ARTICLE I: ON LYING IN GENERAL

510. • A lie is speech or signification against the mind with the will (at least implicit. Nouv. Rev. Th. T. 18. p. 479 sq.) of deceiving. - A threefold genus of lie is distinguished: 1° harmful, by means of which unjust damage is inflicted on someone; 2° officious, which is uttered for the sake of one's own or another's utility; 3° jocose, which is done from jest and for the sole sake of trifling.

Principles. - I. A lie properly so called is always intrinsically evil. The reason is, 1° because it is repugnant to right reason to use words against their natural end and institution; 2° because, if it were licit to deceive others in speaking, the order of society, which rests upon the mutual commerce of men, would be altogether overturned. Hence: Do not lie to one another.¹ - St. Thomas,² St. Augustine.³

II. A harmful lie is grave according to the measure of the damage which is inflicted on a neighbor; for this reason there follows from it the obligation of repairing the damage. - Thus all. St. Thomas.⁴

III. An officious lie is of itself a venial sin, because in it grave disorder is not apprehended. - Thus all. - A fortiori a jocose lie of itself does not exceed venial sin. Indeed sometimes that which is called a jocose lie is altogether free from all fault; because it is not a lie properly so called, but a jest used for the sake of recreation without the will, even implicit, of deceiving, and consequently our definition does not belong to it. But this alone can be admitted when such are the adjuncts of things that the hearers can easily understand that the speaker wishes only to joke. - Thus commonly.

511. You will resolve. - 1° Those do not lie who assert a false thing which they believe true, but only err. On the contrary, those lie who say a true thing which they judge false, because they speak against the mind.

2° Tropic, ironic, hyperbolic expressions are not lies, when they can and are wont easily to be taken as such by the hearers. Much less are parables lies, which Christ Himself used so frequently. - Nor are equivocations lies, if they do not impede the speaker's sense from being able to be known.

3° Those do not lie who compose fables, or from jest say things openly false, as is manifest.

4° To lying are referred formal simulation, hypocrisy, flattery, and vain boasting, which of themselves do not exceed venial sin; yet they can become mortal, or rather mortal sin can accede to them on account of another species of sin which supervenes.