Theophylact of Ohrid, on Jas 5:12

“But above all things, my brethren, swear not, neither by heaven, nor by the earth, nor by any other oath. But let your speech be, yea, yea: no, no: that you fall not under judgment.”

“Let your affirmation be firm in firmness and your negation be the same. Otherwise: let the testimony of your life be firmer than an oath. If someone shameless, not respecting your life, insistently demands an oath from you, then instead of an oath let your "yes, yes" and "no, no" suffice. By hypocrisy he means either the condemnation that will befall those who swear recklessly and from the habit of swearing fall into perjury, or hypocrisy itself, which is one thing and appears another. In what way does the one who swears fall into hypocrisy? In the following way: as one who swears, he is regarded as affirming the truth, but when a violation of the oath follows, he turns out to be a liar. The apostle forbids swearing by God in order to avoid perjury, and by heaven and other objects — so as not to attribute to them the honor due to God, for all who swear, swear by what is greater (Heb. 6:16). But someone will say: what should one do if a person is compelled to swear? We answer: the fear of God is stronger than the compulsion of the one forcing him. Another, having in mind the Old Law, will also be perplexed: if the Old Law approves of one who swears by the name of the Lord, then how does grace forbid doing this? We answer: the Old Law commanded the Jews to swear by God in order to turn them from swearing by idols, just as it commanded them to offer sacrifices to God in order to divert them from offering sacrifices to idols. But when it had sufficiently taught the Jews piety, it then abolished sacrifices as useless and began to require as a sacrifice not the slaughter of animals, but a contrite soul. What kind of soul is this? One that through humility is entirely consumed by the fire of love, like Paul, who burned most intensely when some of the faithful were caused to stumble (2 Cor. 11:29).”

Imported from an open dataset — not yet checked against the printed edition.