Holy Lies: Christianity’s Tradition of Sanctified Deception
Before Christians weaponize “taqiyya” against Muslims, they should confront the saints, Scriptures, and Church Fathers who praised deception when it served a supposedly righteous cause.
Christians routinely invoke “taqiyya” as if Islam invented religious deception and every Muslim is secretly authorized to lie. But Christian Scripture, saints, and Church Fathers repeatedly praise deception when it protects the faithful, defeats an enemy, advances what they consider true doctrine, or serves a supposedly holy purpose. The issue is not whether every story happened exactly as told. The issue is the moral being taught: deception becomes clever, righteous, and even saintly when Christians believe the cause justifies it. Here are several examples from the very tradition now accusing Muslims of uniquely sanctifying dishonesty.
1. St. John Chrysostom: deception can be admirable
In On the Priesthood, Chrysostom admits that he deliberately deceived his friend Basil. They were both expected to accept ordination, but Chrysostom concealed his intention to escape while allowing Basil to believe they would face it together.
He then gives an extended defense of what he did:
“A well-timed deception, undertaken with an upright intention,” can be beneficial.
He says deception may be appropriate not only against enemies but between husbands and wives, parents and children, and even “our dearest friends.” He compares it to a physician tricking a patient for the patient’s benefit and concludes:
“Often it is necessary to deceive.”
He even argues that such conduct should not really be called deceit but “good management, cleverness and skill.”
This is St. John Chrysostom, whose Divine Liturgy is the normal Sunday liturgy of the Orthodox Church. This is not some obscure fringe writer. It is a foundational Orthodox saint openly constructing a moral defense of beneficial deception.
2. St. John Cassian: a person can be “justified by a lie”
Cassian’s Conference 17 contains a chapter actually titled:
“How the saints have profitably employed a lie like hellebore.”
Cassian says holy people approved by God used lies and thereby attained “the greatest goodness.” He teaches that when grave danger makes truth-telling destructive, “we must take to lying as a refuge.”
He goes much further:
“One man may be justified by means of a lie, while another may be guilty of everlasting death by telling the truth.”
Cassian praises Jacob’s deception of Isaac, saying Jacob “to his credit” followed his mother’s plan to lie. He describes Hushai’s deception of Absalom as a “pious fraud” and a “holy dissimulation.”
That is practically the Christian equivalent of the argument Muslims actually make about taqiyya: truthfulness is the norm, but deception can become permissible under danger or when necessary to protect innocent life.
3. St. Jerome: falsehood can be used as medicine
Jerome writes:
“A man on whom necessity imposes the responsibility of lying” must use falsehood carefully, “as he would a stimulant or a medicine.”
His positive biblical example is Judith, who defeated Holofernes by disguising her intentions and manipulating him through deceptive speech.
Again, this is not merely a saint behaving badly. It is a major Church Father articulating a moral rule permitting lies under necessity.
4. Judith prays for God to empower her deception
The Book of Judith is considered fully part of the Orthodox Old Testament.
Before entering the enemy camp, Judith prays:
“By the deceit of my lips, strike down slave together with ruler.”
She later asks God to make her “deceitful words” wound those threatening Israel.
She then pretends to desert her people, promises Holofernes secret information that will let him conquer them, gains access to him, encourages his sexual confidence, waits until he is drunk and cuts off his head.
The story does not present this as an unfortunate moral compromise. Judith becomes the divinely assisted savior of Israel. St. Ambrose praises her courage, wisdom, sobriety, chastity and prudence.
So here Christian Scripture presents deception, infiltration and assassination as righteous instruments of deliverance.
5. St. Athanasius deceives the authorities pursuing him
When imperial agents pursued Athanasius by boat, he ordered his own boat turned around so that he would pass his pursuers going in the opposite direction.
When they asked where Athanasius was, his party answered that he was “not a great way off” and that they could catch him by hurrying onward. The authorities were “deluded” and raced away while Athanasius escaped.
