In certain cases, dueling might, of course, be a proof of physical courage and of disdain for life, but it is incontestably a proof of moral cowardice, as is also the case with suicide. The suicide does not have the courage to endure the vicissitudes of life; the dueler does not have the courage to endure offenses. Did Christ not tell you that there is more honor and courage in offering the left cheek to someone who has struck your right one than to avenge an offense? In the Garden of Olives, did Christ not tell Peter, “Put your sword back in its sheath, because those who kill with the sword shall die by the sword?” With these words, does Jesus not condemn dueling forever? In fact, my children, what courage is this, born of a violent, bloody and wrathful temperament that rants and raves at the first offense? Where is the greatness-of-soul of him who, at the least offense, wants to wash it with blood? Let him tremble! because in the depths of his conscience a voice will always cry out to him, “Cain! Cain! What have you done to your brother?” He will tell this voice, “It was necessary to spill blood in order to save my honor.” However, the voice will reply to him, “You wanted to save your honor before men for the few moments that remain for you to live on the earth, but you did not think about saving it before God! Poor fool!” How much blood would Christ ask of you for all the offenses he received? You not only wounded him with thorns and the lance, you not only nailed him to the gibbet, but in the midst of his agony, he could hear the mockery you heaped on him. After such outrages, what reparation did he ask of you? The last cry of the Lamb was a prayer for his executioners! Oh! Like him, forgive and pray for those who offend you.

Friends, remember this precept: “Love one another,” and then to the blow given out of hate, you will respond with a smile, and to the offense, with forgiveness. Of course, the world will rise up in fury and treat you as a coward; hold your head high and show that – like Christ – you are not afraid to have your brow laden with thorns, and that your hand does not want to be the accomplice in a homicide that supposedly authorizes a false appearance of honor, but  which actually amounts to nothing more than pride and self-centeredness. In creating you, did God give you the right of life and death over one another? No, he gave such right only to nature for reforming and rebuilding itself. But as for you, he did not permit you to dispose even of yourselves. Like the suicide, the dueler will be marked with blood when he appears before God, and the Sovereign Judge reserves a harsh and long punishment for both. If God has threatened with his justice him who says raca to his brother, how much more severe will the punishment be for him who appears before him with hands red with the blood of his brother!

St. Augustine (Paris, 1862)