suicide

• ancient vogue

70:6.6Un­scrupu­lous rulers gained great power by the dis­cov­ery of poi­son. Early court magic was di­a­bol­i­cal; the king’s en­e­mies soon died. But even the most despotic tyrant was sub­ject to some re­stric­tions; he was at least re­strained by the ever-pres­ent fear of as­sas­si­na­tion. The med­i­cine men, witch doc­tors, and priests have al­ways been a pow­er­ful check on the kings. Sub­se­quently, the landown­ers, the aris­toc­racy, ex­erted a re­strain­ing in­flu­ence. And ever and anon the clans and tribes would sim­ply rise up and over­throw their despots and tyrants. De­posed rulers, when sen­tenced to death, were of­ten given the op­tion of com­mit­ting sui­cide, which gave ori­gin to the an­cient so­cial vogue of sui­cide in cer­tain cir­cum­stances.

• ancient vogue

70:10.10Sui­cide was a com­mon mode of re­tal­i­a­tion. If one were un­able to avenge him­self in life, he died en­ter­tain­ing the be­lief that, as a ghost, he could re­turn and visit wrath upon his en­emy. And since this be­lief was very gen­eral, the threat of sui­cide on an en­emy’s doorstep was usu­ally suf­fi­cient to bring him to terms. Prim­i­tive man did not hold life very dear; sui­cide over tri­fles was com­mon, but the teach­ings of the Dala­ma­tians greatly less­ened this cus­tom, while in more re­cent times leisure, com­forts, re­li­gion, and phi­los­o­phy have united to make life sweeter and more de­sir­able. Hunger strikes are, how­ever, a mod­ern ana­logue of this old-time method of re­tal­i­a­tion.

• widows once committed s. on husbands’ graves

82:3.12Un­der cer­tain mores wid­ow­hood was greatly to be feared, wid­ows be­ing ei­ther killed or al­lowed to com­mit sui­cide on their hus­bands’ graves, for they were sup­posed to go over into spir­it­land with their spouses. The sur­viv­ing widow was al­most in­vari­ably blamed for her hus­band’s death. Some tribes burned them alive. If a widow con­tin­ued to live, her life was one of con­tin­u­ous mourn­ing and un­bear­able so­cial re­stric­tion since re­mar­riage was gen­er­ally dis­ap­proved.

• Phrygian mystery cult celebrated Attis’s

97:4.4Amos pro­claimed Yah­weh the “God of all na­tions” and warned the Is­raelites that rit­ual must not take the place of righ­teous­ness. And be­fore this coura­geous teacher was stoned to death, he had spread enough leaven of truth to save the doc­trine of the su­preme Yah­weh; he had in­sured the fur­ther evo­lu­tion of the Mel­chiz­e­dek rev­e­la­tion.

• those rejecting survival are committing

117:4.4The hu­man per­son­al­ity can truly de­stroy in­di­vid­u­al­ity of crea­ture­hood, and though all that was worth while in the life of such a cos­mic sui­cide will per­sist, these qual­i­ties will not per­sist as an in­di­vid­ual crea­ture. The Su­preme will again find ex­pres­sion in the crea­tures of the uni­verses but never again as that par­tic­u­lar per­son; the unique per­son­al­ity of a nonascen­der re­turns to the Su­preme as a drop of wa­ter re­turns to the sea.

• those rejecting survival are committing

117:4.10The great chal­lenge that has been given to mor­tal man is this: Will you de­cide to per­son­al­ize the ex­pe­ri­en­ci­ble value mean­ings of the cos­mos into your own evolv­ing self­hood? or by re­ject­ing sur­vival, will you al­low these se­crets of Su­prem­acy to lie dor­mant, await­ing the ac­tion of an­other crea­ture at some other time who will in his way at­tempt a crea­ture con­tri­bu­tion to the evo­lu­tion of the fi­nite God? But that will be his con­tri­bu­tion to the Su­preme, not yours.

117:4.11The great strug­gle of this uni­verse age is be­tween the po­ten­tial and the ac­tual—the seek­ing for ac­tu­al­iza­tion by all that is as yet un­ex­pressed. If mor­tal man pro­ceeds upon the Par­a­dise ad­ven­ture, he is fol­low­ing the mo­tions of time, which flow as cur­rents within the stream of eter­nity; if mor­tal man re­jects the eter­nal ca­reer, he is mov­ing counter to the stream of events in the fi­nite uni­verses. The me­chan­i­cal cre­ation moves on in­ex­orably in ac­cor­dance with the un­fold­ing pur­pose of the Par­a­dise Fa­ther, but the vo­li­tional cre­ation has the choice of ac­cept­ing or of re­ject­ing the role of per­son­al­ity par­tic­i­pa­tion in the ad­ven­ture of eter­nity. Mor­tal man can­not de­stroy the su­preme val­ues of hu­man ex­is­tence, but he can very def­i­nitely pre­vent the evo­lu­tion of these val­ues in his own per­sonal ex­pe­ri­ence. To the ex­tent that the hu­man self thus re­fuses to take part in the Par­a­dise as­cent, to just that ex­tent is the Su­preme de­layed in achiev­ing di­vin­ity ex­pres­sion in the grand uni­verse.

