The Fifth Commandment

179] Thou shalt not kill.

180] We have now completed both the spiritual and the temporal government, that is, the

divine and the paternal authority and obedience. But here now we go forth from our house

among our neighbors to learn how we should live with one another, every one himself

toward his neighbor. 181] Therefore God and government are not included in this

commandment, nor is the power to kill, which they have, taken away. For God has delegated

His authority to punish evil‐doers to the government instead of parents, who aforetime (as

we read in Moses) were required to bring their own children to judgment and sentence them

to death. Therefore, what is here forbidden is forbidden to the individual in his relation to

any one else, and not to the government.

182] Now this commandment is easy enough, and has been often treated, because we hear it

annually in the Gospel of St. Matthew, 5, 21ff, where Christ Himself explains and sums it up,

namely, that we must not kill, neither with hand, heart, mouth, signs, gestures, help, nor

counsel. Therefore it is here forbidden to every one to be angry, except those (as we said)

who are in the place of God, that is, parents and the government. For it is proper for God and

for every one who is in a divine estate to be angry, to reprove and punish, namely, on

account of those very persons who transgress this and the other commandments.

183] But the cause and need of this commandment is that God well knows that the world is

evil, and that this life has much unhappiness; therefore He has placed this and the other

commandments between the good and the evil. Now, as there are many assaults upon all

commandments, so it happens also in this commandment that we must live among many

people who do us harm, so that we have cause to be hostile to them.

184] As when your neighbor sees that you have a better house and home [a larger family and

more fertile fields], greater possessions and fortune from God than he, he is sulky, envies

you, and speaks no good of you.

Thus by the devil's incitement you will get many enemies who cannot bear to see you have

any good, either bodily or spiritual. When we see such people, our hearts, in turn, would rage

and bleed and take vengeance. Then there arise cursing and blows, from which follow finally

misery and murder. Here, now, God like a kind father steps in ahead of us, interposes and

wishes to have the quarrel settled, that no misfortune come of it, nor one destroy another.

And briefly, He would hereby protect, set free, and keep in peace every one against the crime

and violence of every one else; and would have this commandment placed as a wall, fortress,

and refuge about our neighbor, that we do him no hurt nor harm in his body.

186] Thus this commandment aims at this, that no one offend his neighbor on account of any

evil deed, even though he have fully deserved it. For where murder is forbidden, all cause

also is forbidden whence murder may originate. For many a one, although he does not kill,

yet curses and utters a wish, which would stop a person from running far if it were to strike

him in the neck [makes imprecations, which if fulfilled with respect to any one, he would not

live long]. 187] Now, since this inheres in every one by nature and it is a common practise

that no one is willing to suffer at the hands of another, God wishes to remove the root and

source by which the heart is embittered against our neighbor, and to accustom us ever to

keep in view this commandment, always to contemplate ourselves in it as in a mirror, to

regard the will of God, and with hearty confidence and invocation of His name to commit to

Him the wrong which we suffer. Thus we shall suffer our enemies to rage and be angry, doing

what they can, and we learn to calm our wrath, and to have a patient, gentle heart, especially

toward those who give us cause to be angry, that is, our enemies.

188] Therefore the entire sum of what it means not to kill is to be impressed most explicitly

upon the simpleminded. In the first place, that we harm no one, first, with our hand or by

deed. Then, that we do not employ our tongue to instigate or counsel thereto. Further, that

we neither use nor assent to any kind of means or methods whereby any one may be injured.

And finally, that the heart be not ill disposed toward any one, nor from anger and hatred

wish him ill, so that body and soul may be innocent in regard to every one, but especially

those who wish you evil or inflict such upon you. For to do evil to one who wishes and does

you good is not human, but diabolical.

189] Secondly, under this commandment not only he is guilty who does evil to his neighbor,

but he also who can do him good, prevent, resist evil, defend and save him, so that no bodily

harm or hurt happen to him, and yet does not do it. 190] If, therefore, you send away one

that is naked when you could clothe him, you have caused him to freeze to death; if you see

one suffer hunger and do not give him food, you have caused him to starve. So also, if you

see any one innocently sentenced to death or in like distress, and do not save him, although

you know ways and means to do so, you have killed him. And it will not avail you to make the

pretext that you did not afford any help, counsel, or aid thereto, for you have withheld your

love from him and deprived him of the benefit whereby his life would have been saved.

191] Therefore God also rightly calls all those murderers who do not afford counsel and help

in distress and danger of body and life, and will pass a most terrible sentence upon them in

the last day, as Christ Himself has announced when He shall say, Matt. 25, 42f : I was an

hungred, and ye gave Me no meat; I was thirsty, and ye gave Me no drink; I was a stranger,

and ye took Me not in; naked, and ye clothed Me not; sick and in prison, and ye visited Me

not. That is: You would have suffered Me and Mine to die of hunger, thirst, and cold, would

have suffered the wild beasts to tear us to pieces, or left us to rot in prison or perish in

distress. What else is that but to reproach them 192] as murderers and bloodhounds? For

although you have not actually done all this, you have nevertheless, so far as you were

concerned, suffered him to pine and perish in misfortune.

It is just as if I saw some one navigating and laboring in deep water [and struggling against

adverse winds] or one fallen into fire, and could extend to him the hand to pull him out and

save him, and yet refused to do it. What else would I appear, even in the eyes of the world,

than as a murderer and a criminal?

193] Therefore it is God's ultimate purpose that we suffer harm to befall no man, but show

him all good and love; 194] and, as we have said, it is specially directed toward those who are

our enemies. For to do good to our friends is but an ordinary heathen virtue, as Christ says

Matt. 5, 46.

195] Here we have again the Word of God whereby He would encourage and urge us to true

noble and sublime works, as gentleness, patience, and, in short, love and kindness to our

enemies, and would ever remind us to reflect upon the First Commandment, that He is our

God, that is, that He will help, assist, and protect us, in order that He may thus quench the

desire of revenge in us.

196] This we ought to practise and inculcate, and we would have our hands full doing good

works. 197] But this would not be preaching for monks; it would greatly detract from the

religious estate, and infringe upon the sanctity of Carthusians, and would even be regarded

as forbidding good works and clearing the convents. For in this wise the ordinary state of

Christians would be considered just as worthy, and even worthier, and everybody would see

how they mock and delude the world with a false, hypocritical show of holiness, because

they have given this and other commandments to the winds, and have esteemed them

unnecessary, as though they were not commandments, but mere counsels; and have at the

same time shamelessly proclaimed and boasted their hypocritical estate and works as the

most perfect life, in order that they might lead a pleasant, easy life, without the cross and

without patience, for which reason, too, they have resorted to the cloisters, so that they

might not be obliged to suffer any wrong from any one or to do him any good. 198] But know

now that these are the true, holy, and godly works, in which, with all the angels, He rejoices,

in comparison with which all human holiness is but stench and filth, and, besides, deserves

nothing but wrath and damnation.