Правило 29 Василия Великого

Bosses who swear to do evil to their subordinates really need to be healed. Their healing is twofold: one, teach them, so that they are not drawn hastily, and another, so that they do not remain with evil intentions. Therefore, if anyone is caught in an oath to do evil to another, let him bring repentance for the audacity of the oath, but let him not establish himself in malice through the pretext of reverence for the oath. Keeping the oath was not useful to Herod, who, so as not to break the oath, became the murderer of the prophet. An oath is generally forbidden: even more so, one given for evil should be condemned. And therefore, the one who has sworn must correct his thoughts, and not strive to confirm his lawlessness. Explore this absurdity in more detail. If someone swore to gouge out his brother’s eyes: would it be good for him to carry this out? Who has sworn to kill, or even to break any commandment? ... I swore to keep Your righteous judgments, and I will fulfill them. (Ps. 119:106). Just as a commandment should be affirmed by the immutability of intentions, sin must be overthrown and destroyed in every possible way. (Ap. 25; Trul. 95; Basil Vel. 10, 17, 28, 64, 81, 82). Any oath in general is prohibited (άπαξ μέν ό όρκος άπηγόρευται), and that one, says Basil the Great, is especially worthy of condemnation, which is for evil. When asked by Amphilochius what he should do with the elders of the people who swore to do evil to their subordinates - and this they did, by the way, so as not to break this oath - Saint Basil replies that he must teach them so that they do not do evil and that the oath they took is in itself lawlessness. Next, Saint Basil explains what has been said, confirming it with examples. From the above words of Vasily, however, it is not necessary to draw the conclusion that any oath is absolutely prohibited, and the prescription of this rule on oaths should be brought into connection with other rules of the same holy father and, in accordance with this, this issue should be judged. By the way, in his 64th canon, Saint Basil prescribes a ten-year penance for those who break the oath. If in this way Vasily punishes the violator of the oath, this means that he recognizes the oath as something permissible in itself. And so it should be by divine right. The Holy Scripture of the Old Testament also prescribes an oath. Let both of them take an oath before the Lord, God commands the Israelites through Moses (Ex. 22:11). Confirming the covenant with Abraham, Abimelech says to him: swear to me here by God... And Abraham said: I swear... here they both swore (Genesis 21:23–31). David writes: I swore to keep Your righteous judgments, and I will fulfill them (Ps. 119:106). In the New Testament, Jesus Christ himself confirmed the oath in the name of God at the trial, when, to the question of the high priest: I adjure you by the living God, he answered: you said (Matthew 26:63–64). For the Jews had a custom according to which the judge at the trial had to pronounce the oath formula, and the one who took the oath only answered: Amen, or you said. While allowing an oath in the name of God, the Holy Scriptures of both the Old and New Testaments prohibit only a false oath and strictly condemn it. Do not swear falsely by My name, and do not dishonor the name of your God. I am the Lord your God (Lev. 19:12), God commands His people. Through the prophet Zechariah, God commands the house of Judah: These are the works that you must do: speak the truth to one another; Judge in truth and peaceably at your gates. Let none of you think evil in your heart against your neighbor, and do not love a false oath, for I hate all this, says the Lord. (Zechariah 8:16–17). The Pharisees' oaths are known, with which they wanted to craftily replace the oath of the Old Testament, and Christ's condemnation of such oaths is equally known (Matthew 5:33–37, 23:16–22). Jesus Christ condemned each time both a false oath and those who invented one to harm the truth. He also condemned vain oaths, according to the commandment of the Lord: Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain. In His Discourse on the Mount (Matthew 5:3), Christ taught His disciples, and through them the whole world, about moral Christian perfection in general and in particular about the oath. According to the meaning of these words of Christ, a person who swears to a lie is worthy of condemnation, when he promises something with an oath and does not fulfill what he promised, when he swears by something other than the name of God, so that he is less bound by the oath, when he finally swears in the name of God unnecessarily and in vain; Meanwhile, the highest level of moral perfection would be when a Christian would never swear, i.e. when he would be so truthful and kind that everyone could believe him, once he tells her, no, no. This is confirmed by the teaching of the Apostle James on this issue: first of all, my brethren, do not swear by heaven or earth, or by any other oath, but let it be with you: “yes, yes” and “no, no,” so that you do not fall into condemnation (James 5:12); in other words: do not swear any oath out of unchristian habit, and very often and unnecessarily, so that, having repented and forgotten the oath, you do not break it and, as a result, become guilty before God. However, divine law not only did not prohibit the use of an oath in necessary and important circumstances and, moreover, a true oath, but in certain cases even prescribed it, as we saw above. In this sense, the words that we wrote out at the beginning of this interpretation should be understood in the present (29) rule of St. Basil. In the spirit of this precept of divine law, all the precepts of civil law on oaths were issued. During the time of Emperor Constantine, the Christian oath was already introduced on ceremonial occasions 71 and then subsequently this was approved by the legislation of Justinian 72. In one of his short stories, Justinian prescribed that every judge must swear on the Holy Gospel, 73 just as every bishop must swear on the Holy Gospel that he will not be possessed by simony. 74 Cod. Just. II, 59; 1; IV, 20, 9. Nov. CXXIII, 1; CXXXXVII, 2. You might be interested in: