Question Four. Whether he who Causes Someone a Loss in the Good of Reputation is Bound so to Make Restitution that he Cannot be Truly Penitent unless he Restore his Reputation

247. The question asked fourth is whether he who causes someone a loss in the good of reputation is bound so to make restitution that he cannot be truly penitent unless he restore his reputation.

248. It seems that he is not:

Gregory IX, Decretals V tit.1 chs.1-2, he who denounces or makes accusation of a false crime is in bad repute; so he who denies a true crime charged against him defames his accuser unjustly, because he shows him to be an accuser of a false crime; and yet he who denies a crime of this sort charged against him is not bound to restore reputation to the accuser, because it seems rather that the accuser should restore reputation to the accused, since he could not prove the crime charged against him.

249. Again, everyone should be more zealous for his own reputation than for another’s, just as he should love himself more than his neighbor. But someone accused in public of a hidden crime cannot preserve his reputation unharmed except by indirectly defaming another, namely by denying the crime charged against him, and so by marking the other as an accuser of a false crime; therefore, this person is bound, according to right reason, to defame the other, although indirectly, and consequently he is not bound to make restitution, because he did not act unjustly in his initial act.

250. To the contrary:

Augustine, Epistle 153, To Macedonius, ch.6 n.20 (and it is in Lombard’s text, Sent. IV d.15 ch.7 n.9 [as taken from Gratian, Decretum, p.2 cause 14 q.6 n.1]): “Sin is not discharged unless what was taken away is restored.”

251. Again, Proverbs 22.1, “Better a good name than many riches.” Therefore, he who takes from his neighbor his good name harms him more than he who takes from him his riches; so, if he is bound to make restitution there [sc. in riches], much more so here [sc. in reputation].

I. To the Question

252. I respond: in general someone can defame another in three ways: in one way by charging against him a false crime; in another way, by charging against him a true crime yet a hidden one, without keeping to the order of right, namely by speaking it openly; in a third way by denying a true but hidden crime, though charged against him in public, because by thus denying it he marks with calumny the one who charges it against him.

A. Defaming by Charge of a False Crime

253. About the first I say he must restore his reputation by retracting what he charged against him, because otherwise he does not keep justice by returning to his neighbor what is his neighbor’s own - and retracting it publicly if he charged it publicly.

254. The contrary seems to be the case, because it seems he should be more zealous for his own reputation than another’s; but he could not, by retraction of his own word, return the other his reputation without defaming himself.

255. I reply: as I said [d.15 q.2 n.200] to the sixth argument in the first question about restitution, that goods of the body or external goods are only to be loved in their order to the good of the soul and to God, and this is not so save as they could justly belong to him who loves them. And therefore, just as I said about love of one’s own bodily life, so do I say here about love of one’s own reputation, that anyone to whom reputation can justly belong ought to love it more than the reputation of another to whom it can also belong. But if it can belong to him only unjustly and to the other justly, he should love reputation for the other, to whom it justly belongs, rather than for himself, to whom it unjustly belongs.

256. And so it is here: for reputation justly belongs to the one accused of a false crime, and unjustly belongs, after such accusation, to the accuser - not only because he has lied in the accusation but because he has publicly lied, wherein he has sufficiently and radically defamed himself. And therefore, after showing the innocence directly of the other (to whom in this matter he is bound), and his own guiltiness indirectly, he does not then properly defame itself but does then remove the false praise, of which, after the lying accusation, he is unworthy.

257. An example: someone commits fornication, with three seeing it; when they presently accuse him of the crime, they do not defame him, but he himself has defamed himself in that public deed; for, in brief, by committing any crime whatever publicly, he incurs harm to his dignity and thus loses his reputation, as far as it depends on him. Nor does the publication afterwards, by which that harm is made known, take away his reputation, but only makes come to public attention more what from the first was, by the nature of the act, simply public.

258. And if you ask, “someone does not charge such crime against another in public, but murmurs it and speaks of it indiscreetly, or tells it in the presence of many yet not as something certainly known to him but that he so heard - is he bound to make restitution?” I reply: “Therefore is trust rare, for many speak much.”From the anonymous ‘Sayings of Cato’ I n.13 (Baehrens ed., Poetae Latini Minores III, Leipzig 1881) ³³ And therefore he who says he only heard, unless he show from his manner of speaking some greater certitude than that of common report, does not, by the nature of his act, take from the opinion of others the person’s reputation, because if they firmly conceive the person being talked about to be criminal, they are shallow, because “he who believes quickly is shallow in heart,” Ecclesiasticus 19.4.

259. However, because one should beware of scandalizing the weak, according to the remark of Paul I Corinthians 8.13, “If I scandalize my neighbor, I will not eat meat forever,” and there are many weak like this, shallow in believing evils; therefore, it is dangerous in their presence to relate to them things like this heard by report. And if it is done in an evil spirit, namely by harming him whom one’s speech is about, it is not easy to excuse it of being against charity, and consequently a mortal sin. But if it is done by inadvertence in their presence, it is hard for it to surpass the category of venial sin, because the tongue is in a slippery place, and “he who offends not in word is a perfect man,” James 3.2.

