B. What Sort of Sin a Lie is

1. About the Three Kinds of Lies

22. Second we must note what sort of sin a lie is.

And although lies are distinguished in many ways, yet for the present purpose a triple distinction suffices, namely into pernicious, useful, and jocose lies.

23. A pernicious lie is one that harms or is harmful of itself to the one I lie to or lie about. And if it harms him as to the Christian religion, namely as to faith or morals etc., then it is a mortal sin. But if it harms him as to his bodily life, or not preserving his conjugal fidelity, or taking away his children or persons in any way connected with him, or as to other temporal goods, then as the lie causes him more or less harm (which is to be weighed by the good it takes away), then it is counted as more or less serious. And generally every such lie, whereby one deliberately asserts what one does not know or what one knows the opposite of, is a mortal sin. For this is simply prohibited by the commandment, “Thou shalt not bear false witness against your neighbor” [Exodus 20.16]. And ‘witness’ is not precisely what is given in court, but is when anyone deliberately asserts something he does not know or whose opposite he does know. Whoever therefore has the intention to deceive someone to whom he is speaking or about whom he is speaking and says the opposite of what he knows to be true, and by thus speaking harms him to whom or about whom he is speaking, then he gives false testimony against his neighbor. But whether not doing so deliberately counts as an excuse will be touched in d.39 nn.13-21.

24. A useful lie is when it is useful for someone and harmful to no one.

25. A jocose lie is to tell stories about what everyone who hears knows is not true and not told as true. For the hearers are not deceived and the speaker does not intend to deceive, nor is his speech of itself deceptive because it is not such as to be naturally believed by the hearers. Rather it is known to be said without making any opinion as to its truth. The like holds if a jocose lie is when someone does intend to deceive by joking, so that the one deceived really is deceived, but not in anything that inflicts any great harm on him, and those too are joking who know he is deceived. And lastly he can be himself joking in the way that Augustine says of Joseph’s lie, who did truly want to deceive his brothers in the words ‘you are spies etc.’ [n.4], and yet he himself, who knew the truth, could be joking about their deception and about the fear that the deceived were running into. And the others, if any knew, could themselves also at last be joking when they perceived that the thing was not seriously said.

2. Opinions of Others

26. About the last two, namely the useful and jocose lie [nn.24-25], it is commonly admitted that neither of them is a mortal sin in the case of imperfect men, because neither is per se against charity, nor even against anything that is of itself necessarily required for the state of those persons.

27. But in the case of perfect men both lies are said by some to be mortal sins, because the authority of these men is taken away so that they are not believed, and in this they make their state to be cheapened and even harm their hearers because of the scandal.

28. An argument against this [n.27] is that no circumstance makes what in one person is a venial sin to be in another a mortal sin unless one of the persons is necessarily obligated to what the other is not obligated to. But a perfect man does not obligate himself to keeping truth in his words, either by a vow or an oath, more than any other Christian does. Therefore the circumstance of the person (because the person is not specially obligated) does not change a venial sin into a mortal sin.

3. Scotus’ own Opinion

29. Here one can reply by drawing a distinction, that some perfect persons are in the state of exercising perfection (as prelates), others are in the state of acquiring perfection (as religious).

a. About Persons in the State of Exercising Perfection

30. One can concede about the first that, when they are performing acts that belong to them by reason of such state of perfection (as teaching, judging, preaching), both sorts of lies [sc. useful and jocose] would be a mortal sin in their case, for they take away the authority and usefulness of the doctrine being preached, according to the remark of Augustine, based on three letters to Jerome [Letters 26 ch.3 nn.3-4, 40 ch.3 n.3, 82 ch.2 n.21], “If lies, however jocose, had been introduced in the Sacred Scriptures, nothing of solidity would remain in them.” For instance, if a prelate while preaching introduced a jocose lie, nothing of solidity remains in his teaching. For anyone can be in doubt about anything said by him as he can be in doubt about anyone else. Or the reason the hearer would not assent to the jocose lie would be a like reason not to assent to anything else that was said. And thus the authority of the teachers of the Church in their teaching will perish, and also their utility for the people listening. The same for solemn judgment or solemn teaching. And I mean this, that the lie is not perceived as said apart from the act of judging or teaching. For while someone is sitting in judgment it is possible to mix some scam in it, which from the manner of speaking is known not to belong to the judgment.

31. It seems, however, that a single jocose or useful lie does not impede the authority of a judge or teacher, but such a lie often repeated or the custom of thus lying does. But then, since according to the laws [Gregory IX Decrees I tit.6 ch.34] ‘a twice repeated act introduces a custom’, it follows that the second act is a mortal sin and not the first, although however the second is altogether like the first (as it seems) in all its circumstances.

32. Whatever may be true of one or several such lies in teaching and judging, at least in other acts it would not be a mortal sin, once the idea of scandal is removed.

b. About Persons in a State of Acquiring Perfection

33. If we speak of him who has the state of acquiring perfection, not of exercising it, something else seems it needs to be said. Such a person does not seem to be obligated more than others to anything that belongs to perfection, but only to what he has vowed. For he has not taken up the state of pastoral care, and so not an act pertaining to his person. Such a one, therefore, if he is not exercising a work of perfection (of which sort are teaching, preaching, and the like) does not seem to sin mortally in telling a useful or jocose lie more than any other Christian, save perhaps because of scandal. For the imperfect can be scandalized more by a lie from such a person than from a common person.

34. But deeds cannot be judged as to what they are from a scandal that does or does not accompany them

For generally, according to the evangelical law, all scandals whatever of the weak are to be avoided, according to Matthew 18.7, “Woe to the man through whom scandals come.” But the scandals taken by the Pharisees, not given to them, are not to be avoided, according to the words of the Savior in Matthew 15.12-14: when the disciples said that the Pharisees were scandalized when they heard Christ’s word, Christ replied, “Let them alone, for they are blind and leaders of the blind.” Whether then it is a question of deeds indifferent in themselves, of which sort is eating meat (about which the Apostle says I Corinthians 8.13, “If my brother is scandalized, I will not eat meat for ever”), or of deeds that have some malice, namely venial malice, yet naturally give occasion or cause of scandal to the weak who are present, these are to be avoided because of the scandal. But we cannot thereby judge what sort of sin it is from the nature of the deed in itself.

35. But as to what belongs to the nature of a jocose or useful lie in deeds said in the second way [sc. without accompanying scandal, n.34], it does not seem that someone in the state of acquiring perfection [nn.29, 33] is obligated by his profession to avoid them for any reason or severity of the precept more than any other Christian. However if right reason dictate that a single act of his or a frequent act is a scandal to the hearers, although a like act in another would not be a scandal, he is bound by charity or the salvation of his neighbor to avoid the scandal; just as in a moment of flight during time of suffering a pastor is bound sometimes not to flee, according to John 10.12-13, “A hireling, who is not the shepherd, sees the wolf coming and flees etc.” Augustine treats the matter well in

Epistle 228 to Honoratus (see Henry of Ghent, Quodlibet 15 q.16). But someone else, who is in the state of acquiring perfection and is not a pastor, is not bound of necessity not to flee if he can do otherwise. But he is bound not to scandalize his neighbor by fleeing, and sometimes his flight would be scandalous when the flight of the weak would not be scandalous. For neighbors would judge, from his flight, that because such a person, who has chosen so strict a life, does not expose his life to defend the faith, life should not be exposed even for this cause, and that such a one does not think well of the faith.