[295] OF THE

RIGHTS OF WAR AND PEACE.

BOOK III.

CHAPTER I.

General Rules as to what is lawful in War by Natural law; and herein of deceit and falsehood [in War].

I. We have seen who may carry on war, and from what causes they may do it lawfully. It follows that we consider what is lawful in war, and to what extent; and this is to be considered either nakedly, or as depending on antecedent promise: and nakedly, first by Natural Law, and next by the Law of Nations. Let us then see what is allowed by Natural Law.

II. 1 First, as we have already repeatedly said, the means which lead to an end in a moral matter receive their intrinsic value from the end: wherefore the steps that are necessary [to a lawful end], necessity being taken not in physical exactness but morally, we 296have a right to use. By Right, I mean Right taken strictly, such as implies a competence to act in respect of society alone. Wherefore, if I cannot otherwise preserve my life, I may, by any force which I can use, repel him who assails it, even if he be without fault; as we have elsewhere noted: because this right does not properly arise from the fault of another, but from the right which nature gives me for my own preservation.

2 Further, I may take possession of a thing belonging to another, from which a certain danger impends over me, without consideration of another’s fault: not however so as to become the owner of it, (for that is not a step suitable to the end,) but to keep it till sufficient provision is made for my security: which question we have also elsewhere treated. So by Natural Law I have a right to take from another a thing of mine which he detains; and if that is too difficult, another thing of the same value: and the like I may do for the sake of recovering a debt: and in this case my ownership also is consequent, because the equality which has been disturbed cannot be restored in any other way.

3 So also when punishment is just, all force is just without which punishment cannot be attained: and every thing which is part of the punishment, as the destruction of property by burning or otherwise; that is, within just limits, corresponding to the offense.

III. It is to be noted in the second place, that these rights are not only to be regarded with reference to the origin of the war, but also with reference to causes subnascent, that is, growing up during the progress of the war: as also in civil suits, after the point in dispute is dealt with, there often arises a new right to the party. Thus those who join themselves to the party which attacks me, whether as allies or as subjects, give me a right of defending myself against them. So again those who mingle themselves in a war which is unjust, especially if they may know and ought to know that it is unjust, become bound to make good the expense and damage, because they occasion damage with fault. Thus too, those who join in a war undertaken without a plausible reason, incur the desert of punishment, in proportion to the injustice which belongs to their act. So Plato approves a war carried on till those who are guilty are compelled to undergo penalties to the satisfaction of the innocent who suffer by it.

IV. 1 It is to be observed in the third place, that upon the right of thus acting, many consequences follow indirectly and extraneously to the intent of the actor, to which of themselves he would not have a right. How this holds in self-defense we have elsewhere explained. Thus in order to recover what is ours, if we cannot take exactly so much, we have a right to take more; under the obligation however of restoring the excess of value. Thus a ship occupied by pirates, or a house by robbers, may be battered to pieces, although there may be in the ship or in the house a few infants or women, or other innocent persons who may thus be put in danger. He is not 297guilty of the death of another, says Augustine, who has walled round his own possessions, if any one be injured or killed by the wall falling.

2 But as we have often warned the reader, that which is agreeable to strict right is not always lawful in all respects: for often goodwill to our neighbour does not permit us to use rigorous rights. Wherefore the events which take place extraneously to our intent, and which we see to be likely, are to be provided against, except the good to which our action tends be much greater than the evil which is apprehended; or except, the good and the evil being equal, the hope of the good is much greater than the fear of the evil; a point which is to be left to the decision of prudence; with the caution that we are always, in a doubtful case, to regard the interest of others rather than our own, as the safer course. Let the tares grow, says the best of Teachers, lest you pull up the wheat with them. So Seneca says that to cause conflagration and ruin, is to destroy many without distinction. We learn from history, with how grave a remorse Theodosius, on Ambrose’s admonition, expiated such an unmeasured course of punishment, [when he had sacked Thessalonica for a sedition, A.C. 390. Gronov.]

3 And if God sometimes does something of this kind, we are not to draw that into an example for us; for he has unlimited dominion over us, but he has not given us such dominion over others, as we have elsewhere explained. And even God himself, who is the supreme Lord of men, often spares the whole body, though large, for the sake of a few good men; and thus manifests his equity as a judge; as the dialogue of God with Abraham concerning Sodom plainly shows.

