1. 1. You have sent me much to read, Consentius, dearest brother; much have you sent me to read. While I was preparing replies to it, and was being pulled away by one pressing occupation after another, a whole year slipped by, and I was driven into such straits that I had to reply in whatever way I could, lest, now that the sailing season was favorable, I should detain the bearer any longer in his wish to return. And so, with everything that Leonas, God's servant, brought to me from you—both as soon as I received it, and afterward when I was at last ready to dictate this reply—unrolled and read through, and weighed with all the consideration I could give: I was greatly delighted by your eloquence, by your recollection of the holy Scriptures, by the keenness of your wit, by the grief with which you bite at negligent Catholics, and by the zeal with which you gnash your teeth against even the hidden heretics. But I am not persuaded that they should be dragged out of their hiding places by lies of ours. For why do we try with such care to track and hunt them down, except that, once they are caught and brought out into the open, we may either teach them the truth, or at least, when they have been convicted by the truth, keep them from harming others? The aim, then, is that their lie should be destroyed, or guarded against, and God's truth increased. How, then, shall I rightly pursue lies by lying? Are robberies to be pursued by robbery, sacrileges by sacrilege, adulteries by adultery? But if through my falsehood God's truthfulness abounds (Rom 3:7), are we too going to say, Let us do evil that good may come? (Rom 3:8)—which you see how the Apostle detests. For what else is it to say, Let us lie, that we may bring lying heretics to the truth, than to say, Let us do evil that good may come? (Rom 3:8) Is a lie ever good, or is a lie ever not evil? Why, then, is it written, Thou hatest, O Lord, all who work iniquity; thou wilt destroy all who speak lies (Ps 5:5-6 (5:6-7))? For he made no exception, nor did he say indefinitely, Thou wilt destroy those who speak lies, so as to let some, not all, be understood; rather he put forth a universal sentence, saying, Thou wilt destroy all who speak lies (Ps 5:6 (5:7)). Or because it was not said, Thou wilt destroy all who speak every lie, or, who speak any lie whatever, are we therefore to suppose that room has been left for some lie—so that there is, namely, some lie whose speakers God will not destroy, but he will destroy all who speak an unjust lie, not any lie whatever, since a just lie is also found, which surely ought to earn praise, not blame?

2. 2. Do you not see how much this argument helps the very people whom we are striving to catch by our lies, as though it were some great hunt? For this view belongs to the Priscillianists, as you yourself have shown: to prove it they bring forward testimonies from the Scriptures, exhorting their own people to lie as though by the examples of the patriarchs, the prophets, the apostles, the angels—not hesitating to add even the Lord Christ himself, and thinking they cannot otherwise show their own falsehood to be truthful except by saying that the Truth is a liar. These things are to be refuted, not imitated; nor ought we to share with the Priscillianists in that very evil in which they are convicted of being worse than the other heretics. For they alone, or at least they most of all, are found to lay down lying as a doctrine in order to conceal what they think is the truth, and to reckon so great an evil to be just on the ground that, as they say, what is true must be kept in the heart, but to utter falsehood with the mouth to outsiders is no sin; and that this is what is written, who speaks the truth in his heart (Ps 15:2 (14:2))—as though this were enough for righteousness, even if a man speak a lie with his mouth, so long as it is not a neighbor but an outsider who hears it. For this reason they suppose that the apostle Paul too, when he had said, Putting away falsehood, speak the truth, at once added, each one with his neighbor, for we are members one of another (Eph 4:25)—that is, presumably, that with those who are not our neighbors in the fellowship of the truth, and are not, so to speak, fellow members of ours, it is permitted and even right to speak a lie.

2. 3. This view dishonors the holy martyrs—or rather, it does away with holy martyrdoms altogether. For according to these people the martyrs would have acted more justly and more wisely if they had not confessed to their persecutors that they were Christians, and had not by their confession made them murderers; if instead, by lying and denying what they were, they had both kept safe the comfort of their flesh and the purpose of their heart, and had not let their persecutors carry out the crime conceived in their minds. For these persecutors were not their neighbors in the Christian faith, so that they had to speak with them in their mouth the truth they spoke in their heart; rather they were enemies of the truth itself. For if Jehu, whom among the others they seem shrewdly to look to as an example for lying, lied that he was a servant of Baal in order to kill Baal's servants (See 2 Kgs 10:18-28), how much more justly, by these people's perversity, ought the servants of Christ in time of persecution to have lied that they were servants of demons, so that the servants of demons might not kill the servants of Christ, and to have sacrificed to idols so that men might not be killed, if Jehu sacrificed to Baal in order to kill men? For what harm would it do them, by the splendid doctrine of these lie-mongers, if they feigned the worship of the devil in the body, so long as the worship of God was kept in the heart? But the true martyrs, the holy martyrs, did not understand the Apostle in this way. For they saw and held fast what is written: For man believes with his heart and so is justified, and he confesses with his lips and so is saved (Rom 10:10); and, In their mouth no lie was found (Rev 14:5); and so they departed blameless, where they will no longer have to beware of being tempted by liars, because in their heavenly assemblies they will no longer have any liars, whether outsiders or neighbors. But that Jehu, seeking by an impious lie and a sacrilegious sacrifice to kill the impious and the sacrilegious, they would not imitate, even if the same Scripture had been silent about what kind of man he was. But since it is written that he did not have an upright heart with God (See 2 Kgs 10:31), what did it profit him that, for a certain obedience which he rendered toward the utter destruction of the house of Ahab—out of greed for his own dominion—he received some passing reward of a temporal kingdom? Rather, I urge you, brother, to defend the truthful view of the martyrs, so that against liars you may be not a teacher of lying but a champion of the truth. For attend, I beg you, more carefully to what I say, that you may find how much we must beware of what is thought, with praiseworthy zeal against the impious—so that they may be caught and corrected or avoided—but too incautiously, ought to be taught.

3. 4. There are many kinds of lies, all of which we ought universally to hate. For there is no lie that is not contrary to truth. For just as light and darkness, godliness and ungodliness, justice and injustice, sin and right action, health and sickness, life and death are contraries to each other, so too are truth and falsehood. Hence the more we love the one, the more we ought to hate the other. Yet there are certain lies which it does no harm to believe—although, even in such a kind of lying, to have wished to deceive is harmful to the one who lies, not to the one who believes. As if that brother and servant of God Fronto, in the things he reported to you, were to lie about something—which God forbid—he would surely have harmed himself, not you, even though you had believed all that he related without any wrongdoing on your part. For whether those things happened so or not, they contain nothing such that, if a man believed it happened so, even if it did not happen so, he would be judged blameworthy by the rule of truth and the doctrine of eternal salvation. But if a man lies about something which, if anyone believed it, would make him a heretic against the doctrine of Christ, then the liar is the more harmful as the believer is the more wretched. See, then, what sort of thing it would be if, in order to catch enemies of that doctrine, we were to lie against the doctrine of Christ—so that whoever believed it would perish—and were to bring them to the truth by ourselves departing from it; or rather, in catching liars by lying, were to teach worse lies. For what they say when they lie is one thing, and what they say when they are deceived is another. For when they teach their heresy, they say things in which they are themselves deceived; but when they say they hold what they do not hold, or do not hold what they hold, they say things in which they lie. Whoever believes this of them—even if he does not find them out—does not himself perish. For he does not depart from the Catholic rule who believes a heretic who falsely professes Catholic doctrines to be a Catholic; and so it is not ruinous to him, because he is deceived about a man's mind, which lies hidden and about which he cannot judge, not about the faith of God which he ought to keep implanted in him. But when they teach their heresy, whoever believes them, thinking it the truth, will share in their condemnation as he shares in their error. So it comes about that when they tell their wicked doctrines, in which they are deceived by a deadly error, then whoever believes perishes; but when we preach Catholic doctrines, in which we hold the right faith, then if anyone believes, whoever had been perishing is found. But when, being Priscillianists, they lie that they are ours so as not to betray their poison, whoever of us believes them—even while they lie hidden—himself remains a Catholic; whereas we, in order to reach the place where they may be hunted down, if we lie that we are Priscillianists—since we will praise their doctrines as if they were ours—then whoever believes it either is confirmed among them or for the time being is at once carried over to them. But what the next hour may bring forth—whether those who were deceived while we deceived them will afterward be freed from it when we speak the truth, and whether they will be willing to hear us teaching, whom they have thus found out to be lying—who knows for certain? Who does not know this to be uncertain? From which it is gathered that it is more ruinous, or, to put it more mildly, more dangerous, for Catholics to lie in order to catch heretics than it is for heretics to lie in order to hide from Catholics. For whoever believes Catholics when they tempt by lying either is made or is confirmed a heretic; but whoever believes heretics when they hide themselves by lying does not cease to be a Catholic. To make this plainer, let us set out some examples, and these especially from the very writings you sent me to read.

