged, because obligation is the necessary effect of an oath, and inseparable from it.

III. 1 But if any one utters the words of an oath, but with a purpose of not swearing, there are writers who hold that he is not bound, but that he sins by swearing rashly. But the sounder opinion is, that he is bound to make true the words to which he took God to witness for that act, which is of itself obligatory, proceeded from a deliberate mind. And hence it follows that, as Cicero says, not to do what you intentionally swear is perjury. See Homer.

2 This is so, with the exception of the case in which you who swear, know or believe that he with whom you have to do takes your words otherwise: for in taking God to witness his words, he ought to perform them as he supposes them to be understood. So Cicero regulates an oath by the mens deferentis, the mind of the proposer. Tacitus speaks of men in fear changing the words of the oath: Augustine, of men keeping the words and balking the expectation. So Isidore. To swear without reserve is liquido jurare. So Metellus, rightly, would not swear to the Apuleian law, though it was void, as being informally passed.

3 For though in promises some tacit condition may be understood which absolves the promiser, that is not so in an Oath. So St Paul, Heb. vi. 18, That by two immutable things, in which it was impossible for God to deceive: speaking after the manner of men.

4 For God does not really change his decrees. He is said to change and to repent, when he acts otherwise than the words seem to imply, which he does on account of a condition tacitly understood, which has ceased. See the passages. And in this sense God may improperly be said to deceive us; the word often meaning to frustrate hope. See the passages. And this appears more plainly in threats, because they give no right: sometimes in promises, where there is a tacit condition.

5 Therefore the Apostle speaks of two things which mark immutability; the promise, which gives the promisee a right; and the oath, for that repels tacit and latent conditions. See the Psalms as quoted. For it is another thing if any conditions are openly indicated by the nature of the transaction. And to this some refer Numb. xiv. 30: Ye shall not come into the land concerning which I sware to make you dwell therein. But it is more exact to say that the land was sworn, not to the individuals, but to the People, namely, the posterity of those to, whom God had sworn, as ver. 23. Such a promise may be fulfilled at any time, and is not restricted to certain persons.

IV. 1 From what has been said, it may be understood what is to be judged of an oath obtained by fraud. For if it be certain that the swearer supposed some fact which is not so, and would not have sworn except he had so believed, then the oath is not binding. But if it be doubtful whether, even without that fact, he would not have sworn the

same, he must stand by his words, because simplicity in the highest degree is suitable in swearing.

2 To this I refer the oath of Joshua and the elders of Israel to the Gibeonites, Josh. ix. They were deceived by the simulation of the Gibeonites, but it did not follow that Joshua and the Israelites, if they knew that they were neighbours, would not have spared them. For what they said, ver. 7, Peradventure ye dwell among us, and how shall we make a league with you? may be understood as an inquiry whether the Gibeonites asked for a league of equality or of submission; or that they might shew that it was not lawful for the Hebrews to make leagues with certain peoples; not to imply that they would not spare their lives if they surrendered. For the divine law, which devoted those peoples to destruction, was to be understood by comparison with the rest of the law, in such sense that it was to take its course except any one attended to the warning, and did what was commanded them. This appears in the history of Rahab, who was spared; and of Solomon, who put the remainder of the Canaanites under a tribute of bondservice.

3 And to this view belongs what is said in the book of Joshua, xi. 19, 20, that none of the seven cities of Canaan made peace, for God had hardened their hearts that they might have no favour; wherefore it is probable that if the Gibeonites had stated the actual fact, they would have obtained their lives on condition of submission; the oath therefore was good. So much so, that God inflicted heavy punishment for the violation of it. 2 Sam. xxi. 6. So Ambrose maintains this oath. And the Gibeonites were punished for their deceit with personal servitude, whereas, if they had acted openly, they might have escaped on condition of paying a tribute.

V. But the signification of an oath is not to be extended beyond the received usage of speech. Therefore those were not perjured, Judges xxi. 7, who, when they had sworn that they would not give their daughters to wife to the tribe of Benjamin, still permitted them to live with those who had taken them by violence. For it is one thing to give, another, not to ask back rigorously. So Ambrose.

Not dissimilarly the Achæans, when the Romans were dissatisfied with something which they had done and sworn to, requested the Romans to change it themselves, and not to ask them to make void what they had sworn to uphold.

VI. That an oath may be valid, the obligation must be lawful. Wherefore there is no force in a sworn promise concerning a thing unlawful, either by Natural Law, or Divine Prohibition, or Human, of which we shall speak afterwards. So Philo Judæus. Thus David spared Nabal, whom he had sworn to kill. Cicero mentions, as an example, Agamemnon's vow; Dionysius, the conspiracy of the decemvirs. So Seneca, Ambrose, Augustine, Basil.

VII. 1 Even if the thing promised be not unlawful, but something impeding a greater moral good, the oath will not be valid: because we

are bound by God to aim at a moral progress; so that we may not take this liberty for ourselves. So Philo Judæus, of persons who in anger, &c. swear that they will not change their minds, or do good to this or that man. The forms of such oaths occur in Hebrew. [See.]

2 A vow of anything to God that another might not have it, was held valid by the Hebrew masters, even against parents; which Christ condemns. Even if the vow be against others it is not binding, because it is opposed to our moral progress.

VIII. Oaths concerning things impossible we need not speak of: for no one can be compelled to do what is impossible.

IX. As to what is for the time or by supposition impossible, the obligation is suspended; so that he who has sworn on the supposition, ought to do all that he can, that he may render possible what he has

sworn.

X. The Forms of Oaths differ in words, agree in substance. They ought to have this meaning, that God is called upon, suppose in this way: May God be my witness; or, May God be my Judge; which two forms come to the same thing. For when a superior, having the right of punishing, is called in as a witness, he is also called upon to punish perfidy: and He who knows all things is the Avenger, because he is the Witness. Plutarch says every Oath ends in imprecations on the false swearer. To this view belonged the ancient forms of leagues, in which victims were slain: of which see the meaning in the passages quoted. So Abram's sacrifice, Gen. xv. 9.

XI. 1 But it is also an old custom to swear, mentioning other things or persons, either as imprecating harm from them, as the sun, the earth, heaven, the prince; or as calling to be punished in them, as one's head, children, country, prince. And this was done not only by the heathen, but by the Jews; as Philo shews. He says that those who are going to swear, ought not forthwith to go up to the Creator and Father of all, but to swear by parents, heaven, earth, the universe. And so Eustathius notes that the ancient Greeks did not commonly swear by the Gods, but by other things present; as by the sceptre; and this was instituted by Rhadamanthus. [See.] So Joseph swore by the life of Pharaoh, following the Egyptian custom; and Elisha to Elijah, As thy soul liveth, 2 Kings ii. 2.

And Christ, in Matth. v., does not, as some suppose, teach that these oaths are less lawful than those in which God's name is expressed, but that they were true oaths, though the Hebrews thought more lightly of them. As Ulpian says, that he who swears by his own salvation, swears by God; so Christ taught that he who swears by the temple, or by heaven, swears by God.

2 The Hebrew teachers of that time held that men were not bound in oaths in which they had sworn by created things, except the thing sworn by, were, as a penalty, vowed to God. This is the oath of Corban, which is not only mentioned in Matthew, but also was known to the Tyrians, as we learn from Josephus against Appion. And hence