From these general rules we may see what is lawful against an enemy by Natural Law.

V. 1 But the question often arises, what is lawful against those who are not enemies, or will not allow themselves to be so called, but who provide our enemies with supplies of various kinds. This has been a point sharply contested, both anciently and recently; one party defending the rigorous rights of war, the other, the freedom of commerce.

2 In the first place, we must make a distinction as to the things supplied. For there are some articles of supply which are useful in war only, as arms; others which are of no use in war, but are only luxuries; others which are useful both in war, and out of war, as money, provisions, ships and their furniture. In matters of the first kind, that is true which Amalasuintha said to Justinian, that they are of the party of the enemy who supply him with what is necessary in war. The second class of objects is not a matter of complaint. So Seneca says that he would do kindnesses even to a tyrant, if the service so rendered neither gave him greater power for the common mischief, nor confirmed the power which he had, but was only what might be given him without any public evil: I will not give him money to pay his satellites; but there is no reason why I should 298not furnish him with marbles and tapestries for his luxury. I will not supply him with soldiers and armour; but if he pressingly asks for stage-players who may soften his disposition, I will willingly give them. I would not send him ships of war, but I will send him ships of pleasure, barges, and other playthings of kings who amuse themselves at sea. So Ambrose judges, that to give money to him who is conspiring against his country is not a laudable liberality. [This last quotation belongs to the first, not to the second case.)

3 In the third class, objects of ambiguous use, the state of the war is to be considered. For if I cannot defend myself except by intercepting what is sent, necessity, as elsewhere explained, gives us a right to intercept it, but under the obligation of restitution, except there be cause to the contrary. If the supplies sent impede the exaction of my rights, and if he who sends them may know this; as if I were besieging a town, or blockading a port, and if surrender or peace were expected; he will be bound to me for damages; as a person would who liberates my debtor from prison, or assists his flight to my injury; and to the extent of the damage, his property may be taken, and ownership thereof be assumed for the sake of recovering my debt. If he have not yet caused damage, but have tried to cause it, I shall have a right, by the retention of his property, to compel him to give security for the future, by hostages, pledges, or in some other way. But if, besides, the injustice of my enemy to me be very evident, and he confirm him in a most unjust war, he will then be bound to me not only civilly, for the damage, but also criminally, as being one who protects a manifest criminal from the judge who is about to inflict punishment: and on that ground it will be lawful to take such measures against him as are suitable to the offense, according to the principles laid down in speaking of punishment; and therefore to that extent, he may be subjected to spoliation.

4 On this account, belligerents^e commonly issue manifestos to other 299nations, to make known both the justice of the cause, and also the probable hope of exacting their rights.

300 [The note of Grotius respecting the cases in which the rights of belligerents against neutrals had then been enforced is so important, that I will give the substance of it below. I may observe that the rules which he has here laid down agree with the Rules of International Law, as laid down by modem authors: namely (see E. M. 1087, 1088), That Neutrals have no right of carrying Munitions of War, (Grotius’s first class of supplies, called Contraband of War,) to one of the belligerents; and that they have no right of carrying anything to a place in a state of Blockade.]

5 We have referred this question to Natural Law because we have not been able to find in history^f anything on the subject as deter301mined by Instituted Law. When the Romans carried provisions to the enemies of the Carthaginians, they were sometimes taken prisoners by the Carthaginians, and then given up by the Carthaginians to the Romans on being demanded. When Demetrius held Attica with an army, and had taken Eleusis and Rhamnus, neighbouring towns, intending to reduce Athens by famine, and when a ship attempted to introduce corn into the city, he hung the captain and the pilot of the ship, and thus, deterring others, became master of the city.

VI. 1 As to the mode of acting in war, force and terror are the appropriate means. Whether it is allowable to use stratagem also, is a common question. It is assumed that it is, by Homer, Pindar, Virgil, Solon, Silius. [See the passages quoted.]

