Category Archives: The Early Modern Period

by | May 23, 2015 · 5:18 pm

JOHN SYM
(1581c.-1638)

from Lifes Preservative Against Self-Killing

 

John Sym, a zealous Calvinist minister born in Scotland and bred under its predestinarian theology, became rector of Leigh-on-Sea in Essex, England, where he remained until his death. He was much respected by his parishioners, though eventually hated by the government during its anti-Puritan periods. His treatise Lifes Preservative Against Self-Killing (1637) was the first full-length work on suicide published in English; although John Donne had written Biathanatos [q.v.] nearly three decades earlier (1608), Donne’s work was not published until 1647, a decade after that of Sym.

Sym’s treatise is representative of the increasingly severe attitudes toward suicide developing from the 1530s and ‘40s to the time at which Sym was writing, a century later. Suicide was a felony at law, punished with increasing harshness beginning with the Tudors and Stuarts by forfeiture of property, burial restrictions, and body desecration, and with little mercy for suicide victims who were insane: non compos mentis verdicts were returned in less than two percent of suicide cases tried between the accession of Henry Tudor and the Restoration. There were other voices in the early 17th century: Montaigne’s A Custom of the Isle of Cea [q.v] had been translated into English in 1603, and the plays of Shakespeare [q.v.] had given some currency to Stoic and Epicurean ideas of suicide. Nevertheless, law, religion, and folk belief in England during this period remained adamantly opposed to suicide.

Sym was convinced that there was an epidemic of suicide in England at the time he was writing, and indeed the number of reported suicides had increased dramatically. His principal aim in Lifes Preservative is to show that deliberate self-destruction (including the very broad range of behavior he includes under this notion) is a heinous sin. In its full and direct form, suicide is a sin greater than murder—that is, self-destruction is a greater sin than the destruction of another person.

Sym’s conceptual analysis of self-killing distinguishes between direct and indirect self-murder, between self-murder by commission and by omission, and between spiritual and bodily self-murder. Thus, suicide as he understands it includes not only direct self-killing but parasuicidal behavior and risk-taking; it includes under the notion of suicidal behavior many forms of self-exposure and self-neglect: idolatry, perjury, self-starvation, lack of moderation in food or drink, unwarranted use of medicines or surgery, exposing oneself to lethal dangers due to inordinate desire for money and possessions, irrational risk-taking by soldiers on the battlefield or sailors at sea, dueling, keeping society with dangerous people, and breaking laws that have capital punishments. While Sym’s concept of suicide is extremely broad, he was actually prepared to be more tolerant in practice than many of his contemporaries, and he believed that it was possible to overcome suicidal despair. As one commentator writes, Sym’s work is “marbled with paradoxes.”

Source

John Sym, Lifes Preservative Against Self-Killing, ed. Michael MacDonald.  London and New York: Routledge, 1988 (facsimile of the original, 1637, spelling and punctuation modernized), from Chapter 7, 10, 11, pp. 53-57, 84-88, 90-95, 109-111; quotation in the introductory biography p. xliv.

 

from LIFES PRESERVATIVE AGAINST SELF-KILLING

OF MURDER, AS IT IS OF ONE’S SELF

Of the specific difference of self-murder

Besides the consideration of murder, in a man’s killing of himself, the third point in the general description of self-murder is the efficient cause, or means of it, and that is a man’s own self, by his own procurement, who is also the immediate object of that vile fact, whereof now I am to speak.

Here is now the specific difference of this sort of murder, whereby it transcends and is distinguished from all other murders, and consists in restraint of the act of killing, in regard of its individual object, to a man’s own life and self, which is the greatest and cruellestactof hostility in the world.  When a man, who by nature is most bound to preserve himself, reflects upon himself to destroy himself, the horribleness whereof is so monstrous that we read no Law made against it, as if it were a thing not to be supposed possible. And this sin, of all others, is most against the Law of Nature, for that self-preservation arms a man to turn upon others unlawfully invading him to kill him. And also, it is against that self-love, which is the rule of our love to others and therefore what we may not lawfully, in this case, do to others, we can less lawfully do it to ourselves against this general law of love; in breaking whereof, specially towards ourselves, we violate the whole law, the general sum whereof is love.

Of the evil and greatness of self-murder.

This is the malice of Satan, and our own wretchedness, to set us at division and enmity against our selves, and in a monstrous manner to make a man both the active and passive subject of his own action, and utter destruction of himself, the greatest mischief that can betide him in this world, and so a man’s self becomes his own executioner, by his own hands or means, principal or accessary, by command, or otherwise.

If parricide be a grievous sin, as wilfully to kill our own parents, children, wives, husbands, etc. who are distinctpersons from ourselves, much more is self-murder abominable. For, by unity, things are preserved, and individuals are principally one, and therefore, if individuals be divided against themselves, the world cannot stand; when things shall cease to be true and amicably disposed to themselves.

Of lawful self-killing.

There is a lawful and commanded killing of ourselves. For understanding whereof, it is to be observed, that every one of us hath in him a self-old-man of sinfulness, lively and powerful in manifold lusts and wicked actions, of which the Apostle tells us (Romans 7:5) that when we were in the flesh, the motions of sins, which were by the Law, did work in our members, to bring forth fruit unto death. When the commandment came, sin revived. The living whereof does kill us.

In this case, even for our own preservation, it is necessary, and lawful for us to kill our self-old-man, with the lusts thereof. As the Apostle commands usto mortify our members, that the body of sin might be destroyed, we should put off the old man (Ephesians 4:22, Colossians 3:9) so that we should become dead to trespasses and sins, wherein formerly we were dead.

This killing of our selves is metaphorical and moral, by which death we are made alive. For, if we do not thus die, we cannot live. As the sown corn must first die, before it can live and grow.

This our self-old -man is slain by three several acts or blows. First, the same after a sort, was crucified in Christ (Romans, 6:6), that the body of sin might be destroyed, although not the individual persons, but the common nature of mankind assumed by Christ did suffer death in him.

Secondly, our self-old-man is killed, by change of our state, upon our grafting into Christ by faith, so that we are, in that respect, said to be dead to the law, by the body of Christ (Romans 7:4-6) and that we are dead to the law, that we might live unto God (Galatians 2:19). This is done at one entire act or blow, in the act of our justification; so by this death, freeing us from him that hath the power of death, even the devil.

Thirdly, our self-old-man and the lusts thereof are killed, as touching the dominion and corruption of them, by the Spirit of God, in the act of sanctification. Touching which, the Apostle tells us (Romans 8:13) that if we, through the Spirit, do mortify the deeds of the body, which is the work of our whole life, we shall live.

This killing of our self-old-man should be done by ourselves, being the executioners of it, by assistance of divine power from God, in three several acts.

First, by our act of savingly believing in Christ, whereby our state is changed from death to life.

Secondly, by our constant endeavors to be conformed to God’s image and will by daily renovation.

Thirdly, by our continual warfare against our corruption and temptations, touching which, the Apostle says, that the flesh lusteth against the spirit, and the spirit against the flesh (Galatians, 5:17). They are so contrary the one to the other, that there is no living for either of them but by the death of its opposite. Neither is there any peace, until one of them be dead.

We should therefore ever use our Christian armor, and employ our utmost endeavors to destroy our self-old-man. Against which, if we do turn the edge of our spiritual sword to slaughter it, with the lusts thereof, we shall be diverted, not only from unjustly killing of others, but much more from killing ourselves, in any other respect. But when we, as Saul, do spare the life of this Agag, or self-old-man, it causes us, by a just hand of God, to fall upon ourselves, to take away that life of our own which we should both spare and cherish.

Diverse observations from the general consideration of self-murder.

From the consideration of self-murder we may observe: first, that man stands in more danger of destruction than any other creature. For, no creature is subject to attempts against the life of it, by itself, but only man, who is environed also with mortal dangers from without, but specially of his own procurement, by opening the way for others to invade and hurt him, by breaches and arms of his own making.

Secondly, we here see that God wants not means of execution of his judgements upon man. Seeing, he can leave a man to fall upon himself and be his own executioner.

The use hereof is to make us afraid to offend God, or to provoke him to be our enemy, or to live unreconciled with him, destitute of the assurance of his peace and favor.

Neither are we over-confidently to trust ourselves with our selves, of whom we have so little assurance for security and safety from self-mischief. And therefore, we are carefully to cleave to God for preservation, praying him not to give us up to ourselves, who are mercilessly cruel to ourselves, when we fall into our own hands. For the nearer that any are linked and knit together in condition, or affection, the more desperately opposite they are when they fall into division, because of the want of a fit medium or mediator of reconciliation, between a man’s self and himself. What mean is there, either to keep himself from himself, or to reconcile himself to himself, when himself is fallen out into murderous resolutions against himself?

Of the kinds of bodily self-murder.

Direct and indirect self-murder defined.
The kinds of bodily self-murder are two: Direct and Indirect. Self -murder is not such a general, as in the schools is called Genus univocum, so predicated of them both, as equally communicating itself to both those species, or species under it. But is genus analogum ab uno; or commune genus kath hen or pros hen, for that the same does properly and primarily belong to direct self-murder.

Direct bodily self-murder is the killing of a man’s body or natural life by himself, or his own means, advisedly, wittingly, and willingly, intending and effecting his own death.

Indirect self-murder of the body is when a man advisedly, wittingly, and willingly intends, and does that which he knows may be of itself, the means of the destruction of his natural life, although he does not purposely intend to kill himself thereby. Or it is the killing of a man’s own body, by unlawful, either moral or natural means of his own using, without intending of his death thereby.

Of the differences between direct and indirect self-murder. The proper differences between direct and indirect self- murderers consists specially in three things.

First, in the ends, directly and immediately intended by the self-murderers of both kinds, in their several acts. The end that is immediately intended in direct self-murder is death itself of their bodies that kill themselves; although not for itself, but in respect of some benefit conceited to be had thereby, which is their ultimate end, whereunto death is in the murderer’s intention subordinate, as for a man to kill himself, that he may be out of trouble.

The end that in indirect self-murder is immediately aimed at is the attainment of some good, real or apparent in, or by the means that an indirect self- murderer does use, without any respect or expectation of death thereupon ensuing; as in surfeiting by drunkenness or gluttony.

Secondly, they differ in the means that are used by them for accomplishing those ends. In direct self-murder, the means abused to that effect and end are not proper of themselves, nor by God’s appointment, but are perverted by him that kills himself thereby, as knives or the like. For God never appointed means for any man lawfully to use for effecting that which he would never have man do. A direct self-murderer uses not the means for any pleasure he hath in them, but for the consequent effects that he intends by them.

In indirect self-murder, the means and course used are such, as do properly kill in the end, if that they be persisted in, as drunkenness, and the like. Although they have in them a show of present good, which gives the users of them a kind of delight and contentment in them. Whereof they shall be disappointed, when, in the end, they shall, instead thereof, find death, which they least expected and most abhorred, and would resist the same, if it were inferred or offered to them by others.

Thirdly, direct and indirect self-murder do differ in the good that is aimed at by them, and in the time wherein they look to enjoy it. A direct self-murderer does fancy his good intended by him, in his act of self-murder, not to be in the means that he uses to kill himself but, in or by death, in his freedom from evil, or enjoying of good, the time of his reaping of which benefit he conceives to be, after that he is dead and gone.

An indirect self-murderer conceits the good that he aims at, by his course, to be and rest in the very means themselves that he uses, therein expecting the present enjoyment thereof before, and not after his death. The cogitations, and inflicting whereof he abhors, although he does prosecute with eager delight, the courses that do hasten and bring his death.

How indirect self-murder is greater, in some respects, than direct.

It is demanded, whether direct, or indirect self-murder be the greater sin? I answer, if we consider the freeness of the will, with less enforcement, and with more delight, prosecuting those deadly courses of indirect self-murder, there can be, in that respect, less said to excuse it than for direct self-murder. An indirect self-murderer is last (in respect of the mortal means he uses, and persists in, until the effect be accomplished,) as sure of death, which he abhors, as a direct self-murderer is of the same, that he desires, and endeavors for, and longs after.

Again, an indirect self-murderer is more hardly diverted from his unlawful, dangerous course, than, at first, a direct self-murderer, because this man may be sooner convinced of the vileness of his purposed fact. In excuse whereof he hath so little to say, and also the danger of it is more apparent and ghastful to the mind that advisedly in cold blood considers of it.

The other is taken up, with looking upon the present contentment in the means that he uses. Not considering death and danger, thereupon attending and ensuing, but self-deceives himself with excuses and colorable pretenses, and so does wink (as it were) that he may not see the blow of death that he is giving himself, with his own hands.

Of direct self-murder the cause or occasion is ordinarily from discontentment and sorrow, but, of indirect self-murder the cause commonly is pleasure and delight. Of these two motives, pleasure is the strongest, and their motion most violent and indivertable that are led by it because it moves with nature and not against it, and hath will in men more propense that way, which by grief is rather forced, than seconded.

How absolutely direct self-murder is the greatest.

Notwithstanding, Direct self-murder is the far more grievous sin, in three respects.

First, in respect of the direct intention of the will, and of its immediate object of murder of a man’s self, whereby it partakes, more properly and fully, of the nature of self-murder, than indirect self-murder does. For, what is under a common Genus, or general, directly partakes more of the nature of that Genus than that which is under it but by reduction, or indirectly. So then, although direct and indirect self-murder be both self-murder, yet they are not equal self-murder, but the former is the greater.

Secondly, for the consequences of the acts of them both, direct self-murder brings more certain and sudden inevitable destruction than indirect, which in this latter may be better prevented, by having time of repentance, than it can be in the former. And death in this is an accidental effect, besides the intention of the agent and nature of the means, which in the former is per se, and of the nature of the action so purposely ordered to that end.

Thirdly, direct self-murder hath more and greater sins complicated in it, than indirect hath, both by extension, in kinds and number against God, others, and ourselves, and also for intention, in degrees, by reason of circumstances of the party doing the same, against the light and reluctancy of nature, with direct intention to kill himself.

 

Of Indirect self-murder of the body.

Why Indirect self-murder is first treated of.
Although that by logical method I should treat first of Direct self-murder, because that which is directly under a Genus or general head should be handled before that which is but indirectly under it, for the nearness thereof unto the same, and for the light that it may afford, for the better understanding of the other. Yet, for all that, I will here begin with indirect self-murder for three causes.

First, because I will herein imitate nature, which proceeds from things less perfect, to things more perfect, because perfection is her ultimate end. Indirect self-murder is less perfect self-murder than direct self-murder because the Genus of self-murder agrees more properly, and primarily to direct self-murder, than to indirect.

Secondly, indirect self-murder is ordinarily, both the way and the cause of direct self-murder, and therefore, may be fitly treated of first. The rather because direct self-murder never goes before indirect; but this goes often before, and without that.

Thirdly, because my intention is to insist specially upon direct self-murder, and by means of it only do I speak of indirect self-murder. Therefore, I purpose first to dispatch it, as an accessory to the other; which I principally intend, as my last end in this treatise, therewithal to conclude the same.

Of Indirect self-murder by omission.
Having shown what indirect self-murder is, and how it is differenced from direct self-murder, I will now declare how men do fall into the same, which is done by two ways. First, by omission. Secondly, by commission.

By omission a man may indirectly murder himself, being the deficient cause of the preservation of his life, two ways: either in a physical natural manner, or in a moral meritorious course.

Of indirect self-murder, by omission physically wrought.
First, physically, and after a natural manner, a man may indirectly murder himself diverse ways as:

First, a man may indirectly murder himself, by way of omission, if out of sullenness, grief, or nigardize, or by indiscrete punishment of his body, he shall stubbornly and foolishly refuse to eat or drink, in that measure or kind that is requisite for his preservation, by abstinence, and sparing, either starving himself to death or breeding in himself and contracting that which kills him. Somewhat like hereunto was the practice of Ahab (1 Kings, 21:4) who, because Naboth would not let him have his vineyard, heavy and displeased, laid him down upon his bed and turned away his face, and would eat no bread. The contrary whereof Paul commanded Timothy.

Yet, to avoid this danger, men may not Gormandize, or excessively pamper themselves, indulgendo Genio, but may, and ought at set times to fast, both for civil and divine ends, with respect to the good both of soul and body.

Secondly, in this kind of omission, a man may indirectly murder himself by wilful contempt of the lawful use of physic or surgery, either to cure or prevent apparent mortal diseases or griefs or, when he will not be ordered, by the wholesome direction of the skillful in their calling; or, does not depend upon God for a blessing upon the means, who, by his over-ruling providence, directs the course and blesses the means.

Yet, men must herein be careful that they slavishly enthrall not themselves to the means, nor anxiously perplex themselves, if they cannot have them or that the success answers not their expectation. Because the Lord disposes things so, as he also may effect his work and will, often by crossing ours.

Thirdly, a man may incur indirect self-murder, by regardlessness of preserving himself against mortal dangers, from without himself as, in not seeking to God for reconciliation, by humiliation and repentance, in some imminent judgements that threaten from God our destruction, that we may be preserved either from them, or in them. Or as, when we are in danger of invasion by enemies, for a man then regardlessly to shut his eyes from foreseeing the same, that it may suddenly surprise him, or, that he should not prepare himself and do his utmost endeavors in his own defense, to save his life, if by resisting it may be done, or otherwise to provide for himself by flight or other prudent diversion, or preventing of the evil; that he may not carelessly suffer his life to be lost. So then, the cowardice of men in extremities by sea or land, that will not do their utmost endeavors for their own preservation, as likewise the griplenesse of those that to spare their goods, endanger the loss of their lives, for want of military furniture and means to make opposition, are much to be blamed for this course of indirect self-murder.

But yet, touching this point, men should be wary that they neither be so careful to preserve their lives that they should spare to venture them where they ought, and may comfortably spend and lay them down. Nor yet, have their eyes and confidence so upon earthly means, of human strength and provision, that they should forget or neglect to seek to God, and to depend upon him for safety and victorious success.

Fourthly, of indirect self-murder a man may be guilty by not avoiding and fleeing from persons and places destined to destruction, which are under a curse or in a course of mortal judgements, when we are not necessarily tied by duty or calling to commerce and be with them. As is apparent by Lot’s forsaking of Sodom, and by the command of Moses to the Israelites, to depart from the tents of Corah, Dathan and Abiram, and by that divine commandment, charging all the godly to come out of Babylon, that they might not be partakers of her sins and that they might not receive of her plagues.

And therefore, such as out of unwarrantable presumption, or carnal security, avoid not persons and places infected with the pestilence or subjected to perdition, when their presence is unnecessary and not to be justified, and pernicious to themselves. They must be cast upon the indictment of indirect self-murder, if by the aforesaid means, they do miscarry.

