Introduction: Is It Ever Acceptable to Lie?
Part 1. Theologians Ask the Question
Six Days and Two Sentences Later
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
From Satan's Stratagems to Human Nature
On Lions, Fishhooks, and Mousetraps
Divine Deception and the Sacrament of Truth
Luther, Calvin, and the Hidden God
Rene Descartes, Pierre Bayle, and the End of Divine Deception
Augustine among the Scholastics
Institutional Transformations
Equivocation, Mental Reservation, and Amphibology
From Pascal to Augustine and Beyond
Part 2. Courtiers and Women Ask the Question
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
Bernard Mandeville and the World Lies Built
All about Eve, All about Women
The Biology of Feminine Deceit
Christine de Pizan, Misogyny, and Self-Knowledge
Madeleine de Scudery, the Salon, and the Pleasant Lie
Conclusion: The Lie Becomes Modern
