Against Lying

You have sent me much to read, dearest brother Consentius, you have sent me much to read. While I was preparing a reply to it, and was drawn away by one occupation after another more pressing, a year went by and pushed me into such straits that I had to reply in whatever way I could, so as not to detain any longer the bearer, who wished to return now that the sailing season was smiling. So, having unrolled and read through all that Leonas, the servant of God, brought me from you, both as soon as I received it and afterward, when I was ready to dictate this, and having weighed it with all the consideration I could, I was greatly delighted with your eloquence, your memory of the holy Scriptures, your skill of mind, the grief with which you sting careless catholics, and the zeal with which you gnash your teeth even against hidden heretics. But I am not persuaded that they should be dug out of their hiding places by our lies. For why do we try so carefully to track them and hunt them down, if not so that, once caught and brought out into the open, we may either teach them the truth too or at least, when they have been refuted by the truth, not allow them to harm others? For this purpose, then: that their lie may be destroyed or guarded against, and God's truth increased. How then can I rightly pursue lies by a lie? Are robberies also to be pursued by robbery, sacrileges by sacrilege, and adulteries by adultery? But if the truth of God will abound through my lie, are we too going to say, "Let us do evil that good may come"? You see how the apostle detests this. For what else is "Let us lie in order to bring lying heretics to the truth" but "Let us do evil that good may come"? Or is a lie sometimes good, or is a lie sometimes not evil? Why then is it written, "You hate, Lord, all who work iniquity; you will destroy all who speak a lie"? For he did not except some, nor did he speak indefinitely, "You will destroy those speaking a lie," so as to allow some, not all, to be understood, but he uttered a universal sentence, saying, "You will destroy all who speak a lie." Or, because it was not said, "You will destroy all who speak every lie" or "who speak any lie whatever," is it therefore to be thought that room has been left for some lie? So that, namely, there is some lie such that God does not destroy those who speak it, but destroys all those who speak an unjust lie, not any lie whatever, because a just lie is also found, which would certainly deserve praise, not blame?

Do you not see how much this argument helps the very people we are striving to catch with our lies as a great prize of the hunt? For this is the view of the Priscillianists, as you yourself have shown. To prove it they bring testimonies from the Scriptures, urging their followers to lie as if by the examples of patriarchs, prophets, apostles, and angels, not hesitating to add even the Lord Christ himself, and not thinking they can show their falsehood to be truthful except by saying that the Truth is a liar. These things are to be refuted, not imitated; and we must not be partners of the Priscillianists in that evil in which they are shown to be worse than other heretics. For they alone, or at least they above all, are found to make lying a doctrine for concealing what they think is the truth, and to consider so great an evil just on the ground that, they say, what is true must be kept in the heart, but to utter what is false with the mouth to outsiders is no sin; and that this is what is written, "who speaks truth in his heart," as if this were enough for righteousness even if one speaks a lie with the mouth, when not a neighbor but an outsider hears it. For this reason they even think that the apostle Paul, when he had said, "Putting away lying, speak the truth," at once added, "each with his neighbor, for we are members of one another," so that it would be permitted, and indeed right, to speak a lie with those who are not our neighbors in the fellowship of the truth and are not, so to speak, our fellow members.

This view dishonors the holy martyrs; rather, it takes away holy martyrdoms altogether. For according to these people they would have acted more justly and wisely if they had not confessed to their persecutors that they were Christians, nor made them murderers by their confession, but rather by lying and denying what they were had both kept safe the advantage of the flesh and the resolve of the heart, and not allowed the persecutors to carry out the crime they had conceived in their minds. For the persecutors were not their neighbors in the Christian faith, so that they ought to speak with them in their mouth the truth that they spoke in their heart; they were, moreover, enemies of the truth itself. For if Jehu, whom they seem to themselves to look to shrewdly, among others, as an example of lying, lied that he was a servant of Baal in order to kill Baal's servants, how much more justly, according to their perversity, would the servants of Christ, in time of persecution, lie that they were servants of demons, so that the servants of demons would not kill the servants of Christ; and sacrifice to idols so that men would not be killed, if he sacrificed to Baal in order to kill men? For what would it harm them, according to the excellent teaching of the liars, if they feigned the worship of the devil in the body while the worship of God was kept in the heart? But the true martyrs, the holy martyrs, did not understand the apostle so. For they saw and held fast what was said: "With the heart one believes unto righteousness, with the mouth confession is made unto salvation," and, "In their mouth no lie was found"; and so they departed blameless to where they will no longer have to beware of being tempted by liars, because in their heavenly assemblies they will have no more liars, whether outsiders or neighbors. They would not imitate that Jehu, seeking out the ungodly and sacrilegious to be killed by an ungodly lie and a sacrilegious sacrifice, not even if the same Scripture had been silent about what kind of man he was. But since it is written that he did not have an upright heart with God, what did it profit him that, for some obedience which he showed in wholly destroying the house of Ahab, out of desire for his own dominion, he received some transitory reward of a temporal kingdom? Rather, brother, I urge you to defend the truthful view of the martyrs, so that against liars you may be not a teacher of lying but a champion of truth. For, I beg you, attend carefully to what I say, so that you may find how much that is to be guarded against which, with a zeal praiseworthy indeed against the ungodly, so that they may be caught and corrected or avoided, is nevertheless thought, too incautiously, to be something to teach.

There are many kinds of lies, all of which, indeed, we ought to hate universally. For there is no lie that is not contrary to truth. For just as light and darkness, godliness and ungodliness, righteousness and iniquity, sin and right action, health and weakness, life and death, so truth and lying are contrary to each other. Hence the more we love the one, the more we ought to hate the other. Yet there are some lies which it does no harm to believe, although even in that kind of lying the will to deceive harms the liar, not the believer. For example, if that brother Fronto, the servant of God, were lying in some of the things he reported to you (God forbid), he would certainly have harmed himself, not you, even if you had believed everything he told, without any wrong on your part, because, whether those things happened so or not, they contain nothing such that if someone believed it happened so, even if it did not, he would be judged blameworthy by the rule of truth and the teaching of eternal salvation. But if someone lies about something such that whoever believes it will be a heretic against the teaching of Christ, the liar is the more guilty as the believer is the more wretched. See, then, what it amounts to if we lie against the teaching of Christ, in a way that whoever believes it will perish, in order to catch the enemies of that teaching and bring them to the truth while we ourselves depart from it; or rather, when we catch liars by lying, we teach worse lies. For what they say when they lie is one thing, what they say when they are deceived is another. When they teach their heresy, they say the things in which they are deceived; but when they say that they hold what they do not hold, or do not hold what they hold, they say the things in which they lie. Whoever believes them in this, even if he does not find them out, does not himself perish. For one who believes a heretic to be a catholic, when he lyingly professes catholic doctrines, does not depart from the catholic rule. And so it is not ruinous to him, because he is deceived about a man's mind, which is hidden and about which he cannot judge, not about the faith of God, which he ought to guard as implanted in him. But when they teach their heresy, whoever believes them, thinking it the truth, will share both their error and their condemnation. So it comes about that when they tell their abominable doctrines, in which they are deceived by a deadly error, whoever believes perishes; but when we preach catholic doctrines, in which we hold the right faith, then whoever had perished is found, if he believes. When, however, being Priscillianists, they lie that they are ours, so as not to betray their poisons, whoever of ours believes them remains a catholic himself even though they are hidden. We, on the contrary, if in order to track them down we lie that we are Priscillianists, since we will praise their doctrines as our own, whoever believes them will either be confirmed among them or be carried over to them immediately in the meantime. But what the coming hour may bring forth, whether those who were deceived when we lied are afterward freed from there when we tell the truth, and whether they will be willing to listen to one teaching whom they have found lying in this way, who can know for certain? Who is unaware that this is uncertain? From this it is gathered that it is more ruinous, or, to speak more mildly, more dangerous, for catholics to lie in order to catch heretics than for heretics to lie in order to hide from catholics; for whoever believes catholics who test him by lying is either made or confirmed a heretic, whereas whoever believes heretics who conceal themselves by lying does not cease to be a catholic. To make this plainer, let us put forward some things by way of example, chiefly from the writings that you sent me to read.

