Article — Noldin, Summa of Moral Theology
Article Fifth. On Adjuration
257. Notion. Adjuration is an action by which someone is induced to doing or omitting a thing by invocation of God or of a sacred thing.
a. Adjuration differs from oath: for in an oath God is invoked for confirming truth; but in adjuration, for rendering a command more efficacious or for confirming a petition. It differs from prayer, because by praying we ask something from God; in adjuration we command or urgently demand something through God.
b. Adjuration is an act of the virtue of religion: for by adjuration we profess that the authority or goodness of God is so great that anyone, scarcely having heard the name of God, is immediately induced to furnishing what is exacted from him through the name of God, which yields to the honor of God.
c. There can be adjured: alpha. God or Christ; beta. the Blessed Virgin Mary, angels, saints; gamma. wayfaring men, as if a subject adjures a superior, a friend a friend, a poor man a rich man, that he furnish something for the love of God; delta. demons.
258. Adjuration is divided. 1. Into solemn and private, according as it is made in the name of the Church, by ministers of the Church and by a rite instituted by the Church, or without solemnities of this kind.
- Into imperative and deprecatory, according as it is made by command or by prayers.
alpha. Imperative adjuration is that by which the chief priest adjured Christ: I adjure thee by the living God, that thou tell us if thou art the Christ;1 deprecatory is that by which St. Paul sometimes adjures those to whom he writes: I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercy of God.2
b. God can be adjured only deprecatorily, because He is not capable of command; a demon can be adjured only imperatively, because he is capable only of command, not of deprecation; he who is capable both of command and of deprecation, such as a subject man, can be adjured imperatively and deprecatorily.
c. God is adjured deprecatorily if, from the use of the Church, salt, water, mice, locusts, storms are exorcized, and indeed either through Himself (His mercy, goodness, etc.) or through the merits of Christ or through the intercession of the Blessed Virgin Mary and of the saints. This mode of supplicating is called obsecration.
1 Matt. 26:63.
2 Rom. 12:1.
259. Principles. 1. Adjuration does not induce an obligation of furnishing that which is asked (from the adjured man), whether the adjuration is deprecatory or imperative: for adjuration has not been instituted for inducing obligation, but for exciting in the adjured person fear or love of the divine name, by which he is moved to furnishing what is asked from him.
Therefore if a superior adjures a subject by imperative adjuration to furnish the thing asked, the subject is indeed held to obey, yet not by force of the adjuration, but by force of the precept joined with the adjuration. Hence if the subject does not furnish the thing commanded, he does not sin against religion, but only against obedience.
- In order that adjuration be licit, the same three conditions are required as in an oath: truth, justice, and judgment.
a. The truth of adjuration requires that the one adjuring truly intend to obtain what he asks by adjuring, and that the cause on account of which he asks be true.
Defect of truth in adjuration does not exceed venial sin, because divine authority is not introduced for confirming a lie, but only for moving another to furnishing something, as if a fictitious poor man should ask alms through God.
b. Justice requires that the one adjuring ask for a licit thing.
Defect of justice in adjuration is a grave sin if the thing asked or commanded is gravely evil; and it is a light sin if the thing asked or commanded is lightly evil: for to induce another to an evil thing with divine authority interposed certainly contains irreverence toward God, and indeed greater or less according as the thing is more or less evil.
c. Judgment requires that adjuration be made from a just cause of necessity or usefulness, and with due reverence of the divine name.
Defect of this condition is only a venial sin.