Militem potestati obedientem non peccare si hominem occidat
Obedience and the Use of the Sword
Augustine argues that a soldier who kills in lawful obedience to authority does not commit homicide, whereas acting on his own initiative would make him guilty of bloodshed.
Augustine says in his book The City of God (book 1, chapter 26) that a soldier who is obedient to the authority under which he serves does not sin if he kills a man. I, c. 26): "When a soldier, obedient to the authority under which he is lawfully appointed, kills a man, he is not guilty of homicide under any law of his own commonwealth. Indeed, if he had not done it, he would be guilty of abandoning and scorning the authority entrusted to him. But if he had done it on his own initiative and by his own authority, he would have fallen into the charge of shedding human blood. So the very fact that he is punished for doing it without orders proves that he will be punished unless he does it when ordered.
From Human Kings to the Creator
The argument intensifies by reasoning from lesser to greater: if obedience to a king excuses killing, obedience to God applies even more, including the question of taking one's own life when divinely commanded.
But if this is true when the king commands, how much more so when the Creator commands? The one, therefore, who hears that it is not permitted to take his own life — let him do so if ordered by the one whose commands it is not permitted to scorn. Only, let him consider carefully whether the divine command rests on anything uncertain.
The Inner Witness of Conscience
The conscience, through the inner spirit, is the proper tribunal for discerning hidden matters, as Paul teaches that only a person's own spirit knows what is within.
Through the ear of conscience we call ourselves to account, and we don't presume to judge things that are hidden — no one knows what's going on inside a person except the spirit of that person within them (1 Cor.✦ II). »
Read the original Latin
Militem potestati sub qua est obedientem non peccare si hominem occidat, Augustinus in libro de Civitate Dei (lib. I, c. 26): « Miles, cum obediens potestati, sub qua legitime constitutus est, hominem occidit, nulla civitatis suae lege reus est homicidii: imo nisi fecerit, reus est imperii deserti atque contempti. Quod si sua sponte atque auctoritate fecisset, in crimen effusi humani sanguinis incidisset. Itaque unde punitur si fecisset injussus, inde punietur nisi fecerit jussus. Quod si ita est jubente rege, quanto magis jubente Creatore? Qui ergo audit non licere se occidere, faciat si jussit cujus non licet jussa contemnere. Tantummodo videat utrum divina jussio nullo nutet incerto.
Nos per aurem conscientiam convenimus, occultorum nobis judicium non usurpamus, nemo scit quid agatur in homine, nisi spiritus hominis qui in ipso est (I Cor. II). »
Scripture echoes
- ↩1Cor.2.11 — For who among people knows the things of a person except the person's own spirit within? So also no one has known the things of God except the Spirit of God.
On the Person and Ministry of the King (De regis persona et regio ministerio) companion
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