“If the Elector Palatine granted you the great mercy of releasing you from prison and banishing you from the territory, would you swear under oath neither to carry on your trade nor to teach it outside of the territory?” The interrogating officer looked sternly at the prisoner, awaiting an answer to his demand. Few would have guessed that this prisoner, aged by suffering and hard labor, was only 27 years old. His name was William Grahe.
Swear an oath? Christ said, “Swear not at all” (Matthew 5:34). Yet what would it mean to refuse swearing this oath now? Would William be sent back to prison to face a slow death inside the massive walls of this fortress?
Four years earlier, William and five others had been arrested on February 1, 1717. Their crime? They had been baptized as believers in Christ.
Soldiers had bound their arms as if they were vicious criminals and had marched them off to prison. For ten months they were interrogated and urged to recant. But they refused to turn from their faith in Jesus Christ. Finally, the judge handed down their sentence. They were spared execution or slavery on the dreaded galley ships. Instead, they were condemned to hard labor for life at the fortress of Jülich.
William remembered the miseries they endured in Jülich—the rats, the lice that swarmed like ants on an anthill, the hunger that chased sleep from them, the abuse of the criminals they shared the prison with. At times William and his friends suffered from fever, scurvy, and other diseases. They toiled 12 hours a day on the fortifications, pushing wheelbarrows or performing other labor. In the chill of autumn, they had waded into the mote surrounding the fortress, hauling out the muck at the bottom.
They had sweated in the blazing heat of summer, then at noon were turned into their dungeon four feet below ground to eat their lunch in darkness, their sweat chilling them to the bone. One window lit this prison cell beneath the gate called “Paradise.” The window was covered with grates so thick that the sun only shone through it a few weeks out of the year—when the sun hung low enough in the sky for its rays to pierce the slits in the iron.
Death was inevitable in a place like this. But friends on the outside had appealed to the tolerant Dutch government to pressure the German government to release these religious prisoners. The Dutch responded by withholding financial aid to the German states until the six brethren were released. One day the commander of the fortress came to the brethren and announced, “You will soon be released.” At those words, they found that their feeble bodies yet had strength to leap for joy.
That announcement had come three weeks ago. Now William had been called into the guardhouse. He saluted the officer and then sank into a chair, too weak to stand longer. After an hour of questions, there was yet one hurdle that had to be overcome before the prison doors would swing open.
William and his friends were from Solingen. Solingen prided itself in producing the best knives and swords that could be found anywhere in the empire. No tradesman could take his trade secrets and leave the territory. Before these brethren could be released—and banished from Solingen—they had to swear they would neither make knives nor disclose the secrets of their trade.
It did not take William long to make his decision. He said, “The commissioner will well know, or be reminded, that we swear no formal oaths. But on this point we are willing to give our pledge and shake hands on it, which is as binding with us as a formal oath.”
The officer shook his hand and William returned to his cell. One by one the officer interrogated the other five brethren. They likewise said, “We can swear no oaths, but our promise will be kept.” Back in their prison cell, they wondered, Will we be released? The days stretched into weeks. Five weeks went by.
Finally, they were released on November 20, 1720. Some of them, unable to walk, rode in a wagon. On the third day, they arrived at the home of one of their brethren. There, as William said years later, “We were welcomed with the greatest joy by all of the brethren.”[1]
For William and his brethren, refusing to swear an oath was not a mere technicality or a legalistic interpretation of Jesus’ words. They understood that governments view oaths as necessary because humans by nature are dishonest and untrustworthy. A civil oath is an attempt to coerce truthfulness. But Christ calls us to live differently. He calls us to tell the truth all the time.
A little boy says, “Daddy, will you come play with me?”
The father says, “Just a bit, Son, and then I will.”
The boy replies, “Daddy, will you swear that you will come play with me?” Such a plea is an indictment upon that father. It shows that his little boy has found his daddy’s words untrustworthy in the past, and now suspects that his father will not keep his promise. As followers of Christ, we want to be honest to the point that oaths are unnecessary to prove our sincerity. Jesus said, “Let your ‘Yes’ be ‘Yes,’ and your ‘No,’ ‘No’” (Matthew 5:37 NKJV).
In the new Bible Helps article, “Affirming Truth without Oaths,” Paul Shirk explains Christ’s teaching about being honest without swearing oaths, and documents how followers of Christ have lived out this teaching in the past.
[1] This true story about William Grahe is documented in Donald F. Durnbaugh, European Origins of the Brethren (Elgin, IL: Brethren Press, 1958), 241-268.
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