Annotatio CVII

”I am Esau thy firstborn.” — Genesis 27:19

Origen, in the sixth book of the Stromateis, incidentally touching this passage, taught that simulations and lies are sometimes profitable to Christians, and that a prudent and wise man can use an officious lie no otherwise than a medicine, when it is necessary.¹ For thus Origen, when comparing our dogmas with the dogmas of Plato, left written in that place: “Plato, in the third book On the Republic, says: ‘Truth is greatly to be pursued; for if — as we were most rightly saying a little before — a lie is unbecoming and useless to God, [but] sometimes useful to men, so that they use it as a kind of condiment and medicine, there is no doubt that license of this kind is to be given to physicians and to be removed from the imprudent: therefore also the rulers of cities, if it is granted to any others, ought sometimes to lie, either against enemies or for the fatherland and the citizens; but from the rest, who do not know how to use a lie, all lying must be taken away.’ Thus far we have reviewed the words of Plato. We too, therefore, mindful of that precept, ‘Let each one speak the truth with his neighbor,’² ought not to say, ‘Who is my neighbor?’ but to consider how the philosopher cautiously said that a lie is unbecoming and useless to God, [yet] not always unuseful to men — and that God is not to be thought to lie sometimes, even for [the sake of] a dispensation. But if the advantage of the hearer requires it, [the wise man] speaks in ambiguous words, and utters through enigmas what he wishes, so that the dignity of truth may be preserved with him, and that what could be harmful, if uttered nakedly, may be put forth to the multitude under a certain covering. But let the man on whom the necessity of lying lies diligently attend, so to use a lie sometimes — as a condiment and a medicine — that he keep its measure, and not exceed the bounds which Judith used against Holofernes,³ when she conquered him by a prudent simulation. Let him imitate Esther, who long corrected the sentence of Artaxerxes, the truth of her nation being kept silent;⁴ and above all the patriarch Jacob, whom we read to have obtained the blessings of his father by an artful lie. From which it is evident that, unless we have so lied that some great good is sought by us thereby, we are to be judged as, so to speak, enemies of him who says, ‘I am the truth.’”⁵ These things Origen [wrote] in the sixth book of the Stromateis. But in the tenth book of the same work, confirming this very thing by an apostolic example, he said that Peter and Paul, the princes of the Apostles, contended with each other at Antioch not in a true but in a feigned dispute,⁶ so that by that kind of simulation they might recall the Jews and the Gentiles — at variance among themselves about the legal observances — to concord.

Into the same opinion Chrysostom seems to go, at the end of the first book On the Priesthood, where he most openly teaches that frauds, wiles, deceptions, and impostures — which are done not with the zeal of harming, but for the sake of some great good, and from a right judgment of the mind — are so far necessary that very many have oftentimes undergone punishments for this very thing, that they did not employ frauds. Which he confirms with many examples adduced: first of Emperors, for whom it is more honorable to have conquered enemies by fraud than to have vanquished them in open battle; then of physicians, who circumvent by frauds the sick who either refuse medicines or flee the cutting of the knife, and — remedies being administered by guile — lead them back to health; finally by the example of holy men: among whom Jacob craftily claimed for himself the right of the firstborn;⁷ Moses, by deception, transferred the wealth of the Egyptians into the camps of the Israelites;⁸ Michal, her father being circumvented and deceived, delivered from death her husband David,⁹ whom a little after his kinsman Jonathan preserved from the wrath of Saul by the same arts;¹⁰ Paul, as a salutary medicine, often employed impostures — as when, for the favor of the Jews (whom he desired to allure to Christ), he circumcised Timothy,¹¹ and submitted himself to many other ceremonies of the Law, which, after faith had been given to Christ, he knew to be deadly. Again, in homily 53 on Genesis, expounding that, “I am Esau thy firstborn,” he asserts that Jacob, in saying these things, did lie — but that a lie of this kind is not to be blamed, because he lied not for the sake of temporal advantage or avarice, but that he might procure for himself the father’s blessing. Likewise in homily 32 on Genesis, upon those words, “Say that you are my sister,” and in the epistle to Olympias, he pronounces the simulation of Abraham and Sarah — by which (as he himself says) “they lied about the kind [of relationship], and brought forward one person in place of another” — worthy of praise and of imitation. John Cassian, deacon and disciple of Chrysostom, drawing the metaphor of the medicine and the lie — borrowed from Plato by Origen — to the confirmation of the same opinion, says that a holy man is so to use a lie as if there were in it by nature [something] of hellebore. For just as hellebore, if it be taken when a deadly disease is imminent, is wholesome, but if it be drunk without the necessity of the greatest peril, is deadly: so too a lie is profitable when danger is imminent from the confession of the truth, but deadly when no necessity of concealing the truth presses. This necessity he reduces to two occasions: namely, either when some great loss is to be avoided and some excellent gain to be obtained, or when one must lie for the sake of humility — that is, that one may hide his virtues, under [the guise of] a lie, to avoid vainglory. The former part of this assertion he builds up in book 17 of the Conferences, from chapter 17 to 21, by the examples of: Jacob, invading the paternal inheritance by fraud and lie;¹² Joseph, deterring his brothers with lying words;¹³ Rahab, lying for the safety of the spies;¹⁴ David, speaking falsely before the priest Ahimelech;¹⁵ [and] James, Peter, and Paul, descending to the fictions of simulation for the peace of the Church.¹⁶ The latter part of the same assertion he proves from chapter 21 to 25, several testimonies of Scripture being adduced.

