[Footnote 1: Hamburger's Real-Encyclopadie fuer Bibel und Talmud, I., art. "Truthfulness" (Wahrhaftigkeit).]

As specimen illustrations of the teachings of the Talmud on this theme, Hamburger quotes these utterances from its pages: "He who alters his word, at the same time commits idolatry." "Three are hated of God: he who speaks with his mouth otherwise than as he feels with his heart; he who knows of evidence against any one, and does not disclose it," etc. "Four cannot appear before God: the scorner, the hypocrite, the liar, and the slanderer." "'A just measure thou shalt keep;' that is, we should not think one thing in our heart, and speak another with our mouth." "Seven commit the offense of theft: he who steals [sneaks into] the good will of another; he who invites his friend to visit him, and does not mean it in his heart; he who offers his neighbor presents, knowing beforehand that he will not receive them," etc.

And Hamburger adds: "Every lie, therefore, however excellent the motive, is decidedly forbidden.... In the tract Jebamoth, 63, Raba blames his son for employing a 'lie of necessity' (nothluege) to restore peace between his father and his mother.... It is clear that the Talmud decidedly rejects the principle that 'the end justifies the means.'"[1]

[Footnote 1: Compare also art. "Falseness" (Falscheit).]

On the other hand, Hamburger cites Rabbi Ishmael, one of the Talmudists, as teaching that a Jew might transgress even the prohibition of idolatry (and lying is, according to Talmudic teaching, equivalent to idolatry) in order to save his life, provided the act was not done in public. In support of his position, Rabbi Ishmael cited the declaration concerning the statutes of Moses in Leviticus 18: 5, "which if a man do he shall live in them," and added by way of explanation: "He [the Israelite] is to live through the law, but is not to die through it."[1]

[Footnote 1: See Hamburger's Real-Encyc., II., art. "Ismael R."]

And Isaac Abohab, an eminent Spanish rabbi, in his Menorath Hammaor[1] gives other illustrations from the Talmud of the advocacy of special exceptions to the strict law of truthfulness, with a good purpose in view, notwithstanding the sweeping claim to the contrary by Hamburger. He says: "Only when it is the intention to bring about peace between men, may anything be altered in discourse; as is taught in the tract Jebamoth. Rabbi Ilai says, in the name of Rabbi Jehuda, son of Rabbi Simeon: 'One may alter something in discourse for the sake of establishing harmony.'... Rabbi Nathan says: 'This indeed is a duty.'... Rabbi Ishmael taught: 'Peace is of such importance that for its sake God even alters facts.'" In each of these cases the rabbi cited misapplies a Bible passage in support of his position.

[Footnote 1: See German translation by R.J. Fuerstenthal, Discourse II., I.]

Isaac Abohab adds: "In like manner the rabbis say that one may praise a bride in the presence of her bridegroom, and say that she is handsome and devout, when she is neither, if the intention predominates to make her attractive in the eyes of her bridegroom. Nevertheless a man is not to tell lies even in trifling matters, lest lying should come to be a habit with him, as is warned against in the tract Jebamoth."

Thus it would appear that there were discussions on this subject among the rabbis of the Talmud, and that while there were those who advocated the "lie of necessity," as a matter of personal gain or as a means of good to others, there were those who stood firmly against any form of the lie, or any falsity, as in itself at variance with the very nature of God, and with the plain duty of God's children.

Among the Christian Fathers it was much the same as among the Jewish rabbis, in discussions over this question. The one unvarying standard was recognized, by the clearest thinkers, as binding on all for always; yet there were individuals inclined to find a reason for exceptions in the practical application of this standard. The phase of the question that immediately presented itself to the early Christians was, whether it were allowable for a man to deny to a pagan enemy that he was a Christian, or that one whom he held dear was a Christian, when the speaking of the truth would cost him his life, or cost the life of one whom he loved.

There were those who held that the duty to speak the truth was merely a social obligation, and that when a man showed himself as an enemy of God and of his fellows, he shut himself out from the pale of this social obligation; moreover, that when such a man could be deterred from crime, and at the same time a Christian's life could be preserved, by the telling of an untruth, a falsehood would be justifiable. If the lie were told in private under such circumstances, it was by such persons considered different from a public denial of one's faith. But, on the other hand, the great body of Christians, in the apostolic age, and in the age early following, acted on the conviction that a lie is a sin per se, and that no emergency could make a lie a necessity. And it was in fidelity to this conviction that the roll of Christian martyrs was so gloriously extended.

Justin Martyr, whose Apologies in behalf of the Christians are the earliest extant, speaks for the best of the class he represents when he says: "It is in our power, when we are examined, to deny that we are Christians; but we would not live by telling a lie."[1] And again: "When we are examined, we make no denial, because we are not conscious of any evil, but count it impious not to speak the truth in all things, which also we know is pleasing to God."[2] There was no thought in such a mind as Justin Martyr's, or in the minds of his fellow-martyrs, that any life was worth saving at the cost of a lie in God's sight.

[Footnote 1: First Apology, Chapter 8.]

[Footnote 2: Second Apology, Chapter 4.]

There were many temptations, and great ones, to the early Christians, to evade the consequences of being known as refusers to worship the gods of the Romans; and it is not to be wondered at that many poor mortals yielded to those temptations. Exemption from punishment could be purchased by saying that one had offered sacrifices to the gods, or by accepting a certificate that such sacrifice had been made, even when such was not the fact; or, again, by professing a readiness to sacrifice, without the intention of such compliance, or by permitting a friend to testify falsely as to the facts; and there were those who thought a lie of this sort justifiable, for the saving of their lives, when they would not have openly renounced their Christian faith.[1] There was much discussion over these practices in the writings of the Fathers; but while there was recognized a difference between open apostasy and the tolerance of a falsehood in one's behalf, it was held by the church authorities that a lie was always sinful, even though there were degrees in modes of sinning.

[Footnote 1: See Smith and Cheetham's Dictionary of Christian Antiquities, art. "Libelli." See also Bingham's Antiquities of the Christian Church, Book XVI., Chap. 13, Section 5; also Book XVI., Chap. 3, Section 14; with citations from Tertullian, Origen, and Cyprian.]

Ringing words against all forms of lying were spoken by some of the Christian Fathers. Says the Shepherd of Hermas: "Love the truth, and let nothing but truth proceed from your mouth, that the spirit which God has placed in your flesh may be found truthful before all men; and the Lord, who dwelleth in you, will be glorified, because the Lord is truthful in every word, and in him is no falsehood. They, therefore, who lie, deny the Lord, and rob him, not giving back to him the deposit which they have received. For they received from him a spirit free from falsehood. If they give him back this spirit untruthful, they pollute the commandment of the Lord, and become robbers."[1]

[Footnote 1: Book II., Commandment Third. The Ante-Nicene Fathers (Am. ed.), II., 21.]

Tertullian names among "sins of daily committal, to which we all are liable," the "sin" of "lying, from bashfulness [or modesty], or 'necessity.'"[1] Origen also speaks of the frequency of "lying, or of idle talking;"[2] as if possibly its frequency were in some sense an excuse for it. And Origen specifically claimed that the apostles Peter and Paul agreed together to deceive their hearers at Antioch by simulating a dissension between themselves, when in reality they were agreed.[3] Origen also seemed to approve of false speaking to those who were not entitled to know all the truth; as when he says of the cautious use of falsehood, "a man on whom necessity imposes the responsibility of lying is bound to use very great care, and to use falsehood as he would a stimulant or a medicine, and strictly to preserve its measure, and not go beyond the bounds observed by Judith in her dealings with Holofernes, whom she overcame by the wisdom with which she dissembled her words."[4]

[Footnote 1: "On Modesty," Chap. 19. The Ante-Nicene Fathers, XIV., 97.]

[Footnote 2: Origen's Commentaries on Matthew, Tract VI., p. 60; cited in Bingham's Antiq. of Chr. Ch., Book XVI., Chap. 3.]

[Footnote 3: Gal. 2: 11-14. A concise statement of the influence of this teaching of Origen on the patristic interpretations of the passage in Galatians, is given by Lightfoot in his commentary on Galatians, sixth edition, pp. 128-132.]

[Footnote 4: Quoted from the sixth book of Origen's Miscellanies by Jerome, in his Apology against Rufinus, Book I., sec. 18. See The Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, second series (Am. ed.), III., 492. See, also, Neander's Geschichte der Christlichen Ethik, pp. 160, 167.]

There were Christian Fathers who found it convenient to lie, in their own behalf or in behalf of others; and it was quite natural for such mortals to seek to find an excuse for lies that "seemed so necessary" for their purposes. When Gregory of Nyssa, in his laudable effort to bring about a reconciliation between his elder brother Basil and their uncle, was "induced to practice a deceit which was as irreconcilable with Christian principles as with common sense,"[1] he was ready to argue in defense of such a course.

[Footnote 1: Moore's Life of S. Gregory of Nyssa. The Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, second series (Am. ed.), V., 5.]

