Dissertation I — On the Vow

[Introductory remarks] Vows which men make to God pertain to the first commandment of the Decalogue, as far as our present concerns are relevant. The sanctity and piety of vows, by their very nature, are self-evident. God is worshipped by our vows, and tokens of a grateful spirit are shown for benefits received. Sometimes to obtain divine clemency, and to secure graces; sometimes to appease and mitigate the severity of justice, we offer our vows to God. These are the chief duties of the Christian religion, and tokens of our servitude toward God. It is an innate inclination of our souls, either to implore divine aid by vows in calamities, or to adorn temples with tablets of thanksgiving for benefits received, to the glory of the divine majesty. Even before God gave us the written Law, the Patriarch Jacob offered his vows to God — for he made a vow, saying, "If God shall be with me..." (Gen. 28). The Prophet Isaiah, describing the offering of vows as a signal prerogative of God's people, says: "They shall worship him with victims and offerings; and they shall make vows to the Lord, and perform them" (ch. 19). What of the fact that Marcus Tullius himself notes the frequency of the pagans' vows, and the votive tablets which they hung in the temples of the gods — either those who had escaped shipwreck, or those who had obtained some notable benefit? And from this he infers the providence of the gods, and their governance of the world. Thus he represents himself addressing his friend Diagoras: "You, who think that the gods take no notice of human affairs, do you not observe how many, by so many painted tablets, have poured out their vows in the face of the storm's violence, and arrived safely in port?" (Bk. III, On the Nature of the Gods, near the end).

Undertaking, then, in this Book, a treatise on vows, I shall set forth all the difficulties which theologians commonly discuss. Monastic vows I omit for the present, referring them to the treatise on the religious state. Of vows in general, then, I shall now speak.