Of indirect self-murder by omission morally wrought.
By the way of deficiency, or omission of indirect self-murder, a man may be guilty by a moral meritorious default two ways:

First, by his willful neglect or contempt to live and walk in the ways of godliness and obedience to God’s affirmative commandments, whereunto the promises of life and protection are annexed, and which we may certainly expect, so long as we keep ourselves within compass of moral obedience to the Law and Gospel, and within the limits and precincts of our special callings; so that if therein, or therefore, we should lose our lives, we shall be free of the imputation of self-murder anyway, in that respect.

Secondly, in meritorious moral manner, a man may miscarry, and be indirectly guilty of his own death, by wilful omission and neglect of commending himself in constant and ordinary prayer to God, for divine preservation and safety of his life, against all evils and dangers, which may hurt him, and over which, and over him, God hath a sovereign power and command. And also, by his unbelief and not trusting in God in all estates, for preservation, under whole wings he may securely rest, a man may be justly deserted, and given over to perish and sink, as Peter when he doubted, was in danger of drowning.

This neglect of thus depending upon God arises either from self-confidence in man’s own power and means, whereupon he rests as secure, or else from Atheistical conceits of the providence of God, as if he were regardless of human affairs, and that all things did fall out by chance and fortune, because they do see all things in this world fall out alike to all men. Which being more exactly considered, manifests rather the free and sovereign powerful providence of God over-ruling all things.

Yet this divine preservation, by faith and prayer to God, excludes not, but includes the conscionable use of lawful means, and walking in appointed courses, without which we can expect safety no more than Paul and his company could, if they did let the mariners forsake the ship. If a man by the aforesaid neglect of prayer and dependence on God does not perish, it is God’s special work, reserving him either for repentance and amendment of his life or for some worse end and heavier judgement.

From this degree of indirect self-murder, by omission of means, we may observe that when God gives means of life, if we use them not to that end, we tempt God, to follow our own wills, while we will not follow his. And if we use the means, with trusting in them, then we make gods of the means, and therefore, in that respect, it is just with God to disappoint us of our expectation, and to condemn us of indirect self-murder, upon our miscarrying, in not using the means.

For, all means, as they are means, have relation to the end, why and whereunto they are appointed. And so, in their use to that end consists their perfection, without which they were useless and needless, and therefore, by the omission of the use of the means of life, which men would enjoy, they either tempt God to do things otherwise than he hath ordained, or else they do show themselves regardless of God, preferring their own wills above his, expecting to have their own purposes without him, whereby many men deceive themselves.

Of indirect self-murder by commission.
The second means of indirect self-murder is by a course of commission, or of doing things, unlawfully tending to bring a man to his death, which is a degree grosser than the former, and consists in diverse branches.

First, by abusing lawful things in transgressing due moderation in their use for time, measure and manner, falling into extremes either of defect or of excess, or of unreasonableness, which is done two ways. First, in things both respecting the body, and in the acts about them: as in eating to gluttony and drinking to drunkenness, using labor and recreations to surfeiting, and also in things respecting the mind, as in the over straining and surcharging of the thoughts, fancy, and understanding, in the immoderate distemperature of the affections and passions of the mind, suffocating or wasting the spirits by excess of choler, grief, fretfulness, and the like; which being let loose, and extended beyond the banks of their due moderation, do often prove mortal, and means of indirect self-murder, when they are willingly and indulgently entertained, and given way to. It is a hard thing for a man to use means, and not to abuse them, which causes many a man’s table to become a snare to him, and a trap, and shortens his time upon earth.

Secondly, indirectly, a man may be guilty of self- murder by needless mutilating of himself and cutting off any of his members (as Origen did), to the hurt and danger of his life, which by the preservation of such a member might have been in more safety, for life’s perfection is in the perfection of the whole body. Notwithstanding, for the safety of the whole, a man may lawfully and necessarily cut off a member; which cannot be preserved without manifest danger of thereby losing his life, but neither to punish a sin past, nor to prevent a sin to come, may a man cut off or destroy any of his members, whereby he may be less able to do the offices and duties for which God hath given him the same. Seeing that both for chastisement and prevention of sin, God hath appointed other moral means, which we are to use, and therein to depend upon God for the success. For not in man’s forced disability to act sin, but in the renovation of the heart consists true sanctification. That of pulling out the right eye, and of cutting off the right hand (Matthew, 5:29- 30) is meant of moral mortification, whereby those members are made useless and as if they were not, to any unlawful use.

Of Indirect self-murder of commission by unwarrantable practice of Physic, etc.
Thirdly, a man maybe guilty of indirect self-murder, by practicing of physic or surgery unskillfully, immoderately, or dangerously upon himself, either above his strength or knowledge, killing himself by his unwarrantable endeavors to cure himself, or else by leaving those that they know to be skillful, careful and have lawful calling to practice, to put themselves into their hands, whom they neither know to have skill nor calling to undertake such cures, or are such as be desperate attempters, with small regard of men’s lives in their practice. If a man know the same and does wilfully choose and commit himself, specially in difficult cases, into the hands of such, he can look for no good success, and must be self-guilty of the mortal effects thereupon following. But of this see more in the abuses of taking physic,

Of indirect self-murder by unthriftiness, etc.
Fourthly, this indirect self-murder is committed by willful unthriftiness and prodigality, whereby a man provides not, but misspends the means of his livelihood and so subjects himself and his to the peril of famine, contrary to the light of nature and scripture.

Yet we are herein to be wary that for prevention of want of livelihood, we fall not into covetousness and carking cares, or that we follow the world with neglect of better things, or that we should spare more than is fitting and shut up the bowels of compassion with the overthrow of liberality and works of charity and piety.

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Filed under Europe, Selections, Sin, Sym, John, The Early Modern Period

by | · 5:17 pm

ROBERT BURTON
(1577-1640)

from Anatomy of Melancholy

 

Born in Lindley, Leicestershire, Robert Burton was an English clergyman and author. He was educated at Christ Church, Oxford, where he received bachelor of arts, master of arts, and bachelor of divinity degrees. Working as a tutor and librarian, he was elected a fellow in 1599. From 1616 until his death, he served as vicar nearby at St. Thomas’s Church, living a self-described “silent, sedentary, solitary” lifestyle. His first published work was the Latin comedy Philosophaster (1605).

Burton’s Anatomy of Melancholy was originally published in 1621 under the pseudonym Democritus Junior. Burton apparently saw himself as completing the project of Democritus to discover the biological seat of melancholy, including what would now be called depression and related mental illnesses. It is reported that Burton also tried to recreate Democritus’s practice of walking down to the haven at Abdera and laughing heartily at the ridiculous objects that presented themselves to his view, by repairing to the bridge-foot at Oxford and listening to the bargemen swearing at one another, “at which he would set his hands to his sides and laugh most profusely.”

Anatomy of Melancholy is a treatise on the symptoms, causes, and cures of the melancholic or depressive personality. The result of most of his life’s work, Anatomy is encyclopedic in its references to nearly every aspect of 17th-century culture and thought, causing Lord Byron to remark that studying it was the surest way of obtaining “a reputation of being well read.” Focusing particularly on previous theories of cognition but sprinkling the book with classical allusions in a style influenced by Montaigne and the satire of Erasmus, Burton treated the subject of depression in a manner ahead of his time and with a modification of the then-conventional mind/body dualism. The Anatomy was widely read and influenced several later writers, notably John Milton, Samuel Johnson, Laurence Sterne, and Charles Lamb.

In the section “Prognostics of Melancholy,” Burton treats suicide as the outcome of melancholy, though he also reviews classical and medieval arguments concerning the ethics of suicide. He thus appears to adopt potentially conflicting views: on the one hand, that suicide is the causal consequence of mental illness (and so not under voluntary control), and, on the other, that suicide is a matter of moral choice (which one can make badly). Similar ambivalence about suicide in mental illness persists into contemporary times. In any case, Burton argues that one ought not to be rash in censuring those who commit suicide. Only God alone can tell the reasons for their act and what shall become of their souls, he insists, since they may have repented and been forgiven at the very moment of death, as he famously puts it, “betwixt the bridge and the brook, the knife and the throat.”

Sources

Robert Burton, Anatomy of Melancholy, Part 1, Section 4, Member 1, available from Project Gutenberg.  Originally published 1638.  This edition, by Karl Hagen, is based on a nineteenth-century edition that modernized Burton’s spelling and typographic conventions, and has been further corrected. Quotation in biographical sketch from  A. H. Bullen, introduction to Robert Burton, The Anatomy of Melancholy, ed. Rev. A. R. Shilleto, vol. 1, London, George Bell and Sons, 1893, p. xii.

 

from ANATOMY OF MELANCHOLY

PROGNOSTICS OF MELANCHOLY

Prognostics, or signs of things to come, are either good or bad. If this malady be not hereditary, and taken at the beginning, there is good hope of cure, recens curationem non habet difficilem, saith Avicenna, l. 3, Fen. 1, Tract. 4, c. 18. That which is with laughter, of all others is most secure, gentle, and remiss, Hercules de Saxonia. “If that evacuation of haemorrhoids, or varices, which they call the water between the skin, shall happen to a melancholy man, his misery is ended,” Hippocrates Aphor. 6, 11. Galen l. 6, de morbis vulgar. com. 8, confirms the same; and to this aphorism of Hippocrates, all the Arabians, new and old Latins subscribe; Montaltus c. 25, Hercules de Saxonia, Mercurialis, Vittorius Faventinus, &c. Skenkius, l. 1, observat. med. c. de Mania, illustrates this aphorism, with an example of one Daniel Federer a coppersmith that was long melancholy, and in the end mad about the 27th year of his age, these varices or water began to arise in his thighs, and he was freed from his madness. Marius the Roman was so cured, some, say, though with great pain. Skenkius hath some other instances of women that have been helped by flowing of their mouths, which before were stopped. That the opening of the haemorrhoids will do as much for men, all physicians jointly signify, so they be voluntary, some say, and not by compulsion. All melancholy are better after a quartan; Jobertus saith, scarce any man hath that ague twice; but whether it free him from this malady, ’tis a question; for many physicians ascribe all long agues for especial causes, and a quartan ague amongst the rest. Rhasis cont. lib. 1, tract. 9. “When melancholy gets out at the superficies of the skin, or settles breaking out in scabs, leprosy, morphew, or is purged by stools, or by the urine, or that the spleen is enlarged, and those varices appear, the disease is dissolved.” Guianerius, cap. 5, tract. 15, adds dropsy, jaundice, dysentery, leprosy, as good signs, to these scabs, morphews, and breaking out, and proves it out of the 6th of Hippocrates’ Aphorisms.

 

Evil prognostics on the other part. Inveterata melancholia incurabilis, if it be inveterate, it is incurable, a common axiom, aut difficulter curabilis as they say that make the best, hardly cured. This Galen witnesseth, l. 3, de loc. affect. cap. 6, “be it in whom it will, or from what cause soever, it is ever long, wayward, tedious, and hard to be cured, if once it be habituated.” As Lucian said of the gout, she was “the queen of diseases, and inexorable,” may we say of melancholy. Yet Paracelsus will have all diseases whatsoever curable, and laughs at them which think otherwise, as T. Erastus par. 3, objects to him; although in another place, hereditary diseases he accounts incurable, and by no art to be removed. Hildesheim spicel. 2, de mel. holds it less dangerous if only “imagination be hurt, and not reason,” “the gentlest is from blood. Worse from choler adust, but the worst of all from melancholy putrefied.” Bruel esteems hypochondriacal least dangerous, and the other two species (opposite to Galen) hardest to be cured. The cure is hard in man, but much more difficult in women. And both men and women must take notice of that saying of Montanus consil. 230, pro Abate Italo, “This malady doth commonly accompany them to their grave; physicians may ease, and it may lie hid for a time, but they cannot quite cure it, but it will return again more violent and sharp than at first, and that upon every small occasion or error:” as in Mercury’s weather-beaten statue, that was once all over gilt, the open parts were clean, yet there was in fimbriis aurum, in the chinks a remnant of gold: there will be some relics of melancholy left in the purest bodies (if once tainted) not so easily to be rooted out. Oftentimes it degenerates into epilepsy, apoplexy, convulsions, and blindness: by the authority of Hippocrates and Galen, all aver, if once it possess the ventricles of the brain, Frambesarius, and Salust. Salvianus adds, if it get into the optic nerves, blindness. Mercurialis, consil. 20, had a woman to his patient, that from melancholy became epileptic and blind. If it come from a cold cause, or so continue cold, or increase, epilepsy; convulsions follow, and blindness, or else in the end they are moped, sottish, and in all their actions, speeches, and gestures, ridiculous. If it come from a hot cause, they are more furious, and boisterous, and in conclusion mad. Calescentem melancholiam saepius sequitur mania. If it heat and increase, that is the common event, per circuitus, aut semper insanit, he is mad by fits, or altogether. For as Sennertus contends out of Crato, there is seminarius ignis in this humour, the very seeds of fire. If it come from melancholy natural adust, and in excess, they are often demoniacal, Montanus.

Seldom this malady procures death, except (which is the greatest, most grievous calamity, and the misery of all miseries,) they make away themselves, which is a frequent thing, and familiar amongst them. ‘Tis Hippocrates’ observation, Galen’s sentence, Etsi mortem timent, tamen plerumque sibi ipsis mortem consciscunt, l. 3. de locis affec. cap. 7. The doom of all physicians. ‘Tis Rabbi Moses’ Aphorism, the prognosticon of Avicenna, Rhasis, Aetius, Gordonius, Valescus, Altomarus, Salust. Salvianus, Capivaccius, Mercatus, Hercules de Saxonia, Piso, Bruel, Fuchsius, all, &c.

Et saepe usque adeo mortis formidine vitae
Percipit infelix odium lucisque videndae,
Ut sibi consciscat maerenti pectore lethum.

And so far forth death’s terror doth affright,
He makes away himself, and hates the light
To make an end of fear and grief of heart,
He voluntary dies to ease his smart.

In such sort doth the torture and extremity of his misery torment him, that he can take no pleasure in his life, but is in a manner enforced to offer violence unto himself, to be freed from his present insufferable pains. So some (saith Fracastorius) “in fury, but most in despair, sorrow, fear, and out of the anguish and vexation of their souls, offer violence to themselves: for their life is unhappy and miserable. They can take no rest in the night, nor sleep, or if they do slumber, fearful dreams astonish them.” In the daytime they are affrighted still by some terrible object, and torn in pieces with suspicion, fear, sorrow, discontents, cares, shame, anguish, &c. as so many wild horses, that they cannot be quiet an hour, a minute of time, but even against their wills they are intent, and still thinking of it, they cannot forget it, it grinds their souls day and night, they are perpetually tormented, a burden to themselves, as Job was, they can neither eat, drink or sleep. Psal. cvii. 18. “Their soul abhorreth all meat, and they are brought to death’s door, being bound in misery and iron:” they curse their stars with Job, “and day of their birth, and wish for death:” for as Pineda and most interpreters hold, Job was even melancholy to despair, and almost madness itself; they murmur many times against the world, friends, allies, all mankind, even against God himself in the bitterness of their passion, vivere nolunt, mori nesciunt, live they will not, die they cannot. And in the midst of these squalid, ugly, and such irksome days, they seek at last, finding no comfort, no remedy in this wretched life, to be eased of all by death. Omnia appetunt bonum, all creatures seek the best, and for their good as they hope, sub specie, in show at least, vel quia mori pulchrum putant (saith Hippocrates) vel quia putant inde se majoribus malis liberari, to be freed as they wish. Though many times, as Aesop’s fishes, they leap from the frying-pan into the fire itself, yet they hope to be eased by this means: and therefore (saith Felix Platerus) “after many tedious days at last, either by drowning, hanging, or some such fearful end,” they precipitate or make away themselves: “many lamentable examples are daily seen amongst us:” alius ante, fores se laqueo suspendit (as Seneca notes), alius se praecipitavit a tecto, ne dominum stomachantem audiret, alius ne reduceretur a fuga ferrum redegit in viscera, “one hangs himself before his own door,—another throws himself from the house-top, to avoid his master’s anger,—a third, to escape expulsion, plunges a dagger into his heart,”—so many causes there are—His amor exitio est, furor his—love, grief, anger, madness, and shame, &c. ‘Tis a common calamity, a fatal end to this disease, they are condemned to a violent death, by a jury of physicians, furiously disposed, carried headlong by their tyrannising wills, enforced by miseries, and there remains no more to such persons, if that heavenly Physician, by his assisting grace and mercy alone do not prevent, (for no human persuasion or art can help) but to be their own butchers, and execute themselves. Socrates his cicuta, Lucretia’s dagger, Timon’s halter, are yet to be had; Cato’s knife, and Nero’s sword are left behind them, as so many fatal engines, bequeathed to posterity, and will be used to the world’s end, by such distressed souls: so intolerable, insufferable, grievous, and violent is their pain, so unspeakable and continuate. One day of grief is an hundred years, as Cardan observes: ‘Tis carnificina hominum, angor animi, as well saith Areteus, a plague of the soul, the cramp and convulsion of the soul, an epitome of hell; and if there be a hell upon earth, it is to be found in a melancholy man’s heart.

For that deep torture may be call’d an hell,
When more is felt, than one hath power to tell.
Yea, that which scoffing Lucian said of the gout in jest, I may truly affirm of melancholy in earnest.

O triste nomen! o diis odibile
Melancholia lacrymosa, Cocyti filia,
Tu Tartari specubus opacis edita
Erinnys, utero quam Megara suo tulit,
Et ab uberibus aluit, cuique parvidae
Amarulentum in os lac Alecto dedit,
Omnes abominabilem te daemones
Produxere in lucem, exitio mortalium.
Et paulo post
Non Jupiter ferit tale telum fulminis,
Non ulla sic procella saevit aequoris,
Non impetuosi tanta vis est turbinis.
An asperos sustineo morsus Cerberi?
Num virus Echidnae membra mea depascitur?
Aut tunica sanie tincta Nessi sanguinis?
Illacrymabile et immedicabile malum hoc.

O sad and odious name! a name so fell,
Is this of melancholy, brat of hell.
There born in hellish darkness doth it dwell,
The Furies brought it up, Megara’s teat,
Alecto gave it bitter milk to eat.
And all conspir’d a bane to mortal men,
To bring this devil out of that black den.
Jupiter’s thunderbolt, not storm at sea,
Nor whirlwind doth our hearts so much dismay.
What? am I bit by that fierce Cerberus?
Or stung by serpent so pestiferous?
Or put on shirt that’s dipt in Nessus’ blood?
My pain’s past cure; physic can do no good.
No torture of body like unto it,
Siculi non invenere tyranni majus tormentum, no strappadoes, hot irons, Phalaris’ bulls,
Nec ira deum tantum, nec tela, nec hostis,
Quantum sola noces animis illapsa.
Jove’s wrath, nor devils can
Do so much harm to th’ soul of man.

