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It is not without significance, that in no passage of the holy
canonical books there can be found either divine precept or permission
to take away our own life, whether for the sake of entering on the
enjoyment of immortality, or of shunning, or ridding ourselves of
anything whatever. Nay, the law, rightly interpreted, even
prohibits suicide, where it says, "Thou shalt not kill." This is
proved especially by the omission of the words "thy neighbor," which
are inserted when false witness is forbidden: "Thou shalt not bear
false witness against thy neighbor." Nor yet should any one on this
account suppose he has not broken this commandment if he has borne false
witness only against himself. For the love of our neighbor is
regulated by the love of ourselves, as it is written, "Thou shalt
love thy neighbor as thyself." If, then, he who makes false
statements about himself is not less guilty of bearing false witness
than if he had made them to the injury of his neighbor; although in the
commandment prohibiting false witness only his neighbor is mentioned,
and persons taking no pains to understand it might suppose that a man
was allowed to be a false witness to his own hurt; how much greater
reason have we to understand that a man may not kill himself, since in
the commandment," Thou shalt not kill," there is no limitation
added nor any exception made in favor of any one, and least of all in
favor of him on whom the command is laid! And so some attempt to
extend this command even to beasts and cattle, as if it forbade us to
take life from any creature. But if so, why not extend it also to the
plants, and all that is rooted in and nourished by the earth? For
though this class of creatures have no sensation, yet they also are
said to live, and consequently they can die; and therefore, if
violence be done them, can be killed. So, too, the apostle, when
speaking of the seeds of such things as these, says, "That which
thou sowest is not quickened except it die;" and in the Psalm it is
said, "He killed their vines with hail." Must we therefore reckon
it a breaking of this commandment, "Thou shalt not kill," to pull a
flower? Are we thus insanely to countenance the foolish error of the
Manichaeans? Putting aside, then, these ravings, if, when we
say, Thou shalt not kill, we do not understand this of the plants,
since they have no sensation, nor of the irrational animals that fly,
swim, walk, or creep, since they are dissociated from us by their
want of reason, and are therefore by the just appointment of the
Creator subjected to us to kill or keep alive for our own uses; if
so, then it remains that we understand that commandment simply of man.
The commandment is, "Thou shall not kill man;" therefore neither
another nor yourself, for he who kills himself still kills nothing else
than man.
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