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TOPIC: Post-Nicene Fathers Vol 03 (Other Topics in this Collection)
SUBJECT: 23.03.15 Book II Part 2
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"What are we to say when sometimes in the same place, and, so to speak, almost in the following paragraph, a sentence with an opposite meaning is found inserted? Can we believe that, in the same work and in the same book, and sometimes, as I have said in the sentence immediately following, he can have forgotten his own words? For example, could he who had before said, we can find no passage throughout the Scriptures in which the Holy Spirit is said to be created or made, immediately add that the Holy Spirit was made among the rest of the creatures? or again, could he who defined the Father and the Son to be of one substance, that namely which is called in Greek Homoousion, say in the following portions that he was of another substance, and that he was created, when but a little before he had declared him to be born from the nature of God the Father?"
16. These are his own words, he cannot deny them. Now I do not want to be put off with such expressions as "since he said above" but I want to have the name of the book in which he first spoke rightly and then wrongly: in which he first says that the Holy Spirit and the Son are of the substance of God, and in what immediately follows declares that they are creatures. Do you not know that I possess the whole of Origen's works and have read a vast number of them?
"Your trappings to the mob! I know you well;
What lies within and on the skin I see."hyperlink
Eusebius who was a very learned man, (observe I say learned not catholic: you must not, according to your wont make this a ground for calumniating me) takes up six volumes with nothing else but the attempt to shew that Origen is of his way of believing, that is of the Arian perfidy. He brings out many test-passages, and effectually proves his point. In what dream in an Alexandrian prison was the revelation given to you on the strength of which you make out these passages to be falsified which he accepts as true? But possibly he being an Arian, took in these additions of the heretics to support his own error, so that he should not be thought to be the only one who had held false opinions contrary to the Church. What answer will you make, then, as to Didymus, who certainly is catholic as regards the Trinity? You know that I translated his book on the Holy Spirit into Latin. He surely could not have assented to the passages in Origen's works which were added by heretics; yet he wrote some short commentaries on the Peri 'Arxwn which you have translated; in these he never denies that what is there written was written by Origen, but only tries to persuade us simple people that we do not understand his meaning and how these passages ought to be taken in a good sense. So much on the Son and the Holy Spirit alone. But in reference to the rest of Origen's doctrines, both Eusebius and Didymus adhere to his views, and defend, as said in a catholic and Christian sense, what all the churches reprobate.
17. But let us consider what are the arguments by which he tries to prove that Origen's writings have been corrupted by the heretics.
"Clement," he says, "who was the disciple of the Apostles, and who succeeded the apostles both in the episcopate and in martyrdom, wrote the books which go by the name of Anagnorismus; that is, Recognitions. In these, though, speaking generally, the doctrine which is set forth in the name of the Apostle Peter is genuinely apostolical, yet in certain passages the doctrine of Eunomius is brought in such a way as that you would suppose Eunomius himself to be conducting the argument and asserting his view that the Son was created out of nothing."
And, after a passage too long to reproduce, he adds:
"What then are we to think of these facts? Must we believe that an Apostolic man wrote heresy? or is it not more likely that men of perverse mind, wishing to gain support for their own doctrines, and win easier credit for them, introduced under the names of holy men views which they cannot be believed either to have held or to have written down?"
He tells us that Clement the presbyter of Alexandria also, who was a catholic man, writes at times in his works that the Son of God is created; and that Dionysius Bishop of Alexandria, a most learned man, in the four books in which he controverted the doctrines of Sabellius, lapses into the dogma of Arius. What he aims at by quoting these instances is not to shew that Churchmen and catholics have erred, but that their writings have been corrupted by heretics, and he closes the discussion with these words:
"And when we find in Origen a certain diversity of doctrine, just as we have found it in those of whom we have spoken above, will it not be sufficient for us to believe the same in his case which we believe or understand in the case of the catholic men whom we have passed in review? Will not the same defence hold good when the case is the same?"
If, I reply, we admit that everything in a book which is offensive is corruptly inserted by others, nothing will remain belonging to the author under whose name the book passes, but everything can be assigned to those by whom it is supposed to have been corrupted. But then it will not belong to them either, since we do not know who they were: and the result will be that every book belongs to everybody and nothing to any one in particular. In this confusion which this method of defence introduces, it will be impossible to convict Marcion of error, or Manichaeus or Arius or Eunomius; because, as soon as we point out a statement of their unbelief, their disciples will answer that was not what the master wrote, but was corruptly inserted by his opponents. According to this principle, this very book of yours will not be yours nor mine. And as to this very book in which I am making reply to your accusations, whatever you find fault with in it will be held not be written by me but by you who now find fault with it. And further, while you assign everything to the heretics, there will be nothing left which you can assign to churchmen as their own.
