City of God (Penguin Classics) (15 page)
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Authors: Saint Augustine
24.
Regulus a nobler example of fortitude than Cato. But Christians supply much nobler instances.
Our adversaries object to our giving preference over Cato to the holy Job or to other saints recorded in our literature – writings of supreme authority and worthy of all credence. Job would rather suffer horrible bodily distresses than free himself from all those torments by self-inflicted death; and other saints chose to endure captivity and oppression at the enemy’s hands, rather than commit suicide. But in our adversaries’ literature I should put Marcus Regulus above Marcus Cato. For Cato had never beaten Caesar; he was beaten by Caesar, and disdaining to submit, he chose suicide. Regulus on the other hand had already beaten the Carthaginians; as commander-in-chief of the Roman army he had won, not a victory over fellow-citizens fraught with grief for Rome, but a victory over foreign foes, crowned, with glory. Afterwards he remained patient under Carthaginian domination and unmoved among Roman demonstrations of affection, not depriving his enemies of his conquered body nor his fellow-citizens of his unconquered spirit. It was not because he clung to life that he refused suicide. He proved this when, because of his oath, he returned without hesitation to the enemy, whom he had provoked more bitterly by his words in the senate than by his achievements in war. He set little store by this life; and yet when the enemy were raging against him he chose to let his life be ended by any kind of torture, rather than to the by his own hand. And by this choice he put it beyond doubt that suicide was, in his judgement, a serious crime. Among all their heroes, men worthy of honour and renowned for virtue, the Romans have none greater to produce. Here was one whom prosperity did not corrupt; for after so great a victory he remained a very poor man, one whom adversity could not shatter, for he went back without trembling to so terrible an end.
There were famous heroes who, though by the laws of war they could do violence to a conquered enemy, refused to do violence to themselves when conquered; though they had not the slightest fear of death, they chose to endure the enemy’s domination rather than put themselves to death. They were fighting for their earthly country; the gods they worshipped were false; but their worship was genuine and they faithfully kept their oaths. Christians worship the true God and they yearn for a heavenly country; will they not have more reason to refrain from the crime of suicide, if God’s providence subjects them for a time to their enemies for their probation or reformation? Their
God does not abandon them in that humiliation, for he came from on high so humbly for their sake; moreover, they are men who are not under an obligation, from any military authority or code of warfare, to strike a conquered foe. What is the origin of this pernicious error, that a man should kill himself because of an enemy’s sin against him, or to prevent such a sin? In fact, he should not dare to kill even an enemy who did him wrong, or was about to do him wrong.
25.
One sin should not be avoided by another
It is objected that there is a danger that the body, when subjected to another’s lust, may entice the mind, by the allurements of pleasure, to consent to the sin; for fear of this, they say, one ought to commit suicide not because of one’s own sin, but to forestall another’s. Never! The mind which is subordinate to the wisdom of God and not to the promptings of the body will never allow itself to consent to a physical desire aroused by another’s lust. If suicide is a detestable crime and a damnable sin, as the Truth plainly declares, who will be so senseless as to say, ‘Let us sin now, to avoid possible sin in the future. Let us now commit murder, to avoid falling into adultery in the future’? If wickedness has such power over us that sin is chosen in preference to innocence, is not uncertain adultery in the future preferable to certain homicide in the present? Is it not preferable to do a wrong which may be cured by penitence, than an act of wickedness which leaves no chance for saving repentance?
I have made this point for the benefit of men and women who suppose that they ought to lay violent hands on themselves to prevent themselves, and not others, from sinning, for fear that their own lust might be excited by another’s, and that they might consent. Let it never enter a Christian’s mind that such a mind could yield to any physical pleasure so as to consent to disgrace. For a Christian mind trusts in its God, places its hope in him, and relies on his help. It is true that insubordinate desires are still to be found in our mortal bodies, acting as it were by laws of their own without reference to the law of our will. Such disobedience of the body is not to be blamed when one is asleep, still less when there is no consent.
