1. 1. The question of lying is a great one, and it often troubles us in our daily affairs: we must take care neither to condemn rashly as a lie what is not a lie, nor to suppose that one may sometimes lie by a kind of honorable, dutiful, and merciful lie. We shall treat this question with such care that we inquire alongside those who inquire; and whether we find anything at all—since we affirm nothing rashly—the treatment itself will show clearly enough to the attentive reader. For the matter lies deeply hidden, and with what are almost cavernous twists and turns it often eludes the intention of the inquirer, so that now what had been found seems to slip from one's hands, now it appears again, and again is swallowed up. In the end, however, a surer tracking will lay hold of our conclusion. And if there is any error in it—since the truth frees us from every error, and falsehood entangles us in every error—I judge that one is never more safely in error than when the error lies in too great a love of the truth and too great a rejection of falsehood. For those who reprove severely call this excessive; yet perhaps the truth itself would still say: it is not yet enough. By all means, whoever you are who read this, reprove nothing until you have read the whole; and so you will reprove less. Do not look for eloquence: for we have labored much over the matters, and over the speed of finishing a work so necessary to daily life, so that our care for words was slight and almost none.

2. 2. Jokes, then, are excepted, which have never been thought to be lies: for from the manner of delivery and from the very disposition of the one joking they carry the plainest sign of a mind that is by no means deceiving, even if it is not stating what is true. Whether perfected minds should make use of this kind of speech is another question, which we have not now undertaken to unravel. Jokes, then, being excepted, we must first see to it that one who is not lying is not thought to be lying.

3. 3. We must therefore see what a lie is. For not everyone who states what is false is lying, if he believes or thinks that what he says is true. Now between believing and thinking there is this difference: that sometimes one who believes is aware that he does not know what he believes, although he in no way doubts the matter that he knows he does not know, if he believes it most firmly; whereas one who thinks supposes that he knows what he does not know. But whoever states what he holds either as believed or as thought in his mind does not lie, even if it is false. For he owes it to the good faith of his statement to bring forth by it what he holds in his mind, and to hold it as he expresses it. Yet for all that he is not without fault, even though he does not lie, if he either believes what ought not to be believed, or supposes that he knows what he does not know, even if it is true; for he holds the unknown as known. Therefore the one who lies is the one who has one thing in his mind and states another in words or by any signs whatever. Hence the heart of the one lying is said to be twofold, that is, of twofold thought: one of the matter that he either knows or thinks to be true and does not bring forth, the other of the matter that he brings forth in its place, knowing or thinking it to be false. From this it follows that a man can state what is false without lying, if he thinks it is as he says, although it is not so; and that he can state what is true while lying, if he thinks it false and states it as true, although in reality it is as he states it. For the one who lies or does not lie is to be judged from the disposition of his own mind, not from the truth or falsehood of the things themselves. And so the one who states what is false as true, while nonetheless supposing it to be true, can be called mistaken and rash; but he is not rightly called lying, because when he states it he does not have a twofold heart, nor does he desire to deceive, but is himself deceived. But the fault of the one lying is, in stating his mind, the desire to deceive—whether he deceives, when the one to whom he states what is false believes him, or whether he does not deceive, either when he is not believed, or when out of a will to deceive he states what is true but does not suppose it to be true. For when he is believed, he does not in fact deceive, although he wished to deceive—except that he deceives insofar as he is supposed to know or think as he states.

3. 4. And yet it may be asked, most subtly, whether, when the will to deceive is absent, a lie is altogether absent.

4. 4. For what if someone, speaking what is false—which he thinks to be false—does so precisely because he thinks he is not believed, so that in that way, by false credit, he may frighten off the one to whom he speaks, whom he perceives unwilling to believe him? Here he lies out of a zeal not to deceive, if it is a lie to state something otherwise than you know or think it to be; but if there is no lie except when something is stated with a will to deceive, then this man does not lie, who therefore speaks what is false—although he knows or thinks that what he speaks is false—so that the one to whom he speaks may not be deceived by not believing him, since he either knows or thinks that the man will not believe him. Hence, if it appears possible that someone speaks what is false precisely so that the one to whom he speaks may not be deceived, there arises, on the contrary, another kind: of one who speaks what is true in order to deceive. For one who speaks what is true because he perceives that he is not believed surely speaks the truth in order to deceive; for he knows or supposes that what is said can be thought false precisely because it is said by him. And so, since he speaks the truth so that it may be thought false, he speaks the truth in order to deceive. We must therefore ask which of the two rather lies: the one who speaks what is false so as not to deceive, or the one who speaks what is true in order to deceive; since the one knows or thinks that he is speaking what is false, and the other knows or thinks that he is speaking what is true. For we have already said that the one who does not know that what he states is false does not lie, if he thinks it true; and that the one who states even what is true while thinking it false rather lies—because they are to be judged from the disposition of their own mind. There is, then, no small question concerning those we have proposed: the one who knows or thinks he is speaking what is false, and therefore speaks it so as not to deceive—as if he knew some road to be beset by robbers, and, fearing lest a man whose safety he is looking after should go by it, and knowing that the man does not believe him, said that the road had no robbers, in order that the man might not go that way, while the man believes there are robbers there precisely because the one whom he has decided not to believe, thinking him a liar, said there were none; and the other who, knowing or thinking that what he says is true, nevertheless says it in order to deceive—as if he were to say to a man who does not believe him that there are robbers on that road where he has in fact learned them to be, so that the one to whom he says it may rather go by that road and so fall among robbers, while thinking that what the other said was false. Which of these, then, lies: the one who chose to speak what is false so as not to deceive, or the one who chose to speak what is true in order to deceive? the one who by speaking what is false brought it about that the truth followed for the one to whom he spoke, or the one who by speaking what is true brought it about that what was false followed for the one to whom he spoke? Or have both perhaps lied—the one because he wished to speak what is false, the other because he wished to deceive? Or rather has neither of them lied—the one because he had the will not to deceive, and the other because he had the will to speak what is true? For the question now is not which of them sinned, but which of them lied. For the one who by speaking the truth brought it about that the man fell among robbers seems at once to have sinned; but the one who by speaking what is false brought it about that the man avoided destruction seems not to have sinned, or even to have done well. But these examples can be reversed, so that the one too wishes something more grievous to befall the man whom he does not want deceived—for many have brought destruction upon themselves by coming to know certain true things, if those things were such as ought to have been hidden from them; and the other wishes the man whom he wants deceived to gain some advantage—for some who would have brought death upon themselves, had they learned some evil that had truly befallen their loved ones, were spared by thinking it false; and so to be deceived profited them, just as to know what was true harmed others. The question, then, is not with what intention—of helping or of harming—either the one spoke what is false so as not to deceive, or the other spoke what is true in order to deceive; but, setting aside the advantages or disadvantages of those to whom they spoke, so far as truth and falsehood themselves are concerned, we ask which of them, or whether both, or neither, has lied. For if a lie is a statement made with the will to state what is false, then the one rather lied who wished to speak what is false and spoke what he wished, although he spoke it so as not to deceive; but if a lie is any statement made with the will to deceive, then not the one but the other lied, who wished to deceive even by speaking the truth. But if a lie is a statement made with the will of some falsehood, then both lied; for the one wished his statement to be false, and the other wished what was false to be believed about his true statement. Further, if a lie is the statement of one wishing to state what is false in order to deceive, then neither lied; for the one had the will, by speaking what is false, to persuade what was true, and the other, in order to persuade what was false, to speak what was true. All rashness, then, and all lying will be absent when we both state, when there is need, what we have come to know to be true and to be believed, and wish to persuade what we state. But if, supposing what is false to be true, or holding what is unknown to us as known, or believing what ought not to be believed, or stating it when there is no need, we nevertheless try to persuade nothing other than what we state, then the error of rashness is indeed not absent, but all lying is absent. For none of those definitions need be feared, when the mind is well aware in itself that it is stating what it knows, or thinks, or believes to be true, and that it wishes to persuade nothing except what it states.

4. 5. But whether a lie is ever useful is a far greater and more necessary question. Whether, then, a man lies who has no will to deceive, or even acts so that the one to whom he states something may not be deceived—although he wished the statement itself to be false, since he wished it precisely in order to persuade what was true; and whether a man lies who, even willing it, states what is true for the sake of deceiving—can be doubted. But no one doubts that the man lies who, willing it, states what is false for the sake of deceiving. Therefore it is plain that a false statement, brought forth with a will to deceive, is a lie. But whether this alone is a lie is another question.

5. 5. Meanwhile let us inquire about the kind on which all agree: whether it is ever useful to state something false with a will to deceive. For those who hold this view bring forward testimonies for their opinion, recalling that Sarah, when she had laughed, denied to the angels that she had laughed; that Jacob, questioned by his father, answered that he was Esau, his elder son; and that the Egyptian midwives, lest the Hebrew children being born should be killed, lied—and this with God approving and rewarding them; and choosing many examples of this kind, they recall the lies of those men whom you would not dare to blame, and so they would have you confess that a lie can sometimes be not only undeserving of reproof but even deserving of praise. They add, too—so as to press not only those devoted to the divine books but all people and the common sense of mankind—saying: If someone takes refuge with you who could be delivered from death by your lie, will you not lie? If a sick man asks something that it is not expedient for him to know, who, even if you do not answer, could be more grievously afflicted, will you dare either to speak the truth to the man's destruction, or to be silent rather than to aid his health by an honorable and merciful lie? By these and such arguments they think they press the point most abundantly: that, if the cause of looking out for others demands it, we should sometimes lie.

