On Lying

There is a great question about lying, which often troubles us in our very everyday actions, lest we either rashly accuse as a lie what is not a lie, or think that one must sometimes lie with an honest, obliging, and merciful lie. This question we will treat so carefully that we seek together with those who seek; but whether we find anything, the treatment itself will show clearly enough to an attentive reader, since we affirm nothing rashly. For it is exceedingly full of hiding places, and with certain cave-like windings, as it were, it often eludes the effort of the one who seeks, so that at one moment what had been found seems to slip out of one's hands, at another it appears again and again is swallowed up. In the end, however, a surer tracking will capture our opinion. If there is any error in it, since truth frees from every error and falsehood entangles in every error, I think one never errs more safely than when one errs through too much love of truth and too much rejection of falsehood. For those who censure severely say this is too much; but the Truth itself would perhaps still say: it is not yet enough. Whoever you are who read, censure nothing until you have read the whole; and so you will censure less. Do not look for eloquence; for we have labored much over the matters themselves and over the speed of finishing a work so necessary for daily life; hence our care for words has been slight and almost none.

Setting aside jokes, then, which have never been thought lies (for they carry, from the manner of speaking and the very mood of the joker, a most evident sign of a mind in no way deceiving, even if not stating true things; whether this kind of speech should be used by perfect souls is another question, which we have not undertaken to untangle now), setting aside jokes, then, we must first deal with this: that one who does not lie should not be thought to lie.

Therefore we must see what a lie is. For not everyone who says something false lies, if he believes or supposes that what he says is true. Between believing and supposing there is this difference: that sometimes he who believes is aware that he does not know what he believes, although he does not doubt at all about the thing he knows he does not know, if he believes it most firmly; but he who supposes thinks he knows what he does not know. Now whoever states what he holds in his mind as believed or supposed, even if it is false, does not lie. For he owes this to the good faith of his statement, that he should bring forth by it what he holds in his mind, and holds it as he brings it forth. Yet he is not therefore without fault, though he does not lie, if he either believes what ought not to be believed or thinks he knows what he does not know, even if it is true; for he takes the unknown for the known. Therefore he lies who has one thing in his mind and states another in words or in any signs whatever. Hence the heart of the liar is also said to be double, that is, a double thought: one of the thing which he either knows or thinks to be true and does not bring forth; the other of the thing which he brings forth instead of it, knowing or thinking it to be false. From this it comes about that one can say something false without lying, if he thinks it is as he says, though it is not so; and that one can say something true while lying, if he thinks it false and states it as true, though in reality it is as he states. For one is to be judged lying or not lying from the intent of his own mind, not from the truth or falsehood of the things themselves. So he who states something false as true, which he nevertheless supposes to be true, can be called mistaken and rash; but he is not rightly called lying, because he does not have a double heart when he states it, nor does he desire to deceive, but is himself deceived. The fault of the liar, however, is the desire to deceive in stating his mind: whether he deceives, when he is believed as he states the false; or does not deceive, either when he is not believed, or when, with the will to deceive, he states the true which he does not think true. When he is believed in this, he certainly does not deceive, though he wished to deceive; except in so far as he deceives in being thought to know or think as he states.

Yet it may be asked most subtly whether, when the will to deceive is absent, a lie is absent altogether. For what if someone says something false that he considers false, yet does so because he thinks he will not be believed, so as in that way, by a false assurance, to deter the person he is speaking to, whom he perceives to be unwilling to believe him? Here he lies out of a desire not to deceive, if lying is stating something otherwise than you know or think it to be; but if it is not a lie except when someone states something with the will to deceive, this man does not lie, who says something false, though he knows or thinks that what he says is false, precisely so that the one he speaks to, by not believing him, may not be deceived, because he knows or thinks that he will not believe him. Hence, if it appears possible that someone says something false so that the one to whom it is said may not be deceived, there arises on the contrary another kind: one who says the truth in order to deceive. For he who speaks the truth because he perceives that he is not believed certainly says the truth in order to deceive; for he knows or thinks that what is said can be thought false precisely because it is said by him. Therefore, when he says the truth so that it may be thought false, he says the truth in order to deceive. We must ask, then, which of them rather lies: he who says the false so as not to deceive, or he who says the true in order to deceive, since the one knows or thinks he is saying the false, and the other knows or thinks he is saying the true. For we have already said that he who does not know that what he states is false does not lie, if he thinks it true, and that he rather lies who states even the true when he thinks it false, because they are to be judged from the intent of their own mind. So there is no small question about the two we have put forward. One knows or thinks he is saying something false, and says it so as not to deceive: for instance, if he knows that a road is beset by robbers and, fearing that a man whose safety he is concerned for might go that way, and knowing that the man does not believe him, he says that the road has no robbers, so that he will not go that way, since the man believes the robbers are there precisely because he has said they are not, having resolved not to believe him, thinking him a liar. The other, knowing or thinking that what he says is true, nevertheless says it in order to deceive: as if he should say to a man who does not believe him that there are robbers on that road where he knows there really are, so that the man he speaks to may go that way all the more and so fall among the robbers, while he thinks what was said to be false. Which of these, then, lies: he who chose to say the false so as not to deceive, or he who chose to say the true in order to deceive? He who by saying the false brought it about that the one he spoke to followed the truth, or he who by saying the true brought it about that the one he spoke to followed the false? Or perhaps both lied: the one because he wished to say the false, the other because he wished to deceive? Or rather did neither of them lie: the one because he had the will not to deceive, the other because he had the will to say the truth? For the question now is not which of them sinned, but which lied. For it is quickly seen that he sinned who by saying the true brought it about that the man fell among robbers, and that he did not sin, or even did well, who by saying the false brought it about that the man avoided destruction. But these examples can be turned round, so that the first wishes the man he does not want deceived to suffer something worse (for many have brought destruction on themselves by learning certain truths, if they were such as ought to have been hidden from them), and the second wishes the man he wants deceived to obtain some advantage. For some who would have killed themselves if they had learned of some evil that had truly befallen their dear ones spared themselves by thinking it false; and so being deceived benefited them, as knowing the truth harmed others. The question, then, is not with what intention of helping or harming either the one said the false so as not to deceive or the other said the true in order to deceive; but, leaving aside the advantages or disadvantages of those to whom they spoke, it is asked, as far as truth and falsehood themselves are concerned, which of them, or whether both or neither, lied. For if a lie is a statement with the will to state something false, the first rather lied, who wished to say the false and said what he wished, though he said it so as not to deceive; but if a lie is any statement with the will to deceive, not the first but the second lied, who wished to deceive even by saying the true. And if a lie is a statement with the will of any falsehood, both lied, because the first wished his statement to be false and the second wished his true statement to be believed false. Further, if a lie is the statement of one who wishes to state the false in order to deceive, neither lied, because the first had the will to persuade of the true by saying the false, and the second to say the true in order to persuade of the false. All rashness and every lie will be absent, then, when we both state, when there is need, what we know to be true and worthy of belief, and wish to persuade of what we state. But if, either thinking true what is false, or taking for known what is unknown to us, or believing what ought not to be believed, or stating something when there is no need, we nevertheless try to persuade of nothing other than what we state, the error of rashness is indeed not absent, but every lie is absent. For none of those definitions need be feared when the mind is well aware that it states what it knows or supposes or believes to be true, and wishes to persuade of nothing except what it states.