But you may ask, How is it then that in their books some false views occur? Well, if I answer that I do not know the parties whence these false views came, I must not be thought to have said that they are heretics. It is possible that they may have fallen into error unawares, or that the words bore a different meaning, or that they may have been gradually corrupted by unskilful copyists It must be admitted that, before Arius arose in Alexandria as a demon of the south, things were said incautiously which cannot be defended against a malevolent criticism. But when glaring faults are exposed in Origen, you do not defend him but accuse others; you do not deny the faults, but summon up a host of criminals. If you were asked to name those who have been the companions of Origen in his heresies, it would be right enough to call in these others. But what you are now asked to tell us is whether those statements in the books of Origen are good or evil; and you say nothing, but bring in irrelevant matters, such as: This is what Clement says; this is an error of which Dionysius is found guilty; these are the words in which the bishop Athanasius defends the error of Dionysius; in a similar way the writings of the Apostle have been tampered with: and then, while the charge of heresy is fastened upon you, you say nothing in your own defence, but make confessions about me. I make no accusations, and am content with answering for myself. I am not what you try to prove me: whether you are what you are accused of being, is for you to consider. The fact that I am acquitted of blame does not prove me innocent nor the fact that you are accused prove you a criminal.
18. After this preface as to the falsification by heretics of the apostles, of both the Clements, and of Dionysius, he at last comes to Origen; and these are his words:
"I have shewn from his own words and writings how he himself complains of this and deplores it: He explains clearly in the letter which he wrote to some of his intimate friends at Alexandria what he suffered while living here in the flesh and in the full enjoyment of his senses, by the corruption of his books and treatises, or by spurious editions ofthem."
He subjoins a copy of this letter; and he who implores to the heretics the falsification of Origen's writings himself begins by falsifying them, for he does not translate the letter as be finds it in the Greek, and does not convey to the Latins what Origen states in his letter. The object of the whole letter is to assail Demetrius the Pontiff of Alexandria, and to inveigh against the bishops throughout the world, and to tell them that their excommunication of him is invalid; he says further that he has no intention of retorting their evil speaking; indeed he is so much afraid of evil speaking that he does not dare to speak evil even of the devil; insomuch that he gave occasion to Candidus an adherent of the errors of Valentinian to represent him falsely as saying that the devil is of such a nature as could be saved. But our friend takes no notice of the real purport of the letter, and makes up for Origen an argument which he does not use.I have therefore translated a part of the letter, beginning a little way below what has been already spoken of, and have appended it to the part which has been translated by him in a curtailed and disingenuous manner, so that the reader may perceive the object with which be suppressed the earlier part. He is contending, then, against the Bishops of the church generally, because they had judged him unworthy of its communion; and he continues as follows:
"Why need I speak of the language in which the prophets constantly threaten and reprove the pastors, elders, the priests and the princes?These things you can of yourselves without my aid draw out from the Holy Scriptures, and you may clearly see that it may well be the present time of which it is saidhyperlink `Trust not in your friends, and do not hope in princes,' and that the prophecy is now gaining its fulfilment,hyperlink `The leaders of my people have not known me; my sons are fools and not wise: they are wise to do evil, but know not to do good.' We ought to pity them, not to hate them, to pray for them, not to curse them. For we have been created for blessing, not for cursing. Therefore even Michael,hyperlink when he disputed against the devil concerning the body of Moses, did not dare to bring a railing accusation even for so great an evil, but said; `The Lord rebuke thee.' And we read something similar in Zachariah,hyperlink `The Lord rebuke thee, O Satan; the Lord which hath chosen Jerusalem rebuke thee.' So also we desire that those who will not humbly accept the rebuke of their neighbours may be rebuked of the Lord. But, since Michael says, `The Lord rebuke thee, O Satan,' and Zechariah says the same, the devil knows well whether the Lord rebukes him or not; and must acknowledge the manner of the rebuke."