3. 5. Suppose we set before our eyes a cunning spy approaching one whom he has sensed to be a Priscillianist, and lyingly praising the life of bishop Dictinius, if he knew him, or his reputation, if he did not. This is still rather tolerable, since the man is thought to have been a Catholic and corrected from that error. Then he is going to commend Priscillian himself with reverence (for this follows in the art of lying)—an impious and detestable man, condemned for his wicked crimes and offenses. And in that reverent commendation, if perchance the one for whom such snares are stretched was not yet a firm Priscillianist, by this proclamation of his he will be made firm. And when the spy's speech goes on to the rest, and he says that he pities those whom the author of darkness has wrapped in such great darkness of error that they do not recognize the honor of their soul and the splendor of its divine lineage; and when next he extols with such great praises the book of Dictinius, whose title is The Balance, because it is set out, like ounces, in twelve questions handled in turn, that he testifies such a Balance—which contains dreadful blasphemies—to be more precious than many thousand pounds of gold: then surely this cunning of the liar kills the soul of the believer, or sinks and presses down in the same death one already killed. But, you will say, he will afterward be set free. What if it does not happen—either through some intervening hindrance preventing what was begun from being completed, or through the obstinacy of the heretical mind denying the same things again, even if it had already begun to confess some of them? Especially since, if he comes to know that he was tempted by an outsider, by that very fact he will all the more boldly strive to hide by lying what he holds, once he has learned, all the more surely, that this may be done blamelessly—by the very example of the man who tempted him. For with what face shall we blame, and dare to condemn, in a man who thinks the truth is to be concealed by lying, what we ourselves teach?

3. 6. It remains, therefore, that what the Priscillianists hold, according to the wicked falsehood of their heresy, about God, about the soul, about the body, and about other things, we should not hesitate with truthful godliness to condemn; but what they hold—that one must lie in order that the truth be hidden—should be, God forbid, a doctrine common to us and to them. This is so great an evil that even if this attempt of ours, by which we desire to catch and change them through a lie, were to prosper so far that we did catch and change them, these losses—by which we ourselves, along with them, are corrupted for the sake of their correction—would be compensated by no gains. For through this lie we too will be perverted in that part, and they only half-corrected; since that very thing which they think must be lied about for the sake of truth we do not correct in them, because we ourselves have learned and teach the same, and prescribe that it must be done, so that we may be able to reach them and mend them. Yet we do not mend those from whom we do not take away the flaw by which they think the truth must be covered; rather we ourselves are made flawed, when through such a flaw we seek them; nor do we find how we can trust them when they are converted, having lied to them while they were perverse—lest perhaps they do, once caught, what they suffered in order to be caught, not only because they have grown accustomed to do it, but because they find this also in us, to whom they come.

4. 7. And what is more wretched, even they themselves, now as it were made ours, cannot find how to believe us. For if they suspect that we speak even the Catholic doctrines lyingly, in order to hide some other thing we think true, you will surely say to one who suspects such things, I did that then in order to catch you; but what will you reply to him when he says, How then do I know whether even now you are doing it, lest you be caught by me? Or can anyone be persuaded that a man does not lie to avoid being caught, who lies in order to catch? Do you see where this evil tends—namely, that not only do we seem suspect to them and they to us, but every brother seems, not without reason, suspect to every brother? And so, while through lying it is attempted to teach the faith, the effect rather is that no one is to be trusted at all. For if we even speak against God when we lie, what so great an evil could be found in any lie that we ought by every means to shun it as the most wicked of all?

5. 8. But now mark how much more tolerably the Priscillianists lie in comparison with us, when they know they speak deceitfully—they whom we suppose are to be freed by our lie from the false things in which by erring they are deceived. The Priscillianist says that the soul is a part of God, and of the very nature and substance of which he is. This is a great and detestable blasphemy. For it follows that the nature of God is taken captive, deceived, beguiled, troubled, and defiled, condemned, and tormented. But if even the man who longs to free another from so great an evil by a lie says this too, let us see what difference there is between the two blasphemers. A very great one, you say: for the Priscillianist says this also believing it so; but the Catholic does not believe it so, although he speaks it so. The one, therefore, blasphemes unknowingly, the other knowingly; the one against his knowledge, the other against his conscience; the one has the blindness of holding what is false, but in it has at least the will to speak the truth; the other, hiding himself, sees the truth, and willingly speaks falsehood. But, you will say, the one teaches this in order to make others sharers in his error and madness; the other says this in order to free men from that error and madness. I have already shown above how much harm even this does, which is believed to be going to profit; but meanwhile, if we weigh the present evils in these two cases (since the future goods which the Catholic seeks in correcting the heretic are uncertain), who sins more grievously—the one who deceives a man unknowingly, or the one who blasphemes God knowingly? Surely the one who with anxious godliness sets God before man understands which is worse. To this is added that if God must be blasphemed in order to lead men to praise him, then beyond doubt by our example and teaching we invite men not only to praise but also to blaspheme God; since those whom we strive to lead to the praises of God by blasphemies of God, if we do lead them, will learn not only to praise but also to blaspheme. These are the benefits we confer on those whom we free from heretics by blaspheming, not in ignorance but knowingly. And whereas the Apostle handed men over even to Satan himself, that they might learn not to blaspheme (See 1 Tim 1:20), we try to snatch men from Satan, that they may learn to blaspheme not through ignorance but through knowledge; and we bring upon ourselves, their very teachers, this so great destruction, that in order to catch heretics we are first made what is certain—blasphemers of God—so that we may be able, for the sake of those who are to be freed, which is uncertain, teachers of his truth.

5. 9. Since, then, we teach our own people to blaspheme God so that the Priscillianists may believe them their own, let us see what evil they say when they lie for this reason—that we may believe them ours. They anathematize Priscillian, and detest him to our satisfaction; they say the soul is a creature of God, not a part; they curse the false martyrdoms of the Priscillianists; they extol with great praises the Catholic bishops by whom that heresy was stripped bare, assailed, and laid low, and other things of this kind. See, they say true things when they lie—not so that the very thing which is a lie can at the same time be true, but in one thing they lie and in another they speak the truth: for when they lie that they are ours, they speak truth about the Catholic faith. And by this they themselves, so as not to be found out as Priscillianists, lyingly speak true things; but we, in order to find them out, not only speak lyingly so that we may be believed to belong to them, but also speak false things which we know to belong to their error. And so when they wish to be thought ours, what they say is in part false and in part true: for it is false that they are ours, but true that the soul is not a part of God; whereas we, when we wish to be thought to belong to them, both things we say are false—both that we are Priscillianists and that the soul is a part of God. They, therefore, praise God, not blaspheme, when they hide themselves; and when they do not hide themselves but bring forward their own views, they do not know that they blaspheme. Therefore, if they are converted to the Catholic faith, they console themselves, because they can say what the Apostle said, who, when he had said among other things, I formerly was a blasphemer, added, but I received mercy because I had acted ignorantly (1 Tim 1:13). We, on the contrary, in order that they may open themselves to us, if we bring forward this lie as though it were just, to deceive and catch them, surely both declare that we belong to the blasphemers, the Priscillianists, and, so that they may believe us, blaspheme without the excuse of ignorance. For a Catholic who by blaspheming wishes to be believed a heretic cannot say, I acted ignorantly (1 Tim 1:13).

6. 10. Always, brother, in such cases this must be called to mind with fear: Whoever denies me before men, I also will deny before my Father who is in heaven (Matt 10:33). Or does the man not deny Christ before men who denies him before the Priscillianists, in order by a blaspheming lie to strip the hidden ones bare and catch them? But who doubts, I beg you, that Christ is denied when he is said not to be as he truly is, and is said to be as the Priscillianist believes him to be?

6. 11. But, you will say, we cannot otherwise find the hidden wolves, clothed in sheep's skins, secretly and grievously laying waste the Lord's flock. Whence, then, were the Priscillianists made known, before this hunt by lying had been devised? Whence was the lair reached of the very author of them—surely the more cunning, and therefore the more concealed? Whence were so many and so great ones brought to light and condemned, and the others, beyond number, partly corrected, partly seemingly corrected, and gathered into the merciful Church? For the Lord, when he has mercy, gives many ways by which their hunting-down may be reached; of which two are more fruitful than the rest: namely, that they be pointed out either by those whom they wished to seduce, or by those whom they had already seduced, who repent and are converted. And this happens more easily if their wicked error is overthrown not by lying captures but by truthful disputations. On the writing of these you ought to spend effort, since the Lord has granted that you can; and when these salutary writings, by which their insane perversity is destroyed, have become more and more known, and have been spread everywhere by Catholics—whether the bishops who speak among the peoples, or any zealous men full of the zeal of God—these will be the holy nets by which they may be caught truthfully, not hunted for with lies. For caught in this way, they will either of their own accord confess what they were, and will either harmoniously correct, or mercifully betray, others whom they know in their evil fellowship; or, if they are ashamed to confess what they have covered by long pretense, they will be healed by the hidden hand of God's healing.

6. 12. But, you will say, we penetrate their hiding places far more easily if we lie that we are what they are. If this were permitted or expedient, Christ could have charged his sheep to come to the wolves clothed in wolves' skins, and to find them out by the deceits of this art. But this he did not say to them, even when he foretold that he would send them into the midst of wolves (See Matt 10:16). But you will say: They were not then to be sought out, since they were wolves quite openly; rather their bites and savagery were to be endured. What, then, when, foretelling later times, he said that ravening wolves would come in the clothing of sheep? Was there not there a place for him to warn and say this: And you, in order to find them out, put on the clothing of wolves, but within remain sheep? He did not say this; but when he had said, Many will come to you in the clothing of sheep, but inwardly they are ravening wolves, he did not add, By your lies, but, By their fruits you will know them (Matt 7:15-16). Lies are to be guarded against by truth, caught by truth, slain by truth. God forbid that we should overcome the blasphemies of the ignorant by knowingly blaspheming; God forbid that we should guard against the evils of the deceitful by imitating them. For how shall we guard against them, if, in order to guard against them, we shall have them? For if, in order to catch one who blasphemes unknowingly, I blaspheme knowingly, what I do is worse than what I catch. If, in order to find out one who denies Christ unknowingly, I deny Christ knowingly, the one I have thus found out will follow me to perdition—since, in order to find him, I perish first.

6. 13. Or does the man who tries to find out Priscillianists in that way perhaps not deny Christ, because he utters with his mouth what he does not believe in his heart? As though indeed (what I have already said a little before), when it had been said, For man believes with his heart and so is justified, it were added in vain, and he confesses with his lips and so is saved (Rom 10:10)? Did not nearly all who denied Christ before persecutors hold in their heart what they believed about him, and yet perish by not confessing with the mouth unto salvation—except those who came to life again through repentance? Who would so vanish away as to suppose that the apostle Peter had in his heart what he had in his mouth when he denied Christ? Surely in that denial he held the truth within and brought forth a lie without. Why, then, did he wash away with tears what he had denied with his mouth, if what he believed with his heart sufficed for salvation? Why, speaking the truth in his heart, did he punish with so bitter weeping the lie he uttered with his mouth, except that he saw the ruin to be great—that he had indeed believed with his heart unto righteousness, but had not confessed with his mouth unto salvation (See Matt 26:69-75)?

6. 14. Therefore that which is written, who speaks the truth in his heart (Ps 15:2 (14:2)), is not to be taken as though, with the truth kept in the heart, a lie were to be spoken with the mouth. Rather it was said because it can happen that a man speaks truth with his mouth, which profits him nothing if he does not hold it in his heart—that is, if he himself does not believe what he speaks: as heretics do, and most of all these same Priscillianists, when they do not indeed believe the Catholic truth, yet speak it so that they may be believed to be ours. They speak the truth, then, in their mouth, not in their heart. For this reason they had to be distinguished from him of whom it is said, who speaks the truth in his heart (Ps 15:2 (14:2)). But this truth the Catholic, just as he speaks it in his heart, because he so believes, so also ought to speak it with his mouth, so as to proclaim it; but against it let him have falsehood neither in heart nor in mouth, that he may both believe with his heart unto righteousness and make confession with his mouth unto salvation. For in that psalm too, when it had been said, who speaks the truth in his heart, soon this also was added, who does no deceit with his tongue (Ps 15:2-3 (14:2-3)).

6. 15. And that which the Apostle says, Putting away falsehood, let each one speak the truth with his neighbor, for we are members one of another (Eph 4:25)—God forbid that we should so understand it as though he permitted lying to be spoken with those who are not yet members of the body of Christ together with us. Rather it was said because each of us ought to count a man as that which he wishes him to become, even if he has not yet become it: as the Lord showed the foreign Samaritan to be the neighbor of him with whom he did mercy (See Luke 10:33-36). He, therefore, is to be held a neighbor, not a stranger, with whom this must be done, lest he remain a stranger; and if, because he is not yet made a sharer of our faith and sacrament, some true things must be concealed from him, yet false things must not therefore be told him.

6. 16. For even in the times of the Apostles there were some who preached the truth not in truth—that is, not with a truthful mind—whom the Apostle says preached Christ not chastely, but out of envy and rivalry. And by this even then some were tolerated who preached the truth with no chaste mind; yet none were praised as preaching falsehood with a chaste mind. Finally he says of them, Whether in pretense or in truth, Christ is proclaimed (Phil 1:18); but in no way would he say, that Christ may afterward be proclaimed, let him first be denied.

6. 17. Wherefore in many ways indeed the hidden heretics can be tracked down, without the Catholic faith being disparaged or heretical impiety praised.

7. 17. But if heretical impiety could in no other way at all be drawn out of its caverns unless the Catholic tongue strayed from the path of truth, it would be more tolerable for that impiety to stay hidden than for this tongue to be cast down headlong; more tolerable for the foxes to lie hidden in their dens than for the hunters, in order to catch them, to fall into the pit of blasphemy; more tolerable for the treachery of the Priscillianists to be covered by the veil of truth than for the faith of Catholics, lest it be praised by lying Priscillianists, to be denied by believing Catholics. For if blasphemous lies—not just any lies—are just for this reason, that they are done with the intention of detecting hidden heretics, then in this way adulteries could be chaste, if they were done with the same intention. For what if some shameless woman from the number of the Priscillianists were to cast her eye on a Catholic Joseph, and were to promise to betray to him their hiding places if she obtained from him her defilement, and it were certain that she, if consent were given her, would fulfill what she promised? Shall we judge it must be done? Or shall we understand that goods of this kind are by no means to be purchased at such a price? Why, then, do we not snatch out heretics, who must be caught, by flesh dissolving into adultery, and yet think they must be snatched out by a mouth fornicating in blasphemy? For either it will be permitted to defend both on equal grounds, so that these are said not to be unjust because they were done with the intention of detecting the unjust; or, if sound doctrine wills that not even for finding out heretics should we mingle with shameless women, at least in body though not in mind, then surely it wills that not even for finding out heretics should there be by us, at least in voice though not in mind, either the preaching of an unclean heresy or the blaspheming of the chaste Catholic faith. For the very command of the mind, to which every lower movement of man ought to be obedient, will not lack its due reproach when that is done which ought not to be done, whether by a member or by a word. And yet even when it is done with a word, it is done with a member: since the tongue is the member by which the word is made; nor is any deed of ours brought forth by any member except what is first conceived in the heart; or rather, already brought forth within by thinking and consenting, it is sent forth without by being done through a member. And so the mind is not excused from the deed when something is said to be done not from the mind, which nevertheless would not be done unless the mind decreed it must be done.

7. 18. It matters very much indeed for what cause, to what end, with what intention a thing is done; but those things which are agreed to be sins must be done under the pretext of no good cause, with no seemingly good end, with no apparently good intention. For those works of men which are not in themselves sins are now good, now evil, according as they had good or evil causes: as to give food to the poor is a good work, if it is done for the cause of mercy with right faith; as conjugal intercourse, when it is done for the cause of begetting, if it be done with the faith that those who are begotten are to be reborn. These and the like works are, according to their causes, good or evil; because these same works, if they have evil causes, are turned into sins: as if the poor man is fed for the cause of boasting; or intercourse is had with a wife for the cause of lust; or children are begotten not that they may be reared for God, but for the devil. But when the works themselves are already sins—such as thefts, fornications, blasphemies, or other such things—who is there who would say they must be done for good causes, so that either they are not sins or, what is more absurd, they are just sins? Who is there who would say: That we may have what to give the poor, let us commit thefts against the rich; or, let us sell false testimonies—especially if by this no innocent persons are harmed, but rather the guilty are snatched from judges who would condemn them? For two goods come about by the sale of this lie: that money is taken whereby the needy may be fed, and that the judge is deceived so that a man may not be punished. And as for wills, why do we not, if we can, suppress the true ones and substitute false ones, so that inheritances or legacies may not go to the unworthy, who do no good with them, but rather to those by whom the hungry are fed, the naked clothed, strangers taken in, captives ransomed, churches built? For why should those evils not be done for the sake of these goods, if for the sake of these goods those things are not even evils? And now, if some unclean and rich women seem ready, moreover, to enrich their lovers and defilers, why should not a merciful man too take up these roles and arts, to use them for so good a cause that he may have what to bestow on the needy—and not hear the Apostle saying, Let the thief no longer steal, but rather let him labor, doing honest work with his hands, so that he may be able to give to those in need (Eph 4:28)? For if not only theft itself but also false testimony, and adultery, and every evil work will not be evil but good, if it is committed for this cause—that there may be wherewith to do good—who would say these things except one who tries to overturn all human affairs, all customs, and all laws? For what most wicked crime, what most shameful disgrace, what most impious sacrilege would not be said to be possible to do rightly and justly—and not only with impunity but even with glory, so that in perpetrating it not only would no punishments be feared but rewards be hoped for—if once we have granted that in all evil works of men we must ask not what is done but why it is done, so that whatever things are found to be done for good causes are not even themselves judged to be evil? But if justice rightly punishes a thief, even one who says and shows that he took the rich man's superfluities in order to supply the poor man's necessities; if it rightly punishes a forger, even one who teaches that he corrupted another's will so that the heir should be one who would give large alms from it, and not one who would give none; if it rightly punishes an adulterer, even one who demonstrates that he committed adultery out of mercy, in order through the woman with whom he did it to free a man from death; finally—to come closer to the matter under question—if it rightly punishes the man who mingled himself in adulterous intercourse with some Priscillianist woman conscious of the foulness, in order to reach their hiding places: I beg you, since the Apostle says, Do not yield your members as weapons of iniquity to sin (Rom 6:13)—and so we ought to yield neither hands, nor the body's genitals, nor other members to disgraceful deeds in order to be able to find Priscillianists—how has the tongue, how has our whole mouth, how has the organ of the voice offended us, that we should yield these as a weapon to sin, and to so great a sin, where we blaspheme our God, in order to snatch caught Priscillianists from the blasphemies of ignorance, and blaspheme without the excuse of ignorance?

