Section 3: The Sins That Cry to Heaven for Vengeance

There are four sins that are said to cry to heaven for vengeance, viz.: (i) Wilful murder; (2) Sodomy; (3) Oppression of the poor; (4) Defrauding laborers of their hire.

The Schoolmen enumerate these sins in the following distich:

To heaven cry the voice of blood and the voice of the Sodomites, the voice of the oppressed, and the withheld wages of laborers.

This classification is based upon Scripture. Gen. IV, 10: “The Lord said to Cain: ... What hast thou done? the voice of thy brother's blood crieth to me from the earth." Gen. XVIII, 20 sq.: "The Lord said: The cry of Sodom and Gomorrah is multiplied, and their sin is become exceedingly grievous." Gen. XIX, 13 the angels tell Lot that they will destroy Sodom, "because their cry is grown loud before the Lord, who hath sent us to destroy them." Ex. III, 7 Jehovah says to Moses: "I have seen the affliction of my people in Egypt, and I have heard their cry because of the rigor of them that are over the works." According to Ex. XXII, 22 sq. the Mosaic law prescribed: "You shall not hurt a widow or an orphan," adding: "If you hurt them they will cry out to me, and I will hear their cry." Deut. XXIV, 14 sq.: "Thou shalt not refuse the hire of the needy and the poor . . .; but thou shalt pay him the price of his labor the same day, before the going down of the sun, because he is poor, and with it maintaineth his life: lest he cry against thee to the Lord, and it be reputed to thee for a sin." James V, 4: "Behold the hire of the laborers, who have reaped down your fields, which by fraud has been kept back by you, crieth: and the cry of them hath entered into the ears of the Lord of sabaoth."

If we study the nature of the sins thus characterized as crying to Heaven for vengeance, we find that they form a category separate and distinct from the capital sins. For whereas the latter spring from an inordinate craving of the natural appetites, and are sinful only when they involve a lack of rational self-control, the distinguishing note of the so-called peccata clamantia is violent suppression of certain natural instincts and conscious frustration of their ends and objects. In other words, besides a transgression of the moral order, they entail a violation of the laws of nature, thus provoking divine wrath in a special manner. This fact is well expressed in the phrase, "sins that cry to Heaven for vengeance."

It goes without saying that every sin of this kind is by its very nature mortal because it involves the transgression of an important law with full advertence and knowledge.

The sins that cry to Heaven for vengeance violate or suppress (1) the instinct of self-preservation, which tends to conserve individual life; (2) the sexual instinct, which was instituted for the perpetuation of the race; and (3) the social instinct, which tends to the protection of private property. a) MURDER is the unlawful killing of a human being with malice aforethought. This sin may be direct or indirect, it may be committed against oneself (suicide) or against another, even the unborn (procuratio abortus, malicious destruction of the embryo or fetus).¹ The term murder includes every species of unnatural cruelty, such as exposing a child to the danger of death, maltreating prisoners and slaves, engaging in piracy, waging war without sufficient reason, and killing another in the intellectual or moral sense, i. e., robbing him of his good name by slander or calumny.

¹ Cfr. Codex Iuris Can., can. 2350, § 1.

The unlawful killing of a human being with malice aforethought is a terrible crime because it interferes with the sovereignty of God, who is the Master of life and death and has created man as His own image and property,¹ and because it undermines the foundation of society and brings upon its victim the greatest temporal misfortune and sometimes even causes his eternal damnation. Justly, therefore, is cold-blooded murder punished by death (capital punishment).

¹ Gen. I, 26 sq.; IX, 6; Deut. XXXII, 39.

Murder is often committed for petty motives, such as revenge, jealousy, or avarice. The gravity of this crime may be judged by the fact that murderers often become their own accusers. b) SODOMY is the sin for which Sodom and Gomorrah were destroyed by God. The term includes all kinds of unnatural copulation, particularly when committed between persons of the same sex, and all practices aiming at the prevention of conception.² Sodomy is closely related to murder. Both crimes are directed against the preservation of the human race, and, moreover, cruelty and lust, heartlessness and debauchery, bloodthirst and unchastity (Sadism, Masochism) usually go hand in hand.³

² Cfr. Gen. XIX, 5; XXXVIII, 9; Lev. XVIII, 22; XX, 13; Judges XIX, 22 sqq.; Rom. I, 26 sq.; 1 Tim. I, 10.

³ Cfr. Ez. XVI, 49; Am. II, 7.— H. Rau, Die Grausamkeit mit besonderer Bezugnahme auf sexuelle Faktoren. Berlin 1903. —On Sadism (crudelitas activa) and Masochism (crudelitas passiva) cfr. Familler, Pastoralpsychiatrie, Freiburg 1898, pp. 157 sq.; Krafft-Ebing, Psychopathia Sexualis, 13th ed., pp. 158 sqq.; A. Eulenburg, Sadismus und Masochismus, Wiesbaden 1902; O'Malley and Walsh, Essays in Pastoral Medicine, New York 1906, pp. 338 sq. — F. a Barbens, Intr. Pat hoi. ad Stud. Theol. Mor., pp. 255 sqq.

Holy Scripture condemns the conduct of Onan, not only because he had a wicked intention, but "because he did a detestable thing."⁴ c) OPPRESSION OF THE POOR, especially of widows and orphans, is a dastardly crime because it violates the natural law and runs counter to a sentiment deeply ingrained in the human heart. This crime is committed in various ways, by dishonestly administering an estate, by fraud in drawing up a man's last will, by unjust appropriation of that which belongs to the poor, by the employment of trickery in lawsuits, bribing judges and other officials, etc.⁵ d) To DEFRAUD A LABORER OF His JUST WAGE is a crime against the fundamental right of private property. It is the sin of oppression of the poor in an aggravated form, for it injures those who are compelled to make a living in the sweat of their brow. This sin is perhaps more often committed indirectly than directly, e. g., by carelessly incurring bankruptcy, by reducing wages without necessity, by cooperating in the establishment of monopolies or trusts, by adulterating food or raising its price without necessity ("profiteering"), by practicing usury,⁶ by defrauding workingmen of their earnings, by compelling them to purchase their supplies at exorbitant prices in company stores (truck system), and in many other ways.

⁴ Gen. XXXVIII, 7 sqq.; 1 Paralip. II, 3.

⁵ Is. X, 1-2; Matth. XXIII, 15; Mark XII, 40.—Cfr. St. Jerome, In Beech., V, c. 16: "That rich man clothed in purple in the Gospel is related to have had no other crime than that, proud in wealth and riches, he had broken forth into such arrogance that he would not extend his hand to the needy and poor man, and had so forgotten his own condition that he would not give the wretched man even what was to be thrown away." (Migne, P. L., XXV, 154).

⁶ Cfr. C. Elliot, Usury Millersburg, O., 1902; P. Cleary, The Church and Usury, Dublin, 1914.

We shall have more to say of these sins in later volumes.

READINGS. —F. X. Linsenmann, Lehrbuch der Moraltheologie, pp. 180 sqq. —J. A. Ryan, A Minimum Wage, New York 1906. —IDEM, Distributive Justice, New York 1916.—Th. Slater, S.J., Questions of Moral Theology, New York 1915, pp. 78 sqq.; 176 sqq.—H. Noldin, S.J., Summa Theol. Mor., Vol. I, pp. 391 sqq.