It will be recalled that in Sermon 180 the passage from Scripture upon which St Augustine was commenting was James, 5:12, wherein

we read, 11 But above all, my brethren , do not bind yourselves by

by earth, or by any oath at all. Let your and No for No; if not you will be judged for to the Contra Mendacium, which was written by Augustine late in his life and was a treatise against the Priscillianists, who, amongst other matters, felt that lying was itself justified at times to aid the spread of religious doctrine, in Chapter 16 (from the English edition, op. cit., of Jaffe at page 167) we read, "Let your speech be, "Yes, yes"; 'No, no.’"

which citation, in this instance, is taken from St. Matthew at 5:33­ 38 , wherein one reads, "Again, you have heard that it was said to the men of old, Thou shalt not perjure thyself; thou shalt perform what thou hast sworn in the sight of the Lord. But I tell you that you should not bind yourselves by any oath at all: not by earth... nor by Jerusalem...And thou shalt not swear by thy own head... Let your word be Yes for Yes, and No for No." One reading is that Christ has condemned Pharisaical evasions which appeared to permit one to perjure oneself as long as an oath was not taken directly in the name of Yaweh. St. Matthew 23: 16-22 indicates how serious it was, for the believing Christian, to make and take an oath, "And the man who swears by heaven swears not only by God’s throne, but by him

118

To lie might be one of a member of a legal set of acceptable candidates

V . By undertaking textual examination — - permitting one in S'•i

examine St, Augustine's theory of mental operations --- it should ■■•be

noted that the sentence which immediately precedes "Ream linguam non

facit, nisi mens rea," is:'.." Interest quemadmodum verbum procedit ex v y. 5

animo." The 'verbum* is a production 'ex animo.' The falsity of a V:' ;

lie rests in the ability of the soul to produce what is not the case. r ’■ ■■

The production is not the centre of the lie. Were it, then one would H

have a reader-card theory of truth, wherein the proposition or utterance P;: ;

would be -akin to a reader-card, and the state of affairs (in the world) :Hi

would, or would not, correspond to the sentence 'on' the. reader-card. V - V\

In part this is so, since what is produced may not be a correct print-out

of what actually is the case. Yet we should recall that Augustine has ’

turned the example around once again; he has stated that what is 'actually

said does, actually, correspond to what is the case; however^one has V, C lv ’ -s

nevertheless told a lie. . , ■ ’ , ■

, His is not a rhetorical trick. It has its foundation in the

early theology of Christian belief wherein 'God' was believed to be true ■; .

and one throughout his triune processions. The Son was believed to be t. i

the Word which progressed from the Father. If the 'Word* did not represent , r

the 'mind' of the Father, then the procession could not be .-'true' owing ... 1

to the difficulty that what found its origin in the Father would not,

119

(S ■*v \ - /‘few

for the logical coherence of the doctrine of the Trinity, and I .trust that

my statement of it (in part) is not obscure. For the Christian it would

appear that he wanted to mode1 himse1f after. Christ (in all ways) , who

Himself was an expression of the Will of the Father. It is for this rea­

son, I suggest, that Augustine wanted to model the inherent structure of

a lie not in what was produced but in how it was produced. His expression

reflects the mind of early Christian s p e c u l a t i o n T o cite but one early

source we may turn to Lactantius ( 250-325 A.D.) who himself gave ex­

pression to such early theorizing when, in chapter 49 of the Epitome Of

the Divine Institutes ;*.**, we may read:i;i t : , I

. ' : "He that knows not Christ; is for ever alienated"".--; fe-:- ■

. ; from truth and from God.. .He who acknowledges not

k,-.;\- ... - k • the Son cannot acknowledge the Father. This .is . -'"V-1 VX. wisdom, this-the'mystery of. God. It is through • V 'k:/kk.

• ^ ^he Son that God has willed it that He should be . \k;"‘

. ; acknowledged and worshipped...Yet it must not be jj

; fe imagined that there are two Gods : ' Father and Son -V;/' kkkkkk/k:

V'.’..-.' • -k y y - are one. For since the Father loves the Son, and - .k'-'kkk

' assigns all things to him, and since the Son loyally - y t

W . obeys the Father, and wills only what He wills, so ; '/

great a fellowship cannot be disrupted, so that they

v can be spoken of -as two, in whom substance and will

;fe and faith are one --- the Son through the Father,

; ; k the Father through the Son. One honour must be paid .

/ to both, as to one God; and it must be so divided

• ! through two worships that they very division may be k

; ;/ fe; overcome by a bond that cannot be broken. Nothing . -

•y y will be left to him who divides the Father from the y ; • k

;s*. Son, or the Son from''the F a t h e r . - ::k hfe

44. The text was edited and translated by E.H.Blakeney for the S.P.C.K.