1. I must submit to the taunts of my adversary as Christ did to those of the Jews.
2. Yet the substantial charges must be answered.
3. I praised him but he has wounded me.
4. I am no heretic, but declare my faith, that of my baptism.
5. I give a further proof of my faith in the resurrection of the flesh.
6-9. The resurrection body is a spiritual body.
10. Origen's doctrines in the Peri 'Arxwn.
11. What led to the translation.
12, 13. Pamphilus Apology for Origen.
14. Preface to the Translation of the Peri 'Arxwn.
15. Treatise on the Adulteration of the works of Origen.
16. The difficulties of translation.
17. Explanation of Origen's words "The Son does not see the Father."
18. Difference between seeing and knowing.
19. The Translation interpolated by Eusebius of Cremona.
20. Eusebius, if acting honestly, should have shown me what he thought dangerous.
21. Jerome's method of translation was the same as mine.
22. Jerome's reference to his Commentary on the Ephesians.
23. Jerome has not really changed his mind about Origen.
24. Women turned into men and bodies into souls.
25. The foundation (katabolh) of the world explained by Jerome as a casting down.
26. Jerome, under the name of "another," gives his own views.
27. The fall of souls into human bodies is taught by Jerome.
28. Predestination.
29. "Another," who gives strange views, is Jerome himself.
30. "Hopers" and "fore-hopers."
31. and 30 (a). Jerome has confessed these views to be his own.
31 (a) and 32. Further identification of Jerome's views with Origen's.
33. The commentary on the Ephesians, selected by Jerome, is his condemnation.
34, 35. Principalities and Powers.
36. Jerome's complaint of new doctrines may be retorted on himself.
38, 39. Origin of men, angels, and heavenly bodies.
40, 41. The body as a prison.
42. All creatures, including the fallen angel, partaking in the final restoration.
43. Arrogance of Jerome's teaching.
44. If Origen is not to be pardoned, neither is Jerome.
I have read the document sent from the East by our friend and good brother to a distinguished member of the Senate, Pammachius, which you have copied and forwarded to me. It brought to my mind the words of the Prophet:hyperlink "The sons of men whose teeth are spears and arrows and their tongue a sharp sword." But for these wounds which men inflict on one another with the tongue we can hardly find a physician; so I have betaken myself to Jesus, the heavenly physician, and he has brought out for me from the medicine chest of the Gospel an antidote of sovereign power; he has assuaged the violence of my grief with the assurance of the righteous judgment which I shall have at his hands. The potion which our Lord dispensed to me was nothing else than these words:hyperlink "Blessed are ye when men persecute you and say all manner of evil against you falsely. Rejoice and leap for joy, for great is your reward in heaven, for so persecuted they the Prophets which were before you." With this medicine I was content, and, as far as the matter concerned me, I had determined for the future to keep silence; for I said within myself,hyperlink "If they have called the Master of the house Beelzebub, how much more them of his household?" (that is, you and me, unworthy though we are). And, if it was said of him,hyperlink "He is a deceiver, he deceiveth the people," I must not be indignant if I hear that I am called a heretic, and that the name of mole is applied to me because of the slowness of my mind, or indeed my blindness. Christ who is my Lord, aye, and who is God over all, was calledhyperlink "a gluttonous man and a wine bibber, a friend of publicans and sinners." How can I, then, be angry when I am called a carnal manhyperlink who lives in luxury?
2. Nevertheless, a necessity, as it were, is laid upon me to reply, as a simple matter of justice: I mean, because many, as I hear, are likely to be upset by what he has written unless the true state of the case is laid before them. I am compelled, against my resolution and even my vows, to make reply, lest by keeping silence I should seem to acknowledge the accusation to be true. It is, indeed, in most cases, a Christian's glory to follow our Lord's example of silence, and thereby to repel the accusation; hut to follow this course in matters of faith causes stumbling blocks to spring up in vast numbers. It is true that, in the beginning of his invective he promises that he will avoid personalities, and reply only about the things in question and the charges made against him; but his profession in both cases is false; for how can he answer a charge when no charge has been made? and how can a man be said to avoid personalities when he never ceases to attack and tear to pieces the translator of the books in question from the first line to the last of his invective? I shall avoid all pretence of saying less than I mean, and similar subterfuges of hypocrisy which are hateful in God's sight; and, though my words may be uncouth and my style unadorned, I will make my reply. I trust, and I shall not trust in vain, that my readers will pardon my lack of skill, since my object is not to amuse others but to endeavour to clear myself from the reproaches directed against me. My wish is that what may shine forth in me may not be style but truth.
