43. So great blindness, moreover, hath occupied men’s minds, that to them it is too little if we pronounce some lies not to be sins; but they must needs pronounce it to be sin in some things if we refuse to lie: and to such a pass have they been brought by defending lying, that even that first kind which is of all the most abominably wicked they pronounce to have been used by the Apostle Paul. For in the Epistle to the Galatians, written as it was, like the rest, for doctrine of religion and piety, they say that he has told a lie, in the passage where he says concerning Peter and Barnabas, “When I saw that they walked not uprightly according to the truth of the Gospel.”78    Gal. ii. 14 For, while they wish to defend Peter from error, and from that pravity of way into which he had fallen; the very way of religion in which is salvation for all men, they by breaking and mincing the authority of the Scriptures do endeavor themselves to overthrow. In which they do not see that it is not only lying, but perjury that they lay to the charge of the Apostle in the very doctrine of piety, that is, in an Epistle in which he preaches the Gospel; seeing that he there saith, before he relates that matter, “What I write unto you, behold, before God, I lie not.”79    Gal. i. 20 But it is time that we set bounds to this disputation: in the consideration and treatment whereof altogether there is nothing more meet to be, before all else, borne in mind and made our prayer, than that which the same Apostle saith: “God is faithful, Who will not suffer you to be tempted above that ye are able to bear, but will with the temptation make also a way to escape, that ye may be able to bear it.”80    1 Cor. x. 13

0517 43. Tanta porro caecitas hominum animos occupavit, ut eis parum sit si dicamus quaedam mendacia non esse peccata, nisi etiam in quibusdam peccatum dicant esse, si mendacium recusemus: eoque perducti sunt defendendo mendacium, ut etiam primo illo genere, quod est omnium sceleratissimum, dicant usum fuisse apostolum Paulum. Nam in Epistola ad Galatas, quae utique sicut caeterae ad doctrinam religionis pietatisque conscripta est, illo loco dicunt eum esse mentitum, ubi ait de Petro et Barnaba, Cum vidissem quia non recte ingrediuntur ad veritatem Evangelii. Cum enim volunt Petrum ab errore, atque ab illa in quam inciderat, viae pravitate defendere; ipsam religionis viam, in qua salus est omnibus, 0518 confracta et comminuta Scripturarum auctoritate, conantur evertere. In quo non vident, non solum mendacii crimen, sed etiam perjurii se objicere Apostolo in ipsa doctrina pietatis, hoc est, in Epistola in qua praedicat Evangelium: ibi quippe ait priusquam ista narraret, Quae autem scribo vobis, ecce coram Deo, quia non mentior (Galat. II, 14, et I, 20). Sed jam sit hujus disputationis modus, in cujus totius consideratione et pertractatione nihil prae caeteris cogitandum atque orandum est, quam illud quod idem apostolus dicit: Fidelis Deus, qui non vos sinet tentari supra quam potestis ferre; sed faciet cum tentatione etiam exitum, ut possitis sustinere (I Cor. X, 13).