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THE OATH AND ITS ETHICS
A DISCOURSE GIVEN BEFORE THE
SOUTH PLACE SOCIETY
MAY i, 1881
(with some additions),
BY
MONCURE D. CONWAY, M.A.
LONDON :
II,
SOUTH PLACE, FINSBURY.
PRICE TWOPENCE.
�F. G. HICKSON & Co.
257, High Holbobn,
London, W.C.
�THE OATH AND ITS ETHICS
’HEN Christian Pharisaism was resisting the
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equal rights of Jews in Parliament, the Con
servative leader just laid in his grave answered one who
afterwards sat in his cabinet, and those with him—■
“ You are influenced by the darkest superstitions of
the darkest ages that ever existed in this country.”
The day of his burial was celebrated by an outbreak,
led by his late followers, of the same dark super
stitions. By its vote on the oath question Parliament
has plunged back into the cesspool of medieval
absurdities, and made the oath into a mill-stone heavy
enough to sink in that pool every man who shall
deliberately take it.
Hitherto, for a very long time, a man taking the
path has meant only to proclaim formally his purpose
to fulfil an engagement. It was a foolish formula,
but had been conventionalised to mean that, and it
meant no more. The words “ sunrise ’ and “ sunset
are inaccurate, but even an astronomer may say
“ sunset ” without falsehood, since it is a conventional
word for the thing he means. The oath had as little
pretension to exactness. But now it has been made
into a creed. When a member of Parliament says
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“ So help me God ” it is now declared he must mean
just what he says.
I propose to day to prove to you what that meaning
is. But let me first remark that the present situation
of the legislature in this matter is an illustration of
the practical importance of studies often supposed
antiquarian and unpractical. The archeologist, the
philologist, the mythologist, often meet with persons
who regard their researches as useless for the present
time, and their results merely curious. But if either
the member denied his right to take the oath, or his
opponents had possessed full archaeological knowledge
of the subject, it might have been shown that the
whole question is really as simple as it seemed compli
cated. If Mr. Tyler, the author of Primitive Culttire,
had been called before the Committee which decided
some time since that an atheist could not take the
oath, he could have proved to every member present
that not one of them had any more right to take it,
If one step be taken beyond the mere formality, the
affirmation of a purpose, that step is into the original
sense of the formula; and the original sense of it is
what no educated man, however orthodox, believes or
can believe.
There is nothing doubtful whatever about the oath.
There is no room for theories: the facts are established;
every letter and accent in the formula has been traced
�through the history of law to the germ from which
it came. The English oath is in form both Roman
and Jewish; in essence it belongs to the realm of
barbarian superstition. Writers on the subject are
unanimous in the opinion that the oath is of the
nature of an ordeal. The natural development of an
ordeal is illustrated in that used for witchcraft. In
the early panic about witches it used to be the ordeal
of those suspected to be thrown into the water: if
they floated they were evidently witches; if they sank
they were human,—and if they could not be rescued
the crowd held it sufficient compensation that they
had gone to heaven. But some merciful man or men
proposed the ordeal of weighing witches against the
Bible. It was said that if one wrere a witch he or she
could not outweigh God’s -word : so the Bible was
placed in one scale, the suspected witch in the other;
and after that the poor creatures were saved, except
in remote districts where the old fashion was preferred
or the new- not heard of. But in this new form of the
ordeal there was the same soul of superstition as in
the old.
The primitive ordeals bore unfairly against those
subjected to them. They might be, as in some
regions they still are, compelled to drink poison, in
the faith that, if innocent, poison will not harm them.
