[De veritate dicenda aut tacenda]

and even Christ Himself hid the truth and did not wish it to be published, saying, "I still have many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now, etc." And when they asked to know the truth, He did not wish to reveal it, saying, "It is not for you to know the times or seasons, which the Father has placed in His own authority." And the angel did not wish to judge the truth for Daniel, who desired to know more than what had been revealed to him, but said, "Go, Daniel, for the words are closed and sealed" (Daniel 12). And the Apostle hides the wisdom of God from disciples who were still immature and did not want to take coarser food, giving them milk to drink and not food (1 Corinthians 3). Behold, the first sinned by telling the truth; Christ hid the truth and forbade the truth to be spoken. Who could not see what great ambiguity can arise from the expression of truth in daily human actions, regarding which anyone can justly hesitate: when, to whom, and how one ought to express the truth? From this motive, I will attempt to undertake a small labor, if, according to the crudeness of my talent and my known ignorance, I might bring something of this knotty ambiguity to light, or perhaps for the purpose of a clearer intellect, to that end, that my reader might be able to distinguish between the vicious and the virtuous expression of truth, and which of these he ought to choose to avoid sin, so that, by not taking one for another, he does not walk the path of error.

Concerning the definition of truth and its division.

Attend therefore at the beginning of this, because it is notably said, "to one who knows the truth," because to one who is ignorant of the truth but still asserts a doubt as true, it is justly reputed as a lie according to Augustine. Therefore, concerning this doubter, no question is made here. Truth, however, as we intend it here, is a certain truth by which someone speaks the truth, according to which it is a certain equality of the intellect and the sign to the thing understood or signified, or of the thing to