Much has been made of the self murder of Ahitophel. Donne has referred to it at some length. He says that in this case there can be “no room for excuse.” Ahitophel was considered one of the wisest counsellors of his age. He joined Absalom in his rebellion against his lawful prince, David; and when he saw that it was God’s determination to defeat his counsel, and that his advice for the first time was neglected, he became full of secret indignation and disappointment; and in order to avoid the consequences of his own utter despair and ruin, for his perfidy, he hanged himself. Nothing can be urged in justification of this act. The facts are presented to us in biblical history; and we are left to form our own judgment upon the course which this “Machiavellian counsellor,” as he has been termed, thought proper to adopt.
Donne has also cited the case of Judas Iscariot.[8] He must have been sadly in want of sound illustrations to have brought forward the instance of this traitor as a justification of the act of suicide. Judas has been considered by some writers as a martyr. Petilian said “that Judas, and all who killed themselves through remorse of sin, ought to be accounted martyrs, because they punish in themselves what they grieve to have committed.” To whom Augustine replies, “Thou hast said, that the traitor perished by the rope, and has left a rope behind him for such as himself. But we have nothing to do with him. We do not venerate those as martyrs who hang themselves.”
The case, mentioned by the same authority, of Eleazar, the brother of Judas Maccabeus, taken from the book of the Maccabees, is said to be one of voluntary suicide, and where self-destruction was laudable. Eleazar sacrificed his own life for the purpose of destroying King Antiochus, and therefore his suicide is to be considered as a voluntary sacrifice for the good of his country.
The self-destruction of Razis is full of horror, and can only be quoted as an evidence of the act of a madman. When the tower in which Razis was fighting against the enemy of Nicanor was set on fire, he fell on his own sword, “Choosing rather,” says the text, “to die manfully than fall into the hands of the wicked, to be abused otherwise than beseemed his noble birth; but missing his stroke through haste, the multitude also rushing within doors, he ran boldly up to the wall, and cast himself down manfully among the thickest of them; but they quickly giving back, and a space being made, he fell down in the midst of a void place. Nevertheless, while there was yet breath within him, being inflamed with anger, he rose up; and though his blood gushed out like spouts of water, and his wounds were grievous, yet he ran through in the midst of the throng, and standing on a steep rock, when, as his blood was not quite gone, he plucked out his bowels, and taking them in both his hands, he cast them upon the throng, and calling upon the Lord of life and spirit to restore him them again, he thus died.”[9]
Having considered the remarkable suicides of antiquity, we will now briefly allude to those doctrines and opinions of the celebrated philosophers of ancient times, which must of necessity have tended to create this recklessness of human life.
The doctrines inculcated by the stoical philosophers, or the disciples of Zeno, must have increased the crime of suicide. “A stoical wise man is ever ready to die for his country or his friends. A wise man will never look upon death as an evil; that he will despise it, and be ready to undergo it at any time.” “A wise man,” says Diog. Laertius, in his life of Zeno, when expounding the stoical philosophy, “will quit life, when oppressed with severe pain, or when deprived of any of his senses, or when labouring under desperate diseases.” It is astonishing that a sect of philosophers who inculcated that pain was no evil, should so often have practised suicide. Much as we would condemn such principles, still we must admit that most of the admired characters of antiquity belonged to this celebrated sect—men distinguished for their wisdom, learning, and the strictness of their morals. Cato was a stoic, and he put into practice the principles of the sect to which he belonged.[10]
Among the philosophers of antiquity, Seneca stands preeminently forward as the defender of suicide. He says, “Does life please you? live on. Does it not? go from whence you came. No vast wound is necessary; a mere puncture will secure your liberty. It is a bad thing (you say) to be under the necessity of living; but there is no necessity in the case. Thanks be to the gods, nobody can be compelled to live.”[11] These were the principles of the “wise Seneca,” and yet he wanted the courage to commit suicide when put to the test. He says, “Being emaciated by a severe illness, I often thought of suicide, but was recalled by the old age of a most indulgent father; for I considered not how resolutely ‘I’ could encounter death, but how ‘he’ could bear up under my loss.” This is not, however, the only instance in which Seneca yielded his stoical principles to the dictates of natural affection and rational judgment.
Among other distinguished philosophers who advocated suicide was Epictetus. Although a stoic, he did not blindly follow the doctrines of Zeno. Epictetus considered that it was the duty of man to suffer to almost any extent before he sacrificed his own life. “If you like not life, you may leave it; the door is open; get you gone! But a little smoke ought not to frighten you away; it should be endured, and will thereby be often surmounted.”
Epictetus followed strictly his own principles: in this respect he was superior to Seneca. Seneca was born in the lap of good fortune; Epictetus was a slave, and had to pass through the rugged paths of adversity, bodily pain, and penury. Seneca was banished from Rome for an intrigue; Epictetus was sent into exile for being a man of learning and a philosopher.