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The devil wins : a history of lying from the Garden of Eden to the Enlightenment / Dallas G. Denery II.

by Denery, Dallas G. (Dallas George), 1964-

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Princeton : Princeton University Press, c2015.

Truthfulness and falsehood.

Electronic Resource

Introduction available at Princeton University Press Web site: http://press.princeton.edu/chapters/i10323.pdf

9780691163215 (alk. paper)

0691163219 (alk. paper)

xi, 331 pages ; 25 cm

Introduction: Is it ever acceptable to lie? -- The devil. Six days and two sentences later ; The devil and the lie ; Making sense of Genesis 1, 2, and 3 ; The devil's lie from late Antiquity to the Middle Ages ; The devil's lie from the Middle Ages to the Reformation ; The prince of this world ; From Satan's stratagems to human nature -- God. Can God lie? ; On lions, fishhooks, and mousetraps ; Divine deception and the sacrament of truth ; Luther, Calvin, and the hidden God ; René Descartes, Pierre Bayle, and the end of divine deception -- Human beings. Every lie is a sin ; Every sin is a lie ; Biblical liars ; Augustine among the Scholastics ; Institutional transformations ; Equivocation, mental reservation, and amphibology ; From Pascal to Augustine and beyond -- Courtiers. Flatterers, wheedlers, and gossipmongers ; Early modern uncertainty and deception ; Uncertainty and skepticism in the medieval court ; Entangled in Leviathan's loins ; Christine de Pizan and just hypocrisy ; From lies to civility ; Bernard Mandeville and the world lies built -- Women. Lessons about lies ; All about Eve, all about women ; The biology of feminine deceit ; Christine de Pizan, misogyny, and self-knowledge ; All men are liars ; Madeleine de Scudéry, the salon, and the pleasant lie -- Conclusion: The lie becomes modern.

Is it ever acceptable to lie? This question plays a surprisingly important role in the story of Europe's transition from medieval to modern society. According to many historians, Europe became modern when Europeans began to lie--that is, when they began to argue that it is sometimes acceptable to lie. This popular account offers a clear trajectory of historical progression from a medieval world of faith, in which every lie is sinful, to a more worldly early modern society in which lying becomes a permissible strategy for self-defense and self-advancement. Unfortunately, this story is wrong. For medieval and early modern Christians, the problem of the lie was the problem of human existence itself. To ask "Is it ever acceptable to lie?" was to ask how we, as sinners, should live in a fallen world. As it turns out, the answer to that question depended on who did the asking. The Devil Wins uncovers the complicated history of lying from the early days of the Catholic Church to the Enlightenment, revealing the diversity of attitudes about lying by considering the question from the perspectives of five representative voices--the Devil, God, theologians, courtiers, and women. Examining works by Augustine, Bonaventure, Martin Luther, Madeleine de Scudéry, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, and a host of others, Dallas G. Denery II shows how the lie, long thought to be the source of worldly corruption, eventually became the very basis of social cohesion and peace. --from back cover.

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