NPNF2-08. Basil: Letters and Select Works - Holy Bible Institute

To Amphilochius, concerning the Canons.VIII. The man who in a rage has taken up a hatchet against his own wife is a murderer.But it is what I should have expected from your intelligence that you should very properlyremind me to speak on these points more fully, because a wide distinction must be drawnbetween cases where there is and where there is not intent. A case of an act purely unintentional,and widely removed from the purpose of the agent, is that of a man who throws astone at a dog or a tree, and hits a man. The object was to drive off the beast or to shakedown the fruit. The chance comer falls fortuitously in the way of the blow, and the act isunintentional. Unintentional too is the act of any one who strikes another with a strap ora flexible stick, for the purpose of chastising him, and the man who is being beaten dies. Inthis case it must be taken into consideration that the object was not to kill, but to improve,the offender. Further, among unintentional acts must be reckoned the case of a man in afight who when warding off an enemy’s attack with cudgel or hand, hits him without mercyin some vital part, so as to injure him, though not quite to kill him. This, however, comesvery near to the intentional; for the man who employs such a weapon in self defence, orwho strikes without mercy, evidently does not spare his opponent, because he is masteredby passion. In like manner the case of any one who uses a heavy cudgel, or a stone too bigfor a man to stand, is reckoned among the unintentional, because he does not do what hemeant: in his rage he deals such a blow as to kill his victim, yet all he had in his mind wasto give him a thrashing, not to do him to death. If, however, a man uses a sword, or anythingof the kind, he has no excuse: certainly none if he throws his hatchet. For he does not strikewith the hand, so that the force of the blow may be within his own control, but throws, sothat from the weight and edge of the iron, and the force of the throw, the wound cannot failto be fatal.On the other hand acts done in the attacks of war or robbery are distinctly intentional,and admit of no doubt. Robbers kill for greed, and to avoid conviction. Soldiers who inflictdeath in war do so with the obvious purpose not of fighting, nor chastising, but of killingtheir opponents. And if any one has concocted some magic philtre for some other reason,and then causes death, I count this as intentional. Women frequently endeavour to drawmen to love them by incantations and magic knots, and give them drugs which dull theirtamen non ita pridem amicos habuerat; ac anno 568, Musonii morte affictos litteris amicissimis consolatus fuerat.Sæculum apud Latinos non semper stricte sumitur; velut cum ait Hieronymus in Epist. 27 ad Marcellum, in Christiverbis explicandis per tanta jam sæcula tantorum ingenia sudasse; vel cum auctor libri De rebaptismate in Cyprianumtacito nomine invehitur, quod adversus prisca consulta post tot sæculorum tantam seriem nunc primumrepente sine ratione insurgat, p. 357. De hoc ergo triginta annorum numero non paucos deducendos esse crediderim.655