Veritatis Splendor: Part 28--Intrinsically Evil Acts

“T

HE MORALITY OF THE HUMAN ACT," emphasizes Pope John Paul II, "depends primarily and fundamentally on the 'object' rationally chosen by the deliberate will, as is borne out by the insightful analysis, still valid today, made by Saint Thomas." In making that statement, the Pope cites to St. Thomas's work the Summa Theologiae, Ia-IIae, q.18, art. 6.

I answer that, Certain actions are called human, inasmuch as they are voluntary, as stated above (Question 1, Article 1). Now, in a voluntary action, there is a twofold action, viz. the interior action of the will, and the external action: and each of these actions has its object. The end is properly the object of the interior act of the will: while the object of the external action, is that on which the action is brought to bear. Therefore just as the external action takes its species from the object on which it bears; so the interior act of the will takes its species from the end, as from its own proper object.

Now that which is on the part of the will is formal in regard to that which is on the part of the external action: because the will uses the limbs to act as instruments; nor have external actions any measure of morality, save in so far as they are voluntary. Consequently the species of a human act is considered formally with regard to the end, but materially with regard to the object of the external action. Hence the Philosopher says (Ethic. v, 2) that "he who steals that he may commit adultery, is strictly speaking, more adulterer than thief."

Respondeo dicendum quod aliqui actus dicuntur humani, inquantum sunt voluntarii, sicut supra dictum est. In actu autem voluntario invenitur duplex actus, scilicet actus interior voluntatis, et actus exterior, et uterque horum actuum habet suum obiectum. Finis autem proprie est obiectum interioris actus voluntarii, id autem circa quod est actio exterior, est obiectum eius. Sicut igitur actus exterior accipit speciem ab obiecto circa quod est; ita actus interior voluntatis accipit speciem a fine, sicut a proprio obiecto. Ita autem quod est ex parte voluntatis, se habet ut formale ad id quod est ex parte exterioris actus, quia voluntas utitur membris ad agendum, sicut instrumentis; neque actus exteriores habent rationem moralitatis, nisi inquantum sunt voluntarii. Et ideo actus humani species formaliter consideratur secundum finem, materialiter autem secundum obiectum exterioris actus. Unde philosophus dicit, in V Ethic., quod ille qui furatur ut committat adulterium, est, per se loquendo, magis adulter quam fur.

In determining the object of any particular act, a certain projection is required: one must project oneself into the situation of the acting subject. In other words, the analysis is perspectival: "[i]n order to be able to grasp the object of an act which specifies that act morally, it is . . . necessary to place oneself in the perspective of the acting person." VS, 78.

The object of an act is something distinct from its purpose, from the intent behind it, from the consequences which flow from it. The object of the act relates to the "freely chosen kind of behavior." The object "is the proximate end of a deliberate decision which determines the act of willing on the part of the acting person." The behavior itself must be compared to "the order of reason," and, if it is in conformity with the "order of reason," and the intention of the acting subject is good, then "it is the cause of the goodness of the will." The act not only is good, it also "perfects us morally, and disposes us to recognize our ultimate end in the perfect good, primordial love." VS, 78.

Since the object of an act is something that is compared to the "order of reason," an order which we do not ourselves make as it is an objective order ultimately based upon God, it follows that there are certain kinds of behavior whose object is always against the "order of reason," and which are in each and every instance wrong. When St. Paul says that one may not do evil that good may come (Rom. 3:8), St. Paul is saying that intention alone does not define an act; rather, the object of the act, the kind of behavior chosen to implement the intent must also conform to the good. Both intent and object must be good. Hence, as St. Thomas points out: "Let us say that someone robs in order to feed the poor: in this case, even though the intention is good, the uprightness of the will is lacking."* There is, then, no "Robin Hood" exception in traditional morality: one cannot rob (object) the rich to feed the poor (intent). One cannot give false testimony (object) to put a guilty man in jail (intent). One cannot commit prostitution (object) to obtain money to feed one's children (intent). As St. Alphonsus Liguori succinctly states it:

It is not enough to do good works; they need to be done well. For our works to be good and perfect, they must be done for the sole purpose of pleasing God.