8. 19. Someone will say: Is any thief, then, to be put on a level with the thief who steals out of a will to do mercy? Who would say that? But of these two, neither is good simply because one is worse. For he who steals out of covetousness is worse than he who steals out of pity; but if every theft is a sin, one must abstain from every theft. For who would say one must sin, even if one sin is damnable and another venial? But now we are asking who will not sin, or who will sin, if a man does this or that—not who will sin more grievously or more lightly. For thefts themselves are indeed punished more lightly by the law than fornications; yet both are sins, though some lighter, some heavier—so that a theft committed out of covetousness is held lighter than a fornication committed out of helping someone. For within their own kind, those things which seem to be admitted with a good mind become lighter than other sins of the same kind; yet they too are found to be heavier than sins of another kind that are by their very kind lighter. For it is more grievous to commit a theft out of avarice than out of mercy; and likewise it is more grievous to commit a fornication out of lust than out of mercy; and yet it is more grievous to commit adultery out of mercy than to steal out of avarice. But now the question is not what is lighter or heavier, but what things are sins or are not. For no one would say one ought to have sinned where it is agreed there is sin; but we say that, if a man has sinned in this way or that, he ought to be pardoned or not pardoned.

9. 20. But—what must be admitted—certain compensating sins so disturb human minds that they are even thought to deserve praise, and are rather called right actions. For who would doubt it to be a great sin if a father were to prostitute his daughters to the fornications of the impious? And yet there arose a cause for which a just man supposed he ought to do this, when the Sodomites in their wicked onset of lust were rushing upon his guests. For he says, I have two daughters who have not known a man; let me bring them out to you, and use them as it may please you; only do nothing wrong to these men, since they have come under the roof of my beams (Gen 19:8). What shall we say here? Do we not so shrink from that crime which the Sodomites were trying to do to that just man's guests, that we judge whatever was done to keep this from being done ought to have been done? We are also moved most of all by the person of the doer, who by the merit of justice was being delivered from Sodom: so that, since it is a lesser evil for women than for men to suffer defilement, it is even said to have belonged to that just man's justice that he preferred this to be done to his daughters rather than to his guests—not only willing it in mind, but even offering it in word, and, had they consented to him, ready to fulfill it in deed. But if we open this way to sins, that we commit lesser ones lest others commit greater, then with a broad boundary—nay, with no boundary, but with all limits torn up and removed—all things will enter and reign over an infinite expanse. For when once it has been laid down that a man must sin less, lest another sin more, then surely by our thefts the fornications of others will be guarded against, and incests by fornications; and if some impiety should seem even worse than incests, incests too will be said by us to be done, if it can be brought about in this way that that impiety not be committed by others; and in each several kind of sins—thefts for thefts, fornications for fornications, incests for incests, sacrileges for sacrileges—will be thought to be done: ours for others', not only lesser for greater, but even, when it comes to the very highest and worst, fewer for more; if the onrush of affairs so turns out that some men do not otherwise abstain from sins than while we sin—somewhat less, but still sin—so that altogether, where the enemy who has such power has said, Unless you are wicked, I will be more wicked, or, Unless you do this crime, I will do many such crimes, we should seem to ourselves to be committing a crime if we wished to refrain from a crime. What is this but to be foolish, or rather to be mad? For from my own iniquity, not from another's—whether perpetrated against me or against others—I must guard against my own damnation. For the soul that sins shall itself die (Ezek 18:4).

9. 21. If, then, we ought beyond doubt not to sin in order that others may not sin more grievously, whether against us or against any others, we must consider in what Lot did whether it is an example we ought to imitate, or rather one we ought to avoid. For it seems rather to be looked at and noted that, when so dreadful an evil from the most disgraceful impiety of the Sodomites threatened his guests—which he longed to drive off and could not—even a just man's mind could thus be so disturbed that he wished to do what the misty storm of human fear, not the calm serenity of divine law, urged; whereas that serenity, if we consult it, will cry out that it must not be done, and will rather command that we so guard against our own sins as not to sin at all out of fear of anyone else's sins. For that just man, fearing others' sins—which cannot defile any but those who consent—was disturbed and did not attend to his own, by which he wished to subject his daughters to the lusts of the impious. When we read these things in the holy Scriptures, let us not, because we believe they were done, therefore believe they ought to be done—lest we violate the precepts while we everywhere follow the examples. Or shall we, because David swore he would kill Nabal and, by more considered clemency, did not (See 1 Sam 25:22-34), therefore say he is to be imitated, so that we rashly swear we will do what we afterward see ought not to be done? But just as fear disturbed the former, so that he wished to prostitute his daughters, so anger disturbed the latter, so that he rashly swore. Finally, if it were lawful for us to inquire of both, asking them to say why they did these things, the former could answer, Fear and trembling came upon me, and darkness covered me (Ps 55:5 (54:6)); the latter too could say, My eye was troubled by anger (Ps 6:7 (6:8)); so that we should not wonder that either the one, in the darkness of fear, or the other, with troubled eye, did not see what ought to have been seen, lest they do what ought not to have been done.

9. 22. And of holy David indeed it could more justly be said that he ought not even to have been angry, although against an ingrate who was returning evil for good; but even if, as a man, anger crept over him, it surely ought not to have so prevailed that he swore he would do what he would do either by raging or, by perjuring himself, not do. But who would dare say to the other, placed amid the lustful madnesses of the Sodomites: Even if your guests in your house—into which you compelled them to enter by a most violent hospitality—are seized and oppressed by the shameless and suffer what women suffer, fear nothing, care nothing, do not be terrified, do not shudder, do not tremble? Who—even of those wicked men—would dare say this to a pious host? But it would most rightly be said: Do whatever you can, that what you rightly fear not come to pass; but let not that fear compel you to do what your daughters, if they should be willing, will do—with you as author—wickedness with the Sodomites; or, if they should be unwilling, will suffer—with you as author—violence from the Sodomites. Do not do your own great crime while you shudder at a greater one of another's: for however much your own and another's differ, this will be yours, that another's. Unless perchance, in defense of this man, someone shuts himself up in this strait, so as to say: Since it is better to receive than to do injury, and those guests were surely not going to do injury but to suffer it, the just man preferred his daughters to suffer injury rather than his guests, by the right by which he was lord of his daughters; and he knew that they would not sin, if it were done, because they would rather endure without sin of their own those who sinned, to whom they did not consent. Finally, they did not offer themselves to be defiled—although females for males, in place of those guests—lest not the endurance of another's lust but the consent of their own will should make them guilty. Nor did their father permit this to be done to himself, when those tried to do it to whom he would not betray his guests; though it would be less evil for it to be done to one than if it were done to two; rather he resisted as much as he could, lest any consent of his own should stain even himself—he whom, even had it prevailed by the body's strength, another's lustful frenzy would not have stained while he did not consent. But in his daughters, who were not sinning, neither was he himself sinning, because he was not making them sin if they were oppressed against their will, but making them bear those who sinned: as if he offered his own slaves to be beaten by wicked men, lest his guests should suffer the injury of beating. On which matter I will not dispute, because it is long, whether even a master, by the right of his power, rightly so uses a slave as to have his innocent slave beaten, lest his friend, himself also innocent, be beaten in his house by violent and wicked men. But certainly David is by no means rightly said to have been bound to swear he would do what he afterward discerned he ought not to do. From which it is clear that we ought not to transfer into our conduct all things that we read were done by holy or just men; but rather to learn even from this how widely it extends, and to whom it reaches, what the Apostle says: Brethren, if a man be overtaken in any trespass, you who are spiritual instruct such a one in a spirit of gentleness, looking to yourself, lest you too be tempted (Gal 6:1). For these are the overtakings in which men trespass, while either for the moment it is not seen what ought to be done, or even he who has seen it is overcome; so that, namely, sin is committed when either the truth lies hidden or weakness compels.

10. 23. But in all our acts, compensating sins disturb even good men most of all, so that they are not even thought to be sins, if they have such causes for which they are done, and in which one would rather seem to sin if they were not done. And especially with regard to lies has this prevailed in the opinion of men—that those lies are not thought to be sins, but rather are believed even to be right actions, when a man lies for the advantage of one whom it is expedient to deceive, or so as not to harm others whom he seems likely to harm unless he is avoided by lies. To defend these kinds of lies, very many examples from the holy Scriptures are thought to lend support. But it is not the same thing to conceal the truth as to bring forth a lie. For although everyone who lies wishes to hide what is true, yet not everyone who wishes to hide what is true lies. For very often we conceal true things, not by lying, but by being silent. For the Lord was not lying when he said, I have many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now (John 16:12). He was silent about true things, he did not speak false ones; and them, less fit to hear those true things, he judged. But if he had not made this very thing known to them—that is, that they could not bear what he was unwilling to say—he would nonetheless have concealed something of the truth, but we should perhaps not have known that this can rightly be done, or should not have been confirmed by so great an example. Hence those who assert that one must sometimes lie do not aptly cite Abraham as having done this concerning Sarah, whom he called his sister. For he did not say, She is not my wife, but he said, She is my sister (Gen 20:2); which was in truth so near in kinship that she could be called his sister without a lie. And this he confirmed afterward, when she had already been restored to him by the man who had taken her away, answering him and saying, And indeed she is my sister by my father, not by my mother (Gen 20:12)—that is, of paternal kindred, not maternal. He was silent, then, about something true; he did not say something false, when he was silent about the wife and spoke of the sister. His son Isaac did this too: for we know that he likewise was allotted a kinswoman for his wife (See Gen 24:4, 15). It is no lie, then, when the true is hidden by being silent, but when the false is uttered by speaking.