2 Ulysses in Homer, the example of a wise man, is full of stratagems towards the enemy; and Lucian praises those who deceive the enemy. Xenophon said that in war nothing was so useful as deceit; so in Thucydides, Brasidas; and in Plutarch, Agesilaus. Polybius and Silius say that in war fraud is better than force; so the severe Lacedæmonians thought, as Plutarch says: and so he praises Lysander and Philopemen. So Ammianus.

3 The Roman Jurists call it good deceit (bonus dolus) which a man practises against an enemy, and say that it makes no difference whether any one elude the enemy by force or by fraud. So Eustathius. Among the Theologians, Augustine says the same; and Chrysostom, that the generals who had conquered by deceit were most praised.

4 But there are not wanting opinions which bear the other way, of which we will adduce some. The determination of this question depends on this, whether deceit in its kind be always a bad thing: if so, we are not to do evil that good may come: or whether it be a thing of that kind which is not universally bad by its nature, but which may happen to be good.

VII. It is to be noted, therefore, that deceit may be of two kinds, as it consists in a negative or in a positive act. I extend the term deceit to acts of a negative kind, on the authority of Labeo, who refers the act to deceit not evil, when any one by dissimulation defends his own or another’s goods. Undoubtedly Cicero spoke too generally, when he said that simulation and dissimulation are to be entirely removed from our scheme of life. For since we are not bound to disclose to others all that we know or all that we wish, it follows that we may dissemble, that is, conceal and keep secret, some things from some persons. As Augustine says, It is lawful to conceal in prudence the truth under a certain dissimulation. And Cicero himself repeatedly acknowledges that this is necessary and inevitable, especially for those who have to administer public affairs. We have an example of this, Jeremiah, chap. xxxviii. 24, 25; where the prophet, having been consulted by the king as to the event of the siege of the city, gave to the princes another reason for the conference. And of the same kind was Abraham’s dissembling that Sarah was his wife.

302 VIII. I Deceit which consists in a positive act, if it be perpetrated by things, is called simulation, if by words, a lie. Some lay down this distinction between these two, that they say that words are naturally the signs of notions, but that things are not so. But the contrary is true, that words, by nature, and extraneously to the will of man, have no signification; except inarticulate sounds, as of grief; which, however, may rather be called actions than words. But if it be said that this is the peculiar nature of man, that he can convey the conceptions of his mind to other men, and that words were invented for that purpose; this is truly said; but then it ought to be added, that such indications are not made by words alone, but also by nods, as among dumb persons, whether those nods have by their nature anything in common with the thing signified, or have their signification by institution. And of the same nature with these nods, are those written characters which do not express words as they are pronounced, but things; whether in virtue of some agreement between the character and the thing, as in hieroglyphics, or by arbitrary appointment, as among the Chinese.

2 We must, therefore, have recourse to another distinction, of the kind of that which we adopted to get rid of the ambiguity in speaking of jus gentium. For we said that the term was applied both to that which had been established by separate nations without mutual connexion, and to that which contains a common mutual obligation. Words then, and nods, and the written characters which we have mentioned, have been invented to signify a meaning with mutual obligation, or by convention; but other things, not so. Hence we may use other things although we foresee that another person will therefrom form a false opinion. I speak of what is intrinsic, not of what may happen. Therefore we must take an example where no damage follows; or where the damage, setting aside the consideration of deceit, is lawful.

3 Of the former kind we have an example in Christ, who, having accompanied the disciples to Emmaus, made as if he would go further: he pretended to intend to do so: except we prefer to say that he did intend to go further except he were detained by urgency: as God is said to intend many things which do not come to pass. And in another place Christ, it is said, (Mark vi. 48) would have passed by the disciples: that is, if he had not been urgently entreated to come into the ship. We may give another example in Paul, who circumcised Timothy, knowing that the Jews would take this as if the command of circumcision, though the necessity thereof was really abolished, still bound the Israelites, and as if Paul and Timothy so thought: while Paul’s purpose was not this, but only to obtain for himself and Timothy the means of living on familiar terms with the Jews. The act of circumcision, when the divine law was taken away, no longer implied by institution such a necessity; and the evil which thence followed, of error for a time, which error was afterwards to be rectified, was not of so great moment, as the good to which St Paul 303tended; that is, the communication of evangelical truth. This simu­lation the Greek fathers often call Economy; and so Clemens Alex­andrinus says, that a good man will do for the advantage of his neigh­bours some things which he would not do of his own motion. Such an act was that of the Romans in war, who threw loaves from the capitol into the stations of the enemy, that they might not appear to be distressed by famine.

