Vita Wenceslai (Legenda Gumpoldi)

Mercy in the Court of Judgment

Blessed Wenceslas, adorned with virtue, used his judicial influence to intercede for the condemned, imitating Christ's command not to judge or condemn.

So the way of life of this most blessed young man, adorned with these shining gems of virtue, became so devoted to the study of piety that whenever discussions were arranged—whether public conferences or settlements ordered between the judges' and people's benches—with edicts published, and with him taking an even more prominent role in any matter coming before the court, if perhaps someone detained on a charge, condemned by a death sentence even though it was deserved, had been brought before him to face the accusers' damning judgment (he would have gone free from the proceedings, immune through his intercession); but if that merciful ruler, with the necessity of the law unchanged and the judges in no way won over by his entreaties to remit the payment in any degree, recognized that the accused by law must be rescued from that dreadful sentence—longing at last to withdraw those holy countenances, unstained by bloody slaughter, he would step in, by whatever manner of excusable reasoning, consent, and judgment he could offer, as a wholesome imitator, sharp in natural wit, of the evangelical precept in which it is commanded: Do not judge, and you will not be judged; do not condemn, and you will not be condemned.^✦12 *