It seems that the Roman people, before the influence of Christianity made itself felt, regarded suicide with considerable moral indifference. According to Servius, it was provided by the Pontifical laws that whoever hanged himself should be cast out unburied;[166] but from what has been said before it is probable that this practice only owed its origin to fear of the dead man’s ghost. Vergil enumerates self-murderers not among the guilty, but among the unfortunate, confounding them with infants who have died prematurely and persons who have been condemned to die on a false charge.[167] Throughout the whole history of pagan Rome there was no statute declaring it to be a crime for an ordinary citizen to take his own life. The self-murderer’s rights were in no way affected by his deed, his memory was no less honoured than if he had died a natural death, his will was recognised by law, and the regular order of succession was not interfered with.[168] In Roman law there are only two noteworthy exceptions to the rule that suicide is a matter with which the State has nothing to do: it was prohibited in the case of soldiers,[169] and the enactment was made that the suicide of an accused person should entail the same consequences as his condemnation; but in the latter instance the deed was admitted as a confession of guilt.[170] On the other hand, it seems to have been the general opinion in Rome that suicide under certain circumstances is an heroic and praiseworthy act.[171] Even Cicero, who professed the doctrine of Pythagoras,[172] approved of the death of Cato.[173]
[166] Servius, Commentarii in Virgilii Æneidos, xii. 603.
[167] Vergil, Æneis, vi. 426 sqq.
[168] Bourquelot, ‘Recherches sur les opinions et la législation en matière de mort volontaire pendant le moyen age,’ in Bibliothèque de l’École des Chartes, iii. 544. Geiger, op. cit. p. 64 sqq. Bynkershoek, Observationes Juris Romani, iv. 4, p. 350.
[169] Digesta, xlix. 16. 6. 7.
[170] Ibid. xlviii. 21. 3 pr. Cf. Bourquelot, op. cit. iii. 543 sq.; Gibbon, Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, v. 326; Lecky, History of European Morals, i. 219.
[171] Stäudlin, Geschichte der Vorstellungen und Lehren vom Selbstmorde, p. 62 sq.
[172] Cicero, Cato Major, 20 (72 sq.).
[173] Idem, De officiis, i. 31 (112).
In no question of morality was there a greater difference between classical and Christian doctrines than in regard to suicide. The earlier Fathers of the Church still allowed, or even approved of, suicide in certain cases, namely, when committed in order to procure martyrdom,[174] or to avoid apostacy, or to retain the crown of virginity. To bring death upon ourselves voluntarily, says Lactantius, is a wicked and impious deed; “but when urged to the alternative, either of forsaking God and relinquishing faith, or of expecting all torture and death, then it is that undaunted in spirit we defy that death with all its previous threats and terrors which others fear.”[175] Eusebius and other ecclesiastical writers mention several instances of Christian women putting an end to their lives when their chastity was in danger, and their acts are spoken of with tenderness, if not approbation; indeed, some of them were admitted into the calendar of saints.[176] This admission was due to the extreme honour in which virginity was held by the Fathers; St. Jerome, who denied that it was lawful in times of persecution to die by one’s own hands, made an exception for cases in which a person’s chastity was at stake.[177] But even this exception was abolished by St. Augustine. He allows that the virgins who laid violent hands upon themselves are worthy of compassion, but declares that there was no necessity for their doing so, since chastity is a virtue of the mind which is not lost by the body being in captivity to the will and superior force of another. He argues that there is no passage in the canonical Scriptures which permits us to destroy ourselves either with a view to obtaining immortality or to avoiding calamity. On the contrary, suicide is prohibited in the commandment, “Thou shalt not kill,” namely, “neither thyself nor another”; for he who kills himself kills no other but a man.[178] This doctrine, which assimilates suicide with murder, was adopted by the Church.[179] Nay, self-murder was declared to be the worst form of murder, “the most grievous thing of all”;[180] already St. Chrysostom had declared that “if it is base to destroy others, much more is it to destroy one’s self.”[181] The self-murderer was deprived of rights which were granted to all other criminals. In the sixth century a Council at Orleans enjoined that “the oblations of those who were killed in the commission of any crime may be received, except of such as laid violent hands on themselves”;[182] and a subsequent Council denied self-murderers the usual rites of Christian burial.[183] It was even said that Judas committed a greater sin in killing himself than in betraying his master Christ to a certain death.[184]