But if Lot, though he was so righteous as to deserve to receive even angels as guests, offered his daughters to the men of Sodom to be defiled, that the bodies of women rather than of men might be corrupted by them — how much more diligently and constantly is the chastity of the mind to be preserved in truth, since a man is more truly preferred to his own body than a man's body to a woman's body! But if anyone thinks that on this account one ought to lie for another, so that meanwhile he may live, or may not be offended in those things which he greatly loves, whereby he might be able through learning to attain to eternal truth — he does not understand, first, that there is no crime which one would not be compelled to undertake on the same condition, as has already been demonstrated above; and next, that the very authority of doctrine is cut off and utterly perishes, if to those whom we strive to lead to it we persuade by our lie that one ought sometimes to lie.
For since saving doctrine consists partly in things to be believed, partly in things to be understood, and one cannot arrive at the things that are to be understood unless first the things that are to be believed are believed — how is one to believe him who thinks that one ought sometimes to lie, lest perchance he be lying even then, when he charges us to believe? For whence can it be known whether even then he has some cause, as he himself supposes, for an officious lie — reckoning that by a false narrative a man may be frightened and restrained from lust, and in this manner supposing that even in spiritual matters he provides for himself by lying? Once this kind of thing is admitted and approved, the whole discipline of faith is utterly overthrown; and when that is overthrown, one does not arrive at understanding, for whose grasping the discipline of faith nourishes little ones.
And thus all doctrine of truth is taken away, giving place to the most licentious falsehood, if a place is opened anywhere for the lie, as it were officious, to enter. For whoever lies either prefers temporal advantages, his own or another's, to truth — than which what can be more perverse? — or, when he wishes by a helping lie to make a man fit for attaining the truth, he blocks off the approach to truth; for, being unwilling when he lies, he becomes, when he tells the truth, one who is not trusted. Wherefore either the good are not to be believed, or those are to be believed whom we believe ought sometimes to lie, or it is not to be believed that the good ever lie. Of these three, the first is ruinous, the second foolish; it remains, therefore, that the good never lie.
Thus, when this question has been considered and treated from both sides, no verdict is nevertheless to be lightly pronounced; but those are still to be diligently heard who say that there is no deed so evil that it ought not to be done in avoidance of a worse; and that to the deeds of men belong not only whatever they do, but also whatever they undergo with consent. Whence, if a cause arose that a Christian should choose to burn incense to idols, so as not to consent to defilement which a persecutor threatened him with unless he did so, they seem rightly to ask why he should not also lie, that he might avoid so great a shame. For that very consent, by which he would rather suffer defilement than burn incense to idols, they say is not a passion but a deed.
And to avoid doing this, he chose to burn incense. How much more readily, then, would he have chosen a lie, if by a lie he could have removed so monstrous an outrage from his holy body! In this proposition there are these points which may with reason be asked: whether such a consent is to be reckoned as a deed; or whether that is to be called consent which has no approval; or whether there is approval when it is said, 'It is expedient to suffer this rather than to do that'; and whether that man acted rightly in burning incense rather than suffering defilement; and whether he ought rather to have lied, if that condition were offered, than to have burned incense. But if such a consent is to be reckoned as a deed, then they too are homicides who chose to be killed rather than to bear false witness — and, what is a graver homicide, against their own selves.
For why, on this reasoning, should it not be said that they killed themselves, since they chose this to be done to themselves rather than to do what they were being compelled to do? Or if it be thought graver to kill another than oneself — what then? If this condition were set before a martyr, that, if he refused to bear false witness concerning Christ and to sacrifice to demons, before his very eyes another — not just any man, but his own father — should be killed, the father even begging his son not to permit this to happen through his perseverance: is it not manifest that, while he remained steadfast in the resolve of a most faithful witness, only those who killed his father would be homicides, and not he too a parricide?
