suicide

suicide. The intentional taking of one's own life is not specifically condemned in the Bible apart from the general prohibition of killing, but nearly all the biblical suicides are associated with God's disfavour, and normal Jewish practice in the 1st cent. AD apparently included the shameful burial of suicides after dusk. Roman law opposed any moral condemnation of suicide. Christian authority took the opposite position, but gradually. From the late 4th cent. the Fathers condemn suicide forcibly and at length, St Augustine seeking to dissuade Christian women from preferring suicide to rape. At about the same time posthumous sanctions appear in the context of Egyptian monasticism, and by the 6th cent. canon law denied suicides normal burial and prayers. Most medieval secular law augmented the canonical penalties with its own, e.g. putting suicide among the crimes involving loss of property. The sanctions were applied with varying degrees of rigour, but the status of suicide as a secular crime continued in England until 1961. The modern erosion of sanctions can be traced to the simple view, derived from Roman law and tradition, that suicide is intrinsically innocent, and to the more complex view that, while suicide is wrong, it is proper to feel pity for the suicide and hope for God's mercy on his behalf. RC canons no longer expressly exclude suicides from Christian burial, while those of the C of E allow burial with a special form of service. The Catechism of the Catholic Church, while condemning suicide, states positively that ‘The Church prays for those who have taken their own lives’. Unless dispensed, attempted suicide remains a bar to RC ordination.

The Samaritans, a voluntary organization founded in 1953, gives help anonymously to those tempted to suicide.

See also DEAD, PRAYERS FOR THE, and DYING, CARE OF THE.