But whether a lie is ever useful is a much greater and more necessary question. Whether, then, he lies who has no will to deceive, or even acts so that the one to whom he states something may not be deceived, though he willed the statement itself to be false, because he willed it in order to persuade of the truth; and whether he lies who states even the truth willingly for the sake of deceiving: these can be doubted. But no one doubts that he lies who willingly states the false for the sake of deceiving. Therefore it is plain that a false statement uttered with the will to deceive is a lie. But whether this alone is a lie is another question. Meanwhile, let us inquire about this kind, on which all agree: whether it is ever useful to state something false with the will to deceive. For those who think so bring testimonies for their opinion, recalling that Sarah, when she had laughed, denied to the angels that she had laughed; that Jacob, when asked by his father, answered that he was Esau, his elder son; that the Egyptian midwives too lied so that the Hebrew infants being born might not be killed, and God even approved and rewarded them. And choosing many examples of this kind, they recall the lies of men whom you would not dare to blame, so that you must admit that a lie can sometimes be not only not worthy of censure but even worthy of praise. They add something too, to press not only those devoted to the divine books but all men and common sense, saying: "If someone takes refuge with you who can be freed from death by your lie, will you not lie? If a sick man asks something which it is not good for him to know, and who might be more gravely afflicted even if you do not answer, will you dare either to tell the truth to the man's ruin, or to keep silent rather than help his health with an honest and merciful lie?" With these and similar arguments they think they urge most abundantly that we should sometimes lie, if the cause of helping requires it.

On the other side, those who hold that one must never lie argue much more strongly, using first the divine authority, since it is written in the Decalogue itself: "You shall not bear false witness," under which kind every lie is included; for whoever states anything bears witness to his own mind. But lest anyone contend that not every lie is to be called false witness, what will he say to what is written: "The mouth that lies kills the soul"? And lest anyone think this can be understood with some liars excepted, let him read in another place: "You will destroy all who speak a lie." Hence the Lord himself says with his own mouth: "Let there be in your mouth, Yes, yes; No, no; for whatever is more than this is from evil." Hence the apostle too, when he commanded that the old man be put off, a name under which all sins are understood, fittingly says, putting this first: "Wherefore, putting away lying, speak the truth."

Nor, they say, are they alarmed by the examples of lies brought forward from the old books. There, whatever was done can be taken figuratively, although it really happened; and whatever is done or said figuratively is not a lie. For every statement must be referred to what it states; and everything done or said figuratively states what it signifies to those for whose understanding it was brought forth. Hence it must be believed that those men who are recorded as having been of authority in prophetic times did and said prophetically all that is written of them; and no less prophetically did whatever happened to them happen, which happened in such a way that it was judged, by the same prophetic Spirit, worthy to be committed to memory and writing. As for the midwives, since they cannot say that they reported one thing for another to Pharaoh by the prophetic Spirit for the sake of signifying a future truth, even if what was done through them signified something without their knowing it, they say that they were approved and rewarded by God according to their stage. For one who is accustomed to lie for the sake of harming has made great progress if he now lies for the sake of helping. But it is one thing that is put forward as praiseworthy in itself, another that is preferred in comparison with something worse. For we congratulate a man one way when he is healthy, another way when a sick man is better. For in the Scriptures themselves even Sodom is said to be justified in comparison with the crimes of the people of Israel. And to this rule they direct all the lies brought forward from the old books that are found not to be censured or cannot be censured: that either they are approved for the promise and hope of people making progress, or, for the sake of some signification, they are not lies at all.