There was then a transition in which the accused had
to invoke a judgment from the power of the sorcerers
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or priests; these would go through incantations and
solemn ceremonies, which sometimes so wrought
upon the nerves of the guilty that they would confess,
fall sick, or die. Then when or where the priests and
their incantations ceased to be dreaded, the authorities
arranged means by which anyone, whose evidence
they believed false or did not like, might be covertly
punished. An old church at Rome is called Bocca
della Verity or, “ Mouth of truth,” from the legend
that a large round stone-face, preserved in it, was used
for swearing persons. The mouth at the centre is an
aperture, through which it is said the oath-taker had
to put his hand, and hold it there while giving
evidence, in full faith that if he uttered a falsehood
his hand would be smitten off by the Angel of
Justice. The stone being large enough to conceal a
man behind it, legend says the hand was cut off with
a sword whenever the evidence did not please the
authorities. This may be no more than a legend, but
the tradition points to the path by which human
sanctions of the oath superseded the divine. In the
present day, the German, in swearing before a couit,
holds up two fingers, in accordance with the old
belief that they will be smitten off if he perjures
himself,—struck by lightning. But, as he takes care
to hold his fingers up where he can see them, they
are not often struck by lightning.
“In Samoa,” says Farrer, “as at Westminster,
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physical còntact with a thing adds vast weight to the
value of a man’s evidence. Turner relates how, in
turn, each person suspected of a theft, was obliged
before the chiefs to touch a sacred drinking-cup made
of cocoa-nut, and to invoke destruction upon himself
if he were the thief: the formula ran—‘With my
hand on this cup, may the god look upon me and
send swift destruction if I took the thing which has
been stolen,’—it being firmly believed that death
would ensue were the cup touched and a lie told.
The physical act of touching the thing invoked has
reference to feelings of casual connection between
things, as in Samoa, where a man, to attest his
veracity, would touch his eyes, to indicate his wish
that blindness might strike him if he lied, or would
dig a hole in the ground to indicate a wish that he
might be buried in the event of falsehood.”
“North Asiatic tribes have in use three kinds of
oaths. The first and least solemn one being for the
accused to face the sun with a knife, pretending to
fight against it, and to cry aloud—If I am guilty,
may the sun cause sickness to rage in my body like
this knife.’ The second form of oath is to cry aloud
from the tops of certain mountains, invoking death,
loss of children and cattle, or bad luck in hunting,
in the case of guilt being real. But the most solemn
oath of all is to exclaim, in drinking some of the
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blood of a dog, killed expressly by the elders, and
burnt or thrown away,—‘ If I die, may I perish, decay,
or burn away like this dog.’ On the Guinea Coast
recourse was had to a common expedient of priestly
absolution, so that when a man took a draught-oath,
imprecating death on himself if he failed in his
promise, the priests were sometimes compelled to
take an oath too, to the effect that they would not
employ their absolving powers to release him. In
Abyssinia a simpler process seems to be in vogue; for
the king, on one occasion having sworn by a cross, thus
addressed his servants — ‘You see the oath I have
taken; I scrape it clean away from my tongue that made
it. Thereupon he scraped his tongue and spat away his
oath, thus validly releasing himself from it.’ ” *
Such is the original sense of the oath, constant
through all its forms, traceable in all its refinements
and abbreviations. In Greek fable Orkos, god of
oaths, is son of Eris, goddess of Discord, daughter
of Night. The ancient Greek gave his oath by
raising his hand towards heaven, and touching the
altar, which stood in court, and saying, “If what I
swear be true may I enjoy much happiness: if not
may I utterly perish.” Perjurers were believed to be
haunted by the Furies, who visited them every fifth
* Farrer’s Primitive Manners and Customs, p. l8osq. (Chatto
& Windus, 1879). See also Lea’s Siiperstition and Force.
�day in the month. The ancient Roman held a flint
stone in his hand and said, “ If I knowingly deceive,
while he saves the city and citadel, may Jupiter cast
me away from all that is good, as I do this stone.”
The flint was symbol of the thunderbolt with which
Jove stood ready to strike the perjurer. At a later
period the Roman oath was by kissing the altar and
and touching the symbols of several gods upon it, and
then saying, at the end of a declaration of veracity—
“ So help me Jupiter, and these sacred thingsI ”
This was the accepted equivalent of being cast away
by Jupiter like the stone, and added to it a belief that
every deity whose symbol had been touched or kissed
■would administer a special blow to the perjurer.
