On Lying 13–27

In this proposition there are these things that can rightly be asked: whether such consent is to be held as a deed; or whether that is to be called consent which has no approval; or whether it is approval when one says, "It is better to suffer this than to do that"; and whether that man did rightly in burning incense rather than suffering violation; and whether, if such a condition were offered, one should rather lie than burn incense. But if such consent is to be held as a deed, then those who chose to be killed rather than bear false witness are also murderers, and, what is a graver murder, murderers of themselves. For on this basis why should it not be said that they killed themselves, because they chose that this be done to them rather than do what they were being forced to do? Or if it is thought graver to kill another than oneself, what if this condition were put to a martyr: that if he would not bear false witness about Christ and sacrifice to demons, another person, not just anyone but his father, would be killed before his eyes, the father even begging his son not to let this happen through his persistence? Is it not plain that, if he remained steadfast in his most faithful testimony, only those who killed his father would be murderers, and not he a parricide as well? Just as, then, he would not share in so great a crime when he had chosen that his father be killed by others, even a sacrilegious father whose soul would be snatched away to punishment, rather than violate his faith by false witness, so that consent of the other would not make him a sharer in so great an outrage, provided he himself would not do evil, whatever others did because he would not. For what do such persecutors say but, "Do evil, so that we may not do it"? Even if they truly would not have done it had we done it, we still ought not to support them with our crime. But now, when they are already doing it, when they say these things, why should they be shameful and guilty together with us rather than alone? For that is not to be called consent, since we do not approve what they do, always wishing, and as far as lies in us preventing, that they should not do it; and not only not committing their deed with them, but condemning it with all the detestation we can.

"How," you say, "does he not do it with them, when they would not do this if he did that?" In that way we break down a door together with the housebreakers, because if we did not shut it they would not break it; and we kill men together with robbers, if we happen to know that they are going to do this, because if we forestalled them and killed them, they would not kill others. Or if someone confesses to us that he is going to commit parricide, we do it with him if, when we can, we do not kill him before he does it, when we cannot restrain or prevent him otherwise. For in just as many words it can be said: "You did it with him, because he would not have done this if you had done that." I would not want either evil to be done; but I could guard only against that one being done which was in my power; the other, which was another's and which I could not extinguish by my command, I ought not to prevent by my own evil deed. He does not approve of the sinner, then, who does not sin on another's behalf; and neither pleases the man who would not have either committed, but the one that concerns himself he does not commit, even having the power, while the one that concerns the other he condemns by his will alone. And so, when they put that condition to him and said, "If you do not burn incense, you will suffer this," if he had answered, "I choose neither; I detest both; I consent to you in none of these things," then among these and similar words, which, since they would certainly be true, would hold no consent of his, no approval, whatever he suffered from them would be reckoned to him as injuries received, to them as sins committed. "Ought he, then," someone says, "to have suffered violation rather than burn incense?" If you ask what he ought to have done, he ought to have done neither. For if I say that he ought to have done one of these, I shall approve one of them, whereas I disapprove of both. But if it is asked which of these he ought rather to have avoided, when he could not avoid both but could avoid one or the other, I shall answer: his own sin rather than another's, and the lighter one, which is his own, rather than the graver one, which is another's. For, leaving a more careful inquiry aside, granting for the moment that violation is graver than burning incense, yet the latter was his own deed, the former another's, even though he suffered it; and whose the deed is, his also is the sin. For though murder is graver than theft, it is nevertheless worse to commit theft than to suffer murder. So if it were put to someone that if he would not commit theft he would be killed, that is, murder would be committed against him, since he could not avoid both, he should rather avoid what would be his own sin than what would be another's. Nor would the latter become his because it was committed against him and because he could have avoided it if he had been willing to commit his own.