Just as, then, this man would not be a partaker in so great a crime — since he chose that his father should rather be killed by others (and killed as a sacrilegious man too, whose soul would be snatched away to punishments) than that he himself should violate his faith by a false testimony — so such a consent would not make a man a partaker in so great an outrage, if he himself were unwilling to do evil, whatever others might have done for the reason that he himself would not do it. For what do such persecutors say but: 'Do evil, lest we do it'? And if, when we did in truth do it, they would not have done so, not even thus ought we to favor them by our own crime. But now, indeed, when they do act — since they say these things — why should they be base and guilty in our company 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 in us lies, forbidding that they do it, and not only not committing their deed together with them, but even condemning it with as much detestation as we can. 'How,' you say, 'does he not act together with them, seeing that they would not do this if he did that?' In this way we break down a door together with burglars, because, if we did not shut it, they would not break it; and we kill men together with robbers, if it happens that we know they will do this, because, if we by forestalling them killed them, they would not kill others. Or if someone confesses to us that he will commit parricide, we commit it together with him,
if, when we are able, we do not kill him before he does it, when in no other way can we either restrain or hinder him. For it can be said in just so many words: 'You did it together with him, because he would not have done that if you had done this.' I would wish that neither evil be done; but I could only guard against that being done which was in my own power; the other, being another's, which I could not extinguish by my command, I ought not to have hindered by my own misdeed. He, therefore, does not approve the sinner who does not sin for another's sake; and neither pleases him who would wish that neither be admitted, but that which pertains to himself he does not perpetrate even when he has the power, while that which pertains to another he condemns by his will alone. And so, to those who set forth that condition and say:
'If you do not burn incense, you shall suffer this' — if he had answered, 'I choose neither, I detest both, I consent to none of these things you propose' — amid these words and such as these, which since they would certainly be true, no consent of his, no approval would be held; whatever he might suffer from them would be reckoned to him as the receiving of injuries, to them as the committing of sins. 'Ought he then,' someone says, 'to have suffered defilement rather than burn 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 one 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 one, which is his own, rather than the graver, which is another's. For — to grant meanwhile, saving a more diligent inquiry, that defilement is graver than incense-burning — that defilement was nevertheless his own act, the incense-burning another's deed, although he himself would undergo it; but whose the deed is, his also is the sin. For although homicide is graver than theft, it is nevertheless worse to commit theft than to suffer homicide. And so, if it were set before anyone that, unless he were willing to commit theft, he should be killed — that is, that homicide should 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 would that other deed thereby become his own, merely because it was committed against him and because he could have avoided it, had he been willing to admit his own. The whole knot of this question, therefore, comes down to this: that it be asked whether any sin of another's, though 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 excepted. For no one says that a man is made unclean if he be killed, or cast into prison, or held in chains, or scourged, or afflicted with the other torments and tortures, or proscribed, or stricken with the gravest losses even to utter nakedness, or despoiled of honors, and receive enormous insults through whatever reproaches.
Whatever of these anyone shall have suffered unjustly, no one is so mad as to say that he is thereby made unclean. But if he be drenched with filth, or if something of that sort be poured into his mouth or forced upon him, or if he suffer that which is done to women, the feeling of almost all recoils, and they call him defiled and unclean. So, then, it must be concluded that whatever sins of others — except those which make him unclean against whom they are committed —
let no one avoid by his own sins, neither for himself nor for anyone else, but rather let him endure them and bravely suffer them, since he ought to avoid them by no sins of his own, and not by a lie; whereas those things which are so committed against a man as to make him unclean, we ought to avoid even by our own sins — and by this very fact those are not to be called sins which are done in order that that uncleanness may be avoided. For whatever is so done that, unless it were done, it would justly be blamed, is not a sin. From which it follows that not even that uncleanness is to be called such when there is no means of avoiding it; for even then he who suffers it has something to do rightly, namely to bear patiently whatever he cannot avoid.
But no one acting rightly can be made unclean by any bodily contagion whatsoever. For every unrighteous man is unclean before God. Every righteous man, therefore, is clean — if not before men, yet before God, who judges without error. Accordingly, not even when he suffers those things, given the power of avoiding them, is he made unclean by the contact itself, but by the sin whereby he was unwilling to avoid them when he could. For there would be no sin in whatever was done for the sake of avoiding them. For the sake of avoiding these things, therefore, whoever shall have lied does not sin. Or are certain lies also to be excepted, so that it is better to suffer this than to commit those?
