Testimonia

{"author":null,"backreferences":[{"context_html":"<p>There remains one reason for suicide which I mentioned\r\nbefore, and which is thought a sound one,—namely, to prevent\r\none's falling into sin either through the blandishments of\r\npleasure or the violence of pain. If this reason were a good\r\none, then we should be impelled to exhort men at once to\r\ndestroy themselves, as soon as they have been washed in the\r\nlaver of regeneration, and have received the forgiveness of all\r\nsin. Then is the time to escape all future sin, when all past\r\nsin is blotted out. And if this escape be lawfully secured by\r\nsuicide, why not then specially? Why does any baptized person\r\nhold his hand from taking his own life? Why does any\r\nperson who is freed from the hazards of this life again expose\r\nhimself to them, when he has power so easily to rid himself\r\nof them all, and when it is written, \"He who loveth danger\r\nshall fall into it?\"<a id=\"FNanchor_76_76\"></a><a class=\"fnanchor pginternal\" href=\"#Footnote_76_76\">[76]</a> Why does he love, or at least face, so\r\nmany serious dangers, by remaining in this life from which\r\nhe may legitimately depart? But is any one so blinded and\r\ntwisted in his moral nature, and so far astray from the truth,<span class=\"pagenum\"><a id=\"Page_39\">[Pg 39]</a></span>\r\nas to think that, though a man ought to make away with himself\r\nfor fear of being led into sin by the oppression of one\r\nman, his master, he ought yet to live, and so expose himself\r\nto the hourly temptations of this world, both to all those\r\nevils which the oppression of one master involves, and to\r\nnumberless other miseries in which this life inevitably implicates\r\nus? What reason, then, is there for our consuming time\r\nin those exhortations by which we seek to animate the baptized,\r\neither to virginal chastity, or vidual continence, or\r\nmatrimonial fidelity, when we have so much more simple\r\nand compendious a method of deliverance from sin, by persuading\r\nthose who are fresh from baptism to put an end to\r\ntheir lives, and so pass to their Lord pure and well-conditioned?\r\nIf any one thinks that such persuasion should be attempted, I\r\nsay not he is foolish, but mad. With what face, then, can he\r\nsay to any man, \"Kill yourself, lest to your small sins you\r\nadd a heinous sin, while you live under an unchaste master,\r\nwhose conduct is that of a barbarian?\" How can he say this,\r\nif he cannot without wickedness say, \"Kill yourself, now that\r\nyou are washed from all your sins, lest you fall again into\r\nsimilar or even aggravated sins, while you live in a world\r\nwhich has such power to allure by its unclean pleasures, to\r\ntorment by its horrible cruelties, to overcome by its errors\r\nand terrors?\" It is wicked to say this; it is therefore wicked\r\nto kill oneself. For if there could be any just cause of\r\nsuicide, this were so. And since not even this is so, there is\r\nnone.</p>","headings":["THE WORKS OF AURELIUS AUGUSTINE,","BOOK FIRST."],"marker_anchor":null,"paragraph_id":"pg45304-paragraph-95"}],"canonical_references":[],"date_end":null,"date_start":null,"deduplication_fingerprint":"cb58fc542d9af8102edf4375056acc3860053908691d486b89ac31041ec475f8","edition_title":"The City of God, Volume I","edition_translators":["Marcus Dods","George Wilson (Book IV)","J. J. Smith (Books V-VIII)"],"edition_year":1871,"explicit_reference_candidates":[{"book":"SIR","chapter":3,"kind":"unreviewed","source_notation":"Ecclus. iii. 27","verse":27,"verse_end":27}],"headings":[],"id":"pg45304-Footnote_76_76","license_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/policy/license.html","public_import_allowed":false,"record_kind":"original-editor-translator-note","review_required":["work and recension attribution","original-work chronology","Bible reference numbering and citation kind","English edition rights and attribution"],"review_status":"needs_review","rights_evidence":"Provider catalog reports public domain in the USA. Original transcription title leaves state T. & T. Clark, Edinburgh, 1871; printed translator allocation retained. Gutenberg credits Internet Archive/Canadian Libraries without an exact scan identifier. Full provider license preserved with acquired original; republication and per-work metadata remain unreviewed.","source_anchor":"Footnote_76_76","source_ebook":45304,"source_html":"<div class=\"footnote\">\n<p><a id=\"Footnote_76_76\"></a><a class=\"pginternal\" href=\"#FNanchor_76_76\"><span class=\"label\">[76]</span></a> Ecclus. iii. 27.</p></div>","source_sha256":"d89e9a2b80bb59f394f0fb1bf313b39fab162f06af6642166d62c5912c1195f1","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/45304/pg45304-images.html#Footnote_76_76","text_sha256":"4cf5a3dd1be9d0e91e4281833d1e786f955f1060b3669a3b773384aeefbf7872","verified":false,"work_id":null}

references: [] | work_id: | origin: existing-private-derived-record | source: https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/45304/pg45304-images.html#Footnote_76_76