So again, when his brother Basil was charged with falsehood in a comparatively "trivial" matter, (where, in fact, he had merely been in error unintentionally,) Gregory falls back upon the comforting suggestion, that as to lying, in one way or another everybody is at fault; "accordingly, we accept that general statement which the Holy Spirit uttered by the Prophet, 'Every man is a liar.'"[1] Gregory protests against the "solemn reflections on falsehood" by Eunomius, in this connection, and his seeing equal heinousness in it whether in great or very trivial matters. "Cease," he says, "to bid us think it of no account to measure the guilt of a falsehood by the slightness or importance of the circumstances." Basil, on the contrary, asserts without qualification, as his conviction, that it never is permissible to employ a falsehood even for a good purpose. He appeals to the words of Christ that all lies are of the Devil.[2]

[Footnote 1: Ibid., p. 46.]

[Footnote 2: Neander's Geschichte der Christlichen Ethik, p. 219.]

Chrysostom, as a young man, evaded ordination for himself and secured it to his dearest friend Basil (who should not be confounded with Basil the Great, the brother of Gregory of Nyssa) by a course of deception, which he afterwards labored to justify by the claim that there were lies of necessity, and that God approved of deception as a means of good to others.[1] In the course of his exculpatory argument, he said to his much aggrieved friend Basil: "Great is the value of deceit, provided it be not introduced with a mischievous intention. In fact, action of this sort ought not to be called deceit, but rather a kind of good management, cleverness, and skill, capable of finding out ways where resources fail, and making up for the defects of the mind.... That man would fairly deserve to be called a deceiver who made an unrighteous use of the practice, not one who did so with a salutary purpose. And often it is necessary to deceive, and to do the greatest benefits by means of this device, whereas he who has gone by a straight course has done great mischief to the person whom he has not deceived."[2]

[Footnote 1: See Smith and Wace's Dictionary of Christian Biography, I., 519 f.; art. "Chrysostom, John."]

[Footnote 2: See Chrysostom's "Treatise on the Priesthood," in The Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, first series (Am. ed.), IX., 34-38.]

In fact, Chrysostom seems, in this argument, to recognize no absolute and unvarying standard of truthfulness as binding on all at all times; but to judge lies and deceptions as wrong only when they are wrongly used, or when they result in evil to others. He appears to act on the anti-Christian theory[1] that "the end justifies the means." Indeed, Dr. Schaff, in reprobating this "pious fraud" of Chrysostom, as "conduct which every sound Christian conscience must condemn," says of the whole matter: "The Jesuitical maxim, 'the end justifies the means,' is much older than Jesuitism, and runs through the whole apocryphal, pseudo-prophetic, pseudo-apostolic, pseudo-Clementine, and pseudo-Isidorian literature of the early centuries. Several of the best Fathers show a surprising want of a strict sense of veracity. They introduce a sort of cheat even into their strange theory of redemption, by supposing that the Devil caused the crucifixion under the delusion [intentionally produced by God] that Christ was a mere man, and thus lost his claim upon the fallen race." [2]

[Footnote 1: Rom. 3: 7, 8.]

[Footnote 2: See Dr. Schaff's "Prologemena to The Life and Works of St. Chrysostom," in The Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, first Series (Am. ed.), IX., 8.]

Chrysostom, like Gregory of Nyssa, having done that which was wrong in itself, with a laudable end in view, naturally attempts its defense by the use of arguments based on a confusion in his own mind of things which are unjustifiable, with things which are allowable. He does not seem to distinguish between deliberate deception as a mode of lying, and concealment of that which one has a right to conceal. Like many another defender of the right to lie in behalf of a worthy cause, in all the centuries, Chrysostom essays no definition of the "lie," and indicates no distinction between culpable concealment, and concealment that is right and proper. Yet Chrysostom was a man of loving heart and of unwavering purpose of life. In an age of evil-doing, he stood firm for the right. And in spite of any lack of logical perceptions on his part in a matter like this, it can be said of him with truth that "perhaps few have ever exercised a more powerful influence over the hearts and affections of the most exalted natures."[1]

[Footnote 1: Smith and Wace's Dictionary of Christian Biography, I., 532.]

Augustine, on the other hand, looks at this question, in accordance with the qualities of his logical mind, in its relation to an absolute standard; and he is ready to accept the consequences of an adherence to that standard, whether they be in themselves desirable or deplorable. He is not afraid to define a lie, and to stand by his definition in his argument. He sees and notes the difference between justifiable concealment, and concealment that is for the purpose of deception. "It is lawful then," he says on this point, "to conceal at fitting time whatever seems fit to be concealed: but to tell a lie is never lawful, therefore neither to conceal by telling a lie."[1] In his treatise "On Lying" (De Mendacid),[2] and in his treatise "Against Lying" (Contra Mendaciuni)[3] as well as in his treatise on "Faith, Hope, and Love" (Enchiridion),[4] and again in his Letters to Jerome,[5] Augustine states the principle involved in this vexed question of the ages, and goes over all the arguments for and against the so-called "lie of necessity." He sees a lie to be a sin per se, and therefore never admissible for any purpose whatsoever. He sees truthfulness to be a duty growing out of man's primal relation to God, and therefore binding on man while man is in God's sight. He strikes through the specious arguments based on any temporary advantages to be secured through lying, and rejects utterly the suggestion that man may do evil that good may come.

[Footnote 1: The Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, first series (Am. ed.), IX., 466.]

[Footnote 2: Ibid., III., 455-477.]

[Footnote 3: Ibid., pp. 479-500.]

[Footnote 4: Ibid., pp. 230-276.]

[Footnote 5: Ibid., I., "Letters of St. Augustine."]

The sound words of Augustine on this question, as based on his sound arguments, come down to us with strength and freshness through the intervening centuries; and they are worthy of being emphasized as the expressions of unchanging truth concerning the duty of truthfulness and the sin of lying. "There is a great question about lying," he says at the start, "which often arises in the midst of our everyday business, and gives us much trouble, that we may not either rashly call that a lie which is not such, or decide that it is sometimes right to tell a lie; that is, a kind of honest, well-meant, charitable lie." This question he discusses with fulness, and in view of all that can be said on both sides. Even though life or salvation were to pivot on the telling of a lie, he is sure that no good to be gained could compensate for the committal of a sin.

Arguing that a lie is essentially opposed to God's truth—by which alone man can have eternal life—Augustine insists that to attempt to save another's life through lying, is to set off one's eternal life against the mere bodily life of another. "Since then by lying eternal life is lost, never for any man's temporal life must a lie be told. And as to those who take it ill, and are indignant that one should refuse to tell a lie, and thereby slay his own soul in order that another may grow old in the flesh, what if by our committing adultery a person might be delivered from death: are we therefore to steal, to commit whoredom.... To ask whether a man ought to tell a lie for the safety of another, is just the same as asking whether for another's safety a man ought to commit iniquity."

"Good men," he says, "should never tell lies." "To tell a lie is never lawful, therefore neither to conceal [when concealment is desirable] by telling a lie." Referring to the fact that some seek to find a justification in the Bible teachings for lying in a good cause,—"even in the midst of the very words of the divine testimonies seeking place for a lie,"—he insists, after a full examination of this claim, "that those [cited] testimonies of Scripture have none other meaning than that we must never at all tell a lie."

"A lie is not allowable, even to save another from injury." "Every lie must be called a sin." "Nor are we to suppose that there is any lie that is not a sin, because it is sometimes possible, by telling a lie, to do service to another." "It cannot be denied that they have attained a very high standard of goodness who never lie except to save a man from injury; but in the case of men who have reached this standard, it is not the deceit, but their good intention, that is justly praised, and sometimes even rewarded,"—as in the case of Rahab in the Bible story. "There is no lie that is not contrary to truth. For as light and darkness, piety and impiety, justice and injustice, sin and righteousness, health and sickness, life and death, so are truth and a lie contrary the one to the other. Whence by how much we love the former, by so much ought we to hate the latter."

"It does indeed make very much difference for what cause, with what end, with what intention, a thing be done: but those things which are clearly sins, are upon no plea of a good cause, with no seeming good end, no alleged good intention, to be done. Those works, namely, of men, which are not in themselves sins, are now good, now evil, according as their causes are good or evil.... When, however, the works in themselves are evil,... who is there that will say, that upon good causes, they may be done, so as either to be no sins, or, what is more absurd, to be just sins?" "He who says that some lies are just, must be judged to say no other than that some sins are just, and that therefore some things are just which are unjust: than which what can be more absurd?" "Either then we are to eschew lies by right doing, or to confess them [when guilty of them] by repenting: but not, while they unhappily abound in our living, to make them more by teaching also."

