toward suicide. Socrates himself chose to drink the hemlock,
but he also affirmed the Orphic notions that humans are
placed in a prison from which they may not release them-
selves and that they are a possession of the gods. The decision
to commit suicide is thus an act against the gods, depriving
them of their prerogative to end or to sustain human life.
The key word for both Plato and Socrates is necessity. A per-
son may appropriately end his life only when the gods send
the necessity to do so upon him, as in fact they did to Socra-
tes. Plato’s disciple, Aristotle, argued even more strongly
against suicide. He regarded it as an offense against the state,
since by such an act a person fails to perform his obligations
as a citizen. Thus it became a social outrage—a view that has
continued to dominate thought in the West until the most
recent times.
Whereas the Pythagoreans and Epicureans opposed sui-
cide, the Stoics regarded it favorably under certain circum-
stances. The Stoic was obliged to make a decision that prop-
erly addressed the demands of the situation; at times the
decision might be to commit suicide. Both Zeno and his suc-
cessor, Cleanthes, are reported to have done so.
Heroic suicide and suicide to avoid dishonor or suffer-
ing became frequent within the society of the Roman em-
pire. Seneca, in particular, moved beyond the insistence on
a divine call or necessity for suicide to the assertion that sui-
cide at the appropriate time is a basic individual right. For
Seneca, the central issue was freedom, and he affirmed that
the divine had offered humankind a number of exits from
life; he himself chose to exercise the right to suicide. His suc-
cessor, Epictetus, placed more limits on suicide, stressing
again the belief that one must wait for the divine command
before acting: The suffering that is a normal part of daily life
for much of humanity does not of itself constitute a sufficient
reason for suicide—although exceptional pain and suffering
offer justifiable cause. For Epictetus, Socrates was the best
model and guide in deciding when one might legitimately
choose to end one’s life.
JUDAISM. Whereas suicide was at the very least tolerated, and
often applauded, among the ancient Greeks and Romans,
the Hebrew people disapproved of it. Judaism draws a clear
distinction between suicide, which it defines as self-murder,
and martyrdom, which it defines as death on behalf of one’s
faith and religious convictions. Nonetheless, the Hebrew
scriptures, which contain few references to dying by one’s
own hand, do describe several instances of heroic suicide.
The king Abimelech, gravely wounded by a woman, called
upon his armor-bearer to kill him (Jgs. 9:52–54). Although
he did not literally kill himself, his command to his aide may
be regarded as effecting what he could not perform himself,
so that he might not die in dishonor. The death of Samson
(Jgs. 16:28–31) may certainly be judged a heroic suicide,
since by his act he brought about the demise of a large num-
ber of the enemy Philistines. The gravely injured Saul fell
upon his own sword in order to avoid a disgraceful death at
the hands of his enemies (1 Sm. 31:4), and his armor-bearer,
who had failed his master’s request to kill him, then fell upon
his own sword. The death of Ahithophel, the counselor to
David and then to David’s son Absalom, would appear to
be a suicide motivated by disgrace. When Absalom refused
to follow the advice Ahithophel gave him regarding his battle
with David, Ahithophel returned home, set his affairs in
order, and hanged himself (2 Sm. 17:23). The last suicide
recorded in the Hebrew scriptures, the death of the king
Zimri, occurred because of the loss of a decisive battle (1 Kgs.
16:18).Although Hebrew scriptures do not explicitly forbid sui-
cide, the Judaic tradition came to prohibit it, partly in the
belief that God alone gives life and takes it away, and partly
on the basis of the sixth commandment, which forbids un-
justified homicide. However, rabbinic law regards persons
committing suicide as most frequently being of unsound
mind and thus not responsible for their actions. Under these
circumstances, they may still receive normal Jewish burial
rites. Furthermore, suicides committed under duress, as for
example to avoid murder, idolatry, or adultery, were consid-
ered blameless and indeed even praiseworthy. The mass sui-
cide at Masada in 74 CE and other mass suicides in Europe
during the Middle Ages were considered in this light.
Concerning Masada, the historian Josephus Flavius re-
counts, on the basis of the report of a few survivors, that on
the eve of the Roman assault on that hill the leader of the
vastly outnumbered Jewish resistance, ElEazar ben YaDir,
called the community together and reminded them of their
vow not to become the slaves of the Romans. That night
many of the soldiers killed their families and committed sui-
cide. Others drew lots to decide who would kill his fellows
and then die by his own hand. It is impossible to say how
many of the more than nine hundred defenders allowed
themselves to be killed and how many ended their lives by
suicide. In spite of the Jewish prohibition against suicide,
Masada came to be regarded as a heroic sacrifice, and it re-
mains a living symbol of a people’s response to oppression.Although accounts of individual suicide within Judaism
are rare, there are examples of mass suicides during times of
persecution. During the First Crusade, in 1096, Jews who
had obtained sanctuary in the bishop’s castle at Worms chose
mass suicide over baptism; similar instances of suicide to
avoid baptism occurred in various Rhineland towns, such as
Mayence, and in York, England, where in 1190 some 150
Jews set fire to the building in which they had sought safety
and then consigned themselves to the flames. Yet other in-
stances of mass suicide occurred during the Black Death,
when popular superstition blamed the outbreak of the plague
on the Jews. Although abuse and persecution were certainly
major motivating factors during the periods of the Crusades
and the Black Death, these mass or multiple suicides appear
to have arisen from a deep religious desire to remain true to
the faith. They point again to the difficulty in distinguishing
between, on the one hand, suicides motivated by fear of per-
secution and, on the other, suicides motivated by religiousSUICIDE 8829