Divine punishments, however, were anticipated, in
the case of detected perjurers, by throwing them from
the Tarpeian rock.
When the shrine of St. Peter was substituted for that
of Jupiter, the relics of saints were placed on the altar
to be touched, or kissed, and the formula now became
“ So help me God and these relics! ” The form
prescribed in Justinian is an oath by the chief sacred
personages who are named, and by the four Gospels,
closing with an imprecation of the curse of Cain, of
Judas, and the leper of Gehazi. In the middle ages
oaths were various : they swore by Sinai, by St. James’
lance, by the brightness of God, by Christ’s foot, by
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nails and blood, by God’s two arms;—-as a verse runs
they swore—
“ By the saintly bones and relics
Scattered through the wide arena ;
Yea, the holy coat of Jesus,
And the foot of Magdalena.”
The Jewish idea of an oath is suggested in
phrases often met with in the Bible : “ The God of
Abraham judge !” “ God do so to you and more also,”
—and the like. The formal judicial oath gave the
full meaning of these phrases—that the curses
written in the law should come upon the perjurer.
The oath-taker held the scroll of the law, and said—
“Behold, I am accursed of Jahve, if what I say be
not true.”
In the oath we have substituted the Bible for the
ancient altar and its relics. We have substituted
kissing the Gospels for invoking the judgment of the
gods or saints. Instead of—“ So help me Jupiter
and these relics,” it was in Catholic times—“ So help
me God and these holy Gospels;” and now the
Gospels are kissed instead of being named.
Every judicial oath consists of two elements : (1) a
covenant or promise; (2) an appeal to the Deity as
able to see whether the promise is fulfilled, and a
summons to Him as one who may be ceremonially
bound to become a party to the covenant made, and as
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a power pledged to guarantee oaths by special punish
ments.
In the words 11 So help me God ” is also preserved
the invocation of the ordeal by combat.
*
The deity
was summoned by a formula of adjustment on both
sides he is bound, as by a spell, to take part; he will
not hold that party guiltless which has invoked his
name in defence of a falsehood. Each side affirms his
case, and risks upon it the unsheathed weapon of the
oath-guaranteeing God “ So {liac lege) help me ! •” says
one; “ so help me! ” cries the other, God defend the
right! says the tribunal. So, in the language of Sir
William Staundford, a learned judge (1557), they
“ leave it to God, to whom all things are open, to give
verdict in each case, scilicet, by attributing the victory
or vanquishment to the one party or the other, as it
pleaseth him.”
Professor Worman (of Michigan State University),
in his learned treatise on oathsf says :—“ All nations,
barbarous or just emerging from barbarism, have
* “The general principle on which the combat was conducted
was the absolute assertion by each party of the justice of his
cause, confirmed by a solemn oath on the Gospels, or on a
relict of approved sanctity, before the conflict commenced”
(Lea, Superstition and Force, p. 142).
■j- Cyclopaedia of Biblical, Theological, and Ecclesiastical.
Literature, New York. (Harper and Brothers).
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resorted to the divinity for the decision of disputed
questions with somewhat similar ceremonies, and un
doubtedly with like success. Part and parcel with
ordeals, whether of bread or of water, of poisons or
of ploughshares, whether of Grecian, Jewish, Hindu
or Scandinavian form and origin, based upon the same
principle, involving the same leading idea, is the oath
by which divine vengeance is imprecated upon false
hood, and by the use of which ceremony, if it be
effective, the deity specially, and for that cause, bound
to inflict the requisite and appropriate punishment in
case of its violation.”
Michaelis says :—11 An oath is an appeal to God as
a surety and a punisher of perjury; which appeal, as
he has accepted, he of course becomes bound to
vindicate upon a perjured person irremissibly. Were
not God to take upon himself to guarantee oaths, an
appeal to him in swearing would be foolish and
sinful.”
We now perceive the implicit sanction of an oath.