10. 24. But as for what Jacob did at his mother's prompting, so that he seemed to deceive his father (See Gen 27:6-29), if it is attended to carefully and faithfully, it is not a lie but a mystery. If we should call such things lies, then all parables too, and figures for signifying any things whatever, which are not to be taken in their literal sense but in which one thing is to be understood from another, will be said to be lies—which God utterly forbid. For one who thinks this could bring this same charge against all the very many figurative expressions; so that even that which is called metaphor—that is, the transferred use of some word from a proper thing to a thing not its own—could on this reasoning be called a lie. For when we say that the crops billow, that the vines bud, that youth is in flower, that old age is snowy white, then, since we do not find billows, buds, flower, and snow in the things to which we have transferred these words from elsewhere, these will be reckoned by such people to be lies. And, The rock was Christ (1 Cor 10:4), and the stony heart of the Jews; likewise Christ a lion (See Rev 5:5), and the devil a lion (See 1 Pet 5:8), and countless such things will be said to be lies. What of this—that figurative speech reaches even to that which is called antiphrasis, so that a thing is said to abound which is not, a thing is said to be sweet which is sour; a grove (lucus) is so called because it does not shine (lucet), the Fates (Parcae) because they do not spare (parcunt)? Hence is that in the holy Scriptures, If he does not bless thee to thy face (Job 1:11), which the devil said to the Lord about holy Job, and is understood to mean: he will curse thee. By which word too the false charge against Naboth was named by the slanderers: for it was said that he had blessed the king—that is, cursed him (See 1 Kgs 21:10, 13). All these modes of speech will be reckoned lies, if a figurative expression or action is to be counted a lie. But if it is no lie when, for the understanding of the truth, things signifying one thing by another are referred to it, then surely not only what Jacob did or said to his father in order to be blessed, but neither what Joseph said as though mocking his brothers (See Gen 42:7), nor that David feigned madness (See 1 Sam 21:13), nor other such things, are to be judged lies; rather they are prophetic speeches and actions, to be referred to the things that are true, which are to be understood. They are covered with figurative coverings, as it were, in order to exercise the sense of the one who seeks piously, and lest, bare and ready, they grow cheap. Although the things we have learned, said openly and plainly in other places, when these same things are dug out from hidden places, are in a certain way renewed in our knowledge, and, renewed, grow sweet. Nor is it begrudged to learners that they are obscured by these modes; rather they are the more commended, so that, as it were withdrawn, they may be the more ardently desired, and, desired, the more delightfully found. Yet true things, not false, are said; since true things, not false, are signified, whether by word or by deed: for the things signified are themselves what is said. But they are thought to be lies, because not the true things that are signified are understood as said, but the false things are believed to have been said. That this may be plainer by examples, attend to that very thing which Jacob did. He certainly covered his limbs with kidskins (See Gen 27:16): if we seek the proximate cause, we shall think he lied, for he did this in order to be thought to be the one he was not; but if this deed is referred to that for the signifying of which it was truly done, then by the kidskins are signified sins, and by him who covered himself with them is signified that one who bore not his own but others' sins. A truthful signification, therefore, can in no way rightly be called a lie. And as in the deed, so also in the word. For when his father had said to him, Who are you, my son?, he answered, I am Esau your firstborn (Gen 27:18-19). If this is referred to those two twins, it will seem a lie; but if to that for the signifying of which these things were done and said and written down, then he is to be understood here in his body, which is his Church—he who, speaking of this matter, says, When you see Abraham and Isaac and Jacob and all the prophets in the kingdom of God, but you yourselves thrust out. And men will come from east and west, and from north and south, and will recline in the kingdom of God: and behold, those are last who were first, and those are first who were last (Luke 13:28-30). For thus in a certain way the younger brother took away the elder's primacy and transferred it to himself. Since, then, such true things and so truthfully are signified, what here ought to be thought done or said lyingly? For since the things signified are surely not nonexistent in truth, but are either past or present or future, there is beyond doubt a true signification, and no lie. But it is too long to sift out clearly all things in this prophetic signification, in which the truth holds the palm, because, as they were foretold by signifying, so they shone forth by following.

11. 25. Nor have I taken up in this discourse what pertains more to you, who have opened the hiding places of the Priscillianists, as regards their false and perverse doctrines—lest those things, thus investigated, seem as though they had to be taught, and not refuted. Rather, then, make them lie conquered, which you have made lie exposed; lest, while we wish to reach the hunting-down of deceitful men, we let the very falsehoods remain as if unconquerable; whereas we ought rather both to destroy the falsehoods in the hearts of the hidden, and not, by sparing the falsehoods, to find the deceivers. Moreover, among those doctrines of theirs which must be overthrown is surely also this which they lay down as a doctrine—that religious men, in order to conceal their religion, ought to lie, to such a degree that one must lie not only about other matters not pertaining to the doctrine of religion, but also about religion itself, lest it be laid open to outsiders; so that, namely, Christ must be denied, so that a Christian may be able to lie hidden among his enemies. This impious and wicked doctrine too, I beg you, overthrow—for the establishing of which they argue and gather testimonies from the Scriptures, by which lies seem not only to be excused or tolerated, but even to be honored. It belongs to you, then, when you refute the detestable sect, to show how these testimonies of the Scriptures must be taken: so that you may either teach that the things thought to be lies are not lies, if they are understood in the way they ought to be understood; or that even the things which manifestly are lies are not to be imitated; or at least, finally, that about those matters at least which pertain to the doctrine of religion one must in no way lie. For thus are they truly overthrown from the foundation, when there is overthrown the place where they lie hidden: so that by the very thing they profess—that they are liars in order to conceal their heresy—they may be judged least to be followed and most to be guarded against. This must first be assailed in them; this, as it were their fit fortification, must be struck with the blows of truth and cast down. Nor must any other hiding place, which they did not have, be afforded them to flee to: so that if perchance they are betrayed by those whom they tried to seduce but could not, they may not say: We wished to test them, since prudent Catholics taught us that this must be done in order to find heretics. But I ought to say somewhat more commendably why this threefold method of disputing seems to me to be the way against those who wish to bring forward the divine Scriptures as patrons of their lies: so that we may first show that some things there thought to be lies are not what they are thought to be, if they are rightly understood; then, if any manifest lies are there, that they are not to be imitated; thirdly, against all the opinions of all who think it sometimes belongs to the office of a good man to lie, that it must by every means be held that in the doctrine of religion one must in no way lie. For these three things I commended to you a little before to carry out, and in a manner enjoined.

12. 26. To show, then, that certain things which are thought in the Scriptures to be lies are not what they are thought to be, if they are rightly understood, let it not seem to you of little weight against these people that it is not from the apostolic but from the prophetic writings that they find their supposed examples of lying. For all those things which they cite by name, where someone lied, are read in those books in which not only sayings but also many deeds are written down figuratively, because they were also done figuratively. And in figures, what is said as though a lie is found, when well understood, to be true. The apostles, however, spoke otherwise in their epistles, and otherwise were the Acts of the Apostles written down—the New Testament being, namely, now revealed, which was veiled by those prophetic figures. Finally, in so many apostolic epistles, and in that so great book in which their acts are narrated with canonical truth, no such liar is found that from him an example for the license of lying might be set forth by these people. For that pretense of Peter and Barnabas, by which they were compelling the Gentiles to judaize, was rightly rebuked and corrected, both that it might not then do harm, and that it might not avail for those who came after to imitate. For when the apostle Paul had seen that they were not walking uprightly toward the truth of the gospel, he said to Peter before all, If you, though a Jew, live like a Gentile and not like a Jew, how can you compel the Gentiles to judaize? (Gal 2:14) But as for what he himself did—that by retaining and performing certain lawful observances after the Jewish custom he might show himself no enemy to the Law and the Prophets—God forbid that we should believe he did it lyingly. For on this matter his known opinion is enough, by which it had been established that neither were the Jews who then believed in Christ to be forbidden their ancestral traditions, nor were the Gentiles, when they became Christians, to be compelled to them: so that those sacraments which it was agreed had been divinely commanded should not be shunned as sacrileges; yet should not be thought so necessary, now that the New Testament was revealed, as though without them whoever were converted to God could not be saved. For there were those who thought and preached this, although the gospel of Christ had now been received; and with them Peter and Barnabas had pretendedly agreed, and therefore were compelling the Gentiles to judaize. For this was to compel: so to preach those things necessary as though, even with the gospel received, there were no salvation in Christ without them. This the error of certain men supposed; this Peter's fear feigned; this Paul's freedom refuted. As for what he says, I have become all things to all men, that I might gain all (1 Cor 9:22), he did this by compassion, not by lying. For each one becomes as it were the one whom he wishes to help, when he helps with as great mercy as he would wish to be helped with, if he himself were placed in the same misery. And so he becomes as that other, not because he deceives him, but because he thinks of himself as that other. Hence is that saying of the same apostle, which I have already cited above: Brethren, if a man be overtaken in any trespass, you who are spiritual instruct such a one in a spirit of meekness, looking to yourself, lest you too be tempted (Gal 6:1). For if, because he said, I became to the Jews as a Jew, and to those under the Law as under the Law (1 Cor 9:20), he is therefore to be thought to have taken up by lying the sacraments of the old Law, he ought also in the same way, by lying, to have taken up the idolatry of the Gentiles, because he said also that he became to those who were without law as without law, in order to gain them (See 1 Cor 9:21)—which he surely did not do. For he did not anywhere sacrifice to idols, or adore those figments; rather he freely, as a martyr of Christ, showed them to be detested and shunned. From no apostolic acts, then, or words, do these people bring forward examples of lying to be imitated. From the prophetic deeds or sayings, then, they seem to themselves to have what to bring forward, because they think the foretelling figures are lies, in that they are sometimes like lies. But when they are referred to those things for the signifying of which they were thus done or said, the significations are found to be truthful, and so in no way lies. For a lie is a false signification with the will to deceive. But there is no false signification where, even though one thing is signified by another, what is signified is nevertheless true, if it is rightly understood.

