For the first kind, to be avoided and fled far from, is the capital lie which is made in the teaching of religion: to which lie no one ought under any condition to be induced. The second is one that unjustly injures another: such as to benefit no one and to harm someone. The third is one that so benefits one person as to harm another, though it does not harm to bodily uncleanness. The fourth is one committed solely from the lust of lying and deceiving, which is a pure lie. The fifth is one committed from the desire of pleasing by smooth speech. When all these have been utterly avoided and rejected, there follows a sixth kind, which harms no one and benefits someone:
as if, for instance, a man knowing where someone's money is — which is about to be unjustly taken — should lie that he does not know, to whoever questions him. The seventh is one that harms no one and benefits someone, with this exception, that a judge is doing the questioning: as if, being unwilling to betray a man sought for death, one should lie — not only for a just and innocent man, but even for a guilty one, because it belongs to Christian discipline that neither should anyone's correction be despaired of, nor the way of repentance be closed to any.
Concerning these two kinds, which are wont to occasion great controversy, we have treated sufficiently and have shown what pleases us: that, along with the discomforts to be undertaken which are honourably and bravely borne, these kinds too should be shunned by brave, faithful, and truthful men and women. The eighth is the kind of lie which harms no one and benefits to this extent, that it protects someone from bodily uncleanness — at least that uncleanness which we mentioned above. For the Jews thought even to eat with unwashed hands an uncleanness. Or if anyone calls even this an uncleanness, it is nevertheless not such a one for the avoiding of which one ought to lie.
But if the lie be such as to do an injury to someone, even though it should shield a man from that uncleanness which all men shrink from and detest, whether one ought even in this kind to lie — if such an injury be done through the lie as does not belong to that kind of uncleanness of which we are now treating — is another question. For then it is no longer a question about lying, but the question is whether an injury ought to be done to someone even without a lie, in order that that uncleanness may be driven away from another: which I should by no means think.
And although the lightest injuries be proposed — such as that which I mentioned above, about the loss of a single peck of grain — they greatly perplex us: whether we ought not to do even such an injury to anyone, if by it another can, that he suffer not violation, be defended or shielded. But, as I said, that is another question. Now let us carry through what we set out to do: whether one ought to lie, if even an unavoidable condition be proposed, so that we either do this or suffer violation or some execrable defilement, even if by lying we do injury to no one. On this matter some room for consideration will be open, if first we diligently examine the divine authorities that forbid lying. For if these leave no room, we seek in vain for a way out;
for God's precept and God's will must in every way be held fast, and in those things which we may have suffered by holding to his precept, must be followed with an even mind. But if some way out is granted, then in such a case a lie is not to be refused. For this reason the divine Scriptures contain not only the precepts of God, but also the life and manners of the righteous, so that, if perchance it be obscure how what is commanded ought to be understood, it may be understood in the deeds of the righteous. Excepting therefore those deeds which anyone can refer to an allegorical signification — though no one doubts that they were performed (such as are nearly all things in the books of the Old Testament; for who would there dare to affirm that anything does not pertain to a figured foretelling?) —
Indeed, since the Apostle asserts that even the sons of Abraham — who, it is most easily said, were born and lived by the natural order of propagating a people (for they were not born as monsters and prodigies, so as to draw the mind to some signification) — nevertheless signify two covenants; and since he says that that marvellous benefit which God bestowed on the people of Israel to rescue them from the servitude by which they were oppressed in Egypt, and the punishment of vengeance when they sinned on the way, happened in a figure — what deeds will you find by which you may derogate from this rule and presume to affirm that they are not to be reduced to some figure?
— these therefore being excepted, let those things which were done by the saints in the New Testament, where there is the most evident commendation of manners to be imitated, avail as examples for understanding the Scriptures which are set forth in precepts. As when we read in the Gospel: 'You have received a blow; offer the other cheek.' Yet we find no more powerful and excellent example of patience than that of the Lord himself. But he, when he had been struck with a blow, did not say, 'Behold the other cheek,' but said: 'If I have spoken ill, bear witness of the evil; but if well, why do you strike me?' Here he shows that that offering of the other cheek is to be done in the heart. This too the Apostle Paul assuredly knew; for he also, when he had been struck with a blow, before the high priest did not say:
'Strike the other cheek,' but he said: 'God shall strike you, you whitewashed wall; and you sit to judge me according to the law, and against the law you command me to be struck?' Discerning most deeply that the priesthood of the Jews had already become such that it gleamed on the outside with a name, but within was foul with muddy lusts — which he saw in the spirit was to pass away by the Lord's vengeance, when he said this; yet he nonetheless had his heart prepared not only to receive other blows, but even to suffer whatever tortures for the truth, together with love for those from whom he might suffer them. It is also written: 'But I say to you, do not swear at all.'
