Chapter 7 (156)
Distinction XXXIX | 165 them for the sake of which reverence would be owed to them; or perhaps lest, in swearing a falsehood by them, men should believe they were not bound by their oath.° Chapter 6 (155)
WHICH OATH IS MORE BINDING, WHETHER THE ONE DONE BY GOD, OR BY
THE GOSPELS, OR BY CREATURES. If it is asked who is more bound, whether one who swears by God, or one who does so by the Gospel or by creatures, we say: the one who swears by God, because these other things were made by him.—JOHN CHRYSOSTOM. Hence Chrysostom: "If this were the case, one who swears by God appears to do little; but the one who swears by the Gospels seems to achieve somewhat more. To whom we ought to say: Fools! The Scriptures are holy because of God, not God because of the Scriptures."' In the same way, creatures were made by God.
Chapter 7 (156) 1. WHAT IT MEANS TO SAY: By GOD. Here it is asked what it means to say: 'I swear by God.' It is to call God as a witness. For the Apostle swore saying: God is my witness;' as if he had said: By God, it is so.— AUGUSTINE, IN A SERMON ON PERJURY. Hence Augustine: "It is ridiculous to hold this."? "You swear, if you say 'by God'; do you not also swear, if you say
'God is my witness'? For what does 'God is my witness' mean, if not 'by God?' What does it mean to swear, if not to render to God his right, when you swear by him? That is, the right of truth, and not of falsehood."?
2. IN A SERMON ON PERJURY. Also: "Behold, I say to your charity: Even one who swears a falsehood by a stone is a perjurer," because he does not take as witness the stone, which "cannot hear," but its Creator.* And so to swear by any creature is this: namely to produce its Creator as a witness.
3. AUGUSTINE, ON PSALM 7. There is also "a very grave kind of oath, which is done in the form of a curse, as when a man says: If I have done so and so, may I suffer so and so,"° or may it happen to my children. In this sense it is also taken sometimes, when someone swears by saying: 'by °Cf. ordinary gloss, on Mt. 5, 34; Augustine, De sermone Domini in monte, bk | c17
NoZs 'Pseudo-Chrysostom, /n Matthaeum opus imperfectum, hom. 44.
'Rom. 1, 9; Phil. 1, 8.
* Augustine, De sermone Domini in monte, bk 1 c17 n51.
*Augustine, Sermo 180, c6 nn6-7.
'Ibid., c12 n13.
Augustine, Enarrationes in Psalmos, on Ps. 6, n3.