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And then those things which are undertaken for the sake of avoiding graver ones already cease to be sins. For just as in useful things — as in money or in some other bodily advantage — that is not called a loss which is given up for the sake of a greater gain, so also in holy things that is not called a sin which is committed lest a graver one be committed. Or, if that too is called a loss which someone forfeits lest he lose more, let this also be called a sin — provided only that no one doubts it must be undertaken in order that a worse one be avoided, just as no one doubts that the lesser harm must be suffered for the sake of guarding against a greater. Now these are the things that must be kept for the sake of holiness: the chastity of the body, the purity of the soul, and the truth of doctrine.
No one violates the chastity of the body without the soul's consent and permission. For whatever befalls our body by a greater force, against our will and while we grant no power for it, is no unchastity at all. But of permitting there can be some reason, of consenting none. For we consent when we approve and will it; but we permit even unwillingly, for the sake of avoiding some greater disgrace. Yet consent to bodily unchastity violates even the chastity of the soul.
For the chastity of the soul consists in a good will and a sincere love, which is not corrupted except when we love and desire that which truth teaches ought not to be loved and desired. The sincerity of the love of God and neighbor must therefore be kept — for in this the chastity of the soul is sanctified — and we must strive with what strength we can, and with devout supplication, that when the chastity of our body is being sought for violation, not even the soul's outermost sense, which is entangled with the flesh, may be touched by any pleasure; but if this cannot be, at least the chastity of the mind in not consenting may be preserved. Moreover, in the chastity of the soul, as regards the love of neighbor, innocence and benevolence must be kept; and as regards the love of God, piety.
Innocence is that by which we harm no one; benevolence, that by which we even do good to whom we can; piety, that by which we worship God. But the truth of doctrine, of religion, and of piety is violated by nothing except a lie, whereas that highest and inmost Truth itself, whose this doctrine is, can in no way be violated: to which it will not be permitted to attain, and in which to abide in every way and to cleave to it utterly, except when this corruptible shall have put on incorruption and this mortal shall have put on immortality.
But because all piety in this life is a training by which we press on toward that life — a training to which this doctrine furnishes guidance, which through human words and the seals of bodily sacraments insinuates and imparts the Truth itself — for this reason this doctrine too, which can be corrupted through a lie, must be kept especially uncorrupted, so that if anything in that chastity of the soul has been violated, it may have whence it can be repaired. For once the authority of doctrine has been corrupted, there can be no course or recourse to the chastity of the soul. From all these things, therefore, this conclusion is reached: that a lie which does not violate the doctrine of piety, nor piety itself, nor innocence, nor benevolence, may be admitted for the sake of bodily chastity.
And yet, if anyone should set before himself that truth is to be so loved — not only that which lies in contemplation, but also in the truthful uttering of what in its own kind of things is true — and that no opinion is to be brought forth by the mouth of the body otherwise than as it was conceived and beheld in the mind, so that he should prefer the truth-telling beauty of faith not only to gold and silver and gems and pleasant estates, but even to this whole temporal life itself and every good of the body: I do not know whether he could be said by anyone to err in wisdom; and if he rightly set this above all such things of his own, and valued it more highly, he would rightly set it also above the temporal goods of other men, whom by his innocence and benevolence he ought to preserve and help.
For he would love a perfect faithfulness — not only of believing well those things which are told him by an authority excellent and worthy of trust, but also of faithfully declaring the things which he himself judged ought to be said and did say. For 'faith' (fides) is so named in the Latin tongue from this: that what is said is done (fit); and it is manifest that a liar does not exhibit this. And although this is less violated when someone lies in such a way that he is believed to no one's harm or ruin — with the added intention either of guarding safety or of bodily chastity — it is nevertheless violated, and a thing is violated in the keeping of the soul's chastity and holiness.