This one is especially devastating to the taqiyya accusation because Athanasius used deliberate verbal misdirection to conceal himself during religious persecution.
And Athanasius is the fourth-century bishop whose Thirty-Ninth Festal Letter contains the earliest surviving list of exactly the same twenty-seven New Testament books used by Christians today. An Orthodox educational source specifically credits him with first listing that exact New Testament collection in 367.
So the same ancient ecclesiastical tradition that helped establish the Christian Gospel canon also celebrates its great defender escaping persecution through deception.
6. Rahab lies and becomes a Christian model of faith
Rahab hides Israelite spies, tells the authorities they have already left and sends the search party in the wrong direction.
Later Christian Scripture includes Rahab among the heroes of faith and praises her for receiving and protecting the messengers. Cassian makes the moral completely explicit: he says Rahab received everlasting blessing “simply for the lie” by which she protected the spies.
That removes the usual apologetic escape hatch that “the Bible records the lie but does not approve of it.” An influential Christian Father explicitly says the lie itself contributed to her righteousness.
7. The Hebrew midwives deceive Pharaoh and are rewarded
Pharaoh orders the Hebrew midwives to murder newborn boys. They refuse and tell him that Hebrew women give birth before the midwives can arrive.
Immediately afterward, the text says God was good to the midwives and gave them families because they feared him.
The moral is clear: deceiving a murderous ruler to protect innocent people is righteous. Which is perfectly defensible morality, but Christians cannot praise that and then claim Islam is uniquely dishonest for allowing believers to conceal the truth from persecutors.
8. Jael offers sanctuary and then kills her guest
Jael invites the fleeing Sisera into her tent, tells him not to be afraid, covers him, gives him milk instead of water and allows him to believe he is safe. Once he sleeps, she drives a tent peg through his skull.
The Song of Deborah then calls her:
“Most blessed among women.”
The song specifically praises the hospitality that lowered Sisera’s defenses immediately before describing his skull being crushed.
9. Ehud obtains a private audience through a false pretext
Ehud conceals a sword beneath his clothing, presents tribute to King Eglon and claims to have a private message from God. Once the king dismisses his attendants and approaches, Ehud stabs him and locks the room behind him. Yet the text introduces Ehud as the deliverer whom God raised up for Israel.
Again: concealment, manipulation, false confidence and assassination are presented as instruments of divine liberation.
The real conclusion
None of this proves that Christianity commands Christians to lie casually. It proves something far more relevant:
Christian tradition has repeatedly distinguished malicious dishonesty from deception used for protection, warfare, medicine, religious objectives or what it considers a holy purpose.
Chrysostom calls it good management.
Cassian calls it pious fraud and holy dissimulation.
Jerome calls it medicine.
Judith prays for God to make her deceit effective.
Athanasius uses it to escape persecution.
So Christians who reduce taqiyya to “Muslims are religiously permitted to lie to everyone” are not merely misrepresenting Islam. They are condemning Islam for making moral distinctions that their own Scriptures, saints and Church Fathers have made for centuries.
The most brutal one-sentence version would be:
Christianity does not object to religious deception. It objects to Muslims being granted the same moral exceptions its own saints used, praised and formally defended.
St. Ephrem and the Heretic Too Dangerous to Debate
Apollinarius was not some obscure crank muttering theology in a corner. He was a gifted, prolific, and persuasive Christian theologian whose speaking and writing attracted a substantial following. Even writers hostile to his theology acknowledged his intellectual abilities and influence. That context matters because the story of St. Ephrem is presented as the solution to a dangerous opponent whom ordinary argument had failed to silence. Ephrem’s celebrated “victory,” however, did not come from answering Apollinarius’s ideas. It came from making certain those ideas could not be presented.
According to the Christian account, Apollinarius had written his teachings in two books and entrusted them to a woman associated with his movement. But the hagiographer cannot simply describe her as a follower or custodian of the books. He adds the rumor that she “ministered to his pleasures,” effectively branding her as Apollinarius’s mistress. Ephrem then approached this woman while pretending to agree with Apollinarius, claimed he needed the books to defend their shared beliefs against the Orthodox, and persuaded her to lend them to him. He coated the pages with fish glue, pressed them together until each volume became a solid mass, and returned them with the damage concealed.