It has set in motion a power which must act. It is
not a moral force, but one pledged to punish the
profanation of a ceremony, however the infraction of
it may be demanded by changed circumstances or
considerations even of justice. Mohammed said, when
you swear to do a thing, and afterwards find it better
to do otherwise, do that which is better and make void
�your oath.
He provided certain ceremonies to
commute the oath. But that modification of Semitic
religion never came into Christianity. Jephthah takes
an oath that he will sacrifice to Jahve the first who
shall come from his house to meet him, as a burnt
offering; and when it proves to be his daughter, she
must be the burnt offering. Jephthah says—“ I have
opened my mouth to the Lord and cannot go back.”
Herod is very sorry Herodias has asked the head of
John, but because of his oath to give her what she
would, he beheaded John. These ideas, from the
regions whence all our sanctities have come, imply a
deity who, however much he might be sorry for
Jephthah’s daughter, or for John the Baptist, would be
bound fast as by the law of gravitation to punish the
violation of every oath in which his name had been
appealed to.
What then does our honourable member of
Parliament mean by his oath, if he means anything
more than an atheist means ? He is not at liberty to
put what construction he pleases on the oath. An
oath exists for the purpose of binding the man, not
to be bound by the man.’ The words “ so help me
God,” few as they are, carry with them the belief in
a Deity who has written out in a certain Volume
certain definite penalties against perjury; an example
of these being in the instant death alleged to have
�fallen upon Ananias and Sapphira. The kissed
volume engages his God to send upon him, if the
oath be violated, the curses written in it. It is of the
essence of the oath that God is bound to send such
judgments. He cannot help it.
If our honourable member does not believe in
that particular God it is all the same as if he believed
in none. So far as the oath is concerned he is an
atheist. It is the oath-guaranteeing God he must
believe in ; the God who makes the perjurer’s “ belly
to swell and thigh to rot” (Num. v.), sends “plagues
and sicknesses ” on covenant-breakers, and “ all the
curses written in this book ” (Deut. xxix.), and who
will strike down the perjurer as Ananias was struck :
if that be not his God he might as well worship a
stock or a stone, or have no God at all, so far as the
oath is concerned. To say he believes he will be
punished by God after death does not fulfil the con
ditions of the oath at all. The oath * involves a
a present judgment, and a special one,—a heavier
punishment for the smallest falsehood after uttering
the words and touching the book, than for the basest,
most harmful lie not uttered under oath. The oath,
therefore, can not be regarded as a mere expression
of theism. That were as much bending the oath as if
one were to attack the throne unlawfully after swearing
to support it, and then say that the best way to help
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the throne was to destroy it. The meaning of the oath
must either be discarded altogether—its use be that
of a meaningless form by which an understood
purpose is affirmed—or else the real historic sense of
it must be accepted—the oath, the whole oath, and
nothing but the oath. If a man say that when he
says “sunset” he really means what he says' he is
bound to accept the cosmogony from which the
word was coined; and if the phrase “So help me
God ” bear any religious sense at all, it must bear that
of the faith and usages to which it is traceable.
Does any member of the British Parliament believe
in a Deity such as is implied in the oath ? They who
are elected to a new Parliament are described as going
up to be sworn in batches, chatting in the merriest
way with each other. Would that be the case if they
knew and believed that they were entering into a
contract to which Almighty God is a party : that the
Deity is invisibly present as a guarantor of the
covenant, and that from the moment of that oath
there is suspended over him, and over his children to
the third and fourth generation, all those curses
written in the Bible against those who swear falsely ?
Such, for instance, as those directed against an oathbreaker in Ezekiel (xvii.):—“Seeing he despised the
oath by breaking thy covenant, when, lo! he had
given his hand, and hath done all these, he shall not
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escape. And I will spread my net upon him, and he
shall be taken in my snare.” The sentence on this
particular oath-breaker was “ he shall die.”
A
clergyman recently wrote to an evening paper
advocating the abolition of the oath, mainly on the
ground that the people generally looked for some
kind of special judgment to follow false swearing, and
as such judgments do not occur their faith is
weakened. These simple people are without casuistry.