Yet the Apostle himself swore in his epistles, and thus showed how that saying was to be understood: 'I say to you, do not swear at all' — namely, that by swearing one may not come to a facility of swearing, and from facility to habit, and thus from habit fall into perjury. And therefore he is not found to have sworn except when writing, where a more cautious consideration does not have a headlong tongue. And this indeed is from evil, as it is said: 'Whatever is more than this is of evil' — yet not from his own evil, but from the weakness of those whom he was trying even thus to convince. For whether he swore when speaking, while not writing, I do not know whether any Scripture has related about him. And yet the Lord says: 'Do not swear at all';
for he did not grant that it should be permitted to those who write. But since it is impious to call Paul guilty of a violated precept — especially in the epistles composed and published for the spiritual life and salvation of peoples — that word which is set down, 'at all,' must be understood to be set down for this: that, as far as in you lies, you should not affect, not love, not seek an oath as if for a good with any delight. Just as that saying: 'Take no thought for the morrow,' and: 'Therefore take no thought what you shall eat and what you shall drink and wherewith you shall be clothed.'
But since we see that even the Lord himself had money-boxes, into which the things that were given were put, that they might be kept for uses necessary according to the time; and that the apostles themselves provided much for the relief of the brethren, not only for the morrow, but even for a more prolonged time of an impending famine, as we read in the Acts of the Apostles: it is sufficiently clear that those precepts are to be so understood, that we do no work of ours out of love for obtaining temporal things or fear of want, as though from necessity. Likewise it was said to the apostles that, carrying nothing with them on the way, they should live from the Gospel. And in a certain place even the Lord himself signified why he said this, when he added: 'For the labourer is worthy of his hire.'
Here he sufficiently shows that this was permitted, not commanded, lest perhaps one who did this — that is, in the work of preaching the word, took something for the uses of this life from those to whom he preached — should think that he was doing something unlawful. Yet that it can more praiseworthily not be done has been sufficiently demonstrated in the Apostle Paul. For when he said, 'Let him who is taught the word share in all good things with him who teaches him,' and showed in many places that this is wholesomely done by those to whom the word is preached, yet nevertheless: 'But I,' he says, 'have not used this power.' The Lord therefore gave the power when he said these things; he did not bind it by command.
Thus, being unable to understand very many things in the words, we gather from the deeds of the saints how what could easily be drawn into another sense ought to be taken, unless it were recalled by an example. So then, as to what is written, 'the mouth that lies slays the soul,' it is asked of which mouth he spoke. For very often Scripture, when it says 'mouth,' signifies the very chamber of the heart, where whatever is uttered even by the voice — when we speak the truth — is approved and decided; so that a man may lie with the heart, to whom a lie is pleasing, though he may not lie with the heart who utters by the voice something other than what is in his mind, in such a way that he knows himself to be admitting an evil for the sake of avoiding a greater evil — to whom nevertheless both displease.
And those who assert this say that that which is written is also to be understood thus: 'who speaks the truth in his heart' — because the truth is always to be spoken in the heart, but not always in the mouth of the body, if some cause of guarding against a greater evil requires that something other than what is in the mind be uttered by the voice. And that there is indeed a mouth of the heart can even from this be understood: 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 also were rightly understood in the heart. And yet even in that very place where it is written, 'but the mouth that lies slays the soul,' if the context of the reading be considered, perhaps nothing else is taken than the mouth of the heart.