Non sufficit opera bona patrare, oportet ea probe patrare. Ut autem opera nostra bona perfectaque sint, necesse est ut illa fiant una mente satisfaciendi Deo.**

The Pope therefore condemns theories that refuse to consider the species of an act, the object of an act, and characterize the goodness or badness of an act without regard to the kind of act involved, but rely entirely on the actor's intent, the consequences of the act, or a combination of both intent and consequence. Teleological theories of ethics--utilitarianism, consequentialism, proportionalism--thus stand condemned as irreconcilable with classical moral thinking.

One must therefore reject the thesis, characteristic of teleological and proportionalist theories, which holds that it is impossible to qualify as morally evil according to its species — its "object" — the deliberate choice of certain kinds of behavior or specific acts, apart from a consideration of the intention for which the choice is made or the totality of the foreseeable consequences of that act for all persons concerned.

VS, 79.

The moral uprightness of the object of an act, of its species, is determined by reference to the "order of reason," which means by reference to the "very being of man, considered in his integral truth, and therefore in his natural inclinations, his motivations and his finalities, which always have a spiritual dimension as well." VS, 79. In other words, the object or species of an act is measured by "the contents of the natural law," which is equivalent of saying "that ordered complex of 'personal goods' which serve the 'good of the person': the good which is the person himself and his perfection." VS, 79. The Ten Commandments present a good summary of the contents of the natural law. VS, 79.

There are, then acts whose object is always disordered, whose species are, in each and every circumstance, evil intrinsically, and must never be done.

Reason attests that there are objects of the human act which are by their nature "incapable of being ordered" to God, because they radically contradict the good of the person made in his image. These are the acts which, in the Church's moral tradition, have been termed "intrinsically evil" (intrinsece malum): they are such always and per se, in other words, on account of their very object, and quite apart from the ulterior intentions of the one acting and the circumstances. Consequently, without in the least denying the influence on morality exercised by circumstances and especially by intentions, the Church teaches that "there exist acts which per se and in themselves, independently of circumstances, are always seriously wrong by reason of their object."

VS, 79.***

The Pope then gives some examples--some express, some implied, but in any event not intended to be exhaustive--of such intrinsically evil acts--prohibited in all times and all places:

• Acts which are hostile to life itself: homicide, genocide, abortion, euthanasia, voluntary suicide;
  
• Acts which violate the integrity of the human person: mutilation, physical and mental torture, attempts to coerce the spirit (forced conversions); use of artificial contraception, homosexuality, adultery;
• Acts which offend human dignity: forcing a person to accept subhuman living conditions, arbitrary imprisonment, deportation, slavery, prostitution, trafficking in women and children, treating humans as if they were mere instruments of profit, and subjecting them to degrading conditions of work;
  
• Acts which are unjust to God: idolatry, blasphemy.
  

VS, 80-81.

No good intention, no circumstance, no alleged good that may be derived thereby--nothing--excuses or justifies the undertaking of an intrinsically evil act:

If acts are intrinsically evil, a good intention or particular circumstances can diminish their evil, but they cannot remove it. They remain "irremediably" evil acts; per se and in themselves they are not capable of being ordered to God and to the good of the person. . . . Consequently, circumstances or intentions can never transform an act intrinsically evil by virtue of its object into an act "subjectively" good or defensible as a choice.

VS, 81.

There are such things as intrinsically evil acts. Their existence is true. Their denial involves a rejection of man's created nature, of the truth of who man is. More, they involve the rejection of Jesus Christ, the Truth incarnate, who displayed in himself, the truth of man and the Truth of God, and who promised man that he would know the Truth, including the Truth about evil. The Christ who promised man the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of Truth, of Truth that would set him free, that would allow man to "interiorize the law, to receive it and to live it as the motivating force of true personal freedom, 'the perfect law, the law of liberty.'" VS, 83 (citing James 1:25).
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*The Pope quotes St. Thomas's In Duo Praecepta Caritatis et in Decem Legis Praecepta. De Dilectione Dei: Opuscula Theologica, II, No. 1168.
**VS, 78. The Pope cites to St. Alphonsus Liguori's work The Practice of Loving Jesus Christ, VII, 3.
***The quotation is from the Post-Synodal Apostolic Exhortation Reconciliatio et Paenitentia (December 2, 1984), 17: AAS 77 (1985), 221, but reference is also made to Paul VI, Address to Members of the Congregation of the Most Holy Redeemer, (September 1967): AAS 59 (1967), 962: "Far be it from Christians to be led to embrace another opinion, as if the Council taught that nowadays some things are permitted which the Church had previously declared intrinsically evil. Who does not see in this the rise of a depraved moral relativism, one that clearly endangers the Church's entire doctrinal heritage?"