Then, after a passage too long to insert here, he adds:
"We believe that not only those who have committed great sins will be cast out from the kingdom of heaven, such as fornicators and adulterers, and those who defile themselves with mankind, and thieves, but those also who have done evil of a less flagrant kind, since it is written;hyperlink 'Neither drunkards nor evil speakers shall inherit the kingdom of God;" and that the standard by which men will be judged is as much the goodness as the severity of God. Therefore we strive to act thoughtfully in all things, in drinking wine, and in moderation of language, so that we dare not speak evil of any man. Now, because, through the fear of God, we are careful not to utter maledictions against any one, remembering that the words `He dared not bring against him a railing accusation,' are spoken of Michael in his dealing with the devil; as it is said also in another place,hyperlink `They set at naught dominions and rail at dignities;' certain of these men who seek for matters of contention, ascribe to us and our teaching the blasphemy (as to which they have to lay to heart the words which apply to them, `Neither drunkards nor evil speakers shall inherit the kingdom of God'), namely, that the father of wickedness find perdition of those who shall be cast out of the kingdom of God can be saved; a thing which not even a madman can say."
The rest which comes in the same letter he hashyperlink set down instead of the later words of Origen which I have translated: "Now, because through the fear of God we are careful not to utter maledictions against any one," and so on; he fraudulently cuts off the earlier part, on which the later depends,and begins to translate the letter, as though the former part began with this statement, and says:
"Some of those who delight in bringing complaints against their neighbours, ascribe to us and our teaching the crime of a blasphemy, which we have never spoken, (as to which they must consider whether they are willing to stand by the decree which says `The evil speakers shall not inherit the kingdom of God,') for they say that I assert that the father of the wickedness and perdition of those who shall be east out of the kingdom of God, that is, the devil, will be saved; a thing which no man even though he had taken leave of his senses and was manifestly insane could say."
19. Now compare the words of Origen, which I have translated word for word above, with these which by him have been turned into Latin, or rather overturned; and you will see clearly how great a discrepancy between them there is, not only of word but of meaning. I beg you not to consider my translation wearisome because it is longer; for the object I had in translating the whole passage was to exhibit the purpose which be had in suppressing the earlier part. There exists in Greek a dialogue between Origen and Candidus the defender of the heresy of Valentinian, in which I confess it seems to me when I read it that I am looking on at a fight between two Andabatian gladiators. Candidus maintains that the Son is of the substance of the Father,falling into the error of asserting a Probole or Production.hyperlink On the other side, Origen, like Arius and Eunomius, refuses to admit that He is produced or born, lest God the Father should thus be divided into parts; but he says that He was a sublime and most excellent creation who came into being by the will of the Father like other creatures. They then come to a second question. Candidus asserts that the devil is of a nature wholly evil which can never be saved. Against this Origen rightly asserts that he is not of perishable substance, but that it is by his own will that he felt and can be saved. This Candidus falsely turns into a reproach against Origen, as if he had said that the diabolical nature could be saved. What therefore Candidus had falsely accused him of, Origen refutes. But we see that in this Dialogue alone Origen accuses the heretics of having falsified his writings, not in the other books about which no question was ever raised. Otherwise, if we are to believe that all which is heretical is not due to Origen but to the heretics, while almost all his books are full of these errors, nothing of Origen's will remain, but everything must be the work of those of whose names we are ignorant.
It is not enough for him to calumniate the Greeks and the men of old time, about whom the distance either of time or space gives him the power to tell any falsehood he pleases. He comes to the Latins, and first takes the case of Hilary the Confessor, whose book, he states, was falsified by the heretics after the Council of Ariminum. A question arose about him on this account in a council of bishops, and he then ordered the book to be brought from his own house. The book in its heretical shape was in his desk, though he did not know it; and when it was produced, the author of the book was condemned as a heretic and excommunicated, and left the council room. This is the story, a mere dream of his own, which he tells to his intimates; and he imagines his authority to be so great that no one will dare to contradict him when he says such things. I will ask him a few questions. In what city was the synod held by which Hilary was excommunicated? What were the names of the Bishops present? Who subscribed the sentence? Who were content, and who non-content? Who were the consuls of the year? and who was the emperor who ordered the assembly of the council? Were the Bishops present those of Gaul alone, or of Italy and Spain as well? and for what purpose was the council called together? You tell us none of these things; yet, in order to defend Origen, you treat as a criminal and as excommunicated a man of the highest eloquence, the very clarion of the Latin tongue against the Arians. But we are in the presence of a confessor, and even his calumnies must be borne with patience. He next passes to Cyprian the illustrious martyr, and he tells us that a book by Tertullian entitled "On the Trinity" is read as one of his works by the partisans of the Macedonian heresy at Constantinople. In this charge of his he tells two falsehoods. The book in question is not Tertullian's, nor does it pass under the name of Cyprian. It is by Novatian and is called by his name; the peculiarity of the style proves the authorship of the work.