3. But, before I begin to clear up these points, there is one in which I confess that he has spoken the truth in an eminent degree; namely, when he says that be is not rendering evil speaking for evil speaking. This, I say, is quite true; for it is not for evil speaking but for speaking well of him and praising him that he has rendered reproach and evil speaking. But it is not true, as he says, that he turns the left cheek to one who smites him on the right. It is on one who is stroking him and caressing him on the cheek that he suddenly turns and bites him. I praised his eloquence and his industry in the work of translating from the Greek. I said nothing in derogation of his faith; but he condemns me on both these points. He must therefore pardon me if I say some things rather roughly and rudely; for he has challenged to a reply a man who has no great rhetorical skill, and who has not, as he knows, the power to make one whom he wishes to injure and to wound appear to have. received neither wounds nor injuries. Those who love this kind of eloquence must to seek it in a man whom every light reportstirs up to fault-finding and vituperation, and who thinks himself bound, as if he were the censor, to be always coming up to set things to rights. A man who desires to clear himself from the stains which have been cast upon him, does not trouble himself, in the answer which he is compelled to make,about the elegance and neat turns of his reply, but only about its truth.
4. At the very beginning of his work he says, "As if they could not be heretics by themselves, without me." I must first show that, whether with him or without him, we are no heretics: then, when our status is made clear, we shall be safe from having the infamous imputation hurled at us from other men's reports. I was already living in a monastery, where, as both he and all others know, about 30 years ago, I was made regenerate by Baptism, and received the seal of the faith at the hands of those saintly men, Chromatius,hyperlink Jovinushyperlink and Eusebius,hyperlink all of them now bishops, well-tried and highly esteemed in the church of God, one of whom was then a presbyter of the church under Valerian of blessed memory, the second was archdeacon, the third Deacon, and to me a spiritual father, my teacher in the creed and the articles of belief. These men so taught me, and so I believe, namely, that the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit are of one Godhead, of one Substance: a Trinity coeternal, inseparable, incorporeal, invisible, incomprehensible, known to itself alone as it truly is in its perfection: For "No manhyperlink knoweth the Son but the Father, neither knoweth any man the Father but the Son": and the Holy Spirit is he who "searchethhyperlink the deep thingsof God": that this Trinity, therefore, is without all bodily visibility, but that it is with the eye of the understanding that the Son and the Holy Spirit see the Father even as the Father sees the Son and the Holy Spirit; and further, that in this Trinity there is no diversity except that one is Father, another Son and a third Holy Spirit. There is a Trinity as touching the distinction of persons, a unity in the reality of the Substance. We received, further, that the only begotten Son of God, through whom in the beginning all existing things were made, whether visible or invisible, in these last days took upon him a human body and Soul, and was made man, and suffered for our salvation; and the third day he rose again from the dead in that very flesh which had been laid in the sepulchre; and in that very same flesh made glorious he ascended into the heavens, whence we look for his coming to judge the quick and the dead. But further we confess that he gave us hope that we too should rise in a similar manner, so that we believe that our resurrection will be in the same manner and process, and in the same form, as the resurrection of our Lord himself from the dead: that the bodies which we shall receive will not be phantoms or thin vapours, as some slanderously affirm that we say, but these very bodies of ours in which we live and in which we die. For how can we truly believe in the resurrection of the flesh, unless the very nature of flesh remains in it truly and substantially? It is then without any equivocation, that we confess the resurrection of this real and substantial flesh of ours in which we live.
5. Moreover, to give a fuller demonstration of this point, I will add one thing more. It is the compulsion of those who calumniate me which forces me to exhibit a singular and special mystery of my own church. It is this, that, while all the churches thus hand down the Sacrament of the Creed in the form which, after the words "the remission of sins" adds "the resurrection of the flesh," the holy church of Aquileia (as though the Spirit of God had foreseen the calumnies which would be spoken against us) puts in a particular pronoun at the place where it delivers the resurrection of the dead; instead of saying as others do, "the resurrection of the flesh," we say "the resurrection of this flesh." At this point, as the custom is at the close of the Creed, we touch the forehead of this flesh with the sign of the cross. and with the mouth of this flesh, which we have so touched, we confess the resurrection; that so we may stop up every entrance through which the poisoned tongue might bring in its calumnies against us. Can any confession be fuller than this? Can any exposition of the truth be more perfect? Yet I see that this remarkable provision of the Holy Spirit has been of no profit to us. Evil and busy tongues still find room for cavilling. Unless, says he, you name the members one by one, and expressly designate the head with its hair, the hands, the feet, the belly, and that which is below the belly, you have denied the resurrection of the flesh.
6. Behold the discovery of this man of the new learning! a thing which escaped the notice of the Apostles when they delivered · the faith to the Church; a thing which none of the saints knew till it was revealed to this man by the spirit of the flesh. He indeed cannot expound it without bringing in an indecency. Nevertheless, I will set it forth in his hearing both more worthily and more truly. Christ is the first fruits of those that sleep;hyperlink he is also calledhyperlink the first begotten from the dead; as also the Apostle says,hyperlink "Christ is the beginning, afterward they that are Christ's." Since then we have Christ as the undoubted first fruits of our resurrection, how can any question arise about the rest of us? It must be evident that, whatever the members, the hair, the flesh, the bones, were in which Christ rose, in the same shall we also rise. For this purpose be offered himself to the, disciples to touch after his resurrection, so that no hesitation as to his resurrection should remain. Since then Christ has given his own resurrection as a typical instance, one that is quite evident, and (as I may say) capable of being felt and handled by the hand, who can be so mad as to think that he himself will rise otherwise than as He rose who opened the door of the resurrection? This also confirms the truth of this confession of ours that, while it is the actual natural flesh and no other which will rise, vet it will rise purged from its faults and having laid aside its corruption; so that the saying of the Apostle is true:hyperlink "It is sown in corruption, it will be raised in incorruption; it is sown in dishonour, it will be raised in glory; it is sown a naturalhyperlink body, it will be raised a spiritual body." Inasmuch then as it is a spiritual body, and glorious, and incorruptible, it will be furnished and adorned with its own proper members, not with members taken from elsewhere, according to that glorious image of which Christ is set forth as the perpetual type, as it is said by the Apostle:hyperlink "Who shall change the body of our humiliation, that it may be conformed to the body of his glory."
7. Since then, in reference to our hope of the resurrection, Christ is set forth all through as the archetype, since he is the first born of those who rise, and since he is the head of every creature, as it is written,hyperlink "Who is the head of all, the first born from the dead, that in all things he might have the preeminence;" how is it that we stir up these vain strifes of words, and conflicts of evil surmises? Does not the faith of the church consist in the confession which I have set forth above? And is it not evident that men are moved to accuse others not by difference of belief, but by perversity of disposition? At this point, however, in arguing about the resurrection of the flesh, our friend, as his habit is, mixes up what is ridiculous and farcical with what is serious. He says:
"Some poor creatures of the female sex among us are fond of asking what good the resurrection will be to them? They touch their breasts, and stroke their beardless faces, and strike their thighs and their bellies, and ask whether this poor weak body is to rise again. No, they say, if we are to be like angels we shall have the nature of angels."
Who the poor women are whom he thus takes to task, and whether they are deserving of his attacks, he knows best. And if he considers himself to be one of those who are bound to preach that it is not our part to attack another out of revenge, but that in this instance he is right in attacking others when they have given him no cause for revenge; or if, again, he considers that it is no business of his to take care that weak women of his company should be subjected to attacks only for real causes, and not for such false and fictitious reasons as these-of all this, I say, he is himself the best judge. For us it is sufficient to act as he said that he would act: we shall not render evil for evil. But it is evident that the man who is angry with a woman because she says that she hopes not to have a frail body in the resurrection is of the opinion that the frailties of the body will remain. Only, what then, we ask, are we to make of the words of the Apostle: "It is sown in weakness, it will be raised in power; it is sown a natural body, it will be raised a spiritual body"? What frailty can you suppose to exist in a spiritual body? It is to rise in power; how then is it again to be frail? If it is frail, how can it be in power? Are not those poor women after all more right than you, when they say that their bodily frailty cannot have dominion over them in the world beyond? Why should you mock at them, when they are only following the Apostle's words: "This corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality?" The Apostles never taught that the body which would rise from the dead would be frail, but, on the contrary, that it would rise in power and in glory. Whence entries this opinion which you now produce? Perhaps it is one obtained from some of your Jews,hyperlink which is now to be promulgated as a new law for the church, so that we may learn their ways: for in truth the Jews have such an opinion as this about the resurrection; they believe that they will rise, but in such sort as that they will enjoy all carnal delights and luxuries, and other pleasures of the body. What else, indeed, can this "bodily frailty" of yours mean except members given over to corruption, appetites stimulated and lusts inflamed?
