Journal: Bibliotheca Sacra

Volume: BSAC 102:406 (Apr 1945)

Article: The Doctrine of Conscience
Author: Roger Douglass Congdon

The Doctrine of Conscience

Roger Douglass Congdon

The Problem
Introduction.
The study of conscience is not new or original, but it is a neglected study. There has been a dearth of
available material for several years. It seems that it has had an ebb and flow in popularity. The last period of
popularity was at its peak about 1850, and before that, in the days of Luther and Calvin. Today, there is little
attention given to the subject of conscience in religious periodicals, pamphlets, or books. Hallesby’s recent
work is the one outstanding exception (O. Hallesby, Conscience. Minneapolis: Augsburg Publishing House,
1933. 157 pp).
So the great problem of this study will be to discover the Biblical conception of the doctrine of conscience. In
the process, we will discuss the merits of the many definitions which men through the ages have given to it.
Then we shall study carefully the occurrences of the word as used in the original text of Scripture, as well as
the various words which express the same idea without using the word conscience. From this material we
will be able to discuss the various theories and definitions of conscience, and build up the doctrine as it is
taught in the Bible. The conclusion will set forth in summary the statement of the Biblical doctrine of
conscience.

Extra-Biblical Theories.

The English word conscience is derived from the Latin conscientia: “A knowing of a thing together with
another person, joint knowledge, consciousness.” The Lewis and Short Latin dictionary also adds as a
secondary meaning,
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“A consciousness of right or wrong, the moral sense, conscience.”1 It is the idea which is commonly
expressed in English by the word conscience.

Ancient Theories.
1. Babylonian and Assyrian.

In the ancient code of Hammurabi, column 41, there is mention of prayer before Marduk and Zarpanit “with
a full heart”2 or, as Pinches translates it, “with perfection of heart.”3 This is very evidently a reference to that
which we would call conscience, and is the same term—heart—for the idea which we find in Hebrew
literature. The thought in Hammurabi’s Code is that the one who disobeys these laws cannot pray with a “full
heart,” and therefore could not expect the care of “the protecting deities, the gods who enter Esagila.”4
Thus it seems that conscience to he early Babylonians consisted in a knowledge of obedience or
disobedience to the state law. Pinches, however, states that it was different from our idea of conscience, in
that a guilty conscience to an Assyrian or Babylonian might be due to causes over which he had no
control—”the effects of the action of the evil spirits, or the ritual uncleanness brought about by acts of
forgetfulness or by the effects of illness. The disadvantage arising from this consisted in the disfavor of the
gods, or of the king as the god’s representative, and there was a desire to avoid such disfavor in future by
refraining from the commission of misdeeds which brought it about.”5

2. Egyptian.

Egypt seems to lack in its language any word which might be translated conscience, just as the other
ancient
BSac 102:406 (Apr 45) p. 228

languages. The idea may have been present in the mind of the average Egyptian, but it was certainly
expressed far differently from the way we express it. Their Book of the Dead was considered as a possible
source of material on the subject. But Harry Reginald Hall says that this book, also called Book of the
Underworld, Book of the Gates , and the Book of Breathings , is merely a guide book for the next world,
“devised to warn him [the Egyptian] of the dangers he might expect to meet and to provide him with
powerful spells to guarantee his safety.”6 W. M. Flinders Petrie concludes, “The conscience idea of right and
wrong conforms at its basis with what is useful or the reverse for the community.”7

3. Hebrew.

All of our early knowledge of the Hebrew idea of conscience is found in the Old Testament, to be considered
later. But the earliest extant extra-canonical Hebrew literature shows that their life was bound up in the
restrictions governed by conscience. And conscience had as its standard the goodness of God. Gaster
says, “It would be easy to multiply examples and maxims of an ethical character from the Talmudic
literature.”8 In the following paragraph he adds, “The moral duty stands at least on a par with his legal
obligations, and most of the ethical duties mentioned in the Talmud are regularly introduced by the formula
hayab adam, a man is bound (of course by moral conscience) to do this or that.”9

