‘It is not a lie but a mystery.’ This rather mischievous bon mot of St Augustine's on Jacob's deceitful behaviour [Gen. xxvii) has offended generations of upright clerics. One American bishop at the Vatican Council moved to have the lesson in which it occurs ﹛second Sunday in Lent) cut out of the breviary. We feel that a translation of this passage will make a good introduction to a number on Truth, because it provides a suitable antidote to the somewhat pinchbeck and pedantic view of truth that generally prevails nowadays. Truth is not synonymous with accuracy, or precision, or the bald statement of facts. Fiction, make-believe, poetry, flights of fancy, the tall story (technically known as hyperbole), all can contribute to that adequate grasp of reality by the mind which is what St Thomas says truth is. Truth is mysterious, and can ultimately be only known in mystery, which calls forth strange symbolic forms of expression. It is the mark of a narrow mind to reject the mysterious as simply mendacious.