All fears, griefs, suspicions, discontents, imbonites, insuavities are swallowed up, and drowned in this Euripus, this Irish sea, this ocean of misery, as so many small brooks; ’tis coagulum omnium aerumnarum: which Ammianus applied to his distressed Palladins. I say of our melancholy man, he is the cream of human adversity, the quintessence, and upshot; all other diseases whatsoever, are but flea-bitings to melancholy in extent:

‘Tis the pith of them all,

Hospitium est calamitatis; quid verbis opus est?
Quamcunque malam rem quaeris, illic reperies:

What need more words? ’tis calamities inn,
Where seek for any mischief, ’tis within;

and a melancholy man is that true Prometheus, which is bound to Caucasus; the true Titius, whose bowels are still by a vulture devoured (as poets feign) for so doth Lilius Geraldus interpret it, of anxieties, and those griping cares, and so ought it to be understood. In all other maladies, we seek for help, if a leg or an arm ache, through any distemperature or wound, or that we have an ordinary disease, above all things whatsoever, we desire help and health, a present recovery, if by any means possible it may be procured; we will freely part with all our other fortunes, substance, endure any misery, drink bitter potions, swallow those distasteful pills, suffer our joints to be seared, to be cut off, anything for future health: so sweet, so dear, so precious above all other things in this world is life: ’tis that we chiefly desire, long life and happy days, multos da Jupiter annos, increase of years all men wish; but to a melancholy man, nothing so tedious, nothing so odious; that which they so carefully seek to preserve he abhors, he alone; so intolerable are his pains; some make a question, graviores morbi corporis an animi, whether the diseases of the body or mind be more grievous, but there is no comparison, no doubt to be made of it, multo enim saevior longeque est atrocior animi, quam corporis cruciatus (Lem. l. 1. c. 12.) the diseases of the mind are far more grievous.—Totum hic pro vulnere corpus, body and soul is misaffected here, but the soul especially. So Cardan testifies de rerum var. lib. 8. 40.Maximus Tyrius a Platonist, and Plutarch, have made just volumes to prove it. Dies adimit aegritudinem hominibus, in other diseases there is some hope likely, but these unhappy men are born to misery, past all hope of recovery, incurably sick, the longer they live the worse they are, and death alone must ease them.

Another doubt is made by some philosophers, whether it be lawful for a man in such extremity of pain and grief, to make away himself: and how these men that so do are to be censured. The Platonists approve of it, that it is lawful in such cases, and upon a necessity; Plotinus l. de beatitud. c. 7. and Socrates himself defends it, in Plato’s Phaedon, “if any man labour of an incurable disease, he may despatch himself, if it be to his good.” Epicurus and his followers, the cynics and stoics in general affirm it, Epictetus and Seneca amongst the rest, quamcunque veram esse viam ad libertatem, any way is allowable that leads to liberty, “let us give God thanks, that no man is compelled to live against his will;” quid ad hominem claustra, career, custodia? liberum ostium habet, death is always ready and at hand. Vides illum praecipitem locum, illud flumen, dost thou see that steep place, that river, that pit, that tree, there’s liberty at hand, effugia servitutis et doloris sunt, as that Laconian lad cast himself headlong (non serviam aiebat puer) to be freed of his misery: every vein in thy body, if these be nimis operosi exitus, will set thee free, quid tua refert finem facias an accipias? there’s no necessity for a man to live in misery. Malum est necessitati vivere; sed in necessitate vivere, necessitas nulla est. Ignavus qui sine causa moritur, et stultus qui cum dolore vivit. Idem epi. 58. Wherefore hath our mother the earth brought out poisons, saith Pliny, in so great a quantity, but that men in distress might make away themselves? which kings of old had ever in a readiness, ad incerta fortunae venenum sub custode promptum, Livy writes, and executioners always at hand. Speusippes being sick was met by Diogenes, and carried on his slaves’ shoulders, he made his moan to the philosopher; but I pity thee not, quoth Diogenes, qui cum talis vivere sustines, thou mayst be freed when thou wilt, meaning by death. Seneca therefore commends Cato, Dido, and Lucretia, for their generous courage in so doing, and others that voluntarily die, to avoid a greater mischief, to free themselves from misery, to save their honour, or vindicate their good name, as Cleopatra did, as Sophonisba, Syphax’s wife did, Hannibal did, as Junius Brutus, as Vibius Virus, and those Campanian senators in Livy (Dec. 3. lib. 6.) to escape the Roman tyranny, that poisoned themselves. Themistocles drank bull’s blood, rather than he would fight against his country, and Demosthenes chose rather to drink poison, Publius Crassi filius, Censorius and Plancus, those heroical Romans to make away themselves, than to fall into their enemies’ hands. How many myriads besides in all ages might I remember, qui sibi lethum Insontes pepperere manu, &c. Rhasis in the Maccabees is magnified for it, Samson’s death approved. So did Saul and Jonas sin, and many worthy men and women, quorum memoria celebratur in Ecclesia, saith Leminchus, for killing themselves to save their chastity and honour, when Rome was taken, as Austin instances, l. 1. de Civit. Dei, cap. 16. Jerome vindicateth the same in Ionam and Ambrose, l. 3. de virginitate commendeth Pelagia for so doing. Eusebius, lib. 8. cap. 15. admires a Roman matron for the same fact to save herself from the lust of Maxentius the Tyrant. Adelhelmus, abbot of Malmesbury, calls them Beatas virgines quae sic, &c. Titus Pomponius Atticus, that wise, discreet, renowned Roman senator, Tully’s dear friend, when he had been long sick, as he supposed, of an incurable disease, vitamque produceret ad augendos dolores, sine spe salutis, was resolved voluntarily by famine to despatch himself to be rid of his pain; and when as Agrippa, and the rest of his weeping friends earnestly besought him, osculantes obsecrarent ne id quod natura cogeret, ipse acceleraret, not to offer violence to himself, “with a settled resolution he desired again they would approve of his good intent, and not seek to dehort him from it:” and so constantly died, precesque eorum taciturna sua obstinatione depressit. Even so did Corellius Rufus, another grave senator, by the relation of Plinius Secundus, epist. lib. 1. epist. 12. famish himself to death; pedibus correptus cum incredibiles cruciatus et indignissima tormenta pateretur, a cibis omnino abstinuit; neither he nor Hispilla his wife could divert him, but destinatus mori obstinate magis, &c. die he would, and die he did. So did Lycurgus, Aristotle, Zeno, Chrysippus, Empedocles, with myriads, &c. In wars for a man to run rashly upon imminent danger, and present death, is accounted valour and magnanimity, to be the cause of his own, and many a thousand’s ruin besides, to commit wilful murder in a manner, of himself and others, is a glorious thing, and he shall be crowned for it. The Massegatae in former times, Barbiccians, and I know not what nations besides, did stifle their old men, after seventy years, to free them from those grievances incident to that age. So did the inhabitants of the island of Choa, because their air was pure and good, and the people generally long lived, antevertebant fatum suum, priusquam manci forent, aut imbecillitas accederet, papavere vel cicuta, with poppy or hemlock they prevented death. Sir Thomas More in his Utopia commends voluntary death, if he be sibi aut aliis molestus, troublesome to himself or others, ( “especially if to live be a torment to him,) let him free himself with his own hands from this tedious life, as from a prison, or suffer himself to be freed by others.” And ’tis the same tenet which Laertius relates of Zeno, of old, Juste sapiens sibi mortem consciscit, si in acerbis doloribus versetur, membrorum mutilatione aut morbis aegre curandis, and which Plato 9. de legibus approves, if old age, poverty, ignominy, &c. oppress, and which Fabius expresseth in effect. (Praefat. 7. Institut.) Nemo nisi sua culpa diu dolet. It is an ordinary thing in China, (saith Mat. Riccius the Jesuit,) “if they be in despair of better fortunes, or tired and tortured with misery, to bereave themselves of life, and many times, to spite their enemies the more, to hang at their door.” Tacitus the historian, Plutarch the philosopher, much approve a voluntary departure, and Aust. de civ. Dei, l. 1. c. 29. defends a violent death, so that it be undertaken in a good cause, nemo sic mortuus, qui non fuerat aliquando moriturus; quid autem interest, quo mortis genere vita ista finiatur, quando ille cui finitur, iterum mori non cogitur? &c. no man so voluntarily dies, but volens nolens, he must die at last, and our life is subject to innumerable casualties, who knows when they may happen, utrum satius est unam perpeti moriendo, an omnes timere vivendo, rather suffer one, than fear all. “Death is better than a bitter life,” Eccl. xxx. 17. and a harder choice to live in fear, than by once dying, to be freed from all. Theombrotus Ambraciotes persuaded I know not how many hundreds of his auditors, by a luculent oration he made of the miseries of this, and happiness of that other life, to precipitate themselves. And having read Plato’s divine tract de anima, for example’s sake led the way first. That neat epigram of Callimachus will tell you as much,

Jamque vale Soli cum diceret Ambrociotes,
In Stygios fertur desiluisse lacus,
Morte nihil dignum passus: sed forte Platonis
Divini eximum de nece legit opus.

Calenus and his Indians hated of old to die a natural death: the Circumcellians and Donatists, loathing life, compelled others to make them away, with many such: but these are false and pagan positions, profane stoical paradoxes, wicked examples, it boots not what heathen philosophers determine in this kind, they are impious, abominable, and upon a wrong ground. “No evil is to be done that good may come of it;” reclamat Christus, reclamat Scriptura, God, and all good men are against it: He that stabs another, can kill his body; but he that stabs himself, kills his own soul. Male meretur, qui dat mendico, quod edat; nam et illud quod dat, perit; et illi producit vitam ad miseriam: he that gives a beggar an alms (as that comical poet said) doth ill, because he doth but prolong his miseries. But Lactantius l. 6. c. 7. de vero cultu, calls it a detestable opinion, and fully confutes it, lib. 3. de sap. cap. 18. and S. Austin, epist. 52. ad Macedonium, cap. 61. ad Dulcitium Tribunum: so doth Hierom to Marcella of Blesilla’s death, Non recipio tales animas, &c., he calls such men martyres stultae Philosophiae: so doth Cyprian de duplici martyrio; Si qui sic moriantur, aut infirmitas, aut ambitio, aut dementia cogit eos; ’tis mere madness so to do, furore est ne moriare mori. To this effect writes Arist. 3. Ethic. Lipsius Manuduc. ad Stoicam Philosophiaem lib. 3. dissertat. 23. but it needs no confutation. This only let me add, that in some cases, those hard censures of such as offer violence to their own persons, or in some desperate fit to others, which sometimes they do, by stabbing, slashing, &c. are to be mitigated, as in such as are mad, beside themselves for the time, or found to have been long melancholy, and that in extremity, they know not what they do, deprived of reason, judgment, all, as a ship that is void of a pilot, must needs impinge upon the next rock or sands, and suffer shipwreck. P. Forestus hath a story of two melancholy brethren, that made away themselves, and for so foul a fact, were accordingly censured to be infamously buried, as in such cases they use: to terrify others, as it did the Milesian virgins of old; but upon farther examination of their misery and madness, the censure was revoked, and they were solemnly interred, as Saul was by David, 2 Sam. ii. 4. and Seneca well adviseth, Irascere interfectori, sed miserere interfecti; be justly offended with him as he was a murderer, but pity him now as a dead man. Thus of their goods and bodies we can dispose; but what shall become of their souls, God alone can tell; his mercy may come inter pontem et fontem, inter gladium et jugulum, betwixt the bridge and the brook, the knife and the throat. Quod cuiquam contigit, quivis potest: Who knows how he may be tempted? It is his case, it may be thine: Quae sua sors hodie est, eras fore vestra potest. We ought not to be so rash and rigorous in our censures, as some are; charity will judge and hope the best: God be merciful unto us all.

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Filed under Burton, Robert, Europe, Martyrdom, Mental Illness: depression, despair, insanity, delusion, Selections, The Early Modern Period

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JOHN DONNE
(1572–1631)

from Biathanatos

 

John Donne, the English metaphysical poet and, after 1621, Dean of St. Paul’s, was a writer of sonnets, songs, elegies, satires, and sermons. It is for his poetic works, many with religious themes, that he is principally known today. Raised as a Roman Catholic in times of pervasive anti-Catholic sentiment, Donne was educated at home before attending Oxford and Cambridge; however, he did not take degrees there, probably because of the requirement of the Oath of Supremacy. In 1592, he pursued an education in law, but in 1596, joined a military expedition to Cádiz and later a treasure-hunting expedition in the Azores. It is not known precisely when he abandoned Catholicism, but by 1597, he had conformed sufficiently with the Church of England to hold a government position, becoming secretary to Sir Thomas Egerton, the Lord Keeper and a member of Queen Elizabeth’s Privy Council. Donne served in Parliament and made friends and acquaintances in influential circles, but his excellent prospects collapsed early in 1602 when Donne—then 30 years old—revealed that he had secretly married Anne More, the 17-year-old niece and protegée of Egerton’s wife. Donne was briefly imprisoned, though the legal validity of the marriage was upheld, and he endured a long period of unemployment following his release.

Donne wrote Biathanatos, an extended essay on suicide, in 1608. A letter to his friend Henry Goodyer in the same year is often cited as evidence of his troubled mood during this period:

Every Tuesday I make account that I turn a great hourglass, and consider what a week’s life is run out since I writ. But if I ask myself what I have done in the last watch, or would do in the next, I can say nothing. If I say that I have passed it without hurting any, so may the spider in my window. . . . I have often suspected myself to be overtaken . . . with a desire of the next life, which, though I know it is not merely out of a weariness of this . . . [I suspect] worldly encumbrances have increased. . . .

One school of interpretation sees Biathanatos as an epiphenomenon of Donne’s morbid condition, though Donne’s argument in the work would not excuse a suicide from personal distress. Other commentators see in it an attempt by Donne to overcome temptation. But it is also a public work, though not actually published during Donne’s lifetime, one that shares with his Pseudo-Martyr (written no more than a year later) partisan and controversial aims addressed to a broad audience.

Biathanatos is a long and extremely difficult work with a challenging and, Donne says, “paradoxical” thesis. It undertakes an exhaustive analysis of both secular and religious argumentation against suicide, and argues that suicide is “not so naturally sin, that it may never be otherwise.” Most cases of suicide, including those committed from despair, self-protection, self-aggrandizement, fear of suffering, impatience to reach the afterlife, or other self-interested motives are indeed sinful. But, Donne argues, suicide is justified when, like submission to martyrdom, it is done with charity, done for the glory of God. Indeed, in Donne’s highly unconventional view, Christ himself, in not merely allowing himself to be crucified but in voluntarily emitting his last breath on the cross, was in fact a suicide. This is the model by which men ought to be willing to lay down their lives for their brethren. However, Donne argues elsewhere in Biathanatos, because suicide is so likely to be committed for self-interested reasons rather than wholly for the glory of God, it is appropriate for both civil and canon law to prohibit it.

Donne recognized that his unconventional thesis was “misinterpretable,” and it is probably for this reason that he did not allow Biathanatos to be published. He directed his friend Robert Ker, to whom he gave a copy, to “keep it . . . with . . . jealousy. . . . Publish it not, but yet burn it not.” While Donne’s Biathanatos was the first full-length book devoted to the topic of suicide written in the Western tradition, John Sym’s Lifes Preservative Against Self-Killing (1637) [q.v.] was the first to be published; Donne’s work was not published until a decade later, in 1647, after his death and against his wishes, by his son.

Source

John Donne, Biathanatos, A Modern-Spelling Edition, Part III, Distinction iv, sections 1-11, lines 4692-4992, eds. Michael Rudick and M. Pabst Battin. New York and London: Garland Publishing, Inc., 1982, pp. 166-176. Quotation in introduction, pp. xi-xii.

 

from BIATHANATOS

To Prepare us, therefore, to a right understanding and application of these places of Scripture, we must arrest awhile upon the nature, and degrees, and effects of charity, the mother and form of all virtue, which shall not only lead us to heaven, for faith opens us the door, but shall continue with us when we are there, when both faith and hope are spent and useless.

We shall nowhere find a better portrait of charity than that which St. Augustine hath drawn: “She loves not that which should not be loved, she neglects not that which should be loved, she bestows not more love upon that which deserves less, nor doth she equally love more and less worthiness, nor upon equal worthiness bestow more and less love.” To this charity, the same blessed and happy father proportions this growth: Inchoated, increased, grown great, and perfected, and this last is, saith he, when in respect of it we contemn this life. And yet he acknowledgeth a higher charity than this; for, Peter Lombard allowing charity this growth, beginning, proficient, perfect, more and most perfect, he cites St. Augustine, who calls that perfect charity to be ready to die for one another. But when he comes to that than which none can be greater, he says then, the Apostle came to cupio dissolvi. For as one may love God with all his heart, and yet he may grow in that love, and love God more with all his heart, for the first was commanded in the Law, and yet counsel of perfection was given to him who said that he had fulfilled the first commandment, so, as St. Augustine found a degree above that charity which made a man paratum ponere, which is cupere, so there is a degree above that, which is to do it.

This is that virtue by which martyrdom, which is not such of itself, becomes an act of highest perfection. And this is that virtue which assureth any suffering which proceeds from it to be infallibly accompanied with the grace of God. Upon assuredness, therefore, and testimony of a rectified conscience that wehave a charitable purpose, let us consider how far we may adventure upon authority of Scripture in this matter which we have in hand.

First, therefore, by the frame and working of St. Paul’s argument to the Corinthians, “though I give my body that I be burned, and have not love, it profiteth nothing,” these two things appear evidently; first, that in a general notion and common reputation, it was esteemed a high degree of perfection to die so, and therefore not against the law of nature; and secondly, by this exception, without charity, it appears that with charily it might well and profitably be done.