In replying to the argument that it would be better to lie concerning an innocent man whose life was sought by an enemy, or by an unjust accuser, than to betray him to his death, Augustine said courageously: "How much braver,... how much more excellent, to say, 'I will neither betray nor lie.'" "This," he said, "did a former bishop of the Church of Tagaste, Firmus by name, and even more firm in will. For when he was asked by command of the emperor, through officers sent by him, for a man who was taking refuge with him, and whom he kept in hiding with all possible care, he made answer to their questions, that he could neither tell a lie nor betray a man; and when he had suffered so many torments of body (for as yet emperors were not Christians), he stood firm in his purpose. Thereupon, being brought before the emperor, his conduct appeared so admirable that he without any difficulty obtained a pardon for the man whom he was trying to save. What conduct could be more brave and constant?"[1]

[Footnote 1: See The Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, first series (Am. ed.), III., 408.]

The treatise "Against Lying" was written by Augustine with special reference to the practice and teaching of the sect of Priscillianists. These Christians "affirmed, with some other of the theosophic sects, that falsehood was allowable for a holy end. Absolute veracity was only binding between fellow-members of their sect."[1] Hence it was claimed by some other Christians that it would be fair to shut out Priscillianists from a right to have only truth spoken to them, since they would not admit that it is always binding between man and man. This view of truthfulness as merely a social obligation Augustine utterly repudiated; as, indeed, must be the case with every one who reckons lying a sin in and of itself. Augustine considered, in this treatise, various hypothetical cases, in which the telling of the truth might result in death to a sick man, while the telling of a falsehood might save his life. He said frankly: "And who can bear men casting up to him what a mischief it is to shun a lie that might save life, and to choose truth which might murder a man? I am moved by this objection exceedingly, but it were doubtful whether also wisely." Yet he sees that it were never safe to choose sin as a means to good, in preference to truth and right with all their consequences.

[Footnote 1: See Smith and Wace's Dict. of Chris. Biog., IV., 478, art. "Priscillianus."]

Jerome having, like many others, adopted Origen's explanation of the scene between Peter and Paul at Antioch, Augustine wrote to him in protest against such teaching, with its implied approval of deceit and falsehood.[1] A correspondence on this subject was continued between these two Fathers for years;[2] and finally Jerome was led to adopt Augustine's view of the matter,[3] and also to condemn Origen for his loose views as to the duty of veracity.[4] But however Jerome might vacillate in his theory, as in his practice, concerning the permanent obligations of truthfulness, Augustine stood firm from first to last in the position which is justified by the teachings of the Bible and by the moral sense of the human race as a whole,—that a lie is always a lie and always a sin, and that a lie can never be justified as a means to even the best of ends.

[Footnote 1: See The Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, first series (Am. ed.), I., Letters XXVIII., XL.]

[Footnote 2: Ibid., Letters LXVII., LXVIII., LXXII., LXXIII., LXXIV., LXXV.]

[Footnote 3: Ibid., Letter CLXXX.]

[Footnote 4: The Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, second series (Am. ed.), III., 460 ff.; Rufinus' Apology, Book II.; Jerome's Apology, Book I., p. 492.]

From the days of Chrysostom and Augustine to the present time, all discussions of this question have been but a repetition of the arguments and objections then brought forward and examined. There can be, in fact, only two positions maintained with any show of logical consistency. Either a lie is in its very nature antagonistic to the being of God, and therefore not to be used or approved by him, whatever immediate advantages might accrue from it, or whatever consequences might pivot on its rejection; or a lie is not in itself a sin, is not essentially at variance with the nature of God, but is good or evil according to the spirit of its use, and the end to be gained by it; and therefore on occasions God could lie, or could approve lying on the part of those who represent him.

The first of these positions is that maintained by the Shepherd of Hermas, by Justin Martyr, by Basil the Great, and by Augustine; the second is practically that occupied by Gregory of Nyssa and Chrysostom, even though they do not explicitly define, or even seem to perceive, it as their position. There are, again, those like Origen and Jerome, who are now on one side of the dividing line, and now on the other; but they are not logically consistent with themselves in their opinions or practices. And those who are not consistent usually refrain from explicit definitions of the lie and of falsehood; they make no attempt at distinguishing between justifiable concealment, and concealment for the very purpose of deception.

With all the arguments on this question, in all the centuries, comprised within these well-defined bounds, it were useless to name each prominent disputant, in order merely to classify him as on the one side or on the other, or as zigzagging along the line which he fails to perceive. It were sufficient to point out a few pre-eminent mountain peaks, in the centuries between the fifth and the nineteen of the Christian era, as indicative of the perspective history of this discussion.

Towering above the greatest of the Schoolmen in the later middle ages stands Thomas Aquinas. As a man of massive intellect, of keenness of perception, of consistent logical instincts, and of unquestioned sincerity and great personal devoutness, we might expect him to be found, like Augustine, on the side of principle against policy, in unqualified condemnation of lying under any circumstances whatsoever, and in advocacy of truthfulness at all hazards. And that, as a matter of fact, is his position.

In his Summa Theologies[1] Aquinas discusses this whole question with eminent fairness, and with great thoroughness. He first states the claims of those who, from the days of Chrysostom, had made excuses for lying with a good end in view, and then he meets those claims severally. He looks upon lies as evil in themselves, and as in no way to be deemed good and lawful, since a right concurrence of all elements is essential to a thing's being good. "Whence, every lie is a sin, as Augustine says in his book 'Against Lying.'" His conclusion, in view of all that is to be said on both sides of the question, is: "Lying is sinful not only as harmful to our neighbor, but because of its own disorderliness. It is no more permitted to do what is disorderly [that is, contrary to the divine order of the universe] in order to prevent harm, than it is to steal for the purpose of giving alms, except indeed in case of necessity when all things are common property [when, for instance, the taking of needful food in time of a great disaster, as on a wrecked ship, is not stealing]. And therefore it is not allowable to utter a lie with this view, that we may deliver one from some peril. It is allowable, however, to conceal the truth prudently, by a sort of dissimulation, as Augustine says." This recognizes the correctness of Augustine's position, that concealment of what one has a right to conceal may be right, provided no lie is involved in the concealment. As to the relative grades of sin in lying, Aquinas counts lying to another's hurt as a mortal sin, and lying to avert harm from another as a venial sin; but he sees that both are sins.

[Footnote 1: Secunda Secundae, Quaestio CX., art. III.]

It is natural to find Aquinas, as a representative of the keen-minded Dominicans, standing by truth as an eternal principle, regardless of consequences; as it is also natural to find, on the other side, Duns Scotus, as a representative of the easy-going Franciscans, with his denial of good absolute save as manifested in the arbitrary will of God. Duns Scotus accepted the "theory of a twofold truth," ascribed to Averroes, "that one and the same affirmation might be theologically true and philosophically false, and vice versa." In Duns Scotus's view, "God does not choose a thing because it is good, but the thing chosen is good because God chooses it;" "it is good simply and solely because God has willed it precisely so; but he might just as readily have willed the opposite thereof. Hence also God is not [eternally] bound by his commands, and he can in fact annul them."[1] According to this view, God could forbid lying to-day and justify it to-morrow. It is not surprising, therefore, that "falsehood and misrepresentation" are "under certain circumstances allowable," in the opinion of Duns Scotus.

[Footnote 1: See Kurtz's Church History (Macpherson's Translation), II., 101, 167-169; Ueberweg's History of Philosophy, I., 416, 456 f.; Wuttke's Christian Ethics (Am. ed.), I., 218, Sec. 34.]

So, all along the centuries, the religious teacher who holds to the line between truth and falsehood as an eternal line must, if logically consistent, refuse to admit any possible justification of lying. Only he who denies an eternally absolute line between the true and the false could admit with consistency the justification by God of an act that is essentially hostile to the divine nature. Any exception to this rule is likely to be where a sympathetic nature inclines a teacher to seek for an excuse for that which seems desirable even though it be theoretically wrong.

When it comes to the days of the Protestant Reformation, we find John Calvin, like his prototype Augustine, and like Augustine's follower Aquinas, standing firmly against a lie as antagonistic to the very nature of God, and therefore never justifiable. Martin Luther, also, is a fearless lover of the truth; but he is disposed to find excuses for a lie told with a good end in view, although he refrains from asserting that even the best disposed lie lacks the element of sinfulness.[1] On the other hand, Ignatius Loyola, and his associates in the founding of the Society of Jesus as a means of checking the Protestant Reformation, acted on the idea that was involved in the theology of Duns Scotus, that the only standard of truth and right is in the absolute and arbitrary will of God; and that, therefore, if God, speaking through his representative in the newly formed Society, commands the telling of a lie, a lie is justifiable, and its telling is a duty. Moreover, these Jesuit leaders in defining, or in explaining away, the lie, include, under the head of justifiable concealment, equivocations and falsifications that the ordinary mind would see to be forms of the lie.[2]

[Footnote 1: See Martensen's Christian Ethics, p. 216. Compare, for example, Luther's comments on Exodus I: 15-21, with Calvin's comments on Genesis 12: 14-20.]

[Footnote 2: See Symonds's Renaissance in Italy, I., 263-267; Cartwright's The Jesuits; Meyrick's Moral Theology of the Church of Rome; Pascal's Provincial Letters. See, also, Kurtz's Church History, II., 430.]