13. 27. There are also certain things of this kind in the Savior in the Gospel, since the Lord himself deigned to be the Prophet of prophets. Such are those where, concerning the woman who was suffering a flow of blood, he says, Who touched me? (Luke 8:45), and concerning Lazarus, Where have you laid him? (John 11:34) For thus he asked as though not knowing what he surely did know. And by this he feigned not to know, in order by that as it were ignorance of his to signify something else: which signification, since it was truthful, was surely no lie. For they signified—whether she who was suffering the flow of blood, or he, the man dead four days—those whom even he who knew all things in a certain way did not know. For she too bore the type of the people of the Gentiles, whence the prophecy had been sent before, A people whom I did not know served me (Ps 18:43 (17:45)); and Lazarus, removed from the living, as it were lay there by a significative likeness where lies he whose voice this is, I am cast away from before your eyes (Ps 31:22 (30:23)). And therefore, as though she, who she was, and he, where he was laid, were not known by Christ, it was figured by the words of one asking, and every lie was avoided by the truthful signification.

13. 28. Hence too is that which you mentioned them as saying—that the Lord Jesus, after he rose again, walked on the road with two disciples, and, as they drew near to the village to which they were going, feigned to be going farther; where the evangelist, saying, But he himself feigned to be going farther (Luke 24:28), used the very word in which liars take too much delight, that they may lie with impunity—as though everything that is feigned were a lie, when so many things are feigned truthfully for the sake of signifying one thing by another. If, then, Jesus had signified nothing else in feigning to go farther, it would rightly be judged a lie; but on the other hand, if it is well understood, and referred to what he wished to signify, it is found to be a mystery. Otherwise all those things will be lies which, on account of a certain likeness of things to be signified, are narrated as though done when they were not done. Hence is that so lengthy account of the two sons of one man, the elder who stayed with his father, and the younger who traveled far away (See Luke 15:11-32). In which kind of feigning men have added human deeds or words even to irrational animals and to things lacking sense, so that by feigned narratives of this sort, but truthful significations, they might more commendably impart what they wished. And not only with authors of secular literature—as with Horace, the mouse speaks to the mouse, and the weasel to the little fox, so that by a feigned narrative a true signification may be referred to the matter in hand (See Horace, Epistles 1.7.29-33; Satires 2.6.79-117); whence too no one was so unlearned as to think that such fables of Aesop, told to that end, should be called lies—but also in the sacred writings, as in the Book of Judges the trees seek a king for themselves, and speak to the olive, and to the fig, and to the vine, and to the bramble (See Judg 9:8-15). All of which is surely feigned, that one may come to the matter intended, by a narrative indeed feigned, yet not lying, but by a truthful signification. These things I have said on account of that which is written of Jesus, And he himself feigned to be going farther (Luke 24:28); lest anyone, from this word, like the Priscillianists wishing to have lying permitted, should contend moreover that Christ too lied. But whoever wishes to understand what he prefigured by feigning, let him attend to what he accomplished by doing. For having afterward set out farther, above all the heavens, he nevertheless did not desert his disciples. For the signifying of this thing, which was to be done in the future divinely, that other thing was in the present feigned humanly. And therefore there is in that prior feigning a truthful signification, because in this setting-out there followed the truth of that signification. Let him, then, contend that Christ lied by feigning, who denies that he fulfilled by doing what he signified.

14. 29. Since, then, the lying heretics do not find in the writings of the New Testament examples of lying to be imitated, they think themselves most abundantly supplied in this argument by which they hold that one must lie—since from the old prophetic books, because there it appears only to the understanding few to what the significative true sayings or deeds are referred, they seem to themselves to find and bring forward many lies. But, desiring to have things by which they may defend themselves as if imitable examples of deceiving, they deceive themselves, and their iniquity lies to itself (See Ps 27:12 (26:12)). But those persons who are not to be believed to have wished there to prophesy, if they feigned anything by doing or saying with the will to deceive—although from their very deeds or words too something prophetic can be carved out, foresown and disposed by the omnipotence of him who knows how to use well even the evils of men—yet, as far as concerns themselves, without doubt they lied. But they ought not therefore to be thought imitable, because they are found in those books which are rightly called holy and divine. For these have written in them both the evils and the goods of men: the former to be avoided, the latter to be followed; and some things so set down that a sentence has even been pronounced upon them, but others, with the judgment there left unspoken, are committed to us to be judged—since it behooved us not only to be nourished by what is manifest, but also to be exercised by what is obscure.

14. 30. But why do these people think Tamar must be imitated in lying, and do not think Judah must be imitated in fornicating (See Gen 38:13-26)? For they read both there: and that Scripture neither blamed nor praised either of these, but only narrated both, and left both to be judged by us; but it would be a wonder if it permitted any of these to be imitated with impunity. For we know that Tamar lied not out of a lust for harlotry but out of a will to conceive. But fornication too—even if Judah's was not such—can be someone's by which he brings it about that a man is freed, just as her lie was so that a man might be conceived: is fornication therefore also to be committed, if on its account lying is thought to have been permitted? Not, then, about lying alone, but about all the works of men in which there are as it were compensating sins, we must consider what sentence we ought to pronounce; lest we open an entrance not only to any small sins whatever, but even to all crimes, and there remain no wicked deed, disgrace, or sacrilege in which a cause could not arise by which it would rightly seem it should be done, and this opinion overturn the whole uprightness of life.

15. 31. But he must be judged to say nothing, who says that some lies are just, unless he means that some sins are just, and so that some things are just which are unjust—than which what more absurd thing can be said? For whence is sin, except because it is contrary to justice? Let it be said, then, that some sins are great, others small—because that is true, nor are the Stoics to be heeded, who contend that all are equal; but to say that some sins are unjust, some just, what is it but to say that some iniquities are unjust, some just? whereas the apostle John says, Everyone who commits sin commits iniquity also; and sin is iniquity (1 John 3:4). A sin, therefore, cannot be just, except when we put the name of sin on another thing, in which a man does not sin, but either does something or suffers something for sin. For both sacrifices for sins are called sins, and the punishments of sins are sometimes called sins. These can plainly be understood as just sins, when sacrifices are called just, or punishments just. But those things which are done against the law of God cannot be just. And it was said to God, Your law is truth (Ps 119:142 (118:142)). And by this, what is against the truth cannot be just. But who would doubt that every lie is against the truth? No lie, therefore, can be just. Likewise, to whom is it not clear that everything which is just is from the truth? But John cries out, Every lie is not of the truth (1 John 2:21). Every lie, therefore, is not just. Wherefore, when examples of lying from the holy Scriptures are set before us, either they are not lies, but are thought to be while they are not understood; or, if they are lies, they are not to be imitated, because they cannot be just.

15. 32. But as for what is written, that God dealt well with the Hebrew midwives, and with Rahab the harlot of Jericho (See Exod 1:20; Josh 6:17, 25), this was not done because they lied, but because they were merciful to the men of God. It was not, therefore, the deceit in them that was rewarded, but the goodwill; the kindness of the mind, not the iniquity of the one lying. For just as it would be no wonder and no absurdity if, in some earlier time, certain evil works having been committed by them, God should wish to pardon them on account of later good works, so it is no wonder that at one time, in one case, God, beholding both—that is, both what was done mercifully and what was done deceitfully—both rewarded the good and, on account of this good, pardoned that evil. For if sins which are done out of the concupiscence of the flesh, not out of mercy, are remitted on account of later works of mercy, why are not those rightly remitted out of mercy which are committed out of mercy itself? For a sin is more grievous which is committed with the mind of one doing harm than with the mind of one giving help. And by this, if that is blotted out by a work of mercy following afterward, why is not this, which is lighter, blotted out by the very mercy of the man—both going before, that he may sin, and accompanying, while he sins? Thus indeed it can seem; yet it is one thing to say, I ought not indeed to have sinned, but I will do works of mercy by which I may blot out what I sinned before; and another to say, I ought to sin, because I cannot otherwise show mercy. It is one thing, I say, to say, Since we have already sinned, let us do good; and another to say, Let us sin, that we may do good. There it is said, Let us do good things, because we have done evil; but here, Let us do evil that good may come (Rom 3:8). And by this, there the bilge-water of sin must be drawn off, here the doctrine of sinning must be guarded against.

