The concep of Lie in Saint Augustine

De mendacio and Contra mendacium are the two works in which Saint Augustine studies the lie in a systematic way. In them he reflects upon the philosophical and ethical aspects on which we will focus here. Augustine sees the lie as an incompatibility between what is known or thought in the deepest of the soul and what is externalised through signs of what is thought or known. Moreover, it is clear that in St. Augustine there is an evident distinction between falsehood and lie (this last one characterised by intentionality), proposing a diversified typology in a decreasing scale of gravity.