Elucidation.

————————————

The conduct of Father Abraham, although not approved of by Inspiration, but simply recorded (Gen. xxvi. 7), gave early Christians an opinion that the wicked may be justly foiled, by equivocation and deception, for the preservation of innocence or the life of the innocent. In such case the person deceived, they might argue, is not injured, but benefited (Gen. xxvi. 10), being saved from committing violence and murder. The Corinthian maiden was accustomed to be veiled (as Tertullian intimates), and was taught alike to cherish her own purity and to have no share in affording occasion of sin to others. See vol. iv. pp. 32, 33. Let us call this narrative “The Story of Corinthia and Magistrianus.”