4 An example of the latter (where the damage to the other party is lawful) we have in the feigned flight which Joshua advised his men to execute in order to take Aï; and which other generals have often practised. For here the damage is approved to be lawful in virtue of the justice of the war. And the flight itself means nothing by institution, though the enemy takes it as a sign of fear, which the other is not bound to prevent, using his liberty of going one way or another, quickly or slowly, with gestures and movements such or such. To the same head we must refer the cases in which soldiers have used the arms, standards, uniforms, rigging, of the enemy^*.

5 All these things are of such kind that they may be used by any at his own choice, even contrary to custom: because the custom was introduced by the arbitrary choice of individuals, not as it were by common consent, and is such a custom as binds no one.

IX. I More grave is the question concerning those signs which belong to the usual intercourse of men, and to which, when used deceitfully, lies properly belong. There are many passages against lying in the Scriptures, Prov. xiii. 5; xxx. 8; Psalm v. 7; Coloss. iii. 9. And Augustine is rigid on this side, as are some of the philosophers and poets. So Homer, Sophocles, Cleobulus [rather Menander, J. B.], Aristotle.

2 There are, however, authorities on the other side; first, examples of persons in Scripture who told lies, and who are not blamed: and next, opinions of the old Christians, Origen, Clemens, Tertullian, Lactantius, Chrysostom, Jerome, Cassian; indeed almost all, as Augustine himself confesses.

3 Among the philosophers, we have evidently on this side Socrates, and his disciples Plato and Xenophon; and in some places Cicero, and if we believe Plutarch and Quintilian, the Stoics, who, among the gifts of the wise man, place that, to know how and when to lie. Aristotle in some places appears to be of the same opinion. Andronicus Rhodius, speaking of a physician who tells a lie to his patient, says, he deceives, but is not a deceiver; and adds the reason, that his object is not to deceive, but to save the man.

4 Many others defend lies for good purposes: Quintillan, Diphilus, Sophocles, Pisander, Euripides, Quintilian again, Eustathius, who brings testimonies from Herodotus and Isocrates.

304 X. 1 Opinions so widely differing, perhaps we may in some measure conciliate, by a larger or stricter acceptation of the term lie. For we do not hero use the term lie, so as to apply where it is unintended; we may distinguish falsehood and a lie. We mean that which is knowingly uttered with a meaning which is at variance with the conception of the mind, either as to what it understands or as to what it wills. For that which is primarily and immediately indicated by words and the like signs, is the conception of the mind; and therefore he does not lie who says a thing which is false, but which be believes to be true; and he does lie who says a thing which is true which be believes to be false. Therefore the falsity of the meaning is what we require to the common notion of a lie. From which it follows that if any word or phrase have several significations, either by common usage, or technically, or figuratively, then if the conceptions of the mind conform to one of these significations, there is no lie, though be who hears it takes it in another.

2 But still it is true that such a mode of speaking, lightly used, is not to be approved of; although, from accidental causes, it may become proper: as for instance, if it be used in instructing him who is committed to our care, or to evade an unfair question. Of the former kind Christ himself gave an example, when he said, Our friend Lazarus sleepeth: which the Apostles received as if he had spoken of ordinary sleep. And what lie said of rebuilding the temple, intending his own body, he knew that the Jews would accept of the temple, properly so called. So when he promised his disciples that they should sit upon twelve thrones and judge the twelve tribes of Israel; and when he spoke of drinking new wine in his Father’s kingdom; be appears to have known that they would take his words as implying some kingdom and authority to be given him in this life, of which hope they were full to the very moment of Christ’s ascension. And in other places he teaches the people by fables and parables, that hearing they might not understand; that is, except they brought to the work of listening proper attention and docility.

An example of the latter kind (to avoid unfair questions) we may take from profane history in the case of L. Vitellius, whom Narcissus urged to explain the plot and tell the truth; but only got him to use doubtful expressions which might be drawn either way. There is a Hebrew proverb, that if any one cannot talk without saying anything decided, he had better hold his peace.

