There were many temptations, and great ones, to the early Christians, to evade the consequences of being known as refusers to worship the gods of the Romans; and it is not to be wondered at that many poor mortals yielded to those temptations.  Exemption from punishment could be purchased by saying that one had offered sacrifices to the gods, or by accepting a certificate that such sacrifice had been made, even when such was not the fact; or, again, by professing a readiness to sacrifice, without the intention of such compliance, or by permitting a friend to testify falsely as to the facts; and there were those who thought a lie of this sort justifiable, for the saving of their lives, when they would not have openly renounced their Christian faith.[1] There was much discussion over these practices in the writings of the Fathers; but while there was recognized a difference between open apostasy and the tolerance of a falsehood in one’s behalf, it was held by the church authorities that a lie was always sinful, even though there were degrees in modes of sinning.

[Footnote 1:  See Smith and Cheetham’s Dictionary of Christian Antiquities, art.  “Libelli.”  See also Bingham’s Antiquities of the Christian Church, Book XVI., Chap. 13, Section 5; also Book XVI., Chap. 3, Section 14; with citations from Tertullian, Origen, and Cyprian.]

Ringing words against all forms of lying were spoken by some of the Christian Fathers.  Says the Shepherd of Hermas:  “Love the truth, and let nothing but truth proceed from your mouth, that the spirit which God has placed in your flesh may be found truthful before all men; and the Lord, who dwelleth in you, will be glorified, because the Lord is truthful in every word, and in him is no falsehood.  They, therefore, who lie, deny the Lord, and rob him, not giving back to him the deposit which they have received.  For they received from him a spirit free from falsehood.  If they give him back this spirit untruthful, they pollute the commandment of the Lord, and become robbers."[1]

[Footnote 1:  Book II., Commandment Third. The Ante-Nicene Fathers (Am. ed.), II., 21.]

Tertullian names among “sins of daily committal, to which we all are liable,” the “sin” of “lying, from bashfulness [or modesty], or ‘necessity.’"[1] Origen also speaks of the frequency of “lying, or of idle talking;"[2] as if possibly its frequency were in some sense an excuse for it.  And Origen specifically claimed that the apostles Peter and Paul agreed together to deceive their hearers at Antioch by simulating a dissension between themselves, when in reality they were agreed.[3] Origen also seemed to approve of false speaking to those who were not entitled to know all the truth; as when he says of the cautious use of falsehood, “a man on whom necessity imposes the responsibility of lying is bound to use very great care, and to use falsehood as he would a stimulant or a medicine, and strictly to preserve its measure, and not go beyond the bounds observed by Judith in her dealings with Holofernes, whom she overcame by the wisdom with which she dissembled her words."[4]