8. But suffer it to be so, I beg you, as you are lovers of Christ, that the body is to be in incorruption and without these conditions when it rises from the dead: then let such things henceforward cease to be mentioned. Let us believe that in the resurrection even lawful intercourse will no longer exist between the sexes, since there would be danger that unlawful intercourse would creep in if such things remained present and unforgotten. What is the use of carefully and minutely going over and discussing "the belly and what is below it?" You tell us that we live amidst carnal delights: but I perceive that it is your belief that we are not to give up such things even in the resurrection. Let us not deny that this very flesh in which we now live is to rise again: but neither let us make men think that the imperfections of the flesh are wrapped up in it and will come again with it. The flesh, indeed, will rise, this very flesh and not another: it will not change its nature, but it will lose its frailties and imperfections. Otherwise, if its frailties remain, it cannot even be immortal. And thus, as I said, we avoid heresy, whether with you or without you. For the faith of the Church, of which we are the disciples, takes a middle path between two dangers: it does not deny the reality of the natural flesh and body when it rises from the dead, but neither does it assert, in contradiction to the Apostle's words,hyperlink that in the kingdom which is to come corruption will inherit incorruption. We therefore do not assert that the flesh or body will rise, as you put it, with some of its members lost or amputated, but that the body will be whole and complete, having laid aside nothing but its corruption and dishonour and frailty and also having amputated all the imperfections of mortality: nothing of its own nature will be lacking to that spiritual body which shall rise from the dead except this corruption.
9. I have made answer more at length than I had intended on this single article of the resurrection, through fear lest by brevity I should lay myself open to fresh aspersions. Consequently, I have made mention again and again not only of the body. as to which cavils are raised, but of the flesh: and not only of the flesh; I have added "this flesh;" and further I have spoken not only of "this flesh" but of "this natural flesh;" I have not even stopped here, but have asserted that not even the completeness of the several members would be lacking. I have only demanded that it should be held as part of the faith that, according to the words of the Apostle, it should rise incorruptible instead of corruptible, glorious in stead of dishonoured, immortal instead of frail, spiritual instead of natural; and that we should think of the members of the spiritual body as being without taint of corruption or of frailty. I have set forth my faith in reference to the Trinity, the Incarnation of the Lord oar Saviour, to his Passion and Resurrection, his second coming and the judgment to come. I have also set it forth in the matter of the resurrection of our flesh, and have left nothing, I think, in ambiguity. Nothing in my opinion remains to be said, so far as the faith is concerned.
10. But in this, he says, I convict you, that you have translated the work of Origen, in which he says that there is to be a restitution of all things, in which we must believe that not only sinners but the devil himself and his angels will at last be relieved from their punishment, if we are to set before oar minds in a consistent manner what is meant by the restitution of all things. And Origen, he says, teaches further that souls have been made before their bodies, and have been brought down from heaven and inserted into their bodies. I am not now acting on Origen's behalf, nor writing an apology for him. Whether he stands accepted before God or has been cast away is not mine to judge: to his own lord he stands or falls.hyperlink But I am compelled to make mention of him in a few words, since our great rhetorician, though seeming to be arguing against him is really striking at the; and this he does no longer indirectly, but ends by openly attacking me with his sword drawn and turns his whole fury against me. I say too little in saying that he attacks me; for indeed, in order to vent his rage against me, he does not even spare his old teacher:hyperlink he thinks that in the books which I have translated he can find something which may enable him to hurl his calumnies against me. In addition to other things which he finds to blame in me he adds this invidious remark, that I have chosen for translation a work which neither he nor any of the older translators had chosen. I will begin, therefore, since it is here that I am chiefly attacked, by stating how it came to pass that I attempted the translation of this work in preference to any other, and I will do so in the fewest and truest words. This is, no doubt, superfluous for you, my well-beloved son, since you know the whole affair as it occurred; yet it is desirable that those who are ignorant of it should know the truth: besides, both he and all his followers make this a triumphant accusation against me, that I promised in my Preface to adopt one method of translation but adopted a different one in the work itself. Hence, I will make an answer which will serve not only for them, but for many besides whose judgment is perverted either by their own malice or by the accusations which others make against me.
