[De veritate dicenda aut tacenda]

might offend Him greatly, because a man ought to love God infinitely more than his neighbor. For one ought not to sin in order to benefit another. It happens, however, sometimes that an act done from such a cause is not a venial sin which otherwise would be a venial sin, such as speaking an idle word; for it would no longer be idle when it would not lack a cause of pious utility. It is different regarding an idle or an officious lie, which it is in no way permitted to tell, even if some good might follow from it, but would emerge by accident, not by itself, because a lie cannot by itself be ordered toward any good. This is the opinion of Saint Thomas in his commentary on the Fourth Book of Sentences, distinction 28, and Augustine in his book On Lying. Let it be permitted to no one to lie so that another might be preserved from death, but it is permitted to withhold the truth, or to speak figuratively, and to respond evasively. Therefore, it is one thing to say what is false, and another to keep silent the truth. The first is never licit, but the second is sometimes permitted. For which it is to be noted that expressing the truth is an affirmative precept, and it obligates but not for always, that is, for every time, just as other affirmative precepts. The reason for this is that an act of virtue ought to be clothed in due circumstances, namely: when, where, how, and in what manner it is opportune, because such an act does not have an immobile medium, but is always variable due to the various conditions of the moral act itself. And this medium is determinable by prudence, because something is permitted at one time which is not permitted at another. From this arises that it is not permitted to say the truth at every time. Therefore, this present doubt has been introduced so that it may be known when it falls under a precept and when it does not. There is also a difference in this: between saying the truth, saying the false, and saying the non-truth. Because in the first, the act of speaking is denied and nothing is affirmed. In the second, something is posited, as also in the third.