20. What nonsense is this out of which they fabricate a charge against me! It seems hardly worth while to notice it. It is a story of my own about the council held by Damasus Bishop of Rome, and I, under the name of a certain friend of his, am attacked for it. He bad given me some papers about church affairs to get copied; and the story describes a trick practised by the Apollinarians who borrowed one of these, a book of Athanasius' to read in which occur the wordshyperlink `Dominicus homo,' and falsified it by first scratching out the words, and then writing them in again on the erasure, so that it might appear, not that the book bad been falsified by them, but that the words had been added by me. I beg you, my dearest friend, that in these matters of serious interest to the church, where doctrinal truth is in question, and we are seeking for the authority of our predecessors for the well-being of our souls to put away silly stuff of this kind, and not take mere after-dinner stories as if they were arguments. For it is quite possible that, even after you have heard the true story from me, another who does not know it may declare that it is made up, and composed in elegant language by you like a mine of Philistion or a song of Lentulus or Marcellus.
21. To what point will not rashness reach when once the reins which check it are relaxed? After telling us of the excommunication of Hilary, the heretical book falsely bearing the name of Cyprian, the successive erasure and insertion in the work of Athanasius made while I was asleep, he as a last effort breaks forth into an attack upon the pope Epiphanius: the chagrin engendered in his heart because Epiphanius in the letter which he wrote to the bishop John had called him a heretic, he pours out in his apology for Origen, and comforts himself with these words:
"The whole truth, which has been hidden, must here be laid bare. It is impossible that any man should exercise so unrighteous a judgment as to judge unequally where the cases are equal. But the fact is, the prompters of those who defame Origen are men who either make it a habit to discourse in the churches at great length or write books, the whole of which, both books and discourse are taken from Origen. To prevent men therefore from discovering their plagiarism, the crime of which can be concealed so long as they act ungratefully towards their master, they deter all simple persons from reading him. One of them, who considers himself to have a necessity laid upon him to speak evil of Origen through every nation and tongue, as if that were to preach the Gospel, once declared in the audience of a vast multitude of the brethren that he had read six thousand of his books. If he read them, as he is wont to declare, in order to know what harm there was in him, ten or twenty books, or at most thirty, would have been sufficient for that knowledge. To read six thousand books is not like one who wants to know the harm and the errors that are in him, but like one who consecrates almost his whole life to studies conducted under his tuition. How then can he claim to be listened to when he blames those who, for the sake of instruction, have read a small portion of his works, taking care to maintain whole their own system of belief anti their piety?"
22. Who are these men who are wont to dispute at such great length in the churches, and to write books, and whose discourses and writings are taken wholly from Origen; these men who are afraid of their literary thefts becoming known, and shew ingratitude towards their master, and who therefore deter men of simple mind from reading him? You ought to mention them by name, and designate the men themselves. Are the reverend bishopshyperlink Anastasius and Theophilus, Venerius and Chromatius, and the whole council of the Catholics both in the East and in the West, who publicly denounce him as a heretic, to be esteemed to be plagiarists of his books? Are we to believe that, when they preach in the churches, they do not preach the mysteries of the Scriptures, but merely repeat what they have stolen from Origen? Is it not enough for you to disparage them all in general, but you must specially aim the spear of your pen against a reverend and eminent Bishop of the church? Who is this who considers that he has a necessity laid on him of reviling Origen, as the Gospel which he must preach among all nations and tongues? this man who proclaimed in the audience of a vast multitude of the brethren that he had read six thousand of his books? You yourself were in the very centre of that multitude and company of the brethren, when, as he complains in his letter,hyperlink the monstrous doctrines of Origen were enlarged upon by you. Is it to be imputed to him as a crime thai he knows the Greek, the Syrian, the Hebrew, the Egyptian, and in part also the Latin language? Then, I suppose, the Apostles and Apostolic men, who spoke with tongues, are to be condemned; and you who know two languages may deride me who know three. But as for the six thousand books which you pretend that be has read, who will believe that you are speaking the truth, or that he was capable of telling such a lie? If indeed Origen had written six thousand books, it is possible that a man of great learning, who had been trained from his infancy in sacred literature might have read books alien from his own convictions, because he had an inquiring spirit and a love of learning. But how could be read what Origen never wrote? Count up the index contained in the third volume of Eusebius, in which is his life of Pamphilus: you will not find, I do not say six thousand, but not a third of that number of books. I have by me the letter of the above named Pontiff, in which he gives his answer to this calumny of yours uttered when you were still in the East; and it confutes this most manifest falsehood with the open countenance of truth.