3 On the other hand, it may happen that to use such a mode of speech is not only unbecoming, but wicked; for example, when the honour due to God or the love due to our neighbour, or the reverence due to a superior, or the nature of the matter, requires us to say what we have in our mind: as in contracts, we have said that all is to be disclosed which the nature of a contract is understood to require; in which sense we very properly understand that of Cicero, that lying must altogether be taken away from contracts: in which 305case lying is, it would seem, to be understood so laxly as to include even obscure language; which however we have excluded from our notion of a lie.

XI. I To the common notion of a lie, then, it is required that what is said, written, conveyed by signs or gestures, cannot be understood otherwise than in that sense which differs from the mind of the utterer. But to this laxer notion of a lie in general, must be added some stricter proper difference, to define a lie as unlawful by Natural Law: and this difference, if we examine the matter, can be no other, according to the common estimation of nations, than a discrepancy with some existing and permanent right of the person to whom the words or signs are addressed: for that no one lies to himself, is sufficiently evident. By right, I do not here mean any right extrinsic to the matter, but something proper and cognate to the matter in hand. But this right is no other than the liberty of judging of my future acts, which I, speaking with other men, am understood to owe to them. This is merely that mutual obligation which men wished to introduce when they instituted the use of speech and the like signs. For without such an obligation the invention of such means of communication would be useless.

2 We desire then, that while speech is thus used, this right should subsist and remain: for it may be that the right may have existed, but may have been taken away, or may be taken away by some supervenient right, as a debt is taken away by an acknowledgment of payment, or by the cessation of the condition. It is also required that the right which is violated, be a right of the person with whom we speak, not of another, (as in contracts, injustice does not arise, except from he violation of the right of the contracting parties). To this view you may properly apply what Plato says, after Simonides, referring voracity to justice; and also that lies, that is, forbidden lies, are often described in Scripture as false witness, or speaking against our neighbour; and that Augustine makes the essential nature of a lie consist in the intention to deceive. Also Cicero wishes the question of speaking truth to be referred to justice as its principle.

3 Now the right of which we have spoken, may be taken away, either by the express permission of him with whom we deal; as if any one have announced that he would tell falsehoods, and the other have permitted it; or by tacit permission, or permission presumed on fair reason; or by the opposition of another right, which, by the common opinion of all, is of much more importance.

Those principles, rightly understood, will give us many consequences, which will be of great use in reconciling the dissentient opinions above mentioned.

XII. The first result is, that though any thing be said to an infant, or a person out of his mind, which has a false signification, it does not involve the guilt of a lie. The common sense of mankind 306permits the thoughtless age of childhood to be deluded. So Quintilian. The reason is, that they have no liberty of judgment, and therefore they cannot be wronged with regard to such liberty.

XIII. 1 The second remark is, that so long as our speech is directed to him who is not deceived, it is no lie, although a third person should thereby imbibe a false persuasion. It is not a lie with regard to him whom we address, because his liberty of judging is not disturbed; as in the case of those to whom a fable is told, which they know to be such, or to whom figurative language is used, or irony, or hyperbole; which figure, as Seneca says, arrives at the truth by a lie, and which Quintilian calls an allowable exaggeration. Nor is it a lie with regard to him who accidentally hears it: because we have nothing to do with him, and therefore have no obligation to him. If he form an opinion from what is said to another, and not to himself, he must take the responsibility of his opinion on himself, and not throw it on another. For properly speaking, the speech is, with regard to him, no speech, but a mere thing which may signify any thing.

2 Therefore Cato the Censor was not guilty of a lie when he falsely promised assistance to his allies; nor Flaccus, who related to others that the enemy’s city was taken; though the enemy was thus deceived; and Plutarch relates a similar act of Agesilaus. For in these cases nothing was said to the enemy: and the damage to them which followed is extrinsic to our act, and is in itself not unlawful to be wished or procured. To this head Chrysostom and others refer the discourse of Paul, in which at Antioch he reprehended Peter as judaizing too far: for they conceive that Peter sufficiently understood that that was not seriously done; and in the mean time, that the infirmity of the bystanders was consulted.