And therefore, from the books of the New Testament, apart from the figurative significations of the Lord, if you consider the life and conduct and the deeds and words of the saints, nothing of that kind can be brought forward to provoke imitation of lying. For the pretense of Peter and Barnabas is not only recorded but also censured and corrected. For it was not, as some think, by the same pretense that the apostle Paul either circumcised Timothy or himself celebrated certain sacred rites in the Jewish manner, but by that freedom of his judgment by which he preached that circumcision neither benefits the Gentiles nor harms the Jews. Hence he judged that neither should the former be bound to the custom of the Jews nor the latter be deterred from the custom of their fathers. Hence these are his words: "Was anyone called circumcised? Let him not draw on. Was anyone called in uncircumcision? Let him not be circumcised. Circumcision is nothing and uncircumcision is nothing, but the keeping of God's commandments. Let each remain in the calling in which he was called." For how can the foreskin that has been cut off be drawn on? But "let him not draw on" he said to mean: let him not live as though he had drawn on the foreskin, that is, as though he had drawn the covering of the flesh back over the part he laid bare and had ceased to be a Jew; as he says elsewhere: "Your circumcision has become uncircumcision." And the apostle said this not as compelling either the former to remain in uncircumcision or the Jews in the custom of their fathers, but so that neither should be compelled to the other's way, and each should have the power, not the necessity, of remaining in his own custom. For if a Jew had wished, where he would disturb no one, to withdraw from Jewish observances, he would not have been forbidden by the apostle, since he gave the counsel to remain in them for this purpose, that the Jews might not be disturbed by superfluous things and so fail to come to what was necessary for salvation; nor would he have forbidden any of the Gentiles, if he wished to be circumcised in order to show that he did not detest it as harmful but held it as indifferent, as a seal whose usefulness had now passed with time; for if salvation no longer came from it, neither was destruction to be feared from it. And so Timothy too, though he was called in uncircumcision, yet because he was born of a Jewish mother and had to show his kinsmen, in order to win them, that he had not learned in the Christian teaching to abominate those sacraments that belonged to the old law, was circumcised by the apostle; so that in this way they might show the Jews that the Gentiles did not take them up, not because they were evil and harmfully observed by the fathers, but because they were no longer necessary for salvation after the coming of so great a sacrament, which the whole old Scripture had been in labor with through so long a time by prophetic figures. For he would have circumcised Titus too, when the Jews were pressing for this, had not the false brothers brought in secretly wanted it done so that they might have something to spread about Paul himself, as though he had yielded to the "truth" of those who preached that the hope of the gospel's salvation lay in the circumcision of the flesh and observances of that kind, and contended that without them Christ profited no one; whereas, on the contrary, Christ profited nothing to those who were circumcised with the intention of thinking that salvation lay there. Hence that saying: "Behold, I Paul say to you that if you are circumcised, Christ will profit you nothing." From this freedom, then, Paul observed the observances of the fathers, guarding against and preaching this one thing: that it should not be thought that there is no Christian salvation without them. But Peter by his pretense, as though salvation lay in Judaism, was compelling the Gentiles to judaize, as the words of Paul show, when he says: "How do you compel the Gentiles to judaize?" For they would not have been compelled unless they saw him observing them as though there could be no salvation apart from them. Peter's pretense, then, is not to be compared with Paul's freedom. And so we ought to love Peter, who was willingly corrected, but not also to build up a lie on the authority of Paul, since he both called Peter back to the right way before all, lest the Gentiles be compelled through him to judaize, and bore witness to his own preaching: for when he was thought to be an enemy of the traditions of the fathers because he would not impose them on the Gentiles, by not disdaining to celebrate them himself in the ancestral way he showed clearly enough that at Christ's coming there remained in them this much: that they were neither harmful to the Jews, nor necessary to the Gentiles, nor any longer saving for anyone.

If, then, no authority for lying can be brought forward from the ancient books, either because what is taken as done or said figuratively is not a lie, or because what is praised in bad men, when they have begun to make progress, in comparison with something worse, is not held up to the good for imitation; nor from the books of the New Testament, because Peter's correction rather than his pretense is to be imitated, as his tears rather than his denial: then they assert with much greater confidence that the examples brought forward from common life are not to be trusted. For first they teach that lying is iniquity, by many proofs from the holy writings, and above all by what is written: "You hate, O Lord, all who work iniquity; you will destroy all who speak a lie." For either, as Scripture is accustomed to do, it explained the former verse by the following one, so that, since iniquity usually extends more widely, we should understand that by naming lying it meant to indicate a species of iniquity; or, if they think there is some difference, lying is worse in proportion as "you will destroy" is put more severely than "you hate." For perhaps God hates someone somewhat more mildly, so as not to destroy him; but whom he destroys he hates the more vehemently the more severely he punishes. Now he hates all who work iniquity; but all who speak a lie he also destroys. This being established, which of those who assert these things will be moved by those examples, when it is said: "What if a man takes refuge with you who can be freed from death by your lie?" For that death, which men foolishly fear who do not fear to sin, kills not the soul but the body, as the Lord teaches in the gospel (hence he commands that it not be feared); but the mouth that lies kills not the body but the soul. For it is written in the plainest words: "But the mouth that lies kills the soul." How, then, is it not said most perversely that, in order that one may live bodily, another ought to die spiritually? For love of neighbor itself takes its limit from each one's love of himself: "You shall love," he says, "your neighbor as yourself." How, then, does anyone love as himself one to whom, in order to secure temporal life, he himself loses eternal life? Indeed, if for the other's temporal life he loses his own temporal life, this is no longer loving as himself but more than himself, which goes beyond the rule of sound doctrine. Much less, then, is he to lose his own eternal life for another's temporal life by lying. His temporal life, clearly, the Christian will not hesitate to lose for the eternal life of his neighbor; for this example went before, that the Lord himself died for us. For this reason he also says: "This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends." For no one is so foolish as to say that the Lord cared for anything other than the eternal salvation of men, whether by doing what he commanded or by commanding what he did. Since, then, eternal life is lost by lying, one must never lie for anyone's temporal life. Indeed, these people who are vexed and indignant if someone is unwilling to destroy his own soul by a lie so that another may grow old in the flesh: what if someone could be freed from death by our theft, or by adultery? Must we therefore steal or commit adultery? For they do not know that they are forcing themselves to this: that if a man brings a noose and demands sexual intercourse, declaring that he will hang himself unless what he asks is granted him, one should consent for the sake of freeing a soul, as they themselves say. But if this is absurd and wicked, why should anyone corrupt his own soul by a lie so that another may live in the body, when, if he gave his own body to be corrupted for that reason, he would be condemned by the judgment of all for wicked shamefulness? So in this question nothing is to be attended to except whether lying is iniquity. And since this is asserted by the proofs mentioned above, we must see that to ask whether anyone ought to lie for another's safety is as if one asked whether anyone ought to be unjust for another's safety. But if the salvation of the soul rejects this, since it cannot be preserved except by justice, and commands us to put it before not only another's temporal safety but our own too, what remains, they say, that should make us doubt that one must never lie at all? For it cannot be said that among temporal goods there is anything greater or dearer than safety and bodily life. Hence, if not even that is to be preferred to truth, what can be objected, on account of which those who think one sometimes ought to lie may contend that one must lie?

