{"author":null,"canonical_references":[],"date_end":null,"date_start":null,"deduplication_fingerprint":"faeb4f9f64653dfd249a94ae56dd3f6a216fcbba6965dd98fd3ac82e93df9e35","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":[],"headings":["THE WORKS OF AURELIUS AUGUSTINE,","BOOK FIRST."],"id":"pg45304-paragraph-80","license_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/policy/license.html","note_targets":[],"public_import_allowed":false,"record_kind":"original-paragraph-unclassified","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":null,"source_ebook":45304,"source_html":"<p>It is not without significance, that in no passage of the\r\nholy canonical books there can be found either divine precept\r\nor permission to take away our own life, whether for the sake\r\nof entering on the enjoyment of immortality, or of shunning,\r\nor ridding ourselves of anything whatever. Nay, the law,\r\nrightly interpreted, even prohibits suicide, where it says,\r\n\"Thou shalt not kill.\" This is proved specially by the<span class=\"pagenum\"><a id=\"Page_31\">[Pg 31]</a></span>\r\nomission of the words \"thy neighbour,\" which are inserted\r\nwhen false witness is forbidden: \"Thou shalt not bear false\r\nwitness against thy neighbour.\" Nor yet should any one on\r\nthis account suppose he has not broken this commandment if\r\nhe has borne false witness only against himself. For the love\r\nof our neighbour is regulated by the love of ourselves, as it is\r\nwritten, \"Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.\" If, then,\r\nhe who makes false statements about himself is not less guilty\r\nof bearing false witness than if he had made them to the injury\r\nof his neighbour; although in the commandment prohibiting\r\nfalse witness only his neighbour is mentioned, and persons\r\ntaking no pains to understand it might suppose that a man\r\nwas allowed to be a false witness to his own hurt; how much\r\ngreater reason have we to understand that a man may not\r\nkill himself, since in the commandment, \"Thou shalt not kill,\"\r\nthere is no limitation added nor any exception made in favour\r\nof any one, and least of all in favour of him on whom the\r\ncommand is laid! And so some attempt to extend this command\r\neven to beasts and cattle, as if it forbade us to take life\r\nfrom any creature. But if so, why not extend it also to the\r\nplants, and all that is rooted in and nourished by the earth?\r\nFor though this class of creatures have no sensation, yet they\r\nalso are said to live, and consequently they can die; and therefore,\r\nif violence be done them, can be killed. So, too, the\r\napostle, when speaking of the seeds of such things as these,\r\nsays, \"That which thou sowest is not quickened except it\r\ndie;\" and in the Psalm it is said, \"He killed their vines with\r\nhail.\" Must we therefore reckon it a breaking of this commandment,\r\n\"Thou shalt not kill,\" to pull a flower? Are we\r\nthus insanely to countenance the foolish error of the Manichæans?\r\nPutting aside, then, these ravings, if, when we say,\r\nThou shalt not kill, we do not understand this of the plants,\r\nsince they have no sensation, nor of the irrational animals\r\nthat fly, swim, walk, or creep, since they are dissociated from\r\nus by their want of reason, and are therefore by the just\r\nappointment of the Creator subjected to us to kill or keep\r\nalive for our own uses; if so, then it remains that we understand\r\nthat commandment simply of man. The commandment\r\nis, \"Thou shalt not kill man;\" therefore neither another nor<span class=\"pagenum\"><a id=\"Page_32\">[Pg 32]</a></span>\r\nyourself, for he who kills himself still kills nothing else than\r\nman.</p>","source_sha256":"d89e9a2b80bb59f394f0fb1bf313b39fab162f06af6642166d62c5912c1195f1","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/45304/pg45304-images.html","text_sha256":"b585521f30d4ed71c7575f68cef841d8fc0a969af93b5b9e9ea67844fdaf6e77","verified":false,"work_id":null}