B. Defaming by Public Revelation of a True but Hidden Crime

260. About the second [n.252] I say that he is not bound to retract his word, which he put forward in public, because by doing this he would be lying, since he knows that what he put forward is true. And he is not bound to lie for the sake of return of any good to another; but he is bound to return him his reputation in some other licit way, as for example by these words: “Do not believe him to be such, for I spoke badly and spoke foolishly.” And these words indeed are true “I spoke badly, I spoke foolishly, because I put forward in public, without keeping to the order of right, what is not true, public.” And this persuading “do not reckon him to be such” is a good one, because everyone is to be presumed good until the contrary be proved, according to Gregory IX, Decretals I tit.12 ch.1, ‘About making scrutiny in order’: “Human fragility should reckon him worthy who is not known to be unworthy.” But this man has not been proved to be bad in their presence; therefore, it is good to persuade them that they not reckon him unworthy or bad.

C. Defaming by Denial of a True but Hidden Crime Publicly Charged

261. In the case of the third member [n.252] I say similarly that he is not bound to retract his denial, whereby he denied in public a true crime charged against him, because no one is bound to confess himself guilty at once in court who is not convicted at once. He is however bound, as was said in the preceding article [n.160], to restore reputation to him whom he indirectly marked with calumny, by saying, “Do not hold him for a calumniator; for I believe he had a good intention in making the charge, or perhaps he believed that he was proving his charge, and was deceived.”

262. But about him who denies such a true but private crime against himself in public, does he not surely sin mortally?

It seems that he does, because he lies with a pernicious lie, both against the republic (because the republic is prevented, on account of his public lie, from the just punishment of him) and against the person accusing him (because thereby he is marked a calumniator).

263. I reply, “You will justly carry out what is just,” Deuteronomy 16.20. The republic, therefore, should not punish all evils, but those which, together with the fact they are to be punished, the power of the republic can justly punish; but such evils are those that can be adequately proved before a court of law. And so the republic is not harmed if divine judgment exceeds its judgment, so that some things are reserved to divine judgment over which there cannot be a just judgment of the republic, for “a man sees the things that appear, but God looks at the heart” [I Kings (aka I Samuel), 16.7]. From this the response to the objection against the republic is apparent.

264. And when the addition is made that this is pernicious against the accuser I reply: I say no, but rather he is pernicious to himself who brought a charge in the way that he had no obligation to bring it, indeed an obligation not to bring it; and therefore let him impute it to himself if some infamy follow, because he himself is the cause and not he who denies it, for the latter is defending his innocence in public where, until he has been convicted, he is not guilty nor to be held guilty.

265. But a difficulty remains in itself, whether he sins by lying on his own behalf. Hard would it seem to be that anyone accused in public should at once be bound, by necessity of salvation, to confess in public, and thus to expose himself at once to the gibbet in a cause of blood. But also, if one looks not only at the penalty but at the honorable and dishonorable, it does not appear that, honorably and according to right reason, he should confess in front of such a judge, because he himself, more than any other individual, would, by accusing himself, take away reputation from himself, because belief is reposed in one who publicly confesses in court against himself.

266. What then? The cautious response of the jurists is ‘I deny the charges as charged’; this can indeed be said, in the issue at hand, without lying, because the charges are made in public, and as public, and as to be proved in public; but to deny them thus he can do who knows that they cannot be proved in public.

267. But what if the judge urge him to confess the charge made or to deny it publicly? He could reply that he himself has given sufficient response to the accusation, and just as it is the manner of jurists to respond, and he does not wish to deviate from that response; let the judge do to the accuser what belongs to right.

268. But surely, if he deny it, intending however to deny it as it is there charged, namely as public (just as a confessor says of someone he has confessed “I know of no evil that this man has done,” because he is speaking as he has heard him in public or some other forum), is not he, who denied it, bound to be penitent about this denial?

269. I reply: “It is a mark of good minds to acknowledge fault where no fault is,” Gratian, Decretum, p.1 d.5 ch.1, and it is entitled ‘Gregory’ [taken from a letter attributed to Gregory the Great, Epistle 11, ‘Response to Augustine, bishop of the English’]; and therefore much more is it a mark of a good mind to acknowledge fault where there is doubt if there is fault and fault of what sort. And therefore is it safe in such a case, after such a denial, to be penitent indistinctly, and indistinctly as to the sort that it is, namely under indistinctness of this sort: as of a mortal sin if mortal, of venial sin if venial.

II. To the Initial Arguments

270. To the first argument [n.248] the answer is plain from the third article [n.261].

271. To the second [n.249], if the argument is about him who has, without preservation of the order of right, been accused in public and denied it, I concede that he is not bound to restore reputation to the accuser; rather the accuser is imputing his own infamy to himself, because he acted impudently and unjustly by making a private accusation in public.

272. But if this argument is being made about a lying accuser of the innocent who cannot return reputation to the accused unless he defame himself, the response is plain from the first article of the question [nn.256-257], that, after such a public lie, he is not deserving of reputation; but the other is deserving, and therefore his reputation should be given back to him.