If it be so, then not everything that shall have been done in order that that uncleanness may be avoided is free of sin, since there are certain lies which it is graver to commit than to suffer that. For if someone is sought for defilement who could be concealed by a lie, who dares to say that not even then ought one to lie? But if by such a lie he could lie hidden who would wound another's reputation by the false charge of the very uncleanness for suffering which that man is sought — as if it were said to the seeker, some chaste man being named who is a stranger to shames of this kind:
'Go to that man, and he himself will procure for you what you may more gladly use, for he knows such persons and loves them,' and so this seeker might be turned away from the one he was looking for — I know not whether another's reputation ought to be violated by a lie, that another's body might not be violated by another's lust. And in no way whatever ought one ever to lie for anyone by a lie that wounds another, even if he is wounded more lightly than the other would be wounded were you not so to lie; for neither is another's bread to be taken away against his will, however stronger he be, that the weaker may be fed, nor is an innocent man to be beaten with rods against his will, lest another be killed. Plainly, if they be willing, let it be done, since they are not wronged when they thus will it.
But whether even a willing person's reputation ought to be wounded by the false charge of defilement, that defilement might be turned away from another's body, is a great question. And I know not whether it can easily be found how it can be just that a willing person's reputation be stained by the false charge of defilement, rather than an unwilling person's body by the defilement itself. But nevertheless, if such a choice were set before him who preferred to burn incense to idols rather than to suffer what is done to women — that, if he wished to avoid the latter, he should violate the reputation of Christ by some lie — he would be utterly insane if he did it.
I say even more: that he would be mad if, for the sake of avoiding another's lust — that there might not be done in him what he would suffer by no lust of his own — he should falsify the gospel of Christ by false praises of Christ, taking greater care to avoid another's corruption in his own body than his own corruption in the doctrine of the sanctification of souls and bodies. Wherefore, from the doctrine of religion, and from all those statements whatsoever which are set forth for the sake of the doctrine of religion, when it is taught and learned, all lies whatsoever are utterly to be removed; nor let it be believed that any cause at all can be found for which one ought to lie in such matters, since one ought not to lie in that doctrine even for this end, that a man might more easily be brought to it.
For once the authority of truth is broken, or even slightly diminished, all things will remain doubtful; and unless these be believed to be true, they cannot be held as certain. It is permitted, therefore, whether to the discourser and disputant and preacher of eternal things, or to the narrator and announcer of temporal matters 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, and therefore neither to conceal by lying. This being first and most firmly established, one inquires more securely concerning the other lies. But consequently it must also be seen that all lies too are to be removed which unjustly injure anyone, since no injury, even a lighter one, is to be inflicted on anyone, that a graver may be warded off from another.
Nor are those lies to be admitted which, although they do not harm another, nevertheless profit no one and harm those very persons who lie without cause. For these are properly to be called liars. For there is a difference between one who is lying and a liar. For even he who lies unwillingly is one who is lying; but a liar loves to lie and dwells in mind in the delight of lying. Alongside these are to be placed also those who by a lie wish to please men — not that they may do injury to anyone or offer insult (for we have already removed that kind above) — but that they may be agreeable in their conversations.
These differ from that kind in which we placed the liars in this respect: that those take delight in lying, rejoicing in the deception itself, whereas it pleases these to please by their agreeable speech — men who nevertheless would rather please by things true, but who, when they do not easily find true things that are pleasing to hearers, choose to lie rather than to be silent. It is difficult, however, for these ever to undertake a wholly false narrative; but for the most part they weave false things in with true, wherever agreeableness deserts them. These two kinds of lies, however, do no harm to those who believe them, because they are deceived neither concerning the doctrine of religion and truth, nor concerning any of their own advantage or utility.
For it suffices them to judge that what is said could have happened, and to have faith in a man whom they ought not rashly to reckon a liar. For what harm is it if I believe that someone's father or grandfather was a good man, even if he was not, or that he reached as far as the Persians in his military service, even if he never departed from Rome? But to the liars themselves these lies do great harm: to the former indeed, because they so forsake truth that they rejoice in deceit; to the latter, because they prefer to please rather than to speak truth. These kinds being condemned without any doubt, there follows a kind of lie — as though we were rising step by step toward better things — which is commonly attributed to the benevolent and good, when he who lies not only does not harm another, but even profits someone.