It is common to point to the arguments of the Jesuits in favor of lies of expediency, in their work for the Church and for souls, as though their position were exceptional, and they stood all by themselves in including falsehood as a means to be employed rightfully for a good end.

But in this they are simply logically consistent followers of those Christian Fathers, and their successors in every branch of the Church, who have held that a lie for righteous purposes was admissible when the results to be secured by it were of vital importance. All the refinements of casuistry have their value to those who admit that a lie may be right under certain conceivable circumstances; but to those who, like Augustine and Aquinas, insist that a lie is a sin per se, and therefore never admissible, casuistry itself has no interest as a means of showing when a sin is not sinful.[1]

[Footnote 1: Hence the casuistry of the Schoolmen and of the Jesuits, and the question of Mental Reservations, and of "Probabilities," are not treated in detail here.]

Some of the zealous defenders of the principles and methods of the Jesuits affirm that, in their advocacy of dissimulation and prevarication in the interests of a good cause, the Jesuits do not intend to justify lying, but are pointing out methods of proper concealment which are not within the realm of the lie. In this (waiving the question whether these defenders are right or not as to the fact) they seem even more desirous of being counted against lying than those teachers, in the Romish Church or among Protestants, who boldly affirm that a lie itself is sometimes justifiable. Thus it is claimed by a Roman Catholic writer, in defense of the Jesuits, that Liguori, their favorite theologian, taught "that to speak falsely is immutably a sin against God. It may be permitted under no circumstances, not even to save life. Pope Innocent III. says, 'Not even to defend our life is it lawful to speak falsely;'" therefore, when Liguori approves any actions that seem opposed to truthfulness, "he allows the instances because they are not falsehood."[1] On the other hand, Jeremy Taylor squarely asserts: "It is lawful to tell a lie to children or to madmen, because they, having no powers of judging, have no right to the truth."[2]

[Footnote 1: See Meyrick's Moral Theology of the Church of Rome, Appendix, p. 256 f.]

[Footnote 2: Jeremy Taylor's Ductor Dubitantium, in his Works, X., 103.]

But Jeremy Taylor's trouble is in his indefinite definition of "a lie," and in his consequent confusion of mind and of statement with reference to the limitations of the duty of veracity. He writes on this subject at considerable length,[1] and in alternation declares himself plainly first on one side, and then on the other, of the main question, without even an attempt at logical consistency. He starts out with the idea that "we are to endeavor to be like God, who is truth essentially;" that "God speaks truth because it is his nature;" that "the Holy Scriptures of the Old and New Testament do indefinitely and severely forbid lying," and "our blessed Saviour condemns it by declaring every lie to be of the Devil;" and that "beyond these things nothing can [could] be said for the condemnation of lying." All that certainly is explicit and sound,—as sound as Basil the Great, as St. Augustine, or as Thomas Aquinas!

[Footnote 1: Jeremy Taylor's Ductor Dubitantium, in his Works, X., 100-132.]

When he attempts the definition of a lie, however, Jeremy Taylor would seem to claim that injustice toward others and an evil motive are of its very essence, and that, if these be lacking, a lie is not a lie. "Lying is to be understood to be something said or written to the hurt of a neighbor, which cannot be understood [by the hearer or reader] otherwise than to differ from the mind of him that speaks." As Melanchthon says, "To lie is to deceive our neighbor to his hurt." "If a lie be unjust, it can never become lawful; but if it can be separate from injustice, then it may be innocent."

Jeremy Taylor naturally falls back on the Bible stories of the Hebrew midwives and Rahab the harlot, and assumes that God commended their lying, as lying, because they had a good end in view; and he asserts that "it is necessary sometimes by a lie to advantage charity by losing of a truth to save a life," and that "to tell a lie for charity, to save a man's life, the life of a friend, of a husband, of a prince, of an useful and a public person, hath not only been done in all times, but commended by great and wise and good men." From this it would appear that lying, which Jeremy Taylor sets out with denouncing as contrary to God's nature, and as declared by our Saviour to be always of the Devil, may, under certain circumstances, be a godly sin. Gregory of Nyssa and young Chrysostom could not have done better than this in showing the sinlessness of a sin in a good cause.

Seeing that concealment of that which is true is often a duty, and seeing also that concealment of that which ought to be disclosed is often practically a lie, Jeremy Taylor apparently; jumps to the conclusion that concealment and equivocation and lying are practically the same thing, and that therefore lying is sometimes a duty, while again it is a sin. He holds that the right to be spoken to in truthfulness, "though it be regularly and commonly belonging to all men, yet it may be taken away by a superior right supervening; or it may be lost, or it may be hindered, or it may cease upon a greater reason." As "that which is but the half of a true proposition either signifies nothing or is directly a lie," it must be admitted that "in the same cases in which it is lawful to tell a lie, in the same cases it is lawful to use a mental reservation;" and "where it is lawful to lie, it is lawful to equivocate, which may be something less than a plain lie." Moreover, "it is lawful upon a just cause of great charity or necessity to use, in our answers and intercourses, words of divers signification, though it does deceive him that asks."

Jeremy Taylor ingenuously confesses that, in certain cases where lying is allowable or is a duty, "the prejudice which the question is like to have is in the meaning and evil sound of the word lying; which, because it is so hateful to God and man, casts a cloud upon anything that it comes near." But, on the whole, Jeremy Taylor is willing to employ with commendation that very word "lying" which is "so hateful to God and man." And in various cases he insists that "it is lawful to tell a lie," although "the lie must be charitable and useful,"—a good lie, and not a wicked lie; for a good lie is good, and a wicked lie is wicked. He does not shrink from the consequences of his false position.

Jeremy Taylor can therefore be cited as arguing that a lie is never admissible, but that it often is commendable. He does not seem to be quite sure of any real difference between lying and justifiable concealment, or to have in his mind an unvarying line between truthfulness and lying. He admits that God and man hate lying, but that a good lie, nevertheless, is a very good thing. And so he leaves the subject in more of a muddle than he found it.

Coming down to the present century, perhaps the most prominent and influential defender of the "lie of necessity," or of limitations to the law of veracity, is Richard Rothe; therefore it is important to give special attention to his opinions and arguments on this subject. Rothe was a man of great ability, of lovely spirit, and of pervasive personal influence; and as a consequence his opinions carry special weight with his numerous pupils and followers.

Kurtz[1] characterizes Rothe as "one of the most profound thinkers of the century, equaled by none of his contemporaries in the grasp, depth, and originality of his speculation," and his "Theological Ethics" as "a work which in depth, originality, and conclusiveness of reasoning, is almost unapproached." And in the opinion of Lichtenberger,[2] Rothe "is unquestionably the most distinguished theologian of the School of Conciliation, and the most original thinker since Schleiermacher," while "he also showed himself to be one of the humblest Christians and one of the finest formed characters of his age." It is not to be wondered at therefore, that, when such a leader in thought and in influence as Rothe declares himself in favor of a judicious use of falsehood as a means of good, many are inclined to feel that there must be some sound reason for his course. Yet, on the other hand, the arguments in favor of falsehood, put forward by even such a man, ought to be scrutinized with care, in order to ascertain if they are anything more than the familiar arguments on the same side repeated in varying phrase in all the former centuries from Chrysostom to Jeremy Taylor.

[Footnote 1: Church History (Macpherson's translation), III., 201.]

[Footnote 2: History of German Theology in the 19th Century, p. 492.]

The trouble with Rothe in his treatment of this Matter[1] is, that he considers the duty of truthfulness merely in its personal and social aspects, without any direct reference to the nature, and the declared will, of God. Moreover, his peculiar definition of a lie is adapted to his view of the necessities of the case. He defines a lie as "the unloving misuse of speech (or of other recognized means of communication) to the intentional deception of our neighbor." In his mind, lovelessness toward one's fellow-man is of the very essence of the lie, and when one speaks falsely in expression of a spirit of love to others, it is not necessarily a lie.

[Footnote 1: Rothe's Theologische Ethik, IVter Band, secs. 1064, 1065.]

Rothe does not seem to recognize, in its application to this matter, the great principle that there is no true love for man except in conformity to and in expression of love for God; hence that nothing that is in direct violation of a primal law of God can be an exhibition of real love for one of God's creatures.

It is true that Rothe assumes that the subject of Theological Ethics is an essential branch of Speculative Theology; but in his treatment of Special Duties he seems to assume that Society rather than God is their background, and therefore the idea of sin as sin does not enter into the discussion. His whole argument and his conclusions are an illustration of the folly of attempting to solve any problem in ethics without considering the relation to it of God's eternal laws, and of the eternal principles which are involved in the very conception of God. Ethics necessarily includes more than social duties, and must be considered in the light of duty to God as above all.