Look, let us set before our eyes a crafty spy approaching someone whom he has sensed to be a Priscillianist, and lyingly praising the life of Bishop Dictinius, if he knew him, or his reputation, if he did not. This is still more tolerable, because Dictinius is thought to have been a catholic and to have been corrected from that error. Then (for this follows in the art of lying) he will mention with veneration Priscillian, an ungodly and detestable man, condemned for his abominable wicked deeds and crimes. By this venerating mention, if the one for whom such nets are spread was perhaps not a firm Priscillianist, he will be made firm by this praise. And when the spy's talk has gone on to the rest, and he says that he pities those whom the author of darkness has wrapped in such darkness of errors that they do not recognize the honor of their soul and the glory of its divine lineage; and then extols with such praise the book of Dictinius called the Libra (the Pound), so named because it is set out in twelve questions, treated as if they were ounces, that he testifies that such a Pound, containing horrible blasphemies, is more precious than many thousands of pounds of gold: surely this cunning of the liar kills the soul of the one who believes, or, if it is already killed, sinks it and presses it down in the same death. "But," you will say, "afterward he will be set free." What if this does not happen, whether because some obstacle intervenes so that what was begun is not completed, or through the obstinacy of a heretical mind denying the same things again, even if it had already begun to confess some? Especially since, if he learns that he was tested by an outsider, he will for that very reason strive the more boldly to hide what he thinks by a lie, having learned far more surely, even from the example of his tempter himself, that this is done without blame. With what face, pray, shall we blame in a man, and dare to condemn, the fact that he thinks the truth is to be covered by lying, when we teach it?

It remains, then, that what the Priscillianists hold, according to the abominable falsehood of their heresy, about God, the soul, the body, and other things, we should not hesitate to condemn with truthful godliness; but what they hold, that one must lie so that the truth may be hidden, is to be a doctrine common to us and them (God forbid!). This is so great an evil that even if this effort of ours, by which we wish to catch them through a lie and change them, should prosper so that we catch and change them, no gains would make up for these losses, by which we too are corrupted along with them for the sake of their correction. For through this lie we too will be perverted in that respect, and they only half corrected, since this very thing, that they think one must lie for the truth, we do not correct in them, because we have learned and teach the same thing and prescribe that it should be done, so that we may be able to reach them to amend them. Yet we do not amend them, since we do not remove from them the fault by which they think the truth should be covered, but rather we are made faulty ourselves, when we seek them through such a fault and do not find them. How shall we be able to believe them when converted, to whom we lied when they were perverse? Lest perhaps, having been caught, they do what they suffered in order to be caught, not only because they are accustomed to do it, but because they find it also in us, to whom they come.

And what is more pitiable, even they, once made ours, as it were, cannot find how to believe us. For if they suspect that we speak even the catholic doctrines themselves lyingly, in order to hide something else that we think true, you will certainly say to one who suspects such things: "I did that then in order to catch you." But what will you answer him when he says, "How then do I know whether you are not doing it even now, so as not to be caught by me?" Or can anyone be persuaded that a man who lies in order to catch does not lie in order not to be caught? Do you see where this evil tends? Namely, that not only we to them and they to us, but every brother to every brother may, not without reason, seem suspect. And so, while through a lie the aim is that faith may be taught, what is achieved is rather that faith is to be placed in no one. For if we speak even against God when we lie, what evil so great can be found in any lie that we ought to avoid it in every way as most wicked?

But now notice how much more tolerably the Priscillianists lie compared with us, when they know that they are speaking deceitfully, those whom we think we should free by our lie from the falsehoods in which they are deceived by erring. The Priscillianist says that the soul is a part of God and of the same nature and substance as he. This is a great and detestable blasphemy. For it follows that the nature of God is taken captive, deceived, misled, disturbed and defiled, condemned and tormented. But if he too says this who wishes to free a man from so great an evil through a lie, let us see what difference there is between the two blasphemers. "A very great one," you say, "for the Priscillianist says this and also believes it, while the catholic does not believe it, although he says it." The one, then, blasphemes unknowingly, the other knowingly; the one against knowledge, the other against conscience; the one has the blindness of thinking false things, but in them he has at least the will to speak true things; the other, hidden, sees the truth and willingly speaks falsehood. "But the one," you will say, "teaches this in order to make people sharers in his error and madness, while the other says it in order to free people from that error and madness." I have already shown above how much harm is done even by what is believed to be going to profit. But meanwhile, if we weigh the present evils in these two (since the future goods that the catholic seeks from correcting the heretic are uncertain), who sins more gravely: the one who deceives a man unknowingly, or the one who blasphemes God knowingly? Surely he understands which is worse who with anxious godliness puts God before man. Add to this that if God is to be blasphemed so that we may bring men to praise him, then without doubt we invite men by our example and teaching not only to praise God but also to blaspheme him; for those whom we try to bring to the praises of God through blasphemies of God, if we do bring them, will learn not only to praise but also to blaspheme. These are the benefits we confer on those whom we free from the heretics by blaspheming, not ignorantly but knowingly. And whereas the apostle handed men over even to Satan himself so that they might learn not to blaspheme, we try to snatch men from Satan so that they may learn to blaspheme not through ignorance but through knowledge; and on ourselves, their teachers, we bring so great a ruin that, in order to catch heretics, we first become, which is certain, blasphemers of God, so that we may, which is uncertain, become teachers of his truth for the sake of freeing them?

Since, then, we would teach our people to blaspheme God so that the Priscillianists may believe them theirs, let us see what evil they themselves say when they lie so that we may believe them ours. They anathematize Priscillian and detest him to our satisfaction; they say that the soul is a creature of God, not a part of him; they curse the false martyrdoms of the Priscillianists; they extol with great praise the catholic bishops by whom that heresy was laid bare, attacked, and laid low; and other things of this kind. See, they speak the truth when they lie; not that the very same thing can at once be true and a lie, but they lie in one thing and speak truth in another; for when they lie that they are ours, they speak the truth about the catholic faith. And so they, in order not to be found out as Priscillianists, speak true things lyingly; but we, in order to find them, not only speak lyingly so as to be believed to belong to them, but also speak false things that we know belong to their error. So when they wish to be thought ours, what they say is partly false and partly true: it is false that they are ours, but true that the soul is not a part of God. But when we wish to be thought to belong to them, both things that we say are false: that we are Priscillianists and that the soul is a part of God. So they praise God, they do not blaspheme him, when they hide themselves; and when they do not hide themselves but bring out their own views, they do not know that they blaspheme. Therefore, if they are converted to the catholic faith, they console themselves, because they can say what the apostle said, who, having said among other things, "I was formerly a blasphemer," said, "I obtained mercy, because I did it ignorantly." We, on the contrary, if we utter this supposedly just lie to deceive and catch them, so that they may open themselves to us, certainly both say that we belong to the blaspheming Priscillianists and, so that they may believe us, blaspheme without the excuse of ignorance. For a catholic who wishes to be believed a heretic by blaspheming cannot say, "I did it ignorantly."

Always, brother, in such cases we must recall with fear: "Whoever denies me before men, I will deny him before my Father who is in heaven." Or does he not deny Christ before men who denies him before Priscillianists in order to lay them bare and catch them in their hiding by a blasphemous lie? And who doubts, I beg you, that Christ is denied when he is said not to be as he truly is, and is said to be as the Priscillianist believes him to be?

"But," you will say, "we cannot otherwise find the hidden wolves, clothed in sheep's skins, secretly and grievously ravaging the Lord's flock." How then did the Priscillianists become known before this hunt by lying was thought up? How was the lair of their author himself reached, who was surely more cunning and therefore better hidden? How were so many and such great ones exposed and condemned, and countless others partly corrected, partly corrected in appearance and gathered in by the church in its mercy? For the Lord, when he has mercy, gives many ways by which they may be tracked down; two of these are more fortunate than the others: that they be pointed out either by those whom they tried to seduce or by those whom they had already seduced, when these come to their senses and are converted. This happens more easily if their abominable error is overturned not by lying snares but by truthful arguments. You ought to spend your effort in writing these, since the Lord has given you the ability. When these wholesome writings, by which their insane perversity is destroyed, become better and better known, and are spread everywhere by catholic bishops who speak to the people or by any earnest people full of zeal for God, these will be the holy nets by which they may be caught truthfully, not searched out lyingly. For caught in this way they will either confess of their own accord what they were, and will either correct in agreement, or betray in mercy, others whom they know in their evil fellowship; or, if they are ashamed to confess what they have covered by long pretense, they will be healed by the hidden hand of God working the cure.

