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The legitimacy of lying has been an issue, in Ancient times, for secular authors as well as for the Church Fathers. For the former, except Plato, who objects to lying as far as it concerns the gods, all the authors that dealt with the question have acknowledged that lying could be useful in some circumstances. Following in their wake, the Church Fathers prior to Augustine looked, in their thinking, for some compromise between lying and truth. If, like Plato, they have emphasized the inaccessibility of lying to the divinity, all of them are unanimous in recognizing, on human grounds, the opportunity of lies that can serve individual or collective interests. Augustine is different from his predecessors : he is resolutely against lying. Truth is absolute for him and he is adamant on that point.