John Donne - Delphi Poets Series

by John Donne

  Before Ambrose we find that Eusebius was of the same persuasion.

  He has the mother encouraging them by saying, ‘“You know how I have brought you up in the fear of God; and shall your nakedness, which the public air has not had permission to see, now be prostituted in the pools? Do not have so little faith in God that you fear death. Do not despise chastity so much that you live with shame, but with a pure and chaste death condemn this world.’ And so, deluding their keepers as though they withdrew for natural necessities, they drowned themselves.”

  All authors of that time are so profuse in their praise of this deed that it is just to say of it what Pliny says of Nerva’s adopting Trajan: “It was impossible that it should have pleased all when it was done, unless it had pleased all before it was done.” For no author that I have lighted upon diminished the glory of these and others like them until Saint Augustine, out of his most zealous and fearful tenderness of conscience, began to seek out some ways how these self-homicides might be justified, because he suspected that this act was naturally exempt from blame. Even so, he always brings himself to such perplexity that either he must defend it and call into question the authority of a general consonance of all times and authors, or else retreat to that poor and improbable defense that it was done by divine inspiration. That can hardly be admitted in this case, where it was not their religion but only their chastity that was solicited and attacked. Nor can Saint Ambrose or Eusebius be brought to that opinion of special divine inspiration, because, speaking sincerely, even if in the mother’s person, they incite them to it with reasons drawn from moral virtues.

  Still, Saint Augustine’s example, as it prevails very much and very justly for the most part, has drawn many others since him to the same interpretation of the same acts. When the kingdom of Naples came to be divided between Ferdinand V and Louis XII, the French army being admitted into Capua on the condition that it do no violence, among many outrages a virgin, unable to escape the fury of a licentious soldier, offered as a ransom to lead him to treasure, and so took advantage of a place in the wall to fling herself into the river. “This act,” says Pedraza, “we must believe to be done by divine inspiration, because God loves chastity now as well as he ever did.” Every side may find this escape easy if, being pressed with reasons, they may say as Peter Martyr does of the Egyptian midwives (Exod. 1:15-20) and Rahab (Joshua 2:1-7) and others, “If they lied, they did it on an impulse from God.”

  But as our custom has been, let us leave examples for rules—even though a concurrence of examples and either an express or interpretive approbation of them (much more a dignifying of them such as this) by the whole church and Catholic authors approved by that church is equivalent to a rule. To ease the reader and to continue my first resolution of not descending into many particulars, I will present only one rule. But it is so pregnant that from it may be derived many by which not only a man may but must do the whole and entire act of killing himself—which is to preserve the seal of confession. For although the rule in general is, “If a spider fall into the chalice, the wine may be changed, because nothing abominable ought to be taken on the occasion of this sacrament,” so it may be, if the priest after consecration comes into the knowledge that the wine is poisoned, “lest the chalice of life be turned into death.” But if he knows this by confession from his assistant or anybody else and cannot by any diversion or disguise keep from disclosing that this was confessed to him except by drinking it, even if it is poison he must drink it.

  Because men of more abundant reading, active discourse, and conclusive judgment will easily provide themselves with more reasons and examples to this purpose, it will satisfy me to have awakened them this much and shown them a mark to direct their meditations upon. So I may proceed to the third part, which is the law of God.

  THE THIRD PART: OF THE LAW OF GOD

  Distinction I

  1. The light that issues from the moon best represents and expresses what we call in ourselves the light of nature. As that in the moon is permanent and always there, and yet unequal, various, pale, and languishing, so is our light of nature changeable. At the outset shining at full light, it soon waned and, through our departing farther and farther from God, declined on account of general sin to almost a total eclipse. God, later coming nearer to us first through the law and then through grace, enlightened and repaired it again, conveniently to his ends, for the further exercise of his mercy and justice. Then there are those artificial lights that we ourselves make for our use and service here, such as fires, tapers, and so forth. They resemble the light of reason, as we interpreted that term in our second part.

  Although the light of these fires and tapers is not as natural as the moon’s, still, because they are more domestic and obedient to us, we distinguish particular objects better by them than by the moon. So by the arguments, deductions, and conclusions that we ourselves beget and produce, being more serviceable and subordinate because they are our creatures, particular cases are made more clear and evident to us. With these we can be bold, put them to any use, examine and prove their truth or likelihood, and make them answer as long as we ask. But the light of nature, with a solemn and arrogant majesty, will speak only once and neither give a reason nor endure examination. Of these two kinds of light the first is too weak and the other false, for color is only the object of sight, and we do not trust candlelight to discern colors.

  We therefore have the sun, the fountain and treasure of all created light, for an emblem of that third kind and best light of our understanding, which is the word of God. “The commandment is a lamp and the law a light” (Prov. 6:23), says Solomon. But since weak, credulous men sometimes think they see two or three suns when they see nothing but meteors or other appearances, so many men are transported with similar facility or dazzling. For some of their opinions they think they have the light and authority of scripture, when (God knows) truth, the light of divine scriptures, against their viewpoint, is removed to the farthest possible distance.

