On Lying 43

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."