11. Some time ago, Macarius, a man of distinction from his faith, his learning, his noble birth and his personal life, had in hand a work against fatalism or, as it is called, Mathesis,hyperlink and was spending much necessary and fruitful toil on its composition; but he could not decide many points, especially how to speak of the dispensations of divine Providence. He found the matter to be one of great difficulty. But in the visions of the night the Lord, he said, had shown him the appearance of a ship far off upon the sea coming towards him, which ship, when it entered the port, was to solve all the knottypoints which had perplexed him. When hearose, he began anxiously to ponder the vision, and he found, as he said, that that was the very moment of my arrival; so that he forthwith made known to me the scope of his work, and his difficulties, and also the vision which he had seen. He proceeded to inquire what were the opinions of Origen, whom he understood to be the most renowned among the Greeks on the points in question, and begged that I would shortly explain his views on each of them in order. I at first could only say that the task was one of much difficulty: but I told him that that saintly man the Martyr Pamphilus had to some extent dealt with the question in a work of the kind he wished, that is in his Apology for Origen. Immediately he begged me to translate this work into Latin. I told him several times that I had no practice in this style of composition, and that my power of writing Latin had grown dull through the neglect of nearly thirty years. He, however, persevered in his request, begging earnestly that by any kind of words that might be possible, the things which he longed to know should be placed within his reach. I did what he wished in the best language in my power; but this only inflamed him with greater desire for the full knowledge of the work itself from which, as he saw, the few translations which I had made had been taken. I tried to excuse myself; but he urged me with vehemence, taking God to witness of his earnest request to me not to refuse him the means which might assist him in doing a good work. It was only because he insisted so earnestly,and it seemed clear that his desire was according to the will of God, that I at length acquiesced, and made the translation.
12. But I wrote a Prefacehyperlink to each of these works, and in both, but especially in the Preface to the work of Pamphilus, which was translated first, I set in the forefront an exposition of my faith, affirming that my belief is in accordance with the catholic faith; and I stated that whatever men might find in the original or in my translation, my share in it in no way implicated my own faith, and further, in reference to the Peri 'Arxwn I gave this warning. I had found that in these books some things relating to the faith were set forth in a catholic sense, just as the Church proclaims them, while in other places, when the very same thing is in question, expressions of a contrary kind are used. I had thought it right to set forth these points in the way in which the author had set them forth when he had propounded the catholic view of them: on the other hand, when I found things which were contrary to the author's real opinion, I looked on them as things inserted by others, (for he witnesses by the complaints contained in his letter that this has been done), and therefore rejected them, or at all events considered that I might omit them as having none of the "godly edifying in the faith." It will not, I think, be considered superfluous to insert these passages from my Prefaces, so that proof may be at hand for each statement. And further, to prevent the reader from falling into any mistake as to the passages which I insert from other documents, I have, where the quotation is from my own works, placed a single mark against the passage, but, where the words are those of my opponent, a double mark.hyperlink
13. In the Preface to the Apology of Pamphilus, after a few other remarks, I said:
`What the opinions of Origen are may be gathered from the tenor of this treatise. But as for those things in which he is found to contradict himself, I will point out how this has come to pass in a few words which I have added at the close of this Preface. As for us, we believe what has been delivered to us by the holy Prophets, namely: that the holy Trinity is coeternal, and is of one power and substance: and that the Son of God in these last days was made man and suffered for our sins, and, in that very flesh in which he suffered, rose from the dead; and thereby imparted the hope of a resurrection to the whole race of men. When we speak of the resurrection of the flesh, we do so not with any subterfuges, as some slanderously affirm: we believe that the flesh which is to rise isthis very flesh in which we now live: we do not put one thing for another, nor when we say body, mean something different from this flesh. If, therefore, we saythat the body is to rise again, we speak as the Apostle spoke; for this word body was the word which he employed: Or if, again, we speak of the flesh, our confession coin tides with the words of the creed. It is a foolish and calumnious invention to imagine that the human body can be anything but flesh. Whether, then, we say that it is flesh according to the common faith, or body according to the Apostle, which is to rise again, our belief must be held, according to the definition given by the Apostle, with the understanding that that which is to rise again is to be raised inpower and in glory, an incorruptible and a spiritual body. While, therefore, we maintain the superior excellence of the body or flesh which is to be, we must hold that the flesh which rises again will be real and perfect; the actual nature of the flesh will be preserved, while the glorious condition of the uncorrupted and spiritual body will not be impaired. For so it is written:hyperlink "Corruption shall not inherit incorruption." This is what is preached at jerusalem in the church of God, by its reverend bishop John: this is what we with him confess and hold. If any one believes or teaches anything besides this, or thinks that we believe otherwise than as we have stated, let him be anathema.'
