On Calumny and Detraction
G. Haggitt, M. A. Deuteronomy 5:20 Neither shall you bear false witness against your neighbor. This appears, perhaps, only to forbid a false oath in a court of justice to the prejudice of a fellow creature, but in reality it comprehends and prohibits every sort of injury which the tongue of one man can do to the character of another. The most atrocious of these is clearly that which seems to have been more particularly in the contemplation of the legislator, the solemn affirmation before a magistrate of what we know to be untrue to the injury of another. The next degree of guilt in the violation of this commandment is that of him who affirms in private life what he knows to be false with an intention of wounding the reputation of his neighbour. The injury done to the person defamed is often as grievous as what he would have received from a false testimony in a court of justice; his character, his livelihood perhaps, which frequently depends on that character, are the sacrifice. A third offender against this commandment is he who repeats to the detriment of another reports which he has picked up in conversation, not indeed knowing them to be false, but which he might reasonably presume to be so, or which at least he does not know to be true, nor indeed is he solicitous about the truth of them. He thinks he has a right to repeat them. Supposing that he had, is such a repetition generous? is it doing as he would wish others to do by him? But he is deceived in the matter of right; he can have none to affirm anything which may injure the character of another, of the truth of which he is not absolutely certain. Another kind of evil speaking by which this commandment is transgressed, and the reputation of our neighbour injured, is the fixing on him in general terms a bad character; calling him, for example, covetous, proud, foolish, or hypocritical, assigning to him any ill propensity in the gross, without mentioning any particular instances of it. Another mode of gratifying his passion, which the calumniator practises, is by miscalling good qualities, or attributing them, and the actions which arise from them, to bad or interested motives. Now, he who is guilty of this is eminently a slanderer, since he asserts a thing to my prejudice of the truth of which he must be doubtful; for how can any other person possibly know my heart? A fourth slanderer, and perhaps the most pernicious of all, vents his calumnies under the disguise of benevolence; and with an affectation of candour, pretending to vindicate those whom he has heard, or feigns that he has heard, attacked, overwhelms them with the deeper obloquy. I have still further to observe that there are scandalous ears as well as scandalous tongues, and that he who encourages such kind of conversation, by greedily and with pleasure listening to it, who, though he does not concur, shows plainly how much he delights in it; who, by artful questions and affected doubts, draws on the calumniator to launch out and to expatiate, is scarcely less guilty than the person whose vice he thus fosters, and manifests that lie approves. I shall now proceed to point out the chief motives by which men who are guilty of this odious vice are actuated, and in so doing evince its wickedness. 1. The destroyer of character is, I think, most commonly actuated by pride; it so happens that from the desire of distinction, which in a greater or less degree is felt by all men, we have established in our own mind a sort of competition for it with everyone around us we are desirous of surpassing, or at least of having the fame of surpassing, them in whatever excellences fall within our sphere. 2. A second root of scandal and detraction is envy. This is very similar in its nature to the species of pride above-mentioned, but yet it is not quite the same; it is even still more hateful. 3. A third origin of this vice is malice; we have received from our neighbour some real or imaginary injury, which has provoked our dislike of him; perhaps it is not in our power to avenge ourselves any other way, or not in our idea to an adequate degree, we therefore commence an attack on his character, vilify and abuse him on all occasions, disparaging his merits, and aggravating his failings whenever we have opportunity. 4. I will just mention one other ground of scandal, and that is vanity. If the esteem of his fellow creatures he of any value in his eyes, let him remember that he of all others stands the least chance of possessing it; the inventor of slander, the propagator of calumny, is the object of universal contempt and abhorrence. (G. Haggitt, M. A.) Parallel Verses KJV: Neither shalt thou bear false witness against thy neighbour. WEB: "Neither shall you give false testimony against your neighbor.