Acts, the Judicial Vow, and Early Friends
July 1, 2022 § 3 Comments
Listening to Ketanji Brown Jackson recite her judicial vow as a Supreme Court Associate Justice, one phrase jumped out to me. Here’s the generic text of the vow:
“I, _________, do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will administer justice without respect to persons, and do equal right to the poor and to the rich, and that I will faithfully and impartially discharge and perform all the duties incumbent upon me as _________ under the Constitution and laws of the United States.
This is very close to the passage that early Friends used as a foundation for what we now call the testimony of equality. Back then, it inspired their practice of plain speech and non-practice of hat honor, in which they addressed all people, regardless of their social station whether above or below themselves, as equals, and refused to doff their hats to show subservient respect to those of higher station than themselves. Here’s the passage in Acts (10:34–35; KJV):
Then Peter opened his mouth, and said, “Of a truth I perceive that God is no respecter of persons: But in every nation he that feareth him, and worketh righteousness, is accepted with him.”
I can’t help but wonder whether the writers of the judicial oath did not directly borrow from this passage in their wording. The oath was established in the Judiciary Act of 1789, and so the King James would almost certainly have been the version read by the writers. I would love to know whether any Quakers were involved in the writing of the Judiciary Act or this vow. Or perhaps this language was quite widely known and used also by non-Quakers in this kind of context.
Through the Flaming Sword 
Thank you Steven. I have no erudition, but am intrigued by the connection you make. Not only did Quakers claim not to be respecters of persons, but also not to be respecters of days which also got them into trouble for refusing to honor “the day men call Christmas”, as I am sure you know.
Thanks so much for this erudition, John. It opens up new light on the vow and especially on biblical truth.
Steven, “acceptance of persons” (Koinē Greek _prosōpolēmpsía_) occurs several places in the New Testament, sometimes as two words, _prósōpon lambánō_, “to accept a person,” literally “to receive a face.” My Thayer’s Greek-English Lexicon calls it “a Hellenistic formation,” i.e., not found in earlier “Classical” Greek, and I’m inclined to believe it must have entered Koinē Greek from Hebrew, where the translators of the Septuagint found _nasā panīm_ in the original Hebrew of Leviticus 19:15 and Malachi 1:8 and translated it literally. The entry in Gesenius’s _Hebrew and English Lexicon of the OT_ for _nasā_, to “lift” or “take,” stretches out over four pages, but includes the idiomatic usage “to lift up the face of another (orig. prob. of one prostrate in humility).”
I wouldn’t be surprised if the Biblical phrase “acceptance of persons” made its way into European law-codes, via both the Greek _prosōpolēmpsía_ and its Latin (Vulgate) translation, _personarum acceptio_, over the centuries when Christianity was the state religion, especially since Leviticus 19:15 explicitly forbids it. So the lawyers who framed the Judiciary Act of 1789 may have known the phrase from their familiarity with the King James Bible, *or* from their law-books — or both.
I’ll stop here and refrain from judgments about any of the Justices now sitting on the U. S. Supreme Court. They and we have a Judge that we all must face; may we all repent fully and fruitfully before we have to face our Day in Court.