8

5

3

in sending a lying dream to Agamemnon. Pallas Athene is guilty of gross deceit and treachery to Hector; she expressly recommends dissimulation, and loves Odysseus on account of his deceitful character. No man deals. more in feigned stories than this master of cunning, who makes a boast of his falsehood. In the period which lies between the Homeric age and the Persian wars veracity made perhaps some progress among the Greeks, but it never became one of their national virtues. Yet in the Greek literature deceit is frequently condemned as a vice, and truthfulness praised as a virtue. Achilles expresses his horror of lying." "Not to tell a lie," was one of the maxims of Solon. Pindar strongly censures a character like that of Odysseus, and ends up his eulogy on Psaumis by the assurance that he never would contaminate his speech with a lie. According to Pythagoras, men become like gods when they speak the truth. According to Plato, the habit of lying makes the soul ugly"; "truth is the beginning of every good thing, both to gods and Yet a distinction should be made between different kinds of untruth. Though the many are too fond of saying that at proper times and places falsehood may often be right,13 it must be admitted that a lie is in certain cases useful and not hateful, as in dealing with enemies, or when those whom we call our friends in a fit of madness or illusion are going to do some harm.1 Moreover, the rulers of the State are allowed to lie for the public good, just as physicians make use of medicines; and they will find a considerable dose of falsehood and deceit necessary for this purpose.15 On the other hand, if the ruler catches anybody besides himself lying in the

men.'

12

10

8 Pindar, Nemea, viii. 26.

9 Idem, Olympia, iv. 17.

10 Stobæus, op. cit. xi. 25, vol. i. 312. 11 Plato, Gorgias, p. 524 sq.

12 Idem, Leges, v. 730.

13 Ibid. xi. 916.

14 Plato, Respublica, ii. 382.

15 Ibid. iii. 389; v. 459.

State, he will punish him for introducing a practice "which is equally subversive and destructive of ships or State." 1 Next to him who takes a false oath, he who tells a falsehood in the presence of his superiors-elders, parents, or rulers-is most hateful to the gods.2

Not without reason did the Romans of the republican age contrast their own fides with the mendacity of the Greeks and the perfidy of the Phoenicians. "The goddess of faith (of human and social faith)," says Gibbon, "was worshipped, not only in her temples, but in the lives of the Romans; and if that nation was deficient in the more amiable qualities of benevolence and generosity, they astonished the Greeks by their sincere and simple performance of the most burdensome engagements. Their annals are adorned with signal examples of uprightness, which, though to a great extent fictitious, yet bear testimony to the estimation in which that quality was held.* The Greeks had no Regulus who "chose to deliver himself up to a cruel death rather than to falsify his word to the enemy. "5 The basest forms of falsehood were severely punished by law. According to the Twelve Tables, anyone who had slandered or libelled another by imputing to him a wrongful or immoral act, was to be scourged to death, and capital punishment was also inflicted on false witnesses and corrupt judges. However, already before the end of the Republic dishonesty, perjuries, and forgeries

7

became common in Rome.9

10

8

The ancient Scandinavians considered it disgraceful for a man to tell a lie, to break a promise, or to commit a treacherous act.' To kill or rob openly was a pardonable offence, if an offence at all; but he who did it secretly was a nithinger, a "hateful man," unless indeed he after7 Ibid. viii. 23. Aulus Gellius, Noctes Attica, xx. i. 53.

1 Plato, Respublica, iii. 389.

2 Idem, Leges, xi. 917. Idem, Respublica, iii. 389.

3 Gibbon, History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, v. 311.

Cf. Inge, Society in Rome under the Caesars, p. 33 sq.

5 Cicero, De officiis, i. 13.

6 Lex Duodecim Tabularum, viii. 1.

8 Lex Duodecim Tabularum, ix. 3. Aulus Gellius, op. cit. xx. i. 7. 9 Inge, op. cit. p. 35.

10 Maurer, Bekehrung des Norwegischen Stammes, ii. 154, 183 s 3 sq. Rosenberg, Nordboernes Aandsliv, i. 487.

2

wards openly declared his deed.1 In the Irish Senchus Mór it is said that not only false witness, but lying in general, deprives the guilty person of "half his honourprice up to the third time"; and, according to the commentary to the Book of Aicill, the double of his own full honour-price is due from each person who commits the crime of secret murder.3

In the Old Testament there are recorded, from the patriarchal age, some cases of lying, which, far from being condemned, in no way prevented the liar being a special object of divine favour. It must be admitted, however, that undue importance has been attached to some of these acts of falsehood, which were committed among foreigners with a view to escaping an impending danger." For instance, when Isaac, dwelling in Gerar, said of his wife that she was his sister, for fear lest the men of the place should kill him," he did a thing which few conscientious men under similar circumstances would hesitate to do. As for Jacob's long course of double-dealing with his fatherin-law, who was equally greedy and unscrupulous, it should be remembered that they were natives of different lands. Again, when Jacob, at the instigation of his mother, grossly deceived his own blind father, the intriguers, as has been pointed out, manifestly felt that the blessing extorted from Isaac ought to descend upon Jacob rather than upon Esau, and inasmuch as the word of the father was held to carry with it divine validity and potency, the securing of it by fair means or foul was deemed an urgent necessity. It is obvious that the ancient Hebrews did not condemn deceit as wrong in the abstract, and that they were very unscrupulous in the use of means. When

1 Wilda, Strafrecht der Germanen, p. 569. Nordström, Bidrag till den svenska samħalls-jörfattningens historia, ii. 320 99. Keyser, Efterladte Skrifter, 11. pt. i. 361. Rosenberg, Nordboernes Aandsliv, i. 487. von Amira, 'Recht,' in Paul's Grundriss der germanischen Philologie, ii. pt. ii. 173.