For there the answer is obscure, where it lies hidden from men, who cannot hear the mouth of the heart unless the mouth of the body sounds in accord. But Scripture in that place says that that mouth reaches to the hearing of the Spirit of the Lord, who has filled the whole world; so that it mentions in that place even lips and voice and tongue, and yet allows the understanding to take all these only of the heart, because it says that from the Lord is not hidden what is said; whereas what is said belonging to this good that reaches our ears, is not hidden even from men. For thus it is written: 'For the spirit of wisdom is loving, and will not free the evil-speaker from his lips, for God is a witness of his reins, and a true searcher of his heart, and a hearer of his tongue.'
'For the Spirit of the Lord has filled the whole world, and this, which contains all things, has knowledge of the voice. Therefore he who speaks unjust things cannot be hidden, nor shall the correcting judgement pass him by. For in the thoughts of the ungodly there shall be examination; and the hearing of his words shall come to the Lord for the correction of his iniquities, for the ear of jealousy hears all things, and the tumult of murmurings shall not be hidden. Keep yourselves therefore from murmuring, which profits nothing, and refrain your tongue from detraction: for an obscure answer shall not go into the void, and the mouth that lies slays the soul.' He seems, then, to threaten those who think that what they turn over and revolve in the heart is obscure and secret;
but he wished to show this to be so clear to the ears of God that he even called it a tumult. Manifestly too in the Gospel we find the mouth of the heart, so that in one place the Lord is found to have mentioned 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 which enters into the mouth goes into the belly and is cast out into the drain? But the things which proceed out of the mouth come out of the heart, and these defile a man. For out of the heart proceed evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false witnessings, blasphemies. These are the things that defile a man.' Here, if you understand the one mouth which is of the body, how will you understand:
'the things which proceed out of the mouth come out of the heart,' since both spittle and vomit proceed out of the mouth? Unless perhaps a man is not then defiled when he eats something unclean, but is defiled when he vomits it up. But if this is most absurd, it remains that we understand the mouth of the heart as expounded by the Lord, when he says: 'the things which proceed out of the mouth come out of the heart.' For a theft too, when it can be — and it is often so done — is perpetrated in the silence of the bodily voice and mouth; and it is most senseless so to understand that we then think a man contaminated with the sin of theft when he confesses or reveals it, but reckon him uncontaminated when he silently commits it. But if we refer what was said to the mouth of the heart, absolutely no sin can be committed silently;
for it is not committed unless it proceed from that inner mouth. But just as it is asked of which mouth he spoke, 'the mouth that lies slays the soul,' so it can be asked of which lie. For he seems to speak properly of that lie by which someone is disparaged. For he says: 'Refrain yourselves therefore from murmuring, which profits nothing, and refrain your tongue from detraction.' Now this detraction is done through malevolence, when a man not only utters with the mouth and voice of the body what he fabricates against another, but even silently wishes such a thing to be believed — which is assuredly to detract with the mouth of the heart — which, he says, cannot be obscure and hidden from God. For as to what is written in another place:
'Do not will to make every lie' — they do not wish it to have this force, that no one should lie with any lie. And so, when one man says, from this testimony of Scripture, that every lie is to be so generally detested that even if a man will to lie, though he does not lie, the will itself is already to be condemned, and interprets it to this end — that it is not said, 'Do not make every lie,' but, 'Do not will to make every lie,' so that no one should dare not only to lie, but even to will to lie with any lie — another man says: nay rather, when it says:
'Do not will to make every lie,' it meant that the lie is to be banished and estranged from the mouth of the heart, so that from certain lies we must abstain with the mouth of the body — such as those especially which pertain to the teaching of religion — while from certain others we need not abstain with the mouth of the body, if the cause of avoiding a greater evil demands it; but with the mouth of the heart we ought to abstain utterly from every lie. Here we must understand what was said: 'Do not will'; for the will itself is taken as it were for the mouth of the heart, so that it does not pertain to the mouth of the heart when, guarding against a greater evil, we lie unwillingly. There is also a third understanding, by which you take it thus: 'Do not make every one,' so that it allows you to lie, certain lies being excepted. As if he said:
'Do not will to believe every man' — he would surely be admonishing not that no one should be believed, but that not all, yet some, should be believed. And that which follows: 'For its constancy will not profit unto good,' sounds as if it seems to prohibit not from a lie, but from a persistent lie — that is, from the habit and love of lying. Into which he doubtless slides down, whoever should think either that every lie is to be indulged in — for thus he will not even guard against that which is committed in the teaching of piety and religion; and what more wicked thing could you easily find, not among all lies, but among all sins? —
— or, whoever should accommodate a nod of the will to some lie, however easy, however harmless, so that he lies not unwillingly, for the sake of escaping a greater evil, but willingly and gladly. Thus, since there are three things which can be understood in this sentence — either, 'Do not every lie not only make, but do not even will to lie'; or, 'Do not will, but lie even unwillingly, when something graver is to be fled'; or, 'Do not make every one, so that other lies, certain ones being excepted, are permitted' — one of these is found for those to whom it is never pleasing to lie, and two for those who think that one ought sometimes to lie. But nevertheless, as to what follows, 'For its constancy will not profit unto good,' I do not know whether it can support the first of these three opinions;
unless perhaps in such a way that it be the precept of the perfect never at all not only to lie, but even to will to lie, while the constancy of lying be not permitted even to those making progress. As if, when it were prescribed that never at all should there be not only lying, but even a will to lie, one objected with examples that there are certain lies approved even by great authority, and it were answered that those indeed are the lies of those making progress — lies which have, according to this life, some office of mercy of whatever kind, but that every lie is so far an evil and to be avoided in every way by perfect and spiritual souls, that not even to those making progress is the constancy of it to be permitted.
