Dissertation III — On the Deceitful, Equivocal, Ambiguous, and Amphibological Oath: On Mental Restrictions, and on Lying

I undertake to handle the most difficult question that exists in all of theology, one which I feel unequal to my own strength to treat. For, having often trodden similar paths, and, indeed, the more turbulent the water always becomes for one who stirs it. Having this intention in mind, of following in similar footsteps, and, in fact, having prescribed for myself this method, to explain only those things which theologians commonly hand down concerning the deceitful, equivocal, amphibological oath, and mental restrictions... , I had brought the treatment nearly to the halfway point. But, when I came to the explanation of amphibologies, mental restrictions, and equivocations, I found myself at once surrounded on every side, as it were, by Scylla and Charybdis, and by rocks and shoals. For that locution which some theologians call a purely mental restriction, others call a not purely mental restriction; and that speech which is, to me, a lie, is, to a good many more recent writers, merely amphibological. All this, however, I judge to be the origin of all the reefs, and of the difficulties: for, since there can be no room for right disputation, unless certain and clear notions of equivocations, amphibologies, and mental restrictions are established beforehand, and this cannot be done, given the distinctions, evasions, and technicalities of more recent writers, which render this matter exceedingly entangled, I resolved, in order to avoid these circuitous paths, to break off the course I had begun, and to unravel the web; and I took this counsel: that I should first of all begin a discourse concerning lying, and take up the whole controversy afresh. For it has proved of no small advantage to me, in the treatment of this controversy already conducted, that I have discovered nothing put forward by more recent theologians in favor of the licit use of amphibologies which had not already, before them, been employed by certain ancient Philosophers, and even by some of the Fathers, in patronage of lies. Nor does any other difference occur to me, weighing the foundations of each, than that the ancients, with candid sincerity, called those locutions "lies" which not a few more recent theologians call "equivocal," and "material," and "amphibological."

To prove this, and to open for myself an approach to resolving the questions concerning the deceitful oath, I have judged it worthwhile to preface a historical narration of the disputes concerning lying among the ancients, both Philosophers and Fathers. Indeed, an occasion for demonstrating this is furnished by the war which, twelve years ago, several literary men of our own Italy waged over the controversies concerning lies and amphibologies. Occasion for this fierce contest was given by Fr. Carlo Ambrogio Cattaneo, who, in Vol. I of his own Lectures, which he delivered from the pulpit to the people at Milan, and published in print, in Lecture 44, devised a new method of concealing the truth, whenever its manifestation would inflict some grave harm. For he says that Christians ought not to be at all anxious, nor ought they to rack their brains, so as to construct an amphibological, or equivocal, speech by an artful arrangement and disposition of words; but he encourages them to deny outright, with open brow and unblushing countenance, all pretense set aside, that they know the matter, or that they know the truth, which, if they revealed it, would subject them to grave harm. For, he says, that word "know" loses its own signification in such circumstances, and signifies nothing more than that name "know."

This most false doctrine Fr. Giuseppe Agostino Orsi undertook to attack — a man, moreover, of the human commonwealth, and of profound genius, endowed with exquisite erudition, and to whom, in writing, I have seen no equal, even in the most difficult questions, for facility and elegance. At present Secretary of the Sacred Congregation of the Index, after many published volumes distinguished for doctrine and erudition, he is writing a universal Ecclesiastical History, received with the applause of the learned. This most learned man, then, published a DOGMATIC-MORAL DISSERTATION, which was the beginning of a long war. For it produced for itself several adversaries, and also several comrades in arms, who all, joining battle with one another, sharpened their pens, wearied the presses, and, with several published volumes, filled all Italy. How well the die was cast in this literary conflict, with what abundance of arguments, with what erudition of every kind, with what elegance of style, and with what eloquence each pleaded his own cause, it is not my concern to make manifest — since their books speak for themselves, and report the sum of their doctrine. This one thing I confess: that I have profited not a little in this rugged controversy from his most learned works, and have borrowed from him certain things which contribute to a historical knowledge of lies. But, lest I detain the reader too long at the threshold, I proceed to the matter.