Question I: What adjuration is, and in what ways it is made

TO ADJURE is to impel someone to say or do something by the cause of the Divine name and honor. Whence, Adjuration is an act of the virtue of Religion.

Adjuration is made in TWO ways: First, by commanding. Second, by entreating: moreover, an oath can also be exacted.

All these adjurations are found in Scripture. And first, by commanding and at the same time exacting an oath, Abraham adjured his servant, that he seek a wife for his son Isaac only from his own people, Genes. 24. Put your hand under my thigh, that I may adjure you by the Lord God of heaven, and earth, that you take not a wife for my son Isaac of the daughters of Chanaan; as Gregory of Valencia observes disput. 6. quaest. 8. puncto 1. and D. Bonavent. in 4. dist. 29. quaest. 3. indicates. In the same way Jacob adjured his son Joseph, to bury him in the sepulchre of his fathers, as is plain from cap. 47. and 50. Genes. for it was the custom of the ancients to place the hand on the thigh of one of the Patriarchs touching the Messias, and so to swear by the Messias, who was to be born of their seed, as S. Jerome expounds lib. 1. in Iovin. cap. 5.

But by entreating and exacting an oath, Rahab adjured the spies, as is plain from these words of theirs: We shall be innocent of this oath, with which you adjured us. Iosue 2.

But by commanding, not exacting an oath, the Prince of the priests adjured the Lord Jesus Christ, Matth. 26. and Exorcists adjure demons, Marci ultimo.

But merely by beseeching, Paul seems to have adjured those to whom he wrote, as Rom. 12. I beseech you by the mercy of God.

So also the poor seem to adjure those from whom they beg alms.