330 The Faith of Our Fathers of the body, but of absolutely cleansing the defilements of the soul."452 And again: "If a sinner, as becomes him; would use the aid of his conscience, and hasten to confess his crimes and disclose his ulcer to his physician, who may heal and not reproach, and receive remedies from him; if he would speak to him alone, without the knowledge of any one, and with care lay all before him, easily would he amend his failings; for the confession of sins is the absolution of crimes."453 St. Jerome writes: "If the serpent, the devil, secretly bite a man and thus infect him with the poison of sin, and this man shall remain silent, and do not penance, nor be willing to make known his wound to his brother and master; the master, who has a tongue that can heal, cannot easily serve him. For if the ailing man be ashamed to open his case to the physician no cure can be expected; for medicine does not cure that of which it knows nothing."454 Elsewhere he says: "With us the Bishop or Priest binds or looses — not them who are merely innocent or guilty — but having heard, as his duty requires, the various qualities of sin he understands who should be bound and who loosed."455 Could the Catholic doctrine regarding the power of the Priests and the obligation of confession be expressed in stronger language than this? And yet these are the very Fathers who are represented to be opposed to Sacramental Confession! With a reckless disregard [350] of the unanimous voice of antiquity our adversaries have the hardihood to assert that private or Sacramental Confession was introduced at a period subsequent to the twelfth century. They do not, however, vouchsafe to inform us by what Pope or Bishop Ibid., Horn. xx.