The whole knot of this question, then, comes to this: whether no sin of another, though committed against you, is imputed to you if you could avoid it by a lighter sin of your own and do not; or whether all bodily defilement is an exception. For no one says that a person becomes unclean if he is killed, or thrown into prison, or held in chains, or scourged and afflicted with other tortures and torments, or proscribed and made to suffer the heaviest losses to the point of utter destitution, or stripped of honors and made to receive enormous insults through all kinds of abuse: whichever of these anyone has suffered unjustly, no one is so mad as to say that he becomes unclean. But if he is drenched with dung, or something of that kind is poured or forced into his mouth, or he undergoes what is done to a woman, the feeling of almost everyone recoils, and they call him defiled and unclean. We must conclude, then, that the sins of others, except those that make unclean the one against whom they are committed, no one should avoid by sins of his own, either for himself or for anyone else, but should rather endure them and suffer them bravely; and that he ought to avoid them by no sins of his own, and so not by a lie; but those that are so committed against a man as to make him unclean, we ought to avoid even by our own sins, and for that reason those acts should not be called sins which are done in order to avoid that uncleanness. For whatever is done in such a way that if it were not done it would be justly censured is not a sin. From this it follows that it should not be called uncleanness either when there is no possibility of avoiding it; for even then the one who suffers it has something to do rightly, namely to bear patiently whatever he cannot avoid. And no one who acts rightly can be made unclean by any bodily contact whatever. For every unrighteous man is unclean before God; every righteous man, then, is clean, if not before men, yet before God, who judges without error. So even when he suffers these things, having been given the power to avoid them, he is not made unclean by the contact itself, but by the sin by which he would not avoid them when he could. For whatever had been done to avoid them would be no sin. Whoever, then, has lied to avoid these things does not sin.

Or are some lies also to be excepted, so that it is better to suffer this than to commit them? If that is so, then not everything done to avoid that uncleanness is free of sin, since there are some lies that it is graver to commit than to suffer that. For if someone is sought for violation who could be hidden by a lie, who dares say that one must not lie even then? But if he could be concealed by a lie that harms another's reputation with the false charge of the very uncleanness which he is sought to suffer (as if one were to say to the seeker, naming some chaste man far removed from outrages of this kind, "Go to him, and he will get you someone you will enjoy more; for he knows such people and loves them," and so the seeker could be turned away from the man he was seeking), I do not know whether one man's reputation should be violated by a lie so that another's body may not be violated by another's lust. And one must absolutely never lie on anyone's behalf with a lie that harms another, even if the other is harmed more lightly than the first would be harmed unless you lied; because neither is another's bread to be taken from him against his will, even if he is stronger, so that a weaker man may be fed, nor is an innocent man to be beaten with rods against his will so that another may not be killed. Clearly, if they are willing, let it be done, since they are not harmed when they are willing. But whether the reputation even of a willing man is to be harmed by a false charge of sexual crime, so that violation may be turned away from another's body, is a great question. And I do not know whether it can easily be found how it is just for the reputation of a willing man to be stained by a false charge of sexual crime rather than the body of an unwilling one by violation itself.

But yet, if such a choice were put to the man who preferred burning incense to idols over suffering what is done to a woman, that if he wished to avoid it he should violate the reputation of Christ by some lie, he would be utterly mad to do it. I say more: he would be mad if, to avoid another's lust, so that there might not be done in him what he would suffer with no lust of his own, he were to falsify the gospel of Christ with false praises of Christ, avoiding another's corruption in his body more than his own corruption in the teaching of the sanctification of souls and bodies. Therefore from the teaching of religion, and altogether from those statements made on account of the teaching of religion when it is taught and learned, all lies must be wholly removed; nor let it be believed that any reason at all can be found why one should lie in such matters, since one must not lie in that teaching even so that someone may be led to it more easily. For once the authority of truth is broken or even slightly lessened, everything will remain doubtful; and unless these things are believed true, they cannot be held as certain. It is permitted, then, to one who discusses, disputes, and preaches eternal things, or to one who narrates or declares temporal things that pertain to building up religion and piety, to conceal at the right time whatever seems fit to be concealed; but it is never permitted to lie, and therefore not to conceal by lying.

With this established first and most firmly, the other lies are inquired into more safely. But it follows that we must also see that all lies which harm anyone unjustly are to be removed, because no injury, however light, is to be inflicted on anyone so that a heavier one may be warded off from another. Nor are those lies to be admitted which, though they do no harm to another, benefit no one and harm those very people who lie for nothing. For these are properly to be called liars. For there is a difference between one who lies and a liar. One who lies may lie even unwillingly; but a liar loves to lie and dwells in his mind in the delight of lying. Next to these are to be placed those who wish to please people by lying, not so as to do anyone injury or insult (for we have already removed that kind above), but so as to be agreeable in their conversation. These differ from the kind in which we placed liars in this: that those delight to lie, rejoicing in deceit itself, while these like to please by pleasant talk; they would rather please with true things, but when they do not easily find true things that are agreeable to their hearers, they choose to lie rather than keep silent. It is rare, however, for these ever to take up a wholly false story; but for the most part they weave false things into true ones where pleasantness fails them. These two kinds of lies do not harm those who believe them, because they are not deceived in anything about the teaching of religion and truth, or about any advantage or benefit of their own. For it is enough for them to judge that what is said could have happened, and to trust a man whom they ought not rashly to suppose to be lying. For what harm is it if I believe that someone's father or grandfather was a good man, even if he was not, or that he went on campaign as far as the Persians, even if he never left Rome? But they greatly harm those who lie: the first because they so abandon truth as to rejoice in deceit, the second because they would rather please than tell the truth.