5. 6. On the contrary, those who hold that one must never lie act far more strongly, using first the divine authority, since in the Decalogue itself it is written: You shall not bear false witness (Exod 20:16); and by this category every lie is embraced, for whoever states anything bears witness to his own mind. But lest anyone contend that not every lie ought to be called false witness, what will he say to what is written: The mouth that lies kills the soul (Wis 1:11)? And lest anyone suppose that this can be understood of certain liars only, let him read in another place: You will destroy all who speak a lie (Ps 5:6 (5:7)). Hence the Lord himself with his own mouth says: Let it be in your mouth: Yes, yes; No, no; whatever is more than this is from evil (Matt 5:37). Hence the Apostle too, when he was commanding that the old man be put off—by which name all sins are understood—consequently says, placing it among the first: Therefore, putting away lying, speak the truth (Eph 4:25).

5. 7. Nor do they say that they are frightened by those examples of lies brought forward from the old books; for there whatever was done can be taken figuratively, although it really happened; and whatever is done or said figuratively is not a lie. For every statement is to be referred to that which it states. But everything done or said figuratively states that which it signifies to those to whom it was brought forth to be understood. Hence it is to be believed that those men who are recorded to have been worthy of authority in the prophetic times did and said prophetically all that is written of them; nor did the things that befell them befall them any less prophetically—whatever befell them in such a way that they were judged, by the same prophetic Spirit, fit to be committed to memory and to writing. But concerning the midwives, since they cannot say that these reported one thing for another to Pharaoh by the prophetic Spirit for the sake of signifying some future truth—even if what was done through them signified something unknown to them—they say that they were approved and rewarded by God according to their degree. For one who is accustomed to lie for the sake of harming has made much progress if he now lies for the sake of helping. But one thing is proposed as praiseworthy in itself, another is preferred in comparison with what is worse. For we rejoice in one way when a man is healthy, in another when a sick man is doing better. For in the Scriptures themselves even Sodom is said to be justified in comparison with the crimes of the people of Israel. And by this rule they direct all the lies that are brought forward from the old books and are not found to be reproved, or cannot be reproved, so that either they are approved by reason of the disposition and hope of those making progress, or, for the sake of some signification, they are not lies at all.

5. 8. And therefore, regarding the books of the New Testament, apart from the figurative significations of the Lord, if you consider the life and character of the saints and their deeds and words, nothing of the kind can be brought forward that would summon one to imitate lying. For the dissimulation of Peter and Barnabas is not only recorded but also reproved and corrected. For it was not, as some suppose, out of the same dissimulation that the apostle Paul either circumcised Timothy or himself celebrated certain rites according to the Jewish manner; rather, it was out of that liberty of his own judgment, by which he preached that circumcision neither profited the Gentiles nor harmed the Jews. Hence he judged that the former were not to be bound to the custom of the Jews, nor the latter frightened away from their ancestral one. Hence those words of his: Was anyone called already circumcised? Let him not seek to remove the marks of circumcision. Was anyone called uncircumcised? Let him not be circumcised. Circumcision is nothing, and uncircumcision is nothing; but the keeping of the commandments of God is everything. Let each one remain in the calling in which he was called (1 Cor 7:18-20). For how can the marks of circumcision be restored once it has been cut away? But by saying let him not seek to remove the marks he meant: let him not live as if he had restored his foreskin—that is, as if he had drawn the covering of flesh back over the part he had bared, and as if he had ceased to be a Jew; just as he says elsewhere: Your circumcision has become uncircumcision (Rom 2:25). And the Apostle said this not as compelling either those men to remain uncircumcised or the Jews to remain in the custom of their fathers, but so that neither group should be compelled into the other; and so that each should have the power, not the necessity, of remaining in his own custom. For if a Jew wished, where he disturbed no one, to withdraw from the Jewish observances, he would not be forbidden by the Apostle; since he gave counsel to remain in them only for this reason, that the Jews, disturbed by superfluous things, might not fail to come to what was necessary for salvation. Nor would he be forbidden by him if any of the Gentiles wished to be circumcised in order to show this very thing: that he did not detest it as harmful, but held it indifferently as a sign whose usefulness had now passed with the times; for if there was now no salvation from it, neither was destruction to be feared from it. And therefore Timothy too, although he had been called while uncircumcised, yet because he was sprung from a Jewish mother, and ought to show his kinsfolk, in order to win them, that he had not learned in Christian discipline to abominate those rites which belonged to the old Law, was circumcised by the Apostle: so that in this way they might demonstrate to the Jews that the Gentiles did not refuse to receive those rites because they are evil and were observed by the fathers to their ruin, but because they were no longer necessary for salvation after the coming of so great a sacrament, which through such long ages that whole old Scripture brought to birth in prophetic figures. For he would have circumcised Titus too, when the Jews pressed for this, had not false brethren, brought in secretly, wished it done precisely so that they might have something to spread about Paul himself—as if he had yielded to the truth of those who preached that the hope of evangelical salvation lay in the circumcision of the flesh and in observances of that kind, and contended that without these Christ profited no one; whereas, on the contrary, Christ profited nothing those who were circumcised with the intention of supposing salvation to lie there. Hence comes that saying: Behold, I Paul say to you that if you are circumcised, Christ will profit you nothing (Gal 5:2). Out of this liberty, then, Paul observed the ancestral observances, guarding against and preaching this one thing alone: that Christian salvation should not be thought to be nothing without these. But Peter, by his dissimulation, as if salvation lay in Judaism, was compelling the Gentiles to live as Jews; which the words of Paul show, when he says: How do you compel the Gentiles to live as Jews? (Gal 2:14) For they would not have been compelled, had they not seen him observe those rites as though apart from them there could be no salvation. Peter's dissimulation, then, is not to be compared with Paul's liberty. And therefore we ought to love Peter, gladly corrected, but not to build a lie upon Paul's authority as well: for he both recalled Peter before all into the right way, lest the Gentiles be compelled through him to live as Jews; and he himself bore witness to his own preaching, since, although he was thought an enemy of the ancestral traditions because he was unwilling to impose them on the Gentiles, yet by not disdaining to celebrate them himself in the ancestral manner, he showed clearly enough that this remained in them at the coming of Christ: that they were neither ruinous to the Jews, nor necessary to the Gentiles, nor any longer salutary to any human being.

5. 9. But if no authority for lying can be brought forward either from the ancient books—whether because what is received as done or said figuratively is not a lie, or because what is praised in the wicked, when they have begun to make progress, in comparison with what is worse, is not proposed to the good for imitation—nor from the books of the New Testament, because correction rather than dissimulation is to be imitated, just as Peter's tears rather than his denial are to be imitated.

6. 9. Now they assert, far more confidently, that those examples drawn from common life are not to be believed either. For they first teach that a lie is iniquity, by many proofs from the holy Writings, and especially by what is written: You hate, Lord, all who work iniquity; you will destroy all who speak a lie (Ps 5:5-6 (5:6-7)). For either, as Scripture is wont to do, it explained the earlier line by the following one—so that, since iniquity is wont to extend more widely, we may understand that by naming a lie it wished to signify, as it were, a species of iniquity; or, if they think there is some difference, a lie is so much the worse, inasmuch as you will destroy is set down as more grievous than you hate. For perhaps God hates someone somewhat more mildly, so as not to destroy him; but the one whom he destroys he hates so much the more vehemently, the more severely he punishes him. Now he hates all who work iniquity; but all who speak a lie he even destroys. This being established, which of those who assert these things will be moved by those examples, when it is said: What if a man takes refuge with you who could be delivered from death by your lie? For that death which men foolishly fear—men who do not fear to sin—kills not the soul but the body, as the Lord teaches in the Gospel; whence he commands that it not be feared. But the mouth that lies kills not the body but the soul. For in these words it is most plainly written: But the mouth that lies kills the soul (Wis 1:11). How, then, is it not most perverse to say that one man ought to die spiritually so that another may live bodily? For love of neighbor itself has taken its limit from each one's love of self. You shall love, he says, your neighbor as yourself (Lev 19:18; Matt 22:39). How, then, does anyone love as himself the man for whom, in order to grant him temporal life, he loses his own eternal life? For if for the sake of that man's temporal life he were to lose his own temporal life, that would no longer be to love as himself, but more than himself—which exceeds the rule of sound doctrine. Much less, then, will he lose his own eternal life by lying for another's temporal life. A Christian will plainly not hesitate to lose his own temporal life for the eternal life of his neighbor; for this example went before us, that the Lord himself died for us. For to this end he also says: This is my commandment, that you love one another as I also have loved you. No one has greater love than this, that he lay down his life for his friends (John 15:12-13). For no one is so foolish as to say anything other than that the Lord looked out for the everlasting salvation of men, whether by doing what he commanded or by commanding what he did. Since, then, by lying eternal life is lost, one must never lie for anyone's temporal life. But as for these people, who are vexed and indignant if someone is unwilling to destroy his own soul by a lie so that another may grow old in the flesh—what if someone could be delivered from death by our theft, what if by adultery? Is one therefore to steal, or to commit adultery? For they do not realize that they force themselves into this: that if a man should carry a noose and demand defilement, declaring that he will bind his neck unless what he demands is granted him, one should consent for the sake of delivering his soul, as they themselves say. But if this is absurd and wicked, why should anyone corrupt his own soul by a lie so that another may live in the body, when, if he were to give his own body to be corrupted for that reason, he would be condemned by the judgment of all for wicked baseness? Accordingly, in this question nothing is to be considered except whether a lie is iniquity. And since this is asserted by the proofs mentioned above, it must be seen that to ask whether someone ought to lie for another's salvation is just as if it were asked whether someone ought to be unjust for another's salvation. But if the salvation of the soul, which cannot be preserved except by justice, rejects this, and bids us prefer ourselves not only to another's but even to our own temporal salvation, what remains, they say, by which we ought to doubt that one must never lie at all? For nothing among temporal goods can be said to be greater or dearer than bodily salvation and life. Hence, if not even this is to be preferred to truth, what can be brought forward on account of which they should contend that one must lie—those who think it sometimes proper to lie?