"But," you will say, "we penetrate their lairs much more easily if we lie that we are what they are." If this were permitted or expedient, Christ could have instructed his sheep to come to the wolves clothed in wolves' skins and find them out by the deceits of this art. He did not say this to them, not even when he foretold that he would send them into the midst of wolves. But you will say: "At that time they did not need to be searched out, since the wolves were quite open; their bites and savagery had to be endured." What then? When, foretelling later times, he said that ravening wolves would come in sheep's clothing, was there not room there for him to give this warning and say: "And you, to find them, put on wolves' clothing, but remain sheep within"? He did not say this. But when he had said, "Many will come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly they are ravening wolves," he did not add, "By your lies," but, "By their fruits you will know them." By truth lies must be guarded against, by truth caught, by truth slain. Far be it from us to overcome the blasphemies of the ignorant by blaspheming knowingly; far be it from us to guard against the evils of deceivers by imitating them. For how shall we guard against them if, in order to guard against them, we shall have them? For if, in order that one who blasphemes unknowingly may be caught, I blaspheme knowingly, what I do is worse than what I catch; if, in order that one who denies Christ unknowingly may be found, I deny Christ knowingly, the one whom I find in this way will follow me to perdition, since, in order to find him, I perish first.

Or perhaps one who strives to find Priscillianists in that way does not deny Christ, because he utters with the mouth what he does not believe in the heart? As if (as I have already said a little earlier), when it had been said, "With the heart one believes unto righteousness," it was added to no purpose, "With the mouth confession is made unto salvation." Did not almost all who denied Christ before persecutors hold in the heart what they believed about him, and yet, by not confessing with the mouth unto salvation, perish, except those who came back to life through repentance? Who is so empty-headed as to think that the apostle Peter had in his heart what he had in his mouth when he denied Christ? Surely in that denial he held the truth within and uttered a lie outwardly. Why then did he wash away with tears what he had denied with his mouth, if what he believed in his heart was enough for salvation? Why did he, speaking the truth in his heart, punish with such bitter weeping the lie that he uttered with his mouth, unless because he saw that it was a great ruin that he believed in his heart unto righteousness but did not confess with his mouth unto salvation?

Therefore what is written, "who speaks truth in his heart," is not to be taken as if, keeping the truth in the heart, one should speak a lie with the mouth. It was said because it can happen that someone speaks the truth with his mouth and it profits him nothing if he does not hold it in his heart, that is, if he does not himself believe what he says; as heretics do, and especially these same Priscillianists, when they do not indeed believe the catholic truth, but still speak it so as to be believed to be ours. They speak the truth, then, in their mouth, not in their heart. That is why they had to be distinguished from the one of whom it was said, "who speaks truth in his heart." But this truth the catholic, just as he speaks it in his heart because he so believes, must also speak in his mouth, so that he so preaches it; and against it let him have falsehood neither in his heart nor in his mouth, so that he both believes with the heart unto righteousness and makes confession with the mouth unto salvation. For in that psalm too, when it had been said, "who speaks truth in his heart," this was also added at once: "who has not practiced deceit with his tongue."

And what the apostle says, "Putting away lying, speak the truth each with his neighbor, for we are members of one another": far be it from us to understand it as if he permitted us to speak a lie with those who are not yet members of the body of Christ with us. It was said because each of us ought to regard everyone as what he wishes him to become, even if he has not yet become it; just as the Lord showed that the Samaritan, a foreigner, was the neighbor of the one to whom he showed mercy. He is to be held, then, as a neighbor, not an outsider, with whom we must act so that he may not remain an outsider; and if, because he has not yet become a partaker of our faith and sacrament, some truths are to be concealed from him, still false things are not on that account to be said.

For even in the times of the apostles there were those who preached the truth not in truth, that is, not with a truthful mind; of whom the apostle says that they proclaimed Christ not purely but through envy and rivalry. And so even then some were tolerated who proclaimed the truth with an impure mind; yet none were praised as proclaiming falsehood with a pure mind. Finally, he says of them, "Whether in pretense or in truth, let Christ be proclaimed"; but he would by no means say, "Let Christ first be denied, so that afterward he may be proclaimed."

Therefore hidden heretics can be tracked down in many ways, without the catholic faith being reviled or heretical ungodliness praised. But if heretical ungodliness could not be brought out of its caves at all unless the catholic tongue strayed from the path of truth, it would be more tolerable for the former to be hidden than for the latter to be cast down headlong; more tolerable for the foxes to lurk in their holes than for the hunters, in order to catch them, to fall into the pit of blasphemy; more tolerable for the faithlessness of the Priscillianists to be covered with the veil of truth than for the faith of catholics, lest it be praised by lying Priscillianists, to be denied by believing catholics. For if lies, not of just any kind but blasphemous ones, are just because they are told with this intention, that hidden heretics may be uncovered, then in this way adulteries too could be chaste, if they were committed with the same intention. What then? If some woman from among the unchaste Priscillianist women should cast her eye on a catholic Joseph and promise him that she would betray their hiding places if she obtained sexual immorality from him, and it were certain that if he consented she would fulfil what she promised, shall we judge that it should be done? Or shall we understand that such wares are by no means to be bought at such a price? Why then do we not buy the capture of heretics with the flesh sliding into adultery, and yet think it should be bought with the mouth fornicating in blasphemy? For either it will be lawful to defend both on equal grounds, so that these things are said not to be unjust because they were done with the intention of catching the unjust; or, if sound doctrine does not want us, even for the sake of finding heretics, to have intercourse with unchaste women, even in body only and not in mind, then surely, even for the sake of finding heretics, it does not want us, even in voice only and not in mind, either to preach unclean heresy or to blaspheme the chaste catholic faith. For the very command of the mind, which every lower movement of a man ought to obey, will not escape due reproach when something is done that ought not to be done, whether by a member or by a word. And yet even when it is done by a word, it is done by a member, since the tongue, by which a word is made, is a member; and no deed of ours is brought forth by any member unless it is first conceived in the heart, or rather, already brought forth within by thinking and consenting, it is then put outside by doing it through a member. So the mind is not excused from a deed when something is said to be done not from the mind, which nevertheless would not be done unless the mind decided that it should be done.

It does indeed make a very great difference for what cause, to what end, with what intention something is done; but things that are agreed to be sins are not to be done under the pretext of any good cause, for any supposedly good end, with any seemingly good intention. For those works of men which are not sins in themselves are now good, now evil, according as they have good or evil causes: as giving food to the poor is a good work if it is done for the sake of mercy with right faith; as conjugal intercourse is, since it is done for the sake of begetting, if it is done in the faith that children may be begotten to be born again. These and similar works are good or evil according to their causes, because these same works, if they have evil causes, are turned into sins: as when a poor man is fed for the sake of boasting, or a man lies with his wife for the sake of wantonness, or children are begotten to be brought up not for God but for the devil. But when the works themselves are already sins, such as thefts, acts of sexual immorality, blasphemies, and the like, who is there who would say that they are to be done for good causes, so that either they are not sins or, what is more absurd, they are just sins? Who is there who would say: "So that we may have something to give to the poor, let us commit thefts from the rich or sell false testimony, especially if innocent people are not harmed by it, but rather guilty people are rescued from judges who would condemn them"? For two goods are done by the sale of this lie: money is obtained with which a needy person may be fed, and the judge is deceived so that a man is not punished. Wills too, if we can, why do we not suppress the true ones and substitute false ones, so that unworthy people who do no good with them may not have inheritances or legacies, but rather those by whom the hungry are fed, the naked clothed, strangers received, captives redeemed, churches built? For why should those evils not be done for the sake of these goods, if for the sake of these goods those are not evils? And now, if some unclean and rich women seem likely to enrich their lovers and seducers besides, why should not a merciful man also take up these roles and arts, to use them for so good a cause, so as to have something to give to the needy, and not listen to the apostle who says, "Let him who stole steal no longer, but rather let him labor, working with his hands what is good, so that he may have something to give to him who has need"? Since not only theft itself, but also false testimony and adultery and every evil work, will not be evil but good, if it is committed so that there may be something with which good is done. Who would say this except one who is trying to overturn human affairs and all morals and laws? For what most wicked crime, what most shameful outrage, what most ungodly sacrilege could not be said to be done rightly and justly, and not only with impunity but even gloriously, so that in committing it not only are no punishments feared but even rewards are hoped for, if we once grant that in all the evil works of men we must ask not what is done but why it is done, so that whatever are found done for good causes are not themselves judged to be evil? But if justice rightly punishes a thief, even one who says and shows that he took away a rich man's superfluities in order to provide necessities for the poor; if it rightly punishes a forger, even one who shows that he corrupted another's will so that the heir would be one who was going to give large alms from it, not one who would give none; if it rightly punishes an adulterer, even one who demonstrates that he committed adultery out of mercy, in order to free a man from death through the woman with whom he committed it; finally, to come nearer to the matter in question, if it rightly punishes one who had adulterous intercourse with some woman of the Priscillianists who knew of their shamefulness in order to reach their hiding places: I beg you, since the apostle says, "Do not present your members to sin as weapons of iniquity," and so we ought not to present either our hands or the genital members of the body or other members to shameful deeds in order to find Priscillianists, what has our tongue, what has our whole mouth, what has the organ of the voice done to offend, that we should present these as weapons to sin, and to so great a sin, in which, in order to rescue captured Priscillianists from the blasphemies of ignorance, we blaspheme our God without the excuse of ignorance?