If then any one wishes to have a statement of our faith, he has it in these words. And whatever we read or affirm, or whatever translations we make, we do it without prejudice to this faith of ours, according to the words of the apostle:hyperlink "Prove all things, hold fast that which is good. Abstain from every form of evil." "And as many as follow this rule, peace be upon them; and upon the Israel of God."
14. I wrote these words beforehand as a statement of my faith, when as yet none of these calumniators had arisen, so that it should be in no man's power to say that it was merely because of their admonition or their compulsion that I said things which I had not believed before. Moreover, I promised that, whatever the requirements of translation might be, I would, while complying with them, maintain the principles of my faith inviolate. How then can any room be left for evil, when the very first word of my confession preserves and defends the from the suspicion of holding any doctrine inconsistent with it? Besides, as I have said above. I have learned from the words of the Lord that every one shall be justified or condemned from his own words and not from those of others.
But I will show how, in the Prefacehyperlink which I prefixed to the books Peri 'Arxwn, I declared what was to be the regulative principle of my translation, and will prove it, as in the former case, by quoting the words themselves: for it is right to quotefrom this document also whatever is pertinent to the matter in hand. I had made honourable mention of the man who now turns my praise of him into all accusation against me, for his services in having led the way and having translated a great many works of Origen before I had begun: I had praised both his eloquence as an expositor and his diligence as a translator, and had said that I took him as my model in doing a similar work. And then, after a few more sentences, I continued thus:
`Him therefore we take as our model so far as in us lies, not indeed in the power of his eloquence, but in his method of doing his work, taking care not to reproduce things which are found in the books of Origen discrepant and contrary to his own true opinion.'
I beg the reader to observe what I have said, and not to let this sentence escape him because of its brevity. What I said was that `I would not reproduce the things which are found in the books of Origen discrepant and contrary to his own true opinion.' I did not make a general promise that I would not reproduce what was contrary to the faith, nor yet what was contrary to me or to some one else, but what was contrary to or discrepant from Origen himself. My opponents must not be allowed to propagate a false statement against me by snatching at a part of this sentence and saying that I had promised not to reproduce anything which was contrary to or discrepant from my own belief. If I had been capable of such conduct, I certainly should not have dared to make a public profession of it. If you find that this has been done in my work, you will know how to judge of it. But if you find that it has not been done, you will not think that I am to blame, since I never gave you any pledge which would bind me to do it.
15. But let me add what comes after. My Preface continued as follows:
`The causes of these discrepancies I have more fully set forth in the Apology which Pamphilus expressly wrote for the works of Origen, to which I added a very short paper in which I shewed by proofs which appear to me quite clear, that his books have been in very many places tampered with by heretics and ill disposed men, and especially the very books which you ask me to translate, namely, the Peri 'Arxwn, which may be rendered "Concerning Beginnings"hyperlink or "Concerning Principalities." which are in any case most obscure and most difficult. For in these books Origen discusses matters on which the philosophers have spent their whole lives without finding out the truth. In these matters, man's belief in a creator and his reasoning about the created world which had been made use of by the philosophers for the purposes of their own profanity, the Christian writer turns to the support of the true faith.'
Here also I beg you to mark my words carefully, and to observe that I said `belief in a Creator,' but `reasoning about the created world;' since what is said about God belongs to the domain of faith, but our discussions about created things to the domain of reason. I continued:
`Wherever, therefore, in his works we find erroneous definitions of the Trinity as to which he has in other places expressed his views in accordance with the true faith, we have either left them out as passages which had been falsified or inserted, or else have changed the expression in accordance with the rule of faith which the writer again and again lays down.'