26.
What explanation is to be given of unlawful acts committed by saints
?
‘But’, they say, ‘in time of persecution there were holy women who escaped those who threatened their chastity by throwing themselves
into rivers for the stream to whirl them away to death: and after such a death they were venerated as martyrs in the Catholic Church, and crowds thronged their tombs.’
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I would not presume to make a hasty judgement on their case. I do not know whether divine authority convinced the church by cogent evidence that their memory should be honoured in this way; it may well be so. It may be that they acted on divine instruction and not through a human mistake – not in error, but in obedience. This is what we are bound to believe in Samson’s case. When God orders, and shows without ambiguity that he orders, no one will bring an accusation against obedience. Who will lay a charge against a loyal compliance?
But if anyone decides to sacrifice his son to God, his action is not free from crime just because Abraham did this and was praised for doing it. For when a soldier kills a man in obedience to the legitimate authority under which he served, he is not chargeable with murder by the laws of his country; in fact he is chargeable with insubordination and mutiny if he refuses. But if he did it of his own accord, on his own authority, he would be liable to a charge of homicide. Thus he is punished if he did it without orders for the same reason that he will be punished if he refuses when ordered.
If that is the case when a general gives the order, how much more when the command comes from the Creator! And so one who accepts the prohibition against suicide may kill himself when commanded by one whose orders must not be slighted; only let him take care that there is no uncertainty about the divine command. We have only a hearsay acquaintance with any man’s conscience; we do not claim to judge the secrets of the heart. ‘No one knows what goes on inside a man except the man’s spirit which is in him.’
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What we are saying, asserting, and establishing by all means at our command is this: that no one ought deliberately to bring about his own death by way of escaping from temporal troubles, for fear that he may fall into eternal afflictions; it is wrong to commit suicide because of the sins of others, for this is to bring upon oneself a heavy burden of sin, whereas another’s sin could not defile one; or because of one’s past sins, for one has more need of this life on their account, so that those sins may be healed by repentance; or through longing for a better life, hoped for
after death, for those guilty of their own death are not received after death into that better life.
27.
Should one commit suicide to avoid sin
?
There remains one situation in which it is supposed to be advantageous to commit suicide; I had already begun to discuss the question. It arises when the motive is to avoid falling into sin either through the allurements of pleasure or through the menaces of pain. If we agree to allow this motive we shall not be able to stop until we reach the point when people are to be encouraged to kill themselves for preference, immediately they have received forgiveness of all sins by washing in the waters of holy regeneration. For that would be the time to forestall all future sins – the moment when all past sins have been erased. If self-inflicted death is permitted, surely this is the best possible moment for it! When a person has been thus set free why should he expose himself again to all the perils of this life, when it is so easily allowed him to avoid them by doing away with himself? And the Bible says, ‘A man who is fond of danger will fall into it.’
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Why are men so fond of all these great dangers, or at any rate are willing to accept them, by remaining in this life, when they are allowed to depart from it? If a man has a duty to kill himself to avoid succumbing to sin because he is at the mercy of one man, who holds him prisoner, does he suppose that he has to go on living so as to endure the pressures of the actual world, which is full of temptations at all times, temptations such as that which is dreaded under one master, and innumerable others, which are the necessary accompaniment of this life? Has perverse silliness so warped our judgement and distracted us from facing the truth? For on this assumption, why do we spend time on those exhortations to the newly baptized. We do our best to kindle their resolve to preserve their virginal purity, or to remain continent in widowhood, or to remain faithful to their marriage vows. But there is available an excellent short cut which avoids any danger of sinning; if we can persuade them to rush to a self-inflicted death immediately upon receiving remission of sins, we shall send them to the Lord in the purest and soundest condition!