23. After all this you dare to say ill your Apology, that you are not the defender nor the champion of Origen, though you think that Eusebius and Pamphilus said all too little in his defence. I shall try to write a reply to those works in another treatise if God grants me a sufficient span of life. For the present let it suffice that I have met your assertions, and that I have set the careful reader on his guard by stating that I never saw in writing the book which was known as the work of Pamphilus till I read it in your own manuscript. It was no great concern of mine to know what was written: in favour of a heretic, and therefore I always took it that the work of Pamphilus was different from that of Eusebius; but, after the question had been raised, I wished to reply to their works, and with this object I read what each of them had to say in Origen's behalf; and then I discerned clearly that the first of Eusebius' six books was the same which you had published both in Greek and Latin as the single book of Pamphilus, only altering the opinion shout the Son and the Holy Spirit, which bore on their face the mark of open blasphemy. It was thus that, when my friend, Dexter, who held the office of praetorian prefect, asked me, ten years ago, to make a list for him of the writers of our faith,hyperlink placed among the various treatises assigned to various authors this book as composed by Pamphilus, supposing the matter to be as it had been brought before the public by you and by your disciples. But, since Eusebius himself says that Pamphilus wrote nothing except some short letters to his friends, and the first of his six books contains the precise words which are fictitiously given by you under the name of Pamphilus, it is plain that your object in circulating this book was to introduce heresy under the authority of a martyr. I cannot allow you to make my mistake a cloak for your fraud, when you first pretend that the book is by Pamphilus and then pervert many of its passages so as to make them different in Latin from what they are in Greek. I believed the book to be by the writer whose name it bore, just as I did in reference to the Peri 'Arxwn, and many other of the works of Origen and of other Greek writers, which I never read fill now, and am now compelled to read, because the question of heresy has been raised, and l wish to know what ought to be avoided and what opposed. In my youth, therefore, I translated only the homilies which he delivered in public, and in which there are fewer causes of offence; and this in ignorance and at the request of others: I did not try to prejudice men by means of the parts which they approved in favour of the acceptance of those which are evidently heretical. At all events, to cut short a long discussion, I can point out whence I received the Peri 'Arxwn, namely, from those who copied it from your manuscript. We want in like manner to know whence your copy of it came; for if you are unable to name any one else as the source from which it was derived, you will yourself be convicted of falsifying it.hyperlink "A good man from the good treasure of his heart bringeth forth what is good." A tree of a good stock is known by the sweetness of its fruit.
24. My brother Eusebius writes to me that, when he was at a meeting of African bishops which had been called for certain ecclesiastical affairs, he found there a letter purporting to be written by me, in which I professed penitence and confessed that it was through the influence of the press in my youth that I had been led to turn the Scriptures into Latin from the Hebrew; in all of which there is not a word of truth. When I heard this, I was stupefied. But one witness was not enough; even Cato was not believed on his unsupported evidence:hyperlink "In the mouth of two or three witnesses shall every word be established." Letters were soon brought me from many brethren in Rome asking about this very matter, whether the facts were as was stated: and they pointed in a way to make me weep to the person by whom the letter had been circulated among the people. He who dared to do this, what will he not dare to do? It is well that ill will has not a strength equal to its intentions. Innocence would be dead long ago if wickedness were always allied to power, and calumny could prevail in all that it seeks to accomplish. It was impossible for him, accomplished as he was, to copy any style and manner of writing, whatever their value may be; amidst all his tricks and his fraudulent assumption of another man's personality, it was evident who he was. It is this same man, then, who wrote this fictitious letter of retractation in my name, making out that my translation of the Hebrew books was bad, who, we now hear, accuses me of having translated the Holy Scriptures with a view to disparage the Septuagint. In any case, whether my translation is right or wrong, I am to be condemned: I must either confess that in my new work I was wrong, or else that by my new version I have aimed a blow at the old. I wonder that in this letter he did not make me out as guilty of homicide, or adultery or sacrilege or parricide or any of the vile things which the silent working of the mind can revolve within itself. Indeed I ought to be grateful to him for having imputed to me no more than one act of error or false dealing out of the whole forest of possible crimes. Am I likely to have said anything derogatory to the seventy translators, whose work I carefully purged from corruptions arid gave to Latin readers many years ago, and daily expound it at our conventual gatherings;hyperlink whose version of the Psalms has so long been the subject of my meditation and my song? Was I so foolish as to wish to forget in old age what I learned in youth? All my treatises have been woven out of statements warranted by their version. My commentaries on the twelve prophets are an explanation of their version as well as my own. How uncertain must the labours of men ever be! and how contrary at times to their own intentions are the results which men's studies reach. I thought that I deserved well of my countrymen the Latins by this version, and bad given them an incitement to learning; for it is not despised even by the Greeks now that it is retranslated into their language; yet it is now made the subject of a charge against me; and I find that the food pressed upon them turns upon the stomach. What is there in human life that can be safe if innocence is made the object of accusation? I am the householderhyperlink who finds that while he slept the enemy has sown tares among his wheat.hyperlink "The wild boar out of the wood has rooted up my vineyard, and the strange wild beast has devoured it." I keep silence, but a letter that is not mine speaks against me. I am ignorant of the crime laid against me, yet I am made to confess the crime all through the world.hyperlink "Woe is me, my mother, that thou hast borne me a man to be judged and condemnedhyperlink in the whole earth."
