Annotation CCXXXIX

”That we may serve in newness of spirit, and not in the oldness of the letter.” — Romans 7:6

Whether abstinence from an oath, and love of an enemy, are counsels or precepts.

Chrysostom, [in] homily 12 on the epistle to the Romans, in the exposition of this passage, put such words: “AT the time when Adam sinned, then his body was made mortal and passible; and thence it received very many diseases, whence the horse [the flesh] was rendered both heavier and more unbridled. But Christ, coming, restored it to us more moderate through baptism, lightening the same with the wings of the Spirit: whence neither are the same courses [stadia] set before us [as before the ancients], because [now] the course would not be so easy [to run].

Wherefore also he demands of us not only that we be clean from slaughter, as he demanded of them, but that we be not even angry. And he bids us beware not only of adultery, but even of a lustful look. And he forbids us not only perjury, but any oath whatsoever; and he enjoins [us] to love, together with friends, [our] enemies too. And so in all other matters he has appointed longer courses for us; and unless we obey, he has threatened gehenna — showing that these very [things] are not [matters] of the magnificence or liberality of those competing [for a prize], as virginity and poverty [are], but that they altogether ought to be fulfilled. For they are urgent and necessary; and whosoever shall not have done them, is to pay the utmost penalties.”

Lucian the Monk, in the Annotations upon Chrysostom (condemned by the Council of Trent), having seized from these words a handle for biting the scholastic theologians, charges them [with this]: that among the evangelical counsels they have placed abstinence from an oath, and the love of enemies — which Chrysostom thus demonstrates to be necessary and urgent precepts, so that he who shall not have performed them is to pay the utmost punishments. But it appears that he [Lucian] fell into this opinion out of ignorance of scholastic theology, which he had not even saluted from the threshold [i.e. never so much as approached]. For no scholastic ever taught that the interdiction of an oath is altogether and in every part a counsel; nay rather, three grades are established by them in the prohibition of a true oath. Of these the first is, that we in no way — not even truly, nor in a just cause — swear by creatures, as [if] exhibiting divine reverence to them, lest we seem to reckon creatures among the gods. The second is, that we — [being] doubtful and ambiguous — swear not easily and lightly and rashly, even truly, and in a lawful matter. The third is, that those who profess the highest state of Christian perfection in no way swear in cases arising among themselves. The scholastics confess that the two former grades have the force of a precept; the third they enumerate among the counsels, delivered to the perfect — led by the authority of certain Fathers of no contemptible name, who referred this last grade of not-swearing to the counsels.

Of whose number is St. Bernard, who, in sermon 65 on the Canticle of Canticles, inveighing against certain heretics — [who] say that it is not lawful to swear, yet that it is lawful to forswear [commit perjury], lest the secrets of their sect be known by others — thus says: “IT IS PLAIN that you both superstitiously scruple concerning an oath, and wickedly presume concerning perjury. O perversity! [That] which was counseled for caution — namely, not to swear — this these [men] contentiously observe in the stead of a command; and [that] which was sanctioned by an immovable right — namely, that one must not forswear — this they dispense [with], as [if] indifferent, according to [their own] will.” Into the same opinion, before Bernard, had [come] Christian Druthmar, in the commentaries on the fifth chapter of Matthew, saying: “LEST the Jews should swear by the names of idols, the Lord permitted them to swear by [his own]

—[his own] name. Nor did he even forbid [it] to us, but taught us perfection, etc.

IN THE SAME MANNER too the scholastics distinguish the law concerning the loving of enemies by a threefold grade: namely, into a common love [dilection], to be shown indifferently to all friends and enemies, and at every time; into a particular love, to be shown to enemies in [their] time of necessity; and into a particular love, to be shown to enemies apart from the crises [emergencies] of necessity. The first and second grade they place among the precepts; the last they set among the counsels. And according to this distinction a certain passage of Chrysostom, in the first book On Compunction of Heart, is to be interpreted — where that author says that the love of enemies is not [a matter] of exhortation, but of injunction [command]. Which passage indeed John Calvin, [in] chapter 3 of his Institutes, opposes to the opinion of the scholastics. Likewise, by this distinction is resolved that saying of Augustine which the Lutherans allege against the scholastics, from his sermon On the Season [De tempore], 61 — where it is thus read: “THE LORD, in the gospel, [in commanding] that we ought to love [our] enemies, gave not a counsel, but a precept. One [thing] is a counsel, another is a precept. A counsel is given, that virginity be preserved, that one abstain from wine and flesh, that all [things] be sold, and disbursed to the poor. A precept is given, that justice be kept, that every man turn aside from evil, and do good. And thus the Lord commanded, ‘Love your enemies, and do good to them that hate you,’ etc.”¹ Return to Annotations 26 and 27 of this book.