THE BIBLE
The only Biblical authority is the interpretation of the sixth
commandment, "Thou Shalt Not Kill". The Old Testament records suicides,
but does not condemn it nor promises a happy afterlife.
Ablimlech - (Judges 9) who killed himself to avoid having it recorded
that he was mortally wounded by a woman.
Samson - (Judges 16) who pulled the temple down upon the Philistines,
killing them and praying that he die as well.
Saul - (Samuel 31) and his armor-bearer killed themselves rather than
be taken captive by the Philistines.
Ahitophel - (Samuel 17) whose betrayal of David failed.
Zimiri - (Kings 1) burned a building down upon himself.
CHRISTIANITY
The New Testament records one
suicide.
Judas Iscariot (Mathew 27) Judas hanged himself after his betrayal of
Christ. Theologians have debated, if God did condemn Judas, was it
because he killed himself (in remorse for the betrayal) or for the
betrayal itself.
The New Testament hails both
Samson and Saul as great servants of God.
Samson is noted as a great hero of the faith "of whom the world was not
worthy". (Hebrews 11)
The advent of Christianity brought marked changes in attitudes toward
suicide. At first there were many suicides by early Christians,
especially by martyrs who found the attraction of the promised
afterlife in paradise greater than the hardships of their life on
earth.
The Church could ill afford to
lose so many of its supporters at that time, and a quick halt to the
rash of suicides was brought about in the 4th Century A.D. when St.
Augustine codified the Church's official disapproval of suicide by
placing it in a moral framework and condemning it as a grievous sin. As
a result, in the Middle Ages, from about the 4th to the 13th century,
when the Catholic Church held great sway in Europe, suicide became
practically unknown.
Thomas Aquinas, in the 13th
century, further specified the Church's attitude toward suicide in his
great writings about Church and God, Summa Theologica, when he condemns
suicide as unnatural and a usurpation of God's power to dispose at His
discretion man's life, death and resurrection. Yet even in this
writing, which was to become the center of Christian doctrine, Aquinas
takes his arguments from Plato and Aristotle, not from the Bible.
During the 14th and 15th
centuries (Renaissance) suicide was severely condemned. This period
brought rise to the industrial revolution, the incorporation of the
Protestant Ethic into Anglo-Saxon culture, and the rise of Puritanism,
a religious outlook that also condemned poverty as sin and unworthiness.
JUDAISM
In addition to the suicides recorded in the Old Testament, two accounts
exist from the Maccabean period. Razis, an elder of Jerusalem during
the Maccabean revolt, killed himself to avoid being captured by Syrian
general Nicanor (II Macc. 14:37- 46).
The mother of seven sons
murdered by Antiochus IV threw herself upon their funeral pyre (IV
Macc. 17:1f).
In the first century A.D. two
accounts are recorded. The first involved a group of Jewish soldiers
under the command of Josephus.
The second was in 73 A.D. when 953 Jews of Masada completed mass
suicide to avoid Roman capture.
The TALMUD, written and
codified during the early Christian era, specifically condemns suicide.
The TALMUD's condemnation of suicide is based on the interpretation of
Gen. 9:5 'For your lifeblood I will surely require a reckoning'. Only
self-inflicted deaths under extreme situations were acceptable, such as
in apostasy, ignominy, and disgrace of capture or torture. The victim
and his family were punished by denial of regular burial and the
customary rituals of mourning. The severity of this punishment caused
rabbis of the time to consider a self-inflicted death as only those
announced beforehand and carried out in front of eye witnesses.
Modern Jewish scholars believe
that the harshest Jewish treatment of suicide was partly due to the
negative Christian influence on the subject. (Ch.W. Reines, "The Jewish
Attitude Toward Suicide", Judaism, Vol. 10, Spring 1966, p.170.
MOHAMMEDANIS always
condemned suicide with the utmost severity, for one of the cardinal
teachings of Mohammed was that the Divine Will was expressed in
different ways and man must submit himself at all times.
BUDDHISM & BRAHMANISM
were both sympathetic to suicide for it denied life's craving and
passion. Most oriental philosophies had a common objective, to divorce
the body from the soul so that the soul might occupy itself only with
super sensual realities.
"The idea of suicide as a crime
was a late, relatively sophisticated invention of Christianity
strengthened by primitive fears, prejudices and superstitions" (The
Savage God, a study of suicide; A. Alvarez.) John H. Hewett in After
Suicide quotes "If there is forgiveness at all there is surely
forgiveness for suicide" (Karl Barth, Church Dogmatics, Vol. III/4, p.
405; tr by A.T. Mackay et all; T & T Clark, 1961).
Legal and social attitudes
about suicide throughout history evolved from canonical law. During the
Middle Ages the suicide was deemed as low as the lowest criminal and
was discouraged by exhibition and desecration of the body, defamation
of the memory and confiscation of the estate by the government, leaving
the surviving family ostracized and destitute. Attempters were punished
by flogging, imprisonment and were stripped of all social and financial
assets. Desecration of the corpse and forfeiture of estate were not
legally abolished in England until 1823. In 1961 England repealed its
law making attempted suicide a crime; Canada repealed a similar law in
1972. As late as 1974 in the United States, attempting suicide was
still considered(State end??)
