{"author":null,"canonical_references":[],"database_sha256":"8cfbe7284c6936871d57c02dc6aa63ebbdfd4722422d539dd9f716e46e91112e","date_end":null,"date_start":null,"edition_year":null,"id":"sermonindex-ecf-4306","native_reference":{"book_number":560,"chapter_from":4,"chapter_to":4,"system":"MyBible module coordinates (mapping unverified)","verse_from":25,"verse_to":25},"public_import_allowed":false,"record_kind":"verse-keyed-module-record","review_required":["English edition and exact text","author/work attribution","dating","verse mapping and citation kind","reuse and attribution","split author quotations and deduplicate"],"review_status":"unreviewed","source_html":"<p><b>Ambrosiaster</b>: Since we have been \"created in truth and righteousness\" and reborn in baptism, in order to remain in it we are instructed to put away lying altogether. Hold fast to the truth. Do not cheat your brother in any way. Being members of one body, support one another's causes in turn.<br/><i>— EPISTLE TO THE Ephesians 4.25</i></p><p><b>Augustine of Hippo</b>: But lest any should contend that not every lie is to be called false witness, what will he say to that which is written, \"The mouth that lieth slayeth the soul:\" and lest any should suppose that this may be understood with the exception of some liars, let him read in another place, \"Thou wilt destroy all that speak leasing.\" Whence with His own lips the Lord saith, \"Let your communication be yea, yea; nay, nay; for whatsoever is more than these cometh of evil.\" Hence the Apostle also in giving precept for the putting off of the old man, under which name all sins are understood, says straightway, \"Wherefore putting away lying, speak ye truth.\"<br/><i>— ON LYING 6</i></p><p><b>Augustine of Hippo</b>: Let no one mistake this. The apostle is not giving us room to tell a lie to those who are not yet members of Christ with us. The point of the saying is that each of us should consider everyone as we wish him to become, even if he has not become so.… We ought to deal with a person in such a way that he will cease to be an outsider. Regard him as your neighbor already, rather than as an outsider. It may be that, because of the fact that he is not yet a partaker of our faith and sacraments, certain truths must be concealed from him. But that is no reason for telling him falsehoods.<br/><i>— Against Lying 15</i></p><p><b>Clement of Alexandria</b>: However, both the laws served the Word for the instruction of humanity, both that given by Moses and that by the apostles. What, therefore, is the nature of the training by the apostles, appears to me to require to be treated of. Under this head, I, or rather the Instructor by me, will recount; and I shall again set before you the precepts themselves, as it were in the germ.</p><p>\"Putting away lying, speak every man truth with his neighbour: for we are members one of another. Let not the sun go down upon your wrath; neither give place to the devil. Let him that stole steal no more: but rather let him labour, working with his hands the thing which is good, that he may have to give to him that needeth. Let all bitterness, and wrath, and anger, and clamour, and evil-speaking, be put away from you, with all malice: and be ye kind one to another, tender-hearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ hath forgiven you. Be therefore wise, followers of God, as dear children; and walk in love, as Christ also hath loved us.\"...<br/><i>— The Instructor Book 3</i></p><p><b>Irenaeus</b>: No doubt, if any one is unwilling to follow the Gospel itself, it is in his power [to reject it], but it is not expedient. For it is in man's power to disobey God, and to forfeit what is good; but [such conduct] brings no small amount of injury and mischief. And on this account Paul says, \"All things are lawful to me, but all things are not expedient;\" referring both to the liberty of man, in which respect \"all things are lawful,\" God exercising no compulsion in regard to him; and [by the expression] \"not expedient\" pointing out that we \"should not use our liberty as a cloak of maliciousness, for this is not expedient. And again he says, \"Speak ye every man truth with his neighbour.\" And, \"Let no corrupt communication proceed out of your mouth, neither filthiness, nor foolish talking, nor scurrility, which are not convenient, but rather giving of thanks.\" And, \"For ye were sometimes darkness, but now are ye light in the Lord; walk honestly as children of the light, not in rioting and drunkenness, not in chambering and wantonness, not in anger and jealousy. And such were some of you; but ye have been washed, but ye have been sanctified in the name of our Lord.\" If then it were not in our power to do or not to do these things, what reason had the apostle, and much more the Lord Himself, to give us counsel to do some things, and to abstain from others? But because man is possessed of free will from the beginning, and God is possessed of free will, in whose likeness man was created, advice is always given to him to keep fast the good, which thing is done by means of obedience to God.<br/><i>— Against Heresies Book IV</i></p><p><b>Jerome</b>: To be members one of another points to a great mystery. He is speaking of those who are very close to us in faith. For people are not generally \"members one of another.\" But the faithful indeed are members of the faithful. Christians are members of the body of Christ. We are members with the saints who embody purity of heart and consummate goodness.