For the first, if any think that the Apostle here takes example of an impossible thing, as when itis said, “if an angel from heaven teach other doctrine,” he will, I think, correct himself if he consider the former verses and the Apostle’s progress in his argument, wherein, to dignify charity the most that he can, he undervalues all other gifts which were there ambitiously affected. For eloquence, he says it is nothing to have all languages, no, not of angels, which is not put literally, for they havenone, but to express a high degree of eloquence, as Calvin says here; or, as Lyra says, by language of angels is meant the desire of communicating our conceptions to one another. And then headdsthat knowledge of mysteries and prophecies is also nothing which was also much affected. And for miraculous faith, it is also nothing. For the first of these gifts doth not make a man better, for Balaam’s ass could speak and was still an ass; and the second Judas had, and the Pharisees; and the third is so small a matter that as much as a grain of mustard seed is enough to removemountains. All these, therefore, were feasible things, and were sometimes done. So also, after he had passed through the gifts of knowledge and gifts of utterance, he presents the gifts of working in the same manner; and therefore, as he says, “if I feed the poor with all my goods,” which he presents as a harder thing than either of the other (for in the other, God gives me, but here I give other), yet possible to be done, so he presents the last, “if I give my body,” as the hardest of all, and yet, as all the rest, sometimes to be done.

That which I observed … secondly to arise from this argument was that, with charity, such a death might be acceptable. . . . And though I know the Donatists are said to have made this use of these words, yet, because the intent and end conditions every action and infuses the poison or the nourishment which they which follow suck from thence, and we know that the Donatists rigorously and tyrannously racked and detorted thus much from this place that they might present themselves to others promiscuously to be killed, and if that weredenied to them, they might kill themselves and them who refused it, yet, I say, I doubt not but thus much may naturally be collected from hence, that by this word “if I give my body” is insinuated somewhat more than a prompt and willing yielding of it when I am enforced to it by the persecuting magistrate; and that these words will justify the fact of the martyr Nicephorus’ being then in perfect charity, whose case was that, having had some enmity with Sapritius, who was brought to the place where he was to receive the bloody crown of martyrdom, he fell down to Sapritius and begged from him then a pardon of all former bitternesses; but Sapritius, elated with the glory of martyrdom, refused him, but was presently punished, for his faith cooled, and he recanted, and lived. And Nicephorus, standing by, stepped in to his room and cried, “I am also a Christian!” and so provoked the magistrate to execute him, lest from the faintness of Sapritius the cause might have received a wound or a scorn. And this I take to be “giving of his body.”

Of which, as there may be such necessity, for confirming of weaker Christians, that a man may be bound to do it, as in this case is very probable, so there may be cases, in men very exemplary, and in the cunning and subtle carriage of the persecutor, as one can no other way give his body for testimony of God’s truth, to which he may then be bound, but by doing it himself.

As, therefore, naturally and customarily, men thought it good to die so, and that such a death, with charity, was acceptable, so is it generally said by Christ that “the good shepherd doth give his life for his sheep,” which is a justifying and approbation of our inclination thereunto, for to say “the good do it” is to say “they which do it are good.” And as we are all sheep of one fold, so in many cases we are all shepherds of one another, and owe one another this duty of giving our temporal lives for another’s spiritual advantage, yea, for his temporal. For that I may abstain from purging myself when another’s crime is imputed to me is grounded upon such another text as this, where it is said the greatest love is to bestow his life for his friends; in which, and all of this kind, we must remember that we are commanded to do it so as Christ did it, and how Christ gave His body we shall have another place to consider.

Hereupon, because St. Peter’s zeal was so forward, and carried him so high that he would die for the Shepherd, for so he says, “I will lay down my life for Thy sake,” and this, as all expositors say, was merely and purely out of natural affection, without examination of his own strength to perform it, but presently and roundly, nature carried him to that promise. And, upon a more deliberate and orderly resolution, St. Paul witnesseth of himself such a willingness to die for his brethren: “I will be gladly bestowed for your souls.”

A Christian nature rests not in knowing thus much, that we may do it, that charity makes it good, that the good do it, and that we must always promise, that is, incline, to do it and do something towards it, but will have the perfect fullness of doing it in the resolution and doctrine and example of our blessed Savior, who says de facto, “I lay down my life for my sheep.” . . .And, saith Musculus, He useth the present word because He was ready to do it, and as Paul and Barnabas, men yet alive, are said to have laid down their lives for Christ. But I rather think, because exposing to danger is not properly called a dying, that Christ said this now because His passion was begun, for all His conversations here were degrees of examination.

To express the abundant and overflowing charity of our Savior all words are defective, for if we could express all which He did, that came not near to that which He would do if need were. It is observed by one . . .(I confess, too credulous an author,but yet one that administers good and wholesome incitements to devotion) that Christ, going to Emmaus, spake of His passion so slightly, as though He had in three days forgot all that He had suffered for us, and that Christ, in an apparition to St. Charles, says that He would be content to die again, if need were; yea, to St. Bridget He said that for any one soul He would suffer as much in every limb as He had suffered for all the world in His whole body. And this is noted for an extreme high degree of charity, out of Anselm, that His blessed Mother said, rather than He should not have been crucified, she would have done it with her own hands, and certainly His charity was not inferior to hers: He did as much as any could be willing to do.

And therefore, as Himself said, “No man can take away my soul,” and “I have power to lay it down.” So without doubt, no man did take it away, nor was there any other than His own will the cause of His dying at that time . . , many martyrs having hanged upon crosses many days alive; and the thieves were yet alive, and therefore Pilate wondered to hear that Christ was dead. His soul, saith St. Augustine, did not leave His body constrained, but “ because He would, and when He would, and how He would”; of which St. Thomas produces this symptom, that He had yet His body’s nature in her full strength, because at the last moment He was able to cry with a loud voice; and Marlorate gathers it upon this, that whereas our heads decline after our death by the slackness of the sinews and muscles, Christ did first, of Himself, bow down His head, and then give up the ghost. So, though it be truly said, after they have scourged Him, they will put Him to death, yet it is said so because maliciously and purposely to kill Him they inflicted those pains upon Him, which would in time have killed Him, but yet nothing which they had done occasioned His death so soon.

And therefore St. Thomas, a man neither of unholy thoughts nor of bold or irreligious or scandalous phrase or elocution (yet I adventure not so far in his behalf as Sylvester doth, that it is impossible that he should have spoken anything against faith or good manners ), forbears not to say that “Christ was so much the cause of His death as he is of his wetting, which might and would not shut the window when the rain beats in.”

This actual emission of His soul, which is death, and which was His own act, and before His natural time (which His best beloved apostle could imitate, who also died when he would and went into his grave, and there gave up the ghost and buried himself, which is reported but of very few others, and by no very credible authors), we find thus celebrated: that thatis a brave death which isaccepted unconstrained, and that it is an heroic act of fortitude if a man, when an urgent occasion is presented, expose himself to a certain and assured death, as He did; and it is there said that Christ did so as Saul did, who thought it foul and dishonorable to die by the hand of an enemy; and that Apollonia, and others who prevented the fury of executioners and cast themselves into the fire, did therein imitate this act of our Savior, of giving up His soul before he was constrained to do it. So that, if the act of our blessed Savior, in whom there was no more required for death but that He should will that His soul should go out, were the same as Saul’s and these martyrs’ actual furtherance, which could not die without that, then we are taught that all those places of giving up our bodies to death, and of laying down the soul, signify more than a yielding to death when it comes.

And to my understanding there is a further degree of alacrity and propenseness to such a death, expressed in that phrase of John, “he that hateth his life in this world shall keep it unto life eternal,” and in that of Luke, “except he hate his own life, he cannot be my disciple.” Such a loathness to live is that which is spoken of in the Hebrews: “some were racked and would not be delivered, that they might receive a better resurrection.” This place Calvin interprets of a readiness to die, and expresses it elegantly: to carry our life in our hands, offering it to God for a sacrifice. And this the Jesuits in their rule extend thus far, let everyone think that this was said directly to him: Hate thy life. And they who in the other placeaccept this phrase “No man hateth his own f1esh” to yield an argument against self-homicide in any case, must also allow that the same hate being commanded here authorizes that act in some case. And St. Augustine, apprehending the strength of this place, denies that by the authority of it the Donatists can justify their self-homicide when they list to die; but yet in those cases which are exempt from his rules, this place may encourage a man not to neglect the honor of God only upon this reason, that nobody else will take his life.

And therefore, the Holy Ghost proceeds more directly in the first Epistle of St. John, and shows us a necessary duty: Because He laid down His life for us, therefore we ought to lay down our lives for our brethren. All these places work us to a true understanding of charity, and to a contempt of this life in respect of it. And, as these inform us how ready we must be, so all those places which direct us by the example of Christ to do it as He did, show that in cases when our lives must be given, we need not ever attend extrinsic force of others. Bbut, as He did in perfect charity, so we, in such degrees of it as this life and our nature are capable of, must die by our own will, rather than His glory be neglected, whensoever, as Paul saith, Christ may be magnified in our bodies, or the spiritual good of such another as we are bound to advance doth importune it.

To which readiness of dying for his brethren St. Paul had so accustomed himself, and made it his nature, that, but for his general resolution of doing that ever which should promote their happiness, he could scarce have obtained of himself leave to live. For at first, he says, he knew not which to wish, lifeor death (and therefore, generally, without some circumstance incline or avert us, they are equal to our nature); then, after much perplexity, he was resolved, and desired to be loose, and to be with Christ (therefore, a holy man may wish it); but yet, he corrected that again, because, saith he, “to abide in the flesh ismore needful for you.” And therefore charity must be the rule of our wishes and actions in this point.

There is another place to the Galatians which, though it reach not to death, yet it proves that holy men may be ready to express their loves to one another by violence to themselves, for he saith, “if it had been possible, you would have plucked out your own eyes and given me”; and Calvin saith this was more than vitam profundere. And this readiness St. Paul reprehends not in them.

But of the highest degree of compassionate charity for others is that of the Apostle in contemplation of the Jews’ dereliction: I would wish myself to be separated from Christ for my brethren. The bitterness of which anathema himself teaches us to understand when, in another place, he wishes the same to those which love not Jesus Christ. And this fearful wish, which charity excused in him, was utter damnation, as all expositors say. And though I believe with Calvin that at this time, in a zealous fury, he remembered not deliberately his own election, and therefore cannot in that respect be said to have resisted the will of God, yet it remains as an argument to us that charity will recompense and justify many excesses which seem unnatural and irregular and enormous transportations.

As in this Apostle of the gentiles, so in the lawgiver of the Jews the like compassion wrought the like effect, and more; for Moses rested not in wishing, but face to face argued with God: “If thou pardon them, thy mercy shall appear, but if thou wilt not, I pray thee, blot my name out of the book which thou hast written. I know that many, out of a reasonable collection that it became Moses to be reposed and dispassioned and of ordinate affections in his conversation with God, are of opinion that he strayed no further in this wish and imprecation than to be content that his name should be blotted out of the Scriptures, and so to lose the honor of being known to posterity for a remarkable instrument of God’s power and mercy. But, since a natural infirmity could work so much upon Christ, in whom there may be suspected no inordinateness of affections, as to divert Him a little and make Him slip a faint wish of escaping the cup, why might not a brave and noble zeal exalt Moses so much as to desire to restore such a nation to the love of God by his own destruction?

For, as certainly the first of these was without sin, so the other might be, out of an habitual assuredness of his salvation. As PauIinus says to Amandus, thou mayst be bold in thy prayers to God for me to say, “Forgive him or blot out me,” for thou canst not be blotted out; iuslum delere non potest iustilia. And thus, retaining ever in our minds that our example is Christ, and that He died not constrained, it shall suffice to have learned by these places that, in charity, men may die so, and have done, and ought to do.

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Filed under Christianity, Donne, John, Europe, Martyrdom, Selections, The Early Modern Period

by | · 5:14 pm

ABU’L FAZL IBN MUBARAK
(1551–1602)

from Biography of the Emperor Akbar: On Jauhar and Saka

 

Abu’l Fazl was born in Agra, the second son to the Indian scholar and teacher Shaikh Mubarak, who educated Abu’l Fazl from an early age in the Islamic sciences, Greek philosophy, and mysticism. At age 23, Abu’l Fazl was introduced to the court of emperor Akbar by his older brother Abu’l Faizi, the future poet laureate. A liberal thinker like his father, Abu’l Fazl quickly gained favor with the emperor and supported him in extending the religious tolerance of his empire. In 1579, together with his father, Abu’l Fazl helped to compose the decree known as the “Infallibility Decree,” which endowed the emperor Akbar with religious superiority over the orthodox authority of the ulama. In 1599, Abu’l Fazl was given his first office, at Deccan, where he was recognized for his ability as a military commander. Three years later in 1602, he was assassinated under secret orders from emperor Akbar’s eldest son, the future emperor Jahangir, whose ascendancy and 1600 rebellion against his father Abu’l Fazl had opposed.

Abu’l Fazl is best known today for his Akbarnama, a three-volume history of the life and empire of its commissioner, the emperor Akbar. It was composed in Persian between 1590 and 1596 while more than 49 different artists worked on the illustrations. The first volume details the history of Akbar’s family back to Timur, and the second volume describes Akbar’s own reign as far as 1602. The third volume of the Akbarnama, the Ain-i-Akbari, or the “Institutes of Akbar,” is the most famous. As well as containing a detailed report of Akbar’s system of government and administration, the fourth book of this volume gives a more general history of India in addition to an account of Hindu philosophy, literature, religion, and custom.

In the second volume of the Akbarnama, Abu’l Fazl describes the third siege and consequent third Jauhar [Johar] at the fort of Chittor [Chaitúr] in 1567. Jauhar and Saka, often referred to together simply as Jauhar, are the names for the two parts of a mass suicide ritual carried out by the Rájpút clans in the face of immediate and inescapable military defeat. Jauhar specifically refers to the self-immolation of the women and children in anticipation of capture and abuse. Saka is the subsequent or simultaneous march of the men to certain death at the hands of their enemies. Not an immediate witness of the Jauhar, Abu’l Fazl reports that several fires became visible in Chittor less than an hour after the governor of the fort was killed. He describes the women as unwilling participants in the Jauhar, victims of the Rájpút men, who, the next day, came out of the house of Ráná, the temple of Mahádeo, and the gate of Rámpúrah in “twos and threes” to “[throw] away” their own lives.

Source

Abu’l Fazl Ibn Mubarak, “An Account of the Siege and Reduction of Chaitur by the Emperor Akbar,” from the Akbar-namah of Shaikh Abul-Fazl, tr. Major David Price. Miscellaneous Translations from Oriental Languages, Vol. II (London: Samuel Bentley, 1834, pp. 14-15, 31-34, 38, 40).

 

from BIOGRAPHY OF THE EMPEROR AKBAR: ON JAUHAR AND SAKA     

In the meantime, entertaining a notion that the imperial army was but inadequately provided with the means of carrying on the arduous operations of a siege, the infatuated Ráná devoted his attention to strengthen the fortifications of Chaitúr, and to furnish it with stores and provisions for many years to come. And yet, to the limited scope of human vision, the ramparts of this celebrated place seemed already beyond the reach of anything like a successful attack. He lodged in it, moreover, a garrison of five thousand Rájpúts of acknowledged bravery, and already renowned for their devotion to the paths of glory. After which, having laid waste the surrounding districts in every direction, so that there was not left a blade of grass remaining, he finally withdrew himself beyond the inaccessible passes of his mountain lands.

On due consideration, Akbar was early convinced that the success of the enterprise in which he was engaged would be but little advanced by pursuing the man whose doom was already sealed, in the heart of his mountains; and it was surely by the inspiration of his superior fortune, that he now determined to devote the whole of his energies to the sole object of making himself master of this fortress of Chaitúr, universally considered as the very foundation and resting-place of the Ráná’s power and renown. On Thursday, the 19th of the latter Rabía, accordingly, he appeared in the neighbourhood of the place, and encamped.

***

A. H. 975. A. D. 1568, 23d February.–The circumstances of this auspicious and splendid event may be distinctly collected from the following statement. On the night previous to the day of its capture, the place was attacked at once on every side, and the rampart having been breached in several parts, all things indicated that the conquest of Chaitúr was now at hand. Near the head of the principal sap, the imperial troops pushing forward on anticipation, succeeded in effecting a considerable breach in the strongest part of the wall, where they proceeded to exhibit the noblest proofs of devoted courage. Some time after midnight, however, the besieged brought a competent force to bear upon this breach; and on the one hand, giving themselves up to the winds of destiny, proceeded on the other to load this breach with bales of cloth and cotton, and faggots smeared with oil, for the purpose of setting on fire the moment the besiegers advanced to the assault, so that it would be impossible to effect a passage through.

At a period so critical, a person came in view of the emperor, clad in that species of armour denominated Hazár míkhí, or mail of a thousand studs, and exhibiting proofs of the highest authority, stood upon the breach, where he appeared to exert himself with signal bravery and activity. The identity of this personage who thus conspicuously distinguished himself could not however be made out by any one. Immediately seizing a favourite fusil, on which he had bestowed the name of Singrám, Akbar instantly discharged it at this person, expressing at the same time to Shujáat Khán and Rájáh Bahgwántdás, that feeling on this occasion the same exhilarating sensation as he experienced when killing game, he entertained but little doubt that his shot had taken effect on the man; on which Khán Jahán, another of the chiefs in attendance, took occasion to mention, that during the night the same personage had repeatedly appeared in the breach, exerting himself with singular diligence and activity, and that if he appeared no more, it was sufficiently evident that he must have fallen.

Not an hour afterwards, Jubbár Kulí Dívánah came and reported that not a man of the enemy was to be seen at the breach, and almost at the same instant the interior of the fort appeared on fire in several places. The attendants on the emperor were indulging in a variety of conjectures as to the meaning of this conflagration, when Rájah Bahgwántdás set the matter at rest by explaining that this was the Johar fire; adding, that in Hindustán, on the occurrence of a catastrophe such as was likely to happen on this memorable night, it was the custom to prepare a pile of sandalwood and odiferous drugs, together with dry fuel and other combustibles smothered with oil, and placing those in whom they could confide in charge of their women, with instructions to set fire to the pile and consume these unoffending and hapless females to ashes, the instant it was ascertained that the conflict had terminated fatally, and that the men were slain.

In fact, on the morning which dawned in victory to the imperial arms, it was ascertained that the shot discharged by the royal Akbar had actually taken effect on the person of Jaimal Pátá, the governor of the fort, and at once decided the fate of Chaitúr and his own. The Johar conflagration was found to ascend from the mansions of Pátá of the Seisúdíah tribe, and one of the Ráná’s most confidential ministers, of the Rahtúrs, of whom a certain Sáhib was the chief, and of Aisúrdas the leader of the Cháhúns, in which there were consumed to the number altogether of three hundred helpless females.