With these kinds condemned without any hesitation, there follows, as for people rising step by step to better things, the kind of lie that is commonly attributed to the kindly and good, when the one who lies not only harms no one but even benefits someone. About this kind is the whole dispute: whether he harms himself who benefits another in such a way that he acts against the truth. Or, if only that is to be called truth which illumines minds themselves with an inward and unchangeable light, he certainly acts against some truth; for even if the bodily senses are deceived, he still acts against the truth who says that something is so, or not so, which neither his mind nor his senses nor his opinion or belief reports to him. Whether, then, he does not harm himself who benefits another in this way, or does not harm himself by that compensation by which he benefits another, is a great question. If that is so, it follows that he should also benefit himself by a lie that harms no one. But these things are connected, and when they are granted, consequences are necessarily drawn that are very disturbing. For if it is asked what harm it does to a man overflowing with superfluous wealth if he loses one measure out of countless thousands of measures of grain, which measure could nevertheless benefit the thief for necessary food, it will follow both that theft can be committed without blame and that false witness can be spoken without sin. What more perverse thing can be said than that? Or indeed, if another had stolen that measure and you had seen it and were questioned, would you lie honorably on behalf of the poor man, and be blamed if you did it on account of your own poverty? As though you ought to love another more than yourself! Both, then, are shameful and to be avoided.

But perhaps someone may think an exception should be added, so that there are some honorable lies which not only harm no one but even benefit some, except those by which crimes are concealed and defended: so that the lie is shameful for this reason, that although it harms no one and benefits the poor man, it nevertheless conceals a theft; but if it harmed no one and benefited someone in such a way that it also concealed and defended no sin, it would not be shameful. For example, if someone hid his money while you watched, so as not to lose it by theft or violence, and then, when questioned, you lied, you would harm no one and benefit him who needed it hidden, and you would have covered no sin by lying. For no one sins by hiding his own property that he fears to lose. But if we do not sin by lying because, covering no one's sin, we both harm no one and benefit someone, what do we do about the sin of lying itself? For where it is laid down, "You shall not steal," there it is laid down, "You shall not bear false witness." Since, then, each is forbidden separately, why is false witness blameworthy if it covers a theft or some other sin, but if it is done by itself with no defense of sin, not blameworthy, while theft itself is blameworthy by itself, and the other sins too? Or is it not permitted to conceal a sin by lying, but permitted to commit one?

If this is absurd, what shall we say? Is it not false witness except when someone lies in such a way as either to invent a crime against someone, or to conceal someone's crime, or in some way to press someone hard in a trial? For a witness seems necessary to a judge for the hearing of a case. But if Scripture used the name "witness" only in this sense, the apostle would not say: "We are even found to be false witnesses of God, if we have testified against God that he raised Christ, whom he did not raise." For in this way he shows that a lie is false witness even if it is spoken in someone's false praise. Or does one who lies bear false witness only when he either invents or covers someone's sin, or harms someone in some way? For if a lie spoken against anyone's temporal life is detestable, how much more one against eternal life! And such is every lie, if it is told in the teaching of religion. And so the apostle calls it false witness if anyone lies about Christ, even in what seems to pertain to his praise. But if there is a lie that neither invents nor covers anyone's sin, nor is asked for by a judge, and harms no one and benefits someone, is it neither false witness nor a blameworthy lie?

