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Did Jacob Lie? Were His Words Inspired? Examining Genesis 27 in Light of Augustine, Aquinas, and Lombardo
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 01 January 2024
Abstract
In Genesis 27 Jacob is depicted as lying to Isaac. Jacob, however, was held in Christian tradition to be both a moral exemplar and to be speaking prophetically in this episode with his father. This raises the question of how Doctors of the Church such as St. Augustine and St. Thomas Aquinas were able reconcile these interpretive commitments with their stance on the intrinsically disordered nature of lying. In examining their resolution of this tension, we discover an important exegetical distinction for interpreting troubling words as nevertheless being divinely inspired. Yet, it is only in light of another interpretive distinction, recently highlighted by Nicholas Lombardo OP, that we can both hold to the inspired nature of Jacob's words and also a natural reading of the account in Genesis 27. The detailed examination of Genesis 27 by both Augustine and Aquinas is an important case study for understanding how we can interpret troubling language as still being the word of God. This undertaking, spanning centuries between Augustine and Aquinas, is now taken one step further thanks to the exegetical proposal of Fr. Lombardo.
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- Copyright © 2023 Provincial Council of the English Province of the Order of Preachers
References
1 A note of thanks must be extended to John Skalko, who first introduced me to the texts of St. Augustine and St. Thomas Aquinas on lying, which are heavily relied upon in the following analysis.
2 Whilst the skin from one kid could possibly be sufficient to cover Jacob's hands and neck, the Hebrew word used to refer to the two kids to be fetched by Jacob, the plural noun gə·ḏā·yê, occurs only twice in Genesis. The second appearance is in 27:16, when reference is made to the skins used to cover Jacob's smooth skin. It seems noteworthy that the skin of both kids were used in the plan, rather than only the meat. See ‘gə·ḏā·yê,’ Englishman's Concordance, Bible Hub, n.p. <https://biblehub.com/hebrew/gedayei_1423.htm> [cited 4 Dec. 2021].
3 STh II-II, q. 110, a. 3, c.
4 Augustine, Saint, The Fathers of the Church - Volume 16 - Saint Augustine: Treaties on Various Subjects (trans. SisterMuldowney, Mary Sarah R.S.M., Jaffee, Harold B., SisterMcDonald, Mary Francis O.P., SisterMeagher, Luanne O.S.B., SisterEagan, M. Clement C.C.U.I., and DeFerrari, Mary E.; Washington D.C.: Catholic University of America Press, 2002), Google Scholar.
5 STh II-II, q. 110, a. 3, ad. 3. Note also the tone and title of St. Ambrose's Jacob and the Happy Life.
6 Chrysostom, Saint John, The Fathers of the Church – Homilies on Genesis 46-67 (trans. Hill, Robert C.; Washington D.C.: Catholic University of America Press, 2010), Google Scholar.
7 Id., 88.
8 Augustine, The Fathers of the Church, 62.
9 STh II-II, q. 110, a. 3, ad. 3.
10 Regarding revelation, note the examples provided by St. Augustine in On Lying: ‘in the Decalogue itself it is written “Thou shalt not bear false witness”, in which classification every lie is embraced . . . “The mouth that belieth, killeth the soul” . . . “Thou wilt destroy all that speak a lie”. . . . [Christ's own words:] “Let your speech be ‘Yes, Yes;’ ‘No, No;’ and whatever is more comes from the evil one”. . . . [And St. Paul:] “Wherefore, put away lying and speak the truth”’. Additionally, St. Thomas uses Ecclesiasticus 7:14 as the Sed Contra in an article on lying in the Summa Theologiae: ‘Be not willing to make any manner of lie’ (STh II-II, q. 110, a. 3).
11 STh II-II, q. 110, a. 3, c.
12 Regarding this detail of the common good within Thomistic anthropology and its relation to St. Thomas's account of lying see Skalko, John, Disordered Actions: A Moral Analysis of Lying and Homosexual Activity (Germany: Editiones Scholasticae, 2019), Google Scholar.
13 As my former ethics professor, Paul McNellis SJ, would note, anyone alive today is alive because a community of others have said ‘yes’ to their existence and flourishing.