Someone will say: "Then is any thief whatever to be put on a level with a thief who steals out of a wish to be merciful?" Who would say this? But of these two neither is good because one is worse. For he who steals from covetousness is worse than he who steals from pity; but if all theft is sin, one must abstain from all theft. For who would say that one should sin, even if one sin is damnable and another venial? But now we are asking, if someone does this or that, who will not sin or will sin, not who will sin more gravely or more lightly. For thefts themselves are certainly punished more lightly by the law than acts of sexual immorality; yet both are sins, though some are lighter and some graver, so that a theft committed from covetousness is held lighter than an act of sexual immorality committed to give help. For within their own kind, sins that seem to be committed with a good intention become lighter than other sins of the same kind, while nevertheless they are found to be graver than sins of another kind that are lighter by their very kind. For it is graver to commit theft from avarice than from mercy, and likewise graver to commit sexual immorality from lust than from mercy; and yet it is graver to commit adultery from mercy than to steal from avarice. But the question now is not what is lighter or graver, but what are sins and what are not. For no one would say that one ought to have sinned where it is agreed that it is a sin; but we say that, if it was a sin in this way or that, it ought or ought not to be pardoned.

But, it must be admitted, certain compensating sins so disturb human minds that they are even thought to deserve praise, and are rather called right actions. For who would doubt that it is a great sin if a father prostitutes his daughters to the sexual immorality of the ungodly? And yet a case arose in which a righteous man thought he ought to do this, when the Sodomites were rushing upon his guests with an abominable onset of lust. For he says: "I have two daughters who have not known a man; I will bring them out to you, and use them as you please; only do no wrong to these men, because they have come under the shelter of my roof." What shall we say here? Do we not so abhor that crime which the Sodomites were trying to commit against that righteous man's guests that we judge that whatever might be done to prevent it should have been done? The person of the one who did it also weighs very heavily, since he was delivered from Sodom on account of the merit of his righteousness; so that, since it is a lesser evil for women than for men to suffer sexual violation, it might be said that this too belonged to the righteousness of that righteous man, that he preferred it to be done to his daughters rather than to his guests, not only willing it in his mind but also offering it in words, and ready to carry it out in deed if they had agreed. But if we open this way to sins, that we commit lesser ones so that others may not commit greater, then with a wide boundary, or rather with no boundary, but with all limits torn up and removed, all sins will enter and reign over an infinite space. For once it has been defined that a man should sin less so that another may not sin more, surely others' acts of sexual immorality will be prevented by our thefts, and incest by sexual immorality; and if some ungodliness appears even worse than incest, incest too will be said to be something we should commit, if it could be brought about in that way that the ungodliness is not committed by others. And in each several kind of sins, thefts will be thought fit to be done for thefts, sexual immorality for sexual immorality, incest for incest, sacrilege for sacrilege, ours for others', not only lesser for greater but, if it comes to the very highest and worst, fewer for more, if the course of events should so turn that others will not otherwise abstain from sins unless we sin, somewhat less, but sinning nonetheless; so that, whenever an enemy who had such power said, "Unless you are wicked, I will be more wicked," or, "Unless you commit this crime, I will commit more such crimes," we would seem to commit a crime if we chose to refrain from crime. What is it to be wise in this way, but to be foolish, or rather to be mad? For it is from my own iniquity, not from another's, whether committed against me or against others, that I must guard myself against condemnation; for "the soul that sins, it shall die."

If, then, we certainly ought not to sin so that others may not sin more gravely, whether against us or against anyone else, we must consider whether what Lot did is an example that we ought to imitate or rather one we ought to avoid. For it seems more to be observed and noted that, when so horrible an evil from the most shameful ungodliness of the Sodomites hung over his guests, which he longed to drive off and could not, even a righteous man's mind could be so disturbed that he was willing to do what not the cloudy storm of human fear but the calm serenity of divine law, if we consult it, will cry out is not to be done, and will command us rather to guard against our own sins in such a way that we do not sin through fear of anyone else's sins at all. For that righteous man, fearing others' sins, which cannot defile those who do not consent, was disturbed and did not attend to his own, by which he was willing to subject his daughters to the lusts of the ungodly. When we read these things in the holy Scriptures, we should not, because we believe they were done, also believe they should be done, lest we violate the commandments while we follow examples at random. Or, because David swore that he would kill Nabal and, out of more considered clemency, did not do it, shall we say that he is therefore to be imitated, so that we rashly swear that we will do what we afterward see is not to be done? But just as fear disturbed Lot, so that he was willing to prostitute his daughters, so anger disturbed David, so that he swore rashly. Finally, if it were lawful for us to ask both of them and inquire why they did these things, Lot could answer, "Fear and trembling came upon me, and darkness covered me"; and David could answer, "My eye was troubled because of anger"; so that we would not wonder that the one in the darkness of fear, and the other with his troubled eye, did not see what they should have seen, so as not to do what they should not have done.

And to holy David, indeed, it could more justly have been said that he ought not even to have been angry, though with an ungrateful man who returned evil for good; but even if anger crept upon him as a man, it certainly ought not to have prevailed so far that he swore he would do what he would either do by being cruel or fail to do by perjuring himself. But to Lot, placed amid the lustful madness of the Sodomites, who would dare to say: "Even if your guests, in your house, into which you compelled them to enter by the most urgent hospitality, are seized and overpowered by the lewd and suffer what women suffer, fear nothing, care nothing, do not be dismayed, do not shudder, do not tremble"? Who, even an accomplice of those criminals, would dare to say this to a devout host? But it would quite rightly be said: "Do whatever you can to prevent what you rightly fear, but do not let this fear drive you to do something by which your daughters, if they are willing to have it done to them, will commit wickedness with the Sodomites at your instigation, and if they are unwilling, will suffer violence from the Sodomites at your instigation. Do not commit a great crime of your own while you shudder at a greater crime of someone else's; for however great the distance between yours and another's, this will be yours, that another's." Unless perhaps, in defense of this man, someone forces himself into such straits as to say: "Since it is better to suffer wrong than to do it, and those guests were certainly not going to do wrong but to suffer it, the righteous man preferred that his daughters rather than his guests should suffer wrong, by the right he had as master of his daughters; and he knew that they would not sin if it happened, because they would endure sinners to whom they did not consent, without sin of their own. Finally, they themselves did not offer to be violated in place of those guests, though they were women in place of men, lest not the suffering of another's lust but the consent of their own will should make them guilty. Nor did their father allow this to be done to himself when those to whom he would not betray his guests tried to do it, although it would have been less evil for it to happen to one than to two; but he resisted as far as he could, so that no consent of his own might stain him, whom another's lustful fury, even if it had prevailed by bodily strength, would not have stained if he did not consent. And in the case of his daughters, who would not sin, he did not sin himself, because he was not making them sin, if they were overpowered against their will, but making them endure those who sinned: just as if he offered his own slaves to be beaten by wicked men so that his guests would not suffer the injury of a beating." I will not discuss this point, because it is a long matter, whether a master rightly uses the right of his power over a slave in such a way as to have his innocent slave beaten so that his friend, also innocent, is not beaten in his house by violent wicked men. But certainly David is by no means rightly said to have been obliged to swear that he would do what he afterward saw he ought not to do. From this it is clear that we must not transfer into our conduct all the things we read were done by holy or righteous men, but must also learn from this how widely it extends and to whom it reaches, what the apostle says: "Brothers, even if a man is overtaken in some fault, you who are spiritual, instruct such a one in a spirit of gentleness, looking to yourself, lest you too be tempted." For these are the overtakings in which people fall into fault, when what should be done is either not seen at the moment or, even by one who has seen it, is overcome, so that sin is committed either when the truth is hidden or when weakness compels.