7. 10. As for bodily chastity—since it seems to present a person of much honor, and to demand a lie on its own behalf, so that if a ravisher rushes in who could be avoided by a lie, one must lie without hesitation—it can easily be answered that there is no bodily chastity unless it depends on the integrity of the mind; and when this is broken, chastity must fall, even if the body seems untouched; and therefore it is not to be counted among temporal things, as though it could be taken from the unwilling. In no way, then, does the mind corrupt itself by a lie for the sake of its body, which it knows remains uncorrupted, if incorruption does not depart from the mind itself. For what the body suffers by violence, without lust going before, is to be called a vexation rather than a corruption. Or if every vexation is a corruption, not every corruption is shameful, but only that which lust has procured, or to which lust has consented. And the more excellent the mind is than the body, the more wickedly is it corrupted. There, then, can chastity be preserved where there can be no corruption except a voluntary one. For surely, if a ravisher invades a body when he can be avoided neither by opposing force nor by any plan or lie, we must confess that chastity cannot be violated by another's lust. Therefore, since no one doubts that the mind is better than the body, the integrity of the mind, which can be preserved forever, is to be preferred to the integrity of the body. But who would say that the mind of one who lies is whole? Indeed, lust itself is rightly defined as the appetite of the mind by which any temporal things whatever are preferred to eternal goods. And so no one can prove that one must sometimes lie, unless he can show that some eternal good can be obtained by a lie. But since each one departs from eternity in proportion as he departs from truth, it is most absurd to say that by departing from it anyone can arrive at some good. Or if there is some eternal good that truth does not embrace, it will not be true; and therefore it will not be good either, because it will be false. But as the mind is to be preferred to the body, so too is truth to be preferred to the mind itself, so that the mind seeks it not only more than the body but even more than itself. For in this way it will be the more whole and the more chaste, when it takes its full delight in the immutability of truth rather than in its own mutability. But if Lot, when he was so just that he even merited to receive angels as guests, offered his daughters to be ravished by the Sodomites, so that the bodies of women rather than of men might be corrupted by them, how much more diligently and steadfastly is the chastity of the mind to be preserved in truth, since the mind itself is more truly to be preferred to its own body than a man's body to a woman's body?

8. 11. But if anyone thinks that one ought therefore to lie for another, so that the other may live for a time, or may not be hindered in those things which he greatly loves, whereby he might come to eternal truth by learning—he does not understand, first, that there is no disgraceful deed that one would not be compelled to undertake on the same condition, as has already been shown above; and next, that the very authority of doctrine is cut off and utterly perishes, if by our lie we persuade those whom we are trying to lead to it that one may sometimes lie. For since saving doctrine consists partly of things to be believed, partly of things to be understood, and one cannot arrive at the things to be understood unless the things to be believed are first believed—how is one to believe the man who thinks that one may sometimes lie, lest perchance he be lying even then, when he commands us to believe? For how can it be known whether even then he has some cause—as he himself thinks—for a dutiful lie, supposing that by a false account a man can be frightened away from lust and held back, and in this way thinking that by lying he is looking out even for spiritual things? Once this kind of thing is admitted and approved, the whole discipline of faith is utterly overthrown; and when this is overthrown, neither is understanding reached, for the receiving of which faith nurses little ones; and so all the doctrine of truth is taken away, yielding to the most licentious falsehood, if a place is anywhere opened for a lie to enter, as though it were dutiful. For whoever lies either prefers temporal advantages, his own or another's, to truth—and what can be more perverse than this?—or, when he wishes to make himself suitable for attaining truth with a lie's help, he closes off the approach to truth; for wishing to be apt when he lies, he becomes unreliable when he speaks the truth. Wherefore either good men are not to be believed; or those are to be believed whom we believe must sometimes lie; or good men are not to be believed to lie sometimes. Of these three, the first is ruinous, the second foolish; it remains, therefore, that good men never lie.

9. 12. When this question has thus been considered and treated from both sides, the verdict is nonetheless not easily to be given; but we must still listen carefully to those who say that there is no deed so evil that it ought not to be done in order to avoid a worse one, and that to human deeds belong not only whatever men do, but also whatever they suffer with consent. Hence, if there arose a cause for a Christian to choose to offer incense to idols rather than consent to the defilement which the persecutor threatened him with unless he did so, they seem rightly to ask why he should not also lie, in order to avoid so great a baseness. For that very consent, by which he would rather suffer defilement than offer incense to idols, they say is not a passion but a deed; and to avoid doing it he chose to offer incense. How much more readily, then, would he have chosen a lie, if by a lie he could ward off so monstrous a disgrace from his holy body?

9. 13. In this proposal there are these things that may rightly be asked: whether such consent is to be held as a deed; or whether that is to be called consent which does not have approval; or whether there is approval, when it is said: it is expedient to suffer this rather than to do that; and whether the man did rightly to offer incense rather than to suffer defilement; and whether one ought rather to have lied, if that condition were given, than to offer incense. But if such consent is to be held as a deed, then those too are murderers who preferred to be killed rather than bear false witness—and, what is a graver murder, of themselves. For why, on this reckoning, should it not be said that they killed themselves, since they chose that this be done to them, so as not to do what they were being forced to do? Or if it is thought graver to kill another than oneself, what if this condition were set before a martyr: that, unless he were willing to bear false witness about Christ and to sacrifice to demons, before his very eyes not just any man, but his own father, should be killed—the father even begging his son not to allow this to be done by his perseverance? Is it not plain that, with him remaining in his most faithful resolve of witness, only those would be the murderers who killed his father, and not he, too, a parricide? Therefore, just as this man would not be a sharer in so great a crime, since he chose that his father—even a sacrilegious father, whose soul would be snatched off to punishment—be killed by others rather than that he himself violate his own faith by false witness, so such a consent would not make him a sharer in so great a disgrace, if he himself were unwilling to do evil, whatever others did precisely because he would not do it. For what do such persecutors say but: Do evil, lest we do it? And if they truly would not have done it had we done ours, neither in that case ought we to have supported them by our crime. But as it is, when they are already doing it, since they do not say these things, why should they be base and guilty together with us, rather than alone? For that is not to be called consent, since we do not approve of what they do, always wishing—and, so far as is in us, forbidding—that they not do it, and not only not joining with them in their deed, but even condemning it with all the detestation we can.

9. 14. How, you say, does he not act together with them, when they would not do this if he did that? In this way we break down a door together with housebreakers, because if we did not shut it, they would not break it; and we kill men together with robbers, if we happen to know they are going to do this, because if we, anticipating them, killed them, they would not kill others. Or if someone confesses to us that he is going to commit parricide, we commit it together with him, if, when we are able, we do not kill him before he does it—when we can neither restrain nor hinder him otherwise. For in just so many words it can be said: You did it together with him, because he would not have done it if you had done that. I would wish neither evil to be done; but I could guard only against that being done which was in my power; the other, which belonged to another and which I could not extinguish by my command, I ought not to have hindered by my own evil deed. He, then, does not approve the one sinning who does not sin for another's sake; and neither pleases the one who would wish neither admitted: rather, what pertains to himself he does not perpetrate, even when he has the power; what pertains to another he condemns by his will alone. And therefore, to those setting before him that condition and saying, If you do not offer incense, you will suffer this, if he had answered: I choose neither, I detest both, I consent to none of these things to you—amid these and such words, which, since they would certainly be true, no consent and no approval of his could be held; whatever he then suffered from them would be reckoned to him as the receiving of injuries, to them as the committing of sins. Ought he then, says someone, to have suffered defilement rather than offer incense? If you ask what he ought to have done, he ought to have done neither. For if I say that he ought to have done either of these, I shall approve one of them, though I disapprove of both. But if it is asked which of these he ought rather to have avoided, who could not avoid both but could avoid one or the other, I shall answer: his own sin rather than another's; and the lighter, which is his own, rather than the graver, which is another's. For—to grant for the moment, saving a more diligent inquiry, that defilement is graver than offering incense—that defilement was nonetheless another's deed, though he himself suffered it, whereas the offering of incense was his own; and whose the deed, his too the sin. For although murder is graver than theft, it is yet worse to commit theft than to suffer murder. And so, if it were set before anyone that, if he were unwilling to commit theft, he would be killed—that is, murder would be committed against him—since he could not avoid both, he would rather avoid that which would be his own sin than that which would be another's. Nor on that account would the latter become his deed too, because it would be committed against him, and because he could avoid it if he were willing to admit his own.