25. All my prefaces to the books of the Old Testament, some specimens of which I subjoin, are witnesses for me on this point; andit is needless to state the matter otherwise than it is stated in them. I will begin therefore with Genesis. The Prologue is as follows:
I have received letters so long and eagerly desired from my dear Desideriushyperlink who, as if the future had been foreseen, shares his name with Daniel,hyperlink entreating me to put our friends in possession of a translation of the Pentateuch from Hebrew into Latin. The work is certainly hazardous and it is exposed to thehyperlink attacks of my calumniators, who maintain that it is through contempt of the Seventy that I have set to work to forge a new version to take the place of the old. They thus test ability as they do wine; whereas I have again and again declared that I dutifully offer, in the Tabernacle of God what I can, and have pointed out that the great gifts which one man brings are not marred by the inferior gifts of another. But I was stimulated to undertake the task by the zeal of Origen, who blended with the old edition Theodotion's translation and used throughout the work as distinguishing marks the asterisk * and the obelus _, that is the star and the spit, the first of which makes what had previously been defective to beam with light, while the other transfixes and slaughters all that was superfluous. But I was encouraged above all by the authoritative publications of the Evangelists and Apostles, in which we read much taken from the Old Testament which is not found in our manuscripts. For example, `Out of Egypt have I called my Son' (Matt. ii. 15): `For he shall be called a Nazarene' (Ibid. 23): and `They shall look on him whom they pierced' (John xix. 37): and `Rivers of living water shall flow out of his belly' (John vii. 38): and `Things which eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, nor have entered into the heart of man, which God hath prepared for them that love him' (I. Cor. ii. 9), and many other passages which lack their proper context. Let us ask our opponents then where these things are written, and when they are unable to tell, let us produce them from the Hebrew. The first passage is in Hosea, (xi. 1), the second in Isaiah (xi. 1), the third in Zechariah (xii. 10), the fourth in Proverbs (xviii. 4), the fifth also in Isaiah (lxiv. 4). Being ignorant of all this many follow the ravings of the Apocrypha, and prefer to the inspired books the melancholy trash which comes to us from Spain.hyperlink It is not for me to explain the causes of the error. The Jews gay it was deliberately and wisely done to preventhyperlink Ptolemy who was a monotheist from thinking the Hebrews acknowledged two deities. And that which chiefly influenced them in thus acting was the fact that the king appeared to befalling into Platonism. In a word, wherever Scripture evidenced some sacred truth respecting Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, they either translated the passage differently, or passed it over altogether in silence, so that they might both satisfy the king, and not divulge the secrets of the faith. I do not know whose false imagination led him to invent the story of thehyperlink seventy cells at Alexandria, in which, though separated from each other, the translators were said to have written the same words. Aristeas,hyperlink the champion of that same Ptolemy, and Josephus, long after, relate nothing of the kind; their account is that the Seventy assembled in one basilica consulted together, and did not prophesy. For it is one thing to be a prophet, another to be a translator. The former through the Spirit, foretells things to come; the latter must use his learning and facility in speech to translate what he understands. It can hardly be that we must suppose Tully was inspired with oratorical spirit when he translated Xenophon's Oeconomics, Plato's Protagoras, and the oration of Demosthenes in defence of Ctesiphon. Otherwise the Holy Spirit must have quoted the same books in one sense through the Seventy Translators, in another through the Apostles, so that, whereas they said nothing of a given matter, these falsely affirm that it was so written. What then? Are we condemning our predecessors? By no means; but following the zealous labours of those who have preceded us we contribute such work as lies in our power in the name of the Lord. They translated before the Advent of Christ, and expressed in ambiguous terms that which they knew not. We after His Passion and Resurrection write not prophecy so much as history. For one style is suitable to what we hear, another to what we see. The better we understand a subject, the better we describe it. Hearken then, my rival: listen, my calumniator; I do not condemn, I do not censure the Seventy, but I am bold enough to prefer the Apostles to them all. It is the Apostle through whose mouth I hear the voice of Christ, and I read that in the classification of spiritual gifts they are placed before prophets (1 Cor. xii. 28; Eph. iv. 11), while interpreters occupy almost the lowest place. Why are you tormented with jealousy? Why do you inflame the minds of the ignorant against me? Wherever in translation I seem to you to go wrong, ask the Hebrews, consult their teachers in different towns. The words which exist in their Scriptures concerning Christ your copies do not contain. The case is different if they havehyperlink rejected passages which were afterward used against them by the Apostles, and the Latin texts are more correct than the Greek, the Greek than the Hebrew.
