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| Chapter XX. How even Apostles thought that a lie was often useful and the truth injurious.
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Chapter XX.
How even Apostles thought that a lie was often useful
and the truth injurious.
Instructed by which
examples, the blessed Apostle James also, and all the chief princes of
the primitive Church urged the Apostle Paul in consequence of the
weakness of feeble persons to condescend to a fictitious arrangement
and insisted on his purifying himself according to the requirements of
the law, and shaving his head and paying his vows, as they thought that
the present harm which would come from this hypocrisy was of no
account, but had regard rather to the gain which would result from his
still continued preaching. For the gain to the Apostle Paul from his
strictness would not have counterbalanced the loss to all nations from
his speedy death. And this would certainly have been then incurred by
the whole Church unless this good and salutary hypocrisy had preserved
him for the preaching of the Gospel. For then we may rightly and
pardonably acquiesce in the wrong of a lie, when, as we said, a greater
harm depends on telling the truth, and when the good which results to
us from speaking the truth cannot counterbalance the harm which will be
caused by it. And elsewhere the blessed Apostle testifies in other
words that he himself always observed this disposition; for when he
says: “To the Jews I became as a Jew that I might gain the Jews;
to those who were under the law as being under the law, though not
myself under the law, that I might gain those who were under the law;
to those who were without law, I became as without law, though I was
not without the law of God but under the law of Christ, that I might
gain those who were without law; to the weak I became weak, that I
might gain the weak: I became all things to all men, that I might save
all;”2032
what does he
show but that according to the weakness and the capacity of those who
were being instructed he always lowered himself and relaxed something
of the vigour of perfection, and did not cling to what his own strict
life might seem to demand, but rather preferred that which the good of
the weak might require? And that we may trace these matters out more
carefully and recount one by one the glories of the good deeds of the
Apostles, some one may ask how the blessed Apostle can be proved to
have suited himself to all men in all things. When did he to the Jews
become as a Jew? Certainly in the case where, while he still kept in
his inmost heart the opinion which he had maintained to the Galatians
saying: “Behold, I, Paul, say unto you that if ye be circumcised
Christ shall profit you nothing,”2033
yet by circumcising Timothy he adopted a
shadow as it were of Jewish superstition. And again, where did he
become to those under the law, as under the law? There certainly where
James and all the Elders of the Church, fearing lest he might be
attacked by the multitude of Jewish believers, or rather of Judaizing
Christians, who had received the faith of Christ in such a way as still
to be bound by the rites of legal ceremonies, came to his rescue in his
difficulty with this counsel and advice, and said: “Thou seest,
brother, how many thousands there are among the Jews, who have
believed, and they are all zealots for the law. But they have heard of
thee that thou teachest those Jews who are among the Gentiles to depart
from Moses, saying that they ought not to circumcise their
children;” and below: “Do therefore this that we say unto
thee: we have four men who have a vow on them. These take and sanctify
thyself with them and bestow on them, that they may shave their heads;
and all will know that the things which they have heard of thee are
false, but that thou thyself also walkest keeping the
law.”2034
And so for the
good of those who were under the law, he trode under foot for a while
the strict view which he had expressed: “For I through the law am
dead unto the law that I may live unto God;”2035
and was driven to shave his head, and be
purified according to the law and pay his vows after the Mosaic rites
in the Temple. Do you ask also where for the good of those who were
utterly ignorant of the law of God, he himself became as if without
law? Read
the
introduction to his sermon at Athens where heathen wickedness was
flourishing: “As I passed by,” he says, “I saw your
idols and an altar on which was written: To the unknown God;” and
when he had thus started from their superstition, as if he himself also
had been without law, under the cloke of that profane inscription he
introduced the faith of Christ, saying: “What therefore ye
ignorantly worship, that declare I unto you.” And after a little,
as if he had known nothing whatever of the Divine law, he chose to
bring forward a verse of a heathen poet rather than a saying of Moses
or Christ, saying: “As some also of your own poets have said: for
we are also His offspring.” And when he had thus approached them
with their own authorities, which they could not reject, thus
confirming the truth by things false, he added and said: “Since
then we are the offspring of God we ought not to think that the Godhead
is like to gold or silver or stone sculptured by the art and device of
man.”2036
But to the weak
he became weak, when, by way of permission, not of command, he allowed
those who could not contain themselves to return together
again,2037
or when he fed
the Corinthians with milk and not with meat, and says that he was with
them in weakness and fear and much trembling.2038
But he became all things to all men
that he might save all, when he says: “He that eateth let him not
despise him that eateth not, and let not him that eateth not judge him
that eateth:” and: “He that giveth his virgin in marriage
doeth well, and he that giveth her not in marriage doeth better;”
and elsewhere: “Who,” says he, “is weak, and I am not
weak? Who is offended, and I burn not?” and in this way he
fulfilled what he had commanded the Corinthians to do when he said:
“Be ye without offence to Jews and Greeks and the Church of
Christ, as I also please all men in all things, not seeking mine own
profit but that of the many, that they may be saved.”2039
| 2039 Rom. xiv. 3; 1 Cor. viii. 38; 2 Cor. xi.
29; 1 Cor. x. 32, 33. | For it had certainly been profitable not
to circumcise Timothy, not to shave his head, not to undergo Jewish
purification, not to practice going barefoot,2040
| 2040 Nudipedalia non
exercere. The expression is also used by Jerome of S. Paul’s
purification in Jerusalem (in Gal. Book II. c. iv.), though there is
nothing in the account in the Acts about his going barefoot. Compare
also Jerome against Jovinian, Book I. c. viii., and for the word, in
connexion with the rites of the Christian Church, see Tertullian
Apologeticum, c. xl. |
not to pay legal vows; but he did all these things because he did not
seek his own profit but that of the many. And although this was done
with the full consideration of God, yet it was not free from
dissimulation. For one who through the law of Christ was dead to the
law that he might live to God, and who had made and treated that
righteousness of the law in which he had lived blameless, as dung, that
he might gain Christ, could not with true fervour of heart offer what
belonged to the law; nor is it right to believe that he who had said:
“For if I again rebuild what I have destroyed, I make myself a
transgressor,”2041
would himself fall
into what he had condemned. And to such an extent is account taken, not
so much of the actual thing which is done as of the disposition of the
doer, that on the other hand truth is sometimes found to have injured
some, and a lie to have done them good. For when Saul was grumbling to
his servants about David’s flight, and saying: “Will the
son of Jesse give you all fields and vineyards, and make you all
tribunes and centurions: that all of you have conspired against me, and
there is no one to inform me,” did Doeg the Edomite say anything
but the truth, when he told him: “I saw the son of Jesse in Nob,
with Abimelech the son of Ahitub the priest, who consulted the Lord for
him, and gave him victuals, and gave him also the sword of Goliath the
Philistine?”2042
For which true
story he deserved to be rooted up out of the land of the living, and it
is said of him by the prophet: “Wherefore God shall destroy thee
forever, and pluck thee up and tear thee out of thy tabernacle, and thy
root from the land of the living:”2043
He then for showing the truth is forever plucked and rooted up out of
that land in which the harlot Rahab with her family is planted for her
lie: just as also we remember that Samson most injuriously betrayed to
his wicked wife the truth which he had hidden for a long time by a lie,
and therefore the truth so inconsiderately disclosed was the cause of
his own deception, because he had neglected to keep the command of the
prophet: “Keep the doors of thy mouth from her that sleepeth in
thy bosom.”2044
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