The subject of oaths and swearing, difficult in itself, has been made more obscure by the unsatisfactory methods employed by most writers on it. This is not due to want of ability in the writers themselves, among whom are included such men as Calvin and Paley, but to their not having followed their subject on the lines of historical development; on the contrary, the usual plan has been to accommodate to modern views, and discuss with modern arguments, an institution which originated in an early stage of knowledge, and has been confused by the changes it has undergone while being carried on into the midst of new ideas. The student who finds, by consulting modern theological and legal authorities, how indefinite are their views of the binding operation of an oath and the consequences of breaking it (apart from prosecution for perjury) will understand that its meaning must be sought, not among those who now administer and take it, but in the history of older states of culture in which it arose. The very formula, “so help you God,” by which legal oaths are administered in England, has not for ages had any precise signification.

An oath may be defined as an asseveration or promise made under non-human penalty or sanction. Writers, viewing the subject among civilized nations only, have sometimes defined the oath as an appeal to a deity. It will be seen, however, by some following examples, that the harm or penalty consequent on perjury may be considered to result directly, without any spirit or deity being mentioned; indeed it is not unlikely that these mere direct curses invoked on himself by the swearer may be more primitive than the invocation of divinities to punish. Oaths scarcely belong to the lowest or savage level of life, unless when rude tribes may have learned them from more civilized neighbours. Their original appearance may rather have been in a somewhat higher barbaric stage of society, where legal forms had already come into use, and oaths were needed as a means of strengthening testimony or promise. Examples of the simplest kind of curse-oath may be seen among the Nagas of Assam, where two men will lay hold of a dog or a fowl by head and feet, which is then chopped in two with a single blow of the dao, this being emblematic of the fate expected to befall the perjurer. Or a man will stand within a circle of rope, with the implication that if he breaks his vow he may rot as a rope does, or he will take hold of the barrel of a gun, a spearhead, or a tiger’s tooth, and solemnly declare, “If I do not faithfully perform this my promise, may I fall by this!” (Butler in Journ. Asiatic Soc. Bengal, 1875, p. 316). Another stage in the history of oaths is that in which the swearer calls on some fierce beast to punish him if he lies, believing that it has the intelligence to know what he says and the power to interfere in his affairs. In Siberia, in lawsuits between Russians and the wild Ostyaks, it is described as customary to bring into court the head of a bear, the Ostyak making the gesture of eating, and calling on the bear to devour him in like manner if he does not tell the truth (Erman, Travels in Siberia, vol. i. p. 492, London, 1848). Similar oaths are still sworn on the head or skin of a tiger by the Santals and other indigenous tribes of India. To modern views, a bear or a tiger seems at any rate a more rational being to appeal to than a river or the sun, but in the earlier stage of nature-religion these and other great objects of nature are regarded as animate and personal. The prevalence of river-worship is seen in the extent to which in the old and modern world oaths by rivers are most sacred. In earlier ages men swore inviolably by Styx or Tiber, and to this day an oath on water of the Ganges is to the Hindu the most binding of pledges, for the goddess will take awful vengeance on the children of the perjurer In New Guinea certain tribes are reported to swear by the sun, or a mountain, or a weapon, that the sun may burn them, or the mountain crush them, or the weapon wound them if they forswear themselves. The Tunguz brandishes a knife before the sun, saying, “If I lie may the sun plunge sickness into my entrails like this knife.” The natural transition from swearing by these great objects of nature to invoking gods conceived in human form is well shown in the treaty-oath between the Macedonians and the Carthaginians recorded by Polybius (vii. 9); here the sun and moon and earth, the rivers and meadows and waters, are invoked side by side with Zeus and Hera and