15. 33. It remains, therefore, that we understand that to those women, whether in Egypt or in Jericho, a reward was given for their humanity and mercy—a reward surely temporal, which nevertheless itself also, even though they did not know it, figured by a prophetic signification something eternal. But whether one must ever lie even for someone's salvation—since it is a question in the resolving of which even the most learned are wearied—far exceeded the measure of those poor little women set among those peoples and accustomed to those manners. And so this ignorance of theirs, like the other things which they were equally ignorant of, but which are to be known by the sons not of this age but of the age to come, the patience of God bore with—who nevertheless rendered to them, for the human kindness which they had spent on his servants, earthly rewards, although signifying something heavenly. And Rahab indeed, freed from Jericho, made her passage into the people of God, where, advancing, she could attain to the eternal and immortal gifts, which are to be sought by no lie.

16. 33. Yet at that time, when she rendered that good work, praiseworthy for the condition of her life, to the Israelite spies, she was not yet such that this should be required of her: Let your speech be, Yes, yes; No, no (Matt 5:37). But those midwives, although Hebrew, if they were wise only according to the flesh, what or how great is it that the temporal reward profited them, that they made houses for themselves (See Exod 1:21), unless by advancing they belonged to that house of which it is sung to God, Blessed are those who dwell in your house; forever and ever they will praise you (Ps 84:4 (83:5))? But it must be greatly admitted that he comes near to justice—and, although not yet in fact, yet in hope and in disposition is to be praised in mind—who never lies except with this intention, that he wishes to profit someone and to harm no one. But when we ask whether it ever belongs to a good man to lie, we are not asking about a man still belonging to Egypt, or to Jericho, or to Babylon, or still to the earthly Jerusalem itself, which is in slavery with her children (See Gal 4:25); but about a citizen of that city which is above, the free, our eternal mother in the heavens (See Gal 4:26). And it is answered to us who ask, Every lie is not of the truth (1 John 2:21). But the sons of that city are surely sons of the truth. They are sons of that city of which it is written, In their mouth no lie was found (Rev 14:5); he is a son of that city of whom likewise it is written, A son who receives the word will be far from perdition; but receiving it, he received it for himself, and nothing false proceeds from his mouth (Prov 29:27 (LXX)). If ever, as to men, any lie whatever creeps upon these sons of the Jerusalem above and of the holy eternal city, they humbly beg pardon for it; they do not, moreover, seek glory from it.

17. 34. But someone will say: Would those midwives, then, and Rahab have done better if they had shown no mercy, being unwilling to lie? Nay rather, those Hebrew women, if they were such as those about whom we ask whether they must ever lie, would both say nothing false, and would most freely refuse the foul service of killing the little ones. But, you will say, they themselves would die. But see what follows. For they would die with the reward of a heavenly dwelling incomparably more ample than those houses which they made for themselves on earth could be: they would die destined for eternal happiness, having endured death for a most innocent truth. What of that woman in Jericho? Could she perhaps do this? Would she not, if by lying she did not deceive the citizens who sought them, by telling the truth betray her hidden guests? Or could she say to those who questioned her: I know where they are, but I fear God; I do not betray them? She could indeed say this, if she were already a true Israelite in whom there was no guile (See John 1:47)—which she was going to be, by the mercy of God, passing over to the city of God. But, you will say, when those men heard this, they would kill her and search the house. But did it follow that they would even find those whom she had carefully hidden? For the most cautious woman had taken thought, and had placed them where they could lie hidden even if she who lied were not believed (See Josh 2:6). So she too, if indeed she had been killed by her own citizens for a work of mercy, would have ended this life, which was to be ended, by a death precious in the sight of the Lord (See Ps 116:15 (115:15)), and her benefit toward them would not have been in vain. But, you will say, what if those by whom they were sought, by searching everything, had reached even that place where she had hidden them? In this way it can be said: What if they had been unwilling to believe a most vile and base woman, not only lying but even perjuring herself? Surely even so the things she lied about out of fear would have come to pass. And where do we place the will and power of God? Could he not perhaps both keep her, neither lying to her citizens nor betraying the men of God, and keep those men of hers from all destruction? For he by whom they were kept even after the woman's lie could, even if she had not lied, surely have kept them. Unless perhaps we have forgotten that this was done in Sodom, where the males, inflamed with unspeakable lust against males, could not even find the door of the house in which were those they sought (See Gen 19:11); when a just man, in a case altogether most similar, was unwilling to lie for his guests, whom he did not know to be angels, and feared lest they suffer a violence worse than death. And certainly he could have answered those who sought just as that woman in Jericho answered. For they too inquired by questioning in quite a similar way. But the just man was unwilling, for the bodies of his guests, to stain his soul by his lie—he for whom he willed the bodies of his daughters to suffer violence by the iniquity of another's lust. Let a man, then, do even for the temporal salvation of men what he can; but when it comes to this point, that he cannot provide for such salvation except by sinning, let him now reckon that he has nothing to do, when he has perceived that what remains is what he would not do rightly. Accordingly, Rahab in Jericho—because she received the foreign men of God into her hospitality, because in receiving them she put herself in danger, because she believed in their God, because she carefully hid them where she could, because she gave most faithful counsel for returning by another way—may be praised as imitable even by the citizens of the Jerusalem above. But that she lied—even if something prophetic there is expounded with understanding—is yet not wisely set forth as imitable; although God memorably honored those good things, and clemently pardoned this evil.

17. 35. Since these things are so, because it is too long to treat thoroughly all the things which are set down in that Balance of Dictinius as if imitable examples of lying, it seems to me that not only these, but also any such things, must be reduced to this rule: that either what is believed to be a lie may be shown not to be one—whether where the true is kept silent and the false is not spoken, or where a truthful signification wishes one thing to be understood from another, which kind of figurative sayings or deeds abounds in the prophetic writings; or that the things convicted of being lies may be shown not to be imitable, and that if any have crept upon us, like other sins, justice is not to be attributed to them, but pardon to be sought. This indeed seems to me; and to this opinion the things disputed above compel me.

18. 36. But because we are men, and live among men, and I confess that I am not yet in the number of those whom compensating sins do not disturb, often in human affairs human feeling overcomes me, and I am not able to resist when it is said to me: See, a sick man is in danger from a grave illness, whose strength can no longer bear it, if his only and dearest son were announced to him as dead; he asks of you whether the one lives whom you know to have ended his life; what will you answer, when, whatever else you say besides one of the three—either, He is dead; or, He lives; or, I do not know—he believes nothing other than that he is dead? which he understands that you fear to say and are unwilling to lie. The same holds even if you keep wholly silent. But of those three, two are false—He lives, and, I do not know—nor can they be said by you except by lying. But that one true thing—that is, that he is dead—if you say it, and the death of the disturbed man follows, it will be cried out that he was killed by you. And who could bear men exaggerating how great an evil it is that a salutary lie should be shunned and a murderous truth loved? I am vehemently moved by these objections, but it would be a wonder if also wisely. For when I set before whatever eyes my heart has the intelligible beauty of him from whose mouth nothing false proceeds—although, where the radiant truth grows more and more bright, there my throbbing weakness is beaten back—yet I am so kindled by the love of so great a comeliness that I despise all the human things which call me back from it. But it is much for this affection to persevere so far that in temptation the effect not be lacking. Nor does it move me, as I contemplate that luminous good, in which there are no shadows of a lie, that, when we are unwilling to lie and men die at hearing the truth, the truth is called a murderer. For if a shameless woman demands defilement, and, you not consenting, dies disturbed by her savage love, will chastity be a murderer? Or because we read, We are the good odor of Christ in every place, both among those who are being saved and among those who are perishing; to the one indeed an odor of life unto life, but to the other an odor of death unto death (2 Cor 2:15-16), shall we pronounce even the odor of Christ a murderer? But because we are men, and human feeling for the most part overcomes or wearies us also in questions and contradictions of this kind, therefore that one too at once subjoined, And who is sufficient for these things? (2 Cor 2:16)