But even conceding that the punishments for perjury
may be relegated by an orthodox believer to a future
world, does he believe that the punishment there will
be greater for the deviation from an oath than for an
unsworn lie and for injury inflicted by a lie ? If it is
the lying that is punished, the oath is a meaningless
form, in itself. If it be contended that God is more
concerned to vindicate his own dignity against a false
or inconsiderate appeal than to punish malicious lying,
we may safely affirm that such is not the belief of
educated Christians. We are not without evidence
that such a view of the sanctions of the oath no
longer exists except among the most ignorant and
superstitious, and only among very few of them.
The eminent writer already quoted, Professor
Worman, says
“ The oaths of Oxford University
have been taken by the most cultivated minds of
Europe; by those who in after life attained the
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highest dignities of the Church or the State; by those
who, from their station, their education and in
telligence, would be least likely to disregard their
obligation.
These oaths required obedience tostatutes framed centuries ago by and for a set of
monks, and are about as consonant with the present
state of society as the monkish costume would be toa general-in-chief at the head of his army. Con
sequently they are not merely not observed, but their
observance would be a matter of astonishment to allr
equally to those sworn to observe and those sworn
to require their observation.” An Oxford oath not to
wear boots has been taken by gentlemen still living.
Our judges and juries violate the oath, if the oath be
considered as having an intrinsic meaning. Every
time a juryman who holds out stubbornly against the
others is partially starved into agreement, or under
any pressure yields, he technically violates his oath j
which he would not do if he believed that all
the curses on violations of the oath written in
the book he kisses must fall upon him and his
children. In old times, when theft was a capital
crime, juries continually found that the article stolen
was of less value than it obviously was, in order that
the offender might not be hung. And now juries find
nearly every suicide to have been of unsound mind,
order to give the poor creature decent burial r
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which they could not do if they believed that, in case
such had been of sound mind, all the curses written
in the Bible against oath-breaking would be executed
upon them for their humane verdict.
*
* The Newcastle Chronicle describes, as follows a scene which
occurred in a court-room, on May 9th, 1881 :—“The oaths
taken by Chinamen in courts of law and in criminal proceedings
are administered after a saucer has been broken, and the
ceremony on Monday was witnessed in the Pilgrim Street
Police Court by a crowded attendance of the public. Foreigners
and Jews have often to be sworn, and a Hebrew Bible is pro
vided accordingly amongst the properties of the Newcastle
Bench ; but a Chinese witness appears to have been a rarity not
-even dreamt about in Pilgrim Street, and it was found that,
simple as the furnishing for the affirmation is, not a saucer was
to be discovered. A policeman was consequently sent to
purchase two china saucers, and on his return one of them was
placed in the hands of the young Chinese interpreter, who,
kneeling down in the witness box, attempted to smash it on the
■edge of the box. British china, however, appeared to be of a
much more endurable kind than Chinese, for the interpreter
tried again and again, with all his force, for at least seven or
eight times, without effecting a smash. When the saucer,
however, did give, it was with a sound that went like the loud
snapping of a pistol through the building. The pieces flew in a
dozen directions, causing clerks, reporters, and policemen to
bow their heads with a sudden and appreciable sense of self
preservation, and no little amusement for a time prevailed in
court. The interpreter then repeated after the Clerk (Mr.
Wilkinson) the following affirmation or Chinese oath :—‘ You
■shall tell the truth, and the whole truth ; the saucer is cracked,
•and if you do not tell the truth your soul will be cracked like
�There is no reason to believe that the members of
Parliament are more technically exact about their oath
than the Oxford professors, or than the juries of the
country. And, if not, they are no more believers in
the Lord of the Oath than Mr. Bradlaugh. So far as
that formula is concerned, the theist and the atheist
are on one level. One can take the oath as honestly
and honourably as the other.
An unjust measure has been used in dealing with
Mr. Bradlaugh, not alone by the House of Commons,,
but by the liberal press, and by some liberal thinkers.