As for the chastity of the body, because it seems to present itself as a very honorable person and to demand a lie on its own behalf, so that if a violator rushes in who could be avoided by a lie, one should lie without hesitation: it can easily be answered that there is no chastity of the body unless it depends on the integrity of the mind; if that is broken, it must fall, even if it seems untouched; and therefore it is not to be counted among temporal things, as though it could be taken from the unwilling. In no way, then, does the mind corrupt itself by a lie for the sake of its body, which it knows remains uncorrupted if incorruption does not depart from the mind itself. For what the body suffers by violence, with no lust going before, is to be called affliction rather than corruption. Or if every affliction is corruption, not every corruption is shameful, but only that which lust has brought about or to which lust has consented. And the more excellent the mind is than the body, the more wickedly is it corrupted. Chastity, therefore, can be kept there where there can be no corruption except a voluntary one. For certainly, if a violator seizes the body who can be avoided neither by opposing force nor by any plan or lie, we must admit that chastity cannot be violated by another's lust. Therefore, since no one doubts that the mind is better than the body, the integrity of the mind, which can be kept for ever, is to be put before the integrity of the body. And who would say that the mind of a liar is whole? Indeed, lust itself is rightly defined as the appetite of the mind by which any temporal goods whatever are put before eternal goods. No one, therefore, can prove that one must sometimes lie, unless he can show that some eternal good can be obtained by a lie. But since each one departs from eternity as far as he departs from truth, it is most absurd to say that by departing from it one can arrive at some good. Or if there is some eternal good that truth does not embrace, it will not be true, and therefore it will not be good either, because it will be false. And as the mind is to be put before the body, so truth is to be put before the mind itself, so that the mind may desire it not only more than the body but even more than itself. For so it will be more whole and more chaste, when it enjoys the unchangeability of truth rather than its own changeability. But if Lot, righteous as he was, so that he was found worthy even to receive angels as guests, offered his daughters to the Sodomites to be violated, so that women's bodies rather than men's might be corrupted by them, how much more carefully and steadfastly must the chastity of the mind be kept in the truth, since the mind itself is more truly to be preferred to its body than a man's body to a woman's body.

But if anyone thinks that one should lie to someone on another's behalf so that he may live for the time being, or may not be offended in the things he greatly loves, so that he may come to the eternal truth by learning, he does not understand, first, that there is no shameful deed that he would not be forced to undertake on the same condition, as has already been shown above; and second, that the authority of the teaching itself is cut off and utterly perishes if, by our lie, we persuade those whom we are trying to lead to it that one must sometimes lie. For since saving teaching consists partly of things to be believed and partly of things to be understood, and one cannot arrive at what is to be understood unless what is to be believed is first believed, how is one to believe a man who thinks that one must sometimes lie, lest perhaps he is lying even when he instructs us to believe? For how can it be known whether even then he has, as he thinks, some reason for an obliging lie, supposing that a man terrified by a false story can be restrained from lust, and so judging that by lying he is serving even spiritual ends? Once this kind is admitted and approved, the whole discipline of faith is utterly overthrown; and when that is overthrown, one does not arrive at understanding either, for the grasping of which faith nourishes the little ones. And so all teaching of truth is taken away, yielding to the most licentious falsehood, if room to get in from anywhere is opened to a lie, as if it were an obliging one. For whoever lies either puts temporal advantages, his own or another's, before truth (and what could be more perverse than that?), or, when he wishes by the help of a lie to make someone fit to attain truth, he shuts off the approach to truth; for in wishing, when he lies, to be helpful, he becomes, when he tells the truth, uncertain. Therefore, either the good are not to be believed, or we must believe those whom we believe ought sometimes to lie, or we must not believe that the good ever lie. Of these three, the first is ruinous, the second foolish; it remains, then, that the good never lie.

Though the question has thus been considered and treated from both sides, a verdict is still not easily given; but we must still listen carefully to those who say that no deed is so evil that it should not be done to avoid a worse one; and that among the deeds of men belongs not only whatever they do, but also whatever they suffer with consent. Hence, if a case arose in which a Christian had to choose to burn incense to idols so as not to consent to sexual violation, which the persecutor threatened him with unless he did so, they seem rightly to ask why he should not also lie in order to avoid so great a shame. For they say that the very consent by which he would prefer to suffer violation rather than burn incense to idols is not a suffering but a deed; and to avoid doing it he chose to burn incense. How much more readily, then, would he have chosen a lie, if by a lie he could remove so monstrous an outrage from a holy body!

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.

It is also written: "But I say to you, do not swear at all." Yet the apostle himself swore in his letters, and so showed how what was said was to be taken, "I say to you, do not swear at all": namely, lest by swearing one come to readiness in swearing, from readiness to habit, and so from habit fall into perjury. And so he is not found to have sworn except when writing, where more careful consideration does not have a hasty tongue. And this is certainly "from evil," as it is said, "whatever is more than this is from evil"; not his own evil, however, but the weakness of those whom he was trying to convince even in this way. For whether he swore when speaking, not writing, I do not know that any scripture has recorded of him. And yet the Lord says "at all," "do not swear"; for he did not allow this to be lawful for those who write. But since it is wicked to say that Paul was guilty of violating a command, especially in letters written and published for the spiritual life and salvation of peoples, it must be understood that the word "at all" was put there so that, as far as lies in you, you should not seek, not love, not desire an oath with any delight as though it were a good.