For it has already been said of the Egyptian midwives, that they were approved as lying out of a disposition for progressing to something better, because it is some degree toward loving true and everlasting salvation, when a man mercifully lies even for the sake of someone's salvation, however mortal. Likewise, as to what is written, 'You will destroy all who speak a lie,' one man says that no lie is here excepted, but every one is condemned. Another says: so indeed, but those who speak a lie from the heart, according to the disputation above; for he speaks the truth in the 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 a certain lie which the prophet was then insinuating, in which no one is spared; that is, if anyone, refusing to confess his own sins, rather defends them and is unwilling to do penance, so that it is too little that he works iniquity, unless — wishing also to seem righteous — he refuses to submit to the medicine of confession; so that the very distinction of the words seems to intimate nothing else: 'You have hated all who work iniquity' — but you will not destroy them, if by repenting they speak the truth in confession, so that by doing this truth they may come to the light, as it is said in the Gospel according to John:
But he who does the truth comes to the light — yet you will destroy all who not only work what you have hated, but also speak a lie, putting forward a false righteousness and not confessing their sins in repentance. For concerning the false testimony that is set down among the Ten Commandments of the Law, it can in no way be maintained that the love of truth is to be kept in the heart while a falsehood is uttered to him before whom the testimony is spoken. For when a thing is said to God alone, then only is truth to be embraced in the heart; but when it is said to a man, the truth must also be uttered with the mouth of the body, since man is not an inspector of the heart. Yet plainly, concerning the testimony itself, it is not absurd to ask before whom each person is a witness.
For we are not witnesses before whomever we speak, but before those to whom it is fitting, and who are owed through us to come to know or to believe the truth: such as a judge, lest he err in judging; or one who is being taught in the doctrine of religion, lest he err in faith or waver in doubt over the very authority of his teacher. But when someone questions you or wishes to learn something from you who is inquiring after a matter that does not concern him, or which it is not to his profit to know, he is seeking not a witness but a betrayer. And so, if you lie to him, you will perhaps be clear of false testimony, but you will certainly not be clear of a lie. Therefore, granting that it is never permitted to give false testimony, the question is asked whether it is ever permitted to lie.
Or, if every lie is false testimony, we must see whether it admits of a trade-off, so that it may be said to be done for the sake of avoiding a greater sin. As with that which is written, 'Honor your father and mother,' which is set aside when a more compelling duty seizes upon us: whence he who is called by the Lord himself to proclaim the kingdom of God is forbidden to render to his father the last honor of burial. Likewise, as to that which is written, 'A son who keeps the word will be far from perdition; but he who takes it up, takes it up for himself, and nothing false proceeds from his mouth' — someone says that what is here set down, 'a son taking up the word,' must be understood as nothing other than the Word of God, which is the Truth.