It has been said even by those who defend his right
that he is inconsistent with his avowed opinions in
offering to take the oath. However unconsciously so,
this judgment is unfair. It is also unfair to contrast
his willingness to take the oath with the courageousrefusal of the Jews to take the old oath “ on the true
faith of a Christian.” The distinct creeds of the old
oath,__both political and Christian,—have been
the saucer.’ The second saucer was handed to the prosecutor,
who w’ent through the same form as his shipmate ; but, being.a
more powerful man, he succeeded at the second attempt in
demolishing the article, though at the expense of a finger
severely cut in the operation. The interpreter had also one of
his fingers cut in breaking the article apportioned to him.” But
did the Newcastle magistrate believe that the Chinaman’s soul
might be cracked like a saucer? or did he regard the oath as a
“ meaningless form?”
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abolished. The present oath is not Christian; it is
not theistic in any ordinary sense. Let us hold the
balances of justice with an unprejudiced and un
wavering hand. If Mr. Bradlaugh happened to be
in Samoa, and were witness in a case where his testi
mony might save an innocent man from death, he
would be given a sacred cup to touch, and required
to invoke swift destruction from a god supposed to be
•connected with the cup. That would be his form of
■swearing. In so doing he would be falling in with
the Samoan superstition probably even more than if
he said “ So help me God ” he would be sanctioning
any English superstition. Suppose, being in Samoa
he should refuse so to testify, not believing the literal
meaning of the formality, and, as a consequence of
his refusal, the innocent man were beheaded. What
would be said by those who now censure him ? They
would call it pedantry almost amounting to murder.
They would say he should have accepted the formula
as a recognised means of proclaiming his veracity,
and not to have allowed the wrong to triumph.
When the Jew refused to swear he was a Christian
that would have been furthering the triumph of the
wrong. And if the abolition of oaths had been the
particular reform to which Mr. Bradlaugh had devoted
his life, he would be wrong in taking one. Such, it
seems, is not the fact. He has repeatedly taken oaths,
�when not allowed to affirm, to further what he believed
justice. His aim has been to secure other reforms
chiefly, and abolition of oaths but incidentally. He
has aimed to secure certain reforms by peaceful and
legal means, so far as I can learn, through the national
legislature; and though it was a duty that he should
claim what he believed his right, to affirm instead of
swear, it is difficult to see how it could have been his
duty to let an oath, in itself meaningless, though for its
purpose binding on his conscience as any other con
ventional form of promise, stand between himself and
his constituency and the opportunity of advancing the
practical cause they have at heart.
So, at least, to my mind, stood the ethics of the
case when he offered to take the oath. But now that
the House of Commons has voted that the oath is to be
taken only in its religious sense, I do not see how any
conscientious person can take it. Mr. Bradlaugh can,
indeed, still take it with as much honesty as the rest.
To single him out as the one member who ought not
to take the oath were to confess that an atheist is
expected to have a sense of honour and a sensitiveness
about truth not expected of Christians. It is certain
that the oath either means nothing in itself, but only
in its intent to pledge the word and honour, or else it
means what no man in Parliament really believes—
not even in part believes; for the oath-guaranteeing
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God it invokes is as distinct from the God of
educated England as Bacchus is different from the
Christ of liberal churchmen.
There is, indeed, an upper and a nether side of the
Christianity of our time,—and the nether side lies in
this region of oaths. The Bible in some parts
represents a deity who swears by himself, because he
can swear by none greater, and who is so bound by
his oath that he cannot release himself from it, even
though it binds him to a monstrous injustice.
Having pronounced a curse upon the whole human
race for the offence of their first parents, another
deity had to be evolved,—one not so bound,—who
could bless those his father had doomed to everlasting
tortures, and also satisfy the curse. There is a Christ
imagined in some dark corners of Christendom who
has succeeded to the office of the oath-bound and
oath-binding deity of Eastern tribes. A few English
people seem still to believe in such a Christ. There
was lately a strange account given in the Times of the
seizure at Isvor by Christian brigands of two English
Christians, Mr. and Mrs. Suter. When the brigands
demanded of the terrified inmates their money,
Mrs. Suter pointed to a box containing four lira,
saying that was all the money in the house. The
brigands declared this a lie, and threatened to cut
her throat if she did not give them more money. Mrs.