9. 15. The whole knot of this question, then, comes down to this: that we ask whether no sin of another's, although committed against you, is imputed to you, if you could avoid it by a lighter sin of your own and do not; or whether all bodily uncleanness is an exception. For no one says that anyone is made unclean if he is killed, or thrown into prison, or kept in chains, or scourged, and afflicted with the other torments and tortures, or proscribed and struck with the most grievous losses even to utter destitution, or stripped of honors and made to receive enormous insults through whatever abuse: whatever of these anyone has unjustly suffered, no one is so mad as to say that he is thereby made unclean. But if he is drenched with filth, or if something of the kind is poured or forced into him through the mouth, or he suffers what women suffer, the sense of almost all recoils, and they call him defiled and unclean. Thus, then, it must be concluded that whatever sins of another's—except those that make unclean the one against whom they are committed—no one should avoid by his own sins, neither for himself nor for anyone else, but should rather endure them and bravely suffer them; and if he ought to avoid them by none of his own sins, then not by a lie either. But those which are committed against a man in such a way as to make him unclean, we ought to avoid even by our own sins; and on this account they are not even to be called sins, which are done precisely in order that that uncleanness may be avoided. For whatever is done in such a way that, unless it were done, it would justly be reproved, is not a sin. From which it follows that not even that is to be called uncleanness, when there is no power of avoiding it; for even then the one who suffers it has something he may rightly do—namely, to bear patiently whatever he cannot avoid. But no one acting rightly can be made unclean by any bodily contact whatever. For before God everyone unjust is unclean. Therefore everyone just is clean—if not before men, yet before God, who judges without error. Accordingly, neither, when he suffers these things, the power of avoiding them being granted, is he made unclean by the contact itself, but by the sin by which he was unwilling to avoid them when he could. For whatever was done in order to avoid those things would be no sin. Therefore, whoever lies in order to avoid these things does not sin.

9. 16. Or are some lies, too, to be excepted, so that it is better to suffer this than to commit those? But if it is so, then not whatever is done in order to avoid that uncleanness is no sin; since there are certain lies that it would be graver to commit than to suffer that. For if someone is sought for defilement who could be hidden by a lie, who dares to say that not even then is one to lie? But if by such a lie one could hide him in such a way as to wound another's good name, by a false charge of the very uncleanness for the suffering of which the man is sought—as if it were said to the one seeking, when some chaste man, a stranger to disgraces of this kind, was named: Go to that man, and he himself will procure for you one whom you may more gladly use, for he knows such people and loves them—and so this man could be turned away from the one he was seeking: I do not know whether another's good name is to be violated by a lie, so that another's body may not be violated by another's lust. And in no way at all is one ever to lie for someone by a lie that wounds another, even if he is wounded more lightly than the other would be wounded unless you so lied. For neither is another's bread to be taken from him against his will, however stronger he may be, in order that a weaker man may be fed; nor is an innocent man to be beaten with rods against his will, lest another be killed. Clearly, if they are willing, let it be done; for they are not wounded, when they so will it.

10. 16. But whether even a willing person's good name is to be wounded by a false charge of defilement, so that defilement may be turned away from another's body, is a great question. And I do not know whether it is easily found how it can be just that a willing person's good name be stained by a false charge of defilement rather than an unwilling person's body by the defilement itself.

10. 17. But nevertheless, if such a choice were set before the man who preferred to offer incense to idols rather than suffer what women suffer—namely, that if he wished to avoid that, he should violate the good name of Christ by some lie—he would be utterly insane if he did it. I say even more: that he would be insane if, for the sake of avoiding another's lust, lest that be done in him which he would suffer by no lust of his own, he were to falsify the Gospel of Christ with false praises of Christ—avoiding another's corruption in his own body more than his own corruption in the doctrine of the sanctification of souls and bodies. Wherefore, from the doctrine of religion, and altogether from those statements which are stated for the sake of the doctrine of religion, when it is taught and learned, all lies are utterly to be removed. Nor let it be believed that any cause at all can be found why in such matters one should lie; since not even in order that someone may more easily be brought to that doctrine itself is one to lie in it. For once the authority of truth is broken, or even lightly diminished, all things will remain doubtful; and unless these are believed to be true, they cannot be held as certain. It is permitted, then, to one who discourses or disputes or preaches about eternal things, or to one who narrates or relates temporal things pertaining to the building up of religion and piety, to conceal for a time whatever seems fit to be concealed; but to lie is never permitted; therefore neither is it permitted to conceal by lying.

11. 18. This first and most firmly established, the question concerning the other lies is pursued more securely. But consequently it must also be seen that all lies too which unjustly wound anyone are to be removed; because no injury, however lighter, is to be inflicted on one in order that a graver one be warded off from another. Nor are those lies to be admitted which, although they do not harm another, yet profit no one, and harm those very ones who lie gratuitously. For these are properly to be called liars. For there is a difference between one who lies and a liar. For one who lies is also one who lies unwillingly; but a liar loves to lie, and dwells in mind in the delight of lying. To be placed next to these are also those who wish by a lie to please men—not so as to do anyone an injury or to inflict an insult, for we have already removed that kind above—but so as to be pleasant in their speech. These differ from that kind in which we placed liars in this: that lying delights those, who rejoice in the deception itself; whereas it pleases these to be agreeable by smooth speech, who would nevertheless prefer to please by what is true; but when they do not easily find true things that are pleasing to their hearers, they choose to lie rather than to be silent. Yet it is hard for these ever to undertake a wholly false narration; rather, for the most part they weave false things into true, where pleasantness deserts them. But these two kinds of lies do not harm those who believe them, because they are deceived neither concerning the doctrine of religion and truth, nor concerning any advantage or usefulness of their own. For it suffices them to judge that what is said could have happened, and to put faith in a man whom they ought not rashly to think to be lying. For what does it harm me if I believe someone's father or grandfather to have been a good man, even if he was not; or to have reached as far as Persia in his military service, even if he never left Rome? But these things greatly harm the very ones who lie: those, indeed, because they so desert truth that they rejoice in deception; these, because they prefer to please rather than the truth.

12. 19. These kinds being condemned without any doubt, there follows—as for those rising step by step toward better things—the kind of lie that is commonly wont to be attributed to the well-disposed and the good, when the one who lies not only does not harm another but even profits someone. About this kind is the whole dispute: whether the man harms himself who profits another in such a way that he acts against truth. Or if that alone is to be called truth which illumines minds themselves with an inmost and immutable light, he certainly acts against some truth; for even if the senses of the body are deceived, he nevertheless acts against the truth who says that something is so, or not so, which neither his mind nor his sense nor his own opinion or belief reports to him. Whether, then, the man does not harm himself who in this way profits another; or whether, by that compensation by which he profits another, he does not harm himself, is a great question. If it is so, then consequently he ought also to profit himself by a lie that harms no one. But these things are connected, and once these are granted, things are necessarily drawn in that greatly trouble us. For if it be asked what it harms a man overflowing with superfluous wealth, if out of countless thousands of measures of grain he loses one measure, which measure could nonetheless profit one who steals it for his necessary food, the consequence will be that theft too could be done without reproof, and false witness spoken without sin. And what can be said that is more perverse than this? Or rather, if another had stolen that measure, and you saw it and were questioned, would you lie honorably for the poor man—and if you did this for your own poverty, would you be blamed? As though you ought to love another more than yourself. Both, then, are base and to be shunned.

12. 20. But perhaps someone may think an exception is to be added, that there are certain honorable lies which not only harm no one but even profit some—excepting those by which crimes are concealed and defended: so that the base lie would be the one which, although it harms no one and profits a poor man, nonetheless conceals a theft; whereas if it so harmed no one and profited someone that it also concealed and defended no sin, it would not be base. As if, for instance, someone were hiding his own money while you watched, lest he lose it by theft or violence, and being questioned about it you lied; you would harm no one, and you would profit the one for whom that concealment was needed, and you would have covered no sin by lying. For no one sins by hiding his own property, which he fears to lose. But if for this reason we do not sin by lying—because, concealing no one's sin, we both harm no one and profit someone—what are we to do about the sin of lying itself? For where it is set down: You shall not steal, there it is set down: You shall not bear false witness (Exod 20:15-16). Since, then, each is forbidden separately, why is false witness blameworthy only when it covers theft, or some other sin; whereas if it is done by itself with no defense of a sin, it is not blameworthy, when theft itself is blameworthy by itself, and the other sins? Or is it not permitted to conceal a sin by lying, but permitted to commit one?

