On Idolatry 23

But there is a certain kind of this fault, in deed and in word at once, double-edged and harmful on both sides, though it flatters you as if it were free of both, since the deed does not seem to be a deed, because the word is not held to have been spoken. Those who borrow money from heathens on pledges give sworn guarantees in writing and so deny themselves; no doubt they think the only occasion for denial is the time of persecution, the place of the tribunal, and the person of the governor. Christ prescribes that there should be no swearing. “I wrote,” he says, “but I said nothing; it is the tongue, not the letter, that kills.” Here I call nature and conscience to witness: nature, because the hand can write nothing that the soul has not dictated, even if the tongue, in dictating, is still, motionless and quiet; though the soul dictates to the tongue itself, either what it conceived itself or what was handed to it by another. Now, lest it be said, “Another dictated it,” here I appeal to conscience, whether the soul does not take up what another dictated and pass it on to the hand, whether the tongue goes along or stays at rest. And it is well that the Lord said that sin is committed in the mind and conscience. “If,” he says, “lust or malice has entered a man's heart, you are held guilty as for the deed.” So you have given a guarantee which plainly entered your heart, and which you can claim neither not to have known nor not to have willed. For when you gave it, you knew; and when you knew, you certainly willed; and so it is in deed as much as in thought. Nor can you exclude the greater crime by pleading a lighter one, saying that a falsehood is committed, to be sure, by guaranteeing what you do not do. “Yet I did not deny, because I did not swear.” On the contrary, even if you had done nothing of the kind, you would still be said to have sworn, if you consented. A silent voice in the pen, a mute sound in the letters, is of no avail. Yet Zechariah, punished with a temporary loss of voice, when he conversed with his mind, passed by his useless tongue, dictated with his hands from his heart, and pronounced his son's name without his mouth: he speaks with the pen; his hand is heard in the wax more clearly than any sound; the letter is more vocal than any mouth. Ask whether he spoke who is found to have spoken. Let us pray the Lord that no necessity of such a contract may beset us, and, if it should happen, that he may give the brethren the means to help, or give us the constancy to break off every necessity, lest those denying letters, deputies of our mouth, be brought out against us on the day of judgment, sealed with the seals, not of witnesses now, but of angels.