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Suter then said to the brigands—“ You and I believe
in the same Christ, and in his name I tell you I have
no more money.” This solemn adjuration of their
common Jesus seems to have impressed the brigands.
Had she invoked Christ to confirm a lie they no doubt
supposed she would fall dead. She was spared.
They led them to a certain point, and then they told
Mrs. Suter that she might depart; but they exacted of
her a solemn pledge that she would proceed at once
to Salonica, and not start the soldiers in pursuit. If
the soldiers were seen they declared they would
immediately kill her husband: if not they pledged
themselves that he should be safe up to the time
appointed for the ransom to be paid. The brigands
then bound themselves to this by an oath called the
Bessabees. I do not know what this formula may be,
but it would seem to be so solemn that no brigand
ever breaks it. There is something very droll in this
English lady saying to robbers and murderers—“ You
and I believe in the same Christ.” But there have
been many ages when there would be nothing droll in
it. Whenever a ferocious crusader struck down a
Saracen he said—“ In the name of Christ.” In the
name of Christ millions have been massacred and
despoiled of their property. The old creed survives
among us now in a bad temper. In the name of
Christ,—himself, in his time, a denounced freethinker,
�(
24
)
—men may to-day be loaded with curses and reproaches
and deprived of civil rights for speaking their honest
mind and following their sense of duty, smitten while
bearing their heavy cross, by Pharisees—baptised and
circumcised together. Yet the Christ of the brigands
is not normally the Christ of English ladies. The
Christ of the Inquisition is not the Christ of English
Christians. Their dogmas may be in that region
but not their minds. The cruel temper, too, is rather
official than individual. Clerical lips may utter the
curses of Athanasius, but clerical hearts could not
endure to see an infidel burnt for ten minutes much
less through all eternity.
The Parliamentary oath is a survival which really
links Christian England to the Bessabees Brigands.
And survivals may be very corrupting. In the case
of the brigands one may see the exact fruits of
the oath-superstition. God has nothing to do with
their lives, unless they invoke him by a formula.
Having done that they will never dare to incur his
vengeance. But not having done that they may rob
and murder as they like. In some parts of England
it is said that witnesses try to kiss their thumbs instead
of the book, in order that they may freely tell lies. It
is also declared, that in Scotland the sheriff is con
tinually interfering to make swearers in court hold up
their right hand. They often try to hold up their left,
�and if not caught will bravely tell any number of lies.
So Robert of France withdrew the relics and substi
tuted an egg that the souls of his subjects might not
be endangered by their falsehoods. It is impossible
to find room for realities in these Bessabees minds
thus preoccupied with unrealities. It is vain to sup-;
pose that mankind can be fully impressed with the
real sanctity of truth, and the intrinsic evil of false
hood, so long as a formula is preserved to teach them
that lying is not so bad unless they have accompanied
it with a certain motion of the hand and lips. “ Greek
faith” became a proverb for duplicity in the land
where the oath was deified. It is the way of supersti
tion to whiten the outside and rot the heart. The
Oath, chiefly, has taught man the black art of paltering
in a double sense, and how to “keep the word of
promise to our ear, and break it to our hope.”
The right rule of ethics is not to take an oath.
There may be extreme cases where good men might
deem it necessary in order to prevent some larger
evil. But though there are exceptions to rules, rules
are not to be framed upon exceptions. Happily, an
oath is nowhere compulsory in England, except in
Parliament,-—and probably it will go out of that body
also, though in great wrath. There is no real life in
these false formulas. At the first severe test they
crumble. It will one day be a show to see one or
�(
26
)
two ancient gentlemen still taking the old-fashioned
oath. And then it will be prohibited as wicked, even
as other “ ordeals ” which have gone before. It is
not so long (1818) since a defendant in an English
court demanded of the judge that he should be
allowed to settle the case with the plaintiff by single
combat. The judge was compelled to decide that he
had that right! A short bill was hurried through
Parliament to end that remnant of barbarism. The
judicial duel, where God theoretically defended the
right, but practically the more skilled swordsman won
the victory, was a method of obtaining justice akin to
the oath as a method of securing truth. That defeated
justice, as this defeats truth.
