Saint Augustine, The City of God, Vol. II (1877) - Page 13

who is not only a liar, but also the father of a lie. For he is the first who lied, and from him from whom sin came, from him began the lie to be.

CAPUT IV.

What it is to live according to man, and what

5 #### according to God.

When therefore a man lives according to man, not according to God, he is similar to the devil; because the angel also had to live not according to the angel, but according to God, so that he might stand in the truth and speak the truth of Him, not a lie of himself. For also concerning man, in another place, the same
10 apostle says: If, however, the truth of God has abounded in my lie. He called it our lie, the truth of God. When therefore a man lives according to truth, he does not live according to himself, but according to God. For God is He who said: I am the truth. When, however, he lives according to himself, that is according to man, not according to God, he surely lives according to a lie; not because
20 man himself is a lie, since his author and creator is God, who is certainly not the author and creator of a lie, but because man was made upright in such a way that he would not live according to himself, but according to Him by whom he was made, that is, he would do the will of Him rather than his own: to not live in the way he was made to live, this is a lie. For the blessed man wishes to be even by not living in such a way that he can be. What is more deceitful than this will?
25 Hence it can not uselessly be said that every sin is a lie. For sin is not committed except by that will by which we want it to be well with us or we do not want it to be ill with us. Therefore it is a lie, because, when it is done so that it may be well with us,
30 from this it is rather ill with us, or when it is done so that it may be better with us, from this it is rather worse with us. Whence this, unless because it can be well for man from God, whom he abandons by sinning, not from himself, according to whom he lives by sinning?

13) Rom. 3:7. 16) John 14:6.

5 what V; or what v || 13 our mss; My v || 23 not VA; not however v