Veritatis Splendor: Part 16--The Law Universal

THE NATURAL LAW IS UNIVERSAL, by which is meant that it traverses time, place, tribe, religion and all other accidentals of man. This necessarily must be the case since the natural law is tied to the nature of man, a nature which in each and every instance involves a human person with the same ultimately dignity and destiny. More even than that, the natural law has an intimate tie to truth, and truth itself is universal. The fact that the natural law is predicated upon human nature, that is, our reality, and that it is therefore predicated upon the truth of who we are and what is true about us, means that freedom--to be authentic--must take into account that natural law. A freedom that rejects the natural law is, to that extent, a false freedom, for it is a freedom that runs away from what is. It walks out of the light into the shadows of unreality. It is for this reason that St. Augustine states the rhetorical question in his great treatise on the Holy Trinity (XIV.15.21): "Where then are these rules written except in the book of that light which is called truth?" Ubinam sunt istae regulae scriptae . . . nisi in libro lucis quae veritas dicitur?

It is, in John Paul's view, the natural law's link with truth that gives the natural law its universal character.

Inasmuch as it is inscribed in the rational nature of the person, it makes itself felt to all beings endowed with reason and living in history. In order to perfect himself in his specific order, the person must do good and avoid evil, be concerned for the transmission and preservation of life, refine and develop the riches of the material world, cultivate social life, seek truth, practice good and contemplate beauty.

VS, 51. It is self-evident, and to that extent inarguable, that man, individually and in common, ought to do good, and to avoid evil. That he ought, individually and in common, to be concerned with life: with transmitting it and preserving it. That he has a certain dominion over the things of this world, and that he ought to develop his soul, his intellect, his environment, a life in common--i.e., become cultured. He ought to seek truth: to contemplate the splendor of it, the beauty of it. He ought to act reasonably. How can these things not be universal to man? To all men, to each individual man? Which man is excepted from these? Who, for example, could claim the right to do evil and avoid good? To pursue falsehood? To destroy life? To act irrationally?

Christ and the Rich Young Ruler
An Oriental Depiction

It is apparent that the natural law is universal. And yet there are philosophies prevalent in our day, relativistic and excessively individualistic in spirit, that seek to obfuscate this self-evident truth that the natural law must be universal, and must bind each and every man without exception. "But inasmuch as the natural law expresses the dignity of the human person and lays the foundation for his fundamental rights and duties," the Pope insists, "it is universal in its precepts and its authority extends to all mankind." VS, 51. It must needs be so.

The modern emphasis on individuality, if properly understood, is not adverse to a universal law. As the Pope makes clear, the universal nature of the natural law does not mean that we all walk in lock step--the same in lock, stock, and barrel--as if God is some absolute Fuhrer who seeks to extinguish all individuality.

The God who is the source of the natural law is, of course, also the source of our individual dignity and uniqueness, and so to suggest that the universal nature of the natural law conflicts with our individuality is preposterous since it would posit some sort of contradiction in God and his gifts. And so the Pope in his encyclical stresses: "This universality [in the natural law] does not ignore the individuality of human beings, nor it is opposed to the absolute uniqueness of each person." VS, 51.

On the contrary, it embraces at its root each of the person's free acts, which are meant to bear witness to the universality of the true good. By submitting to the common law, our acts build up the true communion of persons and, by God's grace, practice charity, "which binds everything together in perfect harmony" (Col 3:14). When on the contrary they disregard the law, or even are merely ignorant of it, whether culpably or not, our acts damage the communion of persons, to the detriment of each.

VS, 51.

Obedience to the natural law, then, allows us to express our individuality within the greater reality of our human nature, and to express it in a manner consonant with truth, and with the necessities of life in common with our fellows. It is the natural law that allows us to live individual lives that consort with authentic communion with our fellows, and that allows the common life to support the life of the individual. Departure from the natural law on the basis that it is required for individual self-expression, or individual development, is a falsehood: as what is involved is a deprecation of self, and an insult, ultimately, to all mankind and the author of mankind.