But in fact if anyone thinks that we should go in for persuasion on these lines, I should not call him silly, but quite crazy. Then how could anyone justify saying to any human being: ‘Kill yourself, to avoid adding more serious sin to your small shortcomings, living, as
you do, under a master with the manners and morals of a savage’, if he cannot say, without being a complete criminal, ‘Kill yourself, now that all your sins have been absolved, to avoid committing such sins again, or even worse, while you are living in a world full of the allurements of impure pleasures, so maddened with all its monstrous cruelties, so menacing with all its errors and terrors’? To say this would be monstrous; it follows that suicide is monstrous. If there could be a valid reason for suicide one could not find one more valid than this; and since this is not valid, a valid reason does not exist.
28.
By what judgement of God the enemy’s lust was allowed to sin against the bodies of the chaste
Therefore, faithful Christians, do not think life a burden because your enemies make a mockery of your chastity. You have a great and genuine consolation if you are sure in your conscience that you have not consented in the sins of those who have been allowed to sin against you. If you should ask why they were thus allowed, we must answer that the providence of the Creator and Governor of the universe is a profound mystery, and ‘his judgements are inscrutable, and his ways cannot be traced’.
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And yet you should honestly examine your hearts and see if perhaps you have not plumed yourselves overmuch on the possession of your virginity, your continence, your chastity – if you have not set too much store by the praises of men and have even envied others in this respect. I make no accusations, because I do not know, nor do I hear the replies of your hearts to this examination. However, if they give an affirmative reply, do not be amazed at having lost that for which you were concerned – because it would win men’s approval – while you have retained what cannot be displayed before their eyes. If you have not consented in the sin, divine aid has been added to divine grace, to prevent your losing that grace, while men’s reproach has come in place of men’s praise, to prevent your loving that praise. Accept this twofold consolation, you faint-hearted creatures. On the one hand there is your probation, on the other your chastisement; on one side, your justification, on the other, your correction.
Some hearts may reply that they have never prided themselves on the virtue of virginity, or widowhood, or chaste wedlock, but have rejoiced in God’s gift ‘with trembling’,
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and by ‘sharing the outlook
of humble people’;
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that they have not envied the excellence of anyone of equal holiness and chastity; rather they have set little store by the praise of men (which is generally bestowed more lavishly in proportion to the rarity of the virtue which occasions it) and have rather desired that the number of such persons should be increased than that they themselves should have the distinction of scarcity.
If any such women have suffered the violence of barbarian lust, they will not blame God for allowing it, nor will they believe that God makes light of such crimes. He allows them, but no one can commit them with impunity. The truth is that in the mysterious justice of God the wickedness of desire is given rope, as it were, for the present, while its punishment is plainly being reserved for the final judgement.
It may also be that those whose conscience assures them that they have no swollen pride about the virtue of chastity had in them some latent weakness which might have swollen into arrogant complacency, if they had escaped this humiliation during the recent catastrophe. Therefore, just as some were carried off by death so that ‘evil should not corrupt their mind’,
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these others were roughly deprived of a possession, so that prosperity should not tamper with their modesty. Thus there were two classes, those who boasted that their bodies had never suffered defiling contact, and those who might have boasted, if they had not been violently handled by the enemy. Neither were robbed of their chastity: both were persuaded to be humble. In one case relief was brought to a swelling already developed; in the other a threatened swelling was forestalled.
There is a further point to be made. Some of the victims might have supposed that the virtue of continence is to be classed with physical qualities and that it endures provided that the body is not defiled by anyone’s lust, whereas in fact it has its seat in the strength of the will, sustained by God’s help, so that both body and spirit may be holy; and it is not a treasure which can be stolen without the mind’s consent. Perhaps their mistake has been corrected. For when they consider how conscientiously they have served God and realize that he cannot possibly have abandoned those who thus serve him and call upon him, and when they find it impossible to doubt how much pleasure he takes in their chastity, then they will see that it follows that he never could have allowed such a disaster to befall his saints if their purity could be destroyed in this way – a purity which he bestowed on them, and which he loves to see in them.