In 1720, as God is my witness appears to be an oath of honesty, invoking the omniscience of God to corroborate a man's own testimony. From The Dying Speeches and Behaviour of the Several State Prisoners That Have Been Executed the Last 300 Years:
I take God to witness, I never had one Six-pence, or any thing else,
to carry on any Design ; and if it were to save my Life now, I cannot
charge any Man in the World with any Design against the Government, as
God is my Witness, or against his Majesty, or against any other
Person.
Stephen College had been condemned to die for treason and was reaffirming his innocence at his execution hearing. He invoked God as a witness, and reaffirmed it with the phrase, as God is my witness. From the Corpus, this seems to be the predominant use of the phrase, and as such it could be considered a set phrase meaning: since God testifies with me [I'm telling the truth].
In 1839, John Donne and Henry Alford identified the ancient religious origin of this oath in The Works, Volume 1, page 107:
How often does St. Paul, (especially in his epistles to Timothy, and
to Titus) repeat that phrase, This is a true and faithful saying? And
how often, his juratory caution, before the Lord ; as God is my
witness?
From Romans 1:9 and 1 Thessalonians 2:5 in the King James version of The Bible:
For God is my witness, whom I serve with my spirit in the gospel of
his Son, that without ceasing I make mention of you always in my
prayers;
For neither at any time used we flattering words, as ye know, nor a
cloke of covetousness; God is witness:
The example of Saint Paul invoking God to establish his honesty became a pattern in the Church of England, throughout the colonies, and as a foundation in the United States. In 1840, W. Jos Walter combined the essence of first two phrases of the OP with the same reinforcement of honesty. During Sir Thomas More's defense at an indictment hearing in Sir Thomas More His Life and Times, page 324:
As God is my witness, and as I look to Him for the salvation of my
soul, this was my only answer. All this I trust is no breach of your
law.
God's testimony corroborates, and my salvation is held as security on the honesty of my statement! In 1899, Sidney Levett-Yeats used as God is my witness in an ambiguous way that foreshadowed a major turn in the phrase. From The Heart of Denise and Other Tales:
You can say what you please, madame, but we did our best; but as God
is my witness the Huguenots mean death, and I advise you to go. In a
half-hour it will be too late.
Sidney Levett-Yeats probably meant for us to infer I'm telling the truth in this context, but the future focus welcomes a hint of I'm serious! which appeared again in 1966, Bird at My Window, Page 19:
I swear to you, if you sign him out and he cause any trouble — as God
is my witness, I ain't going to never have nothing to do with you, nor
lay sight on you as long as I live.
The phrase seems to be expanding into the truth of a promise: I'm committed! From The South and Faulkner's Yoknapatawpha, page 178:
...it is precisely the sight of the gutted and ruined Twelve Oaks that
directly triggers the vow she makes that "'As God is my witness, as
God is my witness, the Yankees aren't going to lick me. I'm going to
live through this and when it's over, I'm never going to be hungry
again. No, nor any of my folks. If I have to steal or kill — as God is
my witness, I'm never going to be hungry again.
The truthful promise application, has been sealed with the truthful testimony.
In a secular society, where honesty, invoking God as a witness, and offering salvation as security, have become passé, all sorts of things are substituted:
wanting to describe a 5-pound bass in such a way as to persuade their
hearers that it was indeed, verily, in absolute truth, as God is my
witness, by the grass on my mother's grave, in all honesty a 5-pound
bass, they are obliged, without any alternative, to call it an 8-pound
bass, since every listener will deduct at least 3 pounds and probably
more.
Field & Stream Jun 1981, page 146.
What is more valuable to an "unbeliever" than their own life? But in the second person, it is mostly a threat:
Well, then, you will call here to-morrow morning about eleven o'clock,
not before, and (I hardly need repeat it), but I again say— secrecy—as
you value your life.
We can apply a number of technical interpretations of as:
- Interjection: Secrecy, or your life!
- Comparison: You should value the secrecy like you value your life.
- Concurrence: As long as you value your life, you should value the
secrecy. Cause: Since you value your life, you will value secrecy too.
The meaning is the same: If you value your life, keep the secret.
Conclusion:
As an invocation of supernatural credibility their may be an undertone of "obviously" to someone who is convinced of the supernatural, but the issue is not the obviousness of the matter, but rather the honesty of the matter. On its face the cause use of as seems to be the strongest, but all of the other uses of as find merit too. In the end, the semantic unit as seems to be dissolved into the set phrases meaning: Honestly! Seriously!
No comments:
Post a Comment