• examples › King Saul

124:6.3Be­fore reach­ing the Jezreel junc­tion, and as they jour­neyed on, very soon, on the left, they passed the an­cient vil­lage of Shunem, and Je­sus heard again about the most beau­ti­ful maiden of all Is­rael who once lived there and also about the won­der­ful works El­isha per­formed there. In pass­ing by Jezreel, Je­sus’ par­ents re­counted the do­ings of Ahab and Jezebel and the ex­ploits of Jehu. In pass­ing around Mount Gil­boa, they talked much about Saul, who took his life on the slopes of this moun­tain, King David, and the as­so­ci­a­tions of this his­toric spot.

• examples › King Saul

134:9.5In the midst of the week of cel­e­bra­tion and ere the fes­tiv­i­ties were fin­ished, Je­sus took leave of John, say­ing that he de­sired to re­tire to the hills where he might the bet­ter com­mune with his Par­a­dise Fa­ther. John would have gone with him, but Je­sus in­sisted that he stay through the fes­tiv­i­ties, say­ing: “It is not re­quired of you to bear the bur­den of the Son of Man; only the watch­man must keep vigil while the city sleeps in peace.” Je­sus did not re­turn to Je­ru­sa­lem. Af­ter al­most a week alone in the hills near Beth­any, he de­parted for Ca­per­naum. On the way home he spent a day and a night alone on the slopes of Gil­boa, near where King Saul had taken his life; and when he ar­rived at Ca­per­naum, he seemed more cheer­ful than when he had left John in Je­ru­sa­lem.

• flight from realities of existence

139:12.13When the sor­did and sin­ful busi­ness was all over, this rene­gade mor­tal, who thought lightly of sell­ing his friend for thirty pieces of sil­ver to sat­isfy his long-nursed crav­ing for re­venge, rushed out and com­mit­ted the fi­nal act in the drama of flee­ing from the re­al­i­ties of mor­tal ex­is­tence—sui­cide.

• testifies men are more than animals

160:1.5An­i­mals re­spond nobly to the urge of life, but only man can at­tain the art of liv­ing, al­beit the ma­jor­ity of man­kind only ex­pe­ri­ence the an­i­mal urge to live. An­i­mals know only this blind and in­stinc­tive urge; man is ca­pa­ble of tran­scend­ing this urge to nat­u­ral func­tion. Man may elect to live upon the high plane of in­tel­li­gent art, even that of ce­les­tial joy and spir­i­tual ec­stasy. An­i­mals make no in­quiry into the pur­poses of life; there­fore they never worry, nei­ther do they com­mit sui­cide. Sui­cide among men tes­ti­fies that such be­ings have emerged from the purely an­i­mal stage of ex­is­tence, and to the fur­ther fact that the ex­ploratory ef­forts of such hu­man be­ings have failed to at­tain the artis­tic lev­els of mor­tal ex­pe­ri­ence. An­i­mals know not the mean­ing of life; man not only pos­sesses ca­pac­ity for the rec­og­ni­tion of val­ues and the com­pre­hen­sion of mean­ings, but he also is con­scious of the mean­ing of mean­ings—he is self-con­scious of in­sight.

• examples › Pontius Pilate

185:1.6It is sig­nif­i­cant that, while this vac­il­lat­ing Ro­man ruler sac­ri­ficed Je­sus to his fear of the Jews and to safe­guard his per­sonal po­si­tion, he fi­nally was de­posed as a re­sult of the need­less slaugh­ter of Samar­i­tans in con­nec­tion with the pre­ten­sions of a false Mes­siah who led troops to Mount Ger­izim, where he claimed the tem­ple ves­sels were buried; and fierce ri­ots broke out when he failed to re­veal the hid­ing place of the sa­cred ves­sels, as he had prom­ised. As a re­sult of this episode, the lega­tus of Syria or­dered Pi­late to Rome. Tiberius died while Pi­late was on the way to Rome, and he was not reap­pointed as procu­ra­tor of Judea. He never fully re­cov­ered from the re­gret­ful con­dem­na­tion of hav­ing con­sented to the cru­ci­fix­ion of Je­sus. Find­ing no fa­vor in the eyes of the new em­peror, he re­tired to the prov­ince of Lau­sanne, where he sub­se­quently com­mit­ted sui­cide.

186:1.1It was about half past eight o’clock this Fri­day morn­ing when the hear­ing of Je­sus be­fore Pi­late was ended and the Mas­ter was placed in the cus­tody of the Ro­man sol­diers who were to cru­cify him. As soon as the Ro­mans took pos­ses­sion of Je­sus, the cap­tain of the Jew­ish guards marched with his men back to their tem­ple head­quar­ters. The chief priest and his San­hedrist as­so­ciates fol­lowed close be­hind the guards, go­ing di­rectly to their usual meet­ing place in the hall of hewn stone in the tem­ple. Here they found many other mem­bers of the San­hedrin wait­ing to learn what had been done with Je­sus. As Cai­a­phas was en­gaged in mak­ing his re­port to the San­hedrin re­gard­ing the trial and con­dem­na­tion of Je­sus, Ju­das ap­peared be­fore them to claim his re­ward for the part he had played in his Mas­ter’s ar­rest and sen­tence of death.

