The earliest example of a Christian making a vow is that of St. Paul, recorded in Acts xviii. 18. In Acts xxi. 23, there is a reference to four members of the Church of Jerusalem who had a vow on them. Hegessipus1 tells us that St. James, Bishop of Jerusalem, was under Nazarite vows. St. Paul's direction to St. Timothy, in 1 Tim. v. II, mentions the peril of admitting younger widows to the order of widows -ordo viduarum, as it was later styled-lest being tempted to break their vow of continence they marry, "having damnation, because they have cast off their first faith." "What is this first faith they have made void?" asks St. Augustine. They have vowed and have not paid." "They have made of none effect the faith whereby they formerly vowed what they were unwilling by perseverance to fulfil." Among modern commentators Bishop Jackson, of London, follows St. Augustine and interprets the expression "their first faith" as the "promise or engagement" made when admitted to the order of widows. Dr. Liddon (commentary on the first Epistle to St. Timothy) speaks of these apostates "carrying within them a sentence of condemnation, to the effect that they have broken their first compact with Christ." From Apostolic days, the spirit that leads to making vows was strong in the Church, and men and women were encouraged to give themselves generously to God under various kinds of vows, which were 1 Eusebius, Hist. Eccl., ii, 23. Migne, P.G., Tom xx, col 197. 2 St. Augustine. In Psal. lxxv, 16. Migne, P L., Tom. xxxvi, col. 968. 3 St. Augustine, De Bono Viduitatis, cap. viii, Migne, P.L., Tom. xl, col. 437. received by the Church, and enforced sometimes by severe penalties. The highest and most meritorious for both men and women was that of virginity and chastity, as we shall see from St. Augustine, below. St. Justin Martyr speaks of knowing many men and women of sixty and seventy years old who had lived virgin lives from their infancy.1 This would carry such cases back to about A.D. 70. As early as the time of St. Ignatius of Antioch (A.D. IIO), women who had bound themselves by a vow of virginity appear to have been in some degree segregated, and by the end of the third century they became a special "Ordo" in the Church.3 St. Augustine urges Christians to be ready to place themselves under vows. "Be ye not slow to vow," he says, "for ye will accomplish the vows with power not your own. Ye will fail, if on yourselves ye rely; but if on Him to whom ye vow ye rely, ye will be safe to pay. "'4 He mentions in the same place many kinds of vows Christians in his day were accustomed to make: One voweth to God conjugal chastity. . . Others vow even virginity from the beginning of life . . . and these men have vowed the greatest vow. Others vow that their houses shall be a place of entertainment for all the Saints that may come; a great vow they vow. Another voweth to relinquish all his 1 St. Justin Martyr, I Apolog., 15. Migne, P. G., Tom. vi, col. 350. 2 St. Ignatius, Ep. ad Smyrn, cap. xiii. Migne, P. G., Tom. v, col. 717. 3 See Lightfoot, Apostolic Fathers, Vol. ii, sec. 1. 4 St. Augustine, In Psal., lxxv, cap. xvi. Migne, P. L., Tom. xxxvi, col. 967. goods to be distributed to the poor and go into a community, a society of the Saints; a great vow he voweth.” From its earliest days, however, the Church was careful lest unconsidered vows be taken, or improper persons be admitted to them. St. Chrysostom declared that "infinite mischief had been caused by putting widows on the list without due discrimination"; and St. Ambrose says, "It is better to make no vow than to vow what God does not wish." The Apostolic Constitutions say, "We permit virginity as a vow to those who wish it, only urging this upon them, that they make not any profession rashly."4 IV. Of the Irrevocability of Vows While there were cases, no doubt, where Religious, and others under vows, were in some sense relieved of their obligations, with or without good cause, it is a question whether after perpetual vows began to be assumed, any sort of dispensation, in the earlier ages of the Church, was ever contemplated. Certainly none of the ordinary provisions for it that arose in later and laxer times were known. St. Paul, as we have seen from 1 Tim. v. II, does not contemplate any dispensation of widows from their "compact with Christ, and Father Puller, commenting on 1 St. Augustine, In Psal., lxxv, cap. xvi. Migne, P. L., Tom. xxxvi, col. 967. 655. 2 St. Chrysostom, de Sacer, iii, 16. Migne, P. G., Tom. xlviii, col. 3 St. Ambrose, De Officiis Ministrorum, Lib. iii, cap. xii. Migne, P. L., Tom. xvi, col. 177. 4 Const. Apos., Lib. iv, cap. xiv. this passage, observes, "No doubt, if they married they were struck off the roll of widows, but separation from their Order did not relieve them from the condemnation which resulted from the breach of their sacred engagement.”1 The Fathers teem with passages condemnatory of any sort of drawing back from the obligation incurred, and none of them seems ever to consider the question of relief being granted through what in later ages was known as dispensation. When we come down to the centuries following the founding and organization of the English Church, we still find little or nothing about dispensations. True, one of King Alfred's Laws Ecclesiastical, of the year 877, provides for dealing with the case of a nun who departs from her monastery "without the leave of the king or bishop."2 This has been thought by some to imply that the king and bishop both had some power of dispensing. This conclusion is very doubtful, especially in view of the fact that it may refer to the right the bishop had to give Religious leave to pass beyond the enclosure, this having no reference, however, to dispensation from their vows. But, if it be true, it would indicate an abuse of a marked character, and wholly without the warrant of the Rules by which Religious of the period were bound. That the king should claim the power of dispensing Religious vows would be unthinkable in any but an age most corrupt. The Benedictine Rule contains no suggestion of 1 From a privately printed letter by the Rev. F. W. Puller, S.S.J.E. 2 Johnson, English Canons, Vol. i, 321-22. provision for dispensation. "The Rule contemplates, indeed, the possibility of a monk retrograding from his promise, and re-entering the world which he had renounced, but only as an act of apostasy, committed at the instigation of the devil." St. Basil is very definite on the subject. In his "Longer Rules" he treats "Concerning those who have devoted themselves to God, and then seek to set aside their profession." Here there is no suggestion that vows can be commuted or dispensed. Anyone," he says, "who has been received into the brotherhood, and then sets aside his profession, must be regarded as sinning against God Himself, before Whom and to Whom he has made his vows in profession; even as it is said, ' But if a man sin against the Lord, who shall entreat for him? '2 For he who has given himself as an offering to God, and then betakes himself to another kind of life, is guilty of sacrilege by stealing himself away and so robbing God of his offering.”3 St. Basil has been said to have "introduced the practice of irrevocable vows into the monastic life." This means scarcely more than that his is the earliest direct written testimony (the Rules were written about 358-361) we have concerning the irrevocability of vows, and that his Rules were the first formal monastic documents that set forth the nature of the binding force of Religious vows. From the form of language he employs, it is evident that he was but 1 Smith and Cheetham, Christian Antiquities, i, p. 187. |