During the remainder of the night, although the breach had been entirely abandoned by the garrison, which had fled in dismay on the death of Jaimul, and withdrawn to various recesses of the places, the imperial troops, nevertheless, cautiously abstained from attack, with that prudent forbearance always necessary to avert unseen and sudden danger. They were at the same time held in perfect readiness to enter the place at the first dawn of daylight. Accordingly, at break of day, the troops issued at once from their trenches, and rushing into the fort at all points, proceeded immediately to the work of bondage and slaughter; while the unfortunate Rájpúts, having lost all order, were put to the sword, fighting and resisting to the very last man.

***

The number of Rájpúts inured to war collected on this occasion for the defence of Chaitúr, is stated at nearly eight thousand; but the inhabitants, who bore a part also in the defence of the place, amounted to more than forty thousand men. When the banners of the empire were displayed upon the works, the besieged retired partly into the pagodas; and trusting to the sanctity of those places, and the protection of their idols, awaited with fortitude the moment to lay down their lives. Others obstinately awaited their fate in their own houses; while others, with sword in hand and shortened lance, bravely faced their assailants, from whom they found the death they sought. Those who had madly taken post in the temples and dwelling-houses, when they beheld the imperial troops advancing upon them, fiercely sallied out, but were destroyed before they could come within sword-length, by the fire of their adversaries.

Thus, between early dawn and the hour of noon was the period in which these unfortunates were doomed to perish – to be consumed both body and soul by the wrath of Omnipotence; the slain on this occasion being stated at nearly thirty thousand men.

***

On this memorable day, although there was not in the place a house or street or passage of any kind that did not exhibit heaps of slaughtered bodies, there were three points in particular at which the number of the slain was surprisingly great; one of these was the palace of the Ráná, into which the Rájpúts had thrown themselves in considerable numbers; from whence they successively sallied upon the imperialists in small parties, of two and three together, until the whole had nobly perished sword in hand. The other was the temple of Mahádeo, their principal place of worship, where another considerable body of the besieged gave themselves up to the sword. Thirdly, was the gate of Rámpúrah, where these devoted men gave their bodies to the winds in appalling numbers.

This important conquest, which may well be considered the crowning triumph of imperial fortune, had the immediate effect of dispelling those fumes of ambition and self-importance which had distempered the brains of the haughtiest powers in Hindústán, and disposed them to assume in exchange the bonds of sincere allegiance.

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Filed under Abu'l Fazl ibn Mubarak, Asia, Hinduism, Islam, Mass Suicide, Military Defeat, Success, Strategy, Selections, The Early Modern Period

by | · 5:13 pm

MICHEL DE MONTAIGNE
(1533-1592)

from Of Cannibals
from A Custom of the Isle of Cea

 

Lord Michel Eyquem Montaigne was born near Bordeaux, the son of the mayor of Bordeaux, a man of unusual tolerance in an age of religious intolerance. Raised speaking only Latin until the age of six, Montaigne received the very best education; he completed a 12-year course of study at the College de Guyenne in only seven years and continued his education in the study of law at the University of Toulouse.

Montaigne served as counselor in the Bordeaux Parliament from 1557 to 1570. During this time, he was a courtier at the court of Charles the IX, from 1561 to 1563, and made the closest friendship of his life with Étienne de La Boétie, a poet who shared Montaigne’s interest in classical antiquity. Montaigne was deeply affected by the way in which La Boétie stoically accepted his death from dysentery in 1563. Montaigne and his wife, Françoise de la Chassaigne, whom he married in 1565, had six daughters, but only one of them survived childhood. Montaigne’s father died in 1568 leaving him the Chateau de Montaigne, the family estate, to which Montaigne retired in 1570 to begin work on his Essays. In 1580, Montaigne came out of seclusion to travel to Germany, Switzerland, Austria, and Italy, returning reluctantly to serve as mayor of Bordeaux for four years. Running from war and the plague, in 1586, Montaigne was forced to flee his estate; he returned shortly to the pillaged castle.

Montaigne’s lasting influence rests in his Essays, which exercised considerable influence on French and English literature; Montaigne is regarded as the inventor of the modern essay. In an unabashed, intimately personal manner previously unknown in the literature of his day, he displayed the humanism of the time, arguing that the only suitable subjects for study were mankind and the human condition, subjects that he approached by describing his own thoughts, habits, and experiences in great detail. He espoused a philosophy of toleration, stoicism in the face of suffering, and skepticism, and although he remained a professing Catholic, he challenged almost all received views of theology, philosophy, religion, science, and morality. He played a major role in the development of Christian sceptical fideism.

In the excerpt “Of Cannibals” from his Essays, Montaigne portrays the death of a Brazilian native, an enemy about to be eaten, in terms of absolute Stoic virtue. While he uses the classical Stoic sources, Montaigne implies that the attitude toward death among the Brazilian cannibals is more philosophically Stoic than that of the Europeans. This essay is supposed to be the original source of the “noble savage” idea later associated with Rousseau.

In the essay “A Custom of the Isle of Cea” (1573–74), Montaigne explores positive justifications for suicide, especially for “unendurable pain” and “fear of a worse death.” Here he juxtaposes, as he often did, many conflicting views on an issue. He mentions Pliny’s [q.v., under Pliny the Elder] belief that only three sorts of diseases license suicide, the most painful of which is bladder stone; Montaigne himself suffered considerably from stone and repeatedly sought a cure. It is noteworthy that Montaigne uses almost exclusively classical material, ignoring the enormous body of Christian theological commentary of the time. He is the first significant modern figure, together with his friend and disciple Pierre Charron (1541–1603), a sceptical Catholic priest, to question the Christian position on suicide, opening the door to a shift in thinking that would occur in the following century even as writers like John Sym [q.v.] were emphasizing the heinousness of suicide. As one contemporary scholar puts it, in arguing for a naturalistic and merely personal basis for suicide, Montaigne and Charron “opened a Pandora’s box.”

SOURCES
Essays of Michel de Montaigne, ed. William Carew Hazlitt, tr. Charles Cotton (1686), Kensington 1877, “Of Cannibals,” Book the First, Chapter XXX; “A Custom of the Isle of Cea,” Book the Second, Chapter Three (Latin quotations removed).  Both available online from Project Gutenberg text #3600. Quotation and paraphrase in introductory material from Gary B. Ferngren, “The Ethics of Suicide in the Renaissance and Reformation,” in Baruch A. Brody, ed., Suicide and Euthanasia: Historical and Contemporary Themes, Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers, 1989, pp. 161-162.

 

from OF CANNIBALS

…I long had a man in my house that lived ten or twelve years in the New World, discovered in these latter days, and in that part of it where Villegaignon landed [Brazil, 1557], which he called Antarctic France. This discovery of so vast a country seems to be of very great consideration. I cannot be sure, that hereafter there may not be another, so many wiser men than we having been deceived in this. I am afraid our eyes are bigger than our bellies, and that we have more curiosity than capacity; for we grasp at all, but catch nothing but wind.

…This man that I had was a plain ignorant fellow, and therefore the more likely to tell truth: for your better bred sort of men are much more curious in their observation, ’tis true, and discover a great deal more, but then they gloss upon it, and to give the greater weight to what they deliver and allure your belief, they cannot forbear a little to alter the story; they never represent things to you simply as they are, but rather as they appeared to them, or as they would have them appear to you, and to gain the reputation of men of judgment, and the better to induce your faith, are willing to help out the business with something more than is really true, of their own invention. Now, in this case, we should either have a man of irreproachable veracity, or so simple that he has not wherewithal to contrive, and to give a color of truth to false relations, and who can have no ends in forging an untruth. Such a one was mine; and besides, he has at divers times brought to me several seamen and merchants who at the same time went the same voyage. I shall therefore content myself with his information, without inquiring what the cosmographers say to the business. …

Now, to return to my subject, I find that there is nothing barbarous and savage in this nation [Brazil], by anything that I can gather, excepting, that every one gives the title of barbarism to everything that is not in use in his own country. As, indeed, we have no other level of truth and reason, than the example and idea of the opinions and customs of the place wherein we live: there is always the perfect religion, there the perfect government, there the most exact and accomplished usage of all things. They are savages at the same rate that we say fruit are wild, which nature produces of herself and by her own ordinary progress; whereas in truth, we ought rather to call those wild, whose natures we have changed by our artifice, and diverted from the common order. In those, the genuine, most useful and natural virtues and properties are vigorous and sprightly, which we have helped to degenerate in these, by accommodating them to the pleasure of our own corrupted palate. And yet for all this our taste confesses a flavor and delicacy, excellent even to emulation of the best of ours, in several fruits wherein those countries abound without art or culture.

***

…These nations then seem to me to be so far barbarous, as having received but very little form and fashion from art and human invention, and consequently to be not much remote from their original simplicity. The laws of nature, however, govern them still, not as yet much vitiated with any mixture of ours: but ’tis in such purity, that I am sometimes troubled we were not sooner acquainted with these people, and that they were not discovered in those better times, when there were men much more able to judge of them than we are. I am sorry that Lycurgus and Plato had no knowledge of them: for to my apprehension, what we now see in those nations, does not only surpass all the pictures with which the poets have adorned the golden age, and all their inventions in feigning a happy state of man, but, moreover, the fancy and even the wish and desire of philosophy itself; so native and so pure a simplicity, as we by experience see to be in them, could never enter into their imagination, nor could they ever believe that human society could have been maintained with so little artifice and human patchwork. I should tell Plato, that it is a nation wherein there is no manner of traffic, no knowledge of letters, no science of numbers, no name of magistrate or political superiority; no use of service, riches or poverty, no contracts, no successions, no dividends, no properties, no employments, but those of leisure, no respect of kindred, but common, no clothing, no agriculture, no metal, no use of corn or wine; the very words that signify lying, treachery, dissimulation, avarice, envy, detraction, pardon, never heard of…

…They believe in the immortality of the soul, and that those who have merited well of the gods, are lodged in that part of heaven where the sun rises, and the accursed in the west.

They have I know not what kind of priests and prophets, who very rarely present themselves to the people, having their abode in the mountains. At their arrival, there is a great feast, and solemn assembly of many villages: each house, as I have described, makes a village, and they are about a French league distant from one another. This prophet declaims to them in public, exhorting them to virtue and their duty: but all their ethics are comprised in these two articles, resolution in war, and affection to their wives. He also prophesies to them events to come, and the issues they are to expect from their enterprises, and prompts them to or diverts them from war: but let him look to’t; for if he fail in his divination, and anything happen otherwise than he has foretold, he is cut into a thousand pieces, if he be caught, and condemned for a false prophet: for that reason, if any of them has been mistaken, he is no more heard of.…

They have continual war with the nations that live further within the mainland, beyond their mountains, to which they go naked, and without other arms than their bows and wooden swords, fashioned at one end like the heads of our javelins. The obstinacy of their battles is wonderful, and they never end without great effusion of blood: for as to running away, they know not what it is. Every one for a trophy brings home the head of an enemy he has killed, which he fixes over the door of his house. After having a long time treated their prisoners very well, and given them all the regales they can think of, he to whom the prisoner belongs, invites a great assembly of his friends. They being come, he ties a rope to one of the arms of the prisoner, of which, at a distance, out of his reach, he holds the one end himself, and gives to the friend he loves best the other arm to hold after the same manner; which being done, they two, in the presence of all the assembly, despatch him with their swords. After that they roast him, eat him among them, and send some chops to their absent friends. They do not do this, as some think, for nourishment, as the Scythians anciently did, but as a representation of an extreme revenge; as will appear by this: that having observed the Portuguese, who were in league with their enemies, to inflict another sort of death upon any of them they took prisoners, which was to set them up to the girdle in the earth, to shoot at the remaining part till it was stuck full of arrows, and then to hang them, they thought those people of the other world (as being men who had sown the knowledge of a great many vices among their neighbors, and who were much greater masters in all sorts of mischief than they) did not exercise this sort of revenge without a meaning, and that it must needs be more painful than theirs, they began to leave their old way, and to follow this. I am not sorry that we should here take notice of the barbarous horror of so cruel an action, but that, seeing so clearly into their faults, we should be so blind to our own. …

…We may then call these people barbarous, in respect to the rules of reason: but not in respect to ourselves, who in all sorts of barbarity exceed them. Their wars are throughout noble and generous, and carry as much excuse and fair pretense, as that human malady is capable of; having with them no other foundation than the sole jealousy of valor. Their disputes are not for the conquest of new lands, for these they already possess are so fruitful by nature, as to supply them without labor or concern, with all things necessary, in such abundance that they have no need to enlarge their borders. And they are moreover, happy in this, that they only covet so much as their natural necessities require: all beyond that, is superfluous to them: men of the same age call one another generally brothers, those who are younger, children; and the old men are fathers to all. These leave to their heirs in common the full possession of goods, without any manner of division, or other title than what nature bestows upon her creatures, in bringing them into the world. If their neighbors pass over the mountains to assault them, and obtain a victory, all the victors gain by it is glory only, and the advantage of having proved themselves the better in valor and virtue: for they never meddle with the goods of the conquered, but presently return into their own country, where they have no want of anything necessary, nor of this greatest of all goods, to know happily how to enjoy their condition and to be content. And those in turn do the same; they demand of their prisoners no other ransom, than acknowledgment that they are overcome: but there is not one found in an age, who will not rather choose to die than make such a confession, or either by word or look, recede from the entire grandeur of an invincible courage. There is not a man among them who had not rather be killed and eaten, than so much as to open his mouth to entreat he may not. They use them with all liberality and freedom, to the end their lives may be so much the dearer to them; but frequently entertain them with menaces of their approaching death, of the torments they are to suffer, of the preparations making in order to it, of the mangling their limbs, and of the feast that is to be made, where their carcass is to be the only dish. All which they do, to no other end, but only to extort some gentle or submissive word from them, or to frighten them so as to make them run away, to obtain this advantage that they were terrified, and that their constancy was shaken; and indeed, if rightly taken, it is in this point only that a true victory consists.

“No victory is complete, which the conquered do not admit to be so.–”                                            [Claudius, De Sexto Consulatu Honorii]

…The estimate and value of a man consist in the heart and in the will: there his true honor lies. Valor is stability, not of legs and arms, but of the courage and the soul; it does not lie in the goodness of our horse or our arms: but in our own. He that falls obstinate in his courage–

            “If his legs fail him, he fights on his knees.”                                                                                      [Seneca, De Providentia]

–he who, for any danger of imminent death, abates nothing of his assurance; who, dying, yet darts at his enemy a fierce and disdainful look, is overcome not by us, but by fortune; he is killed, not conquered; the most valiant are sometimes the most unfortunate. …

But to return to my story: these prisoners are so far from discovering the least weakness, for all the terrors that can be represented to them that, on the contrary, during the two or three months they are kept, they always appear with a cheerful countenance; importune their masters to make haste to bring them to the test, defy, rail at them, and reproach them with cowardice, and the number of battles they have lost against those of their country. I have a song made by one of these prisoners, wherein he bids them “come all, and dine upon him, and welcome, for they shall withal eat their own fathers and grandfathers, whose flesh has served to feed and nourish him. These muscles,” says he, “this flesh and these veins, are your own: poor silly souls as you are, you little think that the substance of your ancestors’ limbs is here yet; notice what you eat, and you will find in it the taste of your own flesh:” in which song there is to be observed an invention that nothing relishes of the barbarian. Those that paint these people dying after this manner, represent the prisoner spitting in the faces of his executioners and making wry mouths at them. And ’tis most certain, that to the very last gasp, they never cease to brave and defy them both in word and gesture. In plain truth, these men are very savage in comparison of us; of necessity, they must either be absolutely so or else we are savages; for there is a vast difference between their manners and ours. …

 

 

from A CUSTOM OF THE ISLE OF CEA

If to philosophise be, as ’tis defined, to doubt, much more to write at random and play the fool, as I do, ought to be reputed doubting, for it is for novices and freshmen to inquire and to dispute, and for the chairman to moderate and determine.

My moderator is the authority of the divine will, that governs us without contradiction, and that is seated above these human and vain contestations.

Philip having forcibly entered into Peloponnesus, and some one saying to Damidas that the Lacedaemonians were likely very much to suffer if they did not in time reconcile themselves to his favour: “Why, you pitiful fellow,” replied he, “what can they suffer who do not fear to die?” It being also asked of Agis, which way a man might live free? “Why,” said he, “by despising death.” These, and a thousand other sayings to the same purpose, distinctly sound of something more than the patient attending the stroke of death when it shall come; for there are several accidents in life far worse to suffer than death itself. Witness the Lacedaemonian boy taken by Antigonus, and sold for a slave, who being by his master commanded to some base employment: “Thou shalt see,” says the boy, “whom thou hast bought; it would be a shame for me to serve, being so near the reach of liberty,” and having so said, threw himself from the top of the house. Antipater severely threatening the Lacedaemonians, that he might the better incline them to acquiesce in a certain demand of his: “If thou threatenest us with more than death,” replied they, “we shall the more willingly die”; and to Philip, having written them word that he would frustrate all their enterprises: “What, wilt thou also hinder us from dying?” This is the meaning of the sentence, “That the wise man lives as long as he ought, not so long as he can; and that the most obliging present Nature has made us, and which takes from us all colour of complaint of our condition, is to have delivered into our own custody the keys of life; she has only ordered, one door into life, but a hundred thousand ways out. We may be straitened for earth to live upon, but earth sufficient to die upon can never be wanting, as Boiocalus answered the Romans.”—[Tacitus, Annal., xiii. 56.]—Why dost thou complain of this world? it detains thee not; thy own cowardice is the cause, if thou livest in pain. There needs no more to die but to will to die:

“Death is everywhere: heaven has well provided for that. Any one
may deprive us of life; no one can deprive us of death. To death
there are a thousand avenues.”                                 [Seneca, Theb.]

 Neither is it a recipe for one disease only; death is the infallible cure of all; ’tis a most assured port that is never to be feared, and very often to be sought. It comes all to one, whether a man give himself his end, or stays to receive it by some other means; whether he pays before his day, or stay till his day of payment come; from whencesoever it comes, it is still his; in what part soever the thread breaks, there’s the end of the clue. The most voluntary death is the finest. Life depends upon the pleasure of others; death upon our own. We ought not to accommodate ourselves to our own humour in anything so much as in this. Reputation is not concerned in such an enterprise; ’tis folly to be concerned by any such apprehension. Living is slavery if the liberty of dying be wanting. The ordinary method of cure is carried on at the expense of life; they torment us with caustics, incisions, and amputations of limbs; they interdict aliment and exhaust our blood; one step farther and we are cured indeed and effectually. Why is not the jugular vein as much at our disposal as the median vein? For a desperate disease a desperate cure. Servius the grammarian, being tormented with the gout, could think of no better remedy than to apply poison to his legs, to deprive them of their sense; let them be gouty at their will, so they were insensible of pain. God gives us leave enough to go when He is pleased to reduce us to such a condition that to live is far worse than to die. ‘Tis weakness to truckle under infirmities, but it’s madness to nourish them. The Stoics say, that it is living according to nature in a wise man to, take his leave of life, even in the height of prosperity, if he do it opportunely; and in a fool to prolong it, though he be miserable, provided he be not indigent of those things which they repute to be according to nature. As I do not offend the law against thieves when I embezzle my own money and cut my own purse; nor that against incendiaries when I burn my own wood; so am I not under the lash of those made against murderers for having deprived myself of my own life. Hegesias said, that as the condition of life did, so the condition of death ought to depend upon our own choice. And Diogenes meeting the philosopher Speusippus, so blown up with an inveterate dropsy that he was fain to be carried in a litter, and by him saluted with the compliment, “I wish you good health.” “No health to thee,” replied the other, “who art content to live in such a condition.”

