De Mendacio by St. Augustine:
"Unde si appareat fieri posse ut aliquis propterea falsum dicat, ne fallatur ille cui dicitur; existit aliud e contrario genus, propterea verum dicentis ut fallat."
Why is the present participle "dicentis" in the genitive? I don't understand why the last clause doesn't just read "Propterea verum dicens ut fallat." I feel like I have gone through every possible solution in my mind to no avail.
1) If it is connected to "verum," whether verum is a noun or adverb, it doesn't make sense. We get "a fact of speaking" or "truly of speaking."
2) Does propterea take the genitive? "For the reason of saying the truth to deceive"? This fits the translation and makes sense, but I can find no proof that propterea ever takes the genitive, and it seems to fly in the face of "propterea quod."
3) Is "dicentis" actually modified by "genus" from the preceding clause? That fits the translation best of all, perhaps. I don't know, my brain has frozen. But can a word from one clause modify a word from a subsequent clause without a relative pronoun?
I wonder if I am just messed up on the preceding clause and that is why I can't figure it out. "Existit aliud ex contrario genus..." Genus agrees with aliud, right? It means "There exists on the contrary another category [ of person ]."