XIV. 1 A. third case [in which there is no lie] is when it is certain that he who is addressed will not be dissatisfied with the disturbance of his liberty in judging, but rather will be gratified at the course taken, on account of some advantage which follows therefrom. In this case there is not a lie strictly so called, that is, a wrongful lie; just as he would not be guilty of theft who, presuming the consent of the owner, should consume some small matter, and so procure him great gain. For in matters which are thus certain, a presumed will is held equivalent to an expressed will; and to a willing man, no wrong is done. So he is not guilty of lying who consoles a sick friend with a false persuasion; as Arria did Pætus when his son was dead, which history we have in Pliny’s Epistles; nor he who, when the battle is wavering, gives courage to his party by false news, and so incites them to obtain the victory; and thus catches them that they may not be caught, as Lucretius says.

2 That we may deceive our friends for their good, is asserted by Democritus, Xenophon, Clemens Alexandrinus, Maximus Tyrius, Pro307clue. [See.] Such cases are Xenophon’s declaration that the allies were at hand: and that of Tullus Hostilius, that the Alban army was making a circuit by his order: and that of Quintius the consul, a wholesome lie, as the historians speak, that the other wing of the enemy was in flight; and numerous other passages in historians. And it may be remarked, that the disturbance of the power of judging is in this case of the less consequence, inasmuch as it is momentary only, and the truth very soon comes out.

XV. 1 A fourth case of the same kind [in which a falsehood is not a lie] is when he who has a supereminent right over the rights of another, uses that right either for his private good or for the public good. And this Plato seems to have had in view, when he allows the governors of a state to deceive. And when Plato sometimes seems to allow and sometimes to disallow this practice in physicians, it would seem that this difference is to be taken; that in the former case be means physicians who are publicly called to this office of giving false hopes; in the latter case, those who arrogate such an office to themselves. But God, though he have the supreme right over men, cannot use lies, as Plato rightly acknowledges; because it is a mark of our weakness to take refuge in such means.

2 We have an example of falsehood, which even Philo praises, in Joseph; who, acting with royal power in Egypt, accuses his brothers first of being spies, and then of stealing, knowing that it was not so. And again in Solomon, when he gave orders to slay the child, about which the mothers disputed, though he never intended this to be done. So Quintilian.

XVI. A fifth case may be, when the life of an innocent person, or something of like value, cannot otherwise be preserved, and when another person cannot otherwise be withheld from the perpetration of a wicked act: as in the case of Hypermnestra, nobly false. (Hor.)

XVII. 1 What learned men commonly lay down, goes further than what we have said;—namely, that we may utter falsehoods to an enemy. Thus to the rule not to lie, an exception, unless to an enemy, is added by Plato, Xenophon, Philo among the Jews, Chrysostom among the Christians. And to this case you may refer the promise of the men of Jabesh (1 Sam. xi. 10), that they would come out on the morrow; and the act of Elisha when he misled his pursuers (2 Kings vi. 19); and the saying of Valerius Lævinus who boasted that he had killed Pyrrhus.

2 To the third, fourth and fifth of the preceding remarks belongs a passage of Eustratius on Aristotle’s Ethics. And Quintilian says, that a lie to prevent a murder, or the destruction of one’s country, though at other times a thing blameable in a slave, is then commendable in a free man.

3 These doctrines are not approved of by the school of Theologians of more recent times, who have followed Augustine almost 308exclusively in all points. But this same school allows of tacit interpretations, which are so repugnant to common usage, that we may doubt whether it would not be better to admit false speaking towards some parties, in the cases of which we have spoken, or some of them, (for I do not here pretend to give accurate rules,) rather than thus make such indiscriminate exceptions as to what is false speaking: thus when they say, I do not know, they hold that it may mean, I do not know that I shall tell you; when they say, I have not, they hold that it may mean, I have not to give to you; and others of this kind, which the common sense of mankind repudiates; and which, if they are admitted, there is no reason why he who affirms may not be bold to deny, and he who denies to affirm.

4 For it is undoubtedly true, that there is no word which does not admit of an ambiguous sense, since all words have, besides their primary meaning, or signification of first notion, another meaning, the signification of second notion, and that, various according to the various technical applications, and other meanings from metaphor or other figures. Nor do I more approve the device of those who, as if they were afraid of the word only and not the thing, call those expressions jests, which are uttered with the most serious countenance and manner of delivery.