Ancient Laws of Ireland, i. 57. 3 Ibid. iii. 99.

VOL. II

8

ever David was threatened by any danger, he immediately employed a falsehood which served his turn; though not incapable of generosity, he deceived enemies and friends indifferently, and there is probably no record of treachery and lying consistently pursued which surpasses in baseness his affair with his faithful servant Uriah the Hittite.1 It is true that his conduct towards Uriah was condemned; "the thing that David had done displeased the Lord." 2 But it is significant that Yahveh himself occasionally had recourse to deceit for the purpose of carrying out his plans. In order to ruin Ahab he commissioned a lying spirit to deceive his prophets; and once he threatened to use deception as a means of taking revenge upon idolaters. But to bear false witness against a neighbour was strictly prohibited; the false witness should suffer the punishment which he was minded to bring upon the person whom he calumniated. In Ecclesiasticus lying is severely censured:

5

3

"A lie is a foul blot in a man, yet it is continually in the mouth of the untaught. A thief is better than a man that is accustomed to lie: but they both shall have destruction to heritage. The disposition of a liar is dishonourable, and his shame is ever with him." "Lying lips are abomination to the Lord: but they that deal truly are his delight." 8 According to the Talmud, "four shall not enter Paradise: the scoffer, the liar, the hypocrite, and the slanderer." Only for the sake of peace, and especially domestic peace, may a man tell a lie without sinning; 10 but he who changes his word commits as heavy a sin as he who worships idols." The duty of truthfulness was particularly emphasised by the Essenes.12 He who entered their sect had to pledge himself always to love

1 Cf. Kuenen, Religion of Israel, i.

327; McCurdie, loc. cit. .P. 681.

2 2 Samuel, xi. 27; xii. 1 sqq.

3 1 Kings, xxii. 20 sqq.

4 Ezekiel, xiv. 7 sqq. Cf. Spencer, Principles of Ethics, i. 402.

5 Deuteronomy, v. 20.

6 Ibid. xix. 16 sqq.

7 Ecclesiasticus, xx. 24 sqq.

8 Proverbs, xii. 22.

9 Deutsch, Literary Remains, p. 57. 10 Hershon, Treasures of the Talmud, p. 69 sq.

11 Sanhedrin, fol. 92 A, quoted by Montefiore, Hibbert Lectures on the Religion of the Ancient Hebrews, p. 558.

12 Philo Judæus, Quod liber sit quisque virtuti studet, p. 877 (Opera, ii. 458).

truth and strive to reclaim all liars.1 66 They are eminent for fidelity," says Josephus. "Whatsoever they say also is firmer than an oath; but swearing is avoided by them, and they esteem it worse than perjury; for they say that he who cannot be believed without [swearing by] God is already condemned." 2

"Speak every man truth with his neighbour," was from early times regarded as one of the most imperative of Christian maxims. According to St. Augustine, a lie is not permissible even when told with a view to saving the life of a neighbour; "since by lying eternal life is lost, never for any man's temporal life must a lie be told." Yet all lies are not equally sinful; the degree of sinfulness depends on the mind of the liar and on the nature of the subject on which the lie is told. This became the authorised doctrine of the Church. Thomas Aquinas says that, although lying is always sinful, it is not a mortal sin if the end intended be not contrary to charity, "as appears in a jocose lie, that is intended to create some slight amusement, and in an officious lie, in which is intended even the advantage of our neighbour." Yet from early times we meet within the Christian Church a much less rigorous doctrine, which soon came to exercise a more powerful influence on the practice and feelings of men than did St. Augustine's uncompromising love of truth. The Greek Fathers maintained that an untruth is not a lie when there is a "just cause

8

Josephus, De bello Judaico, ii. 8. 7. 2 Ibid. ii. 8. 6.

Ephesians, iv. 25.

4 Gass, Geschichte der christlichen Ethik, i. 90.

St. Augustine, De mendacio, 6 (Migne, Patrologiæ cursus, xl. 494

34.) Idem, Enchiridion, 18 (Migne,

op. cit. xl. 240); Idem, De mendacio, 21 (Migne, xl. 516). For St. Augustine's views on lying see also his treatise Contra mendacium, addressed to Consentius (Migne, xl. 517 sqq.), and Bindemann, Der heilige Augustinus, ii. 465 soy.

7 Gratian, Decretum, ii. 22. 2. 12, 17. Catechism of the Council of Trent, iii. 9. 23.

8 Thomas Aquinas, Summa theologica, ii.-ii. 110. 3 sq. St. Augustine says (De mendacio, 2 [Migne, op. cit. xl. 487 sq.]; Quæstiones in Genesim, 145, ad Gen. xliv. 15 [Migne, xxxiv. 587]) that jokes which "bear with them in the tone of voice, and in the very mood of the joker a most evident indication that he means no deceit,' are not accounted lies, though the thing he utters be not true. This statement is also incorporated in Gratian's Decretum (ii. 22. 2. 18).