So too that saying: "Do not be anxious about tomorrow," and: "Do not, therefore, be anxious about what you will eat and what you will drink and what you will wear." But when we see that the Lord himself had a purse, in which what was given was put so that it could be kept for uses necessary at the time, and that the apostles themselves provided many things for the relief of the brothers, not only for tomorrow but even for the longer time of a threatening famine, as we read in the Acts of the Apostles, it is clear enough that those commands are to be understood thus: that we should do nothing of our work out of love of obtaining temporal things or fear of want, as though under necessity.

Likewise it was said to the apostles that, carrying nothing with them on the journey, they should live by the gospel. And in one place the Lord himself also indicated why he said this, when he added, "For the laborer is worthy of his wages." There he showed clearly enough that this was permitted, not commanded, lest perhaps one who did this, so as to take something for the uses of this life from those to whom he preached in the work of preaching the word, should think he was doing something unlawful. Yet that it can more praiseworthily not be done is shown clearly enough in the apostle Paul. When he said, "Let him who is taught the word share in all good things with him who teaches," and showed in many places that this is done to their health by those to whom the word is preached, yet "I," he says, "have not made use of this right." So the Lord gave a right when he said these things; he did not bind by a command. Thus, being unable to understand many things in the words, we gather from the deeds of the saints how what would easily be taken in another direction ought to be taken, unless it were called back by example.

So, then, as to what is written, "But the mouth that lies kills the soul," it is asked of which mouth it spoke. For often when Scripture says "mouth" it means the very receptacle of the heart, where whatever is also stated through the voice, when we speak the truth, is approved and decided; so that he lies in the heart who approves of lying, but one can avoid lying in the heart who brings forth through the voice something other than is in his mind in such a way that he knows he is admitting an evil for the sake of avoiding a greater evil, though both displease him. And those who assert this say that we must also understand in this way what is written, "who speaks truth in his heart," because truth must always be spoken in the heart, but not always in the mouth of the body, if some reason of guarding against a greater evil requires something other than is in the mind to be brought forth by the voice. And that there is a mouth of the heart can be understood from this, that where there is speech, there a mouth is not absurdly understood. It would not rightly be said, "who speaks in his heart," unless a mouth in the heart were also rightly understood. Although in that very place where it is written, "But the mouth that lies kills the soul," if the context of the reading is considered, perhaps nothing other than the mouth of the heart is meant. For the answer there is called "obscure" where it is hidden from men, who cannot hear the mouth of the heart unless the mouth of the body sounds with it. And Scripture says in that place that that mouth reaches the hearing of the Spirit of the Lord, who has filled the world, so that it even mentions lips and voice and tongue in that place, and yet the meaning does not allow all these to be taken except of the heart, because it says that what is said is not hidden from the Lord; whereas what is said with this sound that reaches our ears is not hidden from men either. For so it is written: "For the spirit of wisdom is kindly, and will not free the evil speaker from his lips, since God is witness of his inmost parts, and a true searcher of his heart, and a hearer of his tongue. For the Spirit of the Lord has filled the world, and that which holds all things has knowledge of the voice. Therefore he who speaks unrighteous things cannot be hidden, nor will the judgment that reproves pass him by. For there will be inquiry into the thoughts of the ungodly; and the report of his words will come from the Lord to the reproof of his iniquities, since the ear of jealousy hears all things, and the tumult of murmurings will not be hidden. Guard yourselves, therefore, from murmuring, which profits nothing, and spare your tongue from slander; for an obscure answer will not go for nothing, but the mouth that lies kills the soul." He seems, then, to threaten those who think that what they turn over and ponder in their heart is obscure and secret; so clear did he wish to show that this is to the ears of God that he even called it a "tumult."

We also find the mouth of the heart plainly in the gospel, so that the Lord is found to have mentioned in one place both the mouth of the body and the mouth of the heart, where he says: "Are you also still without understanding? Do you not understand that everything that enters the mouth goes into the belly and is cast out into the drain? But what comes out of the mouth comes out of the heart, and these defile a man. For out of the heart come evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, acts of sexual immorality, thefts, false testimonies, blasphemies. These are what defile a man." Here, if you understand only one mouth, that of the body, how will you understand, "But what comes out of the mouth comes out of the heart," since spittle and vomit also come out of the mouth? Unless perhaps a man is not defiled when he eats something unclean, but is defiled when he vomits it up. If that is most absurd, it remains that we understand the mouth of the heart to have been explained by the Lord when he says, "What comes out of the mouth comes out of the heart." For theft too, since it can be, and often is, committed in the silence of bodily voice and mouth, it is utterly mad to understand this so as to think that someone is contaminated by the sin of theft when he confesses or discloses it, but to judge him undefiled when he commits it silently. But if we refer what was said to the mouth of the heart, no sin at all can be committed silently; for it is not committed unless it comes out from that inner mouth.

But just as it is asked of which mouth it said, "But the mouth that lies kills the soul," so it can be asked of which lie. For it seems to speak properly of the lie by which someone is slandered. For it says: "Guard yourselves, therefore, from murmuring, which profits nothing, and spare your tongue from slander." This slander is done through ill will, when someone not only brings forth with the mouth and voice of the body what he invents against someone, but even silently wishes such a person to be believed so (which is certainly slandering with the mouth of the heart); and this, it says, cannot be obscure and hidden from God.

