value of deceit, provided it be not introduced with a mischievous intention.  In fact, action of this sort ought not to be called deceit, but rather a kind of good management, cleverness, and skill, capable of finding out ways where resources fail, and making up for the defects of the mind....  That man would fairly deserve to be called a deceiver who made an unrighteous use of the practice, not one who did so with a salutary purpose.  And often it is necessary to deceive, and to do the greatest benefits by means of this device, whereas he who has gone by a straight course has done great mischief to the person whom he has not deceived."[2]

[Footnote 1:  See Smith and Wace’s Dictionary of Christian Biography, I., 519 f.; art.  “Chrysostom, John.”]

[Footnote 2:  See Chrysostom’s “Treatise on the Priesthood,” in The Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, first series (Am. ed.), IX., 34-38.]

In fact, Chrysostom seems, in this argument, to recognize no absolute and unvarying standard of truthfulness as binding on all at all times; but to judge lies and deceptions as wrong only when they are wrongly used, or when they result in evil to others.  He appears to act on the anti-Christian theory[1] that “the end justifies the means.”  Indeed, Dr. Schaff, in reprobating this “pious fraud” of Chrysostom, as “conduct which every sound Christian conscience must condemn,” says of the whole matter:  “The Jesuitical maxim, ’the end justifies the means,’ is much older than Jesuitism, and runs through the whole apocryphal, pseudo-prophetic, pseudo-apostolic, pseudo-Clementine, and pseudo-Isidorian literature of the early centuries.  Several of the best Fathers show a surprising want of a strict sense of veracity.  They introduce a sort of cheat even into their strange theory of redemption, by supposing that the Devil caused the crucifixion under the delusion [intentionally produced by God] that Christ was a mere man, and thus lost his claim upon the fallen race.” [2]

[Footnote 1:  Rom. 3:  7, 8.]

[Footnote 2:  See Dr. Schaff’s “Prologemena to The Life and Works of St. Chrysostom,” in The Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, first Series (Am. ed.), IX., 8.]

Chrysostom, like Gregory of Nyssa, having done that which was wrong in itself, with a laudable end in view, naturally attempts its defense by the use of arguments based on a confusion in his own mind of things which are unjustifiable, with things which are allowable.  He does not seem to distinguish between deliberate deception as a mode of lying, and concealment of that which one has a right to conceal.  Like many another defender of the right to lie in behalf of a worthy cause, in all the centuries, Chrysostom essays no definition of the “lie,” and indicates no distinction between culpable concealment, and concealment that is right and proper.  Yet Chrysostom was a man of loving heart and of unwavering purpose of life.  In an age of evil-doing, he stood firm for the right.  And in spite of any lack of logical perceptions on his part in a matter like this, it can be said of him with truth that “perhaps few have ever exercised a more powerful influence over the hearts and affections of the most exalted natures."[1]