Bede the Venerable, On Swearing

Bede the Venerable, Commentary on James 5:12

Source: Bede the Venerable: 1985. Bede the Venerable: Commentary on the Seven Catholic Epistles, p. 60. Translated by Dom David Hurst. Kalamazoo, Mich.: Cistercian Publications c/o Liturgical Press.

5:12 Above all things, however, my brothers, do not swear, and so on. 

Because he wishes to draw out the deadly poison of the tongue entirely in his hearers, having forbidden them from slandering one another, having prohibited them from judging their neighbor, having restrained them from complaining against one another in adversities, which are obvious sins, he adds also what to some people appears slight, that he may remove the custom of swearing at all. For this also is clearly evident that it must not at all be taken lightly by those who carefully weigh that thought of the Lord in which he says, Every careless word which men have spoken they will render an account of on the day of judgment. That you may not fall under judgment. I restrain you from the fault of swearing, he says, for the reason that in swearing often to the truth you may also sometimes fall into perjury, and also that you may be further from the vice o f perjury the more you do not wish to swear solemnly to the truth except under pressing necessity. But he also falls under the judgment of guilt who, although he never commits perjury, nevertheless swears solemnly to the truth more frequently than is necessary, because certainly he sins by the very carelessness of overmuch speaking and offends the judge who has forbidden both a useless word and every oath.

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Bede the Venerable, Homily II.23:7, On the Beheading of John the Baptist

Written c. 720-730 CE.

Source: Bede the Venerable. 1991. Homilies on the Gospels: Lent to the Dedication of the Church, p. 229-239. Translated by Lawrence T. Martin. Cistercian Studies Series 3. Cistercian Publications. 

Like the Lord in the gospel, James in his letter teaches how strictly we ought to avoid the rashness of swearing, saying, Above all, my brothers, do not swear, either by heaven or by earth or with any oath whatsoever; but let your yes be yes, and your no be no, that you may not be liable to judgment. This is the judgment to which Herod fell victim, so that he found he had either to break his oath or, to avoid breaking his oath, to commit another shameful act. If it should perhaps happen that we swear carelessly to something which, if carried out, would have most unfortunate consequences, we should know that we should willingly change it [in accord with] more salutary counsel. There is an urgent necessity for us to break our oath, rather than turn to another more serious crime in order to avoid breaking our oath. David swore by the Lord to kill Nabal, a stupid and wicked man, and to destroy all his possessions; but at the first entreaty of the prudent woman Abigail, he quickly took back his threats, put back his sword into its scabbard, and did not feel that he had contracted any guilt by thus breaking his oath in this way. Herod swore that he would give the dancing girl whatever she asked of him, and, to avoid being accused of breaking his oath by those who were at his banquet, he defiled the banquet with blood when he made the reward for her dancing the death of a prophet. And not only in swearing, but in everything that we do, this is the rule we should carefully observe: that if we should perhaps fall into the snares of a wily enemy from which we cannot escape without some taint of sin, we should rather seek that way out in which we discern that we will suffer less danger. We should follow the example of those shut up within enemy walls: they are desirous of finding a way out, but consider that access to every gate is closed to them—out of necessity they choose a place where the wall is lower from which to jump down, so that when they fall they incur the least danger.