What, then? If a murderer takes refuge with a Christian, or the Christian sees where he has fled, and is questioned about this by one who is seeking the killer of a man for punishment, must he lie? For how does he not cover a sin by lying, when the one for whom he lies has committed a wicked sin? Or is it because he is not asked about his sin, but about the place where he is hiding? Is it evil, then, to lie in order to cover anyone's sin, but not evil to lie in order to cover a sinner? "Just so," someone says; "for no one sins when he avoids punishment, but when he does something worthy of punishment. And it belongs to Christian discipline neither to despair of anyone's correction nor to shut off from anyone the way to repentance." What if you are brought before the judge and questioned about the very place where he is hiding? Are you going to say either, "He is not there," where you know he is, or, "I do not know and did not see," what you know and saw? Are you going, then, to bear false witness and kill your own soul so that a murderer may not be killed? Or will you lie up to the sight of the judge, but when the judge asks, tell the truth, so as not to be a false witness? Then you yourself are going to kill a man by betrayal. For the divine Scripture detests a betrayer too. Or perhaps he is not a betrayer who tells the truth to a judge who questions him, but would be a betrayer if he handed someone over to death of his own accord? What if you are questioned by a judge about where a just and innocent man is hiding, whom you know, but who has been ordered by a higher power to be seized for death, so that the one who questions is the executor of the law, not its maker? Will it therefore not be false witness if you lie on behalf of the innocent, because it is not the judge but an executor who questions? What if the maker of the law himself asks, or some unjust judge seeking an innocent man for punishment? What will you do? Will you be a false witness or a betrayer? Or will he be a betrayer who of his own accord reports a hiding murderer to a just judge, and he not be one who, when an unjust judge asks where an innocent man is hiding whom he seeks to kill, discloses the man who had entrusted himself to his good faith? Or will you remain doubtful and uncertain between the crime of false witness and that of betrayal? Or, by keeping silent or declaring that you will not tell, will you surely avoid both? Why, then, not do this before you come to the judge, so as to avoid a lie as well? For by avoiding a lie you will escape all false witness, whether every lie is false witness or not; but by avoiding what you understand to be false witness you will not escape every lie. How much braver, then, how much more excellent, to say: "I will neither betray nor lie!"

This is what a former bishop of the church of Thagaste did, Firmus by name and firmer still in will. For when a man was demanded of him by order of the emperor, through officers sent by him, a man who had taken refuge with him and whom he was hiding with all the care he could, he answered those who questioned him that he could neither lie nor betray a man; and having suffered so many torments of body (for the emperors were not yet Christian), he remained firm in his resolve. Then, brought before the emperor, he appeared so admirable that he obtained pardon for the man he was protecting without any difficulty. What can be done more bravely and steadfastly than this? But someone more timid says: "I can be ready to bear any torments, or even to meet death, so as not to sin; but since it is not a sin to lie in such a way that you neither harm anyone nor bear false witness, and you benefit someone, it is foolish and a grave sin to endure torments voluntarily to no purpose, and perhaps to throw away health and life that are useful for nothing to raging men." I ask him why he fears what is written, "You shall not bear false witness," and does not fear what is said of God, "You will destroy all who speak a lie." "It is not written," he says, "'every lie'; but I understand it as if it were written, 'You will destroy all who speak false witness.'" But neither is it said there, "all false witness." "But it is placed there," he says, "where the other things are that are evil in every way." Is that so of what is there too, "You shall not kill"? If that is evil in every way, how will the righteous be excused of this crime who, after the law was given, killed many? But it is answered that he does not himself kill who is the minister of some just command. I accept these men's fear, then, in such a way that I still judge that praiseworthy man, who would neither lie nor betray a man, both understood better what is written and bravely fulfilled what he understood.

But sometimes it comes to this point: that we are not asked where the man who is sought is, nor forced to betray him, if he is so hidden that he cannot easily be found unless betrayed, but we are asked whether he is in a particular place or not. If we know he is there, we betray him by keeping silent, or even by saying that we will by no means say whether he is there or not; for from this the questioner gathers that he is there, since if he were not there, nothing else would be answered by one who would neither lie nor betray a man but that he is not there. So by our silence or by such words the man is betrayed, so that the questioner goes in, if he has the power, and finds him, when he could have been turned away from finding him by our lie. Therefore, if you do not know where he is, there is no reason to hide the truth, but you must admit that you do not know. But if you know where he is, whether he is in the place asked about or elsewhere, you should not say, when asked whether he is there or not, "I will not tell you what you ask," but you should say, "I know where he is, but I will never show you." For if you do not answer about one place and declare that you will not betray him, it is as if you pointed to that very place with your finger; for a sure suspicion is aroused. But if you first declare that you know where he is but will not tell, the inquirer can perhaps be turned away from that place and begin to press you to betray where he is. Whatever you bravely endure for this good faith and humanity is judged not only not blameworthy but even praiseworthy, except only those things which, if a man has suffered them, he is said to suffer not bravely but immodestly and shamefully. For this is the last kind of lie, which must be treated more carefully.