There are therefore precepts which absolute and universal, and John Paul II gives examples of some of these precepts:

It is right and just, always and for everyone, to serve God, to render him the worship which is his due and to honor one's parents as they deserve. Positive precepts such as these, which order us to perform certain actions and to cultivate certain dispositions, are universally binding; they are "unchanging." They unite in the same common good all people of every period of history, created for "the same divine calling and destiny." These universal and permanent laws correspond to things known by the practical reason and are applied to particular acts through the judgment of conscience. The acting subject personally assimilates the truth contained in the law. He appropriates this truth of his being and makes it his own by his acts and the corresponding virtues.

VS, 52.*

The universality of these precepts of the natural law may be divided into negative precepts (precepts which prohibit certain acts) and positive precepts (precepts which enjoin us to undertake certain acts). The precepts are of equal dignity, and are all universal--whether they are negative or positive. But the negative precepts have a particularly notable universal nature about them because--contrary to the positive precepts--they forbid a given actions "semper et pro semper (always and for ever), without exception." VS, 52. The absolute, exceptionless prescriptiveness of the negative commandments is not arbitrary, but is backed by reason:

[T]he choice of this kind of behavior [violative of a negative precept] is in no case compatible with the goodness of the will of the acting person, with his vocation to life with God and to communion with his neighbor. It is [therefore] prohibited — to everyone and in every case — to violate these precepts. They oblige everyone, regardless of the cost, never to offend in anyone, beginning with oneself, the personal dignity common to all.

VS, 52.**

The fact that the negative precepts exhibit this particularly unique negative universal role should not suggest that these precepts are more fundamental or more important than those positive precepts which enjoin us to do good.

The reason is this: the commandment of love of God and neighbor does not have in its dynamic any higher limit, but it does have a lower limit, beneath which the commandment is broken. Furthermore, what must be done in any given situation depends on the circumstances, not all of which can be foreseen; on the other hand there are kinds of behavior which can never, in any situation, be a proper response — a response which is in conformity with the dignity of the person. Finally, it is always possible that man, as the result of coercion or other circumstances, can be hindered from doing certain good actions; but he can never be hindered from not doing certain actions, especially if he is prepared to die rather than to do evil.

VS, 52.***

The Pope has given reasons why the negative precepts bind absolutely and at all times and why the positive precepts are more flexible in their application because of their nature, in their "dynamic," have no "higher limit,"--though both negative and positive precept bind universally and absolutely. Simply speaking, there is a floor beneath which we ought not go. The floor is defined by the negative precepts, and these set the irreducible minimum of all behavior. There is no limit, however, how high we may go or how wide we may travel, and so the positive precepts to do good do not have this minimalistic quality.

It is the reasons behind the distinction between negative precepts and positive precepts that underlies the Church's constant authoritative teaching:

The Church has always taught that one may never choose kinds of behavior prohibited by the moral commandments expressed in negative form in the Old and New Testaments. As we have seen, Jesus himself reaffirms that these prohibitions allow no exceptions: "If you wish to enter into life, keep the commandments... You shall not murder, You shall not commit adultery, You shall not steal, You shall not bear false witness" (Mt 19:17-18).

VS, 52.

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*The first quotation refers to the Second Vatican Ecumenical Council, Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern World Gaudium et Spes, 10; Sacred Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Declaration on Certain Questions Concerning Sexual Ethics Persona Humana (December 29,1975), 4: AAS 68 (1976, 80: "But in fact, divine Revelation and, in its own proper order, philosophical wisdom, emphasize the authentic exigencies of human nature. They thereby necessarily manifest the existence of immutable laws inscribed in the constitutive elements of human nature and which are revealed to be identical in all beings endowed with reason." The second quotation refers to Gaudium et Spes, 29.
**The Pope's insistence that there are absolute and exceptionless norms which one cannot ever transgress is, of course, inimical to any theory of ethics based upon consequentialism, utilitarianism, or (what amongnst the Catholic moral theologians whose errors John Paul II was trying to address) proportionalism. Not all acts can be measured by reference to their consequences or to the proportions of evil in the act versus its consequences. So acts are simply, in every time and in every place and in every circumstance, intrinsically evil and therefore always prohibited.
***One of the significant problems with moral theories that are based upon utilitarian, consequentialist, or proportionalist bases is, of course, that they absolutize the rule to maximize the good, and lead to a certain moral neurosis. d This feature has been the subject of prior postings. See, e.g., Contra Consequentialismum: There Ain't No Such Thing as Absolutes, Opera et Omissiones: Differentia non est and the Recipe for Neurosis, and Natural Law's Modern Cousin Germain: Respect for Basic Values.