As for what is written in another place, "Do not wish to lie any lie," they do not want it to have the force that no one should lie any lie at all. So when one person says that from this testimony of Scripture every lie is to be detested so universally that even if someone wishes to lie, even if he does not lie, the will itself is already to be condemned, and interprets it to this effect, that it is not said, "Do not lie any lie," but, "Do not wish to lie any lie," so that no one should dare not only to lie but even to wish to lie with any lie; another says: "No, in saying, 'Do not wish to lie any lie,' it meant that the lie must be banished and removed from the mouth of the heart, so that from some lies one must abstain with the mouth of the body, especially those that pertain to the teaching of religion, but from some one need not abstain with the mouth of the body, if the cause of avoiding a greater evil requires it; but with the mouth of the heart we ought to abstain wholly from every lie." Here "do not wish" must be understood; for the will itself is taken as the mouth of the heart, so that it does not concern the mouth of the heart when we lie unwillingly, guarding against a greater evil. There is also a third interpretation, by which you take it thus: "not any lie," so that it allows you to lie with some lies excepted. As if it said, "Do not wish to believe every man," it would certainly not be warning that no one should be believed, but that not all, and yet some, should be believed. And what follows, "for the continual use of it will not profit for good," sounds as though it seemed to forbid not lying but continual lying, that is, the habit and love of lying. Into this anyone would surely slip who either thought every kind of lie could be freely used (for so he would not guard even against the lie told in the teaching of piety and religion, than which what more wicked thing could you easily find, not among all lies but among all sins?), or accommodated the assent of his will to any lie, however easy, however harmless, so as to lie not unwillingly for the sake of escaping a greater evil, but willingly and gladly. So, since there are three things that can be understood in this sentence, either "Do not only not lie any lie, but do not even wish to lie," or "Do not wish to, but lie even unwillingly when something graver is to be fled," or "Not any lie, so that with some lies excepted the rest are permitted," one is found here for those who hold that one must never lie, and two for those who think that one must sometimes lie. But yet I do not know whether what follows, "for the continual use of it will not profit for good," can support the first of these three meanings; unless perhaps in this way: that it is the precept for the perfect never at all not only to lie but even to wish to lie, while continual lying is not permitted even to those making progress. As though, when it was commanded that one must never at all lie, nor even have the will to lie, it were objected from examples that some lies have been approved even by great authority, and it were answered that these are indeed of those making progress, which have in this life some sort of duty of mercy, but that every lie is so far evil and to be fled in every way by perfect and spiritual souls that not even to those making progress is the continual use of it to be permitted. For it has already been said of the Egyptian midwives that in lying they were approved for their disposition to make progress toward better things, because it is some step toward loving true and everlasting salvation when someone lies mercifully even for someone's mortal safety.

Likewise, of what is written, "You will destroy all who speak a lie," one says that no lie is excepted here, but every lie is condemned. Another says: "Yes indeed, but those who speak a lie from the heart, according to the earlier discussion; for he speaks truth in his heart who hates the necessity of lying, which he understands to be a punishment of this mortal life." Another says: "God will indeed destroy all who speak a lie, but not every lie; for there is some lie that the prophet was then pointing to, in which no one is spared: that is, if someone, refusing to confess his sins, rather defends them and will not do penance, so that it is not enough that he works iniquity, but, wishing even to seem righteous, he does not submit to the medicine of confession." And the very distinction of the words seems to indicate nothing else: "You hate all who work iniquity" (but you will not destroy them, if in repentance they speak the truth in confession, so that by doing this truth they come to the light, as is said in the Gospel according to John, "But he who does the truth comes to the light"); "you will destroy all" who not only work what you hate, but also speak a lie, putting forward a false righteousness and not confessing their sins in penance.

As for false witness, which is placed in the ten commandments of the law, it can in no way be contended that love of truth is to be kept in the heart while something false is brought forth to the one before whom the testimony is given. For when it is said to God alone, then truth need be embraced only in the heart; but when it is said to a man, the truth must also be brought forth with the mouth of the body, because man is not a searcher of the heart. But it is not at all absurd to ask, about testimony itself, before whom one is a witness. For we are not witnesses before everyone we speak to, but before those for whom it is fitting and to whom it is owed to know or believe the truth through us: such as a judge, so that he may not err in judging; or one who is taught the teaching of religion, so that he may not err in faith or waver in doubt about the very authority of the teacher. But when a man questions you or wishes to learn something from you who is seeking a matter that does not concern him, or which it is not fitting for him to know, he is seeking not a witness but a betrayer. So if you lie to him, you will perhaps be free of false witness, but you will certainly not be free of lying. Granting, then, that it is never permitted to bear false witness, it is asked whether it is ever permitted to lie. Or if every lie is false witness, we must see whether it admits of compensation, so that it may be said to be for the sake of avoiding a greater sin; just as what is written, "Honor father and mother," is set aside when a more important duty claims us: hence one who is called by the Lord himself to proclaim the kingdom of God is forbidden to pay the last honor of burial to his father.

