8 The Czar of Russia (1533 – 1584).
No sooner are all these interpretations thrown aside than vagueness and mistiness fade away, and the second commandment of Christ rises plainly before us: ‘Take no pleasure in concupiscence; let each man, if he is not a eunuch, have a wife, and each woman a husband; let a man have but one wife, and a woman one husband, and let them never under any pretext whatever dissolve their union.’
Immediately after the second commandment we find a new reference to the ancient law, and the third commandment is given. Matthew 5:33-37: ‘Again, you have heard that it has been said to the people long ago, you shall not swear falsely, but shall perform to the Lord your oaths (Leviticus 19:12; Deuteronomy 23:21). But I say to you, do not swear at all; neither by heaven, for it is God’s throne; nor by the earth, for it is His footstool; neither by Jerusalem, for it is the city of the great King. Neither shall you swear by your head, because you cannot make one hair white or black. But let your word be yes, yes, or no, no; for whatever is more than these comes from evil.’
In my former readings of the gospel this text had always puzzled me. Not by its obscurity, as the text referring to divorce did; nor by its inconsistency with other passages, as did the text that forbids anger only if it is ‘without a cause’; nor, again, by the difficulty of fulfilling the commandment, like the text that enjoins our letting ourselves be struck. It puzzled me, on the contrary, by its evident clarity and simplicity. Side by side with precepts, the depth and importance of which filled me with awe, I found an apparently useless, insignificant precept, very easy of fulfillment, and comparatively unimportant in its bearing upon myself or upon others. I had never sworn by Jerusalem, or by God, or by anything; and had never found any difficulty in abstaining from doing so; besides, it seemed to me that my swearing or not swearing could be of no importance to anyone. And longing to find some explanation of a precept that puzzled me by its simplicity, I consulted the commentaries on the gospel. This once they helped me.
Commentators see in these words a confirmation of the third commandment of Moses, not to swear by God’s name. They say that Christ, like Moses, forbids our taking God’s name in vain. But they add besides that this precept given to us by Christ is not always obligatory, and that in no case does it refer to the oath of allegiance to the existing powers, which every citizen is obliged to take. They choose out texts from Holy Scripture, not with the purpose of confirming the direct meaning of Christ’s precept, but in order to prove that it is possible and even necessary to leave it unfulfilled.
It is affirmed that Christ Himself sanctioned the taking of an oath in courts of law by His answer, ‘You have said,’ to the High Priest’s words, ‘I charge you under oath by the living God.’ It is likewise affirmed that the apostle Paul called upon God to bear witness to the truth of his words, and that this was obviously an oath. It is affirmed that the Mosaic Law enjoined oaths, and that Christ did not abrogate them, and only set useless, pharisaically hypocritical oaths aside.
And when I saw the meaning and the true object of the interpretation, it grew clear to me that Christ’s law against swearing was not as insignificant and easy of fulfillment as I had thought before I had come to regard the ‘oath of allegiance’ as one of those that are forbidden by Christ.
And I said to myself, ‘Doesn’t it mean that the oath, which is so carefully fenced round by the Church commentaries, is also forbidden? Don’t Christ’s words oppose the very oath without which the division of men into separate governments would be an impossibility – the oath without which a military class would be impossible?’ Soldiers are those who act by violence and they call themselves ‘sworn men’ (присяга). Had I asked the grenadier I mentioned in a preceding chapter how he solved the problem of the inconsistency between the gospel and the military code, he would have answered that he had taken an oath, i.e., sworn upon the gospel. All the military men I ever asked answered thus.
Oaths are so essential in upholding the awful evils brought about by war and violence that in France, where Christ’s doctrine is entirely set aside, the oath of allegiance remains in full force. Indeed, had Christ not said, ‘Do not swear at all,’ He ought to have said so. He came to destroy evil, and how great is the evil brought about in the world by the taking of oaths!
Perhaps some may urge that this was an imperceptible evil in Christ’s time. No assumption can be more gratuitous. Epictetus and Seneca enjoined all men to take no oaths. In the laws of Manou the same precept may be found. Why should I say that Christ did not see this evil, when He speaks of it so definitely and so forcibly?
He says, ‘I say to you, do not swear at all.’ The saying is as clear, as simple, and as indubitable as the words, ‘do not judge, do not condemn,’ and it gives as little scope for false interpretation, the less so because the words ‘Let your communication be yes, yes, or no, no; for whatever is more than these comes from evil,’ are added.
Now if Christ by this teaching exhorts us always to fulfill the will of God, how dare a man swear to obey the will of another man? The will of God may not always coincide with the will of man. Christ tells us so in this very text. He says (verse 36), ‘Do not swear by your head, for not only your head but every hair on it is subject to the will of God.’ We find the same thing taught in the epistle of James, who says (chapter 5, verse 12), ‘But above all things, my brethren, do not swear, neither by heaven, neither by the earth, neither by any other oath; but let your yes be yes, and your no be no, lest you fall into condemnation.’ The apostle tells us why we are not to swear. Though the taking of an oath may be no sin in itself, he who swears falls into condemnation, and therefore shall no man swear. Can any language be clearer than the words of Christ and of this apostle?
But my ideas on this point were in so confused a state that for some time I went on asking myself, with surprise, ‘Does the precept really mean this? How is it that all swear by the gospel? It cannot be.’
But I had read the commentaries on the gospel, and saw that what I deemed impossible had, nevertheless, been done. The same remark has to be made in reference to this as to the texts, ‘Do not judge,’ ‘Do not give way to anger,’ ‘Never break the union of husband and wife.’ We have set up our own institutions; we love them, and choose to consider them sacred. Christ, whom we acknowledge to be God, comes, and He says that our rules of life are bad. We acknowledge Him to be God, yet we do not choose to set our rules of life aside.
What is left then for us to do? When, by inserting the words ‘without a cause,’ we turn the commandment against anger into a meaningless sentence; when, like crafty lawyers, we interpret the sense of the commandment in a manner that gives it a contrary meaning to that designed by Him who spoke it, as we do if, instead of prohibiting altogether the putting away of a wife, we declare divorce to be lawful and just, we put our institutions in the place of truth. But if it is impossible to interpret the words otherwise than as I have indicated, in the treatment of the precepts ‘Do not judge,’ ‘Do not condemn,’ ‘Do not swear at all,’ then we boldly act in direct opposition to Christ’s doctrine, while asserting that we strictly fulfill it, if we cleave to traditional interpretations.
The chief obstacle to our understanding that the gospel wholly forbids our taking an oath is that the so-called Christian teachers boldly insist upon men’s taking oaths upon the gospel; and in this acting contrary to the gospel. How can it come into the head of a man who is made to take an oath on the gospel, or the crucifix, that that crucifix is sacred for the very reason that He who forbade our swearing was crucified upon it? He who takes the oath perhaps kisses the very passage that so clearly and definitely says, ‘Do not swear at all.’
But such boldness no longer confounded me. I clearly saw that in the fifth chapter, verses 33-37, lay the third definite and practicable commandment of Christ, which may be