… Hence we are being instructed to speak intimately of the truth of this mystery with the neighbor—to speak of the fullness of God's truth.<br/><i>— Commentary on Ephesians 4:25</i></p><p><b>John Chrysostom</b>: Having spoken of the \"old man\" generally, he next draws him also in detail; for this kind of teaching is more easily learned when we learn by particulars. And what saith he? \"Wherefore, putting away falsehood.\" What sort of falsehood? Idols does he mean? Surely not; not indeed but that they are falsehood also. However, he is not now speaking of them, because these persons had nothing to do with them; but he is speaking of that which passes between one man and another, meaning that which is deceitful and false. \"Speak ye truth, each one,\" saith he, \"with his neighbor\"; then what is more touching to the conscience still, \"because we are members one of another.\" Let no man deceive his neighbor. As the Psalmist says here and there; \"With flattering lip and with a double heart do they speak.\" (Ps. xii. 2.) For there is nothing, no, nothing so productive of enmity as deceit and guile.</p><p>Observe how everywhere he shames them by this similitude of the body. Let not the eye, saith he, lie to the foot, nor the foot to the eye. For example, if there shall be a deep pit, and then by having reeds laid across upon the mouth of it upon the earth, and yet concealed under earth, it shall by its appearance furnish to the eye an expectation of solid ground, will not the eye use the foot, and discover whether it yields and is hollow underneath, or whether it is firm and resists? Will the foot tell a lie, and not report the truth as it is? And what again? If the eye were to spy a serpent or a wild beast, will it lie to the foot? Will it not at once inform it, and the foot thus informed by it refrain from going on? And what again, when neither the foot nor the eye shall know how to distinguish, but all shall depend upon the smelling, as, for example, whether a drug be deadly or not; will the smelling lie to the mouth? And why not? Because it will be destroying itself also. But it tells the truth as it appears to itself. And what again? Will the tongue lie to the stomach? Does it not, when a thing is bitter, reject it, and, if it is sweet, pass it on? Observe ministration, and interchange of service; observe a provident care arising from truth, and, as one might say, spontaneously from the heart. So surely should it be with us also; let us not lie, since we are \"members one of another.\" This is a sure token of friendship; whereas the contrary is of enmity. What then, thou wilt ask, if a man shall use treachery against thee? Hearken to the truth. If he use treachery, he is not a member; whereas he saith, \"lie not towards the members.\"<br/><i>— Homily on Ephesians 14</i></p><p><b>Shepherd of Hermas</b>: Again he said to me, \"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.\" ... And he said to me, \"Now you hear them, and keep them, that even the falsehoods which you formerly told in your transactions may come to be believed through the truthfulness of your present statements. ... And whosoever shall hear this commandment, and depart from that great wickedness falsehood, shall live to God.\"<br/><i>— Shepherd of Hermas, Commandment 3</i></p><p><b>Tertullian</b>: Learn then now, that His is a spiritual armour and warfare, since you have already discovered that the captivity is spiritual, in order that you may further learn that this also belongs to Him, even because the apostle derived the mention of the captivity from the same prophets as suggested to him his precepts likewise: \"Putting away lying,\" (says he, ) \"speak every man truth with his neighbour; \" and again, using the very words in which the Psalm expresses his meaning, (he says, ) \"Be ye angry, and sin not; \" \"Let not the sun go down upon your wrath.<br/><i>— Against Marcion Book V</i></p><p><b>Tertullian</b>: Let all bitterness, and wrath, and anger, and clamour, and evil-speaking, be put away from you, with all malice: but be ye kind one to another, tender-hearted, forgiving one another, even as God in Christ hath forgiven you.\" Why, therefore, do not those who suppose the flesh to be the old man, hasten their own death, in order that by laying aside the old man they may satisfy the apostle's precepts? As for ourselves, we believe that the whole of faith is to be administered in the flesh, nay more, by the flesh, which has both a mouth for the utterance of all holy words, and a tongue to refrain from blasphemy, and a heart to avoid all irritation, and hands to labour and to give; while we also maintain that as well the old man as the new has relation to the difference of moral conduct, and not to any discrepancy of nature.<br/><i>— On the Resurrection of the Flesh</i></p><p><b>Theodoret of Cyrus</b>: It would be extremely perverse, since we belong intimately to one another, to say things that are not true. For this is not the way the body functions. The eyes, for example, when they see cliffs and steep caverns, instantly report them to the feet so that they may turn aside and protect the whole body from harm.<br/><i>— Interpretation of the Epistle to the Ephesians 4.25</i></p>","source_html_sha256":"ce37f364ed8f60ce885fa4b1604b731c0247fcb5e5edced2c2e38f1cf95944e0","source_module":"ECF","source_row_id":4306,"source_url":"https://www.sermonindex.net/commentary/ecf/","text_sha256":"77bf2817ecc89a892e82d7ae2daf739f03ec9dc52a3d4f7f5a9631f0e2eb26da","translator":null,"work":null}