S54 THIRD lEKIOD. A.D 311-590.
care of souls, would result emphatieallj' in favor of the Englisli Protestant cliureli of the seventeenth century.'
We must here particularly notice a point which reflects ojreat discredit on the moral sense of many of the fathers, and shows that they had not wholly freed themselves from the chains of heathen ethics. Tiie occasion of this work of Chrysostom was a ruse, by which he had evaded election to the bishopric, and thrust it upon his friend Basil.* To justify this conduct, he endeavors at large, in the fifth chapter of the first book, to prove that artifice might be lawful and useful ; that is, wlien used as a means to a good end. " Manifold is the potency of deception, only it must not be employed with knavish intent. And this should be hardly called deception, but rather a sort of accommodation (oiKovofiia), wisdom, art, or sagacity, by which one can find nniny ways of escape in an exigency, and amend tlie errors of the soul." He appeals to biblical examples, like Jonathan and the daughter of Saul, who by deceiving their father rescued their friend and husband ; and, unwarrantably, even to Paul, who became to the Jews a Jew, to the Gentiles a Gentile, and circumcised Timothy, though in the Epistle to the Galatians he pronouncetl circumcision useless. Chrysostom, hovrever, had evidently learned this loose and pernicious principle respecting the obligation of truthfulness, not from the Holy Scriptures, but from the Grecian sophists.* Besides, he by no means stood alone in the church in this matter, but had his predecessors in the
' Comp. also the remarks of B. H. Cowpkk in the iutruduction to his English franslation, Loiid. 1866, p. xiii.
* Not Basil the Great (as Socrates supposes), for he was much older, aud died iu 379 ; but probably (as Montfaucon conjectures) the bisliop of Raphanea in Syria, near Antioch, whose name appears among the bishops of the council of Constantinople, in 381.
• Even the purest moral philosopher of antiquity, Plato, vindicates falsehood, and recommends it to physicians and rulers as a means to a good end, a help to the healing of the sick cr to the advantage of the people. Comp. De republ. iii. p. 266, ed. Bipont. : Ei yap op^us (\fyoft.(v ^pTi, koi ry uvn ^tois /usv 6.xpft(^'Tov v|/«C5os, av^p^icois Ss xPV<^'l^ov, is iv (papfitiKov ffSfi, SrjKov 'on rh ^e roiouroy larpois SoTtov, (StwTais 5t oux awTfof. ArjKov, iiprj. To7s itpxoutrj 5i> r^j irShfws, ttirep nalr &AXoi$, TvpoariKii ^ivhi'jbai ^ -rroXtixiuv ^ ■KoXnwv tVfKO, ^Jr' w<pi\(iet ttjs ir6\fws ' toIi 5* &\Koi^ na(Tit> ovx aivTfov rov roiovrov. The Jewish philosophizing theulogiau, I'hilo, had a similar view, in his work : Quod Deus sit immutabili-i, p. 802,
§ 51. MORAL CHAEACTER OF THE CL&KGT IJ!^^ GENERAL. 255
Alexandrian father's,' and liis followers in Cassian, Jerome, a,nd otlier eminent Catholic divines.
Jerome made a doubtful distinction between Yu/iyao-ri/cco? scrihere and 8oy/xaTiKM'i sci'ibere, and, with Origen, explained t)ie severe censure of Paul on Peter in Antioch, for example, as a mere stroke of pastoral policy, or an accommodation to the weakness of the Jewish Christians at the expense of trutlu* But Augustine's delicate Christian sense of truth revolted at this construction, and replied that such an interpretation undermined the whole authority of Holy Scripture ; that an aj)ostle could never lie, even for a good object ; that, in extremity, one should rather suppose a false reading, or wrong translation, or suspect his own apprehension ; but that in Antioch Paul spoke the truth and justly censured Peter openly for his inconsistency, or for a practical (not a theoretical) error, and thus deserves the praise of righteous boldness, as Peter on the other hand, by his meek submission to the censure, merits the praise of holy humility.'
Thus in Jerome and Augustine we have the representatives of two opposite ethical views : one, unduly subjective, judging all moral acts merely by their motive and object, and sanctioning, for example, tyrannicide, or suicide to escape disgrace, or breach of faith with heretics (as the later Jesuitical casuistry does with the utmost profusion of sophistical subtlety) ; the other objective, proceeding on eternal, immutable principles and the irreconcilable opposition of good and evil, and freely
' Clemens Alex., Strom, vi. p. 802, and Origeu, Strom, vi. (in Hieron. Apol. L adv. Ruf. c. IS), where he adduces the just cited passage of Plato in defence of a doubtful accommodation at the expense of truth. See the relevant passages in Gieseler, i § 63, note 7.
' Epist. 48 (ed. Vail., or Ep. 30 ed. Bened., Ep. 50 in older editions), ad Pammachium, pro libris contra Joviuianum, and Comm. ad Gal. ii. 11 sqq. Also Johannes Cassianus, a pupil of Chrysostom, defends the lawfulness of falsehood and deception in certain cases. Coll. xvii. 8 and 17.
' Comp. the somewhat sharp correspondence of the two fathers in Hieron. Episv 101-105, 110, 112, 115, 134, 141, in Vallarsi's ed. (torn. i. 625 sqq.), or iu August. Epist. 67, 68, 72-75, 81, 82 (m the Bened. ed. of Aug. torn. ii. 161 sqq.); August.: De mcndacio, and Contra mendacium ; also the treatise of Mohler mentioned abov(^ I 41, on tills controversy, so instructive in regard to the patristic ethics and exegesia