VI PREFACE. 



fession even of those who speak of him with most con- 

 tempt." 



Of that candour of self-revelation to which allusion is 

 made in the preceding extract, Jerome himself writes: 

 " What if I confess my vices; why marvel; am I not a 

 man ? And how much more human is it to acknowledge 

 than dissemble? What we cloak, we protect; what we 

 acknowledge, we confess and avoid. Let, therefore, the 

 most sweet love of truth and the most happy conscious- 

 ness thereof conquer all dread of infamy, all suspicion of 

 calumny 1 ." Elsewhere he says on the same subject and 

 we must remember that he did not live in cleanly times 

 " What if any one were to address the kings of the earth, 

 and say to them, c There is not one of you who does not 

 eat vermin and other worse filth of your servants?' In 

 what spirit would the speech be taken, though most true? 

 What is this but an ignoring of our condition, a determi- 

 nation not to know what we do know, to put a thing out 

 of our sight by force? So it is with our sins, and all else 

 that is filthy, vain, confused, and uncertain in us. Rotten 

 apples fall from the best tree. I tell nothing new ; I do 

 but tell the naked truth 2 ." Evident enough it is that 



1 Geniturarum Exemplar (ed. 1555), p. 523. 



2 De Vita Propria, cap. xiii. 