And in fact, not long after, Speusippus, weary of so languishing a state of life, found a means to die.

But this does not pass without admitting a dispute: for many are of opinion that we cannot quit this garrison of the world without the express command of Him who has placed us in it; and that it appertains to God who has placed us here, not for ourselves only but for His Glory and the service of others, to dismiss us when it shall best please Him, and not for us to depart without His licence: that we are not born for ourselves only, but for our country also, the laws of which require an account from us upon the score of their own interest, and have an action of manslaughter good against us; and if these fail to take cognisance of the fact, we are punished in the other world as deserters of our duty:

Thence the sad ones occupy the next abodes, who, though free
from guilt, were by their own hands slain, and, hating light,
sought death.                                               [Virgil, Aeneid]

There is more constancy in suffering the chain we are tied to than in breaking it, and more pregnant evidence of fortitude in Regulus than in Cato; ’tis indiscretion and impatience that push us on to these precipices: no accidents can make true virtue turn her back; she seeks and requires evils, pains, and grief, as the things by which she is nourished and supported; the menaces of tyrants, racks, and tortures serve only to animate and rouse her:

As in Mount Algidus, the sturdy oak even from the axe itself
derives new vigour and life.                                [Horace, Odes]

And as another says:

Father, ’tis no virtue to fear life, but to withstand great
misfortunes, nor turn back from them.                     [Seneca, Theb.]

 Or as this:

It is easy in adversity to despise death; but he acts more
bravely, who can live wretched.”                               [Martial]

‘Tis cowardice, not virtue, to lie squat in a furrow, under a tomb, to evade the blows of fortune; virtue never stops nor goes out of her path, for the greatest storm that blows:

Should the world’s axis crack, the ruins will but crush
a fearless head.                                                          [Horace, Odes]

For the most part, the flying from other inconveniences brings us to this; nay, endeavouring to evade death, we often run into its very mouth:

Tell me, is it not madness, that one should die for fear
of dying?”                                                              [Martial]

Like those who, from fear of a precipice, throw themselves headlong into it;

The fear of future ills often makes men run into extreme danger;
he is truly brave who boldly dares withstand the mischiefs he
apprehends, when they confront him and can be deferred.

                                                                                              [Lucan]

Death to that degree so frightens some men, that causing them to
hate both life and light, they kill themselves, miserably forgetting
that this same fear is the fountain of their cares.”

                                                                                               [Lucretius]

Plato, in his Laws, assigns an ignominious sepulture to him who has deprived his nearest and best friend, namely himself, of life and his destined course, being neither compelled so to do by public judgment, by any sad and inevitable accident of fortune, nor by any insupportable disgrace, but merely pushed on by cowardice and the imbecility of a timorous soul. And the opinion that makes so little of life, is ridiculous; for it is our being, ’tis all we have. Things of a nobler and more elevated being may, indeed, reproach ours; but it is against nature for us to contemn and make little account of ourselves; ’tis a disease particular to man, and not discerned in any other creatures, to hate and despise itself. And it is a vanity of the same stamp to desire to be something else than what we are; the effect of such a desire does not at all touch us, forasmuch as it is contradicted and hindered in itself. He that desires of a man to be made an angel, does nothing for himself; he would be never the better for it; for, being no more, who shall rejoice or be sensible of this benefit for him.

For he to whom misery and pain are to be in the future, must
himself then exist, when these ills befall him.”

                                                                                                           [Plato, Laws]

Security, indolence, impassability, the privation of the evils of this life, which we pretend to purchase at the price of dying, are of no manner of advantage to us: that man evades war to very little purpose who can have no fruition of peace; and as little to the purpose does he avoid trouble who cannot enjoy repose.

Amongst those of the first of these two opinions, there has been great debate, what occasions are sufficient to justify the meditation of self-murder, which they call “A reasonable exit.”—[ Diogenes Laertius, Life of Zeno.]—For though they say that men must often die for trivial causes, seeing those that detain us in life are of no very great weight, yet there is to be some limit. There are fantastic and senseless humours that have prompted not only individual men, but whole nations to destroy themselves, of which I have elsewhere given some examples; and we further read of the Milesian virgins, that by a frantic compact they hanged themselves one after another till the magistrate took order in it, enacting that the bodies of such as should be found so hanged should be drawn by the same halter stark naked through the city. When Therykion tried to persuade Cleomenes to despatch himself, by reason of the ill posture of his affairs, and, having missed a death of more honour in the battle he had lost, to accept of this the second in honour to it, and not to give the conquerors leisure to make him undergo either an ignominious death or an infamous life; Cleomenes, with a courage truly Stoic and Lacedaemonian, rejected his counsel as unmanly and mean; “that,” said he, “is a remedy that can never be wanting, but which a man is never to make use of, whilst there is an inch of hope remaining”: telling him, “that it was sometimes constancy and valour to live; that he would that even his death should be of use to his country, and would make of it an act of honour and virtue.” Therykion, notwithstanding, thought himself in the right, and did his own business; and Cleomenes afterwards did the same, but not till he had first tried the utmost malevolence of fortune. All the inconveniences in the world are not considerable enough that a man should die to evade them; and, besides, there being so many, so sudden and unexpected changes in human things, it is hard rightly to judge when we are at the end of our hope:

The gladiator conquered in the lists hopes on, though the
menacing spectators, turning their thumb, order him to die.

                                                                                               [Pentadius, De Spe]

All things, says an old adage, are to be hoped for by a man whilst he lives; ay, but, replies Seneca, why should this rather be always running in a man’s head that fortune can do all things for the living man, than this, that fortune has no power over him that knows how to die? Josephus, when engaged in so near and apparent danger, a whole people being violently bent against him, that there was no visible means of escape, nevertheless, being, as he himself says, in this extremity counselled by one of his friends to despatch himself, it was well for him that he yet maintained himself in hope, for fortune diverted the accident beyond all human expectation, so that he saw himself delivered without any manner of inconvenience. Whereas Brutus and Cassius, on the contrary, threw away the remains of the Roman liberty, of which they were the sole protectors, by the precipitation and temerity wherewith they killed themselves before the due time and a just occasion. Monsieur d’Anguien, at the battle of Serisolles, twice attempted to run himself through, despairing of the fortune of the day, which went indeed very untowardly on that side of the field where he was engaged, and by that precipitation was very near depriving himself of the enjoyment of so brave a victory. I have seen a hundred hares escape out of the very teeth of the greyhounds:

Some have survived their executioners.              [Seneca, Epistles]

Length of days, and the various labour of changeful time, have
brought things to a better state; fortune turning, shews a reverse
face, and again restores men to prosperity. [Aeneid, xi. 425.]

Pliny says there are but three sorts of diseases, to escape which a man has good title to destroy himself; the worst of which is the stone in the bladder, when the urine is suppressed.

Seneca says those only which for a long time are discomposing the functions of the soul. And some there have been who, to avoid a worse death, have chosen one to their own liking. Democritus, general of the Aetolians, being brought prisoner to Rome, found means to make his escape by night: but close pursued by his keepers, rather than suffer himself to be retaken, he fell upon his own sword and died. Antinous and Theodotus, their city of Epirus being reduced by the Romans to the last extremity, gave the people counsel universally to kill themselves; but, these preferring to give themselves up to the enemy, the two chiefs went to seek the death they desired, rushing furiously upon the enemy, with intention to strike home but not to ward a blow. The Island of Gozzo being taken some years ago by the Turks, a Sicilian, who had two beautiful daughters marriageable, killed them both with his own hand, and their mother, running in to save them, to boot, which having done, sallying out of the house with a cross-bow and harquebus, with two shots he killed two of the Turks nearest to his door, and drawing his sword, charged furiously in amongst the rest, where he was suddenly enclosed and cut to pieces, by that means delivering his family and himself from slavery and dishonour. The Jewish women, after having circumcised their children, threw them and themselves down a precipice to avoid the cruelty of Antigonus. I have been told of a person of condition in one of our prisons, that his friends, being informed that he would certainly be condemned, to avoid the ignominy of such a death suborned a priest to tell him that the only means of his deliverance was to recommend himself to such a saint, under such and such vows, and to fast eight days together without taking any manner of nourishment, what weakness or faintness soever he might find in himself during the time; he followed their advice, and by that means destroyed himself before he was aware, not dreaming of death or any danger in the experiment. Scribonia advising her nephew Libo to kill himself rather than await the stroke of justice, told him that it was to do other people’s business to preserve his life to put it after into the hands of those who within three or four days would fetch him to execution, and that it was to serve his enemies to keep his blood to gratify their malice.

We read in the Bible that Nicanor, the persecutor of the law of God, having sent his soldiers to seize upon the good old man Razis, surnamed in honour of his virtue the father of the Jews: the good man, seeing no other remedy, his gates burned down, and the enemies ready to seize him, choosing rather to die nobly than to fall into the hands of his wicked adversaries and suffer himself to be cruelly butchered by them, contrary to the honour of his rank and quality, stabbed himself with his own sword, but the blow, for haste, not having been given home, he ran and threw himself from the top of a wall headlong among them, who separating themselves and making room, he pitched directly upon his head; notwithstanding which, feeling yet in himself some remains of life, he renewed his courage, and starting up upon his feet all bloody and wounded as he was, and making his way through the crowd to a precipitous rock, there, through one of his wounds, drew out his bowels, which, tearing and pulling to pieces with both his hands, he threw amongst his pursuers, all the while attesting and invoking the Divine vengeance upon them for their cruelty and injustice.

Of violences offered to the conscience, that against the chastity of woman is, in my opinion, most to be avoided, forasmuch as there is a certain pleasure naturally mixed with it, and for that reason the dissent therein cannot be sufficiently perfect and entire, so that the violence seems to be mixed with a little consent of the forced party. The ecclesiastical history has several examples of devout persons who have embraced death to secure them from the outrages prepared by tyrants against their religion and honour. Pelagia and Sophronia, both canonised, the first of these precipitated herself with her mother and sisters into the river to avoid being forced by some soldiers, and the last also killed herself to avoid being ravished by the Emperor Maxentius.

It may, peradventure, be an honour to us in future ages, that a learned
author of this present time, and a Parisian, takes a great deal of pains
to persuade the ladies of our age rather to take any other course than to
enter into the horrid meditation of such a despair. I am sorry he had
never heard, that he might have inserted it amongst his other stories,
the saying of a woman, which was told me at Toulouse, who had passed
through the handling of some soldiers: “God be praised,” said she, “that
once at least in my life I have had my fill without sin.” In truth,
these cruelties are very unworthy the French good nature, and also, God
be thanked, our air is very well purged of them since this good advice:
’tis enough that they say “no” in doing it, according to the rule of the
good Marot.

 Un doulx nenny, avec un doulx sourire
Est tant honneste.”—Marot.

History is everywhere full of those who by a thousand ways have exchanged a painful and irksome life for death. Lucius Aruntius killed himself, to fly, he said, both the future and the past. Granius Silvanus and Statius Proximus, after having been pardoned by Nero, killed themselves; either disdaining to live by the favour of so wicked a man, or that they might not be troubled, at some other time, to obtain a second pardon, considering the proclivity of his nature to suspect and credit accusations against worthy men. Spargapises, son of Queen Tomyris, being a prisoner of war to Cyrus, made use of the first favour Cyrus shewed him, in commanding him to be unbound, to kill himself, having pretended to no other benefit of liberty, but only to be revenged of himself for the disgrace of being taken. Boges, governor in Eion for King Xerxes, being besieged by the Athenian army under the conduct of Cimon, refused the conditions offered, that he might safe return into Asia with all his wealth, impatient to survive the loss of a place his master had given him to keep; wherefore, having defended the city to the last extremity, nothing being left to eat, he first threw all the gold and whatever else the enemy could make booty of into the river Strymon, and then causing a great pile to be set on fire, and the throats of all the women, children, concubines, and servants to be cut, he threw their bodies into the fire, and at last leaped into it himself.

Ninachetuen, an Indian lord, so soon as he heard the first whisper of the Portuguese Viceroy’s determination to dispossess him, without any apparent cause, of his command in Malacca, to transfer it to the King of Campar, he took this resolution with himself: he caused a scaffold, more long than broad, to be erected, supported by columns royally adorned with tapestry and strewed with flowers and abundance of perfumes; all which being prepared, in a robe of cloth of gold, set full of jewels of great value, he came out into the street, and mounted the steps to the scaffold, at one corner of which he had a pile lighted of aromatic wood. Everybody ran to see to what end these unusual preparations were made; when Ninachetuen, with a manly but displeased countenance, set forth how much he had obliged the Portuguese nation, and with how unspotted fidelity he had carried himself in his charge; that having so often, sword in hand, manifested in the behalf of others, that honour was much more dear to him than life, he was not to abandon the concern of it for himself: that fortune denying him all means of opposing the affront designed to be put upon him, his courage at least enjoined him to free himself from the sense of it, and not to serve for a fable to the people, nor for a triumph to men less deserving than himself; which having said he leaped into the fire.

Sextilia, wife of Scaurus, and Paxaea, wife of Labeo, to encourage their husbands to avoid the dangers that pressed upon them, wherein they had no other share than conjugal affection, voluntarily sacrificed their own lives to serve them in this extreme necessity for company and example. What they did for their husbands, Cocceius Nerva did for his country, with less utility though with equal affection: this great lawyer, flourishing in health, riches, reputation, and favour with the Emperor, had no other cause to kill himself but the sole compassion of the miserable state of the Roman Republic. Nothing can be added to the beauty of the death of the wife of Fulvius, a familiar favourite of Augustus: Augustus having discovered that he had vented an important secret he had entrusted him withal, one morning that he came to make his court, received him very coldly and looked frowningly upon him. He returned home, full of, despair, where he sorrowfully told his wife that, having fallen into this misfortune, he was resolved to kill himself: to which she roundly replied, “’tis but reason you should, seeing that having so often experienced the incontinence of my tongue, you could not take warning: but let me kill myself first,” and without any more saying ran herself through the body with a sword. Vibius Virrius, despairing of the safety of his city besieged by the Romans and of their mercy, in the last deliberation of his city’s senate, after many arguments conducing to that end, concluded that the most noble means to escape fortune was by their own hands: telling them that the enemy would have them in honour, and Hannibal would be sensible how many faithful friends he had abandoned; inviting those who approved of his advice to come to a good supper he had ready at home, where after they had eaten well, they would drink together of what he had prepared; a beverage, said he, that will deliver our bodies from torments, our souls from insult, and our eyes and ears from the sense of so many hateful mischiefs, as the conquered suffer from cruel and implacable conquerors. I have, said he, taken order for fit persons to throw our bodies into a funeral pile before my door so soon as we are dead. Many enough approved this high resolution, but few imitated it; seven-and-twenty senators followed him, who, after having tried to drown the thought of this fatal determination in wine, ended the feast with the mortal mess; and embracing one another, after they had jointly deplored the misfortune of their country, some retired home to their own houses, others stayed to be burned with Vibius in his funeral pyre; and were all of them so long in dying, the vapour of the wine having prepossessed the veins, and by that means deferred the effect of poison, that some of them were within an hour of seeing the enemy inside the walls of Capua, which was taken the next morning, and of undergoing the miseries they had at so dear a rate endeavoured to avoid. Jubellius Taurea, another citizen of the same country, the Consul Fulvius returning from the shameful butchery he had made of two hundred and twenty-five senators, called him back fiercely by name, and having made him stop: “Give the word,” said he, “that somebody may dispatch me after the massacre of so many others, that thou mayest boast to have killed a much more valiant man than thyself.” Fulvius, disdaining him as a man out of his wits, and also having received letters from Rome censuring the inhumanity of his execution which tied his hands, Jubellius proceeded: “Since my country has been taken, my friends dead, and having with my own hands slain my wife and children to rescue them from the desolation of this ruin, I am denied to die the death of my fellow-citizens, let me borrow from virtue vengeance on this hated life,” and therewithal drawing a short sword he carried concealed about him, he ran it through his own bosom, falling down backward, and expiring at the consul’s feet.

Alexander, laying siege to a city of the Indies, those within, finding themselves very hardly set, put on a vigorous resolution to deprive him of the pleasure of his victory, and accordingly burned themselves in general, together with their city, in despite of his humanity: a new kind of war, where the enemies sought to save them, and they to destroy themselves, doing to make themselves sure of death, all that men do to secure life.

Astapa, a city of Spain, finding itself weak in walls and defence to withstand the Romans, the inhabitants made a heap of all their riches and furniture in the public place; and, having ranged upon this heap all the women and children, and piled them round with wood and other combustible matter to take sudden fire, and left fifty of their young men for the execution of that whereon they had resolved, they made a desperate sally, where for want of power to overcome, they caused themselves to be every man slain. The fifty, after having massacred every living soul throughout the whole city, and put fire to this pile, threw themselves lastly into it, finishing their generous liberty, rather after an insensible, than after a sorrowful and disgraceful manner, giving the enemy to understand, that if fortune had been so pleased, they had as well the courage to snatch from them victory as they had to frustrate and render it dreadful, and even mortal to those who, allured by the splendour of the gold melting in this flame, having approached it, a great number were there suffocated and burned, being kept from retiring by the crowd that followed after.

The Abydeans, being pressed by King Philip, put on the same resolution; but, not having time, they could not put it ‘in effect. The king, who was struck with horror at the rash precipitation of this execution (the treasure and movables that they had condemned to the flames being first seized), drawing off his soldiers, granted them three days’ time to kill themselves in, that they might do it with more order and at greater ease: which time they filled with blood and slaughter beyond the utmost excess of all hostile cruelty, so that not so much as any one soul was left alive that had power to destroy itself. There are infinite examples of like popular resolutions which seem the more fierce and cruel in proportion as the effect is more universal, and yet are really less so than when singly executed; what arguments and persuasion cannot do with individual men, they can do with all, the ardour of society ravishing particular judgments.

