The City of God

A done without orders, he will be punished for it, unless he has done it by order. If this is the case when an emperor commands, how much more so when the Creator commands? Therefore, he who hears that he is not permitted to kill himself should do so if He has commanded it, whose commands it is not permitted to despise. He must only see that the divine command does not waver in any uncertainty. We judge the conscience through the ear; we do not usurp the judgment of hidden things for ourselves. No one knows what goes on in a person, except the spirit of the man that is in him. This we say, this we bring forth, this we approve by all means: that no one should inflict spontaneous death upon themselves as if to flee temporal hardships, lest they fall into eternal ones. No one should do so because of the sins of others, lest they begin to possess a most grave sin of their own, which they were not polluted by when it was another's: no one because of their own past sins, for which there is all the more need for this life, so that they may be healed by repenting. No one as if by a desire for a better life, which is hoped for after death: because a better life after death does not receive those who are guilty of their own death.

Whether spontaneous death should be sought for the avoidance of sin. Chapter XXVII

There remains one cause, of which I had begun to speak, for which it is thought useful that someone should kill himself, namely, lest he should rush into sin, either through seductive pleasure or raging pain. If we were to admit this cause, it would progress so far that men would have to be exhorted to kill themselves precisely when, after being washed in the bath of holy regeneration, they have received the remission of all their sins. For then is the time to guard against all future sins, when all past ones have been erased. But if this is rightly done by spontaneous death, why is it not done most of all then? Why does anyone who has been baptized spare himself? Why does he subject his freed head to so many dangers of this life again, when it is in his easiest power to avoid everything by inflicting death upon himself, and it is written: "He who loves danger, shall fall into it"? Why then are so many and such great dangers loved, or at least, if not loved, why are they undertaken? Why does he remain in this life, when it is permitted to depart? Or does such a tasteless perversity overturn the heart and turn it away from the consideration of truth: that if anyone ought to kill himself so that he does not fall into sin under the dominion of one captor, he thinks he must live to endure the world itself, full of temptations at every hour, and at times such as is feared under one master, and countless others, without which this life is not led? What reason is there, therefore, why we should waste time in those exhortations by which we strive to inflame the baptized, whether toward virginal integrity, or toward widowly continence, or toward the very faith of the marital bed, when we have better means, removed from all dangers of sin: that for whomever, after the most recent remission of sins, we could persuade to seize death, we might send them to the Lord more sound and purer? Furthermore, if anyone thinks this should be attempted and persuaded, I do not say he is foolish, but he is insane. With what face does he say to a man: "Kill yourself, lest you add a heavier sin to your small ones, while you live under a master with barbaric and lewd habits," when he cannot say, except most wickedly: "Kill yourself, now that all your sins are absolved, lest you commit such things again, or even worse, while you live in a world alluring with so many impure pleasures, furious with so many nefarious cruelties, and hostile with so many errors and terrors"? Because this is a sin to say, it is indeed a sin to kill oneself. For if there could be any just cause for doing this spontaneously, without a doubt there would be no cause more just than this one. But because this one is not, therefore there is no cause. Therefore, O faithful of Christ, let not your life be a weariness to you, if your chastity was a mockery to your enemies. You have a great and true consolation, if you retain a faithful conscience, that you did not consent to the sins of those who were permitted to sin against you.

By what judgment of God hostile lust was permitted to sin against the bodies of those who practice continence. Chapter XXVIII

But if perhaps you ask why they were permitted, the providence of the Creator and Ruler of the world is indeed deep, and His judgments are inscrutable, and His ways are unsearchable. Nevertheless, inquire faithfully of your own souls, others, whether perhaps, or if perhaps lest perhaps you have puffed yourselves up too proudly over this good of integrity and continence or modesty, and in this some also took delight in human praises.