Natural Law's Modern Cousin Germain: Exceptionless Rights

ANY ADVOCATE OF NATURAL LAW will recognize that there are some acts that are intrinsically evil and that no circumstance will justify them. In short, they will recognize some exceptionless or absolute norms that under all circumstances apply. It follows that when these are "translated" into rights, that there will be some rights that are absolute, exceptionless, inalienable, inviolable. There are some moral (human) rights of persons that cannot be violated--whatever the circumstances--without injustice and moral fault. "Correlative to the exceptionless duties entailed by this requirement [to use practical reasonableness and never act against the basic values, whether in oneself or other human beings] are, therefore, exceptionless or absolute human claim-rights--most obviously, the right not to have one's life taken directly as a means to any further end."*

For the calculative utilitarian or consequentialist, always attune to expediency over morality (or perhaps, more accurately, equating morality with expediency), the notion of absolute rights is, of course, folly. For a utilitarian or consequentialist, the statement "Whatever the circumstances, φ ought not to be done, φ ought not to be treated that way!" is incomprehensible. He would not be caught dead saying such a thing, although he might capitulate to some moral sense if the φ was killing him painfully for another's pleasure.

Civilian Victims of Firebombing Dresden

Finnis has this striking J'accuse against every government in the world, one that merits quoting whole for its boldness:

What is more striking, perhaps, is the fact that, whatever may be commonly professed in the modern world, no contemporary government or élite manifests in its practice any belief in absolute human rights. For every government that has the physical capacity to make its threats credible says this to its potential enemies: 'If you attack us and threaten to defeat us, we will kill all the hostages we hold; that is to say, we will incinerate or dismember as many of your old men and women and children, and poison as many of your mothers and their unborn offspring, as it takes to persuade you to desist; we do not regard as decisive the fact that they are themselves no threat to us; nor do we propose to destroy them merely incidentally, as an unsought-after-side-effect of efforts to stop your armed forces in their attack on us; no, will destroy your non-combatants precisely because you value them, and in order to persuade you to desist.'

NLNR, 225.

And before we exclude our own government from this harsh accusation, we ought to remember that it was we who targeted innocent civilians at Hiroshima and Nagasaki with nuclear holocaust and Dresden with conventional firebombing. We ought to remember our flirtation with, if not outright participation in, torture of Islamic terrorists. All manner of sins can be authorized under our consequentialist ethics, as by definition consequentialist ethics deny the absolute. There are no lines a consequentialist or utilitarian will not cross, and we are all utilitarians, all consequentialists now.**

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*There are others mentioned by Finnis: "the right not to be positively lied to in any situation (e.g. teaching, preaching, research publication, new broadcasting) in which factual communication (as distinct from fiction, jest, or poetry) is reasonably expected; and the related right not to be condemned on knowingly false charges; and the right not to be deprived, or required to deprive oneself, of one's procreative capacity [remember here the lionized Justice Holmes's words in Buck v. Bell: "Three generations of imbeciles are enough."]; and the right to be taken into respectful consideration in any assessment of what the common good requires." NLNR, 225.
**And even if we have not slipped into consequentialist or utlitarian clothes, we may be closet consequentialists or utilitarians dressed in classical morality but with a casuist's and not an innocent's heart. We may abuse the principle of unintended consequences or double effect so as to play with what intended, versus what is not intended or what is only an indirect or collateral effect. Although abuse does not condemn use (abusus non tollit usum) of these principles, we must protect against abuse.