"The intentional deception of our neighbor," says Rothe, "by saying what is untrue, is not invariably and unqualifiedly a lie. The question in this case is essentially one of the purpose.... It is only in the case where the untruth spoken with intent to deceive is at the same time an act of unlovingness toward our neighbor, that it is a violation of truthfulness as already defined, that is, a lie." In Rothe's view, "there are relations of men to each other in which [for the time being] avowedly the ethical fellowship does not exist, although the suspension of this fellowship must, of course, always be regarded as temporary, and this indeed as a matter of duty for at least one of the parties. Here there can be no mention of love, and therefore no more of the want of it." Social duties being in such cases suspended, and the idea of any special duty toward God not being in consideration, it is quite proper, as Rothe sees it, for enemies in war, or in private life, to speak falsely to each other. Such enemies "naturally have in speech simply a weapon which one may use against the other.... The duty of speaking the truth cannot even be thought of as existing between persons so arrayed against each other.... However they may try to deceive each other, even with the help of speech, they do not lie."

But Rothe goes even farther than this in the advocacy of such violations, or abrogations, of the law of veracity, as would undermine the very foundations of social life, and as would render the law against falsehood little more than a variable personal rule for limited and selected applications,—after the fashion of the American humorist who "believed in universal salvation if he could pick his men." Rothe teaches that falsehood is a duty, not only when it is needful in dealing with public or personal enemies, but often, also, in dealing with "children, the sick, the insane, the drunken, the passionately excited, and the morally weak,"—and that takes in a large share of the human race. He gives many illustrations of falsehood supposed to be necessary (where, in fact, they would seem to the keen-minded reader to be quite superfluous[1]) and having affirmed the duty of false speaking in these cases, he takes it for granted (in a strange misconception of the moral sense of mankind) that the deceived parties would, if appealed to in their better senses, justify the falsehoods spoken by mothers in the nursery, by physicians in the sick-room, and by the clear-headed sober man in his intercourse with the angry or foolish or drunken individual.

[Footnote 1: Nitzsch, the most eminent dogmatic theologian among Schleiermacher's immediate disciples, denies the possibility of conceiving of a case where loving consideration for others, or any other dutiful regard for them, will not attain its end otherwise and more truly and nobly than by lying to them, or where "the loving liar or falsifier might not have acted still more lovingly and wisely without any falsification.... The lie told from supposed necessity or to serve another is always, even in the most favorable circumstances, a sign either of a wisdom which is lacking in love and truth, or of a love which is lacking in wisdom."]

"Of course," he says, "such a procedure presupposes a certain relation of guardianship, on the part of the one who speaks untruth, over him whom he deceives, and a relative irresponsibility on the part of the other,—an incapacity to make use of certain truths except to his actual moral injury. And in each case all depends on the accuracy of this assumption." It is appalling to find a man like Rothe announcing a principle like this as operative in social ethics! Every man to decide for himself (taking the responsibility, of course, for his personal decision) whether he is in any sense such a guardian of his fellow-man as shall make it his duty to speak falsely to him in love!

Rothe frankly admits that there is no evidence that Jesus Christ, while setting an example here among men, ever spoke one of these dutiful untruths; although it certainly would seem that Jesus might have fairly claimed as good a right to a guardianship of his earthly fellows as the average man of nowadays.[1] But this does not restrain Rothe from deliberately advising his fellow-men to a different course.

[Footnote 1: Rothe says on this point: "That the Saviour spoke untruth is a charge to whose support only a single passage, John 7:8, can be alleged with any show of plausibility. But even here there was no speaking of untruth, even if [Greek: ank][a disputed reading] be regarded as the right reading." See on this passage Meyer in his Commentary, and Westcott in The Bible Commentary.]

Rothe names Marheineke, DeWette, von Ammon, Herbart, Hartenstein, Schwartz, Harless, and Reinhard, as agreeing in the main with his position; while as opposed to it he mentions Kant, Fichte, Krause, Schleiermacher, von Hirscher, Nitzsch, Flatt, and Baumgarten-Crusius. But this is by no means a question to be settled by votes; and not one of the writers cited by Rothe as of his mind, in this controversy, has anything new to offer in defense of a position in such radical disagreement with the teachings of the Bible, and with the moral sense of the race, on this point, as that taken by Rothe. In his ignoring of the nature and the will of God as the basis of an argument in this matter, and in his arbitrary and unauthorized definition of a lie (with its inclusion of the claim that the deliberate utterance of a statement known to be false, for the express purpose of deceiving the one to whom it is spoken, is not necessarily and inevitably a lie), Rothe stands quite pre-eminent. Wuttke says, indeed, of Rothe's treatment of ethics: "Morality [as he sees it] is an independent something alongside of piety, and rests by no means on piety,—is entirely co-ordinate to and independent of it."[1] Yet so great is the general influence of Rothe, that various echoes of his arguments for falsehoods in love are to be found in subsequent English and American utterances on Christian ethics.

[Footnote 1: Wuttke's Christian Ethics (Lacroix's transl.), sec. 48.]

Contemporaneous with Richard Rothe, and fully his peer in intellectual force and Christ-likeness of spirit, stands Isaac August Dorner. Dr. Schaff says of him:[1] "Dr. Dorner was one of the profoundest and most learned theologians of the nineteenth century, and ranks with Schleiermacher, Neander, Nitzsch, Julius Mueller, and Richard Rothe. He mastered the theology of Schleiermacher and the philosophy of Hegel, appropriated the best elements of both, infused into them a positive evangelical faith and a historic spirit;" and as a lecturer, especially "on dogmatics and ethics ... he excelled all his contemporaries." And to this estimate of him Professor Mead adds:[2] "Even one who knows Dorner merely as the theological writer, will in his writings easily detect the fine Christian tone which characterized the man; but no one who did not personally know him can get a true impression of the Johannean tenderness and childlike simplicity which distinguished him above almost any one of equal eminence whom the world has ever known."

[Footnote 1: Supplement to Schaff-Hertzog Encyc. of Relig. Knowl., p. 58.]

[Footnote 2: Preface to Dorner's System of Christian Ethics (Am. ed.), p. vii.]

When, therefore, it is considered that, after Rothe had given his views on veracity to the world, Dorner wrote on the same subject, as the very last work of his maturest life, a special interest attaches to his views on this mooted question. And Dorner is diametrically opposed to Rothe in this thing. Dorner bases the duty of truthfulness on our common membership in Christ, and the love that grows out of such a relation.[1] "Truth does not," indeed, "demand that all that is in a man should be brought out, else it would be a moral duty for him to let also the evil that is in him come forth, whereas it is his duty to keep it down." But if an untrue statement be made with the intention to deceive, it is a lie.

[Footnote 1: See Dorner's System of Christian Ethics (Am. ed.), pp. 487-492.]

"Are there cases," he asks, "where lying is allowable? Can we make out the so-called 'white lie' to be morally permissible?" Then he takes up the cases of children and the insane, who are not entitled to know all the truth, and asks if it be right not only to conceal the truth but to falsify it, in talking with them. Concealment may be a duty, he admits, but he denies that falsifying is ever a duty. "How shall ethics ever be brought to lay down a duty of lying [of 'white lying'], to recommend evil that good may come? The test for us is, whether we could ever imagine Christ acting in this way, either for the sake of others, or—which would be quite as justifiable, since self-love is a moral duty—for his own sake."

As to falsifying to a sick or dying man, he says, "we overestimate the value of human life, and, besides, we in a measure usurp the place of Providence, when we believe we may save it by committing sin." In other words, Dorner counts falsifying with the intention of deceiving, even with the best of motives, a lie, and therefore a sin—never justifiable. Like Augustine, Dorner recognizes degrees of guilt in lies, according to the spirit and motive of their telling; but in any event, if there be falsehood with the purpose of deceiving, it is a sin—to be regretted and repented of.

Dorner makes a fresh distinction between the stratagems of war and lying, which is worthy of note. He says that playful fictions, after the manner of riddles to be guessed out, are clearly allowable. So "in war, too, something like a game of this kind is carried on, when by way of stratagem some deceptive appearance is produced, and a riddle is thus given to the enemy. In such cases there is no falsehood; for from the conditions of the situation,—whether friendly or hostile,—the appearance that is given is confessedly nothing more than an appearance, and is therefore honest."

The simplicity and clearness of Dorner, in his unsophistical treatment of this question, is in refreshing contrast with the course of Rothe,—who confuses the whole matter in discussion by his arbitrary claim that a lie is not a lie, if it be told with a good purpose and a loving spirit. And the two men are representative disputants in this controversy of the centuries, as truly as were Augustine and Chrysostom.

A close friend of Dorner was Hans Lassen Martensen, "the greatest theologian of Denmark," and a thinker of the first class, "with high speculative endowments, and a considerable tincture of theosophical mysticism."[1] Martensen's "Christian Ethics" do not ignore God and the Bible as factors in any question of practical morals under discussion. He characterizes the result of such an omission as "a reckoning of an account whose balance has been struck elsewhere; if we bring out another figure, we have reckoned wrong." Martensen's treatment of the duty of veracity is a remarkable exhibit of the workings of a logical mind in full view of eternal principles, yet measurably hindered and retarded by the heart-drawings of an amiable sentiment. He sees the all-dividing line, and recognizes the primal duty of conforming to it; yet he feels that it is a pity that such conformity must be so expensive in certain imaginary cases, and he longs to find some allowance for desirable exceptions.[2]

[Footnote 1: See Kurtz's Church History (Macpherson's transl.), III., 201; Supplement to Schaff-Hertzog Encyc. of Relig. Knowl., p. 57; Johnson's Univ. Cycl.., art. "Martensen."]