But in all our actions, compensating sins greatly disturb even good people, so that they are not considered sins if they have such causes for which they are done, and in which it seems rather to be a sin if they are not done. And especially concerning lies this opinion has prevailed among men, that those lies are not thought to be sins, but are even believed to be right actions, when someone lies for the benefit of one whom it profits to be deceived, or so that someone who seems likely to harm others may not harm them, unless he is turned aside by lies. Very many examples from the holy Scriptures are thought to support the defense of these kinds of lies. But to hide the truth is not the same as to utter a lie. For although everyone who lies wishes to conceal what is true, not everyone who wishes to conceal what is true lies. For most often we hide true things not by lying but by keeping silent. For the Lord did not lie when he said, "I have many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now." He kept silent about true things, he did not speak false things; he judged them less fit to hear those truths. But if he had not indicated this very thing to them, namely that they could not bear what he was unwilling to say, he would nonetheless have hidden some truth; but perhaps we would not know that this can rightly be done, or we would not be strengthened by so great an example. Hence those who assert that one must sometimes lie do not fittingly mention that Abraham did so about Sarah, whom he called his sister. For he did not say, "She is not my wife," but he said, "She is my sister," because she was in fact so near to him in kinship that she could be called his sister without a lie. He confirmed this too afterward, when she had been given back to him by the one who had taken her away, answering him and saying, "And indeed she is my sister, by my father, not by my mother," that is, of his father's kindred, not his mother's. So he kept silent about something true; he did not say anything false, when he kept silent about "wife" and said "sister." His son Isaac also did this; for we know that he too had taken a kinswoman as his wife. It is not a lie, then, when the truth is hidden by keeping silent, but when a falsehood is put forward by speaking.

What Jacob did at his mother's prompting, so that he seemed to deceive his father, is, if it is attended to carefully and faithfully, not a lie but a mystery. If we call these things lies, then all parables and figures signifying various things, which are not to be taken literally but in which one thing is to be understood from another, will also be called lies; which God altogether forbid. For whoever thinks this can bring this false charge against all the many figurative expressions too, so that even what is called metaphor, that is, the transfer of some word used from its proper thing to a thing not its own, could by this reasoning be called a lie. For when we say "the crops are waving," "the vines are budding like gems," "flowering youth," "snowy white hair," since without doubt we do not find waves, gems, flowers, or snow in the things to which we have transferred these words from elsewhere, they will be thought lies by these people. And "Christ the rock" and "the stony heart" of the Jews, likewise "Christ the lion" and "the devil the lion," and countless such things, will be called lies. What of the fact that this figurative speech goes as far as what is called antiphrasis, so that what is not there is said to abound, what is sour is called sweet, a grove is called lucus because it has no light (non luceat), the Fates are called Parcae because they do not spare (non parcant)? Hence that expression in the holy Scriptures, "If he does not bless you to your face," which the devil said to the Lord about holy Job, and which is understood as ⟨curse⟩. By this word too the crime falsely charged against Naboth by his accusers was named; for it was said that he had "blessed" the king, that is, cursed him. All these modes of speech will be thought lies if figurative speech or action is counted a lie. But if it is not a lie when things signifying one thing by another are related to the understanding of the truth, then surely not only what Jacob did or said to his father in order to be blessed, but also what Joseph said to his brothers as if mocking them, and David's feigning madness, and other such things, are not to be judged lies, but prophetic sayings and actions to be related to the true things that are to be understood. They are covered as if with figurative garments for this reason, to exercise the mind of the devout seeker, and so that they may not grow cheap by being bare and ready to hand. Even though we have learned them from other places where they are said openly and plainly, when those same things are dug out of hidden places, they are in a way renewed in our knowledge, and being renewed grow sweet. Nor are they grudged to learners because they are obscured in these ways; rather they are commended the more, so that, being withdrawn as it were, they may be desired more ardently and, being desired, found more joyfully. Yet true things, not false, are said, since true things, not false, are signified, whether by word or by deed; for the things signified are surely what is said. They are thought lies because it is not understood that the true things signified are what is said, but it is believed that the false things are what was said. To make this plainer by examples, consider the very thing that Jacob did. He certainly covered his limbs with kid-skins. If we look for the proximate cause, we shall think that he lied; for he did this so that he would be thought to be who he was not. But if this deed is related to that which it was really done to signify, by the kid-skins sins are signified, and by the one who covered himself with them, he is signified who bore not his own sins but those of others. A truthful signification, then, can by no means rightly be called a lie. And as in the deed, so also in the word. For when his father said to him, "Who are you, my son?" he answered, "I am Esau, your firstborn." If this is related to those two twins, it will seem a lie; but if to that which these things were done, said, and written to signify, he is to be understood here in his body, which is his church, who, speaking of this matter, says: "When you see Abraham and Isaac and Jacob and all the prophets in the kingdom of God, but yourselves thrust out. And they will come from east and west and north and south, and will recline in the kingdom of God. And behold, those who were first are last, and those who were last are first." For so, in a way, the younger brother took away the primacy of the elder and transferred it to himself. Since, then, things so true are so truthfully signified, what here ought to be thought done or said lyingly? For since the things signified are certainly not nonexistent in truth, but are, whether past or present or future, without doubt it is a true signification and no lie. But it would take too long to search out in detail all the things in this prophetic signification in which truth carries the palm, since as they were foretold by signifying, so they have been made clear by coming to pass.

Nor have I undertaken in this discourse what belongs rather to you, who have opened up the hiding places of the Priscillianists, as far as concerns their false and perverse doctrines, lest they seem to have been investigated as if they were to be taught and not refuted. Make it your aim, rather, that what you have caused to lie open when betrayed should lie defeated, lest, while we wish to succeed in tracking down deceitful men, we allow the falsehoods themselves to remain as if unconquerable; whereas we ought rather to destroy the falsehoods even in the hearts of those who hide than to find the deceivers by sparing the falsehoods. Moreover, among those doctrines of theirs that must be overthrown is certainly this one also that they teach, that religious people ought to lie to conceal their religion, so much so that one must lie not only about other things that do not belong to the teaching of religion, but about religion itself, lest it be disclosed to outsiders; so that, namely, Christ must be denied so that a Christian may lie hidden among his enemies. Overthrow this ungodly and abominable doctrine too, I beg you, in support of which they argue and gather testimonies from the Scriptures by which lies may seem not only pardonable or tolerable but even honorable. It is your task, then, in refuting a detestable sect, to show how these testimonies of the Scriptures are to be taken: either teaching that what are thought to be lies are not lies, if they are understood as they should be understood; or that even things that are plainly lies are not to be imitated; or at least, as a last resort, that in matters that belong to the teaching of religion one must by no means lie. For so they are truly overthrown from the foundation, when their hiding place is overthrown, so that by the very fact that they profess to be liars in order to conceal their heresy they are judged least of all to be followed and most of all to be guarded against. This is what must first be attacked in them; this, as it were their fitting stronghold, must be struck and thrown down by the blows of truth. Nor must we provide them with another hiding place, which they did not have, to flee to, so that if perhaps they are betrayed by those whom they tried to seduce and could not, they may say: "We wanted to test them, because wise catholics have taught us that this should be done in order to find heretics." But I must say a little more persuasively why this threefold method of argument seems to me the right one against those who want to bring in the divine Scriptures as patrons of their lies: first, that we show that some things there thought to be lies are not what they are thought, if rightly understood; then, that if any lies there are plain, they are not to be imitated; third, that against all the opinions of all who think that it belongs to a good man's duty sometimes to lie, it must by all means be held that in the teaching of religion one must by no means lie. For these three things I commended to you a little earlier as things to carry out, and in a way enjoined them on you.

