ulfil the providential purpose of God; and he says, that, as
Abraham was not a murderer, though he was minded to kill his son, so
an untruth need not be a lie. And he adds, that often such a deceit
is the greatest possible benefit to the man who is deceived, and
therefore allowable. Also St. Hilary, St. John Climacus, etc., in
Thomassin, Concina, the _Melanges_, etc.

Various modern Catholic divines hold this doctrine of the "material
lie" also. I will quote three passages in point.

Cataneo: "Be it then well understood, that the obligation to
veracity, that is, of conforming our words to the sentiments of our
mind, is founded principally upon the necessity of human intercourse,
for which reason they (_i.e._ words) ought not and cannot be lawfully
opposed to this end, so just, so necessary, and so important, without
which, the world would become a Babylon of confusion. And this would
in a great measure be really the result, as often as a man should be
unable to defend secrets of high importance, and other evils would
follow, even worse than confusion, in their nature destructive of
this very intercourse between man and man for which speech was
instituted. Every body must see the advantage a hired assassin would
have, if supposing he did not know by sight the person he was
commissioned to kill, I being asked by the rascal at the moment he
was standing in doubt with his gun cocked, were obliged to approve of
his deed by keeping silence, or to hesitate, or lastly to answer
'Yes, that is the man.' [Then follow other similar cases.] In such
and similar cases, in which your sincerity is unjustly assailed, when
no other way more prompt or more efficacious presents itself, and
when it is not enough to say, 'I do not know,' let such persons be
met openly with a downright resolute 'No' without thinking upon
anything else. For such a 'No' is conformable to the universal
opinion of men, who are the judges of words, and who certainly have
not placed upon them obligations to the injury of the Human Republic,
nor ever entered into a compact to use them in behalf of rascals,
spies, incendiaries, and thieves. I repeat that such a 'No' is
conformable to the universal mind of man, and with this mind your own
mind ought to be in union and alliance. Who does not see the manifest
advantage which highway robbers would derive, were travellers when
asked if they had gold, jewels, etc., obliged either to invent
tergiversations or to answer 'Ye