[Chapters 26 to 32 are taken up with the quotation, almost in full, of the Preface to the Vulgate translation of the books of the Old Testament. It is unnecessary to give them here. They have all the same design as the Preface to Genesis already given, namely to meet the objections of those who represented the work as a reproach to the LXX which was then supposed to have almost the authority of inspiration. The same arguments, illustrations, and even words, are reiterated. Readers who may desire to go more fully into Jerome's statements will find these Prefaces translated at length in his works, Vol. VI of this Series.]
33. In reference to Daniel my answer will be that I did not say that he was not a prophet; on the contrary, I confessed in the very beginning of the Preface that he was a prophet. But I wished to show what was the opinion upheld by the Jews; and what were the arguments on which they relied for its proof. I also told the reader that the version read in the Christian churches was not that of the Septuagint translators but that of Theodotion. It is true, I said that the Septuagint version was in this book very different from the original, and that it was condemned by the right judgment of the churches of Christ; but the fault was not mine who only stated the fact, but that of those who read the version. We have four versions to choose from: those of Aquila, Symmachus, the Seventy, and Theodotion. The churches choose to read Daniel in the version of Theodotion. What sin have I committed in following the judgment of the churches? But when I repeat what the Jews say against the Story of Susanna and the Hymn of the Three Children, and the fables of Bel and the Dragon, which are not contained in the Hebrew Bible, the man who makes this a charge against me proves himself to be a fool and a slanderer; for I explained not what I thought but what they commonly say against us. I did not reply to their opinion in the Preface, because I was studying brevity, and feared that I should seem to he writing not a Preface but a book. I said therefore, "As to which this is not the time to enter into discussion." Otherwise from the fact that I stated that Porphyry had said many things against this prophet, and called, as witnesses of this, Methodius, Eusebius, and Apollinarius, who have replied to his folly in many thousand lines, it will be in his power to accuse me for not baring written in my Preface against the books of Porphyry. If there is any one who pays attention to silly things like this, I must tell him loudly and free that no one is compelled to read what he does not want; that I wrote for those who asked me, not for those who would scorn me, for the grateful not the carping, for the earnest not the indifferent. Still, I wonder that a man should read the version of Theodotion the heretic and judaizer, and should scorn that of a Christian, simple and sinful though he may be.
34. I beg you, my most sweet friend, who are so curious that you even know my dreams, and that yon scrutinize for purposes of accusations all that I have written during these many years without fear of future calumny; answer me, how is it you do not know the prefaces of the very books on which you ground your charges against me? These prefaces, as if by some prophetic foresight, gave the answer to the calumnies that were coming, thus fulfilling the proverb, "The antidote before the poison." What harm has been done to the churches by my translation?You bought up, as I knew, at great cost the versions of Aquila, Symmachus, and Theodotion, and the Jewish authors of the fifth and sixth translations. Your Origen, or, that I may not seem to be wounding you with fictitious praises, our Origen,(for I may call him ours for his genius and learning, though not for the truth of his doctrines) in all his books explains and expounds not only the Septuagint but the Jewish versions. Eusebius and Didymus do the same. I do not mention Apollinarius, who, with a laudable zeal though not according to knowledge, attempted to patch up into one garment the rags of all the translations, and to weave a consistent text of Scripture at his own discretion, not according to any sound rule of criticism. The Hebrew Scriptures are used by apostolic men; they are used, as is evident, by the apostles and evangelists. Our Lord and Saviour himself whenever he refers to the Scriptures, takes his quotations from the Hebrew; as in the instance of the wordshyperlink "He that believeth on me, as the Scripture hath said, out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water," and in the words used on the cross itself, "Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani," which is by interpretation "My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?" not, as it is given by the Septuagint, "My God, my God, look upon me, why hast thou forsaken me?" and many similar cases. I do not say this in order to aim a blow at the seventy translators; but I assert that the Apostles of Christ bare an authority superior to theirs. Wherever the Seventy agree with the Hebrew, the apostles took their quotations from that translation; but, where they disagree, they set down in Greek what they had found in the Hebrew. And further, I give a challenge to my accuser. I have shown that many things are set down in the New Testament as coming from the older books, which are not to be found in the Septuagint; and I have pointed out that these exist in the Hebrew. Now let him show that there is anything in the New Testament which comes from tile Septuagint but which is not found in the Hebrew, and our controversy is at an end.