To show, then, that some things thought to be lies in the Scriptures are not what they are thought, if rightly understood, let it not seem to you of little weight against these people that they find their supposed examples of lying not in the apostolic but in the prophetic writings. For all the things they mention by name, where someone lied, are read in those books in which not only many sayings but also many deeds were written figuratively, because they were also done figuratively. And in figures what is said to be like a lie is found, when rightly understood, to be true. But the apostles spoke in their letters otherwise, and the Acts of the Apostles were written otherwise, now that the new testament had been revealed, which was veiled in those prophetic figures. Finally, in so many apostolic letters and in the very great book itself in which their acts are narrated with canonical truth, no one is found lying in such a way that he could be put forward by these people as an example to license lying; since that pretense of Peter and Barnabas, by which they were compelling the gentiles to live like Jews, was rightly rebuked and corrected, both so that it would not do harm then and so that it would have no force for later generations to imitate. For when the apostle Paul saw that they were not walking rightly toward the truth of the gospel, he said to Peter before them all: "If you, though you are a Jew, live like a gentile and not like a Jew, how can you compel the gentiles to live like Jews?" But as for what he himself did, in keeping and practicing certain observances of the law according to Jewish custom so as to show that he was not an enemy of the law and the prophets, far be it from us to believe that he did it lyingly. For on this matter his known judgment is enough, by which it had been determined that the Jews who then believed in Christ were not to be forbidden their ancestral traditions, nor were the gentiles, when they became Christians, to be compelled to them; so that those sacraments, which were agreed to have been commanded by God, should not be shunned like sacrileges, and yet should not be thought so necessary, now that the new testament was revealed, as if without them no one who turned to God could be saved. For there were some who thought and preached this, even after the gospel of Christ had been received; and Peter and Barnabas had feignedly agreed with them, and so were compelling the gentiles to live like Jews. For this is what compelling was: to preach those things as so necessary that, even after the gospel had been received, there was no salvation in Christ without them. This the error of certain people thought, this Peter's fear feigned, this Paul's freedom rebuked. So when he says, "I became all things to all, that I might win all," he did it by compassion, not by lying. For a person becomes like the one he wishes to help when he helps with as much mercy as he would wish to be helped with himself if he were placed in the same misery. So he becomes like that person, not because he deceives him, but because he thinks of himself as that person. Hence that saying of the same apostle which I have already mentioned above: "Brothers, if a man is overtaken in some fault, you who are spiritual, instruct such a one in a spirit of gentleness, looking to yourself, lest you too be tempted." For if, because he said, "To the Jews I became as a Jew, and to those under the law as under the law," he is on that account to be thought to have taken up the sacraments of the old law lyingly, he ought also to have taken up the idolatry of the gentiles in the same lying way, since he also said that to those without law he became as without law, that he might win them; which he certainly did not do. For he nowhere sacrificed to idols or worshipped those figments, but rather, freely, as a martyr of Christ, showed that they were to be detested and avoided. So from no acts or words of the apostles do these people bring forward examples of lying to imitate. They think they have something to bring forward from prophetic deeds or sayings for this reason, that they think figures that foretell are lies, because they are sometimes like lies. But when they are related to the things for signifying which they were so done or said, they are found to be truthful significations, and therefore by no means lies. For a lie is a false signification with the will to deceive. But there is no false signification where, although one thing is signified by another, what is signified is nevertheless true, if it is rightly understood.

There are some things of this kind also of the Savior in the gospel, because the Lord of the prophets himself also deigned to be a prophet. Such are those places where he says of the woman who suffered a flow of blood, "Who touched me?" and of Lazarus, "Where have you laid him?" For he asked as though not knowing what he certainly knew. And so he feigned not to know, so that that apparent ignorance of his might signify something else. And since that signification was truthful, it was certainly not a lie. For both the woman suffering the flow of blood and the man four days dead signified those whom even he who knew all things in a certain way did not know. For she bore the figure of the people of the gentiles, about whom the prophecy had gone before, "A people whom I have not known has served me"; and Lazarus, removed from the living, lay, by a signifying likeness, as it were there where he lies whose voice is: "I am cast out from the sight of your eyes." And so, as though Christ did not know who she was or where he had been laid, it was figured by the words of one asking, and every lie was avoided by a truthful signification.

Hence also that which you mentioned that they say: that the Lord Jesus, after he rose again, walked on the road with two disciples, and when they drew near the village to which they were going, he made as though he would go farther; where the evangelist, saying, "But he made as though he would go farther," even used the very word (finxit) in which liars delight so greatly, so that they may lie with impunity; as if everything that is feigned were a lie, when so many things are feigned truthfully for the sake of signifying one thing by another. If, then, Jesus had signified nothing else in making as though he would go farther, it would rightly be judged a lie. But if it is rightly understood and related to what he wished to signify, it is found to be a mystery. Otherwise all things will be lies that are narrated as done, though they were not done, because of some likeness to things to be signified. Hence that long narrative about the two sons of one man, the elder, who stayed with his father, and the younger, who traveled far away. In this kind of feigning men have even attributed human words or deeds to irrational animals and to things lacking sense, so that by such feigned narratives, but truthful significations, they might convey more persuasively what they wished. And not only among the authors of secular literature, as in Horace, where a mouse speaks to a mouse and a weasel to a little fox, so that through a feigned narrative a truthful signification is related to the matter in hand; hence no one was ever so uneducated as to think that the fables of Aesop, related to that end, should be called lies. But in the sacred writings too, as in the book of Judges, the trees seek a king for themselves and speak to the olive, the fig, the vine, and the bramble. All of this is certainly feigned, so that one may come to the matter intended by a narrative that is indeed feigned, yet with a signification not lying but truthful. I have said this because of what is written of Jesus, "And he made as though he would go farther," lest anyone, wanting to hold lying lawful, as the Priscillianists do, should on the strength of this word go further and contend that Christ lied. But whoever wishes to understand what he prefigured by feigning, let him attend to what he accomplished by acting. For afterward, going farther, above all the heavens, he nevertheless did not desert his disciples. To signify this future thing done divinely, that present thing was feigned humanly. And so a truthful signification went before in that feigning, because in this going the truth of that signification followed. Let him, then, contend that Christ lied by feigning, who denies that he fulfilled by doing what he signified.

Since, then, the lying heretics do not find examples of lying to imitate in the writings of the new testament, they think themselves very well supplied in this dispute, in which they hold that one should lie, when from the old prophetic books, because it is not apparent there, except to the few who understand, to what the signifying sayings and deeds, which are truthful, are related, they seem to themselves to find and bring forward many lies. But wishing to have examples of deceiving to imitate, to protect themselves, they deceive themselves, and their iniquity lies to itself. As for those persons whom we must not believe to have meant to prophesy there, if they feigned anything by doing or saying it with the will to deceive, then, although something prophetic may be carved out even from their deeds, apart from their words, sown beforehand and arranged by the omnipotence of him who knows how to make good use even of the evils of men, yet, as far as they themselves are concerned, they without doubt lied. But they ought not to be thought fit to be imitated because they are found in those books that are rightly called holy and divine. For these contain in writing both the evil and the good deeds of men, the former to be avoided, the latter to be followed; and some are set down in such a way that a judgment is also pronounced on them, while others are left there without an expressed judgment for us to judge, since it was fitting that we should not only be nourished by what is plain but also exercised by what is obscure.

But why do these people think that Tamar lying is to be imitated, and do not think that Judah committing sexual immorality is to be imitated? For they read both there, and that scripture neither blamed nor praised either of them, but only narrated both and left both to our judgment; but it would be strange if it allowed either of them to be imitated with impunity. For we know that Tamar lied not from lust for harlotry but from the wish to conceive. But sexual immorality too, even if Judah's was not of that kind, could be someone's, committed in order that a man might be freed, just as her lie was in order that a man might be conceived. Must one, then, also commit sexual immorality, if for that reason it is thought one should have lied? So not only concerning lying, but concerning all the works of men in which compensating sins, as it were, arise, we must consider what judgment we ought to pronounce, lest we open a way not only to all sorts of small sins but also to all crimes, and no crime, outrage, or sacrilege remains in which a cause could not arise for which it might seem rightly done, and this opinion overturns all uprightness of life.

But one who says that some lies are just must be judged to be saying nothing other than that some sins are just, and therefore that some things are just that are unjust; and what more absurd thing can be said? For why is something a sin, if not because it is contrary to justice? Let it be said, then, that some sins are great and others small, because this is true, and we must not listen to the Stoics, who contend that all are equal; but to say that some sins are unjust and some just, what is it but to say that some iniquities are unjust and some just? Whereas the apostle John says: "Everyone who commits sin commits iniquity; sin is iniquity." A sin, then, cannot be just, except when we apply the name of sin to something else in which a person does not sin, but either does or suffers something on account of sin. For sacrifices for sins have been called sins, and the punishments of sins are sometimes called sins. These can plainly be understood as just sins, since sacrifices or punishments are called just. But the things that are done against the law of God cannot be just. And it has been said to God, "Your law is truth"; and so what is against the truth cannot be just. But who doubts that every lie is against the truth? No lie, therefore, can be just. Likewise, to whom is it not clear that everything that is just is from the truth? And John cries out: "No lie is of the truth." No lie, therefore, is just. Wherefore, when examples of lying are put before us from the holy Scriptures, either they are not lies but are thought to be, while they are not understood; or, if they are lies, they are not to be imitated, because they cannot be just.

But when it is written that God dealt well with the Hebrew midwives and with Rahab, the harlot of Jericho, this was not done because they lied, but because they were merciful toward the men of God. So what was rewarded in them was not the deceit but the kindness, the goodness of mind, not the iniquity of one lying. For just as it would not be strange or absurd if God chose to pardon some evil works committed by them at an earlier time on account of later good works, so it is not to be wondered at that God, seeing both at one time in one case, that is, the deed done mercifully and the deed done deceitfully, both rewarded the good and, on account of this good, pardoned that evil. For if sins that are committed from the lust of the flesh, not from mercy, are forgiven on account of later works of mercy, why should not sins committed from mercy itself be forgiven by the merit of mercy? For a sin committed with the intention of harming is graver than one committed with the intention of helping. And so, if the former is blotted out by a work of mercy following afterward, why should not this, which is lighter, be blotted out by the man's mercy itself, both preceding, so that he sins, and accompanying him while he sins? So indeed it may seem. But it is one thing to say, "I ought not to have sinned, but I will do works of mercy by which to blot out what I sinned before," and another thing to say, "I ought to sin, because I cannot otherwise show mercy"; it is one thing, I say, to say, "Since we have already sinned, let us do good," and another to say, "Let us sin, in order to do good." There it is said, "Let us do good things, because we have done evil things"; but here, "Let us do evil things, that good things may come." And so there the bilge of sin must be pumped out; here the doctrine of sinning must be guarded against.

