[22]. Vows
Some kinds of vows are as impious and as stupid as if one should give a pledge to a king to bring to him without harm to
oneself the heads of a thousand enemies. We find that David and Hercules made themselves responsible for a number demanded or a task, but no one has ever been so presumptuous as to promise to return safe with that many heads.
When, therefore, certain persons promise chastity, poverty, and obedience, see how they are not acting from knowledge, and how their very zeal is either foolish or feigned.
First, as to chastity. Christ says, Matt. 19: 11, that not all men have this, but only those to whom it is given from above. Let those, then, to whom it is given, practice it. Impious, therefore, and quite as ill-mannered as if I should promise a friend to live for a whole year out of his purse, will it be if I promise God to give Him what I cannot even have unless He gives it to me. For is this not promising a friend that you are going to draw your expenses out of his purse? In I Cor. 7:89, St. Paul solves this diffieult problem of chastity clearly and at length, saying: If they have not continency, let them marry: for it is better to marry than to burn.” Do you burn, then? Marry; for you do better and more rightly in quenching the flames of ungovernable passion by marrying than in carrying about a mind restless and filthy from burning. And how long you ought to bear the burning no man can tell better than yourself. There are very, very few in the whole number of mortals who do not burn; and I am not sure that there has at any time, to say nothing of today, been one who has not felt the fires of passion; but how fiercely each burns no one can know save Him to whom the heart is known. Since, therefore, no man knows what is in a man, save the spirit of the man, which is in him [I Cor. 2: 11], no one can judge for you when you ought to marry or when to remain single. You will, therefore, have to decide alone for yourself whether to take a wife or not. But you will take one when you see that nearly all your thoughts are carried away by the violence of this fire as by a torrent; that fear of God is thrown to the winds, love of Him killed, prayer hindered.
You can, in fact, infer this from the chapter of Paul menSee I Sam. 18: 25-27.
[TAn allusion to the twelve labors of Hercules, performed in the service]
[of Eurystheus.]
tioned. For when he says [I Cor. 7:5], “Defraud ye not one the other” (he is speaking of a husband’s or wife’s withdrawal from intercourse), “except it be by consent for a season, that ye may give yourselves unto prayer. Afterwards come together again, that Satan tempt you not because of your incontinency,” it is evident that, to avoid the temptation of Satan, that is, the defilement of fornication and adultery, it is permissible to marry; likewise when our praying is hindered. But how far any one is hindered none knows better than he who feels the thing. If, therefore, you feel, as I have said, your mind reel at the mention of Venus, so that you say, “I would if I might,” the flesh surely has the upper hand and will never rest until it has accomplished what it wants. In order, therefore, not to be perpetually burning, marry; “for it is better to marry than to burn.” Whoever desires fuller knowledge of this matter should study carefully the chapter mentioned [I Cor. 7].
We, see, therefore, that all alike were spoken to. “If thou hast not continency, marry [I Cor. 7:9]; and, “if a virgin marry, she hath not sinned” [I Cor. 7:28]. Therefore, all alike may enter into marriage. For as to the objection made on the score of your vow, it has no force to invalidate the law of God, so that it is even the height of impiety to override that because of our traditions, as Christ, in Matt. 15: 3, reproached the scribes and Pharisees with doing, when He said: “Why do ye transgress the commandment of God becauuse of your tradition?” I will not mention now how foolish it is to promise a thing which is not in your power. All vows of chastity, therefore, are impious.
The objection, raised by some on account of the Nazarites, Num. 6, has long been obsolete. For the Lord commanded many things of the children of Israel of which He had Himself no need and in which He had no pleasure; but He bade them be done for Him that they might not be done for the Devil. Such were various sacrificial rites. And this is the view to be taken in regard to the Nazarites. “There was danger that the Jews would desire their sons to live after the manner of other nations according to some peculiar way of life, and that they would forthwith make vows to that effect. The Lord, therefore,
[The priest’s vow of chastity.]
gave them a way of life Himself, with which they would be so content as not to turn aside to idolatry. Others, again, cite in objection, “Pay thy vows unto the Most High” [Ps. 50: 14], and “Vow and pay,” Ps. 76:11; but in doing this they only betray their own ignorance, namely, that they have not yet learned that “vows” is used in the Holy Scriptures for voluntary gifts and offerings, not for taking an oath or dedicating the heart. This last is what was demanded by the law [Deut. 6:5]: “Thou shalt love the Lord, thy God, ete.” As, therefore, offerings were abolished, so also were vows. For nüder” [43] in Hebrew signifies the voluntary offering of anything customarily used by the priests as an offering. In general, all vows can apparently be reduced to two classes. We vow either the things the Lord orders or of our own free will certain things over and above those which the Lord orders. Those, therefore, who vow what the Lord has commanded act presumptuously, for they pretend that they will do more zealously what the Lord orders if they add their own vow or oath than if they listen to the command alone of the Lord. And what else is this but extreme folly and weakness of faith? The faithful man ought to be eager to do the will of God for the reason that his God has ordered this or that, not because he has taken upon himself to do this or that. For, those who are eager to do the commands of God for the reason that they have taken a vow make themselves of more account than God. The man is insubordinate who does not obey the orders of the commander unless he has first promised that he will do so. Everyone ought to do without any vow what is ordered by the law and the government. Moreover, if we vow certain other things than those contained in the law of God, it is in vain; for “in vain do they worship me,” says Christ in Matt. 15:9, “teaching doctrines and commandments of men”; and, in the same chapter, “Every plant which my heavenly Father planted not, shall be rooted up” [Mt. 15: 13]. And what is more foolish than to promise some new things to the Lord, as if we had fulfilled all that had hitherto been commanded and were generously adding on also something extra of our own? Who has ever fulfilled even this one commandment, Love thy neighbor as thyself”? [Mt. 22:39]. It becomes plain, therefore,