36. But for that we are men
and among men do live, and I confess that I am not yet in the
number of them whom compensative sins embarrass not, it oft
befalleth me in human affairs to be overcome by human feeling, nor
am I able to resist when it is said to me, “Lo, here is a sick
man in peril of his life with a grievous disease, whose strength
will no more be able to bear it, if the death of his only and most
dear son be announced to him; he asks of thee whether his son
liveth, and thou knowest that he is departed this life; what
wilt thou reply, when, whatever thou shall say beside one of these
three; either, He is dead; or, He liveth; or, I know not; he
believes no other than that he is dead; which thing he perceives
thee to be afraid to tell, and unwilling to tell a lie?” It comes
to the same thing, if thou altogether hold thy peace. But of those
three, two are false, He liveth, and, I know not; and they cannot
be said by thee but by telling a lie. Whereas if thou shall say
that one thing which is true, that is, that he is dead, and the man
be so perturbed that death follow, people will cry out that thou
hast killed him. And who can bear men casting up to him what a
mischief it is to shun a lie that might save life, and to choose
truth which murders a man? I am moved by these objections
exceedingly, but it were marvelous whether also wisely. For, when I
shall set before the eyes of my heart (such as they be) the
intellectual beauty of
Him out of Whose mouth nothing false proceedeth, albeit where truth
in her radiance doth more and more brighten upon me, there my weak
and throbbing sense is beaten back: yet I am with love of that
surpassing comeliness so set on fire, that I despise all human
regards which would thence recall me. But it is much that this
affection persevere to that degree, that in temptation it lack not
its effect. Nor doth it move me while contemplating that luminous
Good in which is no darkness of a lie, that, when we refuse to lie, and men through hearing of a truth do die, truth is called a murderer. For if a lewd woman crave of thee the gratification of her lust, and, when thou consentest not, she perturbed with the fierceness of her love should die, will chastity also be a murderer? Or, truly, because we read, “We are a sweet savor of Christ in every place, both in them which are saved and in them which perish;” to the one, indeed, a savor of life unto life, to others a savor of death unto death; shall we pronounce even the savor of Christ to be a murderer? But, for that we, being men, are in questions and contradictions of this sort for the most part overcome or wearied out by our feeling as men, for that very reason hath the Apostle also presently subjoined, “And who is sufficient for these things?”