4. Greek.

The development of the idea of conscience began first to take shape in Greek thought. It is true that
suneidēsis at first had no ethical connotation, merely referring to
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consciousness. But “its use in the modern sense of ‘conscience,’ or the moral sense of the individual applied
to his own conduct, occurs not infrequently in Cicero and Seneca.”10 Rickaby, the Roman Catholic writer,
says that early Greeks also used phronēsis where we should use ‘conscience,”11 and Kahler identifies the
daimōn of Socrates, in a way, with conscience.12
Starting with the earliest Greek literature, we find a constant recognition of the idea of conscience, with no
specific term. Probably the earliest idea of conscience is rooted in the unknown centuries behind Greek
literature, in the mythology of those people. From father to son down through the years, the story was told
of the Erinus, who was a spirit-god going about avenging evil. The myth had endless variations. Often there
were many of these spirits, and sometimes they were made to represent the soul of a murdered person,
which returned to haunt and torture the mind of the guilty man. In the general use of the legend, however,
there were many of these creatures who constantly haunted the abodes of the living, to punish all offences
against the laws of human society. This was more than an alarming story to make children be good, like
“The wolf will eat you if you don’t watch out!” The legend of the Erinyes was the conscience of the ancient
Greeks—a very real thing to them.
Homer used the verb aideomai frequently in a way which indicates that it referred to the workings of
conscience. This word commonly meant shame, or stand in awe of , fear.13 The noun aidōs came to mean,
“as a moral feeling, reverence, awe, respect for the feeling or opinion of others or for one’s own conscience.
”14 The active force
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in conscience to the early Greeks was evidently a fear of public opinion, together with a sense of honor, and
self-respect.
As city life grew more prominent in Greece, the idea of individual self-respect turned more and more to that
of community self-respect. Conscience was governed by whether or not an act served the common good of
the community, and not the pride of the individual. Naturally there were strong educating factors which led
men to a high plane of patriotism or devotion to their own small state, and this patriotism was the real basis
of their conscience. Such writers and philosophers as Plato, Socrates, Xenophon, Hesiod, Protagoras,
Aeschylus, and Sophocles were influential in forming the mind of the Grecians of that time.
We follow the development of the idea of conscience more closely because it is of primary importance as a
background for New Testament doctrine. To continue, then—the laws of the Greek states sought to
standardize the conscience into an absolute code of right and wrong. But they found that in the infinite
variety of human life, this was impossible. Therefore there arose the idea of unwritten laws, whose sole
basis was the conscience of the people. We find that “the jurymen at Athens swore to decide suits according
to the laws, but when there was no guide, to judge the case conscientiously (gnōm ē tē aristē, Aristotle,
Rhet. i.15, 5).”15
In Xenophon’s Memorabilia, Book IV, Chapter 4, we have a record of Socrates’ statement concerning
unwritten laws. Beginning with 4:19 we find, Agraphous de tinas oistha, ephē ō hippia, nomous. These
unwritten laws are divided into four classes by Socrates: (1) the worshipping of the gods; (2) honoring of the
parents; (3) against committing incest; (4) repaying those who have done good. In practical experience, the
unwritten and written laws sometimes clashed, and even the unwritten laws according to
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Socrates sometimes opposed one another. But we do see a strong attempt to define the realm of
conscience, and control its working for the good of the State.
During the period of the decay of the Greek state and religion the idea of conscience began to take definite
form. Though the weak grew immoral during this period, the “nobler natures…learned to obey an inner law
of righteousness,” and when the gods were no longer believed, and could not be blamed for leading a man
astray, “he began to blame himself.”16 Thus a definite idea of conscience developed, and a word was
sought to represent the idea accurately. At first, the words psuchē, phusis, phrēn and nous were used, thus
identifying the conscience with the human soul and mind. So we find Jones summing up the developments
in these words: “The Greek of the fifth century was thus fully aware of the working of conscience, and he
began to use special words to describe it. These laid stress, not upon the emotion which follows a judgment
of conscience, but upon the intellectual character of that judgment. The word is sunnoia, ‘deep thought.’“17
The introduction of the word for conscience to be found in the New Testament has been credited to the
Stoics. Some doubt that they were originally responsible, so from Alexander we have the qualified
declaration: “It was probably to the Stoics that St. Paul was indebted for the word suneidēsis, to which he
has given so distinctive a meaning that it has colored and determined the whole later history of the moral
conscience.”18 But the ultimate development of the idea of conscience by the Greeks fell far short of the
revelation given through Paul. In its best form, conscience to the Greek was a judge associated with shame,
accusing him before himself, while “the Christian’s conscience accuses the sinner before God.”19
BSac 102:406 (Apr 45) p. 232

5. Roman.

The Romans did not do much original thinking in the field of philosophy. Most of their ideas were borrowed
from the speculations of the Greeks. So it is not surprising that in the early history of Rome we discover a
copy of the primitive Greek legend of the Erinyes (in Roman garb). The Roman version of the Erinyes
renamed them the Furies, and this is the name by which the characters of this ancient legend are yet called
in some rural sections of Europe.
Similarly a more accurate knowledge of conscience developed before the height of Roman civilization was
reached, along with the unfolding of the idea in Greece. In consequence the story of the Furies was only of
historical interest during most of Rome’s glory. To the average Roman, conscience had to do with the good
of all and especially the good of the State. It was primarily associated with the laws of the land. At the time of
Christ the word conscientia got to be in common use, and was described by a then popular saying: “A good
conscience is the widest sphere; but a bad one is the cruelest executioner, and more fiercely torments the
ungodly than any Furies can do. “20
Dallas, Texas
(To be continued in the July-September Number, 1945)

Charlton T. Lewis and Charles Short, A Latin Dictionary (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1900), p. 426.
2

Robert Francis Harper, The Code of Hammurabi King of Babylon (Chicago: University of Chicago Press,
1904), p. 101.
3

Encyclopedia of Religion and Ethics , IV, 33.

4

Harper, op. cit., p. 101.

5

Pinches, op. cit., p. 33.

6

H. R. Hall, “Egypt: Religion,” Encyclopedia Britannica, 14th ed., VIII, 60.

7

Quoted by George Foucart, “Conscience (Egyptian),” Encyclopedia of Religion and Ethics , IV, 37.
8

Moses Gaster, “Conscience (Jewish),” Encyclopedia of Religion and Ethics , IV, 43.
9

Gaster, op. cit., p. 43.

10

Martin Kahler, “Conscience,” The New Schaff-Herzog Encyclopedia , III, 242.

11

John Rickaby, “Conscience,” Catholic Encyclopedia, IV, 268.

12

Kahler, op. cit., p. 242.

13

Liddell and Scott, Lexicon (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1940), I, 36.

14

Ibid.
15

W. H. S. Jones, “Conscience (Greek and Roman),” Encyclopedia of Religion and Ethics , IV, 38.
16

Ibid.
17

Jones, op. cit., p. 38.

18

Archibald B. D. Alexander, Christianity and Ethics (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1927), p. 70.
19

Jones, op. cit., p. 40.

20

Calvin, Commentary on Romans (Edinburgh: Calvin Translation society, 1849), p. 98.

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