The story praises Ephrem’s deception and sabotage as holy zeal. At the same time, it strips his opponents of dignity: Apollinarius becomes not a respected Christian thinker with an argument to answer but an irrational heretic deserving humiliation, while the woman who trusted Ephrem is reduced to a sexual insinuation. This is how religious dehumanization works. First, declare your opponents morally corrupt. Then their ideas no longer need to be answered, and whatever you do to silence them can be celebrated as righteousness. The moral being preserved is unmistakable: lying about your identity, deceiving someone into surrendering another person’s property, secretly destroying that property, and sabotaging a fair public debate can all become virtuous when done in defense of the “true faith.” Christianity did not merely record Ephrem’s conduct. It turned religious deception and vandalism into the actions of a saint.
Sources
Pseudo-Gregory of Nyssa. “On Saint Ephraim,” Patrologia Graeca 46, cols. 840B–841A. The account describes Ephrem assuming the guise of an Apollinarian, obtaining the books through deception, gluing their pages together with fish glue, returning them, and arranging the public confrontation. English translation.
John Chrysostom. On the Priesthood, Books I–II. Translated by W. R. W. Stephens, in Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, First Series, vol. 9. Book I; Book II. Chrysostom argues that deception may be admirable when undertaken with a beneficial intention and says it is sometimes necessary even between friends.
John Cassian. Conferences, Conference 17, especially chapters 17, 19 and 20. Translated by Edgar C. S. Gibson, in Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Second Series, vol. 11. Complete Conference 17. Cassian discusses saints being “justified by means of a lie,” calls Hushai’s deception a “pious fraud” and “holy dissimulation,” and describes apostolic conduct as “good and salutary hypocrisy.”
Origen, quoted by Jerome. Jerome, Apology Against Rufinus, Book I, chapter 18. Translated by W. H. Fremantle, in Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Second Series, vol. 3. Online text. The preserved passage compares necessary falsehood to a stimulant or medicine and cites Judith, Esther and Jacob.
The Book of Judith. Judith 9:9–10; 10:1–13:10, especially Judith’s prayer that God act through “the deceit of my lips.” Judith 9.
Ambrose of Milan. Concerning Widows, chapter 7, sections 37–42. Online text. Ambrose praises Judith’s stratagem, wisdom, courage and victory over Holofernes.
Ambrose of Milan. On the Duties of the Clergy, Book III, chapter 13, sections 82–85. Online text. Ambrose says Judith entrapped Holofernes through her speech and presents her conduct as virtuous and worthy of admiration.
Socrates Scholasticus. Church History, Book III, chapter 14, “Flight of Athanasius.” Online text. Athanasius and his companions deliberately misdirect his pursuers, who are described as being “deluded.”
Athanasius of Alexandria. Thirty-Ninth Festal Letter (367), sections 5–7. Online text. This is the relevant primary text for Athanasius’s list of the four Gospels and the twenty-seven books of the New Testament.
Rahab and the spies. Joshua 2:1–21; 6:22–25; Hebrews 11:31; James 2:25. Joshua 2; Joshua 6; Hebrews 11; James 2. Rahab hides the spies, gives their pursuers false information and is later praised for receiving and protecting them.
The Hebrew midwives. Exodus 1:15–21. Online text. The midwives deceive Pharaoh concerning the Hebrew births, after which the text says God dealt well with them.
Jael and Sisera. Judges 4:17–22; 5:24–27. Judges 4; Judges 5. Jael invites Sisera into apparent safety, conceals him, gives him milk and kills him while he sleeps; the following victory song calls her “most blessed among women.”
Ehud and King Eglon. Judges 3:15–23. Online text. Ehud conceals his weapon, obtains a private audience by claiming to possess a secret message and then kills Eglon.
Fascinating. And a sadly familiar tactic…