Have I here, I ask, written incautiously? Have I said that I expressed the matter according to the ride of our faith, which would have been evidently going far beyond the scope of a translator whose duty was merely to turn Greek into Latin? On the contrary I said that I expressed these passages according to the rule of faith which I found again and again laid down by Origen himself. Moreover I added:
`I grant that, when he has expressed a thing obscurely, as a man does when he is writing for those who have technical knowledge of the subject and wishes to go over it rapidly, I have made the sentence plainer by adding the fuller expression which he had given of the same thing in some of his other works which I had read. I did this simply in the interests of clearness. But I have expressed nothing in my own words; I have only restored to Origen what was really Origen's though found in other parts of his works.'
16. I should have thought that this statement, I mean the words, `I have expressed nothing in my own words; I have only restored to Origen what was really Origen's, though found in other part of his works,' would of itself have been sufficient for my defence even before the most hostile judges. Have I thrust myself forward in any way? Have I ever led men to expect that I should put in anything of my own? Where can they find the words which they pretend that I have said, and on which they ground their calumnious accusations, namely, that I have removed what was bad and put good words instead, while I had translated literally all that is good? It is time, I think, that they should show some sense of shame, and should cease from false charges and from taking upon themselves the office of the devil who is the accuser of the brethen. Let them listen to the words `I have put in no words of my own.' Let them listen to them again and hear them constantly reiterated, `I have put in no words of my own; I have only restored to Origen what was really Origen's, though found in other parts of his works.' And let them see how God's mercy watched over me when I put my hand to this work; let them mark how f was led to forebode the very acts which they are doing. For my Preface continues thus:
`I have given this statement in my Preface for fear that my detractors should think that they had found a fresh reason for accusing me.'
When I said a fresh charge I alluded to the charge which they had previously made against the reverend Bishop John for the letter written by him to the reverend Bishop Theophilushyperlink on the articles of faith: they pretended that when he spoke of the human body he meant something-I know not what-different from flesh. Therefore I spoke of a fresh charge. Take notice, then, I say, of the conduct of these perverse and contentious men.
`I have undertaken this great labour, (which I have only done at your entreaty) not with a view of shutting the mouths of my calumniators, which indeed is impossible unless God himself should do it, but in order to give solid information to those, who are seeking to advance in knowledge.'
But, to show you that I foresaw and foretold that they would falsify what I was writing, observe what I said in the following passage:
`Of this I solemnly warn every one who may read or copy out these books, in the sight of God the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost, and adjure him by our belief in the kingdom which is to come, by the assurance of the resurrection from the dead, and by that eternal fire which is prepared for the devil and his angels,-I adjure him, as he would not have for his eternal portion that place where there is weeping and gnashing of teeth, where their worm dieth not and their fire is not quenched, that he should add nothing to this writing, take away nothing, insert nothing, and change nothing.'
Nevertheless, after I had warned them by all these dread and terrible forms of adjuration, these men have not been afraid to become falsifiers and corrupters of my work, though they profess to believe that the resurrection of the flesh is a reality of the future. Why, if they even believed the simple fact of the existence of God, they would never set their hands to acts so injurious and so impious. I ask, further, what line of my Preface can be pointed to in which I have, as my accuser says, praised Origen up to the skies, or in which I have called him, as he once did, an Apostle or a Prophet, or anything of the kind. I may ask indeed in what other matter they find any ground of accusation. I made at the outset a confession of my faith in terms which I think agree in all respects with the confession of the Church. I made a clear statement of my canons of translation, which indeed in most respects were taken from the model furnished by the very man who now comes forward as my accuser. I declared what was the purpose I set before me in making the translation. Whether I have proved capable of fulfilling the task more or less completely is, no doubt, a matter for the judgment of those who read the work, and who may be expected to praise it or to ridicule it, but not to make it a ground for accusation when it is a question of turning words from one language into another with more or less propriety.