The condemned who would live to be executed in the reign of Tiberius, forfeited their goods and were denied the rites of sepulture; those who, by killing themselves, anticipated it, were interred, and had liberty to dispose of their estates by will.

But men sometimes covet death out of hope of a greater good. “I desire,” says St. Paul, “to be with Christ,” and “who shall rid me of these bands?” Cleombrotus of Ambracia, having read Plato’s Pheedo, entered into so great a desire of the life to come that, without any other occasion, he threw himself into the sea. By which it appears how improperly we call this voluntary dissolution, despair, to which the eagerness of hope often inclines us, and, often, a calm and temperate desire proceeding from a mature and deliberate judgment. Jacques du Chastel, bishop of Soissons, in St. Louis’s foreign expedition, seeing the king and whole army upon the point of returning into France, leaving the affairs of religion imperfect, took a resolution rather to go into Paradise; wherefore, having taken solemn leave of his friends, he charged alone, in the sight of every one, into the enemy’s army, where he was presently cut to pieces. In a certain kingdom of the new discovered world, upon a day of solemn procession, when the idol they adore is drawn about in public upon a chariot of marvellous greatness; besides that many are then seen cutting off pieces of their flesh to offer to him, there are a number of others who prostrate themselves upon the place, causing themselves to be crushed and broken to pieces under the weighty wheels, to obtain the veneration of sanctity after death, which is accordingly paid them. The death of the bishop, sword in hand, has more of magnanimity in it, and less of sentiment, the ardour of combat taking away part of the latter.

There are some governments who have taken upon them to regulate the justice and opportunity of voluntary death. In former times there was kept in our city of Marseilles a poison prepared out of hemlock, at the public charge, for those who had a mind to hasten their end, having first, before the six hundred, who were their senate, given account of the reasons and motives of their design, and it was not otherwise lawful, than by leave from the magistrate and upon just occasion to do violence to themselves.—[Valerius Maximus, ii. 6, 7.]—The same law was also in use in other places.

Sextus Pompeius, in his expedition into Asia, touched at the isle of Cea in Negropont: it happened whilst he was there, as we have it from one that was with him, that a woman of great quality, having given an account to her citizens why she was resolved to put an end to her life, invited Pompeius to her death, to render it the more honourable, an invitation that he accepted; and having long tried in vain by the power of his eloquence, which was very great, and persuasion, to divert her from that design, he acquiesced in the end in her own will. She had passed the age of four score and ten in a very happy state, both of body and mind; being then laid upon her bed, better dressed than ordinary and leaning upon her elbow, “The gods,” said she, “O Sextus Pompeius, and rather those I leave than those I go to seek, reward thee, for that thou hast not disdained to be both the counsellor of my life and the witness of my death. For my part, having always experienced the smiles of fortune, for fear lest the desire of living too long may make me see a contrary face, I am going, by a happy end, to dismiss the remains of my soul, leaving behind two daughters of my body and a legion of nephews”; which having said, with some exhortations to her family to live in peace, she divided amongst them her goods, and recommending her domestic gods to her eldest daughter, she boldly took the bowl that contained the poison, and having made her vows and prayers to Mercury to conduct her to some happy abode in the other world, she roundly swallowed the mortal poison. This being done, she entertained the company with the progress of its operation, and how the cold by degrees seized the several parts of her body one after another, till having in the end told them it began to seize upon her heart and bowels, she called her daughters to do the last office and close her eyes.

Pliny tells us of a certain Hyperborean nation where, by reason of the sweet temperature of the air, lives rarely ended but by the voluntary surrender of the inhabitants, who, being weary of and satiated with living, had the custom, at a very old age, after having made good cheer, to precipitate themselves into the sea from the top of a certain rock, assigned for that service. Pain and the fear of a worse death seem to me the most excusable incitements.

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Filed under Cowardice, Courage, Bravery, Fear, Europe, Honor and Disgrace, Mental Illness: depression, despair, insanity, delusion, Montaigne, Michel de, Selections, Slavery, Stoicism, The Early Modern Period

by | May 21, 2015 · 9:33 pm

SOLOMON BEN JEHIEL LURIA
(1510-1573)

Yam shel Shelomoh On Bava Kamma 8:59

 

Solomon ben Jehiel Luria was a rabbi and author of several analytical discourses on the Talmud [q.v.] and its early commentaries. He was born in Brest-Litovsk, Lithuania, and was educated as a child by his grandfather, Rabbi Isaac Klauberia, in Poznan. After returning home and continuing his studies in 1535, Luria married and was made rabbi of Brest. In 1555, he became leader of Lublin’s celebrated yeshivah, or Talmudic academy. Luria, careful and methodical in his studies of Jewish law, said of himself, “I was painstaking always to trace the last source of the Halakah,” and his assiduous reliance on Jewish law and its sources was combined with a distrust of all forms of secular philosophy. Luria once told a friend and fellow scholar, Rabbi Moses Isserles, a student of classical philosophy, “You are turning to the wisdom of the uncircumcised Aristotle. Woe unto my eyes that they should see such a thing.” Luria’s many works include Hokmat Shelomoh (1582), a collection of analytical glosses on the Talmud, and Yam shel Shelomoh (1615), a study of several individual treatises of the Talmud. He died in Lublin on November 7, 1573, several years before his major commentaries were published.

Luria approaches the question of suicide in his commentary On Bava Kamma, dealing particularly with the authoritative tradition concerning the suicide of Saul in the Hebrew Bible [q.v.] and the story of Rabbi Chanina ben Tradyon’s martyrdom in Avodah Zarah [q.v., under Babylonian Talmud and under Tosafot]. Luria contributes interpretations of the prohibition of suicide, a prohibition that had long since become general within Judaism. Arguing that allowing or even encouraging others to kill themselves can in some circumtances be permissible; that even setting the house on fire is somehow akin to letting things happen rather than to direct self-killing; and that Saul’s suicide was permissible not because he sought to spare himself suffering, but rather to save the lives of many others. At the same time he draws a distinction between actively committing suicide and allowing oneself to be killed, concluding that the latter is allowable while the act of self-killing is prohibited, even in cases of torture and coercion to commit sin.

SOURCE
Solomon ben Jehiel Luria, Yam shel Shelomoh On Bava Kamma 8:59.  Tr. Baruch Brody.

 

from ON BAVA KAMMA

It seems to me that even if one is captured by the idolators and he is afraid that they will torture him until he worships idols, he should not kill himself.  He should do his best to endure the tortures… One should let oneself be killed and not commit these sins, and this is not considered suicide, as Asheri says that it is not considered suicide when one allows himself to be killed [rather than commit idolatry].  But to kill himself is certainly prohibited.  And that is what we find in the case of Rabbi Chanina ben Tradyon… But he did ask others to hasten his death.

But if one is afraid that they will torture him because of other Jews, and many lives will be lost, as some rulers have forced one Jew to falsely testify against all the others so that afterwards many died, then he is permitted to kill himself.  And perhaps Saul thought of this when he fell on his sword.  He thought that if he was captured alive, they would mock him and torture him.  The children of Israel would not be able to see and hear the suffering of the king, and they would not think of their lives, but would avenge him and save him and many thousands would die… To save the lives of others it is permissible to kill oneself…

Nevertheless, one can set the house afire so that he and his children will be burned to death in a time of decrees [i.e., persecutions], and this is not considered suicide, but like letting oneself be killed, and this is permissible. Rabbi Chanina ben Tradyon also asked [the executioner] to hasten his death, but he would not do it himself by opening his mouth to allow in the fire, as this is literally committing suicide.

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Filed under Europe, Judaism, Luria, Solomon ben Jeheiel, Selections, The Early Modern Period

by | · 9:32 pm

JOHN CALVIN
(1509-1564)

Sermons on Job:
  13th Sermon on the 3rd Chapter of Job
  17th Sermon on the 5th Chapter of Job
  22nd Sermon on the 5th Chapter of       Job
  24th Sermon on the 6th Chapter of Job

 

The French theologian and reformer John Calvin (originally Jean Calvin or Cauvin), was born in Noyon, Picardy, to a staunch Roman Catholic family; his father hoped that he would become a priest. He went to Paris to study Latin and theology (and to flee the plague at Noyon) at the age of 14, but after his father was dismissed from the Roman Church by his employers at Noyon Cathedral, the young Calvin, at his father’s urging, shifted his course of study from theology to law. Even as a young man, Calvin was said to be extremely religious. He converted to the Protestant doctrines of the Reformation and was banished from Paris in 1533 with his friend, the rector Nicolas Cop, when the humanist reformers were renounced as heretical by the conservative faculty of the Collège Royal. Having been driven out of Geneva once, in 1538, Calvin succeeded in a second try at establishing the Consistory, an ecclesiastical court, and in 1541, he established government reform in Geneva, which would serve as the focal point for the defense of Protestantism throughout Europe. However, though Calvin had asked for a more humane form of execution, the court also oversaw under Calvin’s direction the burning at the stake in 1553 of a competing reformist theologian, Servetus, on a pile of Servetus’s own books. Strongly committed to the importance of education, Calvin founded the Academy of Geneva (1559), the progenitor of the University of Geneva. In his later years, Calvin suffered from very poor health, including lung hemorrhages, gout, migraines, and kidney stones; he was sometimes carried to the pulpit to preach, and on occasion gave lectures from his bed.

Taking refuge in Basel, Switzerland, Calvin published the first edition of his Instituto Christianae Religionis (in Latin, 1536; in French, 1541; translated into English as Institutes of the Christian Religion), his most famous and extraordinarily influential work. Stressing the total sovereignty of God, especially in determining who is elect and who is granted salvation, the Institutes brought together the scattered and unsystematic opinions of reformist writers of the period into one body of doctrine. Calvin revised and expanded the work throughout his life, with the fifth and final Latin edition of 1559 reaching a total of four books of 80 chapters, five times the length of the first publication. The five central points of Calvinism, including the total depravity or centrality of sin, and what is often called predestination, were later upheld by the Synod of Dort in 1619 in a denunciation of the competing reform ideology of Armenianism.

The excerpts from two of Calvin’s several sermons on Job reprinted here scrutinize Job’s seeming despair and desire to die as he suffers the afflictions God has allowed Satan to impose on him. Calvin argues that afflictions sent by God, however painful, are “for our profit and welfare,” and distinguishes between two radically different sorts of desire to die. One is born of suffering and the fear of future sinning: This sort of desire to die is illegitimate, in Calvin’s eyes, and itself sinful. In contrast, the form of desire to die (exhibited, for example, by St. Paul [q.v., under New Testament]), the desire to employ oneself in God’s service, is legitimate and praiseworthy. Calvin’s text is particularly relevant in exploring negative occasions of suicide, that is, choices made by a person apparently considering suicide but who rejects it.

SOURCE
John Calvin, Sermons of Maister John Calvin, upon the Booke of Job: 13th Sermon on the 3rd Chapter of Job (57a7-60a62); 17th Sermon on the 5th Chapter of Job (75b57 to 76a37); 22nd Sermon on the 5th Chapter of Job (102b11 to 102b60); 24th Sermon on the 6th Chapter of Job (108a6 to 108b14),translated from the French by Arthur Golding, pp. 57-60, 75-76, 102, 108.  London: Impensis Georgij Bishop, 1574; facsimile reprint 1993, The Banner of Truth Trust, Edinburgh.

 

SERMONS ON JOB

13th Sermon on the 3rd Chapter of Job

Job complaineth here; as though God did men wrong to put them into the world, and to exercise them with store of miseries. And so he maketh his reckoning, that if God will have us to live, he should maintain us at our ease, and not encumber us with many troubles. Thus we see briefly what is contained here. Verily Jobs intent was not to plead against God, as if he would go to law with him: but yet in the meanwhile, the grief that he sustained carried him so far forth, that these complaints passed out of his mouth. How now? Wherefore hath God set us in this world? Is it not to the end, that we should know him to be our Father, and that we should bless him, because we be sure that he hath a care of us? But contrariwise it is to be seen, that many men are afflicted and tormented with many miseries. To what purpose does God hold them at that point? It seemeth that he would have his name to be blasphemed. What can they do whom he handleth so rigorously? when they see death before their eyes, or rather have it between their teeth, they can not but fret and chafe at it. Thus we see an occasion of murmuring against God, and it seemeth that he himself is the cause of it. Here we have a very good and profitable lesson: which is that we should assure ourselves, that when God scourgeth us, yet he ceasseth not to give us some taste of his goodness, in such wise as even in the middest of our afflictions we may still praise him, and rejoice in him. Yet notwithstanding it is true that he restraineth our joys, and turneth them into bitterness. But there is a mean betwixt blessing of Gods name, and blaspheming of it: which mean is to call upon him when we be oppressed with adversity, and to resort unto him, desiring him to receive us unto mercy. But men can never keep this mean, except God have an eye to it of himself when he scourgeth us. Therefore let us mark first, that whensoever God sendeth us any troubles and sorrows, he ceaseth not to make us taste of his goodness therewithal, to assuage the anguish that might hold our hearts in distress. How is that? We have shewed heretofore, that if men had an eye to Gods former benefits towards them (yea though it were but in that he hath sustained them from their childhood, after he had brought théout of their mothers womb, and given them life : ) it were enough to comfort them, even when they be overloaded with despair, and to make them think: May not God punish us justly? for we be bound to bear patiently the adversity that he sendeth, and nature teacheth us so to do, forsomuch as he bestoweth so many benefits upon us, according as Job hath shewed heretofore. We see then how this only one consideration ought to assuage our sorrows, according as it is to be seen, that if men put sugar or honey into a medicine that is over bitter, it will alay it in such sort, as the patient may the better take it, whereas otherwise it would go near to choke him. But there is yet a further matter in this: namely, that God sheweth us the use of his chastisements which he sendeth us: which is not that he meeneth to destroy us so often as he scourges us: but that it is for our profit and welfare: and he promiseth us, that if we be faithful, he will not suffer [1 Cor 10 c 13] us to be racked out of measure, but will support us. So then, if we be afflicted, there is no reason why we should take pritch against God, as though we found nothing but rigor at his hand. For we be so comforted in our afflictions, as if our unthankfulness letted us not, we might rejoice and say, blessed be the name of God, although he send us not all our own desires. This much for the first point. And how herewithal we must mark also the second article, which I have touched already: which is, that although we have nothing but distress, although we be held as it were upon the rack, and that we have nothing at all to comfort us: yet must we not be hasty to take pritch against God, but we must rather call upon him, according as it is said: let him that is sorrowful pray. Saint James sheweth us the mean which we ought to hold. If we be merry (sayth he) let us sing: [Lar-s 5 t 33]not after the manner of the world (which ruffleth it and royetteth it, without acknowledging that his goods come of God) but in rendering praise to God for our gladness. And if we be in sorrow and heaviness, let us pray unto God, beseeching him to pity us, and to abate his rigor. Thus we see, that when the faithful are at the wits end, so as they can no further go, yet must they not rush against God, and find fault with him: neither must they outrage, as those do which are full of pride and rebelliousness: but rather let us think thus: Lord, I see myself to be a wretched creature. I know not where to become, I wote not what to do, except thou rescue me to mercy, and shewe thyself so pitiful towards me, as to relieve me of my misery, which I can no longer bear: Thus we see that the children of God must bear their adversities patiently, although God chastise them roughly for a time. And it is to be seen, that although Job had continually minded the same lesson: yet was he not sufficiently armed to withstand temptations: for he sayth here, Why doth God give light to such as are of troubled mind? He remembered not that God had just cause to keep men in the middes of many miseries, and that although their state be wretched here below, yet is God righteous still: and that albeit he punish us, and keeps us occupied many ways, yet it becometh not us to hold plea with him, under color that he holdeth us here against our will, and that we be shut up in prison while we be in this life: neither must we conceive any displeasure for all that. Job did not sufficiently consider this. Now is such a person as Job was, happened to overshoot himself, and to kick against God, for want of having the said regard that I have spoken of: much more must we set our minds upon the said two points: that is to wit, that we bear in remembrance, that God never forsaketh us, and therefore that we may not be oversorrowful when God sendeth us any adversities, because we be sure that his chastising of us is after such a sort, as therewithal he relieveth our grief, at leastwise if it be not long of ourselves, and of our own unthankfulness: And secondly, that when we be distressed that we can no more: God calleth and allureth us friendly unto him, yet I say he provoketh us to resort unto prayer as often as we be as it were utterly stripped out of all that we have. Lo hear the true remedy: which is to call upon our good God to have pity upon us, and not to suffer us to be so dismayed as to say, I wote not what to do, and it is to no purpose to go unto God. Let us keep ourselves from such encumbrance, and persuade ourselves that we shall always be sure to fare well, if we call upon God, who will be always merciful to us, even in the middest of our afflictions. When we have these two points well settled in our remembrance, we shall no more say: Wherefore is it that God holdeth those here which are in sorrow of mind? For we see wherefore he doth it. There is great reason why God should chastise men. For how great are our sins? the number of them is infinite. Again, if we look upon our lusts, there is also a very bottomless gulf, which hath need to be mended. God therefore must mortify us. Furthermore, if we consider how much we be given to the world: we shall find that our affections had need to be plucked from it by Gods chastisements. Moreover how great is our pride and presumptuousness? And therefore must God needs humble us. Besides all this, how cold are we to crave his help? and therefore he must be fayne to enforce us to it. Finally, ought not our faith to be tried and made known? Then see we not reasons inowe why God holdeth us here, and will have us to be miserable, so as there is nothing but pain, trouble, torment, and anguish in all our whole life? Is there not sufficient reason why God should do this? Mark here a special point. And sithe that he continually calleth us unto him, and maketh us free passage unto him, and that we have such a remedy in our miseries: may we not hold ourselves well appayed? We see how we ought to be armed and fenced against the said temptations, which reigned overmuch in Job, howebeit that he was not utterly overcome of it. For when Job speaketh here of such as desire the grave, and which willingly dig for it as for some hidden treasure, longing to die and can not: he putteth himself in the same rank, as we shall see by the sequel: wherein he confirmeth his own infirmity and vice. For it is not lawful for the faithful to mislike their own life, and to wish so for death. True it is that we may wish for death in one respect: which is, in consideration that we be hilde here in such bondage of sin, as we can not serve God so freely as were to be wished, because we are overfraught with vices. In respect hereof it is certain that we may sigh, and desire God to take us quickly out of the world. But (as is said afore) it may not be for that we hate our life, or for that we be weary to be hilde here because we be handled over rigorously: but we must bear our lot patiently, in waiting Gods leisure to deliver us. And we see that Paul holdeth the [Rom 7 d 24.25] self same measure when he sayth to the Romans, Alas, who shall deliver me from this mortal body? For I am unhappy. But yet therewithall he sayth, Thanks be to God through our Lord Jesus Christ. Lo here how Saint Paul on the one side calleth himself unhappy, and desireth to be taken out of the world: and on the other side is contented and at rest, because God prefereth him, and he knoweth that God will never forsake him, howbeit that he be subject to many miseries. We see here his contentation. And that we may the better understand the whole: let us mark how Job hath done amiss in two points. That is to witte, in not having the regard that he ought to have had in desiring death: and also in not keeping measure. Here we see two faults that are very gross. When I say that Job had not his eyes fastened upon the mark that he ought: I mean that his wishing for death, was not because he saw himself to be a miserable sinner, and could not attain to the perfection which all of us ought to labor for: but because he was weary of the nipping griefs, as well which he presently endured in his person, as which he had sustained before in his goods. And so he desired death, because it seemed to him that God pressed him overfore. Thus we see the first fault that I spake of. But if we apply the same to our own use, it will be yet better understood and apparent. If a man search and try himself thoroughly, and think thus with himself: I am given to such a vice, and I fight against it, but I can not come to my purpose: and the matter is not for one vice alone, but I have two or three that torment me. Surely yet I will not give myself the bridle, neither will I wound myself, I fear the vengeance of God, and will hold myself in such sort as I be not utterly vanquished: I see I must be much more earnest in serving God, and in fighting against the world and mine own flesh, as it is very requisite I should be, for I am hilde back and hindered by mine own lusts. I say, if a man acknowledge himself such a one: after he hath well examined his life, he sayth thereupon: yea my God, I see myself in miserable plight, and when shall I be delivered out of it? For needs must I bear sin in me, and although it reign not in me, yet doth it dwell in me. And what else is sin, but the devils scepter, whereby he reigneth over us? Then am I the bondslave of Satan and of death. O my God, must I tarry evermore in this wearisome plight? A Christian man may well have such sighs, and beseech God to set him free from such a bondage wherein he seeth himself to be. But if the matter concern adversity: we must regard neither cold nor heat, nor poverty, nor sickness: but we must have our eye only on our sins. And specially when God punisheth us, in what wise so ever it be, we must mount up higher, without any resting upon the bodily adversity, and think thus with ourselves: behold the fruits of our sins: forasmuch as we have done against Gods will, it is good reason that he should shew himself a judge towards us. When we have thus acknowledged our sins, the same worketh a remorse in us, and provoketh us to conceive the sorrows whereof S. Paul speaketh. And thus much as concerning the first point. But it is not inoughto think as afore is said [2 Cor 7 c 11]: that is to wit, to wish death is such wise as I have earst shewed: but it behoveth also to keep measure. I say, we must not only wish it upon good cause, but we must also bridle our desires, for as it be ruled by the good pleasure of God. And this will bring to pass, that the outrage which is shewed here in Job, shall be restrained as with a bridle. I have already touched this point in the text which I alleged out of S. Paul. For after he had made his moan, and wished to be delivered out of this prison of death: he addeth, I thank my God: and he ceasseth not to be quiet, even in the midst of those complaints and longings. And why so? for he seeth it is good reason that God should be the master, and govern us at his pleasure: and that we should patiently wait for such end as he listeth to give us. S. Paul perceiving this, concludeth immediately, that although he be a wretched sinner: yet notwithstanding he is sure that God will guide him in such wise, as his salvation can not miscarry. S. Paul then had an eye to those two things. And therefore he sayth that he yeldeth God thanks, not withstanding that he be in misery. Even so must we do. And is so doing, we shall not only be the readier to endure all the miseries of this world for the honor of God, that he may be glorified both in our persons, and in our humility: but also we shall be willing to suffer for our neighbors, as Saint Paul also sheweth us by his own example. He sayeth to the Philippians that as for himself, it should be far better for him to be taken out of the world: but for your sakes (sayth he) it is requisite that I live, because I know that you have as yet need of my labor, and that God employeth me about the edifying of your faith, and unto him do I submit myself. And afterward he sayeth: Although it were for my behoofe to go hence out of hand, yet am I willing to abide here still. Lo how faint (59a15) Paul exhorteth all men to submit themselves in such way unto Gods pleasure, as while they live in this world, they may not only bear their afflictions patiently, but also be ready to suffer for their neighbors, so as their labor may be profitable to the common weale, and they themselves do service to the church of God. Thus we see what we have to mark. But what? This lesson is not yet understood, forasmuch as there are very few that put it in use: for if God leave us in rest, ye shall see us so blended with vain and fond ioye and we be so oversotted, as we know neither death, nor our own frailty any more, neither have we any discretion at all. And if God visit us with any afflictions: it needs not to be asked whether we blasphemy or no, or whether any other pass out of our mouth or no: there will be store of misliking, of murmuring, and of impatience, which shall be full of sturdiness. And when the wind is in that door with us, how many be there that think upon their sins, and that groan under such a burden, and therewithall look unto the aide that God giveth them, how he suffereth them not to be utterly overcome by Satan, and thereupon do quiet themselves and take comfort in that he preferreth them? The number of them is very small: and yet is not this written in vain. But in general we have now to consider, that the faithful may well sigh and groan all their life long, till God have taken them out of the world, always wishing for their end, that is to say, for death: and yet not withstanding they must restrain themselves in such wyse, as they may wholly submit themselves to Gods good pleasure, knowing that they are not made for themselves. First I say, that the faithful may well sigh as folk that are weary of their long pinning in this prison of their flesh: namely for the cause that I have touched, which is, because they serve not God in such freedom as were requisite, but draw their lines amiss, so as they work awry, and oftentimes swerve aside. And (which more is) we must sigh but so farforth as is lawful for us: which is to be done so often as we enter into the consideration of our own overweariness when the matter standeth upon the serving of GOD. For, that must spur us to desire God to take us out of this world, and make us have an eye to the life that is prepared for us in heaven, which shall be fully shewed upon us at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.

