:

"It was held as a maxim that it was not only lawful but
praiseworthy to _deceive_, and even to use the expedient of a
_lie_, in order to advance the cause of truth and
piety."[435:5]

Isaac de Casaubon, the great ecclesiastical scholar, says:

"It mightily affects me, to see how many there were in the
earliest times of the church, who considered it as a capital
exploit, to lend to heavenly truth the help of their own
inventions, in order that the new doctrine might be more
readily allowed by the wise among the Gentiles. _These
officious lies, they were wont to say, were devised for a good
end._"[435:6]

The Apostolic Father, Hermas, who was the fellow-laborer of St. Paul in
the work of the ministry; who is greeted as such in the New Testament;
and whose writings are expressly quoted as of divine inspiration, by the
early Fathers, ingenuously confesses that lying was the easily-besetting
sin of a Christian. His words are:

"O Lord, I never spake a true word in my life, but I have
always lived in dissimulation, and affirmed a lie for truth to
all men, and no man contradicted me, but all gave credit to my
words."

To which the holy angel, whom he addresses, condescendingly admonishes
him, that as the lie was up, now, he had better keep it up, and as in
time it would come to be believed, it would answer as well as
truth.[436:1]

Dr. Mosheim admits, that the Platonists and Pythagoreans held it as a
maxim, that it was not only lawful, but praiseworthy, to deceive, and
even to use the expedient of a lie, in order to advance the cause of
truth and piety. The Jews who lived in Egypt, had learned and received
this maxim from them, before the coming of Christ Jesus, as appears
incontestably from a multitude of ancient records, _and the Christians
were infected from both these sources, with the same pernicious
error_.[436:2]

Of the fifteen letters ascribed to Ignatius (Bishop of Antioch after 69
A. D.), _eight have been rejected by Christian writers as being
forgeries_, having no authority whatever. "_The remaining seven_
epistles were accounted genuine by most critics, although disputed by
some, previous to the discoveries of Mr. Cureton, _which have shaken,
and indeed almost wholly destroyed the credit and authenticity of all
alike_."[436:3]

Paul of Tarsus, who was preaching a doctrine which had already been
preached to every nation on e