Likewise, of what is written, "The son who keeps the word will be far from destruction; but in receiving he receives it for himself, and nothing false proceeds from his mouth," someone says that "the son receiving the word" is to be taken here as nothing but the word of God, which is truth. So "the son receiving the truth will be far from destruction" is referred to what was said, "You will destroy all who speak a lie." And what follows, "but in receiving he receives it for himself," what else does it suggest but what the apostle says: "But let each one test his own work, and then he will have glory in himself and not in another"? For he who receives the word, that is, the truth, not for himself but to please men, does not keep it, when he sees that they can be pleased by a lie. But he who receives it for himself, nothing false proceeds from his mouth, because even when a lie pleases men, he does not lie who has received for himself the truth by which he would please not them but God. So there is no reason why it should be said here, "He will indeed destroy all who speak a lie, but not every lie," since all lies universally are cut off in what was said, "and nothing false proceeds from his mouth." But another says it is to be taken as the apostle Paul took what the Lord said, "But I say to you, do not swear at all." For here too all swearing is cut off, but from the mouth of the heart, so that it should never be done with the approval of the will, but from the necessity of another's weakness, that is, from the evil of another who does not seem able to be persuaded of what is said unless faith is given by an oath; or from that evil of ours, that, still wrapped in the skins of this mortality, we cannot show our heart; if we could, there would certainly be no need of an oath. Although in this whole sentence too, if what was said, "the son who keeps the word will be far from destruction," was said of the Truth itself, through which all things were made, which remains always unchangeable, since the teaching of religion strives to lead to the contemplation of it, it may seem that "and nothing false proceeds from his mouth" was said so that he should say nothing false that pertains to the teaching. This kind of lie is to be undertaken for no compensation at all, and is to be avoided wholly and above all. Or if it is absurd to take "nothing false" otherwise than as referring to every lie, then he who thinks one must sometimes lie contends that "from his mouth" is to be taken, according to the earlier discussion, as the mouth of the heart.

Although all this discussion certainly alternates, some asserting that one must never lie and citing divine testimonies to this effect, others contradicting and seeking room for a lie among the very words of the divine testimonies, yet no one can say that he finds, either in the example or in the word of the Scriptures, that any lie seems to be loved or not hated; but only that sometimes by lying one must do what one hates, so that what is more to be detested may be avoided. But in this men err, that they put precious things below cheaper ones. For when you have granted that some evil must be admitted so that another graver one may not be admitted, each measures evil not by the rule of truth but by his own desire and habit, and thinks that graver which he himself shudders at more, not that which is really more to be fled. This whole fault is born of the perversity of love. For since there are two lives of ours, one everlasting, which is promised by God, the other temporal, in which we now are, when anyone has begun to love this temporal one more than that everlasting one, he thinks everything must be done for the sake of this one which he loves, and thinks no sins graver than those that injure this life and either take away some advantage from it wrongly and unlawfully, or take it away altogether by inflicting death. And so they hate thieves and robbers and those who insult, torturers and murderers, more than the wanton, the drunken, and the dissolute, if these trouble no one. For they do not understand, or do not care at all, that these do injury to God, not indeed to any disadvantage of his, but to their own great ruin, when they corrupt his gifts in themselves, even the temporal ones, and by these very corruptions turn away from the eternal, especially if they have already begun to be the temple of God, as the apostle says to all Christians: "Do you not know that you are the temple of God and the Spirit of God dwells in you? If anyone corrupts the temple of God, God will destroy him; for the temple of God is holy, which you are."

And all these sins, whether those by which injury is done to men in the very advantages of this life, or those by which men corrupt themselves and harm no one unwilling, all these sins, then, even if they seem to serve this temporal life for some delight or advantage (for no one commits any of them with another purpose and end), nevertheless hinder in every way those entangled in them from that life which is everlasting. Of these, some hinder only those who do them, others also those against whom they are done. For those things which are kept for the sake of advantage pertaining to this life, when they are taken away by wrongdoers, only those sin and are hindered from eternal life who do this, not those to whom they do it. So even if someone consents to their being taken from him, either so that he may not do something evil or so that he may not suffer some greater disadvantage in these very things, not only does he not sin, but he does the former bravely and praiseworthily, the latter usefully and blamelessly. But those things which are kept for the sake of holiness and religion, when wrongdoers wish to violate them, are to be redeemed even by lesser sins, though not by injuries to others, if the condition is proposed and the opportunity given. And then those acts cease to be sins which are undertaken to avoid graver ones. For just as in useful things, such as money or some other bodily advantage, what is lost for the sake of a greater gain is not called a loss, so too in holy things what is admitted so that something graver may not be admitted is not called a sin. Or if that too is called a loss which someone loses so as not to lose more, let this also be called a sin, provided that no one doubts that it must be undertaken so that more may be avoided, just as no one doubts that the lesser loss must be suffered to guard against the greater.

These are the things that must be kept for the sake of holiness: chastity of the body, purity of the soul, and truth of teaching. No one violates the chastity of the body without the soul's consent and permission. For whatever happens in our body by greater force, when we are unwilling and give no power, is no unchastity. But there can be some reason for permitting, none for consenting. For we consent when we approve and will; but we permit even when unwilling, for the sake of avoiding some greater shame. Consent to bodily unchastity certainly violates the purity of the mind as well. For the purity of the mind lies in good will and sincere love, which is not corrupted except when we love and desire what truth teaches is not to be loved and desired. The sincerity of love for God and neighbor, then, must be guarded (for in this the purity of the mind is sanctified), and we must strive with all the strength we can and with devout prayer that, when the chastity of our body is sought to be violated, not even the outermost sense of the soul, which is entangled with the flesh, be touched by any delight; but if this cannot be, at least that the purity of the mind be preserved in not consenting. In the purity of the mind there must be guarded, as regards love of neighbor, innocence and benevolence, and as regards love of God, piety. Innocence is that by which we harm no one; benevolence, that by which we also do good to whom we can; piety, that by which we worship God. But the truth of the teaching of religion and piety is violated only by a lie, since the supreme and inmost Truth itself, whose teaching this is, can in no way be violated; to arrive at that Truth, and to remain in it in every way and cleave to it wholly, will not be permitted until "this corruptible has put on incorruption and this mortal has put on immortality." But since all piety in this life is an exercise by which one tends toward that Truth, and this teaching provides the leadership for that exercise, conveying and making known that very Truth by human words and by the seals of bodily sacraments, therefore this teaching too, which can be corrupted by a lie, must be kept above all uncorrupted, so that if anything in that purity of mind has been violated, it may have a means of repair. For once the authority of the teaching is corrupted, there can be no course, or return course, to purity of mind.

