Forgery and Counterforgery: The Use of Literary Deceit in Early Christian Polemics (146 page)

Somewhat later, in a summary statement, Socrates reiterates: “It seems likely that our rulers will have to make considerable use of falsehood and deception for the benefit of their subjects” (459c-d). The noble lie itself is spelled out in 414–15. In this utopian Republic, the philosopher-kings who are the leaders need to propagate the lie that everyone in the state was formed within the earth by God, some of them with gold intermixed with their characters (these would be the ones appointed by God to be the rulers), others with silver (their helpers), and yet others, the majority, with brass or iron. On no account can a ruler have a mixture of brass or iron in his constitution.

As a kind of control over society, then, the rulers claim that they are inherently suited—made by God—to be rulers, and the artisans and farmers and the like, that is, the majority of the people, have been made with inferior characters.
These then must be ruled by others of superior nature. The irony is that for Plato, this “lie” actually conveys the “truth.” There really are some people who are constituted to be leaders: the philosophers who are able to sustain the hard training of dialectical reasoning so as to come to see the “truth.” No one else can rule in the ideal state. And so, as Christopher Gill has stressed, “The noble lie is properly described as a ‘lie’ because what is involved is deliberate non-veracity; but the lie is clearly designed to propagate an idea which the argument presents as true, namely that each member of the ideal state should be placed in the class for which he or she is naturally suited.” For Plato, says Gill, “lying, as in the case of the noble lie, may be the most effective way to propagate truth.”
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The idea that there could be occasions when lies and other forms of deceit were legitimate is attested throughout the writings of pagan authors, often showing up in unexpected places, as in the “Philoctetes” of Sophocles, where Odysseus tries to convince Neoptolemus to take Philoctetes by deceit, since otherwise it would be impossible. Neoptolemus asks, “Then you think it brings no shame to speak what is false?” And Odysseus replies, “No, not if the falsehood yields deliverance” (II. 108–09).
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Centuries later Cicero can state with mild approbation that “rhetoricians are allowed to lie in their historical presentations” (
Brutus
11.42). In a sharply contrasting context Heliodorus celebrates the virtue of the helpful lie, “For lying is good when it benefits those who speak the lie and does no harm to those who hear it” (
Ethiopica
, 1.26.6,).

What matters most for our purposes is that there was also a widespread Christian discourse, which Augustine found deeply irritating, that advocated the appropriate use of lies and deceit, in certain circumstances.

The Insistence on the Truth

As might naturally be expected, early Christian sources are full of exhortations to speak the truth. The author of Ephesians, as we have seen, can urge his readers: “Let each of you put aside the lie and speak the truth with his neighbor” (Eph. 4:25). I have already mentioned the irony, to be dwelt on at greater length in a moment, that this injunction occurs in a letter whose author lied about his own identity. The same irony occurs in the equally pseudonymous letter to the Colossians: “Do not lie to one another” (Col. 3.9). After the New Testament period comes a host of injunctions not to lie. In the orthonymous
Shepherd
of Hermas, for example, the following brief exchange appears between the Shepherd and Hermas:

Then he spoke to me again, “Love the truth and let all truth come from your mouth … For the Lord is true in his every word, and there is no lie in him. And so, those who lie reject the Lord and defraud him, not handing over to him the deposit they received. For they received from him a spirit that does not lie; if they return it to him as a liar, they defile the commandment of the Lord and become defrauders.” (Commandments, 3.1–2)

So too Justin, allegedly writing to the emperor, points out: “You can be sure that we have spoken these things for your benefit, since we, when on trial can always deny [that we are Christians]. But we do not desire to live by lying” (1
Apol
. 8.2). This, as we have seen, is a view later picked up by Augustine, who pointed out that the martyrs were a clear proof that it is never right to lie in order to reap a greater benefit, such as avoiding torture.

