Sacred Texts Christianity Early Church Fathers Index Previous Next
How even Apostles thought that a lie was often useful and the truth injurious.
Instructed by which examples, the blessed Apostle James also, and all the chief princes of the primitive Church urged the Apostle Paul in consequence of the weakness of feeble persons to condescend to a fictitious arrangement and insisted on his purifying himself according to the requirements of the law, and shaving his head and paying his vows, as they thought that the present harm which would come from this hypocrisy was of no account, but had regard rather to the gain which would result from his still continued preaching. For the gain to the Apostle Paul from his strictness would not have counterbalanced the loss to all nations from his speedy death. And this would certainly have been then incurred by the whole Church unless this good and salutary hypocrisy had preserved him for the preaching of the Gospel. For then we may rightly and pardonably acquiesce in the wrong of a lie, when, as we said, a greater harm depends on telling the truth, and when the good which results to us from speaking the truth cannot counterbalance the harm which will be caused by it. And elsewhere the blessed Apostle testifies in other words that he himself always observed this disposition; for when he says: “To the Jews I became as a Jew that I might gain the Jews; to those who were under the law as being under the law, though not myself under the law, that I might gain those who were under the law; to those who were without law, I became as without law, though I was not without the law of God but under the law of Christ, that I might gain those who were without law; to the weak I became weak, that I might gain the weak: I became all things to all men, that I might save all;” 2032 what does he show but that according to the weakness and the capacity of those who were being instructed he always lowered himself and relaxed something of the vigour of perfection, and did not cling to what his own strict life might seem to demand, but rather preferred that which the good of the weak might require? And that we may trace these matters out more carefully and recount one by one the glories of the good deeds of the Apostles, some one may ask how the blessed Apostle can be proved to have suited himself to all men in all things. When did he to the Jews become as a Jew? Certainly in the case where, while he still kept in his inmost heart the opinion which he had maintained to the Galatians saying: “Behold, I, Paul, say unto you that if ye be circumcised Christ shall profit you nothing,” 2033 yet by circumcising Timothy he adopted a shadow as it were of Jewish superstition. And again, where did he become to those under the law, as under the law? There certainly where James and all the Elders of the Church, fearing lest he might be attacked by the multitude of Jewish believers, or rather of Judaizing Christians, who had received the faith of Christ in such a way as still to be bound by the rites of legal ceremonies, came to his rescue in his difficulty with this counsel and advice, and said: “Thou seest, brother, how many thousands there are among the Jews, who have believed, and they are all zealots for the law. But they have heard of thee that thou teachest those Jews who are among the Gentiles to depart from Moses, saying that they ought not to circumcise their children;” and below: “Do therefore this that we say unto thee: we have four men who have a vow on them. These take and sanctify thyself with them and bestow on them, that they may shave their heads; and all will know that the things which they have heard of thee are false, but that thou thyself also walkest keeping the law.” 2034 And so for the good of those who were under the law, he trode under foot for a while the strict view which he had expressed: “For I through the law am dead unto the law that I may live unto God;” 2035 and was driven to shave his head, and be purified according to the law and pay his vows after the Mosaic rites in the Temple. Do you ask also where for the good of those who were utterly ignorant of the law of God, he himself became as if without law? Read p. 468 the introduction to his sermon at Athens where heathen wickedness was flourishing: “As I passed by,” he says, “I saw your idols and an altar on which was written: To the unknown God;” and when he had thus started from their superstition, as if he himself also had been without law, under the cloke of that profane inscription he introduced the faith of Christ, saying: “What therefore ye ignorantly worship, that declare I unto you.” And after a little, as if he had known nothing whatever of the Divine law, he chose to bring forward a verse of a heathen poet rather than a saying of Moses or Christ, saying: “As some also of your own poets have said: for we are also His offspring.” And when he had thus approached them with their own authorities, which they could not reject, thus confirming the truth by things false, he added and said: “Since then we are the offspring of God we ought not to think that the Godhead is like to gold or silver or stone sculptured by the art and device of man.” 2036 But to the weak he became weak, when, by way of permission, not of command, he allowed those who could not contain themselves to return together again, 2037 or when he fed the Corinthians with milk and not with meat, and says that he was with them in weakness and fear and much trembling. 2038 But he became all things to all men that he might save all, when he says: “He that eateth let him not despise him that eateth not, and let not him that eateth not judge him that eateth:” and: “He that giveth his virgin in marriage doeth well, and he that giveth her not in marriage doeth better;” and elsewhere: “Who,” says he, “is weak, and I am not weak? Who is offended, and I burn not?” and in this way he fulfilled what he had commanded the Corinthians to do when he said: “Be ye without offence to Jews and Greeks and the Church of Christ, as I also please all men in all things, not seeking mine own profit but that of the many, that they may be saved.” 2039 For it had certainly been profitable not to circumcise Timothy, not to shave his head, not to undergo Jewish purification, not to practice going barefoot, 2040 not to pay legal vows; but he did all these things because he did not seek his own profit but that of the many. And although this was done with the full consideration of God, yet it was not free from dissimulation. For one who through the law of Christ was dead to the law that he might live to God, and who had made and treated that righteousness of the law in which he had lived blameless, as dung, that he might gain Christ, could not with true fervour of heart offer what belonged to the law; nor is it right to believe that he who had said: “For if I again rebuild what I have destroyed, I make myself a transgressor,” 2041 would himself fall into what he had condemned. And to such an extent is account taken, not so much of the actual thing which is done as of the disposition of the doer, that on the other hand truth is sometimes found to have injured some, and a lie to have done them good. For when Saul was grumbling to his servants about David’s flight, and saying: “Will the son of Jesse give you all fields and vineyards, and make you all tribunes and centurions: that all of you have conspired against me, and there is no one to inform me,” did Doeg the Edomite say anything but the truth, when he told him: “I saw the son of Jesse in Nob, with Abimelech the son of Ahitub the priest, who consulted the Lord for him, and gave him victuals, and gave him also the sword of Goliath the Philistine?” 2042 For which true story he deserved to be rooted up out of the land of the living, and it is said of him by the prophet: “Wherefore God shall destroy thee forever, and pluck thee up and tear thee out of thy tabernacle, and thy root from the land of the living:” 2043 He then for showing the truth is forever plucked and rooted up out of that land in which the harlot Rahab with her family is planted for her lie: just as also we remember that Samson most injuriously betrayed to his wicked wife the truth which he had hidden for a long time by a lie, and therefore the truth so inconsiderately disclosed was the cause of his own deception, because he had neglected to keep the command of the prophet: “Keep the doors of thy mouth from her that sleepeth in thy bosom.” 2044
Acts 17:23, 29.
468:2037Cf. 1 Cor. vii. 5.
468:2038Cf. 1 Cor. 3:2, 1 Cor. 2:3.
468:2039Rom. 14:3, 1 Cor. 8:38, 2 Cor. 11:29, 1 Cor. 10:32, 33.
468:2040Nudipedalia non exercere. The expression is also used by Jerome of S. Paul’s purification in Jerusalem (in Gal. Book II. c. iv.), though there is nothing in the account in the Acts about his going barefoot. Compare also Jerome against Jovinian, Book I. c. viii., and for the word, in connexion with the rites of the Christian Church, see Tertullian Apologeticum, c. xl.
468:2041 468:2042 468:2043 468:2044