[Footnote 2: Martensen's Christian Ethics (Individual), (Eng. trans.,) pp. 205-226.]

Martensen gives as large prominence as Rothe to love for one's fellow-man; but he bases that love entirely, as Rothe does not, on love for Christ. "Only in Christ, and [in] the light which, proceeding from him, is poured over human nature and all human life, can we love men in the central sense, and only then does philanthropy receive its deepest religious and moral character, when it is rooted in the truth of Christ." And as Christ is Truth, those who are Christ's must never violate the truth. "'Thou shalt not bear false witness; thou shalt not lie, neither in word nor deed; thou shalt neither deny the truth, nor give out anything that is not truth for truth,'—this commandment must dominate and penetrate all our life's relations." "Truth does not exist for man's sake, but man for the sake of the truth, because the truth would reveal itself to man, would be owned and testified by him." This would seem to be explicit enough to shut out the possibility of a justifiable lie!

"Yet it does not follow from this," says Martensen, "that our duty to communicate the truth to others is unlimited.... 'There is a time to be silent, and a time to speak.' No one is bound to say everything to everybody." Here he distinguishes between justifiable concealment and falsehood. Then he comes to the question "whether the so-called 'lie of exigency' can ever be justifiable." He runs over the arguments on both sides, and recalls the centuries of discussion on the subject. He thinks that adherence to the general principle which forbids lying would, in certain cases where love prompted to falsehood, cause in most minds an inward feeling that the letter killeth, and that to follow the promptings of love were better. Hence he argues that "as in other departments there are actions which, although from the standpoint of the ideal they are to be rejected, yet, from the hardness of men's hearts, must be approved and admitted, and under this restriction become relatively justifiable and dutiful actions, simply because greater evils are thereby averted; so there is also an untruth from exigency that must still be allowed for the sake of human weakness." And in his opinion "it comes to this, that the question of casuistry cannot be solved by general and abstract directions, but must be solved in an individual, personal way, especially according to the stage of moral and religious development and ripeness on which the person in question is found."

Having made these concessions, in the realm of feeling, to the defenders of the "lie of exigency," which may be "either uttered from love to men, or as defense against men—a defense in which either a justifiable self-love or sympathy with others is operative," Martensen proceeds to show that every such falsehood is abnormal and immoral. "When we thus maintain," he says, "that in certain difficult cases an 'untruth from necessity' may occur, which is to be allowed for the sake of human weakness, and under the given relations may be said to be justified and dutiful, we cannot but allow, on the other hand, that in every such untruth there is something of sin, nay something that needs excuse and forgiveness.... Certainly even the truth of the letter, the external, actual truth, even the formally correct, finds its right, the ground of its validity, in God's holy order of the world. But by every lie of exigency the command is broken, 'Thou shalt not bear false witness.'"

Martensen protests against the claim of Rothe that a falsehood spoken in love "is not at all to be called a lie, but can be absolutely defended as morally normal, and so in no respect needs pardon." "However sharply we may distinguish between lie and untruth (mendacium and falsilo-quium), the untruth in question can never be resolved into the morally normal." And he suggests that if one had more of wisdom and courage and faith, he might be true to the truth in an emergency without fear of the consequences.

"Let us suppose, for instance," he says, "the ... case, where the husband deceives his sick spouse from fear that she could not survive the news of the death of her child; who dare maintain that if the man had been able in the right way, that is in the power of the gospel, with the wisdom and the comfort of faith, to announce the death of the child, a religious crisis might not have arisen in her soul, which might have a healing and quickening effect upon her bodily state? And supposing that it had even led to her death, who dare maintain that that death, if it was a Christian death, were an evil, whether for the mother herself, or for the survivors?

"Or, let us take the woman who, to save her chastity, applies the defense of an untruth: who dare maintain that if she said the truth to her persecutors, but uttered it in womanly heroism, with a believing look to God, with the courage, the elevation of soul springing from a pure conscience, exhibiting to her persecutors the badness and unworthiness of their object, she might not have disarmed them by that might that lies in the good, the just cause, the cause whose defense and shield God himself will be? And even if she had to suffer what is unworthy, who dare maintain that she could not in suffering preserve her moral worth?"

Martensen recalls the story of Jeanie Deans, in Scott's "Heart of Midlothian," who refuses to tell a lie of exigency in order to save her sister's life; yet who, having uttered the truth which led to her sister's sentence of death, set herself, in faith in God, to secure that sister's pardon, and by God's grace compassed it. "Most people would at least be disposed to excuse Jeanie Deans, and to forgive her, if she had here made a false oath, and thereby had afforded her protection to the higher truth." And if a loving lie of exigency be a duty before God, an appeal to his knowledge of the fact is, of course, equally a duty. To refuse to appeal to God in witness of the truth of a falsehood that is told from a loving sense of duty, is to show a lack of confidence in God's approval of such an untruth. "But she will, can, and dare, for her conscience' sake, not do this."

"But the best thing in this tale," adds Martensen, "is that it is no mere fiction. The kernel of this celebrated romance is actual history." And Sir Walter Scott caused a monument to be erected in his garden, with the following inscription, in memory of this faithful truth-lover:

"This stone was placed by the Author of 'Waverley' in memory of Helen Walker, who fell asleep in the year of our Lord 1791. This maiden practiced in humility all the virtues with which fancy had adorned the character that bears in fiction the name of Jeanie Deans. She would not depart a foot's breadth from the path of truth, not even to save her sister's life; and yet she obtained the liberation of her sister from the severity of the law by personal sacrifices whose greatness was not less than the purity of her aims. Honor to the grave where poverty rests in beautiful union with truthfulness and sisterly love."

"Who will not readily obey this request," adds Martensen, "and hold such a memory in honor?... Who does not feel himself penetrated with involuntary, most hearty admiration?"

In conclusion, in view of all that can be said on either side of the question, Martensen is sure that "the lie of exigency itself, which we call inevitable, leaves in us the feeling of something unworthy, and this unworthiness should, simply in following Christ, more and more disappear from our life. That is, the inevitableness of the lie of exigency will disappear in the same measure that an individual develops into a true personality, a true character.... A lie of exigency cannot occur with a personality that is found in possession of full courage, of perfect love and holiness, as of the enlightened, all-penetrating glance. Not even as against madmen and maniacs will a lie of exigency be required, for to the word of the truly sanctified personality there belongs an imposing commanding power that casts out demons. It is this that we see in Christ, in whose mouth no guile was found, in whom we find nothing that even remotely belongs to the category of the exigent lie."

So it is evident that if one would seek excuse for the lie of exigency, in the concessions made by Martensen, he must do so only on the score of the hardness of his heart, and the softness of his head, as one lacking a proper measure of wisdom, of courage, and of faith, to enable him to conform to the proper ideal standard of human conduct. And even then he must recognize the fact that in his weakness he has done something to be ashamed of, and to demand repentance. Cold comfort that for a decent man!

It would seem that personal temperament and individual peculiarities had their part in deciding a man's attitude toward the question of the unvarying duty of veracity, quite as surely as the man's recognition of great principles. An illustration of this truth is shown in the treatment of the subject by Dr. Charles Hodge on the one hand, and by Dr. James H. Thornwell on the other, as representatives, severally, of Calvinistic Augustinianism in the Presbyterian Church of the United States, in its Northern and Southern branches. Starting from the same point of view, and agreeing as to the principles involved, these two thinkers are by no means together in their conclusions; and this, not because of any real difference in their processes of reasoning, but apparently because of the larger place given by the former to the influence of personal feeling, as over against the imperative demands of truth.

Dr. Hodge begins with the recognition and asseveration of eternal principles, that can know no change or variation in their application to this question; and then, as he proceeds with its discussion, he is amiably illogical and good-naturedly inconsistent, and he ends in a maze, without seeming quite sure as to his own view of the case, or giving his readers cause to know what should be their view. Dr. Thornwell, on the other hand, beginning in the same way, proceeds unwaveringly to the close, in logical consistency of reasoning; leaving his readers at the last as fully assured as he is as to the application of unchangeable principles to man's life and duties.

No one could state the underlying principles involved in this question more clearly and explicitly than does Dr. Hodge at the outset;[1] and it would seem from this statement that he could not be in doubt as to the issue of the discussion of this question of the ages. "The command to keep truth inviolate belongs to a different class [of commands] from those relating to the sabbath, to marriage, or to property. These are founded on the permanent relations of men in the present state of existence. They are not in their own nature immutable. But truth is at all times sacred, because it is one of the essential attributes of God, so that whatever militates against or is hostile to truth is in opposition to the very nature of God."