Jerome too seems to have acceded to this Origenic dogma, in the commentaries on the Epistle to the Galatians; where, when he treated of Peter (reproved by Paul), he judged that hypocrisy is to be assumed by good men in [due] season, in imitation of many illustrious men — of whose number [is] Jehu, king of Israel, who under the false promise of worshiping Baal slew the priests of that same Baal;¹⁷ David, who by feigned madness fled the danger of Achish, king of Gath;¹⁸ [and] Paul, who by a simulated rebuke reproved Peter (guilty of no fault) for the correction of the Judaizers,¹⁹ and — that he might gain the Jews for Christ — circumcised Timothy, and himself shaved his head at Cenchreae, and, the tonsure being made, offered an offering in Jerusalem.²⁰

This assertion Augustine condemns, in chapter 2 of the book On Lying to Consentius, among the Priscillianist heresies; and in the epistle to Jerome he grieves that it was once defended by Jerome, writing thus: “I have read certain writings, said to be yours, on the epistles of Paul; and when you wished to unravel one of them — [that] to the Galatians — that passage came into [my] hands where the Apostle Peter is recalled from a pernicious simulation. That a patronage of lying was there undertaken by you — such a man — I confess I grieve not moderately. For it seems to me most destructive to believe that those men, through whom the divine Scripture was ministered and written for us, lied in anything.” Thus Augustine. There is also an open determination of the Church against this opinion in the Decretals, under the title On Usury, chapter Super eo, where Pope Innocent, the third of that name, constantly affirms that it is forbidden by the precept of the divine word that anyone should lie even to save another’s life²¹ — which determination all the Scholastic theologians follow, most plainly decreeing that not only is every lie a sin, but also that every simulation and fraud, whether harmful or officious, is a vice contrary to truth and pertaining to the crime of lying; for whether by speech, or by any deed whatever — out of a zeal either to harm or to help — someone lies, he is a liar, and every lie is either a sin, or is not without sin.²²

But to those things which are objected by the defenders of the contrary opinion, they easily respond from the doctrine of Augustine, distributing into two classes the multitude of those who are produced as an example of profitable simulation and officious lying. In the first they place those who, though they lied in nothing, nevertheless seem to have been liars. Of these, some are thought to have lied because they spoke figuratively and mystically — like Jacob, who, though in those words, “I am Esau thy firstborn,” he seemed to lie, nevertheless spoke true things: because, according to the divine providence (which had chosen him for Esau’s birthright), he truly was the firstborn. But others fell into the suspicion of deceit and lying because, the counsels of their mind being concealed, they were unwilling to open the truth — as Abraham, answering the one who asked about his wife that she was [his] sister, seemed to have uttered a lie and denied the truth, when nevertheless he in no way lied, but only concealed the truth: keeping silent that she was his wife, and indicating what was true, that she was his sister; for she was truly his sister on the father’s side, but not on the mother’s. To this rule of concealing the truth the theologians refer all warlike stratagems and military ambushes, and the other simulations of governors, judges, and physicians, which — every crime of falsity being removed — consist in the sole concealment of truth. Among these can be reckoned the fictions of: Moses, despoiling Egypt;²³ Judith, beheading Holofernes;²⁴ David, feigning madness;²⁵ Peter, dissembling that he ate; and Paul, chiding Peter by a feigned rebuke²⁶ — which fictions indeed, since they are wholly devoid of any lie, are brought forward in vain for the patronage of lying. But in the second class the Scholastics place those who, without doubt, are agreed to have lied: such as David before the priest Ahimelech;²⁷ Jonathan before Saul;²⁸ Jehu the king with the priests of Baal;²⁹ Rahab, for the spies of the Jews;³⁰ [and] Michal, for David’s safety.³¹ But these, they assert, are not to be alleged in favor of falsity and lying, since their lies were nowhere approved by God. For although we read that some of these were, after these lies, praised in the sacred letters, and even rewarded by God with temporal goods, nevertheless it is not to be thought that in them the deceit and lie was praised and rewarded, but the piety and charity and faith with which they embraced those for whom they did not fear to lie.