  They take any small text of scripture that mistakenly appears to them to be of use in justifying any opinion of theirs. Then, since the word of God has that precious nature of gold so that a little quantity by reason of faithful tenacity and malleability can be made to cover 10,000 times as much as any other metal, they extend that small text so far, and labor and beat it to such a thinness that it is hardly any longer the word of God. They do so simply to give their reasons a little tincture and color of gold, even though they have lost all its weight and value.

  But since the scripture itself teaches that “No prophecy in the scripture is of private interpretation” (II Peter 1:20), the whole church is not bound and enclosed by the fancy of any one (or of a few) who, being content to put themselves to sleep with any opinion and lazy prejudice, dream up arguments to establish and authorize it.

  A professed interpreter of dreams, Artemidorus, tells us that “No dream of a private man may be interpreted to signify public business.” This I say, because of all the texts in scripture that are alleged for the doctrine that we now examine hardly one, except the precept, “You shall not kill” (Exod. 20:13), is offered by any two authors. Rather, to one one text, and to another another text, seems directly to govern in the point. To me, to allow truth her natural and comely boldness, no texts govern except those that seem to look towards self-homicide.

  In going over all the sentences that I have gathered from many authors and in presenting helpful answers to and interpretations of them, I shall forbear the names of the authors who produced them so impertinently, lest I seem to reveal their nakedness or even to accuse them of prevarication. If any divine thinks the cause or persons are injured herein and counts me worthy of being led back to the other opinion, with the same charity that provoked me and that (I thank God) has accompanied me from the beginning, I beseech him to take so much advantage from me and my instruction that he will do it without bitterness. He will better see the way, better show it, and better sail through it if he raise
s no storms.

  May such men also, since they are “Fishers of men” (Matt. 4:19), hunt us into their nets for our own good. But perhaps there is some mystical interpretation belonging to the canon that allows clergymen to hunt. They may do it by nets and snares but not by dogs, for clamor and bitings are forbidden them. I have been sorry to see that even Beza himself, writing against an adversary and a cause equally and extremely obnoxious, simply by allowing his zeal too much fuel raged against the man and, neglecting or only forbidding the cause, has given answer to Ochino’s book on polygamy with less thoroughness and satisfaction than either becomes his learning and watchfulness or befits his use and custom.

  Distinction II

  1.—In all the judicial and the ceremonial law put forth by Moses, who was more particular in his laws than any others, there is no abomination, indeed no mention, of self-homicide. He teaches what we shall and shall not eat, wear, and speak, yet he says nothing against this.

  2.—The first text that I find offered against us is Genesis 9:5-6, “I will require your lifeblood; at the hand of every beast I will require it and at the hand of man; even at the hand of a man’s brother will I require the life of man; whoever sheds a man’s blood, by man shall his blood be shed.”

  Lavater, a very learned man of the Reformed Church, says that the Jews understand this text to imply self-homicide. But shall we put ourselves under the Jews’ yoke, asks Buxtorf, so that “If we find in the rabbis things contrary to nature we must dare to accuse nothing but our own weakness, because their word is God’s word, and if they contradict one another, still both are from God”? Nicholas of Lyra, who seldom departs from the Jews in matters not controverted between them and us, mentions no such exposition, yet he expounds the text in more than one way and with enough liberty and straying afar. Manoel de Sa, who in his notes is more curious and superstitious in restoring all the Hebraisms and oftentimes their interpretations than perhaps the Jews would desire at his hands, offers no other sense than what the words present. Nor can self-homicide fall within the threat and punishment of that law, for how can the magistrate shed the blood of one who has killed himself?

  3.—The next is Deuteronomy 32:39, “I kill, and I give life,” from which it is concluded that all authority over life and death is from God and none is in ourselves. But shall we dare to condemn utterly all those states and governments in which fathers, husbands, and masters had jurisdiction over children’s, wives’, and servants’ lives? If we dare, how shall we defend any magistracy, if this text is so strictly interpreted? Or, if it admits exceptions, why may not our case be included among them?

  However, that this text is incongruously brought to bear on the topic appears from the words that follow it, “There is none that can deliver out of my hand.” Moreover, since this is a verse of the divine poem that God himself made and delivered to Moses as a stronger and more slippery insinuation and impression into the Israelites’ hearts than the language of any law would make, it only expresses that the mercies and judgments of God are safe and removed from any human hindrance or interruption. Similarly, in another song of thanks made by Samuel’s mother the same words are repeated, “The lord kills and makes alive” (I Sam. 2:6); this is because God had given her a son when she was past hoping for one. That text also in Tobit 13:12 is fitly paralleled with this one, “He leads to hell and brings up, nor is there any who can avoid his hand” (Tobit 13:2). Can these two texts be twisted from their purpose to mean that none but God may have jurisdiction over our temporal life? Also, the text from Wisdom 16:13 that is always joined to this issue signifies the same as these, “For you have the power of life and death,” which is spoken of his miraculous curing by the brazen serpent. All four of these texts have one concern and aim, and none of them looks toward our question.

