The old Scandinavians swore upon a sacred bracelet kept on the altar in every high court. The judge reddened this with the blood of a bullock sacrificed and the witness said : " Name I to witness that I take the great oath on the holy ring, law oath, so help me Frey, and Niord and Almighty Thor." The Irish, in the good old days when the Brehons judged the land, swore by the sun, moon, wind, the • dew, the crops, the countenance of men, by all the elements visible and invisible. In the early days of Christianity began a controversy as to the lawfulness of Chris tians swearing which has not yet been closed. In the fourth century Christian soldiers swore allegiance " by God, Christ, the Holy Spirit and the Majesty of the Em peror." Under the codes of Constantine and Justinian all witnesses had to be sworn; and by the Middle Ages oaths had increased and multiplied in Christendom far beyond the practice of any other age or religion. Very early came in the practice of swearing upon the Gospels. St. Chrysostom men tions it : apparently it was derived from the old Jewish oath taken holding in the hand a scroll of the law of Moses. Usually the hand was laid upon the Gospels : but the practice of kissing the book appears in the Middle Ages, and it is now the general form in England and where English law obtains. And as good Cowpcr says : — "Thousands, careless of the damning sin. Kiss the book's outside, who ne'er look'd within."
Oftentimes the book was placed oft the altar, and the swearer touched the altar, or looked towards it. Oaths taken on a relic, on a shrine or reliquary, on a cross or on the bishop's crozier, were also deemed very solemn and binding. The words, " So help me God," used as the deponent raises the book, are of very ancient origin. They have been used in England since the days of Henry IV; the Germans have "So mir Gott helfe";
the old French had "Si m'ait Dex "; inCharlemagne's time the form, " Sic me adjuvet, Deus," closely resembled the for mulas of pre-Christian Rome. How near akin all these arc to the old Viking's prayer, "So help me Frey." Old Giles Jacob in his Dictionary says, "Antiently at the end of a legal oath was added, ' So help me God at His Holy Dome,' i. c. Judgment; and our ancestors did be lieve that a man could not be so wicked to call God to witness anything which was not true; but that if any one should be per jured, he must continually expect that God would be the Revenger." In one case in New Jersey it was decided that where a person accepts a form of oath as usually administered, without objec tion, it is not absolutely necessary for him to kiss the Bible; and in another case, where the deponent kissed Watt's Psalms and Hymns, supposing it was the Bible, it was decided to be all right. (Pullen f. Pullen, 4 Atl. Rep. 2; People v. Cook, 4 Seid. 84.) The position of the body when swearing used to be considered of much importance. Lifting the hand towards Heaven, putting the hand under the thigh, and joining hands, are positions all mentioned in Holy Writ. In England the Lords of Parliament at one time held up their hands when swearing; French jurors still do so, and witnesses in Scottish courts do likewise while the judge administers the oath. Pelagius swore hold ing the cross and the Gospel on his head. Under the Brehons the Irishman swore first standing, then sitting, and then lying, as in these three positions his life was spent. In some parts of Spain a witness forms a cross by placing the middle of his thumb on the middle of his forefinger, and as he kisses it says, " By this cross I swear." The Aus trian takes the oath by raising the thumb and the two first fingers of the right hand, saying " So help me God." In Italy, under the Napoleonic Code, the judge first admon ished the witness of the importance and