[Footnote 1: See Hodge's Systematic Theology, III., 437-463.]

"Truth is, so to speak, the very substratum of Deity. It is in such a sense the foundation of all the moral perfections of God, that without it they cannot be conceived of as existing. Unless God really is what he declares himself to be; unless he means what he declares himself to mean; unless he will do what he promises,—the whole idea of God is lost. As there is no God but the true God, so without truth there is and can be no God. As this attribute is the foundation, so to speak, of the divine, so it is the foundation of the physical and moral order of the universe.... There is, therefore, something awfully sacred in the obligations of truth. A man who violates the truth, sins against the very foundation of his moral being. As a false god is no god, so a false man is no man; he can never be what man was designed to be; he can never answer the end of his being. There can be in him nothing that is stable, trustworthy, or good."

Here is a platform that would seem to be the right standing-place for all and for always. Dr. Hodge apparently recognizes its well-defined limits and bounds; yet when he comes to discuss the question whether a certain person is, in a supposable case, on it, or off it, he does not seem so sure as to its precise boundary lines. He begins to waver when he cites Bible incidents. Recognizing the fact that fables and parables, and works of fiction, even though untrue, are not falsehoods, he strangely jumps to the conclusion that the "intention to deceive" is "not always culpable." He immediately follows this non-sequitur with a reference to the lying Hebrew midwives,[1] and he quotes the declaration of God's blessing on them, as if it were an approval of their lying, or their false speaking with an intention to deceive, instead of an approval of their spirit of devotion to God's people.[2]

[Footnote 1: Exod. I: 19, 20.]

[Footnote 2: Comp. p. 35 f., supra.]

From the midwives he passes to Samuel, sent of God to Bethlehem; [1] and under cover of the expressed opinions of others, Dr. Hodge says vaguely: "Here, it is said, is a case of intentional deception commanded. Saul was to be deceived as to the object of Samuel's journey to Bethlehem." Yet, whoever "said" this was guilty of a gratuitous charge of intentional deception, against the Almighty. Samuel was directed of God to speak the truth, so far as he spoke at all, while he concealed from others that which others had no right to know.[2] It would appear, however, throughout this discussion, that Dr. Hodge does not perceive the clear and important distinction between justifiable concealment from those who have no right to a knowledge of the facts, and concealment, or even false speaking, with the deliberate intention of deceiving those interested. In fact, Dr. Hodge does not even mention "concealment," as apart from its use for the specific purpose of deception.

[Footnote 1: I Sam. 16: i, 2.]

[Footnote 2: Comp. pp. 38-40, supra.]

Again Dr. Hodge cites the incident of Elisha at Dothan[1] as if in illustration of the rightfulness of deception under certain circumstances. But in this case it was concealment of facts that might properly be concealed, and not the deception of enemies as enemies, that Elisha compassed. The Syrians wanted to find Elisha. Their eyes were blinded, so that they did not recognize him when in his presence. In order to teach them a lesson, Elisha told the Syrians that they could not find him, or the city which was his home, by their own seeking; but if they would follow him he would bring them to the man whom they sought. They followed him, and he showed himself to them. When their eyes were opened in Samaria he would not suffer them to be harmed, but had them treated as guests, and sent back safely to their king.

[Footnote 1: Kings 6: 14-20.]

Having cited these three cases, no one of which can fairly be made to apply to the argument he is pursuing, Dr. Hodge complacently remarks: "Examples of this kind of deception are numerous in the Old Testament. Some of them are simply recorded facts, without anything to indicate how they were regarded in the sight of God; but others, as in the cases above cited, received either directly or by implication the divine sanction."

But Dr. Hodge goes even farther than this. He ventures to suggest that Jesus Christ deceived his disciples by intimating what was not true as to his purpose, in more than one instance. "Of our blessed Lord himself it is said in Luke 24:28, 'He made as though [Greek: prosepoieito]—he made a show of: he would have gone further.' He so acted as to make the impression on the two disciples that it was his purpose to continue his journey. (Comp. Mark 6: 48.)"[1] This suggestion of Dr. Hodge's would have been rebuked by even Richard Rothe, and would have shocked August Dorner. Would Dr. Hodge deny that Jesus could have had it in his mind to "go further," or to have "passed by" his disciples, if they would not ask him to stop? And if this were a possibility, is it fair to intimate that a purpose of deception was in his mind, when there is nothing in the text that makes that a necessary conclusion? Dr. Hodge, indeed, adds the suggestion that "many theologians do not admit that the fact recorded in Luke 24:28 [which he cites as an illustration of justifiable deception by our Lord] involved any intentional deception;" but this fact does not deter him from putting it forward in this light.

[Footnote 1: When Jesus came walking on the sea, toward his disciples in their tempest-tossed boat, "he would have passed them by;" but their cry of fear drew him toward them.]

In the discussion of the application to emergencies, in practical life, of the eternal principle which he points out at the beginning, Dr. Hodge is as far from consistency as in his treatment of Bible narratives. "It is generally admitted," he says, "that in criminal falsehoods there must be not only the enunciation or signification of what is false, and an intention to deceive, but also a violation of some obligation." What obligation can be stronger than the obligation to be true to God and true to one's self? If, as Dr. Hodge declares, "a man who violates the truth, sins against the very foundation of his moral being," a man would seem to be always under an obligation not to violate the truth by speaking that which is false with an intention to deceive. But Dr. Hodge seems to lose sight of his premises, in all his progress toward his conclusions on this subject.

"There will always be cases," he continues, "in which the rule of duty is a matter of doubt. It is often said that the rule above stated applies when a robber demands your purse. It is said to be right to deny that you have anything of value about you. You are not bound to aid him in committing a crime; and he has no right to assume that you will facilitate the accomplishment of his object. This is not so clear. The obligation to speak the truth is a very solemn one; and when the choice is left a man to tell a lie or lose his money, he had better let his money go. On the other hand, if a mother sees a murderer in pursuit of her child, she has a perfect right to mislead him by any means in her power [including lying?]; because the general obligation to speak the truth is merged or lost, for the time being, in the higher obligation." Yet Dr. Hodge starts out with the declaration that the obligation "to keep truth inviolate," is highest of all; that "truth is at all times sacred, because it is one of the essential attributes of God;" that God himself cannot "suspend or modify" this obligation; and that man is always under its force. And now, strangely enough, he claims that in various emergencies "the general obligation to speak the truth is merged, or lost, for the time being, in the higher obligation." The completest and most crushing answer to the vicious conclusions of Dr. Hodge as to the varying claims of veracity, is to be found in the explicit terms of his unvaryingly correct premises in the discussion.

Dr. Hodge appears to be conscious of his confusion of mind in this discussion, but not to be quite sure of the cause of it. As to his claim that the general obligation to speak the truth may be merged for the time being in a "higher obligation," he says: "This principle is not invalidated by its possible or actual abuse. It has been greatly abused." And he adds, farther on, in the course of the discussion:

"The question now under consideration is not whether it is ever right to do wrong, which is a solecism; nor is the question whether it is ever right to lie; but rather what constitutes a lie."

Having claimed that a lie necessarily includes falsity of statement, an intention to deceive, and "a violation of some obligation," Dr. Hodge goes on to show that "every lie is a violation of a promise," as growing out of the nature of human society, where "every man is expected to speak the truth, and is under a tacit but binding promise not to deceive his neighbor by word or act." And, after all this, he is inclined to admit that there are cases in which falsehoods with the intention of deceiving are not lying, and are justifiable. "This, however," he goes on to say, "is not always admitted. Augustine, for example, makes every intentional deception, no matter what the object or what the circumstances, to be sinful." And then, in artless simplicity, Dr. Hodge concludes: "This would be the simplest ground for the moralist to take. But as shown above, and as generally admitted, there are cases of intentional deception which are not criminal."

According to the principles laid down at the start by Dr. Hodge, there is no place for a lie in God's service; but according to the inferences of Dr. Hodge, in the discussion of this question, there are places where falsehoods spoken with intent to deceive are admissible in God's sight and service. His whole treatment of this subject reminds me of an incident in my army-prison life, where this question as a question was first forced upon my attention. The Union prisoners, in Columbia at that time, received their rations from the Confederate authorities, and had them cooked in their own way, and at their own expense, by an old colored woman whom they employed for the purpose. Two of us had a dislike for onions in our stew, while the others were well pleased with them. So we two agreed with old "Maggie," for a small consideration, to prepare us a separate mess without onions. The next day our mess came by itself. We took it, and began our meal with peculiar satisfaction; but the first taste showed us an unmistakable onion flavor in our stew. When old Maggie came again, we remonstrated with her on her breach of engagement. "Bless your hearts, honeys," she replied, "you must have some onions in your stew!" She could not comprehend the possibility of a beef stew without onions, even though she had formally agreed to make it.

Dr. Hodge's premises in the discussion of the duty of truthfulness rule out onions; but his inferences and conclusions have the odor and the taste of onions. He stands on a safe platform to begin with; but he is an unsafe guide when he walks away from it. His arguments in this case are an illustration of his own declaration: "An adept in logic may be a very poor reasoner."