Concerning this kind is the whole dispute: whether he harms himself who thus profits another by doing something against truth. Or, if that alone is to be called truth which illumines minds themselves with an inmost and unchangeable light, he certainly does something against some truth; for even if the senses of the body are deceived, nevertheless he does something against truth who says that something is thus or not thus which neither his mind nor his sense nor his own opinion or belief reports to him. Whether, then, he does not harm himself who in this manner profits another, or whether by that compensation whereby he profits another he does not harm himself, is a great question. If it be so, then consequently he ought also to profit himself by a lie which harms no one.
But these things are interconnected, and once they are granted, there are necessarily drawn along consequences which greatly disturb. For if it be asked what harm it is to a man overflowing with superfluous wealth if, out of countless thousands of measures of grain, he lose one measure — a measure which nevertheless could serve the necessary sustenance of one who steals it — it will follow that both theft can be committed without reproach and false witness spoken without sin. And what can be said more perverse than this? Or indeed, 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 it on account of your own poverty, would you be blamed? As though you ought to love another more than yourself. Both, therefore, are base and to be avoided.
But perhaps someone may think an exception ought to be added, namely that there are certain honourable lies which not only harm no one but even benefit some people — excepting those lies by which crimes are concealed and defended; so that a lie would be base for this reason, that although it harms no one and benefits a poor man, it nonetheless conceals a theft; but if it were so framed that it harmed no one and benefited someone, yet without concealing or defending any sin, then it would not be base. As, for instance, if a man were to hide away his own money before your eyes so as not to lose it by theft or violence, and being questioned about it you were to lie, you would neither harm anyone and you would benefit him who needed that thing to remain hidden, and by lying you would have covered no sin.
For no one sins by hiding away his own property which he fears to lose. But if for this reason we do not sin by lying — because, covering no one's sin, we harm no one and benefit someone — what shall we make of the sin of lying itself? For where it is written, 'You shall not steal,' there also it is written, 'You shall not bear false witness.' Since therefore each is separately forbidden, why is false witness culpable only when it covers a theft or some other sin; whereas if it is committed by itself with no defence of sin, it is not culpable — when theft itself is culpable in itself, and so are the other sins? Or is it that to conceal a sin by lying is not permitted, but to commit it is permitted? But if this is absurd, what shall we say?
Or is it not false witness unless a man so lies as either to fabricate a charge against someone, or to conceal someone's crime, or in some way to press upon a person in a trial? For a witness seems necessary to the judge for the knowledge of a case. But if Scripture named the witness only in this restricted sense, the Apostle would not have said: 'We are even found false witnesses of God, if we have testified against God that he raised up Christ, whom he did not raise up.' For thus he shows that false witness is a lie, even if it be spoken in someone's false praise. Or does he perhaps then call a man a false witness when he lies, only when he either invents or conceals someone's sin, or in some way harms someone?
For if a lie which is spoken against someone's temporal life is detestable, how much more one spoken against eternal life! Such is every lie, if it be made in the teaching of religion. And therefore the Apostle calls it false witness if anyone lies about Christ, even in what seems to pertain to his praise. But if it be a lie that neither invents nor conceals anyone's sin, is not sought out by a judge, harms no one and benefits someone — is it then neither false witness nor a reprehensible lie? What then? If a murderer takes refuge with a Christian, or sees where he takes refuge, and he is questioned about this by one who seeks the man who has killed a man in order to punish him — must one lie?
