made by the Jews, between their judicial oaths, which were always sworn by the name of Jehovah, and their ordinary oaths, such as By the blood of Abel, by Jerusalem, heaven, earth, the temple*, &c. They pretended to observe this distinction with the pious view of preserving the holiest name from irreverence and abuse, but their practical comments on the distinction prove clearly that the chief end aimed at was to be enabled to swear without exposing themselves to the terrors of the lawto break their oath with impunity. The reader will gain much information on this subject from Selden, Lib. ii., c. 11. * It is said, but there is still much doubt hanging over the point, that if they forswore themselves by the name of God, they were subjected to temporal punishment, and were obliged to expiate their guilt by sacrifice, which was not the case with regard to their other oaths. I have not thought it necessary to examine the celebrated distich of Martial. Ecce negas; jurasque mihi per templa tonantis. See Spencer, De Leg. Heb. CHAPTER III. OATHS OF ANCIENT GREECE. It is beyond doubt, that in the Old Testament to swear by Jehovah was pronounced by the tongue of inspiration, to be a test of faith in Him as the supreme Lord and God, the Maker and Governor of the world, the lover of truth, and the avenger of falsehood. To swear by any other being was equivalent to the setting up of that other as God, and incurred all the guilt of idolatry: it was one species of religious adoration, an acknowledgment of the omniscience and power, and consequently, the divinity of the person so invoked. And the same was thoroughly understood among the heathen nations of antiquity: to swear by the name of a man was to deify him. The poets again and again represent the canonization of heroes as consisting in this honour; and when Horace would exalt Cæsar above all other mortals, as one whose like the world never beheld, the distinction which excepted him from the rest of their "Gods many," was that altars, at which oaths should be sworn by his name, were raised during his life; the abject adulation of his countrymen not waiting for his departure to the region of spirits *. We, conse * Horace, Epist. ii. 1, 16. quently, may expect to find the names, by which the heathen nations swore, to be as countless as their divinities; all of whom, as their fables say, were bound by a specific duty to visit with their full tide of wrath, the mortal who should dare to dishonour their name by perjury. Among these, however, Jupiter himself, and his daughter Justice, and the Furies, seem to have been supposed to be more especially employed in executing vengeance on souls polluted by that specific guilt; pursuing them and their families to utter destruction on earth, and racking them with excruciating tortures below*. And yet perjury was one of the most crying sins among their worshippers. The Greeks seem to have recognised a broad distinction between their greater and lesser oaths, for which they had sufficient countenance in their mythology. In making this distinction, they only followed the Jews, and unhappily, their example is too closely followed by Christians, who ought to know better. The fables of the ancient heathen world tell us that, even among the Gods, perjury was, in some cases, considered merely as a venial error; whilst if any immortal should swear falsely by the waters of the Styx, he should be deprived of nectar, and forfeit his divinity for a hundred years. We must not dwell on the tales of their * Eurip. Med. 170 and 210. Hesiod. Theog. 400; see Potter's Antiq. ii. 6. mythology; though some of them not only throw light upon dark parts of ancient history, but at the same time enable us to trace many customs of the moderns, and of Christians, to their pagan origin. Thus when we read the passage in Hesiod above referred to, it is impossible not to associate that well-known fable with the custom prevalent in India of the natives swearing by the Garges water brought in a phial. If there be one of those who dwell in heaven [He] who pours out the stream, And is forsworn-he, one whole year entire, The ceremony of taking an oath, among the Greeks, to which our attention is first drawn, is that of approaching the altar, laying the hand upon it, and swearing by the divinity to whose honour it was raised. I am not aware of any oath administered in this form being upon record in the Sacred Writings, otherwise we should have specified the custom under the preceding head. There is, however, a clause in Solomon's Dedication-Prayer, which seems to imply the existence of such a form among the Jews, previously to the building of the Temple. "If any man trespass against his neigh bour, and an oath be laid upon him to cause him to swear, and the oath come before thine altar in this house, then hear thou in heaven, and do, and judge thy servants, condemning the wicked, to bring his way upon his head, and justifying the righteous, to give him according to his righteousness." The words, too, in which our Lord reproves the evasive distinctions of his degenerate countrymen, seem to point the same way: "Woe to you, blind guides, who say, Whosoever sweareth by the altar, it is nothing; but whosoever sweareth by the gift that is upon it, he is bound+." That this custom prevailed generally among the Greeks is beyond all question. There is a celebrated saying of Pericles, which this custom fully explains. When a friend urged him to testify in his behalf what was false, he replied, "I am your friend to the altar, and no further." Cicero introduces an interesting anecdote in his Oration for Balbus, which at once explicitly declares this to have been the form prevalent in Greece, and at the same time, leads us by fair inference to conclude, that it had not been adopted at Rome in his time. "At Athens, a citizen, we are told, whose character had been established among his countrymen for gravity and holiness of life, after publicly giving his testimony, was ap * 1 Kings viii. 31. + Matt. xxiii. 18. |