  4.—In the order of the divine books, the next text produced is Job 7:1, “The life of man upon earth is military service.” Although our translation makes it out to say, “Is there not a time appointed to man upon earth?” the Latin text is cited to this purpose by some who are not addicted to the Vulgate edition, because in Latin it seems better to afford an argument against self-homicide. From it they infer that we may not depart at our own pleasure from the battle. But because only the metaphor and neither the extending of it nor the inference from it is taken from the scripture, it carries with it no strong obligation.

  Nor does it deserve much earnestness by way of answer. Still, to follow up the allusion a bit, “A soldier may by law be ignorant of the law and is not much accusable if he transgresses it.” According to another law, if “A soldier whose presence is necessary for the security of the army is absent by virtue of a public cause, his absence shall be interpreted to be so.” Even toward those who killed themselves in the army the laws were not severe, as we noted in the second part, if they had any color of just cause. Therefore, this figurative argument profits nothing, especially since it is taken from the text where the intent of Job was to prove that our felicity and the end toward which our actions are bent is not in this life. Rather, just as wars work toward peace so we labor here toward death, toward the happiness we shall have hereafter. Thus, whoever was the author of the letter to Abgar bearing Christ’s name does not make Christ say that when he has done that for which he was sent here he will come to Abgar and take his offer of half his kingdom, but that when he has done his work he will return to him who sent him; that is, he will die. Therefore, if either side of the issue has advantage from this text of Job, we have it.

  5.—Much more does our side have advantage from the other text from Job 7:15, “Therefore my soul chooses rather to be strangled and to die than to be in my bones.” From this they infer that if it had been lawful to die, Job would have done it. Apart from the wretched poverty and feebleness of this kind of negative argument, since Job did not do it he was not allowed to do it, we may perceive from the whole frame of the story that God had chosen him for another use, as an example of extreme patience. Whatever appears in Job’s case, he might not lawfully do it because he could intend nothing but his own ease. Still Job, whose sanctity I think it a sacrilege to diminish (whether he was a real or a fictional person), by their confession strayed so far towards killing himself as to wish his death and to curse his birth, for the whole third chapter is a bitter and malignant invective against his life and a violent wishing for his own death.

  Sextus Senensis gives so literal an answer that it makes no sense, “In cursing his birthday, which then was past, he cursed nothing.” Saint Gregory the Great gives so mystical an answer that it makes no sense, “There is a second birth into sin in this world, and Job cursed his entrance into that birth.” Since these words might readily be taken for an inordinate wishing for death, Gregory provides them also with a mystical interpretation. For the Latin reading, suspendium eligit anima mea (my soul chooses hanging), he says, “This was a spiritual hanging, which was only an elevation of the mind, as Saint Paul said, ‘With Christ I have been crucified on the cross’”(Gal. 2:20).

  Beyond the fact that this escape will not do when the original words are considered, the very next verse is, “I loathe my life; fruitlessly do I live on” (Job 7:16). In the twentieth verse [actually, Job 7:19] he chides God by the name of “O, you preserver of men” as being angry that he preserved him, “Being now a burden to himself, and would not leave him alone while he might swallow his spittle.” He ends the chapter thus, “If you seek for me in the morning, I shall not be found” (Job 7:21). I say this only to show that one whom nobody has exceeded in holiness may, without any twisting of his words, be argued to have stepped far toward a purpose of killing himself. Whoever wishes to give any other construction to his words will not displease me, but he will not impair the strength of our proposition.

  I confess that I have not read anybody who expounds these words of Job this directly, and I know that the general opinion about his despairing held by the Anabaptists is much discredited. Apart from all that, it is neither just nor ingenu
ous to condemn everything that a condemned man says, for even a leprous man may have one clean hand with which to give and take. Saint Jerome is inexcusable for his slippery zeal in his behavior toward Vigilantius. The Council of Trent itself is obnoxious for condemning the names of authors instead of their books. Moreover, the Anabaptists differ from me in their aim and purpose, for they impute despair to Job only to discredit the authority of the book, which they schismatically labor to tear from the canon of scripture. With the consent of all Christian churches admitting the book to the canon, I justly say that Job might keep his sanctity and the book its dignity, and still he might have intended to kill himself. Very many reverend authors in the Reformed Church who are not rashly to be dismissed have imputed to our most blessed savior as near approaches to a more dangerous kind of despair than we impute to Job, without putting down him or his scriptures.

  6. I find also another text, Job 2:4, thrust forth, “Skin for skin, and all that ever a man has he will give for life.” From these words they argue a natural love in us for this life.

  Let it be true (although the devil says it, for the words are his) that our sensitive nature is too indulgent towards this life. I fear I have offended and surfeited you in the first part with examples of merely natural and sensitive men who have chosen death. Still, will that prove that our reasonable nature may in no case correct the enormity? This is as strong against God’s outwardly calling us to him by sickness or persecution as it is against any such inward motions.