From all this, then, this opinion is drawn: that a lie which violates neither the teaching of piety, nor piety itself, nor innocence, nor benevolence may be admitted for the sake of bodily chastity. And yet, if someone resolved to love truth so, not only the truth that lies in contemplation but also that in stating truly what is true in each kind of thing, and not to bring forth any statement with the mouth of the body otherwise than it is conceived and seen in the mind, so that he put the truthful beauty of good faith before not only gold and silver and gems and pleasant estates, but before the whole of temporal life itself and every good of the body, I do not know whether anyone could wisely say that he errs; and if he rightly put this before all such things of his own and valued it more, rightly also before the temporal things of other men, whom he ought to preserve and help by his innocence and benevolence. For he would love perfect good faith, not only in rightly believing what is told him by excellent authority worthy of belief, but also in faithfully stating what he himself judged should be said and said it. For faith (fides) is so called in the Latin language from this, that what is said is done (fit quod dicitur); and it is plain that one who lies does not show this. And although it is violated less when someone lies in such a way that he is believed without any disadvantage or ruin, with the added intention of protecting either someone's safety or bodily chastity, yet it is violated, and a thing is violated that belongs to keeping the purity and holiness of the mind. Hence we are compelled, not by the opinion of men, which is often in error, but by the Truth itself, which is above all and alone most unconquerable, to put perfect good faith even before bodily chastity. For purity of the mind is ordered love, not putting greater things below lesser. And whatever can be violated in the body is less than whatever can be violated in the mind. For certainly, when someone lies for the sake of bodily chastity, he sees that it is not his own but another's lust that threatens to corrupt his body; yet he takes care not to become a sharer at least by permitting it. But where is that permitting, except in the mind? Even bodily chastity, then, cannot be corrupted except in the mind: if the mind neither consents nor permits, bodily chastity is in no way rightly said to be violated, whatever has been done in the body by another's lust. Hence it is gathered that much more must the purity of the mind be kept in the mind, in which is the safeguard of bodily chastity. Therefore, as far as lies in us, both must be fortified and fenced by holy conduct and way of life, so that they are not violated from any side. But when both cannot be, who does not see which is to be disregarded for which? When he sees which is to be put before which, the mind before the body or the body before the mind, purity of the mind before chastity of the body or chastity of the body before purity of the mind, and which is more to be guarded against among sins, the permitting of another's deed or the committing of your own.

It is clear, then, when everything has been examined, that those testimonies of Scripture warn of nothing else than that one must never lie at all, since no examples of lies worthy of imitation are found in the conduct and deeds of the saints, as far as concerns those Scriptures that are referred to no figurative signification, such as the events in the Acts of the Apostles. For all the Lord's actions in the gospel which seem lies to the less skilled are figurative significations. And when the apostle says, "I have become all things to all men, that I might win all," he is rightly understood to have done this not by lying but by compassion, so that he acted with such love in freeing them as if he himself were in that evil from which he desired to heal them. One must not lie, then, in the teaching of piety; for it is a great crime and the first kind of detestable lie. One must not lie with the second kind, because no injury is to be done to anyone. One must not lie with the third kind, because no one is to be helped with injury to another. One must not lie with the fourth kind, for the lust of lying, which is faulty in itself. One must not lie with the fifth kind, because not even the truth itself is to be stated with the aim of pleasing men, how much less a lie, which is in itself, because it is a lie, certainly shameful! One must not lie with the sixth kind; for not even the truth of testimony is rightly corrupted for anyone's temporal advantage and safety. And no one is to be led to everlasting salvation with the help of a lie; for he is not to be converted to good conduct by the bad conduct of those who convert him, because if it is to be done toward him, he too, once converted, ought to do it toward others, and so he is converted not to good but to bad conduct, when what was shown him in converting him is offered to him to imitate once converted. Nor must one lie with the seventh kind; for no one's advantage or temporal safety is to be preferred to the perfecting of faith. Nor, if someone is so badly affected by our right deeds that he becomes even worse in mind and farther removed from piety, are right deeds therefore to be abandoned, since we must above all hold to that to which we ought to call and invite those whom we love as ourselves; and with the bravest mind we must drink in that sentence of the apostle: "To some we are the fragrance of life to life, to others the fragrance of death to death. And who is sufficient for these things?" Nor must one lie with the eighth kind, because among goods purity of the mind is greater than chastity of the body, and among evils what we ourselves do is greater than what we allow to be done. In these eight kinds, however, one sins the less when one lies the more one rises toward the eighth, and the more the more one sinks toward the first. But whoever thinks there is some kind of lie that is not sin will deceive himself shamefully, when he thinks himself an honorable deceiver of others.

Moreover, such blindness has taken hold of men's minds that it is not enough for them if we say that some lies are not sins, unless they also say that in some cases it is a sin if we refuse to lie; and they have been led so far by defending lying that they say that even the apostle Paul used that first kind, which is the most wicked of all. For in the letter to the Galatians, which was certainly written, like the others, for the teaching of religion and piety, they say that he lied in that place where he says of Peter and Barnabas: "When I saw that they were not walking rightly according to the truth of the gospel." For while they wish to defend Peter from error and from that crookedness of the way into which he had fallen, they try to overturn the very way of religion, in which is salvation for all, by breaking and crushing the authority of the Scriptures. In this they do not see that they charge the apostle not only with the crime of lying but also with that of perjury, in the very teaching of piety, that is, in the letter in which he preaches the gospel; for there, before he narrated these things, he says: "Now what I write to you, behold, before God, I do not lie." But now let there be an end of this discussion, in the whole consideration and treatment of which nothing is to be pondered and prayed for above all else than what the same apostle says: "God is faithful, who will not let you be tempted beyond what you are able to bear, but with the temptation will also make a way of escape, that you may be able to endure it."