Against Lying

Contents

Reading pages: 1–17 · 18–27 · 28–41

1. 1Augustine answers Consentius, praising his zeal against hidden heretics but refusing to hunt them down by lies, since Scripture forbids doing evil that good may come and condemns all who speak a lie.
2. 2The Priscillianists make lying a doctrine, twisting Ps 15:2 and Eph 4:25 to permit lies to outsiders, and catholics must not share this evil.
3. 3If lying to outsiders were permitted, the martyrs should have denied Christ; Jehu, who feigned Baal worship to kill Baal's servants, is no model, and the martyrs confessed with their mouths.
4. 4Lies differ in harm: believing a heretic who poses as a catholic harms no one's faith, but believing a catholic who poses as a heretic can make or confirm a heretic, so the catholic's lie is the more dangerous.
5. 5Augustine imagines a catholic spy praising Priscillian and Dictinius's book the Libra to trap a Priscillianist, showing that such lies confirm the heretic and teach him that lying is blameless.
6. 6Lying to catch Priscillianists would make their chief error, that one may lie to hide the truth, a doctrine shared with catholics, corrupting both sides.
7. 7A catholic who lies to catch heretics can never be trusted by those he converts, and such lying makes every brother suspect to every brother.
8. 8A catholic who, to trap a Priscillianist, says that the soul is part of God blasphemes knowingly, which is worse than the heretic's ignorant blasphemy.
9. 9Priscillianists who pose as catholics at least say true things about God, while catholics posing as Priscillianists say only false things and blaspheme without the excuse of ignorance.
10. 10To pose as a Priscillianist is to deny Christ before men, which Christ warns he will repay by denying such a person before the Father.
11. 11Hidden heretics can be found without lies, as the Priscillianists were before, chiefly through converts, and Consentius should write truthful refutations that will serve as holy nets.
12. 12Christ sent his sheep among wolves without telling them to wear wolves' skins, and taught that false prophets are known by their fruits, not by our lies.
13. 13Believing in the heart while denying with the mouth is not enough, as the lapsed in persecution and Peter's bitter tears after his denial show.
14. 14Ps 15:2 means that truth must be believed in the heart as well as spoken, not that lies are allowed on the tongue, as the next verse forbids deceit with the tongue.
15. 15Eph 4:25 does not permit lying to non-Christians, who are to be treated as neighbors; truths may sometimes be withheld from them, but falsehoods may not be told.
16. 16Paul tolerated those who preached the truth from impure motives, but never approved preaching falsehood from a good motive.
17. 17If blasphemous lies were just when meant to expose heretics, adultery with the same aim would be chaste; since it is not, lying with the tongue for that purpose is not allowed either, for the mind directs every member.
18. 18Acts that are not sins in themselves take their goodness from their cause, but acts that are sins, such as theft, adultery, and blasphemous lies, may never be done for a good end.
19. 19Sins differ in gravity according to motive and kind, but the question is not which is lighter but what is sin, and no sin may be committed.
20. 20Lot's offer of his daughters to the Sodomites shows how compensating sins can seem righteous, but if lesser sins could be committed to prevent greater ones, every limit on sin would be removed.
21. 21Lot's offer, made in fear, and David's rash oath against Nabal, made in anger, are recorded in Scripture but are not examples to imitate.
22. 22Augustine examines a possible defence of Lot and leaves it undecided, but concludes that the deeds of holy men are not all to be imitated and that such lapses are faults to be corrected gently.
23. 23Concealing the truth by silence is not lying, as Christ's words in John 16:12 and Abraham's calling Sarah his sister show.
24. 24Jacob's deception of Isaac was not a lie but a prophetic figure, just as metaphors, antiphrasis, and parables are not lies, since what they signify is true.
25. 25Augustine urges Consentius to refute the Priscillianist doctrine that one may lie, even deny Christ, to conceal one's religion, by a threefold argument about the scriptural examples of lying.
26. 26The supposed scriptural examples of lying come from the prophetic books, where deeds are figures; no apostle is shown lying, for Peter's pretense at Antioch was rebuked and Paul's becoming all things to all was compassion, not deceit.
27. 27Christ's questions about the woman with the flow of blood and about Lazarus were not lies but figures signifying the gentiles and those cast out from God's sight.
28. 28Christ's making as though to go farther at Emmaus was a figure of his ascension, not a lie, just as parables, the fables of Horace and Aesop, and Jotham's fable of the trees are not lies.
29. 29Where people in the Old Testament lied without meaning to prophesy, they did lie, and Scripture records their deeds, good and evil, not always for imitation.
30. 30If Tamar's lie is taken as a model, Judah's sexual immorality would have to be too, and allowing compensating sins would open the way to every crime.
31. 31Since a sin is by definition contrary to justice and every lie is contrary to truth, no lie can be just, and scriptural examples of lying are either not lies or not to be imitated.
32. 32God rewarded the Hebrew midwives and Rahab for their mercy, not for their lies, and pardoned the lies on account of the mercy; but one may not sin deliberately in order to do good.
33. 33The midwives and Rahab received temporal rewards for their mercy, their lies being borne with in their ignorance, but the citizens of the heavenly Jerusalem, children of the truth, may not lie.
34. 34The midwives could have refused and died for the truth, and Rahab could have been protected by God without lying, as Lot's guests were at Sodom; Rahab's hospitality and faith are to be imitated, but not her lie.
35. 35Every example of lying in Dictinius's Libra is to be treated by the rule that it is either not a lie or not to be imitated, and lies that creep in call for pardon, not justification.
36. 36Augustine admits he is moved by the case of a gravely ill man who asks whether his dead son is alive, but holds that truth is not a murderer, any more than chastity or the aroma of Christ.
37. 37Allowing even a kindly lie leads step by step to perjury, which some even try to regulate; at least in matters of religion no lie is permissible, and teaching that one may lie cannot be true.
38. 38No one would commit sexual immorality to help people in danger, yet lying is equally against truth, and truth cannot teach anyone to lie.
39. 39Even if some lies are pardoned as weakness, no cause can justify perjury or blasphemy, the latter being worse since it says false things about God himself.
40. 40Not even to bring someone to baptism may one deceive his guards by a lie, just as one may not use sexual immorality for that end; the child of God keeps from lying as from sin, which will be wholly overcome at the resurrection.
41. 41Lies must be avoided or repented of, never taught; perjury and blasphemy are never permitted, not even to bring someone to baptism, and Consentius should refute the Libra and never seek heretics by lies.