Dr. Thornwell's "Discourses on Truth"[1] are a thorough treatment of the obligation of veracity and the sin of lying. He is clear in his definitions, marking the distinction between rightful concealment as concealment, and concealment for the purpose of deception. "There are things which men have a right to keep secret," he says, "and if a prurient curiosity prompts others officiously to pry into them, there is nothing criminal or dishonest in refusing to minister to such a spirit. Our silence or evasive answers may have the effect of misleading. That is not our fault, as it was not our design. Our purpose was simply to leave the inquirer as nearly as possible in the state of ignorance in which we found him: it was not to misinform him, but not to inform him at all.

[Footnote 1: In Thornwell's Collected Writings, II., 451-613.]

"'Every man,' says Dr. Dick, 'has not a right to hear the truth when he chooses to demand it. We are not bound to answer every question which may be proposed to us. In such cases we may be silent, or we may give as much information as we please, and suppress the rest. If the person afterward discover that the information was partial, he has no title to complain, because he had no right even to what he obtained; and we are not guilty of a falsehood unless we made him believe, by something which we said, that the information was complete.'" "The intention of the speaker, and the effect consequent upon it, are very different things."

Dr. Thornwell recognizes the fact that the moral sense of humanity discerns the invariable superiority of truth over falsehood. "If we place virtue in sentiment," he says, "there is nothing, according to the confession of all mankind, more beautiful and lovely than truth, more ugly and hateful than a lie. If we place it in calculations of expediency, nothing, on the one hand, is more conspicuously useful than truth and the confidence it inspires; nothing, on the other, more disastrous than falsehood, treachery, and distrust. If there be then a moral principle to which, in every form, humanity has given utterance, it is the obligation of veracity." "No man ever tells a lie without a certain degree of violence to his nature."

Dr. Thornwell bases this obligation of veracity on the nature of God, and on the duty of man to conform to the image of God in which he was created. "Jesus Christ commends himself to our confidence and love," he says, "on the ground of his being the truth;... and makes it the glory of the Father that he is the God of truth, and the shame and everlasting infamy of the prince of darkness that he is the father of lies;" and he adds: "The mind cannot move in charity, nor rest in Providence, unless it turn upon the poles of truth." "Every man is as distinctly organized in reference to truth, as in reference to any other purpose."

In Dr. Thornwell's view, it is not, as Dr. Paley would have it, that "a lie is a breach of promise," because as between man and man "the truth is expected," according to a tacit understanding. As Dr. Thornwell sees it, "we are not bound by any other expectations of man but those which we have authorized;" and he deems it "surprising to what an extent this superficial theory of 'contract' has found advocates among divines and moralists," as, for example, Dr. Robert South, whom he quotes.[1] "If Dr. Paley had pushed his inquiries a little farther," adds Thornwell, "he might have accounted for this expectation [of truthfulness] which certainly exists, independently of a promise, upon principles firmer and surer than any he has admitted in the structure of his philosophy. He might have seen it in the language of our nature proclaiming the will of our nature's God." The moral sense of mankind demands veracity, and abhors falsehood.

[Footnote 1: Smith's Sermon, on Falsehood and Lying.]

Dr. Thornwell is clear as to the teachings of the Bible, in its principles, and in the illustration of those principles in the sacred narrative. The Bible as he sees it teaches the unvarying duty of veracity, and the essential sinfulness of falsehood and deception. He repudiates the idea that God, in any instance, approved deception, or that Jesus Christ practiced it. "When our Saviour 'made as though he would have gone farther,' he effectually questioned his disciples as to the condition of their hearts in relation to the duties of hospitality. The angels, in pretending that it was their purpose to abide in the street all night, made the same experiment on Lot. This species of simulation involves no falsehood; its design is not to deceive, but to catechize and instruct. The whole action is to be regarded as a sign by which a question is proposed, or the mind excited to such a degree of curiosity and attention that lessons of truth can be successfully imparted."

And so on through other Bible incidents. Dr. Thornwell has no hesitation in distinguishing when concealment is right concealment, and when concealment is wrong because intended to deceive.

Exposing the incorrectness of the claim, made by Dr. Paley, as by others, that certain specific falsehoods are not lies, Dr. Thornwell shows himself familiar with the discussion of this question of the ages in all the centuries; and he moves on with his eye fixed unerringly on the polar star of truth, in refreshing contrast with the amiable wavering of Dr. Hodge's footsteps.

"Paley's law," he concludes, "would obviously be the destruction of all confidence. How much nobler and safer is the doctrine of the Scriptures, and of the unsophisticated language of man's moral constitution, that truth is obligatory on its own account, and that he who undertakes to signify to another, no matter in what form, and no matter what may be the right in the case to know the truth, is bound to signify according to the convictions of his own mind! He is not always bound to speak, but whenever he does speak he is solemnly bound to speak nothing but the truth. The universal application of this principle would be the diffusion of universal confidence. It would banish deceit and suspicion from the world, and restrict the use of signs to their legitimate offices."

A later work on Christian Ethics, which acquires special prominence through its place in "The International Theological Library," edited by Drs. Briggs and Salmond, is by Dr. Newman Smyth. It shows signs of strength in the premises assumed by the writer, in accordance with the teachings of Scripture and of the best moral sense of mankind; and signs of weakness in his processes of reasoning, and in his final conclusion, according to the mental methods of those who have wavered on this subject, from John Chrysostom to Richard Rothe and Charles Hodge.

Dr. Smyth rightly bases Christian ethics on the nature and will of God, as illustrated in the life and teachings of the divine-human Son of God. "A thoroughly scientific ethics must not only be adequate to the common moral sense of men, but prove true also to the moral consciousness of the Son of man. No ethics has right to claim to be thoroughly scientific, or to offer itself as the only science of ethics possible to us in our present experience, until it has sought to enter into the spirit of Christ, and has brought all its, analysis and theories of man's moral life to the light of the luminous ethical personality of Jesus Christ."[1]

[Footnote 1: Smyth's Christian Ethics, p. 6.]

In his general statement of "the duty of speaking the truth," Dr. Smyth is also clear, sound, and emphatic.[1] "The law of truthfulness is," he says, "a supreme inward law of thought." "The obligation of veracity ... is an obligation which every man owes to himself. It is a primal personal obligation. Kant was profoundly right when he regarded falsehood as a forfeiture of personal worth, a destruction of personal integrity.... Truthfulness is the self-consistency of character; falsehood is a breaking up of the moral integrity. Inward truthfulness is essential to moral growth and personal vigor, as it is necessary to the live oak that it should be of one fiber and grain from root to branch. What a flaw is in steel, what a foreign substance is in any texture, that a falsehood is to the character,—a source of weakness, a point where under strain it may break.... Truthfulness, then, is due, first by the individual to himself as the obligation of personal integrity. The unity of the personal life consists in it."

[Footnote 1: Ibid., pp. 386-389.]

And in addition to the obligation of veracity as a duty to one's self, Dr. Smyth recognizes it as a duty to others. He says: "Truthfulness is owed to society as essential to its integrity. It is the indispensable bond of social life. Men can be members, one of another in a social organism only as they live together in truth. Society would fall, to pieces without credit; but credit rests on the general social virtue of truthfulness.... The liar is rightly regarded as an enemy to mankind. A lie is not only an affront against the person to whom it is told, but it is an offense against humanity."

If Dr. Smyth had been content to leave this matter with the explicit statement of the principles that are unvaryingly operative, he would have done good service to the world, and his work could have been commended as sound and trustworthy in this department of ethics; but as soon as he begins to question and reason on the subject, he begins to waver and grow confused; and in the end his inconclusive conclusions are pitiably defective and reprehensible.[1]

[Footnote 1: Smyth's Christian Ethics, pp. 392-403]

In considering "the so-called lies of necessity," Dr. Smyth declares with frankness: "Some moralists in their supreme regard for truth will not admit that under any conceivable circumstances a lie can be deemed necessary, not even to save life or to prevent a murderer from accomplishing his fiendish purpose." And then over against this he indicates his fatal confusion of mind and weakness of reasoning in the suggestion: "But the sound human understanding, in spite of the moralists, will prevaricate, and often with great vigor and success, in such cases. Who is right,—Kant, or the common moral sense? Which should be followed,—the philosophic morality, or the practice of otherwise most truthful men?"

It is to be noted that, in these two declarations, Dr. Smyth puts lying as if it were synonymous with prevarication; else there is no reason for his giving the one as over against the other. And this indicates a peculiar difficulty in the whole course of Dr. Smyth's argument concerning the "so-called lie of necessity." He essays no definition of the "lie." He draws no clear line of distinction between a lie, a falsehood, a deceit, and a prevarication, or between a justifiable concealment and an unjustifiable concealment; and in his various illustrations of his position he uses these terms indiscriminately, in such a way as to indicate that he knows no essential difference between them, or that he does not care to emphasize any difference.