OATHS
176
OATHS
House of Lords against his sentence. Later, he ob-
tained a royal pardon and a pension, which was with-
drawn in 1093 at the instance of (Jueen Mary, whose
father, James II, he had scandalously attacked, .^fter
Marj-'s death, he was granted from the Treasury £500
to pay his debts and £300 per annum during the life-
time of himself and his wife. In 1690 he was taken
up by the Baptists, only to be again expelled the min-
istry, this time for "a discreditable intrigue for wring-
ing a legacy from a devotee". In 1691 he attempted
another fraudulent plot, but it came to nothing. He
died in .\xe Yard, on 12 July, 1705.
Besides the " Narrative of the Horrid Plot and Con- spiracy of the Popish Party" (London, 1679), Gates wrote "The Cabinet of Jesuits' secrets opened" (said to be translated from the Italian), "issued and com- pleted by a gentleman of Quality" (London, 1679), "The Pope's Warehouse; or the Merchandise of the Whore of Rome" (London, 1679), dedicated to the Earl of .Shaftesbury, "The Witch of Endor; or the witchcrafts of the Roman Jezebel, in which you have an account of the Exorcisms or conjurations of the Papists", etc. (London, 1679); "EkcixBacriXiKi), or the Picture of the late King James drawn to the Life" (Part I, London, 1696; Parts II, III, and IV, 1697).
Pollock, The Popish Plot (London. 1903) ; Marks, Who Killed Sir Edmund Berry Godfreyt (London, 1905); Stale Trials: Sec- combe in Diet. Nat. Hiog.,Q.v.\ Cobbett, Parliamentary History, IV; Ch.\rle8 Dodd, Church History oj England, III (London, 1737); Salmon. Examination of Burnet's History, II (London, 1724); Eluot, a Modest Vindication of Titu^ Oates (London. 1682); Foley, Records S. J., V (London, 1879); Macaulay, Lin- OABD, B.VUS. History of England. CuTHBERT AlMOND.
Oaths. — I. Notion and Divisions. — An oath is an invocation to God to witness the truth of a state- ment. It may be express and direct, as when one swears by God Himself; or implicit and tacit, as when we swear by creatures, since they bear a special rela- tion to the Creator and manifest His majesty and the supreme Truth in a special way: for instance, if one swear by heaven, the throne of God (Matt., v, 34), by the Holj' Cross, or by the Gospels. Imprecatory oaths are also tacit (see below). To have an oath in foro inlerno, there must be the intention, at least virtual, of invoking the testimony of God, and a word or sign by which the intention is manifested. Oaths maybe: (1) assertory — or affirmative — if we call God to witness the assertion of a past or present fact ; promissory, if we call Him to witness a resolution which we bind ourselves to execute, or a vow made to Him, or an agreement entered into with our neighbour, or a vow made to God in favour of a third party ; every promissory oath includes of necessity an assertory oath (see below). A promissory oath accompanied by a threat against a third party is said to be commina- tory; (2) contestatory — or simple — if there is a mere invocation of the Divine testimony; imprecatory — or execratorj' — as in the formula "So help me God"; if at the same time we call upon God as a judge and avenger of perjury, offering Him our property and especially our life and eternal salvation, or those of our friends, as a pledge of our sincerity. Thus the ex- pression: "Upon my soul", often used without any intention of swearing, may be either contestatory — the soul being in a special manner the image of God — or execratory — if we wish to call down upon our soul Divine punishment, either temporal or eternal, in ca.se we be wanting in sincerity; (3) private, if used be- tween private individuals; public, if exacted by public authorities; public oaths are divided into: (a) doctrinal, by which one declares that he holds a given doctrine, or promises to be faithful, to teach, and to defend a given doctrine in the future; (b) political, which have as their object the exercise of any authority whatso- ever, or submission to such an authority or laws; (c) judicial, which are taken in courts of justice either by the parties to the suit or the witnesses thereof.
II. Lawfulness and Conditions. — An oath is
" licit, and an act of virtue, under certain conditions.
It is, in effect, an act of homage rendered by the crea-
ture to the wisdom and omnipotence of the Creator —
it is therefore an act of the virtue of religion; more-
over, it is an excellent way of affording men security
in their mutual intercourse. It is justified in the Old
and New Testament ; the faithful and the Church from
Apostolic times to the present day have employed
oaths; and canonic;d letrislation and doctrin,al decrees
have affirmed their hiufulncs.s. Imiiroper use is often
made of oaths, an<l the haliit of swearing may easily
lead to abuses and even to perjury. In counselling
men "not to swear at all" (M.att., Vj34) Christ meant,
as the Fathers and ecclesiastical writers explain, to be
so truthful that men could lirlicvc them without need
of oath to confirm wli;it they s:iy. He did not forbid
the use of oaths under inopcr conditions, when neces-
sary to satisfy others of our truthfulness. These con-
ditions are (Jer., iv, 2): (1) Judgment, or careful and
reverent consideriition of the necessity or utility of
the oath; for it would be showing a want of the respect
due to God, to invoke Him as witness in trivial mat-
ters; on the other hand, it would be wrong to require
a grave or extreme necessity. To swear without a
sufficient reason, being an idle use of God's name, is
venial sin; (2) truth, for what we affirm should be in
conformity with the truth. Consequently in case of
an assertory oath, our affirmation must be truthful,
and in a promissory oath we must have the intention
of doing what we are promising. To swear falsely
constitutes the sin of perjury, always mortal in its
nature: for it is an insult to the Divine Truth to call
God in witness to a lie; besides, such an act is likely
to do injury to the common good; see the propositions
condemned by Innocent XI, prop, x.xiv; (.3) justice re-
quiring: (a) in the case of an assertory oath, that it be
lawful to make the affirmation which one wishes to
corroborate; failure to observe this condition is a
venial sin, as when boasting of some evil deed one
should swear to it; it is a grievous sin, if one employs
an oath as the means and instrument of sin, at least
of mortal sin, for example, to make a person believe a
grave detraction; (b) in the case of a promissory oath,
justice requires that one be able to assume licitly the
obligation of doing the thing promised. It is a mor-
tal sin to promise an oath to do a grievously illicit
thing; and it is, in the opinion of St. Alphonsus
Liguori, a mortal sin to swear to do a thing which is
illicit though not grievously so.
III. Obligation Arising from a Promissory Oath. — In a promissory oath, we call on God not only as a witness of our desire to fulfil the promise we make, but also as a guarantee and pledge for its future exe- cution; for at the proper moment He will require us, under pain of sin against the virtue of religion, to do what we have promised in His presence; whence it follows that it is a sin against religion not to perform, when we can, what we promised under oath: a mortal sin if the matter is grave; a venial sin (according to the more common and more probable opinion), if the matter is not grave. Certain conditions are requisite before a promissory oath ent.ails the obligation of ful- filling it, notably the intention of swearing and of binding oneself, full deliberation, the la%vfulness of making the promise, as well as the lawfulness and pos- sibility of executing it, etc. Several causes may put an end to this obligation: intrinsic causes, such as a notable change occurring after the taking of the oath, the cessation of the final cause of the oath; or ex- trinsic causes, such as annulment, dispensation, com- mutation, or relaxation granted by a competent au- thority, a release, express or tacit, either by the person in whose favour the obligation w.as undertaken, or by a competent authority to whom the beneficiarj- is sub- ject.
See general works on moral theology, especially: St. Thomas Aquinas, Sam. Theol., II-II, Q. Ixxxix, Q. icviii; St. Alphonsos