Apollo, and the gods of the Carthaginians. The heaven-god, able to smite the perjurer with his lightning, was invoked by the Romans, when a hog was slain with the sacred flint representing the thunderbolt, with the invocation to Jove so to smite the Roman people if they broke the oath (Liv., i. 24; Polyb., iii. 25). Another form of this Aryan rite was preserved by the old Slavonic nation of Prussia, where a man would lay his right hand on his own neck and his left on the holy oak, saying, “May Perkun (the thundergod) destroy me !” The oaths of the lower culture show a remarkable difference from those of later stages. In the apparently primitive forms the curse on the perjurer is to take effect in this world, as when an African negro swears by his head or limbs, which will wither if he lies; this kind of oath by the swearer’s body is still found in both the Eastern and the Western worlds, and generally with the same implication of evil to fall on the part sworn by. But as nations became more observant, experience must have shown that bears and tigers were as apt to kill truth-tellers as perjurers, and that even the lightningflash falls without moral discrimination. In the Clouds of Aristophanes, indeed, men have come openly to ridicule such beliefs, the Socrates of the play pointing out that notorious perjurers go unharmed, while Zeus hurls his bolts at his own temple, and the tall oaks, as if an oak-tree could perjure itself. The doctrine of miraculous earthly retribution on the perjurer lasted on in legend, as where Eusebius relates how three villains conspired to bring a false accusation against Narcissus, bishop of Jerusalem, which accusation they confirmed by solemn oath before the church, one wishing that if he swore falsely he might perish by fire, one that he might die of the pestilence, one that he might lose his eyes; a spark no man knew from whence burned to ashes the first perjurer’s house and all within, the second was consumed by the plague from head to foot, whereupon the third confessed the crime with tears so copious that he lost his sight (Euseb., Hist. Eccl., vi. 9). Asa general rule, however, the supernatural retribution on perjury has been transferred from the present world to the regions beyond the grave, as is evident from any collection of customary oaths. A single instance will show at once the combination of retributions in and after the present life, and the tendency to heap up remote penalties in the vain hope of securing present honesty. The Siamese Buddhist in his oath, not content to call down on himself various kinds of death if he breaks it, desires that he may afterwards be cast into hell to go through innumerable tortures, among them to carry water over the flames in a wicker basket to assuage the thirst of the infernal judge, then that he may migrate into the body of a slave for as many years as there are grains of sand in four seas, and after this that he may be born a beast through five hundred generations and an hermaphrodite five hundred more.

The forms of oath belonging to all nations and ages, various as they are in detail, come under a few general heads. It may be first observed that gestures such as grasping hands, or putting one hand between the hands of another in token of homage, are sometimes treated as of the nature of oaths, but wrongly so, they being rather of the nature of ceremonies of øompact. The Hebrew practice of putting the hand under another’s thigh is usually reckoned among oath-rites, but it may have been merely a ceremony of covenant (Gen. xxiv. 2, xlvii. 29; see Joseph., Ant., i. 16). Even the covenant among many ancient and modern nations by the parties mixing their blood or drinking one another’s is in itself only a solemn rite of union, not an oath proper, unless some such ceremony is introduced as dipping weapons into the blood, as in the form among the ancient Scythians (Herod., iv. 70); this, by bringing in the idea of death befalling the covenant-breaker, converts the proceeding into an oath of the strongest kind. The custom of swearing by weapons, though frequent in the world, is far from consistent in meaning. It may signify, in cases such as those just mentioned, that the swearer if forsworn is to die by such a weapon; or the warrior may appeal to his weapon as a powerful or divine object, as Parthenopaeus swears by his spear that he will level to the ground the walls of Thebes (Aeschyl., Sept, contra Theb., 530; see the custom of the Quadi in Ammian. Marcellin., xvii.); or the weapon may be a divine emblem, as when the Scythians swore by the wind and the sword as denoting life and death (Lucian, Toxaris, 38). Oaths by weapons lasted into the Christian period; for instance, the Lombards swore lesser oaths by consecrated weapons and greater on the Gospels (see Ducange, s.v. “Juramenta super arma”; Grimm, Deutsche Rechtsalterth., p. 896). Stretching forth the hand towards the object or deity sworn by is a natural gesture, well shown in the oath of Agamemnon, who with uplifted hands (∆ιι - χeζpας άναο-χών) takes Heaven to witness with Sun and Earth and the Erinnyes who below the earth wreak vengeance on the perjurer (Homer, Il., xix. 254; see also Pindar, Olymp., vii. 120). The gesture of lifting the hand towards heaven was also an Israelite form of oath: Abraham says, “I have lifted up my hand to Jehovah,” while Jehovah Himself is represented as so swearing, “For I lift up My hand to heaven, and say, I live for ever” (Gen. xiv. 22; Deut, xxxii. 40; see Dan. xii. 7; Rev. x. 5). This gesture established itself in Christendom, and has continued to modern times. In England, for example, in the parliament at Shrewsbury in 1398, when the Lords took an oath on the cross of Canterbury never to suffer the transactions of that parliament to be changed, the members of the Commons held up their hands to signify their taking upon themselves the same oath (J. E. Tyler, Oaths, p. 99). In France a juror takes oath by raising his hand, saying, “Je jure !” The Scottish judicial oath is taken by the witness holding up his right hand uncovered, and repeating after the usher, “I swear by Almighty God, and as I shall answer to God at the great day of judgment, that I will,” &c. In the ancient world sacrifice often formed part of the ceremony of the oath; typical examples may be found in the Homeric poems, as in Agamemnon’s oath already mentioned, or the compact between the Greeks and Trojans (Il., iii. 276), where wine is poured out in libation, with prayer to Zeus and the immortal gods that the perjurer’s brains shall, like the wine, be poured on the ground; the rite thus passes into a symbolic curse-oath of the ordinary barbaric type. Connected with such sacrificial oaths is the practice of laying the hand on the victim or the altar, or touching the image of the god. A classic instance is in a comedy of Plautus (Rudens, v. 2, 45), where Gripus says, “Tange aram hanc Veneris,” and Labrax answers “Tango” (Greek instance, Thucyd., v. 47; see Justin, xxiv. 2). Thus Livy (xxi. 1) introduces the phrase “touching the sacred objects” (tactis sacris) into the picturesque story of Hannibal’s oath. Details of the old Scandinavian oath have been preserved in Iceland in the Landnâmabôk (Islendinga Sögur, Copenhagen, 1843): a bracelet (baugr) of two rings or more was to be kept on the altar in every head court, which the godi or priest should wear at all law-things held by him, and should redden in the blood of the bullock sacrificed, the witness pronouncing the remarkable formula: “Name I to witness that I take oath by the ring, law-oath, so help me Frey, and Niörd, and almighty Thor/’ (hialpi mer svâ Freyr, ok Niördr, ok hinn almâttki Ass), &c. This was doubtless the great oath on the holy ring or bracelet which the Danes swore to King Alfred to quit his kingdom (“on tham halgan beage,” Anglo-Sax. Chron. ; “in eorum armilla sacra,” Ethelwerd, Chron., iv.). An oath, though not necessarily expressed in words, is usually so. In the Homeric instances the prayer which constitutes the oath has a somewhat conventional form, and in the classical ages we find well-marked formulas. These are often references to deities, as “by Zeus !” “I call Zeus to witness” (ναι μλ Δία ; foτω Zeus); “by the immortal gods !” “I call to witness the ashes of my ancestors” (per deos immortales; testor majorum cineres). Sometimes a curse is invoked on himself by the swearer, that he may perish if he fail to keep his oath, as “the gods destroy me,” “let me perish if,” &c. (dii me perdant; dispeream si). An important class of Roman oaths invokes the deity to favour or preserve the swearer in so far as he shall fulfil his promise—“as the gods may preserve me,” “as I wish the gods to be propitious to me” (me ita di servent; ita deos mihi velim propitios). The best Roman collection is to be found in the old work of Brissonius, De Formulis et Solemnibus Populi Romani Verbis, Paris, 1583. Biblical examples of these classes of oaths are “as the Lord liveth” (1 Sam. xiv. 39, and elsewhere), “so do God to me, and more also” (2 Sam. iii. 35, and elsewhere).

