Chapter 6 (143)
156 | THE SENTENCES, BOOK 3
the case that they were allowed, rather than commanded, to do this to those who suffered it by law.""
5. AUGUSTINE, ON THE PSALM. Here the objection is made that even the good sinned in that deed, because they transgressed the natural law, with which the Gospel and the law of moral command agree, which is:
What you do not wish done to yourself, do not do to another.® "Which Truth wrote on the heart of man; and because man did not read it in his heart, he repeated it on the tablets so that, after being admonished by an external voice, man should return to his heart,' and there find what he could read outside."'® And so they appear to have breached this in that deed, because they did to others what they did not wish to be done to themselves.—But there 'unjustly' is to be understood, that is, that you do not do unjustly to another what you do not wish to be done to you. Otherwise the judge is also in breach of this, when he punishes a guilty person while not wishing any such thing to be done to himself. And so it is that even that text of the Lord: Whatever you wish that men do to you, etc.,"" is to be understood as concerning good things, which we ought to do for each other.
Chapter 6 (143) 1. ON THE FIFTH. The fifth commandment is: Do not bear false witness against your neighbour.' Here the crime of lying and perjury is forbidden.
2. AUGUSTINE, ON EXODUS, ON WHETHER ALL LYING IS FORBIDDEN:
"It is usual to ask whether all lying is forbidden. Some say that only the one is forbidden which does harm and is of no profit to the one to whom it is told. For such a lie is not against your neighbour, and so that seems to be why Scripture added this. But the question regarding lying is a great one, and cannot be explained hurriedly."
Ordinary gloss, on Ps. 104, 37; from Augustine, Enarrationes in Psalmos, on Ps.
104, 37, n28.
"Ch. 1ob.4, 16° Mi yale Uk aGe3 1 °Cf,. Is. 46, 8.
'Partially in ordinary gloss, on Ps. 57, 1; from Augustine, Enarrationes in Psalmos,
OM IES DH, Ik, ill, "Mt. 7, 12, and interlinear gloss.
'Ex. 20, 16; Deut. 5, 20.
*Ordinary gloss, on Ex. 20, 1; from Augustine, Quaestiones in Heptateuchum, bk 2 q71.