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 eter