The Virtue of the Lie

Even though it is a “given” that Christian ethical teachings insisted on the truth, there are a startling number of authors who share the view of Cassian’s Abba Joseph, that it is also sometimes a good thing to lie. We might start with Clement of Alexandria, who insists that the true “Gnostic” tell the truth but makes an exception for the so-called medicinal lie: “For [the Gnostic] both thinks and speaks the truth; unless at any time, medicinally, as a physician for the safety of the sick, he may deceive or tell an untruth, according to the Sophists” (
Strom
. 7.9).
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That Clement does not see this simply as a bit of sophistry is evident from what follows. The apostle Paul was known, according to Clement, to have used deceit in two circumstances, when he circumcised Timothy after declaring that “circumcision made with hands profits nothing” and when he occasionally took upon himself the burdens of the Jewish Law in order to win Jews over to the faith, so that he, “accommodating himself to the Jews, became a Jew that he might gain all.” Elsewhere, again, Clement uses the physician analogy to justify the use of deception (
Strom
. 7.53).

Origen, not surprisingly, argues in a similar vein. In the
Contra Celsum
he notes that Celsus had accused the Christians of making God a purveyor of deceit by coming to earth in the (false) appearance of being human. In this context Celsus alludes to Plato, “Deceit and lying are in all other cases wrong except only when one uses them as a medicine for friends who are sick and mad in order to heal them, or with enemies when the intention is to escape danger” (4.18).
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For Celsus, then, the divine deceit at the incarnation was impermissible, because it did not meet the criterion of a justified lie. Origen demurs, arguing that God in fact came to earth as a man precisely to “heal” the human race, so that the incarnation deceit was completely justified.

Do you not say, Celsus, that sometimes it is allowable to use deceit and lying as a medicine? Why, then, is it unthinkable that something of this sort occurred with the purpose of bringing salvation? … There is nothing wrong if the person who heals sick friends healed the human race which was dear to him with such means as one would not use for choice, but to which he was confined by the force of circumstances. Since the human race was mad, it had to be cured by methods which the Word saw to be beneficial to lunatics. (4.19)

Elsewhere we learn that Origen supported the use of the strategic lie. The passage comes to us from the now-lost
Stromateis
, which fortunately are quoted, in parts, by Jerome. The most relevant portion comes from book six in which, according to Jerome, Origen “tries to adapt our Christian doctrine to the opinions of Plato”
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:

To God falsehood is shameful and useless, but to men it is occasionally useful. We must not suppose that God ever lies, even in the way of economy; only, if the good of the hearer requires it, he speaks in ambiguous language, and reveals what he wills in enigmas. … But a man on whom necessity imposes the responsibility of lying is bound to use very great care, and to use falsehood as he would a stimulant or a medicine, and strictly to preserve its measure.

He then instances the sanctioned lies told by the biblical characters of Judith, Esther, and Jacob and concludes: “From all this it is evident that if we speak falsely with any other object than that of obtaining by it some great good, we shall be judged as the enemies of him who said, ‘I am the truth.’”

Jerome, however, attacks this view with a good bit of wit: “[Origen’s] teaching is that the master may lie, but the disciple must not. The inference from this is that the man who is a good liar, and without hesitation sets before his brethren any fabrication which rises into his mouth, shows himself to be an excellent teacher” (
Adv. Rufin
. 1.18).

It is interesting to note, however, that Jerome elsewhere speaks approvingly of the use of Christian deception, in particular with respect to the famous incident in Antioch discussed by Paul in Galatians 2 (the view that prompted Augustine to write
De mendacio
): in Jerome’s well-known position, Peter and Paul did not actually have a falling out. They put on a show, in a double act of dissimulation: Peter “pretended” to be subject to Jewish dietary laws for the sake of the brethren, knowing that he was not really subject to them, and Paul, cognizant of the true state of things, “pretended” to rebuke Peter in order to show the gentile Christians that he was on their side so as to keep from giving offense.
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Origen provides a particularly interesting perspective on the permissible lie in his
Commentary on John
, where he is dealing with the historical discrepancies among the canonical Gospels. In his view, the evangelists changed historical data on occasion in order to convey spiritual truths: “For their intention was to speak the truth spiritually and materially at the same time, where that was possible, but where it was not possible in both ways, to prefer the spiritual to the material. The spiritual truth is often preserved in the material falsehood, so to speak” (10.4).
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As an example of how this works, Origen appeals to the famous instance of Jacob lying, for a good cause, to his blind father Isaac, saying “I am Esau, your first born son.” According to Origen, Jacob “was telling the truth in the spiritual sense … because he had a share of the birthright which was already perishing in his brother.” And this is why contradictory statements about Christ in Scripture can both be true, because they participate in spiritual truths even if they contain material contradictions. Thus Christ can be called both man and not man; he can be both Son and servant.
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In addition to these rather abstract disquisitions on lying, we have several anecdotes about prominent church fathers in which, without any qualms, they used deceit when it served their purposes. One of the more amusing, worth quoting in full, involves Athanasius under pursuit, as narrated by Theodoret in his
Church History
(again, the historicity of the story does not matter for my point, as it shows an attitude toward deceit):