Therefore 'a son taking up the truth will be far from perdition' refers back to that which was said, 'You will destroy all who speak a lie.' But what follows, 'and he who takes it up, takes it up for himself,' what else does it intimate but that which the Apostle says: 'Let each one prove his own work, and then he will have glory in himself and not in another'? For he who takes up the word — that is, the truth — not for himself but so as to please men, does not keep it, when he sees that men can be pleased by a lie. But he who takes it up for himself, from his mouth nothing false proceeds, because even when a lie pleases men, that man does not lie who has taken up for himself the truth — not the truth by which he might please them, but the truth by which he might please God. And so there is no reason why it should here be said:
He will indeed destroy all who speak a lie, but not every lie — since universally all lies are cut off in that which was said, 'and nothing false proceeds from his mouth.' But another says that it must be understood as the Apostle Paul understood what the Lord said: 'But I say to you, do not swear at all.' For here too every oath is cut off, but cut off from the mouth of the heart, so that it should never be done by the approval of the will, but by the necessity arising from another's weakness — that is, from another's evil, to whom what is said seems unable to be made convincing otherwise unless assurance is given by swearing; or from that evil of our own, whereby, still wrapped in the skins of this mortality, we are unable to display our heart:
which certainly, if we were able to do it, there would be no need of an oath. And yet, even in this whole sentence, if what was said — 'a son who keeps the word will be far from perdition' — was said concerning the Truth itself, through which all things were made, which ever remains unchangeable (since the doctrine of religion strives to lead us to the contemplation of it), then what was said — 'and nothing false proceeds from his mouth' — can seem to have been said to this end: that he should say nothing false which pertains to doctrine. And this kind of lie is to be undergone by no compensation whatever, but is to be utterly and especially avoided.
Or, if what was said — 'nothing false' — is understood absurdly unless it refers to every lie, then he who at times thinks lying is permissible maintains that what was said, 'from his mouth,' must, according to the earlier discussion, be understood as the mouth of the heart. Yet certainly this whole discussion, though it goes back and forth — with some asserting that one must never lie and reciting the divine testimonies to that end, and others contradicting them and seeking, even within the very words of the divine testimonies, a place for a lie — no one, nevertheless, can say that he finds this, whether in the example or in the word of the Scriptures: namely, that any lie should seem to be loved, or not to be held in hatred, but that one should sometimes, by lying, do what he hates, so that what is more to be detested may be avoided.
But in this men go astray, in that they set precious things below cheaper ones. For when you have conceded that some evil must be committed lest another graver one be committed, each person measures the 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 in reality more to be fled from. This whole fault is begotten from the perversity of love. For since there are two lives of ours — one everlasting, which is divinely promised, the other temporal, in which we now are — when anyone begins to love this temporal life more than that everlasting one, then, on account of this life which he loves,
he thinks all things must be done, and reckons no sins graver than those that do injury to this life, and either unjustly and unlawfully take from it some advantage, or wholly rob it of it by bringing on death. And so they hate thieves and robbers and the insolent and torturers and murderers more than the lustful, the drunken, and the debauched — provided these are a trouble to no one. For they do not understand, or care at all, that these latter do injury to God — not indeed to any harm of His, but to their own great ruin, when they corrupt His gifts, even the temporal ones, in themselves, and by these very corruptions turn away from the eternal — especially if they have already begun to be a temple of God, as the Apostle says to all Christians:
Do you not know that you are the temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwells in you? Whoever corrupts the temple of God, him God will destroy; for the temple of God is holy, which you are. And indeed all these sins — whether those by which injury is done to men in the very goods of this life, or those by which men corrupt themselves and harm no one against his will — all these sins, therefore, even if they seem to serve this temporal life for some pleasure or utility (for no one commits any of these with any other purpose or end), nevertheless in every way hinder those entangled in them from that life which is everlasting. But of these, some hinder only those who do them, others hinder also those in whom they are done.
For those goods that are kept for the sake of a utility pertaining to this life, when they are taken away by the injurious, only those who do the deed sin and are hindered from eternal life, not those to whom it is done. And so, even if anyone consents that these be taken from himself — either that he may not do some evil, or that he may not suffer some greater harm in these very things — he not only does not sin, but does the former thing bravely and laudably, the latter usefully and blamelessly. But those things that are kept for the sake of holiness and religion — when the injurious wish to violate these — must, if a condition is proposed and the means is given, be redeemed even by lesser sins, yet not by injuries to others.