XVIII. But it is to be observed that what we have said of false speaking in assertory discourses, applied so that it can damage none except a public enemy, is not to be referred to promissory declarations. For from a promise, as we have partly said, a new and special right is conferred on him to whom the promise is made; and this holds even between enemies, without any exception as to hostility existing at the moment; and not only in express promises, but also in tacit ones, as we shall shew in speaking of parley, when we come to that part which concerns the keeping of faith in war.

XIX. Further, we must again apply what we have said in our former discussion concerning Oaths, whether assertory or promissory; that they have force to exclude all exceptions which may be taken on account of the person with whom we are dealing: since in these, we have to do, not with men only, but with God also, and are bound by our oath to Him, although there should no right accrue to any man. And we have there said also, that in an oath, it is not as in other discourse, that to excuse us from the guilt of a lie, unusual interpretations of words may be admitted; but that by all means truth is required in that sense which the hearer is in good faith conceived to understand: so that we must detest the impiety of those who say that men are to be deceived with oaths as boys with toys.

XX. 1 We know that some of the kinds of fraud which we have said are allowed by Natural Law, have been repudiated by some people, or some individuals. But that does not proceed from an 309opinion that such frauds are iniquitous, but from a certain eminent loftiness of mind, and sometimes from a confidence in the strength of the speaker. In Elian we have a saying of Pythagoras, that men approach to the gods principally by two things; by always speaking the truth, and by doing good to others; and in Jamblichus veracity is called the leader to all divine and human good things. So Aristotle says that the magnanimous man loves to speak truly and freely; Plutarch, that to lie is slavish. So Arrian of Ptolemy and of Alexander; Mamertinus of Julian; so Plutarch of Aristides, and Probus of Epaminondas, that they would not lie even in jest.

2 And this is still more to be observed by Christians, to whom not only simplicity is commanded, Matt. x. 16, but also vain speaking interdicted, Matt. xii. 36; and He proposed as an example, in whose mouth was found no guile. So Lactantius says that we must not be content with telling truth to our friends, but also to strangers and enemies. So Neoptolemus is described in Sophocles, excellent in simplicity and noblemindedness; as Dio Prusæensis notes. See his answer to Ulysses in the Philoctetes, and see Euripides in the Rhesus.

3 So Alexander said that he would not steal a victory. And Polybius relates that the Achæans abhorred all fraud towards enemies; thinking victory then only firm when, as Claudian says, it subjugates the minds of the enemy. Such were the Romans till the end of the second Punic war. It is their virtue, Elian says, not to seek victory by art and cunning. And accordingly when Perseus was deceived with the hope of peace, the older senators said that they did not recognize the arts of Rome; that their ancestors had never in war boasted of cunning instead of courage; not of the tricks of the Carthaginians, not of the subtlety of the Greeks, among whom it was more glorious to deceive an enemy than to overcome him by force. And then they added that sometimes, for the present moment, success might be obtained by deceit more than by valour; but that his mind only was thoroughly conquered, who was compelled to confess that he was subdued, not by art or by chance, but in a close trial of strength in a just and pious war. So even later in Tacitus. Such too were the Tibarenians, who announced beforehand the time and place of battle. And Mardonius in Herodotus says that the Greeks of his time did the same.

XXI. As to what concerns the mode of acting, this is to be noted; that what it is not lawful for another to do, it is not lawful for us to impel or solicit him to do. We may take such examples as these: it is not lawful for a subject to kill his king, nor to give up towns without public authority, nor to despoil his fellow-citizens. Therefore it is not lawful to move a citizen, continuing in that character, to do such things. For in all cases, he who gives another cause to sin, does himself sin. Nor is it enough to reply 310that to him who impels such a man to such a deed, say to kill an enemy, the deed is lawful. It is lawful, but not in that manner. Augustine says well, It makes no difference whether you yourself commit a wickedness, or make another man commit it for you.

XXII. The case is different, if any one use the help of a person who does wrong of his own accord, and not at his impulse; which we have proved elsewhere, by the example of God himself, not to be unjust. We receive a deserter by the laws of war, says Celsus; that is, it is not against the laws of war to receive him who leaves the enemy and comes over to us.