Jesus and Prohibition

In an article entitled "Oath Taking in the Community of the New Age (Matthew 5:33-37)," Don Garlington calls Jesus' prohibition against swearing an oddity and the avoidance of swearing by certain Christian sects a superficial application of the logion.[1] As a member of one such group, the Mennonites, I offer an apology rather than a rebutal. Mennonites make affirmations rather than swear oaths in order to fulfil Jesus' command often without wondering if they have fulfilled his intention. When they find rationale for their avoidance of oaths, they tend to point to swearing as an occasion for sin rather than something sinful in itself. According to the Mennonite Encyclopedia, one avoids swearing in order to avoid an inadvertant sin of error or the habit of lying when one is not under oath.[2] Both of these reasons for minding the prohibition can be extrapolated from the Matthean text, but neither explains why the act of swearing a truthful oath is from evil. In order to comprehend Jesus' intent, we need to examine Jesus' understanding of language as a human activty that is not always accompanied by mindfulness of the reality that makes it potent, possible, and meaningful.
Given that modern usage of "to swear" has come to include the acts of cursing and of using colorful expletives, a definition based upon biblical usage is essential. An oath is a performative utterance; it does not describe something, it does something.[3] According to speech-act theory, an oath accomplishes a number of separate acts. First, it can either expound a view by making a statement of fact regarding past or present events or it can commit the speaker to an obligation in the future. The oath's power to expound or commit relies upon its capacity to execute a second speech-act, the act of invoking God or some divine authority as a witness or guarantor. Finally, the oath puts into place a third speech-act, a conditional curse. Zechariah illustrates the potential of the curse with the...