For how does he not cover a sin by lying, when 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? Then is it evil to lie in order to cover anyone's sin, but not evil to lie in order to cover the sinner himself? 'Just so, indeed,' someone says; 'for a man does not sin when he escapes punishment, but when he does something deserving of punishment. And it belongs to Christian discipline that neither should anyone's correction be despaired of, nor should the way of repentance be closed to any.' What then? If, brought before a judge, you are questioned about the very place where that man is hiding, will you say either, 'He is not there,' where you know him to be, or:
'I do not know and have not seen,' what you do know and have seen? Then you will be bearing false witness and slaying your own soul, so that the murderer may not be slain. Or will you lie up to the point of coming before the judge, but then, when the judge questions you, will you now speak the truth, so as not to be a false witness? Then you yourself will be about to slay the man by betrayal — for divine Scripture also detests a betrayer. Or is he perhaps no betrayer who, when the judge questions him, reveals the truth, while he would be a betrayer if of his own accord he delivered someone up to destruction? What then? If you are questioned by a judge about the hiding-place of a just and innocent man whom you know, yet who has nonetheless been ordered to be seized for death by a higher authority, so that he who questions is an executor of the law and not its maker —
Or will it for this reason not be false witness that you lie on behalf of an innocent man — because it is not the judge but only an executor who questions? What then? If the very maker of the law questions you, or any unjust judge seeking the innocent man for punishment? What will you do? Will you be a false witness, or a betrayer? Or will he be a betrayer who of his own accord delivers up to a just judge a hidden murderer, while he not be one who, to an unjust judge questioning him about where the innocent man is hiding — the man whom he seeks to kill — points out the one who had entrusted 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 speak, will you with certainty avoid both?
Why then should you not do this, before you come before the judge, so that you may guard even against a lie? For by avoiding a lie you will escape every false witness — whether every lie be false witness or not; but by avoiding only false witness, which 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!' A certain bishop of the church of Thagaste once did this, Firmus by name, and firmer still in will.
For when a man was demanded of him by the emperor's command, through officers sent to him — a man who had fled to him for refuge and whom he hid with all the care he could — he answered his seekers that he could neither lie nor betray the man; and having endured many tortures of the body — for the emperors were not yet Christian — he remained in his resolve. Then, being led before the emperor, he appeared so admirable that he obtained, without any difficulty, a pardon for the very man whom he was protecting. What could be done more brave and more constant than this? But some more timid person says: 'I can be ready to bear any tortures whatever, or even to undergo death, so as not to sin;
but since it is not a sin so to lie that you neither harm anyone nor bear false witness, and yet benefit someone, it is foolish and a grave sin to endure voluntary tortures in vain, and perhaps to cast away a useful safety and life for nothing to men who rage against you.' Of such a one I ask: why does he fear what is written, 'You shall not bear false witness,' and yet not fear what is said of God, 'You will destroy all who speak a lie'? 'It is not written,' he says, 'every lie; but I understand it as if it were written: You will destroy all who speak false witness.' But neither there is it said, 'every false witness.' 'But it is placed there,' he says, 'where the other things are that are in every way evil.' Is not that also there which reads: 'You shall not kill'?
But if that is in every way evil, how shall the righteous be excused from this crime who, after the law was given, killed many? But it is answered that he does not himself kill who is the minister of some just command. Their fear, then, I accept in such a way that I nevertheless judge that praiseworthy man — who was willing neither to lie nor to betray a man — both to have understood better what is written, and to have bravely fulfilled what he understood. But one comes at times to a situation of this kind: that we are not asked where the man 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.
In which case, if we know that he is there, by keeping silent we betray him — or even by saying that we will by no means tell whether he is there or not; for from this the questioner infers that he is there; whereas if he were not there, nothing else would be answered by one who was unwilling to lie or to betray the man, except that he is not there. Thus by our silence or by such words the man is betrayed, so that the questioner enters, if he has the power, and finds 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 there where he is sought or elsewhere, when it is asked whether he is there or not, it must not be said:
'I will not say what you ask.' Rather it must be said: 'I know where he is, but I will never point him out.' For if you refuse to answer about one place and declare that you will not betray him, it is as if you pointed out that same place with your finger; for a definite suspicion is aroused. But if you first confess that you know where he is, but will not tell, then the inquirer can perhaps be turned away from that place and set to pressing upon you, that where he is may be betrayed by you. And for such faithfulness and humanity, whatever you bravely endure is judged not only not culpable but even praiseworthy — excepting only those things which, if a man suffered them, he would be said to suffer not bravely, but shamefully and basely. For this is the last kind of lie, which must be treated more diligently.