41. There resulteth then from
all these this sentence, that a lie which doth not violate the
doctrine of piety, nor piety itself, nor innocence, nor
benevolence, may on behalf of pudicity of body be admitted. And yet
if any man should propose to himself so to love truth, not only
that which consists in contemplation, but also in uttering the true
thing, which each in its own kind of things is true, and no
otherwise to bring forth with the mouth of the body his thought
than in the mind it is conceived and beheld; so that he should
prize the beauty of truth-telling honesty, not only above gold and
silver and jewels and pleasant lands, but above this temporal life
itself altogether and every good thing of the body, I know not
whether any could wisely say that that man errs. And if he should
prefer this and prize it more than all that himself hath of such
things; rightly also would he prefer it to the temporal things of
other men, whom by his innocence and benevolence he was bound to
keep and to help. For he would love perfect faith, not only of
believing aright those things which by an excellent authority and
worthy of faith should to himself be spoken, but also of
faithfully uttering what himself should judge right to be
spoken, and should speak. For faith hath its name in the Latin
tongue, from that the thing is done which is said:2377
| 2377 “Fides, quia fit quod
dicitur.” |
and thus
it is manifest that one doth not exhibit when telling a
lie. And
even if this
faith be less violated, when one
lies in such sort
that he is believed to no inconvenience and no
pernicious hurt,
with added intention moreover of guarding either one’s
life or
corporal
purity; yet violated it is, and a thing is violated which
ought to be kept
safe in chastity and sanctity of
mind. Whence we
are
constrained, not by opinion of men, which for the most part is
in error, but by
truth itself,
truth which is eminent above all,
and alone is most invincible, to prefer even to
purity of body,
perfect faith. For chastity of
mind is,
love well ordered, which
does not place the greater below the smaller. Now it is less,
whatever in the body than whatever in the
mind can be violated. For
assuredly when for corporal chasteness a man tells a
lie, he sees
indeed that his body is threatened with
corruption, not from his
own, but from another’s
lust, but is cautious lest by permitting
at least, he be a party. That permission, however, where is it but
in the
mind? So then, even corporal chasteness cannot be
corrupted
but in the
mind; which not consenting nor permitting, it can by no
means be rightly said that corporal chasteness is violated whatever
in the body be perpetrated by another’s
lust. Whence it is
gathered, that much more must the chastity of the
mind be
preserved
in the
mind, in the which is the guardianship of the pudicity of
the body. Wherefore, what in us
lies, both the one and the other
must by holy manners and conversation be walled and hedged round,
lest from another quarter it be violated. But when both cannot be,
which is to be slighted in comparison of which, who doth not see?
when he seeth which to which is to be preferred, the
mind to the
body, or the body to the
mind; and which is more to be shunned
among sins, the permitting of another’s deed, or the committing
of the deed thyself.
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