12. 21. But if this is absurd, what shall we say? Is it not false witness, except when someone lies in such a way as either to fabricate a charge against someone, or to conceal someone's charge, or in some way to press anyone in a trial? For a witness seems necessary to a judge for the knowledge of a case. But if Scripture named the witness only in this sense, the Apostle would not say: We are even found to be false witnesses of God, if we have borne witness against God that he raised up Christ, whom he did not raise up (1 Cor 15:15). For in this way he shows that false witness is a lie, even if it is spoken in someone's false praise.

13. 21. Or does the one who lies perhaps bear false witness only when he either fabricates or covers up someone's sin, or in some way harms someone? For if a lie spoken against anyone's temporal life is detestable, how much more one spoken against eternal life?—as is every lie, if it is told in the doctrine of religion. And therefore the Apostle calls it false witness, if anyone lies about Christ, even what seems to pertain to his praise. But if a lie neither fabricates nor covers up anyone's sin, nor is asked for by a judge, and harms no one and profits someone, then is it neither false witness nor a blameworthy lie?

13. 22. What then, if a murderer takes refuge with a Christian, or the Christian sees where he takes refuge, and he is questioned about this matter by the one who is seeking the man who has killed a man, in order to punish him? Must one lie? For how does one not cover up a sin by lying, since the man for whom he lies has committed a wicked sin? Or is it because he is not questioned about that man's sin, but about the place where he is hiding? Is it, then, evil to lie in order to cover up someone's sin, but not evil to lie in order to cover up a sinner? Just so, says someone: for a man does not sin then, when he avoids punishment, but when he does something worthy of punishment. Now it belongs to Christian discipline neither to despair of anyone's correction, nor to close off to anyone the approach to repentance. What, if, led before the judge, you are questioned about the very place where the man is hiding? Will you say either: He is not there, where you know he is; or: I do not know and I have not seen, what you know and have seen? Will you, then, bear false witness, and kill your own soul, lest a murderer be killed? Or will you lie up to the judge's presence, but, when the judge questions you, now speak the truth, so as not to be a false witness? In that case you yourself will kill a man by betrayal—for divine Scripture detests a betrayer too. Or is one perhaps not a betrayer who points out the truth to a questioning judge, but would be a betrayer if he were of his own accord to denounce someone to destruction? What, if you are questioned by a judge about where a just and innocent man is hiding, whom you know—a man who has nonetheless been ordered to be hauled off to death by a greater power, so that the one questioning is an executor of the law, not its author—will the false witness you bear for the innocent man therefore not be false witness, because the one questioning is not the judge but the executor? What, if the author of the law himself questions you, or any unjust judge seeking an innocent man to punish? What will you do? Will you be a false witness or a betrayer? Or will the one be a betrayer who of his own accord denounced a hidden murderer to a just judge, and the other not be a betrayer who, to an unjust judge questioning where the innocent man whom he is seeking to kill is hiding, pointed out the man who had committed himself to his good faith? Or will you remain doubtful and uncertain between the crime of false witness and that of betrayal? Or, by keeping silent, or by declaring that you will not tell, will you with certainty avoid both? Why, then, should you not do this before you come to the judge, so that you may guard against a lie as well? For with a lie avoided, you will escape all false witness, whether every lie is false witness or not; but if you avoid only the false witness that you understand it to be, you will not escape every lie. How much more bravely, then, how much more excellently, will you say: I will neither betray nor lie?

13. 23. A certain bishop of the Church of Thagaste once did this, Firmus by name, firmer still in will. For when a man was sought from him by the Emperor's order, through the officers sent by him—a man who had taken refuge with him and whom he was hiding with all the care he could—he answered those who sought him that he could neither lie nor betray the man; and having suffered very many bodily torments (for the Emperors were not yet Christian), he remained in his resolve. Then, led before the Emperor, he appeared so admirable that without any difficulty he obtained pardon for the very man he was protecting. What can be done more bravely and steadfastly than this? But some more timid person says: I can be ready to bear any torments whatever, or even to undergo death, so as not to sin; but since it is no sin to lie in such a way that you neither harm anyone nor bear false witness, and you profit someone, it is foolish and a grave sin to endure voluntary torments to no purpose, and perhaps to throw away a useful well-being and life upon ragers in vain. Of this man I ask why he fears what is written: You shall not bear false witness (Exod 20:16), and does not fear what is said of God: You will destroy all who speak a lie (Ps 5:6 (5:7))? It is not written, he says, "every lie," but I understand it as if it were written: You will destroy all who bear false witness. But neither there is it said "all false witness." But there, he says, it is placed where the other things are that are evil in every way. Is not that one too placed there: You shall not kill (Exod 20:13)? But if this is evil in every way, how will the just be excused from this charge, who after the law was given killed many? But it is answered that the one who is the minister of some just precept does not himself kill. The fear of these people, then, I receive in such a way that I nevertheless judge that praiseworthy man, who wished neither to lie nor to betray a man, both to have understood better what is written and to have bravely fulfilled what he understood.

13. 24. But one sometimes comes to a juncture of this kind, where we are not questioned about where the one being sought is, nor compelled to betray him, if he is so hidden that he cannot easily be found unless betrayed; but it is asked of us whether he is in that place or not. Here, if we know that he is, we betray him by keeping silent, or even by saying that we will by no means tell whether he is there or not; for from this the one seeking gathers that he is there, since, if he were not there, nothing else would be answered by the man who was unwilling to lie or to betray a man than that he was not there. Thus through either our silence or such words a man is betrayed, so that the one seeking may enter, if he has the power, and find him—the man who could nonetheless have been turned away from finding him by our lie. Wherefore, if you do not know where he is, there is no cause for concealing the truth, but you must confess that you do not know. But if you do know where he is, whether he is in the place where he is sought, or elsewhere, you must not say, when it is asked whether he is there or not: I will not say what you ask; but you must say: I know where he is, but I will never show. For if you do not answer about one place and declare that you will not betray him, it is as if you pointed out that very place with your finger; for a sure suspicion is aroused. But if you first confess that you know where he is, but will not say, the inquirer can perhaps be turned away from that place, and it will then press upon you to betray by you where he is. For which good faith and humanity, whatever you bravely bear is judged not only not blameworthy but even praiseworthy—except, that is, those things which, if a man suffers them, he is said to suffer not bravely but shamelessly and basely. For this is the last kind of lie, which must be treated more diligently.

14. 25. For the first lie to be avoided, and to be fled far off, is the capital one, which is told in the doctrine of religion: to which lie no one ought to be brought on any condition. The second is the one that unjustly harms someone, which is such that it both profits no one and harms someone. The third is the one that so profits another as to harm another, although it does not harm to the point of bodily uncleanness. The fourth is the one told from the mere lust of lying and deceiving, which is unmixed lying. The fifth is the one told from the desire of pleasing by smooth speech. When all these have been utterly avoided and rejected, there follows the sixth kind, which both harms no one and profits someone: as if someone, knowing where another's money is which is to be taken unjustly, should lie that he does not know, to whoever questions him. The seventh is the one that both harms no one and profits someone, except that a judge questions: as if, unwilling to betray a man sought for death, one should lie—not only for a just and innocent man, but even for a guilty one; because it belongs to Christian discipline neither to despair of anyone's correction, nor to close off to anyone the approach to repentance. Concerning these two kinds, which are wont to occasion great controversy, we have treated sufficiently, and have shown what was our view: that, by undertaking the inconveniences which are honorably and bravely borne, these kinds too are to be avoided by brave and faithful and truthful men and women. The eighth is the kind of lie that both harms no one and profits to this end: to protect someone from bodily uncleanness—that uncleanness, at least, which we mentioned above. For the Jews also thought it uncleanness to eat with unwashed hands. Or if anyone calls even this uncleanness, it is yet not such that one must lie to avoid it. But if a lie is such as to do an injury to someone, even though it shields a man from this uncleanness which all men shrink from and detest—whether one must lie even by this kind, if such an injury be done by the lie as is not of that kind of uncleanness with which we are now dealing, is another question; for the question is no longer about a lie, but it is asked whether an injury is to be done to someone even apart from a lie, in order that that uncleanness may be driven off from another. Which I would by no means suppose, although the lightest injuries are proposed, such as that one which I mentioned above about a single measure of grain lost; and they greatly trouble us, whether we ought not to do anyone even such an injury, if by it another could be defended or shielded from suffering defilement. But, as I said, that is another question.

15. 25. Now let us carry through what we set out to do: whether one must lie, if even an unavoidable condition is proposed, that we either do this or suffer defilement, or some execrable pollution—even if by lying we do no injury to anyone.

15. 26. On this matter some room for consideration will lie open, if first we diligently examine the divine authorities which forbid a lie; for if they themselves give no room, we seek in vain for a way out: for the precept of God is to be held in every way, and the will of God is to be followed with an even mind in those things which we shall have suffered by holding his precept. But if some exit is relaxed, in such a case a lie is not to be refused. For this reason the divine Scriptures contain not only the precepts of God, but also the life and character of the just, so that if perchance it is hidden how what is commanded is to be taken, it may be understood in the deeds of the just. Excepting, then, those deeds which anyone can refer to an allegorical signification—although no one doubts that they were done—as are nearly all the things in the books of the Old Testament (for who there would dare to affirm that anything does not pertain to figured foretelling? since the Apostle asserts that even the sons of Abraham, who are most easily said to have been brought forth and to have lived in the natural order of propagating a people—for no monsters and portents were born, such as would lead the mind to some signification—nevertheless signify the two Testaments; and says that the marvelous benefit which God bestowed on the people of Israel to rescue them from the slavery by which they were oppressed in Egypt, and the penalty of vengeance, when they had sinned on the way, happened in figure: what deeds will you find by which you may derogate from this rule and presume to affirm that they are not to be reduced to some figure?). These deeds, then, being excepted, those things which were done by the saints in the New Testament, where there is the plainest commendation of characters to be imitated, may serve as examples for understanding the Scriptures which are set out in precepts.

15. 27. As when we read in the Gospel: You have received a blow, offer the other cheek (See Matt 5:39). But we find no example of patience more powerful and excellent than that of the Lord himself; yet when he had been struck with a blow, he did not say: Here is the other cheek; but he said: If I have spoken ill, give testimony of the ill; but if well, why do you strike me? (John 18:23) Here he shows that that offering of the other cheek is to be done in the heart. This the apostle Paul too surely knew; for he likewise, when he had been struck with a blow before the high priest, did not say: Strike the other cheek; but said: God will strike you, you whitewashed wall; and you sit to judge me according to the law, and against the law you command me to be struck? (Acts 23:3) looking most deeply into the fact that the priesthood of the Jews had already become such that it shone outwardly in name but inwardly was foul with muddy desires—which he saw in the spirit was to pass away by the Lord's vengeance, when he said that; but nonetheless he had his heart prepared, not only to receive other blows, but even to suffer any torments whatever for the truth, together with love for those by whom he would suffer them.

15. 28. It is also written: But I say to you, do not swear at all (Matt 5:34). Yet the Apostle himself swore in his Epistles. And in this way he showed how what was said is to be taken: I say to you, do not swear at all—namely, lest by swearing one come to readiness in swearing, from readiness to habit, and so from habit fall into perjury. And therefore he is not found to have sworn except in writing, where a more cautious consideration does not have a precipitate tongue. And this surely is from evil, as it was said: What is more than this is from evil (Matt 5:37)—not, however, from his own evil, but from the weakness of those for whom he was trying in this way too to produce belief. For whether he ever swore in speaking, while not writing, I do not know whether any Scripture has related of him. And yet the Lord says: do not swear at all—for he did not grant that it should be permitted to those who write. But since it is wrong to call Paul guilty of a violated precept, especially in Epistles composed and published for the spiritual life and salvation of peoples, that "at all" which is set down must be understood to have been set down for this: that, so far as is in you, you not affect, not love, not seek an oath, as it were, as a good, with any delight.

15. 29. So with that saying: Do not be anxious about tomorrow (Matt 6:34); and: Therefore do not be anxious about what you will eat, and what you will drink, and what you will put on (Matt 6:31). But when we see that the Lord himself had a money box, into which what was given was put, so that it might be kept for uses necessary as occasion required; and that the Apostles themselves provided much for the need of the brethren, not only against the morrow, but even for the longer time of an impending famine, as we read in the Acts of the Apostles: it shines out clearly enough that those precepts are to be so understood, that we do nothing of our work from love of acquiring temporal things or from fear of want, as though from necessity.

15. 30. Likewise it was said to the Apostles that, carrying nothing with them on the way, they should live from the Gospel. And in a certain place the Lord himself signified why he said this, when he added: For the laborer is worthy of his wages (Luke 10:7); where he shows clearly enough that this was permitted, not commanded; lest perhaps one who did this—taking from those to whom he preached, in the work of preaching the word, something for the uses of this life—should suppose that he was doing something unlawful. Yet that it can more praiseworthily not be done was sufficiently demonstrated in the apostle Paul; who, although he said: But let him who is catechized in the word share in all good things with him who catechizes him (Gal 6:6), and showed in many places that this is wholesomely done by those to whom the word is preached, said nevertheless: But I have not used this power (1 Cor 9:15). The Lord, then, when he said these things, gave a power; he did not constrain by a command. Thus, when we are not able to understand many things in words, we gather from the deeds of the saints how it behooves us to take what would easily be drawn to another sense, were it not recalled by example.

16. 31. So then, as for what is written: But the mouth that lies kills the soul (Wis 1:11), the question is of what mouth he spoke. For very often when Scripture says "mouth," it signifies that very receptacle of the heart, where whatever is also uttered by the voice, when we speak the truth, is approved and decided: so that he lies with his heart to whom a lie is pleasing; but he can fail to lie with his heart who utters by his voice something other than is in his mind, in such a way that, for the sake of avoiding a greater evil, he knows he is admitting an evil, while nevertheless both displease him. And those who assert this say that what is written is also to be understood thus: He who speaks the truth in his heart (Ps 15:2 (14:2)); because the truth must always be spoken in the heart, but not always with the bodily mouth, if some cause of guarding against a greater evil requires that something other than is in the mind be uttered by the voice. And that there is a mouth of the heart can even now be understood from this: that where there is speech, there a mouth is not absurdly understood; nor would it rightly be said: He who speaks in his heart, unless a mouth in the heart were rightly understood as well. And yet even in that very place where it is written: But the mouth that lies kills the soul, if the surrounding context of the reading be considered, perhaps nothing other than the mouth of the heart is meant. For there it is an obscure response where it lies hidden from men, who cannot hear the mouth of the heart unless the mouth of the body sounds in unison. But Scripture says in that place that this mouth reaches the hearing of the Spirit of the Lord, who has filled the world; so that it mentions even lips and voice and tongue in that place; nor yet does the sense allow all to be taken except of the heart, because it says that what is said does not lie hidden from the Lord; whereas what is said by that sound reaching our ears does not lie hidden even from men. For it is written thus: For the spirit of wisdom is benevolent, and will not free the slanderer from his lips; for God is a witness of his reins, and is a true searcher of his heart, and a hearer of his tongue. For the Spirit of the Lord has filled the world, and that which contains all things has knowledge of the voice. Therefore he who speaks unjust things cannot lie hidden, nor will the chastising judgment pass him by. For there will be questioning in the thoughts of the ungodly; and the hearing of his words will come to the Lord, for the chastisement of his iniquities. For the ear of jealousy hears all things, and the tumult of murmurings will not be hidden. Keep yourselves, therefore, from murmuring, which profits nothing, and refrain your tongue from detraction; for an obscure response will not go into the void. But the mouth that lies kills the soul (Wis 1:6-11). He seems, then, to threaten those who think that what they turn over and stir up in the heart is obscure and secret. And he wished to show this to be so clear to the ears of God that he even called it a tumult.

16. 32. We find the mouth of the heart plainly in the Gospel too; so that in one place the Lord is found to have mentioned both the mouth of the body and the mouth of the heart, where he says: Are you also still without understanding? Do you not understand that whatever enters into the mouth goes into the belly and is cast out into the privy; but the things that come forth from the mouth go out from the heart, and these defile a man? For from the heart go forth evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false testimonies, blasphemies: these are the things that defile a man (Matt 15:16-20). Here, if you understand one mouth, which is the body's, how are you going to understand: but the things that come forth from the mouth go out from the heart, since both spittle and vomit come forth from the mouth? Unless perhaps a man is not then defiled when he eats something unclean, but is defiled when he vomits it up. But if this is most absurd, it remains that we understand the mouth of the heart to have been expounded by the Lord, when he says: the things that come forth from the mouth go out from the heart. For since theft too can be, and often is, perpetrated in silence of the bodily voice and mouth, it is most senseless to understand it in such a way that we should suppose someone to be contaminated with the sin of theft when he confesses or discloses it, but think him uncontaminated when he commits it silently. But indeed, if we refer what was said to the mouth of the heart, no sin at all can be committed silently; for it is not committed unless it goes forth from that inner mouth.

16. 33. And just as it is asked of what mouth he said: But the mouth that lies kills the soul, so it can be asked of what lie. For he seems to speak properly of that lie by which someone is disparaged. For he says: Refrain yourselves, therefore, from murmuring, which profits nothing, and refrain your tongue from detraction (Wis 1:11). But this detraction is done through malevolence, when someone not only brings forth by his bodily mouth and voice what he fabricates against another, but even, while silent, wishes such a thing to be believed; which is surely to disparage with the mouth of the heart—which, he says, cannot be obscure and hidden from God.

16. 34. For as to what is written in another place: Do not wish to tell any lie (Sir 7:13), they do not wish it to avail to this, that no one tell any lie. And so when one person has said that, from this testimony of Scripture, every lie is to be detested so generally that even if someone wishes to lie, even if he does not lie, the very will is already to be condemned—and interprets it to this end, that it was not said: Do not tell any lie, but: Do not wish to tell any lie; so that no one may dare not only to tell, but even to wish to tell, any lie.

17. 34. Another says: Rather, in saying Do not wish to tell any lie, he wished a lie to be banished and made alien from the mouth of the heart: so that from certain lies one must abstain with the mouth of the body—as are especially those which pertain to the doctrine of religion—but from certain ones one need not abstain with the mouth of the body, if the cause of avoiding a greater evil requires; whereas from every lie we ought utterly to abstain with the mouth of the heart. Here one must understand what was said: Do not wish; for the will itself is taken, as it were, as the mouth of the heart, so that it does not pertain to the mouth of the heart when, guarding against a greater evil, we lie unwillingly. There is also a third understanding, by which you so take it: Do not tell any lie, so that it allows you to tell certain lies with some excepted. As if he said: Do not wish to believe every man; he would surely not be advising that no one be believed, but that not all, yet some, be believed. And what follows: For its constant practice will not profit unto good (Sir 7:14), so sounds as if it seems to forbid not a lie, but constant lying—that is, the habit and love of lying. Into which assuredly anyone slips, whoever either thinks that he must abuse every lie (for in that way he will not even guard against the one that is told in the doctrine of piety and religion—and where could you easily find anything more wicked, not among all lies, but among all sins?), or has accommodated the nod of his will to some lie, however easy, however harmless—so that he lies not unwillingly, for the sake of escaping a greater evil, but willingly and gladly. Thus, since there are three things that can be understood in this sentence—either: Do not only tell any lie, but do not even wish to tell one; or: Do not wish to, but lie even unwillingly, when something graver must be fled; or: Do not tell every lie, so that, with some excepted, the rest are permitted—one of these is found for those to whom it is never pleasing to lie, two for those who sometimes think one must lie. But nevertheless, what follows: For its constant practice will not profit unto good, I do not know whether it can support the first of these three opinions; unless perhaps in this way: that it be a precept of the perfect never at all not only to lie but even to wish to lie, while constant lying is not permitted even to those making progress. As if, when it was commanded that one must never at all not only lie, but not even have a will to lie, examples were brought against it—that there are some lies approved even on great authority; and it were answered that those are indeed of those making progress, who have, according to this life, some sort of office of mercy; but that every lie is so far evil and to be fled in every way by perfect and spiritual minds, that the constant practice of it is not to be permitted even to those making progress. For it has already been said of the Egyptian midwives that they were approved as lying out of a disposition for progressing to the better; because it is some degree toward loving true and everlasting salvation, when someone lies mercifully even for anyone's salvation, however mortal.

17. 35. Likewise, as to what is written: You will destroy all who speak a lie (Ps 5:6 (5:7)), one person says that no lie is here excepted, but every one condemned. Another says: Just so, but those who speak a lie from the heart, according to the disputation above; for he speaks the truth in his heart who hates the necessity of lying, which he understands to be a penalty of this mortal life. Another says: God will indeed destroy all who speak a lie, but not every lie; for there is a certain lie that the Prophet was then intimating, in which no one is spared—that is, if anyone, refusing to confess his sins, rather defends them and is unwilling to do penance; so that it is too little that he works iniquity, unless, wishing also to seem just, he refuses to submit to the medicine of confession: so that the very distinction of the words may seem to intimate nothing else: You hate all who work iniquity (Ps 5:5 (5:6)); but you will not destroy them, if by repenting they speak the truth in confession, so that by doing this truth they may come to the light; as it is said in the Gospel according to John: But he who does the truth comes to the light (John 3:21). But you will destroy all who not only work what you hate, but also speak a lie—by pretending to a false justice, and by not confessing their sins in penance.

17. 36. For as to false witness, which is set down among the ten precepts of the Law, it can in no way be contended that love of the truth is to be preserved in the heart while a falsehood is brought forth to the one before whom the witness is given. For when it is said to God alone, then alone is the truth to be embraced in the heart; but when it is said to a man, the true must be brought forth even by the bodily mouth, because a man is not an inspector of the heart. But clearly, concerning the testimony itself, it is not absurdly asked before whom each one is a witness. For we are not witnesses before just anyone we speak to, but before those for whom it is expedient and owed to them to know or to believe the truth through us: as is a judge, lest he err in judging; or one who is taught the doctrine of religion, lest he err in faith, or, doubtful, waver in the very authority of the teacher. But when the one who questions you, or wishes to know something from you, asks about a matter that does not pertain to him, or that it is not expedient for him to know, he seeks not a witness but a betrayer. And so if you lie to him, you will perhaps be free of false witness, but you will assuredly not be free of a lie.

18. 36. Granting, then, that it is never permitted to bear false witness, it is asked whether it is ever permitted to lie. Or if every lie is false witness, it must be seen whether it admits of compensation, so that it may be said to be told for the sake of avoiding a greater sin; just as that which is written: Honor father and mother (Exod 20:12), is set aside when a weightier duty seizes one—whence the man who is called by the Lord himself to announce the kingdom of God is forbidden to pay his father the last honor of burial.

18. 37. Likewise, as to what is written: A son who keeps the word will be far from destruction; but in receiving it, he receives it for himself, and nothing false comes forth from his mouth (See Sir 19:8), someone says that what is set down, a son receiving the word, is to be taken as nothing other than the word of God, which is truth. Therefore: A son receiving the truth will be far from destruction, is referred to what was said: You will destroy all who speak a lie. But what follows: but in receiving it, he receives it for himself—what else does it intimate but what the Apostle says: But let each one prove his own work, and then he will have glory in himself, and not in another (Gal 6:4)? For he who receives the word, that is, the truth, not for himself but to please men, does not keep it, when he sees that men can be pleased by a lie. But he who receives it for himself, nothing false comes forth from his mouth; because even when a lie pleases men, that man does not lie who has received for himself the truth, not such as would please them, but such as would please God. And so there is no reason to say here: God will indeed destroy all who speak a lie, but not every lie; since universally all lies are cut off in what was said: And nothing false comes forth from his mouth. But another says that it is to be taken as the apostle Paul took what the Lord says: But I say to you, do not swear at all (Matt 5:34). For here too all swearing is cut off; but from the mouth of the heart, so that it should never be done by approval of the will, but by necessity of another's weakness—that is, from another's evil, to whom what is said seems unable to be persuaded otherwise than if belief is produced by swearing; or from that evil of ours, by which, still wrapped in the skins of this mortality, we are unable to show our heart—which, surely, if we were able, there would be no need of an oath. And yet, even in this whole sentence, if what was said—A son who keeps the word will be far from destruction—was said of that Truth itself through which all things were made, which remains always immutable; since the doctrine of religion strives to lead one to contemplate it, it can seem to have been said to this end—And nothing false comes forth from his mouth—that he say nothing false that pertains to doctrine. Which kind of lie is to be undergone by no compensation at all, and is utterly and especially to be avoided. Or if what was said, nothing false, is absurdly taken if it is not referred to every lie, then he who sometimes thinks one must lie contends that what was said, from his mouth, is, according to the disputation above, to be taken as the mouth of the heart.

18. 38. Certainly this whole disputation, though it goes back and forth—some asserting that one must never lie, and reciting divine testimonies to this end; others contradicting, and seeking a place for a lie even among the very words of the divine testimonies—no one, nevertheless, can say that he finds, either in an example or in a word of the Scriptures, that any lie seems to be loved, or not to be held in hatred; but that sometimes, by lying, one must do what you would hate, in order that what is more to be detested may be avoided. But in this men err, in that they put precious things beneath baser ones. For when you have granted that some evil is to be admitted, lest another graver one be admitted, then each measures evil not by the rule of truth, but by his own desire and habit; and he thinks that graver which he himself shudders at more, not that which is more truly to be fled. This whole fault is born of the perversity of love. For since there are two lives of ours—one everlasting, which is divinely promised; the other temporal, in which we now are—when anyone has begun to love this temporal one more than that everlasting one, he thinks that everything must be done for the sake of this one which he loves; and he reckons no sins graver than those which do injury to this life, and either take from it some advantage unjustly and unlawfully, or take it away altogether by inflicting death. And so they hate thieves, and robbers, and the insolent, and torturers and killers, more than the lustful, the drunken, the luxurious, if these are troublesome to no one. For they do not understand, or do not care at all, that these do injury to God—not, indeed, to any disadvantage of his, but to their own great destruction; since they corrupt his gifts in themselves, even temporal ones, and by these very corruptions turn away from eternal ones: especially if they have already begun to be the temple of God, which the Apostle thus says to all Christians: Do you not know that you are the temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwells in you? Whoever corrupts the temple of God, him will God corrupt. For the temple of God is holy, which you are (1 Cor 3:16-17).