Moved by these supplications Julian condemned Athanasius not merely to exile, but to death. His people shuddered, but it is related that he foretold the rapid dispersal of the storm, for said he “It is a cloud which soon vanishes away.” He however withdrew as soon as he learnt of the arrival of the bearers of the imperial message, and finding a boat on the bank of the river, started for the The-baid. The officer who had been appointed for his execution became acquainted with his flight, and strove to pursue him at hot haste; one of his friends, however, got ahead, and told him that the officer was coming on apace. Then some of his companions besought him to take refuge in the desert, but he ordered the steersman to turn the boat’s head to Alexandria. So they rowed to meet the pursuer, and on came the bearer of the sentence of execution, and, said he, “How far off is Athanasius?” “Not far,” said Athanasius, and so got rid of his foe, while he himself returned to Alexandria and there remained in concealment for the remainder of Julian’s reign. (
H.E
. 3.5)
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This is obviously a case where no lie was actually told. The humor of the story resides in the fact that, strictly speaking, Athanasius told the truth. But recall Augustine’s view that a lie need not come only in words, but in “signs of whatever kind.”

A second and better known account involves an autobiographical tale told by Chrysostom in Book One of
De sacerdotio
, a passage that Paul Griffiths has aptly termed “a hymn of praise to the lie.”
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According to Chrysostom’s account, as promising young men, both he and Basil were being pursued in order forcibly to be ordained into the episcopacy. Chrysostom lied to Basil, promising to accept the ordination, and on those grounds Basil relented and did so himself. But Chrysostom did not; it was all a pretext. In its aftermath, Chrysostom engaged in a bit of Schadenfreude, to Basil’s dismay: “But when he saw that I was delighted and beaming with joy, and understood that he had been deceived by me, he was yet more vexed and distressed” (1.6).
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Basil responds with a bitter lament: “I placed my very life, so to say, in your hands, yet you have treated me with as much guile as if it had been your business to guard yourself against an enemy” (1.7). In response, Chrysostom launches into a kind of encomium to deceit:

What is the wrong that I have done thee, since I have determined to embark from this point upon the sea of apology? Is it that I misled you and concealed my purpose? Yet I did it for the benefit of thyself who wast deceived, and of those to whom I surrendered you by means of this deceit. For if the evil of deception is absolute, and it is never right to make use of it, I am prepared to pay any penalty you please … But if the thing is not always harmful, but becomes good or bad according to the intention of those who practice it, you must desist from complaining of deceit, and prove that it has been devised against you for a bad purpose.… For a well-timed deception, undertaken with an upright intention, has such advantages, that many persons have often had to undergo punishment for abstaining from fraud. (1.8)

Here we have Cassian’s view instantiated and celebrated: lies are not harmful if the intention of the liar is good. Indeed, they are to be used when the circumstances call for it. Chrysostom does not stop there, however, but goes on to speak of two biblical instances of “good” deceit that saved the life of King David (1 Sam 19:12–18; 20:11), and to refer to doctors who employ the medicinal lie: “If any one were to reckon up all the tricks of physicians the list would run on to an indefinite length. And not only those who heal the body but those also who attend to the diseases of the soul may be found continually making use of this remedy” (1.8). He concludes with bold statements that are precisely at odds with the view of an Augustine: