Nicene and Post-Nicene Church Fathers Series 2 - The Still Small ...

That the oath ought not to be taken. 2292
Letter LXXXV. 2291
It is my invariable custom to protest at every synod and to urge privately in conversation,
that oaths about the taxes ought not to be imposed on husbandmen by the collectors. It
remains for me to bear witness, on the same matters, in writing, before God and men, that
it behoves you to cease from inflicting death upon men’s souls, and to devise some other
means of exaction, while you let men keep their souls unwounded. I write thus to you, not
as though you needed any spoken exhortation (for you have your own immediate inducements
to fear the Lord), but that all your dependents may learn from you not to provoke
the Holy One, nor let a forbidden sin become a matter of indifference, through faulty familiarity.
No possible good can be done them by oaths, with a view to their paying what is exacted
from them, and they suffer an undeniable wrong to the soul. For when men become
practised in perjury, they no longer put any pressure on themselves to pay, but they think
that they have discovered in the oath a means of trickery and an opportunity for delay. If,
then, the Lord brings a sharp retribution on the perjured, when the debtors are destroyed
by punishment there will be none to answer when summoned. If on the other hand the
Lord endures with long suffering, then, as I said before, those who have tried the patience
of the Lord despise His goodness. Let them not break the law in vain; let them not whet the
wrath of God against them. I have said what I ought. The disobedient will see.
2291 Placed in the year 372.
That the oath ought not to be taken.
2292 The distress of the Cappadocians under the load of taxes is described in Letter lxxiv. An objectionable
custom arose, or was extended, of putting the country people on oath as to their inability to pay.
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