Oath-taking is a degradation of human nature. It is
also profoundly irreverent to any ideal that an enlight
ened mind may worship. I remember the last time I
took an oath : it was before a consul, when I was
sending some small parcel to a foreign country. I
afterwards found that there must have been about
seven oaths sworn on that parcel before it reached
its destination. Seven times the attention of God
had been called to that wretched little parcel, and he
had been summoned to act as an assistant agent of
Customs, to see that a few shillings was enough duty
on it and was fairly paid. I felt ashamed of that
transaction. The dignified legislator defending this.
�(
27
)
childish spell, might well go to the new opera and see
it ridiculed along with the revival of things called
“early English.” There are some early English
things which Puritanism shattered, and which may
well be recovered; but the incantation is not
among them : Puritanism kept that. One of the
opera heroes threatens to curse his rival: the
threatened man falls upon his knees in great alarm :
weeps; implores him to pause before resorting to this
last fearful expedient. But the other refuses; is
resolved; says he is adamant. Then the other says,
I yield. I will comply with your wishes. You swear
it! says the anathematiser. “I do!” That is a fair
caricature of the “early English” which is seriously
trying to defend itself in the Legislature while it is
laughed at in the theatre. The supposed potency of
the curse is identical with that of the oath. They
have no honest habitat in this age of reality and
reason. They take us back to the age of charms,
spells, dooms,—all the nightmares of the dark ages.
Beyond which, not only the reasoner, but the true
Christian, ought to see and hear the great and wise
teacher saying—“ Swear not at all. Let your yea
be yea, and your nay be nay !”
�
Dublin Core
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Title
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Victorian Blogging
Description
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A collection of digitised nineteenth-century pamphlets from Conway Hall Library & Archives. This includes the Conway Tracts, Moncure Conway's personal pamphlet library; the Morris Tracts, donated to the library by Miss Morris in 1904; the National Secular Society's pamphlet library and others. The Conway Tracts were bound with additional ephemera, such as lecture programmes and handwritten notes.<br /><br />Please note that these digitised pamphlets have been edited to maximise the accuracy of the OCR, ensuring they are text searchable. If you would like to view un-edited, full-colour versions of any of our pamphlets, please email librarian@conwayhall.org.uk.<br /><br /><span><img src="http://www.heritagefund.org.uk/sites/default/files/media/attachments/TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" width="238" height="91" alt="TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" /></span>
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Conway Hall Library & Archives
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2018
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Conway Hall Ethical Society
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Pamphlet
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
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The oath and its ethics: a discourse given before the South Place Society May 1, 1881 (with some additions)
Creator
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Conway, Moncure Daniel [1832-1907.]
Description
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Place of publication: [London]
Collation: 27, [1] p. ; 15 cm.
Notes: Part of Morris Miscellaneous Tracts 2. Works available in the South Place Chapel Library listed on back page.
Publisher
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[South Place Chapel]
Date
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[1881]
Identifier
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G4886
T335
Subject
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Free thought
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<img src="http://i.creativecommons.org/p/mark/1.0/88x31.png" alt="Public Domain Mark" /><br /><span>This work (The oath and its ethics: a discourse given before the South Place Society May 1, 1881 (with some additions)), identified by </span><span><a href="https://conwayhallcollections.omeka.net/items/show/www.conwayhall.org.uk">Humanist Library and Archives</a></span><span>, is free of known copyright restrictions.</span>
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application/pdf
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Text
Language
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English
Free Thought
Morris Tracts
Oaths and Affirmations
Parliament
Religion and Ethics
Superstition