Chapter 10 (159): 1. Whether He Who Does Not Do What He Had Incautiously Sworn
Distinction XXXIX | 167 2. ISIDORE, IN THE SYNONYMS. Also Isidore: "If you have promised evils, rescind your promise; if you have made a shameful vow, change what you have decreed. If you have made a vow carelessly, do not do it; that promise is impious which is fulfilled by a crime."*—ISIDORE, IN THE BOOK OF SENTENCES. The same: "That oath is not to be kept by which an evil thing is incautiously promised, as if one should swear to an adulteress a promise to remain with her forever. For it is more tolerable not to fulfil an oath than to remain in defilement.""
3. BEDE, IN HOMILY 43. Also Bede: "If it has happened that we have sworn something carelessly, whose observance might make for a worse outcome, we know that we ought freely to change it to a more salubrious counsel; and if necessity presses, we ought rather to perjure ourselves, than to fall into some graver crime for the sake of avoiding perjury.
David swore by God to kill Nabal, a foolish man; but at the first intercession of Abigail, a prudent woman, he set aside his threats, put his sword back in its scabbard,° nor did he sorrow that he had contracted any guilt by such perjury."
4. AUGUSTINE, IN SOME SERMON. Also Augustine: "It was a greater piety that David did not fulfil his oath by the spilling of blood. David was rash in his swearing, but it was with a greater piety that he did not fulfil his oath."'—From these and several other texts, it is shown that some oaths are not to be kept. And one who swears in this way sins gravely; but when he changes, he does well. But one who does not change sins twice: because he swore unjustly, and because he does what he ought not to do.
Chapter 10 (159)
1. WHETHER HE WHO DOES NOT DO WHAT HE HAD INCAUTIOUSLY SWORN
IS A PERJURER. But it is usual to ask whether one who changes is to be called a perjurer. Bede, above, called such an oath perjury.'—John too, the apocrisary of the Eastern sees, said: "The word of our father Sophronius means that it is better that the swearer should become a perjurer, than to keep the oath to break the holy images.""
2. But such an unkept oath is called 'perjury,' and one who does not keep it is called a 'perjurer,' because he swore a falsehood, not because
'Isidore, Synonymorum libri I, bk 2 n58.
'Isidore, Sententiarum libri III, bk 2 c31 n9.
°Cf. 1 Kings 25, 22-25.
Bede, In Evangelia, bk 2 hom. 23.
*Augustine, Sermo 308, c2 n2.
'Above, in c9 n3.
John of Jerusalem, in Session 4 of the Council of Nicaea II (1 Oct. 785).