14 STh II-II, q.110, a. 3, c.
15 Which is not to say that every lie is gravely sinful. See STh II-II, q. 110, a.4. And note that in the Sed Contra of the article St. Augustine is quoted as asserting that some lies are not grievously sinful. Both Doctors agree that while lying is always sinful, it is not always grievously sinful.
16 Augustine, The Fathers of the Church, 47.
17 Augustine, The Fathers of the Church, 116.
18 Id., 152.
19 Ibid.
20 Id., 155.
21 Ibid.
22 Ibid.
23 STh II-II, q. 110, a. 3, ad. 3. Italics are my own.
24 Augustine, The Fathers of the Church, 154. Italics are my own.
25 STh I, q. 1, a. 9, ad. 3.
26 Id., ad. 2.
27 Ibid. And Augustine, The Fathers of the Church, 154: ‘Those things are veiled in figures . . . Although we have learned their meaning stated openly and plainly in other places . . .’.
28 STh II-II, q. 110, a. 3, ad. 3.
29 Ibid.
30 Augustine, The Fathers of the Church, 62. Italics are my own.
31 STh II-II, q. 110, a. 3, c.
32 ‘But, concealing the truth is not the same as putting forth a lie. Although everyone who lies wants to conceal the truth, not everyone who wants to conceal the truth lies. Generally, we conceal the truth not by lying but by keeping quiet’, Augustine, The Fathers of the Church, 151. In St. Thomas, we note how he excuses Abraham calling Sarah his sister, not because he meant these words in some mystical sense, but because he was equivocating, i.e. affirming something true even though such an affirmation would be misunderstood by the hearer: ‘As to Abraham “when he said that Sara was his sister, he wished to hide the truth, not to tell a lie, for she is called his sister since she was the daughter of his father”, Augustine says (QQ. Super. Gen. xxvi; Contra Mend. x; Contra Faust. xxii). Wherefore Abraham himself said (Gn. 20:12): “She is truly my sister, the daughter of my father's side”’. (STh II-II, q. 110, a. 3, ad. 3).
33 The passage continues: ‘He did not say this on his own, but being high priest that year he prophesied that Jesus was about to die for the nation, and not for the nation only, but to gather into one the dispersed children of God’ (Jn. 11:51-53).
34 It should, nonetheless, be granted to them that the absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.
35 See Akin, Jimmy, ‘Was It Okay for Jacob to Lie to His Father?’, The National Catholic Register, n.p. <https://www.ncregister.com/blog/was-it-okay-for-jacob-to-lie-to-his-father> [cited 7 Dec. 2021]. See also Crotty, OP., Terence, ‘Joseph’, The Pentateuch and Historical Books, [Unpublished Notes] (N. 13, November 26th, 2021), 4-5.
36 See Crotty, OP., Terence, ‘The Jacob Cycle’, The Pentateuch and Historical, [Unpublished Notes] (N. 12, November 19th, 2021), 4.
37 For if he was inspired in such a manner to not know the particular content of the true meaning of his words, but only to know that they were in some sense true in a figurative manner, then he would not necessarily have been lying because he had in mind that the words were true on God's authority, even if not conscious of exactly how they were true. We do not have space here to flush-out the implications of this particular circumstance. The text, however, does not imply this to be the case either, thus we put it aside for our current purposes.
38 Lombardo, OP, Nicholas, E., ‘A Voice Like the Sound of Many Waters: Inspiration, Authorial Intention, and Theological Exegesis’, Nova et Vetera, Volume 19, Number 3, (2021), 825-869CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
39 Lombardo, ‘Inspiration, Authorial Intention, and Theological Exegesis’, 835.
40 Consider the difference between a word as listed in the dictionary versus when used in context. The latter has become more specified toward one or other of its initially possible meanings. This point was highlighted for me by Rinon, Yoav, ‘The Rhetoric of Jacques Derrida I: Plato's Pharmacy’, The Review of Metaphysics, Volume 46, Number 2 (1992), 369-386Google Scholar.
41 Lombardo, OP, ‘Inspiration, Authorial Intention, and Theological Exegesis’, 851-852Google Scholar. Italics are my own.
42 Id., 852. Italics are my own.
43 Id., 864.
44 Ibid.
45 Ibid.