The Natural Law Between Two Trees: Susanna's Devotion to Natural Law

THE NATURAL LAW PROPOSES SOME ABSOLUTE NORMS the trespass of which are not for any reason justifiable or excused. Contrary to utilitarian or consequentialist or situation ethics schools of thought, the natural law theory proposes some exceptionless norms the violation of which are so contrary to nature and so offensive to our very personhood that, confronted with their violation or the loss of our life, we ought to prefer the loss of our life. We may not do evil even if it may bring about good. In such instances, where confronted with the choice either to violate such a fundamental norm--to kill one's conscience, to self-abuse, to extinguish the light of the Lord in us--or to suffer death, it is more noble to suffer death. It is the stuff of heroism, the stuff of martyrdom, and those who chose the right over the expedient are rightly praised in our fine arts.

A biblical example of such heroism is found in the Biblical story of Susanna. The story may be found in Chapter 13 of the Book of Daniel.

The daughter of Helcias, Susanna was wife to Joachim. She was both beautiful and chaste, "exceeding delicate, and beautiful to behold,"* and well-instructed in the Law of Moses. Two elders, who held the office of judge, frequented Joachim's home during official business, and both developed inordinate desire, burning lust, toward her.

And they perverted their own mind and turned away their eyes that they might not look unto heaven, nor remember just judgments. So they were both wounded with the love of her, yet they did not make known their grief one to the other: For they were ashamed to declare to one another their lust, being desirous to have to do with her.

Dan. 13:9-11.

Susanna and the Elders by Guido Reni

In his poem, "Peter Quince at the Clavier," Wallace Stevens describes in a fascinating way the judges' increasing libidinous and lecherous desires:

Of a green evening, clear and warm,
She bathed in her still garden, while
The red-eyed elders, watching, felt

The basses of their beings throb
In witching chords, and their thin blood
Pulse pizzicati of Hosanna.

In his interpretation of the biblical story, the artist Guido Reni depicts this marvelously. The elders are dressed in orange, inflamed in active lust. Susanna, though undressed for her bath, maintains her modesty, as her head and her legs are draped in more somber cloth of gold. Contrasted with the burning orange of the judges' robes, Susanna's robe show that she is chaste, having controlled her lust through chastity's virtue. With one hand she resists the judges' lecherous demands. With the other she resists the judges' lecherous stares, by trying to cover herself. She seeks to preserve her chastity and modesty, to be chastely modest.

Eventually, the judges learned of their mutual desire, and they entered into a conspiracy of lust, and the desire hatched into a plot to abuse their office, entrap her, and thus gain her consent to violate her. As she washed herself in the privacy of her garden, the judges approached her:

Behold the doors of the orchard are shut, and nobody seeth us, and we are in love with thee: wherefore consent to us, and lie with us. But if thou wilt not, we will bear witness against thee, that a young man was with thee, and therefore thou didst send away thy maids from thee

Dan. 13:20.

Susanna faced a Hobson's choice, as it were: One the one hand, if she consented to the elders' demands, she would sin against her husband, her conscience, and the law of God. If she did not consent, she would certainly face the penalty for adultery, since she would be condemned through the threatened perjurious testimony of the respected judges.

I am straitened on every side: for if I do this thing, it is death to me: and if I do it not, I shall not escape your hands. But it is better for me to fall into your hands without doing it, than to sin in the sight of the Lord.

Dan. 13:23.

Susanna and the Elders by Daniel O'Neill

The artist Daniel O'Neill shows Susanna's firmness. He shows her in a firm stance of resistance, her arms about her midriff, in staunch and absolute rejection of the judges' proposition. She has a noble, certain, and clear mien, in contrast the elders' whose look is confused, and whose features show the darkness in their hearts. In his oratorio on this subject, Handel has Susanna reasoning to herself as follows:

Alas! I find the fatal toils are set,
Turn as I will, I struggle in the net;
Yet hear the the inmost purpose of my soul,
Which wrongs shall ne'er suppress, or fear control;
By falsehood's aid, appearing truth be thing,
Self-conscious virtue shall be ever mine.

Act II, sc. 3. One of the elders, whose lust has overcome any sense of justice and judgment, mutters the words that show his disbelief in the very judgment of God: "That shall be try'd--Who waits there? ho within!" To the elders, there is nothing within us that waits within. To Susanna, there is, and what waits within is the pearl of great price.