35. By all this it is made clear, first that the version of the Seventy translators which has gained an established position by having been so long in use, was profitable to the churches, because that by its means the Gentiles heard of the coming of Christ before he came; secondly, that the other translators are not to be reproved, since it was not their own works that they published but the divine books which they translated; and, thirdly, that my own familiar friend should frankly accept from a Christian and a friend what he has taken great pains to obtain from the Jews and has written down for him at great cost. I have exceeded the bounds of a letter; and, though I had taken pen in hand to contend against a wicked heresy, I have been compelled to make answer on my own behalf, while waiting for my friend's three books, and in a state of constant mental suspense about the charges he had heaped up against me. It is easier to guard against one who professes hostility than to make head against an enemy who lurks under the guise of a friend.
Footnotes
37 Persius, iii, 30.
38 Mic. vii, 5.
39 Jer. iv, 22.
40 Jude, 9.
41 Zach. iii, 2.
42 1 Cor. vi, 9.
43 Jude, 8.
44 Rufinus.
45 A bringing forth of one thing from another that is according to Valentinian, of Christ as a production from another Aeon.
46 "A man of the Lord," perhaps applied to Christ.
47 Bishops respectively of Rome, Alexandria, Milan, and Aquileia.
48 Epiphanius to John of Jerusalem. Jerome's Letters, LI, 3. See also Jerome Against John of Jerusalem, 11, 14.
49 The Catalogue of Illustrious Men translated in this volume forms the response to this request.
50 Luke vi, 45, Matt. vii, 17.
51 Deut. xvii, 6.
52 This translation has been almost wholly lost. The parts which remain are the Book of Job, the Psalms, an see to the Books of Chronicles.
53 Matt. xiii, 25.
54 Ps. lxxx. 13.
55 Jer. xv, 10 (LXX).
56 Or examined. The Vulgate agrees with A. V. `A man of contention.
0'
57 In the original there is a play upon words - Desideriz desideratas.
58 That is, Man of desires, Dan. ix, 23, Margin.
59 Lit. barkings.
60 The passage is explained by Jerome's own words in the commentary on Is. lxiv. "Certain silly women in Spain, and especially in Lusitania, have been deceived into accepting as truth the marvels of Basilides and Balsaneus' treasury, and even of Barbelo and Leusiboras." Jerome goes on to add that Irenaeus in explaining the origin of many heresis pointed out that the Gnostics deceived many noble women of the parts of Gaul about the Rhone, and afterwards those of Spain, framing a system partly of myths partly of immorality, and calling their folly by the name of philosophy. See also, Ep. Jer. Letter 120 to Hedibia, and Com. on Amos cf. III.
61 That is Ptolemy commonly known as the son of Lagus, but the reputed son of Philip of Macedon by Arsinoë Philip's concubine. He reigned over Egypt from b.c. 323-285. He was a great patron of learning, and, according to traditions current among the fathers, wishing to adorn his Alexandrian library with the writings of all nations, he requested the Jews of Jerusalem to furnish him with a Greek version of their Scriptures, and thus originated the Septuagint.
62 Irenaeus, Justin Martyr, Epophanius, and Augustine among the Latins, adhere to the inspiration of the translators which Jerome here rejects.
63 Aristeas was an officer of Ptolemy Philadelphus, son and successor of Ptolemy Lagus. The so-called letter of Aristeas to his brother Philocrates is still extant in Hody's De bibliorum Textibus Originalbus, etc. (Oxon. 1705), and separately in a small volume published art Oxford 1692.
64 Reading reprobaverunt.
65 John vii, 38, supposed to be taken from Prov. xviii, 4, or Is. lviii, 11.