The history of oaths in the early Christian ages opens a controversy which to this day has not been closed. Under Christ’s injunction, “Swear not at all” (Matt. v. 34; also James v. 12), many Christians seem at first to have shrunk from taking oaths, and, though after a time the usual customs of judicial and even colloquial oaths came to prevail among them, the writings of the Fathers show efforts to resist the practice. Chrysostom perhaps goes furthest in inveighing against this “snare of Satan”: “Do as you choose; I lay it down as a law that there be no swearing at all. If any bid you swear, tell him, Christ has spoken, and I do not swear” (Homil. ix. in Act. Apostol.; see a collection of patristic passages in Sixt. Senens., Bibliothec. Sanct., vi. adnot. 26). The line mostly taken by influential teachers, however, was that swearing should indeed be avoided as much as possible from its leading to perjury, but that the passages forbidding it only applied to superfluous or trifling oaths, or those sworn by created objects, such as heaven or earth or one’s own head. On the other hand, they argued that judicial and other serious swearing could not have been forbidden, seeing that Paul in his epistles repeatedly introduces oaths (2 Cor. i. 23; Phil. i. 8; Gal. i. 20). Thus Athanasius writes: “I stretch out my hand, and as I have learned of the apostle, I call God to witness on my soul” (Apol. ad Imp. Const.·, see Augustine, De Mend., 28; Epist., cl., iii. 9; cl., iv. 250; Enarr. in Psalm. Ixxxviii. (4); Serm., 307, 319). This argument is the more forcible from Paul’s expressions being actually oaths in accepted forms, and it has also been fairly adduced that Christ, by answering to the adjuration of the high priest, took the judicial oath in solemn form (Matt, xxvi. 63). The passages here referred to will give an idea of the theological grounds on which in more modern times Anabaptists, Mennonites, and Quakers have refused to take even judicial oaths, while, on the other hand, the laws of Christendom from early ages have been only directed against such swearing as was considered profane or otherwise improper, and against perjury. Thus from the 3d or 4th century we find oaths taking much the same place in Christian as in non-Christian society. In the 4th century the Christian military oath by God, Christ, the Holy Spirit, and the majesty of the emperor is recorded by Vegetius (Rei Milit. Inst., ii. 5). Constantine’s laws required every witness in a cause to take oath; this is confirmed in Justinian’s code, which even in some cases requires also the parties and advocates to be sworn (Cod. Theod., xi. 39; Justin. Cod., iv. 20, 59). Bishops and clergy were called upon to take oath in ordination, monastic vows, and other ecclesiastical matters (see details in Bingham, Antiq. of Chr. Church, xvi. 7). By the Middle Ages oaths had increased and multiplied in Christendom far beyond the practice of any other age or religion. The Reformation made no change in principle, as is seen, for instance, in Art. xxxix. of the church of England: “As we confess that vain and rash swearing is forbidden Christian men by our Lord Jesus Christ, and

James His apostle, so we judge, that Christian Religion doth not prohibit, but that a man may swear when the Magistrate require th, in a cause of faith and charity, so it be done according to the Prophet’s teaching, in justice, judgement, and truth.” But about this time began a legal reformation, which has for reasons of public policy continually reduced the number of oaths required to be taken, and apparently tends toward their total abolition.

The history of swearing in early Christendom would lead us to expect that the forms used would be adopted with more or less modification from Hebrew or Roman sources, as indeed proves to be the case. The oath introduced in the body of one of Constantine’s laws—“As the Most High Divinity may ever be propitious to me” (Ita mihi summa Divinitas semper propitia sit)—follows an old Roman form. The Roman oath by the genius of the emperor being objected to by Christians as recognizing a demon, they swore by his safety (TertulL, Apol., 32). The gesture of holding up the hand in swearing has been already spoken of. The Christian oath on a copy of the Gospels seems derived from the late Jewish oath taken holding in the hand the scroll of the law (or the phylacteries), a ceremony itself possibly adapted from Roman custom (see treatise “Shebuoth” in Gemard). Among the various mentions of the oath on the Gospels in early Christian writers is that characteristic passage of Chrysostom in a sermon to the people of Antioch: “But do thou, if nothing else, at least reverence the very book thou boldest forth to be sworn by, open the Gospel thou takest in thy hands to administer the oath, and, hearing what Christ therein saith of oaths, tremble and desist” (8erm. ad Pop. Antioch., Homil. XV. ). The usual mode was to lay the hand on the Gospel,...