For the first kind of lie, deadly and to be fled far away from, is the one told in the teaching of religion; no one ought to be led to that lie on any condition. The second is one that harms someone unjustly, such that it benefits no one and harms someone. The third is one that benefits one person in such a way as to harm another, though not by bodily uncleanness. The fourth is one told from the sole lust of lying and deceiving, which is the pure lie. The fifth is one told from the desire to please by pleasant talk. When all these have been wholly avoided and rejected, there follows the sixth kind, which harms no one and benefits someone: as if someone, knowing where a person's money is that is about to be taken unjustly, lies that he does not know, whoever asks him. The seventh is one that harms no one and benefits someone, except if a judge asks: as if someone, unwilling to betray a man sought for death, not only a just and innocent man but even a guilty one, should lie, because it belongs to Christian discipline neither to despair of anyone's correction nor to shut off from anyone the way to repentance. About these two kinds, which usually arouse great controversy, we have said enough and shown what we hold: that by accepting the hardships that are borne honorably and bravely, these kinds too should be avoided by brave, faithful, and truthful men and women. The eighth kind of lie is one that harms no one and benefits someone to the extent of protecting him from bodily uncleanness, at least of the kind we mentioned above. For the Jews thought it uncleanness even to eat with unwashed hands. Or if anyone calls this uncleanness too, it is not such that one should lie to avoid it. But if a lie is such as to do someone an injury, even if it protects a man from this uncleanness that all men abhor and detest, whether one should lie in this kind too, if the injury done by the lie is not of the kind of uncleanness we are now dealing with, is another question. For then the question is no longer about lying, but whether an injury should be done to someone, even not by a lie, so that that uncleanness may be driven away from another; which I would by no means think. Although very slight injuries may be proposed, such as the one I mentioned above about the loss of one measure of grain, and they may cause much perplexity as to whether we ought not to do even such an injury to anyone if another can thereby be defended or protected from suffering sexual violation. But, as I said, it is another question. Now let us finish what we set out to do: whether one should lie, if even an inescapable condition is proposed, that we either do this or suffer sexual violation or some execrable pollution, even if by lying we do no one an injury.

On this matter some room for consideration will open up if we first carefully examine the divine authorities that forbid lying. For if they give no room, we seek a way out in vain; for the command of God must be kept in every way, and the will of God must be followed with calm mind in whatever we suffer through keeping his command. But if some way out is left open, lying is not to be refused in such a case. For this reason the divine Scriptures contain not only the commands of God but also the life and conduct of the righteous, so that, if perhaps it is hidden how what is commanded is to be taken, it may be understood from the deeds of the righteous. Setting aside, therefore, those deeds which anyone can refer to an allegorical signification, though no one doubts that they were done (such as almost everything in the books of the Old Testament; for who would dare to affirm that anything there does not pertain to figurative foretelling? Since the apostle asserts that even the sons of Abraham, who, it is most easily said, were born and lived in the natural order of propagating a people (for they were not monsters and prodigies born to lead the mind to some signification), nevertheless signify the two covenants; and says that that wonderful benefit which God granted the people of Israel in rescuing them from the slavery by which they were oppressed in Egypt, and the punishment of vengeance when they sinned on the journey, happened as a figure: what deeds will you find by which you may set aside this rule and presume to affirm that they are not to be reduced to some figure?): setting these aside, then, let the things done by the saints in the New Testament, where there is the most evident recommendation of conduct to be imitated, serve as examples for understanding the Scriptures that are set out in commands.

For instance, when we read in the gospel, "You have received a slap; prepare the other cheek." Yet we find no example of patience more powerful and excellent than that of the Lord himself. And he, when he was struck with a slap, did not say, "Here is the other cheek," but said, "If I have spoken evil, bear witness to the evil; but if well, why do you strike me?" In this he showed that the preparing of the other cheek is to be done in the heart. The apostle Paul certainly knew this too; for he also, when he had been struck with a slap before the high priest, did not say, "Strike the other cheek," but, "God will strike you," he said, "you whitewashed wall; and do you sit to judge me according to the law, and contrary to the law order me to be struck?" Looking most deeply, he saw that the priesthood of the Jews had already become such that it shone outwardly with a name but inwardly was soiled with muddy lusts; and he saw in the Spirit that it would pass away by the Lord's vengeance, when he said this; but yet he had his heart ready not only to receive other slaps but also to suffer any torments whatever for the truth, with love for those from whom he would suffer them.