18. 37. To this is added—where there is cause for more wretched wailing—that if we grant that for the salvation of that sick man one had to lie about the life of his son, then little by little, and bit by bit, this evil grows up, and by short approaches is gradually led on, by stealthy entry, to so great a heap of wicked lies, that it can never be found out at all where resistance can be made to so great a plague, growing immense by the smallest additions. Hence it is most providently written, He who despises small things falls little by little (Sir 19:1). What of this—that such lovers of this life, that they do not hesitate to set it before the truth, lest a man die, or rather that a man, going one day to die, may die somewhat later, wish us not only to lie but even to perjure ourselves; so that, namely, lest a man's vain safety pass away somewhat sooner, we should take the name of the Lord our God in vain? And there are among them learned men who even fix rules and set limits as to when one ought, and when one ought not, to perjure oneself. O where are you, fountains of tears? And what shall we do? where shall we go? where shall we hide ourselves from the wrath of the truth, if we not only neglect to guard against lies, but even dare moreover to teach perjuries? Let the asserters and defenders of lying see for themselves what kind, or what kinds, of lying it delights them to justify: at least let them grant that in the worship of God one must not lie; at least let them refrain from perjuries and blasphemies; at least where the name of God, where God as witness, where the sacrament of God is interposed, where speech about divine religion is brought forth or carried on, let no one lie, let no one praise, let no one teach and prescribe, let no one say that a lie is just: of the other kinds of lies let him choose for himself what he thinks the mildest and most harmless kind of lying, the one in which he is pleased to think one may lie. This I know, that even he who teaches that one ought to lie wishes to seem to teach the truth. For if what he teaches is false, who would wish to apply himself to a false doctrine, where the teacher deceives and the learner is deceived? But if, in order to find some disciple, he asserts that he teaches the truth, when he teaches that one must lie, how will that be a lie of the truth, the apostle John crying out, Every lie is not of the truth (1 John 2:21)? It is not true, then, that one must ever lie; and what is not true must be urged upon no one at all.

19. 38. But weakness plays its part, and proclaims that it has an invincible cause with the crowds favoring it. Here it objects and says: How, among men—who without doubt, if they are deceived, are turned away from destruction, whether another's or their own—is help given to men in danger, if human feeling does not incline us to lie? If the crowd of mortality, the crowd of weakness, will hear me patiently, I will answer something on behalf of the cause of truth. Surely pious, true, holy chastity is only from the truth; and whoever acts against it surely acts against the truth. Why, then, even if help cannot otherwise be given to those in danger, do I not commit defilement, which is for this reason contrary to truth, because it is contrary to chastity; and yet, in order that help may be given to those in danger, do I speak a lie, which is most openly contrary to the truth itself? What has chastity deserved so much of us, and truth offended, when all chastity is from the truth, and the chastity not of the body but of the mind is truth, and even the chastity of the body dwells in the mind? Finally—what I said a little before and say again—whoever contradicts me in order to persuade and defend any lie, what does he say, if he does not say the truth? But if he is for this reason to be heard, because he says the truth, how does he wish to make me a liar by saying the truth? How does a lie take to itself the truth as patroness? Or does it conquer by its adversary, so as to be conquered by its own self? Who could bear this absurdity? In no way, then, would we say that those who assert that one must sometimes lie are, in asserting this, truthful; lest—what is most absurd and most foolish to believe—the truth should teach us to be liars. For what sort of thing is it, that no one should learn from chastity that one must commit adultery, no one learn from godliness that one must offend God, no one learn from kindness that one must harm anyone—and that we should learn from the truth that one must lie? Moreover, if the truth does not teach this, it is not true; if it is not true, it must not be learned; if it must not be learned, then one must never lie.

19. 39. But solid food is for the perfect (See Heb 5:14), someone says. For many things are relaxed by way of indulgence to weakness, although they by no means please the most sincere truth. Let whoever does not fear the consequences that must be feared say this, if any lies have in any way been permitted. Yet they must in no way be permitted to climb so far as to reach perjuries and blasphemies; nor ought any cause at all to be alleged why one ought to perjure oneself, or—what is more execrable—why one ought to blaspheme God. For it is not the case that, because God is blasphemed through a lie, he is therefore not blasphemed. For in this way it could be said that one does not perjure oneself, because one perjures oneself through a lie. For who could be a perjurer through the truth? So too through the truth no one can be a blasphemer. Indeed, he swears falsely more mildly who does not know it to be false, and thinks what he swears to be true: just as Saul too blasphemed more excusably, because he did it ignorantly (See 1 Tim 1:13). But for this reason it is worse to blaspheme than to perjure oneself: because in perjuring oneself God is brought as witness to a false thing, but in blaspheming false things are said about God himself. And by so much is anyone, whether perjurer or blasphemer, the more inexcusable, the more he knows or believes those things which by perjuring or blaspheming they assert to be false. Whoever, therefore, says that one must lie for the temporal salvation or life of a man in danger, himself strays too far from the road of eternal salvation and life, if he says that in that cause one must even swear by God, or even blaspheme God.

20. 40. But sometimes the danger even of salvation itself, the eternal, is set against us, which, it is cried out, must be driven off by our lie, if it cannot be otherwise: as if someone to be baptized were placed in the power of the impious and unbelieving, to whom one could not come so that he might be washed in the laver of regeneration, unless the guards were deceived by lying. From this most odious outcry, by which we are compelled to lie not for anyone's wealth or honors passing away in this age, not for this present life itself, but for the eternal salvation of a man, whither shall I flee, except to you, O Truth? And chastity is set before me by you. For why, if those guards, in order to admit us to baptize the man, can be enticed by defilement, do we not do what is contrary to chastity; and if they can be deceived by a lie, do we do what is contrary to truth? since without doubt chastity would be faithfully loveable to no one, if the truth did not command it. Accordingly, in order to reach the man to be baptized, let the guards be deceived by lying, if the truth commands this. But how would the truth command that, in order that a man be baptized, one must lie, if chastity does not command that, in order that a man be baptized, one must commit adultery? And why does chastity not command this, except because the truth does not teach it? If, then, we ought to do nothing except what the truth teaches, when the truth teaches us not to do, even for the sake of a man to be baptized, what is contrary to chastity, how will it teach us to do, for the sake of a man to be baptized, what is contrary to the truth itself? But just as eyes too little strong to gaze upon the sun yet gladly gaze upon the things illumined by the sun, so souls now able to delight in the beauty of chastity yet cannot at once consider through itself the truth from which chastity shines, so that, when it comes to doing something contrary to the truth, they would so flee and shudder as they flee and shudder if something is proposed to be done which is contrary to chastity. But that son who, receiving the word, will be far from perdition, and from whose mouth nothing false proceeds, reckons it as closed to him, to be compelled to pass over for the helping of a man through a lie, as through defilement. And the Father hears him praying, that he may be able without a lie to help the one whom the Father himself—whose judgments are inscrutable—wishes to be helped. Such a son, then, so guards against a lie as against a sin. For sometimes too the name of a lie is put for the name of sin; whence is that, Every man is a liar (Ps 116:11 (115:11)). For it was said as though it were said, Every man is a sinner. And that, But if through my falsehood God's truthfulness abounded (Rom 3:7). And by this, when one lies as a man, one sins as a man, and will be held by that sentence in which it was said, Every man is a liar (Ps 116:11 (115:11)); and, If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us (1 John 1:8). But when nothing false proceeds from his mouth, it will be according to that grace of which it was said, He who is born of God does not sin (1 John 3:9). For if this nativity alone were in us, no one would sin; and when it alone shall be, no one will sin. But now we still drag along the fact that we were born corruptible; although, according to that whereby we are reborn, if we walk well, we are renewed inwardly from day to day. But when this corruptible too shall have put on incorruption, life will absorb the whole, and no sting of death will remain (See 1 Cor 15:53-55). And the sting of death is sin (1 Cor 15:56).

21. 41. Either, then, lies must be guarded against by acting rightly, or confessed by repenting; but they must not, while they abound through living unhappily, be increased by teaching too. But let whoever thinks this choose whence to relieve, with lies of whatever sort, a man in danger as to any salvation whatever; provided that even among such people we obtain this: that no cause ought to lead us to perjury and blasphemy. Let us at least judge these crimes either greater than defilements, or certainly not less. For it must be considered that very often men, of whose adultery they are suspicious, challenge their wives to an oath; which surely they would not do, unless they believed that even those women who have not feared to perpetrate adultery can fear perjury. For in fact some shameless women who have not feared to deceive their husbands by unlawful intercourse have feared, toward those same husbands whom they had deceived, to bring God as a deceitful witness. What cause, then, is there that a chaste and religious man should be unwilling to help a man to be baptized by adultery, and willing by perjury—which even adulterers are wont to dread? Moreover, if it is wicked to do this by perjury, how much more by blasphemy? God forbid, then, that a Christian should deny and blaspheme Christ in order to be able to make another a Christian; and that, by perishing, he should seek the finding of one whom, if he teach him such things, he would lose once found. Thus, then, you ought to refute and destroy the book whose title is The Balance: so that you may know that the head must first be cut off by which they lay down as a doctrine that one must lie for the sake of concealing religion; in such a way that you demonstrate those testimonies, by which they strive to make the holy books patrons of their lies, to be partly no lies, and partly—even those which are—not to be imitated: and that, if weakness so far claims for itself that something be venially permitted it which the truth disapproves, yet that you may hold and defend unshaken that in divine religion one must never lie at all; and that hidden men—as neither adulterers by adulteries, nor murderers by murders, nor evildoers by evil deeds—so neither liars by lies, nor blasphemers by blasphemies, are to be sought out: according to the things which we have disputed at such length in this volume, so that we have scarcely come to its end, which we have fixed at this place.