And hereby we see how it is not only granted to Gods children to wish for death, but also that they ought to wish for it. For they shew not a good proof of their faith, except they seek to go out of this world, according as in deed all things hast and labor toward their mark. But our mark is aloft, and therefore must we never leave running till we come to our ways end which GOD hath set us: and we must desire that that may be quickly. Nevertheless let us always bear in mind the cause that I have spoken: namely, that we must not be provoked to wish for death, because we be subject some to sickness, some to poverty, some to one thing, and some to another: but because we be not fully reformed to the image of God, and because we have many imperfections in us. Mark well (I say) the cause that must spur and provoke us to desire death: namely, to the end that being rid of this mortal body (which is like a cabane full of stench and noisomeness) we may be fully reformed to the image of God, so as he may reign in us, and all the corruption of our nature be utterly done away.

And furthermore, let us keep us within the compass of desiring to live and die at Gods pleasure, so as we may not be given to our own will, but so as we may make as a sacrifice of it in that behalf, that our living may not be to ourselves but to God, so as we may say, Lord, I know mine own frailty. Nevertheless it is thy will to hold me in this world, and here I am, and good reason it is that I should tarry here: But whosoever it shall please thee to call me hence, I make no great accompt of my life, it is always at thy commandment, to dispose of it at thine own pleasure.

Behold (I say) how we ought to deal in this case. And herewithall, let us have our affections evermore quieted, yea even in such sort, as we may continually praise Gods name, assuring ourselves, that both in life and death, he will always shewe himself a Father and Savior towards us. But after that Job hath spoken so, he addeth: That such as are so distressed in their hearts, would be full glad and faine, if they might find their grave. Wherein he betrayed himself to speak through a brutish and unadvised affection, and that he keepeth neither measure nor modesty. For he confesseth that we come to naught there. So then we see how he is falne, howebeit not with a deadly fall, but with a half fall, and God raiseth him up again afterward as we shall see.   Yet nevertheless the case standeth so, as we must verily condemn this infirmity here in Job: that is to say, he was so dismayed with heaviness, as he could no more taste of Gods goodness, thereby to gather never so little comfort to sustain himself by.

But forasmuch as we see that this befell unto him: so much the more must we be earnest in praying unto God, that sorrow may not overmate us so, as we should be utterly overwhelmed by it. Therefore let us always be so underdropped and stayed up, as we may fight against sorrowfulness, and feel that it is good for us to live here according to Gods will, and that although we have great griefs and troubles here, yet must we stand fully resolved upon this point, that is it good for us to continue here still in this world. And wherefore? To the end that God may be glorified in us, to the end that our faith may be tried, to the end we should call upon him, and profess him to be always our father, notwithstanding that he scourge us, and to the end that by means thereof we may be prepared to the heavenly life. This taste of the said fatherly goodness, must always make us desirous to go unto God, & not suffer us to give bridle to any one outrageous and beastly affection, as we see that Job hath done here. And by the way he sheweth, whence this heaviness came upon him, that had so wholly swallowed him up, and from whence also it proceedeth in those that are so dismayed as they can not admit any comfort to assuage their miseries. He sayth, To the man whose way is hidden and which God hath shut in, as if he had made hedges round about it, that no man should enter into it.

This is well worth to be noted. For Job sheweth wherein he failed: namely in not yielding himself inough to Gods providence. Yet notwithstanding, herewithall he discovereth a disease whereunto all of us are subject. That is to wit, that we be desirous to know all that must befall us, and what our state shall be: and all this we would have declared to us: in so much that when we are in perplexity, so as we know not what shall become of us, and that the inconvenience pincheth us, and we see no end of it: then are we at the point of utter despair.

Lo here a mischief that is overcommon and ordinary. And we must mark it well, to the end we may seek the remedy on the contrary part. What then is the inclination of men? It is, that they could well find in their hearts to leap up to the clouds, to know what shall be the course of their whole life. And we see how they determine with themselves, I will do this and that. [Prov 16 a 1] Salomon mocking at the overweening that is in men, sayeth that they determine upon their whole life: and whereas they can not move the tip of their tongue without God do guide it: yet determine they upon this and that. And what a mockery is it? They are not able to move the tip of their tongue, and yet they presume to say, Behold I will do this a ten years hence: according also as [Lam 4 d 13]Saint James agreeth with Salomon, in scorning of the said presumptuousness which is in men. For so long as God letteth us alone at our ease, every man believeth what he lifteth himself, and we take ourselves to be petigoddes. But as soon as God turneth his hand, and beateth us with his rods: ye shall see us so amazed, as we wote not where to become: we think it not possible for us ever to scape out of our miseries, we look on the one side and on the other, and we see no end at all of them: we be as it were so shut up in them, that we cannot take hold of the goodness and mighty power of God to succor us. And this is the very affection that Job sheweth us here, which is an overcommon disease as we find well enough by experience. For there is not anything that troubleth and tormenteth us so much, as when we see ourselves shut up, and know not what what will be the end of our miseries, nor what shall become of us, in so much as being assailed on all sides, we conclude with ourselves, that we can never get away without utter oppression and overthrow. Have we this sayd disease? Then let us resort to the remedy. For if the disease be not cured, we must needs fall into the sayd excessive passion, whereof mention is made here: namely that we shall wish for death, as men in despair, and shall have no assuagement of our miseries, but only to desire God to overwhelm us out of hand. But the convenient remedy of this disease is, to refer ourselves to Gods providence, that he may see brightly for us, and that sith we be blind, and in darkness, our God may guide us as he knoweth is good for us, and lead us forth in all our enterprises. Behold also whereunto the holy scripture bringeth us back. Jeremy sayeth [Jer 10 d 23], O Lord, I know that the way of man is not in his own power, neither is it in man to walk and direct his own steps. This is as much to say, as a man taketh too much upon him, when he purposeth to dispose of his own life.

 

 

17th Sermon on the 5th Chapter of Job 

Afterward Eliphas addeth: That men perish and are consumed from morning unto the evening. Some expound this, as though it were meant that men perish in small time: and that is very true. But herewithall there is yet more: that is to witte, that we pass not a minute of our life, but it is as it were in approaching unto death. If we consider it well, when a man riseth in the Morning, he is sure he shall not step forth one pace, he is sure he shall not take his repast, he is sure he shall not turn about his hand, but he shall still wex elder and elder, and his life ever shortneth. Then must we consider even by eye sight, that our life fleeteth and slideth away from us. Thus we see what is meant by being consumed from Morning to Evening. And it is said afterward, that men perish for ever, because no man thinks upon it. We must treat of these two points, that we may profit ourselves by this doctrine. The one point is, that whatsoever we do, we should always have death before our eyes, and be provoked to think upon it. This (as I have said) is well known among men: the very Heathen had skill to say so. But what for that? Every man can play the Doctor in teaching other men that, which is contained here, and yet in the mean while there is never a good scholar of us all in this behalf. For there is not any man which showeth by this doings, that ever he knew what it is to be consumed from Morning to Evening: that is to wit, that all his lustiness is but feebleness, and that there is no steadfastness in us, to hold ourselves in one continual state: but that we always haste toward death, and death towards us, so as we must needs come thither at length. Verily if we had no more but this single doctrine alone: It would stand us in no stead, but to make us storm and torment ourselves. Like as when the Paynims knew that our life was so flightful, they concluded thereupon, that it was best never to be born, and that the sooner we died the better it was for us. Lo how the Paynims rejected the grace of God, because they knew not the honor that he doth us when he sendeth us into this world, even to shewe (show) himself a father towards us. For in as much as we be reasonable creatures, and have the Image of God printed in our nature: we have a record, that he holdeth us here as his children. And to despise such a grace, and to say, it had been better for us never to have been created: is it not apparent blasphemy? So then it is not enough for us to know, that so long as we be in this world, we be consumed every minute of an hour.

 

 

22nd Sermon on the 5th Chapter of Job 

When God suffereth his children to be taken out of the world betimes: it is for their profit. For God provideth better for the faithful man when he calleth him to him at the age of twenty or thirty years, than when he letteth him live till threescore. And specially when we see the world flowing out into such corruption, that all is confounded now a days: I pray you ought we not to esteem them more happy in that God hath drawn them away to himself, than if they had longer time to languish here? It were a miracle if men could continue here and come all too old age. For we see what snares Satan layeth for us, and how it is right hard to walk through so many outrages. Therefore if God pull away his children quickly: let us be sure that he dooth it for their greater benefit. And specially we have hereupon to understand, that although they be bereft of this blissing which is small in respect of that which God will give them: yet doth he not cease to love and favor them by suffering them to fall so into speedy death, like as those that are persecuted by tyrants, have a most precious death. For they offer up a sacrifice which is most acceptable to God: and it is an offering of sweet savour when he seeth his world sealed up with the blood of Martyrs. So then, when we compare the less with the greater, we shall find that this promise of feeling continually the sayde blissing of God in sending them to their grave as come that is gathered in his due time, is not in vain towards the faithful. For how soever the world go, he repenteth them continually. If a faithful man die at the age of thirty years, what doth he? It seemeth not that he is greatly sorry for it, he maketh no great struggling against it as we see the unbelievers do, yea when they be even as stale as earth, as the Proverb sayeth. Behold a despiser of God and a worlding, which never thought upon death: and when it commeth to the point that God will pinch him in good earnest, it will make him grind his teeth and fret with himself, weening too withstand death, and saying: Can I not prolong my life one year longer? He takes himself to be a piece of green wood that crackleth on all sides. Contrariwise when a faithful person dieth, although he endure much, yet he betaketh himself unto God, and comforteth himself in him: and although there be stryuing seen in his body, yet hath he his mind quiet, and he desireth nothing but to frame himself to Gods good will, choosing rather to die when God calleth him, than to live here. To be short he desireth nothing but to obey his good heavenly father.

24th Sermon on the 6th Chapter of Job 

We have to go forward with the matter that I began already: which is, that Job tormenteth himself here, not for the misery which he endureth in his body, but because God hilde him as a poor condemned person, and because he dealeth as a judge with him, and is altogether against him. Ye see then wherefore Job is more grieved that for all the rest that he could suffer. That is to wit, because he feeleth Gods hand heavy upon him, as David speaketh in the two and thirty Psalm. [Psal 32 a 4] And let us mark this well always. For otherwise we shall not know to what purpose he sayth, I would I were dead, I would God would kill me, I would I were cut off from the world, for then should I have some ease, and I should be no more so sore pressed. And could there befall him any worse thing than death, specially than a death of Gods sending, wherein he should know that God would utterly overwhelm him? And were not that the extremist of all miseries? and yet for all that he sayth, that if God would dispatch him at one blow, he could well bear it: but to linger pyning death as he doth, and to be preseed so long a while, he sayth it is impossible for him to keep measure, for it is all one as if he were hilde in a burning fire. Then let us mark well this diversity which is between a man that is overwhelmed at the first stroke, and another whom God holdeth (as it were) upon the Rack, whom he scourgeth a long while without giving him any respite, and which is not relieved in his misery, but must be fayne to abide it out continually. Let us now come to the ripping up of the case that Job pleadeth here. First he sheweth that his chief desire should be to die and to be cut off. True it is (as I have touched heretofore) that Gods children may well wish death: howbeit to an other end, and for another respect [than he doth here,] like as all of us must with S. Paul [Ro 8 d 24, Phil 1 c 23]desire to be let loose from the bondage of sin wherein we be held prisoners. Saint Paul is not moved there with any temptations of his flesh: but rather, the desire that he hath to employ himself in Gods service without let, driveth him to with that he might pass out of the prison of his body. Why so? For so long as we be in this world, we must always be wrapped in many miseries, and we cease not to offend God, being so weak as we be. Saint Paul then is sorry that he must live so long in offending God, and this kind of desire is good and holy, and proceedeth of the holy Ghost. But there are very few that desire to go out of the world in this respect. For so long as we be at our ease, we care not a whit what vices and imperfections we have, nor to be so foreward in serving God as were requisite: this geere toucheth us not a whit. What then? If there betide us any trouble, if we fall into any disease, if matters fall not out as we would have them: then we wish our selves out of the world, and there is none other talk but of our weariness in despising of our life. Ye see then what Jobs wishing was. It was not chiefly because he knew what his state was: but because the misery that he felt did nippe him, therefore he was desirous to have his request at Gods hand. For he not only desireth it [in his heart,] but also addresseth himself to God to make sute for it. And this is yet another mischief, that a man wishing death, as Job doth here, shall be as ye would say, shut up and shrunk into himself, so as he shall not dare present himself unto God to pray for it, though it so be that he have committed a great offence before. For we must not presume to hide ourselves, nor to have any back nookes wherein to make wishes that are wicked and rejected of God. But yet when a man shall come so far forth as to make such request unto God: no doubt but he sinneth double.

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