It remains, then, that we understand that to those women, whether in Egypt or in Jericho, a reward was given for their humanity and mercy, a temporal one certainly, which nevertheless itself, even without their knowing it, prefigured something eternal by prophetic signification. But whether one should ever lie, even for anyone's safety, since it is a question in resolving which even the most learned grow weary, was far beyond the measure of those poor women, placed among those peoples and accustomed to those ways. So the patience of God bore with this ignorance of theirs, as with that of other things of which they were equally ignorant, but which are to be known by the children not of this age but of the age to come; yet he rendered them, for the human kindness they had shown to his servants, earthly rewards, though signifying something heavenly. And Rahab, delivered from Jericho, passed over into the people of God, where, making progress, she could attain to eternal and immortal gifts, which are to be sought by no lie. Yet at the time when she performed for the Israelite spies that good work, praiseworthy for her condition of life, she was not yet such that it could be required of her, "Let there be in your mouth yes, yes; no, no." As for those midwives, though Hebrews, if they had a mind only for the things of the flesh, what or how great is the profit that the temporal reward brought them, that they made houses for themselves, unless by making progress they came to belong to that house of which it is sung to God: "Blessed are those who dwell in your house; they will praise you for ever and ever"? But it must be admitted that the mind comes very near to righteousness, and, though not yet in reality, is already to be praised for its hope and disposition, which never lies except with this intention, that it wishes to benefit someone and to harm no one. But when we ask whether it belongs to a good man ever to lie, we are not asking about a man who still belongs to Egypt or to Jericho or to Babylon, or even still to the earthly Jerusalem itself, which is in slavery with her children, but about a citizen of that city which is above, free, our mother, eternal in the heavens. And to us who ask the answer is given: "No lie is of the truth." The children of that city are surely children of the truth; of that city are the children of whom it is written that in their mouth no lie was found; of that city is the son of whom it is likewise written: "A son who receives the word will be far from destruction; and receiving, he has received it for himself, and nothing false proceeds from his mouth." If ever, as men, any kind of lie creeps upon these children of the Jerusalem on high and of the holy eternal city, they humbly ask for pardon; they do not seek glory from it besides.

But someone will say: "Would those midwives and Rahab, then, have done better if they had shown no mercy by refusing to lie?" On the contrary: those Hebrew women, if they had been such as those about whom we are asking whether they should ever lie, would both have said nothing false and would most freely have refused the foul service of killing the little ones. "But," you will say, "they themselves would have died." But see what follows. They would have died with the reward of a heavenly dwelling, incomparably greater than those houses that they made for themselves on earth could be; they would have died to enter eternal happiness, having suffered death for the most innocent truth. What of the woman in Jericho? Could she have done this? If she had not deceived the citizens who were searching by lying, would she not have betrayed the hidden guests by telling the truth? Or could she have said to those who questioned her, "I know where they are, but I fear God; I will not betray them"? She could indeed have said this if she had already been a true Israelite, in whom there was no guile, which she was to become by passing, through the mercy of God, into the city of God. "But," you will say, "on hearing this they would have killed her and searched the house." But did it follow that they would also have found those whom she had carefully hidden? For the most cautious woman had foreseen this and had put them where they could have lain hidden even if she had not been believed when lying. So she too, if she had indeed been killed by her fellow citizens for a work of mercy, would have ended this life of grass by a death precious in the sight of the Lord, and her kindness toward them would not have been in vain. "But what," you will say, "if those who were searching for them had, by searching everything, come even to the place where she had hidden them?" In the same way it can be said: what if they had refused to believe a most base and shameful woman, not only lying but even swearing falsely? Surely even so the things would have followed that she lied for fear of. And where do we put the will and power of God? Or could he perhaps not guard both her, neither lying to her fellow citizens nor betraying the men of God, and those men of his, from all harm? For by him by whom they were guarded even after the woman's lie, they could certainly have been guarded even if she had not lied. Unless perhaps we have forgotten that this was done in Sodom, where males burning with abominable lust for males could not even find the door of the house in which were those they sought, when a righteous man, in a quite similar case, would not lie for his guests, whom he did not know to be angels, and whom he feared might suffer violence worse than death. And certainly he could have given those who sought them such answers as that woman in Jericho gave; for they too asked their questions in quite the same way. But the righteous man would not have his soul stained by his own lie for the bodies of his guests, for whom he was willing to have the bodies of his daughters suffer violence through the iniquity of another's lust. Let a person, then, do what he can even for the temporal safety of men; but when it has come to the point where he cannot provide for such safety except by sinning, let him then consider that he has nothing to do, when he sees that what remains is something he cannot do rightly. Accordingly, let Rahab of Jericho be praised as one to be imitated even by the citizens of the Jerusalem above, because she received the strangers, men of God, into her house as guests, because she put herself in danger in receiving them, because she believed in their God, because she carefully hid them where she could, because she gave them most faithful advice to return by another way. But that she lied, even if something prophetic is intelligently explained there, is nevertheless not wisely proposed for imitation, although God memorably honored those good things and mercifully pardoned this evil.

Since these things are so, because it would take too long to treat all the things set down in that Pound of Dictinius as examples of lying to be imitated, it seems to me that not only these, but any others of the kind there may be, should be brought under this rule: either it should be shown that what is believed to be a lie is not a lie (whether where the truth is kept silent and no falsehood is said, or where a truthful signification wishes one thing to be understood from another, a kind of figurative sayings or deeds that abounds in the prophetic writings); or it should be shown that those which are proved to be lies are not to be imitated, and that if any creep upon us like other sins, justice is not to be ascribed to them but pardon is to be asked. This is indeed how it seems to me; and what has been argued above compels me to this view.

But because we are men and live among men (and I confess that I am not yet among those whom compensating sins do not disturb), human feeling often overcomes me in human affairs, and I cannot resist when it is said to me: "Look, a sick man is in danger from a grave illness, and his strength can no longer bear it if he is told that his only and dearest son has died. He asks you whether the son is alive whom you know has ended his life. What will you answer, when, whatever else you say except one of three things, 'He is dead,' or 'He is alive,' or 'I do not know,' he believes nothing but that he is dead, because he perceives that you fear to say it and do not wish to lie? It comes to the same even if you keep completely silent. Of those three, two are false, 'He is alive' and 'I do not know,' and you cannot say them except by lying. But if you say the one true thing, that he is dead, and the death of the distressed man follows, it will be cried out that he was killed by you." And who can bear people exaggerating how great an evil it is to avoid a healthful lie and to love a murderous truth? I am strongly moved by these objections, but it would be a wonder if wisely too. For when I set before the eyes of my heart, such as they are, the intelligible beauty of him from whose mouth nothing false proceeds, then, although where truth, beaming, shines out more and more, there my trembling weakness is beaten back, yet I am so kindled by love of such great beauty that I despise all human things that call me back from it. But it is a great thing for this affection to persevere so far that its effect does not fail in temptation. Nor, as I contemplate the luminous good in which there is no darkness of a lie, am I moved by the fact that, when we are unwilling to lie and men die on hearing the truth, truth is called a murderer. For if an unchaste woman seeks sexual immorality and, when you do not consent, dies disturbed by savage love, will chastity too be a murderer? Or, because we read, "We are the good aroma of Christ in every place, both among those who are being saved and among those who are perishing; to some an aroma of life unto life, to others an aroma of death unto death," shall we pronounce even the aroma of Christ a murderer? But because we are men, and in questions and contradictions of this kind human feeling mostly overcomes or wearies us, the apostle therefore added at once: "And who is sufficient for these things?"