Whence we are compelled to prefer a perfect faithfulness even to the chastity of the body — not by the opinion of men, which is for the most part in error, but by that very Truth which towers above all and alone is most invincible. For the chastity of the soul is an ordered love that does not subject greater things to lesser. But whatever can be violated in the body is less than whatever can be violated in the soul. For certainly, when someone lies for the sake of bodily chastity, he sees indeed that not his own lust but another's threatens to corrupt his body, yet he takes care lest, by permitting it at least, he become a partaker. But that permission — where is it save in the soul? Therefore even bodily chastity cannot be corrupted except in the soul:
since, when the soul neither consents nor permits, bodily chastity can in no way rightly be said to be violated, whatever may have been perpetrated in the body by another's lust. From which it is gathered that much more must the chastity of the soul be kept in the soul, in which lies the safeguard of bodily chastity. Wherefore, so far as it is in us, both must be fortified and fenced about by holy morals and conduct, lest either be violated from without. But when both cannot be kept, who does not see which is to be despised for the sake of the other? — since he sees which is to be preferred to which: 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 which is more to be guarded against in sins: the permission of another's deed, or the commission of your own deed.
And so it shines forth, when all has been discussed, that those testimonies of the Scriptures admonish nothing else than that one must never at all lie — seeing that no examples of lies worthy of imitation are found in the morals and deeds of the saints, as regards those Scriptures which are not referred to any figurative signification, such as the deeds recorded in the Acts of the Apostles. For all the things of the Lord in the Gospel which seem to the more unskilled to be lies are figurative significations. And as for what the Apostle says, 'I became all things to all, that I might gain all,' it is rightly understood that he did this not by lying but by compassion, so that he dealt with such great love in freeing them, as if he himself were in that evil from which he desired to heal them.
Therefore one must not lie in the doctrine of piety; for that is a great crime and the first kind of detestable lie. One must not lie in the second kind, because injury must be done to no one. One must not lie in the third kind, because no one must be served with injury to another. One must not lie in the fourth kind, on account of the lust for lying, which is vicious in itself. One must not lie in the fifth kind, because not even the truth itself is to be declared for the end of pleasing men — how much less a lie, which, in itself, because it is a lie, is by all means base! One must not lie in the sixth kind; for not even the truth of testimony is rightly corrupted for anyone's temporal advantage and safety.
But to everlasting salvation no one is to be led with a lie for its help; for one is not to be converted to good morals by the evil morals of those converting him, since, if this must be done toward him, he too when converted ought to do the same toward others, and thus he is converted not to good but to bad morals, when that is offered to him, once converted, to imitate, which was practiced on him while being converted. Nor must one lie in the seventh kind; for no one's temporal advantage or safety is to be preferred to the perfecting of faith.
Nor, if anyone is so evilly moved by our rightly done deeds that he becomes even worse in soul and far more remote from piety, are our rightly done deeds therefore to be forsaken — since that especially must be held to by us whereby we ought to call and invite those whom we love as our very selves; and with the strongest spirit that apostolic saying is to be drunk in: 'To some we are the odor of life unto life, to others the odor of death unto death. And who is sufficient for these things?' Nor must one lie in the eighth kind, because both in good things the chastity of the soul is greater than the chastity of the body, and in evil things that which we ourselves do is greater than that which we allow to be done.
But in these eight kinds, each one sins the less when he lies the more he rises toward the eighth, and the more when he sinks toward the first. But whoever thinks there is some kind of lie which is not a sin will basely deceive himself, when he judges himself an honorable deceiver of others. Furthermore, so great a blindness has taken hold of 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 led so far by defending the lie that they say the Apostle Paul made use even of 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 he lied in that place where he says of Peter and Barnabas: 'When I saw that they did not walk rightly toward the truth of the Gospel.' For when they wish to defend Peter from error and from that crookedness of way into which he had fallen, they attempt, by shattering and breaking down the authority of the Scriptures, to overthrow the very way of religion, in which is salvation for all. In which they do not see that they are charging the Apostle not only with the crime of lying, but even of perjury, in the very doctrine of piety — that is, in the epistle in which he preaches the Gospel; for there indeed he says, before he related these things:
'But the things that I write to you, behold, before God, I do not lie.' But let there now be an end of this discussion, in the whole consideration and handling of which nothing is to be thought of and prayed for before all else than that which the same Apostle says: 'God is faithful, who will not let you be tempted above what you are able to bear, but will make with the temptation also a way of escape, that you may be able to endure it.'