186:1.2All of these Jews loathed Ju­das; they looked upon the be­trayer with only feel­ings of ut­ter con­tempt. Through­out the trial of Je­sus be­fore Cai­a­phas and dur­ing his ap­pear­ance be­fore Pi­late, Ju­das was pricked in his con­science about his traitorous con­duct. And he was also be­gin­ning to be­come some­what dis­il­lu­sioned re­gard­ing the re­ward he was to re­ceive as pay­ment for his ser­vices as Je­sus’ be­trayer. He did not like the cool­ness and aloof­ness of the Jew­ish au­thor­i­ties; nev­er­the­less, he ex­pected to be lib­er­ally re­warded for his cow­ardly con­duct. He an­tic­i­pated be­ing called be­fore the full meet­ing of the San­hedrin and there hear­ing him­self eu­lo­gized while they con­ferred upon him suit­able hon­ors in to­ken of the great ser­vice which he flat­tered him­self he had ren­dered his na­tion. Imag­ine, there­fore, the great sur­prise of this ego­tis­tic traitor when a ser­vant of the high priest, tap­ping him on the shoul­der, called him just out­side the hall and said: “Ju­das, I have been ap­pointed to pay you for the be­trayal of Je­sus. Here is your re­ward.” And thus speak­ing, the ser­vant of Cai­a­phas handed Ju­das a bag con­tain­ing thirty pieces of sil­ver—the cur­rent price of a good, healthy slave.

186:1.3Ju­das was stunned, dum­founded. He rushed back to en­ter the hall but was de­barred by the door­keeper. He wanted to ap­peal to the San­hedrin, but they would not ad­mit him. Ju­das could not be­lieve that these rulers of the Jews would al­low him to be­tray his friends and his Mas­ter and then of­fer him as a re­ward thirty pieces of sil­ver. He was hu­mil­i­ated, dis­il­lu­sioned, and ut­terly crushed. He walked away from the tem­ple, as it were, in a trance. He au­to­mat­i­cally dropped the money bag in his deep pocket, that same pocket wherein he had so long car­ried the bag con­tain­ing the apos­tolic funds. And he wan­dered out through the city af­ter the crowds who were on their way to wit­ness the cru­ci­fix­ions.

186:1.4From a dis­tance Ju­das saw them raise the cross piece with Je­sus nailed thereon, and upon sight of this he rushed back to the tem­ple and, forc­ing his way past the door­keeper, found him­self stand­ing in the pres­ence of the San­hedrin, which was still in ses­sion. The be­trayer was well-nigh breath­less and highly dis­traught, but he man­aged to stam­mer out these words: “I have sinned in that I have be­trayed in­no­cent blood. You have in­sulted me. You have of­fered me as a re­ward for my ser­vice, money—the price of a slave. I re­pent that I have done this; here is your money. I want to es­cape the guilt of this deed.”

186:1.5When the rulers of the Jews heard Ju­das, they scoffed at him. One of them sit­ting near where Ju­das stood, mo­tioned that he should leave the hall and said: “Your Mas­ter has al­ready been put to death by the Ro­mans, and as for your guilt, what is that to us? See you to that—and be­gone!”

186:1.6As Ju­das left the San­hedrin cham­ber, he re­moved the thirty pieces of sil­ver from the bag and threw them broad­cast over the tem­ple floor. When the be­trayer left the tem­ple, he was al­most be­side him­self. Ju­das was now pass­ing through the ex­pe­ri­ence of the re­al­iza­tion of the true na­ture of sin. All the glamor, fas­ci­na­tion, and in­tox­i­ca­tion of wrong­do­ing had van­ished. Now the evil­doer stood alone and face to face with the judg­ment ver­dict of his dis­il­lu­sioned and dis­ap­pointed soul. Sin was be­witch­ing and ad­ven­tur­ous in the com­mit­ting, but now must the har­vest of the naked and un­ro­man­tic facts be faced.

186:1.7This one­time am­bas­sador of the king­dom of heaven on earth now walked through the streets of Je­ru­sa­lem, for­saken and alone. His de­spair was des­per­ate and well-nigh ab­so­lute. On he jour­neyed through the city and out­side the walls, on down into the ter­ri­ble soli­tude of the val­ley of Hin­nom, where he climbed up the steep rocks and, tak­ing the gir­dle of his cloak, fas­tened one end to a small tree, tied the other about his neck, and cast him­self over the precipice. Ere he was dead, the knot which his ner­vous hands had tied gave way, and the be­trayer’s body was dashed to pieces as it fell on the jagged rocks be­low.