Add to this (and here there is cause for more pitiable lamentation) that if we grant that one should have lied about his son's life for the sake of that sick man's health, this evil grows up little by little and bit by bit, and by short approaches, creeping in gradually, is brought to such a heap of wicked lies that no point can ever be found at all where so great a plague, growing strong beyond measure by tiny additions, can be resisted. Hence it is most providently written: "He who despises small things falls little by little." What of the fact that such lovers of this life, who do not hesitate to put it before truth, want us, so that a man may not die, or rather so that a man who will die some day may die a little later, not only to lie but even to swear falsely? So that, namely, lest the vain health of a man pass away a little sooner, we take the name of the Lord our God in vain. And there are learned men among them who even fix rules and set limits for when one should, and when one should not, swear falsely. O where are you, fountains of tears? And what shall we do? Where shall we go? Where shall we hide ourselves from the wrath of truth, if we not only neglect to guard against lies but dare, besides, to teach perjuries? Let the champions and defenders of lying see what kind or kinds of lying they like to justify: at least in the worship of God let them grant that one must not lie; at least let them keep themselves from perjuries and blasphemies; at least where God's name, where God as witness, where an oath by God is interposed, where speech is uttered or exchanged about divine religion, let no one lie, let no one praise, let no one teach and prescribe, let no one call a lie just. Of the other kinds of lies, let him who thinks one should lie choose for himself what he considers the mildest and most innocent kind of lying. This I know, that even one who teaches that one ought to lie wishes to seem to teach the truth. For if what he teaches is false, who would want to study a false teaching, in which the teacher deceives and the learner is deceived? But if, in order to find some pupil, he asserts that he teaches the truth when he teaches that one should lie, how will that lie be of the truth, when the apostle John cries out against it, "No lie is of the truth"? It is not true, then, that one should sometimes lie; and what is not true is to be urged on no one at all.

But weakness plays its part, and proclaims, with the crowds applauding, that it has an unbeatable case, when it objects and says: "How are people in danger to be helped among men who, if they are deceived, are without doubt turned away from ruin, whether of another or of their own, if human feeling does not incline us to lie?" If the crowd of mortality, the crowd of weakness, will hear me patiently, I will answer something on behalf of the cause of truth. Certainly devout, true, holy chastity is only from the truth; and whoever acts against it certainly acts against the truth. Why then, if people in danger cannot be helped otherwise, do I not commit sexual immorality, which is contrary to truth because it is contrary to chastity, and yet, so that people in danger may be helped, I speak a lie, which is most plainly contrary to truth itself? How has chastity deserved so much from us, and how has truth offended us? For all chastity is from the truth, and truth is the chastity not of the body but of the mind, and in the mind dwells even the chastity of the body. Finally, as I said a little earlier and say again, whoever contradicts me in order to urge and defend any lie, what does he say, if he does not say what is true? But if he is to be listened to because he says what is true, how does he want to make me a liar by saying what is true? How does a lie bring in truth as its patron? Does truth conquer for its adversary so as to be conquered by itself? Who would bear this absurdity? We shall by no means say, then, that those who assert that one should sometimes lie are truthful in asserting it, lest, what is most absurd and foolish to believe, the truth should teach us to be liars. For what sort of thing is it, that no one learns from chastity that one should commit adultery, no one learns from godliness that one should offend God, no one learns from kindness that one should harm anyone, and we should learn from truth that one should lie? Furthermore, if truth does not teach this, it is not true; if it is not true, it is not to be learned; if it is not to be learned, then one must never lie.

"But solid food," someone says, "belongs to the perfect. For many things are allowed to weakness by way of pardon, although they by no means please the most sincere truth." Let him say this who does not fear the consequences that are to be feared if some lies are in some way permitted. Yet they must by no means be permitted to climb so high as to reach perjuries and blasphemies; nor should any cause at all be put forward why one should swear falsely or, what is more execrable, why God should be blasphemed. For it is not the case that because he is blasphemed by a lie, he is therefore not blasphemed. In that way it could be said that there is no false swearing, because false swearing is done by a lie. For who could be a perjurer by the truth? So too no one can be a blasphemer by the truth. Certainly one who swears falsely more mildly is one who does not know it is false and thinks what he swears is true; just as Saul too blasphemed more excusably, because he did it ignorantly. But it is worse to blaspheme than to swear falsely, because in swearing falsely God is brought in as witness to a false thing, but in blaspheming false things are said about God himself. And each one, whether perjurer or blasphemer, is the more inexcusable the more they know or believe the things they assert in swearing falsely or blaspheming to be false. So whoever says that one should lie for the temporal safety or life of a man in danger strays far indeed from the road of eternal salvation and life, if he says that in such a case one should even swear by God, or even blaspheme God.

But sometimes the danger even to eternal salvation itself is set against us, which, it is cried out, must be driven off by our lie if it cannot be otherwise: as if someone who is to be baptized were held in the power of the ungodly and unbelievers, and could not be reached so as to be washed with the washing of regeneration except by deceiving his guards with lies. From this most invidious outcry, by which we are forced to lie not for anyone's wealth or honors passing away in this world, nor for the life of this time itself, but for a man's eternal salvation, where shall I flee but to you, O Truth? And chastity is set before me by you. For if those guards could be enticed by sexual immorality to admit us to baptize the man, why do we not do what is contrary to chastity, and yet, if they can be deceived by a lie, we do what is contrary to truth? Whereas without doubt chastity would be faithfully lovable to no one if truth did not command it. Accordingly, so that the man to be baptized may be reached, let the guards be deceived by lying, if truth commands this. But how would truth command that one should lie so that a man may be baptized, if chastity does not command that one should commit adultery so that a man may be baptized? And why does chastity not command this, except because truth does not teach it? If, then, we ought to do nothing but what truth teaches, since truth teaches that we must not do what is contrary to chastity even for the sake of a man to be baptized, how will it teach us to do, for the sake of a man to be baptized, what is contrary to truth itself? But just as eyes too weak to look at the sun nevertheless gladly look at the things lit by the sun, so souls that are already able to delight in the beauty of chastity are not yet able straightway to contemplate in itself the truth from which chastity shines; so that when it comes to doing something that is against truth, they do not shrink from it and shudder at it as they shrink and shudder if something is proposed to be done that is against chastity. But that son who, receiving the word, will be far from destruction, and from whose mouth nothing false proceeds, considers the way as closed to him if he is forced to pass through a lie to help a man as if through sexual immorality. And the Father hears him when he prays that he may be able to help without a lie the one whom the Father himself, whose judgments are unsearchable, wills to be helped. Such a son, then, keeps himself from a lie as from sin. For sometimes the name of a lie is even put for the name of sin. Hence that saying, "Every man is a liar"; for it is said as if it were said, "Every man is a sinner." And that: "But if the truth of God has abounded through my lie." And so, when he lies as a man, he sins as a man, and will be held by that sentence by which it was said, "Every man is a liar," and, "If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us." But when nothing false proceeds from his mouth, it will be so according to that grace of which it was said, "He who is born of God does not sin." For if this birth alone were in us, no one would sin; and when it alone is, no one will sin. But now we still carry what we were born corruptible, although according to what we have been reborn, if we walk well, we are renewed inwardly from day to day. But when this corruptible has put on incorruption, life will swallow up the whole, and no sting of death will remain; and the sting of death is sin.

Either, then, lies are to be avoided by acting rightly or confessed by repenting; but they are not, when they abound through our living unhappily, to be increased by teaching them as well. But let whoever thinks otherwise choose what lies of whatever kind he will, to help a man in danger toward whatever safety, provided that even with such people we obtain this: that for no cause ought we to be led to perjury and blasphemy. Let us at least judge these crimes either greater than acts of sexual immorality or certainly not less. For we must bear in mind that very often men who suspect their wives of adultery challenge them to take an oath: which they surely would not do unless they believed that even women who did not fear to commit adultery could fear perjury; because in fact some unchaste women, who did not fear to deceive their husbands by unlawful intercourse, feared to call God falsely as witness to those same husbands whom they had deceived. What reason is there, then, that a chaste and religious man should be unwilling to help a man to be baptized by adultery, and willing to do so by perjury, which even adulterers are wont to dread? Furthermore, if it is wicked to do this by swearing falsely, how much more by blaspheming! Far be it, then, that a Christian should deny and blaspheme Christ in order to make another a Christian, and, by perishing, seek someone to be found whom, if he teaches him such things, he will lose once found. So you ought to refute and destroy the book called the Pound in such a way that you know that that chief article, in which they teach that one should lie for the sake of concealing religion, must first be cut off; so that you show that the testimonies by which they try to bring in the holy books as patrons of their lies are partly not lies, and partly, even those that are, not to be imitated; and that, if weakness claims so much for itself that something which truth disapproves is permitted it as pardonable, you nevertheless hold unshaken and defend that in divine religion one must never lie at all; and that hidden heretics are no more to be sought out by lies, or blasphemers by blasphemies, than adulterers by adulteries, murderers by murders, or sorcerers by sorcery, according to all that we have argued at such length in this volume that we have barely reached its end, which we have fixed at this point.