18. 39. And all these sins indeed—whether those by which injury is done to men in the very advantages of this life, or those by which men corrupt themselves and harm no one against his will—all these sins, then, even if they seem to look out for some delight or usefulness of this temporal life (for no one commits any of these with another aim and end), nevertheless hinder, in every way, those entangled in them from that life which is everlasting. But of these, some hinder only those who do them, others hinder also those against whom they are done. For those things which are kept for the sake of a usefulness pertaining to this life, when they are taken away by the injurious, only those sin and are hindered from eternal life who do them, not those against whom they are done. And so, even if anyone consents that these be taken from him, either that he may not do some evil, or that he may not suffer in these very things some greater inconvenience, he not only does not sin, but does the former bravely and praiseworthily, the latter usefully and inculpably. But those things which are kept for the sake of holiness and religion, when the injurious wish to violate them, are to be redeemed even by lesser sins—not, however, by injuries to others—if a condition is proposed and the opportunity is given. And then those things cease to be sins which are undertaken in order to avoid graver ones. For just as in useful things, as in money or some other bodily advantage, what is lost for the sake of a greater gain is not called a loss; so too in holy things what is admitted lest a graver thing be admitted is not called a sin. Or if that too is called a loss which someone loses lest he lose more, let this also be called a sin, provided only that no one doubts that it must be undertaken in order that more may be avoided, just as no one doubts that the lesser must be suffered for the sake of guarding against a greater loss.

19. 40. Now these are the things that are to be kept for the sake of holiness: the chastity of the body, and the chastity of the soul, and the truth of doctrine. The chastity of the body no one violates without the soul consenting and permitting. For whatever befalls our body by a greater force, against our will and granting no power to it, is no unchastity. But there can be some account of permitting; of consenting, none. For we consent when we approve and will; but we permit even unwilling, for the sake of avoiding some greater baseness. Consent, of course, to bodily unchastity violates even the chastity of the soul. For the chastity of the soul lies in a good will and a sincere love, which is not corrupted except when we love and seek what truth teaches ought not to be loved and sought. The sincerity of the love of God and neighbor is therefore to be guarded; for in this the chastity of the soul is sanctified. And we must act, with what strength we can, and with pious supplication, that when the chastity of our body is sought to be violated, not even the soul's lowest sense, which is entangled with the flesh, be touched by any delight; but if this cannot be, that at least the chastity of the mind be preserved in not consenting. Now there must be guarded, in the chastity of the soul, as pertains to love of neighbor, innocence and benevolence; and as pertains to love of God, piety. Innocence is that by which we harm no one; benevolence, that by which we even profit whom we can; piety, that by which we worship God. But the truth of doctrine, of religion and piety, is violated only by a lie; whereas the highest and inmost truth itself, of which this doctrine is, can in no way be violated: to which to come, and in which to remain in every way, and to cling utterly to it, will not be permitted, except when this corruptible has put on incorruption, and this mortal has put on immortality. But since all piety in this life is an exercise by which one strives toward that, and to which exercise this doctrine furnishes guidance—doctrine which by human words and by the signs of corporeal sacraments insinuates and intimates the very truth—therefore this too, which can be corrupted by a lie, is to be kept most of all incorrupt; so that if anything in that chastity of the soul has been violated, it may have whence to be repaired. For when the authority of doctrine is corrupted, there can be no course or recourse to the chastity of the soul.

20. 41. From all these things, then, this conclusion is reached: that a lie which violates neither the doctrine of piety, nor piety itself, nor innocence, nor benevolence, is to be admitted for the sake of bodily chastity. And yet, if anyone set before himself that truth is to be so loved—not only the truth that lies in contemplation, but also the truth in stating truly what is true in its own kind of things—and that the sentence is to be brought forth by the bodily mouth no otherwise than as it was conceived and beheld in the mind; so that he would prefer the truth-telling beauty of good faith not only to gold, and silver, and gems, and pleasant estates, but even to this whole temporal life itself and to every good of the body: I do not know whether anyone would be said to err wisely. And if he rightly set this before all such things of his own, and esteemed it more highly, he would rightly set it before the temporal things of other men too, whom by his innocence and benevolence he ought to preserve and help. For he would love perfect good faith—not only of believing well those things that were told him on excellent authority worthy of faith, but also of faithfully stating what he himself judged ought to be said, and said. For "good faith" (fides) is so called in the Latin tongue from the fact that what is said is done (fit); which it is plain that one who lies does not exhibit. And though it is less violated when someone lies in such a way that he is believed with no inconvenience and no destruction, with the added intention also of protecting either safety or bodily chastity, it is nevertheless violated, and the thing is violated in the preserving of the chastity and holiness of the soul. Whence we are compelled, not by the opinion of men, which is for the most part in error, but by that truth itself which surmounts all and is alone most invincible, to set perfect good faith even before bodily chastity. For the chastity of the soul is an ordered love that does not subject greater things to lesser ones. But whatever can be violated in the body is less than whatever in the soul. For surely when someone lies for the sake of bodily chastity, he sees indeed that not his own but another's lust threatens his body to be corrupted; yet he takes care not to be a sharer in it even by permitting. But where is that permission except in the soul? Even bodily chastity, then, cannot be corrupted except in the soul; and when this does not consent or permit, bodily chastity is in no way rightly said to be violated, whatever has been perpetrated in the body by another's lust. From which it is gathered that the chastity of the soul is much more to be kept in the soul, in which lies the safeguard of bodily chastity. Wherefore, as far as is in us, both are to be fortified and hedged about by holy character and conduct, lest they be violated from any quarter. But when both cannot be, who does not see what is to be despised for the sake of what? since he sees what is to be preferred to what—the soul to the body, or the body to the soul; the chastity of the soul to the chastity of the body, or the chastity of the body to the chastity of the soul; and what is more to be guarded against among sins, the permission of another's deed, or the commission of your own.

21. 42. It shines out, therefore, when all has been examined, that those testimonies of the Scriptures advise nothing else than that one must never lie at all; since no examples of lies worthy of imitation are found in the character and deeds of the saints—as far as concerns those Scriptures which are referred to no figured signification, such as are the deeds done in the Acts of the Apostles. For all the Lord's sayings in the Gospel that seem lies to the more unskilled are figured significations. And as for what the Apostle says: I became all things to all, that I might gain all (1 Cor 9:22), it is rightly understood that he did this not by lying but by compassion; so that he acted with such love in freeing them, as if he himself were in that evil from which he desired to heal them. One must not, therefore, lie in the doctrine of piety: for that is a great crime, and the first kind of detestable lie. One must not lie by the second kind, because no injury is to be done to anyone. One must not lie by the third kind, because no one is to be looked out for at the cost of injury to another. One must not lie by the fourth kind, on account of the lust of lying, which is vicious in itself. One must not lie by the fifth kind, because not even the truth itself is to be stated with the end of pleasing men: how much less a lie, which in itself, because it is a lie, is surely base? One must not lie by the sixth kind; for not even the truth of testimony is rightly corrupted for the sake of anyone's temporal advantage and safety. And to everlasting salvation no one is to be led with a lie's help. For he is not to be converted to good character by the bad character of those converting him; for if it must be done toward him, he too, once converted, ought to do it toward others; and so he is converted not to good but to bad character, when there is set before him, once converted, for imitation, what was furnished to him when being converted. Nor must one lie by the seventh kind; for no one's temporal advantage or safety is to be preferred to perfecting good faith. Nor, if anyone is so badly moved by our right deeds that he becomes even worse in soul and far more remote from piety, are right deeds therefore to be abandoned; since this must especially be held by us, by which we ought to call and invite those whom we love as ourselves; and that apostolic sentence is to be drunk in with a most courageous soul: To some we are an odor of life unto life, to others an odor of death unto death; and who is sufficient for these things? (2 Cor 2:16) Nor must one lie by the eighth kind; because in good things the chastity of the soul, the chastity of the body, and in evil things what we ourselves do, is greater than what we allow to be done. But in these eight kinds, the less anyone sins when he lies, the more he emerges toward the eighth; the more, the more he sinks down toward the first. But whoever supposes that there is some kind of lie that is not a sin will basely deceive himself, while he thinks himself an honorable deceiver of others.

21. 43. Moreover, so great a blindness has seized the minds of men that it is too little for them if we say that certain lies are not sins, unless they also say that in certain cases it is a sin if we refuse a lie; and they have been brought so far in defending a lie that they say the apostle Paul used even that first kind, which is the most wicked of all. For in the Epistle to the Galatians, which surely, like the others, was written for the doctrine of religion and piety, they say that he lied in that place where he says of Peter and Barnabas: When I saw that they were not walking uprightly toward the truth of the Gospel (Gal 2:14). For when they wish to defend Peter from error, and from that crookedness of way into which he had fallen, they attempt, by breaking and shattering the authority of the Scriptures, to overturn the very way of religion in which is the salvation of all. In which they do not see that they cast upon the Apostle not only the charge of a lie, but even of perjury, in the very doctrine of piety—that is, in an Epistle in which he preaches the Gospel; for there, before he related these things, he says: But the things that I write to you, behold, before God, I do not lie (Gal 1:20). But let there now be a limit to this disputation, in the consideration and treatment of which nothing is to be thought of and prayed for before all else more than that which the same Apostle says: God is faithful, who will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear; but will make with the temptation also a way out, that you may be able to endure it (1 Cor 10:13).