Preferring death over the violation of the good, Susanna cried out. Susanna was accused of infidelity, and was tried. True to their threat, the judges testified against Susanna:

And the elders said: As we walked in the orchard alone, this woman came in with two maids, and shut the doors of the orchard, and sent away the maids from her. Then a young man that was there hid came to her, and lay with her. But we that were in a corner of the orchard, seeing this wickedness, ran up to them, and we saw them lie together. And him indeed we could not take, because he was stronger than us, and opening the doors he leaped out: But having taken this woman, we asked who the young man was, but she would not tell us: of this thing we are witnesses.

Dan. 13:36-40.

Foul witnesses, indeed. But the weight of their office added to their testimony carried the day, and Susanna was condemned to death for adultery.

Oh eternal God, who knowest hidden things, who knowest all things before they come to pass, Thou knowest that they have borne false witness against me: and behold I must die, whereas I have done none of these things, which these men have maliciously forged against me.

Dan. 13:42-43.

The Prophet Daniel Examining the Elders by Titian

Susanna's prayer bore fruit, as it raised up the spirit of justice in a young boy named Daniel. With a wisdom far exceeding his age, Daniel persuaded the people to have the elders examined separately. Seeking to test their common story, he asked each elder a question collateral to accusation: Under what tree did the Susanna consort with this young man? To which one elder responded: "Under a mastic tree." He asked the same question of the other elder, and that elder responded: "Under a holm oak tree."** The gig was up:

With that all the assembly cried out with a loud voice, and they blessed God, who saveth them that trust in him. And they rose up against the two elders, (for Daniel had convicted them of false witness by their own mouth,) and they did to them as they had maliciously dealt against their neighbour, to fulfill the law of Moses: and they put them to death, and innocent blood was saved in that day.

Dan. 13:60-62.

In his encyclical Veritatis Splendor (No. 91), Pope John Paul II pointed to Susanna as a faithful witness to the existence of exceptionless moral norms. She is model to us that it is preferable to obey God rather than man. Cf. Acts 5:29.

In the Old Testament we already find admirable witnesses of fidelity to the holy law of God even to the point of a voluntary acceptance of death. A prime example is the story of Susanna: in reply to the two unjust judges who threatened to have her condemned to death if she refused to yield to their sinful passion, she says: " I am hemmed in on every side. For if I do this thing, it is death for me; and if I do not, I shall not escape your hands. I choose not to do it and to fall into your hands, rather than to sin in the sight of the Lord!" (Dan 13:22-23). Susanna, preferring to "fall innocent" into the hands of the judges, bears witness not only to her faith and trust in God but also to her obedience to the truth and to the absoluteness of the moral order. By her readiness to die a martyr, she proclaims that it is not right to do what God's law qualifies as evil in order to draw some good from it. Susanna chose for herself the "better part": hers was a perfectly clear witness, without any compromise, to the truth about the good and to the God of Israel. By her acts, she revealed the holiness of God.

Thus the Pope's witness. The poet can do no less:

Susanna's music touched the bawdy strings
Of those white elders; but, escaping,
Left only Death's ironic scraping.

Now, in its immortality, it plays
On the clear viol of her memory,
And makes a constant sacrament of praise.

(Wallace Stevens, "Peter Quince at the Clavier")

And what does the "clear viol of her memory" play? The musician tells us in his chorus:

Bless'd the day that gave Susanna birth,
The chastest beauty that e'er grac'd the earth.

Handel, Susanna, Act III, sc. 2.

In Scripture, in words, in art, in song, in the encyclical of a Pope, and in the hearts of all men of good will, Susanna is a clarion voice, a human paradigm and exemplar, of St. Paul's teaching that evil may never be done, even though good might come. Cf. Rom. 3:8
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*Daniel 13:31.
**The Greek text has an interesting play on words. In response to Daniel's questioning, the first elder says that Susanna's tryst occurred under a mastic tree (ὑπὸ σχῖνον. hypo schinon), and Daniel says that an angel stands ready to cut or chew (σχίσει, schisei) him in two. The second responds that the adulterous tryst occurred under a holm oak (ὑπὸ πρῖνον, hypo prinon), to which Daniel responds that an angel stands ready to saw (πρίσαι, prisai) the false judge in two. The mastic tree is a short tree, almost a shrub, whereas the holm oak is a large tree. The significant discrepancy of the trees the judges testify to leaves no doubt, therefore, of the the falsity of their testimony.