of the oath or imprecation, and the person who swears responds, Amen, Amen. The very form now prescribed in Spain*. Before we leave the subject immediately under consideration, we seem called upon to examine one or two points of doubt and difficulty. Without repeating what we have already stated as to the real meaning of the apparent commands given to the Israelites to swear by Jehovah, it is most clear that every other oath is strictly forbidden, and declared to involve the guilt of idolatry. This guilt, too, was incurred, not only when another oath was substituted exclusively for an oath sworn in the name of God, but also when another oath was employed conjointly with the only lawful one. Thus, not only is judgment, final, irreversible, decreed against those who swear by "The Sin of Samaria, and say Thy God! O Dan, liveth+," but perdition is declared to be their lot who "swear by the Lord AND by Malchamt." And yet, in various parts of the Old Testament, we find, oaths taken which exclude the solemn appeal to the only God of truth and justice, and that, too, by men whom we must regard as faithful worshippers of the Almighty. The point deserves investigation. The first instance which presents itself of a * Compendio del Derecho. Amos viii. 14. ‡ Zephan. i. 5. servant of God swearing by the name of another being, and not by the name of the Lord, is familiar to every one in the case of Joseph, during his interview with his brethren, who twice in the same sentence pledges himself, "By the life of Pharaoh*." Dr. Sanderson† in his lectures before the University of Oxford, professedly anxious to rescue the memory of so exemplary a man from the charge of rash and common swearing, would have us believe that this was not the form of an oath at all, but only a mode of expressing his conviction forcibly. The professor, I think, himself confesses the weakness of his own argument, and whilst he intimates his knowledge of the existence of collateral evidence in proof of its having been an oath, which however he does not examine, rests his defence of Joseph solely upon this, that independently of such evidence, there is nothing in the words themselves which proves him to have taken an oath. That the speech of Joseph however contained an oath, twice repeated, will, I think, be evident, before we leave this subject, and that, too, an oath of very pernicious precedent. In him, doubtless, it by no means implied the transfer of homage from Jehovah to a human being‡, yet the * Gen. xLii. 15, 16. † Sanderson, Prælect. v. 7. In forming our opinion, however, of Joseph's character, we must not forget the age in which he lived: the law had form was that of profane adulation, and, at last, ended in being made, against Christians, as in the case of Polycarp, the very test of heathenism. The observations of Calvin, on this point, are so just, and, at the same time, so full of kind feeling towards the memory of a good, but fallible man, that I cannot help translating here his comment on that passage. After softening, as much as he could, the objectionable character of Joseph's oath, he adds, "Still I confess there is something in it deserving of censure. Doubtless the oath is abhorrent from sincere piety: whence it may be clearly seen how difficult it is for the servants of God to live pure in the midst of the filth of the world, so as not to contract any stain. Joseph, it is true, was never so infected with the corruptions of the court as to cease to be a faithful worshipper of God; yet, when he would conform himself to the corrupt language used there, he was tainted with some spots of guilt. The repetition of the oath also shows that when a man has once accustomed himself to what is wrong, nothing is more easy than to repeat it. We see those who have once indulged in the licence of rash swearing, even when trifles are spoken of, utter an oath almost every third not then been given from Sinai; and common oaths had not been formally prohibited. Still it may well be doubted whether he did not adopt this form of apparently reckless heathen swearing, the better to disguise himself from his brethren. word. The more caution is necessary to guard us against contracting any bad habit." 66 The same form * we find in Hannah's address to Eli, and in the answer of Abner to Saul, “ As thy soul liveth†." I could have wished, for many reasons, that we had had the assistance of Calvin in examining the expression of Elisha, in which I fear we can see nothing but traces of frail human nature in an oath combining an appeal to God and to a creature: "Elijah said unto Elisha, Tarry here I pray thee, for the Lord hath sent me to Bethel; and Elisha said unto him, As the Lord liveth and as thy soul liveth, I will not leave theet." Whether this form of oath returned with the Israelites from Egypt or no, there is clear evidence of its prevalence, as a solemn adjuration, in that country. Abenezra says, "Foreigners, the Egyptians for instance, swore by the head of their king, and whosoever violated that oath suffered death, and could redeem his life at no price whatever§." In Rome, we are all aware of the custom of swearing by the life and by the health of the * In the opinion of some persons of great learning, neither this expression, nor the affirmation of Joseph, is held to imply any oath whatever. They consider the words as merely saying, "As true as it is that thy soul liveth, so true is it, &c." But after much consideration of the subject, I confess that Calvin seems to me to have taken the correct view. 1 Sam. i. 26; xvii. 55. 2 Kings ii. 2. emperor; and Caligula considered the refusal or omission of an oath, "by his genius," a sufficient ground for inflicting punishment on the offender*. Nor can we forget, what one of the most undoubted and most affecting pages of ecclesiastical history records, the firmness with which the good old Polycarp resisted, even unto death, the temptation to swear by the life of the emperor, when his acquiescence would have saved him from the tortures of martyrdom, "Have pity on thy own great age-swear by the fortune of Cæsar+." We must, hereafter, mention some of the practices, into which the degenerate and unreformed church fell: the parallel between it and heathenism, in this particular, is too palpable not to force itself upon our notice. One of their forms of oath was, 66 By God, and by the safety of the Apostolic See and the Pope." We sometimes, in our own days, hear careless speakers, who would shrink from taking the name of God in vain, yet attempt to infuse life into their conversation by similar expressions, in their origin and use equally objectionable. We have elsewhere observed upon the distinction * Sueton: in Vit. Calig: xxvii. "In the Council of Ephesus, an oath was taken by The Holy and Consubstantial Trinity, and by the Piety and Victory of the two masters of the world, Flavius Theodosius, and Flavius Valentinianus, the Emperors."- -Cotel: Patr: Apost: II., p. 196. |