17. But I have said that these men would have been unable to find grounds for accusation on the points I have mentioned, however they may take them, unless they had first falsified them. It appears to me therefore desirable that the chief matter on which they have laid their forgers' hands should be inserted in this Apology, lest they should think that I am intentionally withdrawing it from notice because they after making their own additions to it allege it as a ground of false accusation. In the book which I translated there is a passage in which I examine the tenets of those who believe that God has a bodily shape and who describe him as clothed with human members and dress. This is openly asserted by the heretical sects of the Valentinians and Anthropomorphites, and I see that those who are now our accusers have been far too ready to hold out the hand to them. Origen in this passage has defended the faith of the church against them, affirming that God is wholly without bodily form, and therefore also invisible; and then, following out his scrutiny in a logical manner, he says a few words in answer to the heretics, which I thus translated into Latin.hyperlink
"But these assertions will perhaps be held to have little authority by those whose desire is to be instructed out of the Holy Scriptures in the things of God, and who require that from that source should be drawn the proof of the preïminence of the nature of God over that of the human body. Consider whether the Apostle does not say the same thing when he speaks thus of Christ:hyperlink "Who is the image of the invisible God, the first born of every creature." The nature of God is not, as some think, visible to some and not to others, for the Apostle does not say The image of God who is invisible to men, or to sinners; but he speaks quite distinctly of the nature of God in itself, where he says "The image of the invisible God." John also says in his Gospel,hyperlink "No man hath seen God at any time," by which he distinctly declares: to all who can understand, that there is no being to whom God is visible; not as if he were naturallyvisible and, like a being of attenuated substance.escaped and eluded our glance; but that, in his own nature it is impossible for him to be seen. But perhaps you will ask me my opinion as to the Only begotten himself. Well, if I should say that even to him the nature of God is invisible, since it is its very nature to be invisible, do not dismiss my answer as if it were impious or absurd, for I will at once give you my reason for it. Observe that seeing is a different thing from knowing. Seeing and being seen belong to bodies; to know and to be known belong to the intellectual nature. Whatever then is merely a property of bodies, this we must not attribute to the Father or the Son; but that which belongs to the nature of Deity governs the relations of the Father and the Son. Moreover, Christ himself in the Gospelhyperlink did not say "No man seeth the Son but the Father nor the Father but the Son," but "No man knoweth the Son but the Father, neither doth any one know the Father but the Son." By this it is clearly shown that what is called seeing and being seen in the case of bodily existence is called knowledge in the case of the Father and the Son: their intercourse is maintained through the power of knowledge not through the weakness of visibility. Since, therefore, an incorporeal nature cannot properly be said to see or to be seen, therefore in the Gospel it is not said either that the Father is seen by the Son or the Son by the Father but that each is known by the other. And if any one should ask how it is that it is saidhyperlink "Blessed are the pure in heart for they shall see God," I think that this text wilt confirm my assertion still more. For what else is it to see God with the heart than, according to the explanation I have given above, to understand Him with the mind and to know Him?"
Footnotes
1 Ps. lvii, 4.
2 Matt. v, 11, Matt. v, 12.
3 Matt. x, 25.
4 John vii, 12.
5 Matt. xi, 19.
6 Jerome Ep. lxxxiv, 8.
7 Bp. of Aquileia at the time of this Apology and maintaining friendly relations with both Jerome and Rufinus. (Ruf. Pref. to Eusebius in this Volume. Jer. Ep. vii, lx. 19, Pref. to Bks. of Solomon &c. &c.)
8 See Jerome Ep. vii. It is not known of what church he was Bp.
9 Brother of Chromatius. See an allusion to him in Jerome, Ep. viii, and lx, 19. His see is unknown.
10 Matt. xi, 27.
11 1 Cor. ii, 10.
12 1 Cor. xv, 20.
13 Rev. i, 5.
14 1 Cor. xv, 23.
15 1 Cor. xv, 42-4.
16 animale.
17 Phil. iii, 21.
18 Col. i, 18.
19 Rufinus frequently taunts Jerome with having paid too much heed to the Jewish teachers from whom he learned Hebrew.
20 Cor. xv. 50.
21 Rom. xiv. 4.
22 That is, Origen. Rufinus insinuates that Jerome owed and cared more for Origen than he chose to avow.
23 This word originally meant simply learning. It was then applied in a special sense to mathematics. But the mathematici under the later Roman Empire became identified with astrologers.
24 See these Prefaces translated in the earlier part of this Volume.
25 Corresponding to the single and double inverted commas used in this translation.
26 1 Cor. xv, 50.
27 1 Thess. v, 21, 1 Thess. v, 22; Gal. vi, 16.
28 See the translation of this document in this Volume.
29 Or First Principles (De Principiis).
30 Of Alexandria. He was at first friendly to Origenism, afterwards bitterly opposed to it. John wrote to him complaining of the conduct of Epiphanius. and explaining his own views. See Jerome's letter (lxxxii) to Theophilus, and his Treatise Against John of Jerusalem. In the latter of these charges occur like those here noticed by Rufinus.
