(2) Quod anime in corpore hoc vincte velut in carcere teneantur. Rufinus, i. 37, 38, 40, quotes Jerome on Eph 23-1 31 62 (vii. 573 B, ‘nos vero dicimus . . . apposita sit ad malitiam’; 577 D, ‘et diligenter observa quia... factura primum locum tenet, deinde plasmatio’; 587 B, ‘quia in pluribus locis lectum est vinculum anime corpus : +. per eum predicatio compleatur’; 682 B ‘alius vero propter corpus humilitatis . . . spiritus Dei habitat in vobis’): the body of our humilia- tion, the body of death, fashioned later than the soul, is a ‘chain’ and ‘ prison’ to the soul, and true knowledge is possible only to him who has put off his chain and been delivered from his prison.
With these passages may be combined the quota- tion in Rufinus, i. 22, from Jerome on Eph 5%: 29 (vii. 659 A, ‘foveamus igitur ... quod nobis in celestibus repromissum est’): women will become men, bodies will become souls, for we shall be like the angels.
(¢) De restitutione omnium. Rufinus, i. 35, 39, 41, 42, quotes Jerome on Eph 1? 2-18 44-16 (vii, 566 C, ‘si autem sunt principatus et potestates ... et dominatione fiat’; 583 B, ‘instaurationem novi hominis tune plene perfecteque complendam . . . fiat voluntas tua sicut in celo et in terra’; 608 E, “queeritur quomodo una spes.. . et isti in nobis unum sint’; 618 C-620 A, ‘in fine rerum cum Deum facie videre . .. in celesti Jerusalem, quam in
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PATRISTIC COMMENTARIES
alio loco apostolus matrem sanctorum voecat’): not only in the present but in the future life there will be rising and falling, but in the end there will be a renewal of humanity, a restitution of all things, a perfect unity of all rational creation in common faith and common recognition of the Son of God, in the one hope of our calling, in the one body, in the perfect man.
(f) Veritatem et perfectiorem doctrinam non esse omnibus publicandam. Rufinus, ii. 2, quotes Jerome on Eph 4” (vii. 627 E, ‘ propter quod Paulus ipse perfectus . . . in thalamum sponsi et penum regis inducat’): every man is to speak truth, but only to his neighbour—that is, to his neighbour in faith and virtue; to others he must shroud him- self, as God does, in darkness and mystery.
It is not necessary to enter into the details of Jerome’s answer to the individual charges. The controversy was so far simply ad hominem that Rufinus has to blame Jerome for Origenist state- ments which Rufinus, as an Origenizer, can hardly have considered seriously heretical ; while Jerome has from time to time to make what defence he can for the Origenist colouring of a commentary written some ten years earlier, and certainly not reconcilable with the rigidity of his later views. What is valuable for the present purpose is simply Jerome’s statement and defence of his methods as a translator and commentator.
‘I,’ writes Jerome,* ‘in my commentaries, whether on the Ephesian epistle or elsewhere, have unfolded both my own opinion and that of others, making clear what is heretical and what is catholic. For this is the practice of commen- tators and of any one who has to explain things: they pursue their exposition through diverse theories, and set down the opinion of others as well as their own. And this is done not only by the interpreters of Holy Scripture, but by the com- mentators on secular literature, both Latin and Greek.’ In the particular book under examination he had in the preface acknowledged obligations to three earlier commentators; but of these Origen differed from Apollinaris, Apollinaris from Didy- mus: if, then, he set down more than one opinion on the same passage, was he to be supposed to accept them both or all?+ In two of the instances urged by Rufinus he had given three views anony- mously, in simple juxtaposition: the first was in either case his own, the next that of Origen, the third that of Apollinaris.t Even if he had erred through modesty in not more definitely dis- tinguishing his own from his predecessors’ ex- planations, he could hardly be held responsible for all three at a time. In others of the incul- pated passages he had not obscurely hinted at his own disagreement by such introductory phrases as ‘alius qui conatur ostendere’ and ‘iuxta heeresim aliam,’ or such summaries as ‘quod ita in- tellectum et adversum eum facit.’§ But the one thing which, amid all the difficulties of transla- tion, he had studiously set himself to avoid, was the habit, so dear to Rufinus, of doctoring Origen for Western readers. He himself either rendered the actual words,—e.g. ‘ ponamus tamen ipsa verba que in Origenis libro tertio continentur,’ ||—or, where the exposition was a very lengthy one, reduced it to reasonable compass, yet without omitting anything either of the argument or of the illustrations. 1]
* contra Rujinum, ili. 11. + 1b, iii. 18.
t Ib. i. 24, 25. § Ib. i. 22, 26.
| Tb. i. 28=Vallarsi, vii. 658 D-659 A : ‘dicamus illam car- nem... in celestibus repromissum est.’ It isinteresting to note that this commentary on Eph 528. 29 is absent from Cramer’s Catena ; the catenist avoids just what Jerome found interesting.
q Ib. i. 22: ‘latissimam Origenis disputationem brevi sermone comprehenderim . . . nihil ab eo dictum pretermiserim . ies posui ergo ommia, licet brevius, que in greco reperi’; i. 26,