Letter 85: It is my invariable custom to protest at every synod and to urge privately in conversation, that oaths about the taxes ought not to be imposed on husbandmen by the collectors. It remains for me to bear witness, on the same matters, in writing, before God and men, that it behooves you to cease from inflicting death upon men's souls, and to devise...
Basil of Caesarea→Unknown|c. 362 AD|basil caesarea
property economics
Church council; Death & mourning
**On Why Oaths Should Not Be Required**
I make this same argument at every council meeting, and I press it in private conversation too: tax collectors should not be forcing farmers to swear oaths about their taxes.
Now I'm putting it in writing, as my testimony before God and everyone, so there's no ambiguity: **stop wounding people's souls.** Find some other way to collect what's owed, and leave their consciences intact.
I'm not writing because you personally need the lecture — you have your own reasons to fear the Lord. But I want everyone under your authority to learn from your example not to provoke God, and not to let a forbidden sin become something people shrug off just because it's become routine.
Here's the practical reality: these oaths don't even work. They do nothing to help you collect the money, and they do real, undeniable harm to the people swearing them. Once people get comfortable with perjury [swearing false oaths before God], they stop feeling any pressure to actually pay. Instead, they've figured out that the oath itself is a useful trick — a way to stall and buy time.
Think about where this leads. If the Lord punishes the perjured swiftly, your debtors get destroyed and there's no one left to pay you when you come calling. If the Lord is patient and holds back punishment, then — as I said — the people who've tested His patience just end up despising His mercy.
Either way, you lose. And they lose far worse.
So let them stop breaking God's law for nothing. Let them stop sharpening His wrath against themselves.
I've said what needed saying. Those who refuse to listen will see the consequences for themselves.
ST. BASIL OF CAESAREA
That the oath ought not to be taken.
It is my invariable custom to protest at every synod and to urge privately in conversation, that oaths about the taxes ought not to be imposed on husbandmen by the collectors. It remains for me to bear witness, on the same matters, in writing, before God and men, that it behooves you to cease from inflicting death upon men's souls, and to devise some other means of exaction, while you let men keep their souls unwounded. I write thus to you, not as though you needed any spoken exhortation (for you have your own immediate inducements to fear the Lord), but that all your dependents may learn from you not to provoke the Holy One, nor let a forbidden sin become a matter of indifference, through faulty familiarity. No possible good can be done them by oaths, with a view to their paying what is exacted from them, and they suffer an undeniable wrong to the soul. For when men become practised in perjury, they no longer put any pressure on themselves to pay, but they think that they have discovered in the oath a means of trickery and an opportunity for delay. If, then, the Lord brings a sharp retribution on the perjured, when the debtors are destroyed by punishment there will be none to answer when summoned. If on the other hand the Lord endures with long suffering, then, as I said before, those who have tried the patience of the Lord despise His goodness. Let them not break the law in vain; let them not whet the wrath of God against them. I have said what I ought. The disobedient will see.
About this page
Source. Translated by Blomfield Jackson. From Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Second Series, Vol. 8. Edited by Philip Schaff and Henry Wace. (Buffalo, NY: Christian Literature Publishing Co., 1895.) Revised and edited for New Advent by Kevin Knight. <https://www.newadvent.org/fathers/3202085.htm>.
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**On Why Oaths Should Not Be Required**
I make this same argument at every council meeting, and I press it in private conversation too: tax collectors should not be forcing farmers to swear oaths about their taxes.
Now I'm putting it in writing, as my testimony before God and everyone, so there's no ambiguity: **stop wounding people's souls.** Find some other way to collect what's owed, and leave their consciences intact.
I'm not writing because you personally need the lecture — you have your own reasons to fear the Lord. But I want everyone under your authority to learn from your example not to provoke God, and not to let a forbidden sin become something people shrug off just because it's become routine.
Here's the practical reality: these oaths don't even work. They do nothing to help you collect the money, and they do real, undeniable harm to the people swearing them. Once people get comfortable with perjury [swearing false oaths before God], they stop feeling any pressure to actually pay. Instead, they've figured out that the oath itself is a useful trick — a way to stall and buy time.
Think about where this leads. If the Lord punishes the perjured swiftly, your debtors get destroyed and there's no one left to pay you when you come calling. If the Lord is patient and holds back punishment, then — as I said — the people who've tested His patience just end up despising His mercy.
Either way, you lose. And they lose far worse.
So let them stop breaking God's law for nothing. Let them stop sharpening His wrath against themselves.
I've said what needed saying. Those who refuse to listen will see the consequences for themselves.
Modern English rendering for readability. See the 19th-century translation or original Latin/Greek for scholarly use.