01.03. Question 03

Question 3. How Far Must Obedience Be Rendered Or Refused To Unjust Or Impious Commands? A further question is raised as to what limits this notion of disregarding sinful or unjust commands of Rulers should be extended. Here I reply: Each man must consider what his station and calling demands, be it general and public or private. Does the Ruler command what God forbids (as Pharaoh1 did to the midwives of Egypt and Herod’s2 to his accomplices when bidding them to slay all that were two years old)? Then you will rightly perform your duty if you do not carry out a command of that kind, as we read concerning the illustrious jurisconsult Papinian who, though he was not a Christian, yet would rather be slain by the tyrant Caracalla than either to approve of the fratricide which he had committed, or justify it by his advocacy3 . But if the tyrant forbids what God commands, you should not at all judge that you have performed your duty if you have merely refused to obey the tyrant, unless at the same time you obey the command of God as we declared that Obadiah did, who not merely refrained from slaying the prophets of God, but even protected and nourished them in defiance of the command of Ahab and Jezebel4 , since the Lord bids us, each as far as his calling permits, to bring succor to his brethren in peril. Thus also the Apostles, as we have said above, not merely did not desist from preaching the Gospel5 that they might heed the priests, but on the contrary they steadfastly preached everywhere since they had expressly received this command6 from the Lord: "Go ye and preach the Gospel to every creature" etc. Therefore when today we see many Rulers so bewitched by the Roman Antichrist that they by the sternest commands compel their subjects to attend the execrable sacrifice of Mass, the duty of all pious men requires not merely that they should not carry out that command, but further that they should in accordance with the example of Elijah and Elisha, even of the entire pure and true Church of old, join in pious gatherings, there hear the word of God and have communion of the sacraments as Christ ordained that it should be done in the Church. The same principle must also be observed in the duties which men owe to their fellowmen both by the law of God and by the law of nature, for example children to their parents, a wife to her husband, the shepherd to his flock, and in fine one neighbor to another. For it is not fitting that we should be deterred or led astray from those duties by means of any commands or threats or even by the most unjust punishment; only let obedience (which we owe above all to God who is greater than all these) be not at all excluded from the performances of duties of this kind which we carry out.

Question 3. How Far Must Obedience Be Rendered Or Refused To Unjust Or Impious Commands?

1. Exodus 1:16

2. Matthew 2:17 3. A reference to Aemilius Papianianus (212 A.D.). See Historia Augustae, Caracalla, VIII, 5-6.

4. 1 Kings 18:4, 1 Kings 18:13

5. Acts 5:42 6. Matthew 28:19; Mark