[3069] 1 Cor. vi. 9
[3070] Revilers. Rev. Ver.
[3071] Gal. v. 15
[3072] Ps. cxli. 3, 4
[3073] Ps. xxxix. 1, 2
[3074] Ps. xxxviii. 14
[3075] Deut. xxxii. 35
[3076] Ps. l. 20
32. I am told, to take another point, that one of his followers, Chrysogonus, finds fault with me for having said that in baptism all sins are put away, [3077] and, in the case of the man who was twice married, that he had died and risen up a new man in Christ; and further that there were several such persons who were Bishops in the churches. I will make him a short answer. He and his friends have in their hands my letter, for which they take me to task. Let him give an answer to it, let him overthrow its reasoning by reasoning of his own, and prove my writings false by his writings. Why should he knit his brow and draw in and wrinkle up his nostrils, and weigh out his hollow words, and simulate among the common crowd a sanctity which his conduct belies? Let me proclaim my principles once more in his ears: That the old Adam dies completely in the laver of baptism, and a new man rises then with Christ; that the man that is earthly perishes and the man from heaven is raised up. I say this not because I myself have a special interest in this question, through the mercy of Christ; but that I made answer to my brethren when they asked me for my opinion, not intending to prescribe for others what they may think right to believe, nor to overturn their resolution by my opinion. For we who lie hid in our cells do not covet the Bishop's office. We are not like some, who, despising all humility, are eager to buy the episcopate with gold; nor do we wish, with the minds of rebels, to suppress the Pontiff chosen by God; [3078] nor do we, by favouring heretics, show that we are heretics ourselves. As for money, we neither have it nor desire to have it. [3079] "Having food and clothing, we are therewith content;" and meanwhile we constantly chant the words describing the man who shall ascend to the hill of the Lord: [3080] "He that putteth not out his money to usury, nor taketh reward against the innocent; he who doeth these things shall not be moved eternally." We may add that he who does the opposite to these will fall eternally.
------------------------
Almost every sentence in this last chapter is an insidious allusion to Rufinus. His "wrinkled-up brow" and "turned-up nose," his weighing out his words, his supposed wealth, are all alluded to in other places and especially in the satirical description of him given after his death in Jerome's letter (cxxv. c. 18) to Rusticus.
[3077] The allusion is to Jerome's letter (LXIX) to Oceanus on the case of Carterius a Spanish Bishop, who had been married before his baptism, and, his wife having died, had married again. Oceanus argued that he was to be condemned. Jerome contended in his favour, regarding his first marriage as part of the old life obliterated by baptism.
[3078] The allusion is, perhaps, to Rufinus' answer to Pope Anastasius translated in this volume.
[3079] 1 Tim. vi. 8
[3080] Ps. xxiv. 3; xv. 5
Book II.
Summary of the Chapters.
1-3. A criticism on Rufinus' Apology to Anastasius. His excuses for not coming to Rome are absurd. His parents are dead and the journey is easy. No one ever heard before of his being imprisoned or exiled for the faith.
4-8. His confession of faith is unsatisfactory. No one asked him about the Trinity, but about Origen's doctrines of the Resurrection, the origin of souls, and the salvability of Satan. As to the Resurrection and to Satan he is ambiguous. As to souls he professes ignorance.
9. What Latin! The poor souls must be tormented by his barbarisms.
10. It is not permitted to you to be ignorant of such a matter which all the churches know.
11. As to translating the Peri 'Archon, it is not a question, but a charge that you unjustifiably altered the book.
12, 13. Origen asserts Christ to be a creature, and maintains universal restitution. Where has he contradicted this?
14. The question is, as Anastasius says to John of Jerusalem, with what motive you translated the Peri 'Archon
15. You pretend not to be Origen's defender, but you publish and enlarge the Apology for him and allege the heretics' falsification of his works.
16. Your defence gains no support from Eusebius or Didymus, who, each for his own reason, defend the Peri 'Archon as it stands.
17. If we may allege falsification at every turn we make a chaos of all past literature.
18. The object of Origen's letter, of which he translates only a part, is not to shew the falsification of his writings but to vituperate the Bishops who condemned him.
19. It is only in reference to a particular point in his dispute with Candidus that Origen alleges this falsification. The story of Hilary's being condemned through his writings having been falsified has no foundation.
20. That which you tell about myself in Damasus' council is mere after-dinner gossip.
21-2. The attack on Epiphanius as a plagiarist of Origen is an outrage on the Bishops generally. Origen never wrote 6000 books.
23. I ascertained at the library at Cæsarea that the Apology you quote as Pamphilus' is the work of Eusebius.
24. The letter falsely circulated in Africa as mine, and expressing regret for my translation of the Old Test. from the Hebrew bears the mark of your hand. I have always honoured the Seventy Translators.
25-32. In proof of this, I bring forward the prefaces to my Translation of the Books from Genesis to Isaiah.
33. As to Daniel, it was necessary to point out that Bel and the Dragon, and similar stories were not found in the Hebrew.
34. A vindication of the importance of the Hebrew Text of Scripture.
35. Though the LXX has been of great value, we should be grateful for fresh translations from the original.
1. Thus far I have made answer about my crimes, and indeed in defence of my crimes, which my crafty encomiast formerly urged against me, and which his disciples still constantly press. I have done so not as well as I ought but as I was able, putting a check upon my complaints, for my object has been not so much to accuse others as to defend myself. I will now come to his Apology, [3081] by which he strives to justify himself to Anastasius, Bishop of the City of Rome, and, in order to defend himself, constructs a mass of calumnies against me. His love for me is like that which a man who has been carried away by the tempest and nearly drowned in deep water feels for the strong swimmer at whose foot he clutches: he is determined that I shall sink or swim with him.
[3081] See this Apology translated above.
2. He professes in the first place to be replying to insinuations made at Rome against his orthodoxy, he being a man most fully approved in respect both of divine faith and of charity. He says that he would have wished to come himself, were it not that he had lately returned, after thirty years' absence, to his parents, and that it would have seemed harsh and inhuman to leave them after having been so long in coming to them; and also if he had not become somewhat less robust through his long and toilsome journey, and too infirm to begin his labours again. As he had not been able to come himself, he had sent his apology as a kind of literary cudgel which the bishop might hold in his hand and drive away the dogs who were raging against him. If he is a man approved for his divine faith and charity by all, and especially by the Bishop to whom he writes; how is it that at Rome he is assailed and reviled, and that the reports of the attacks upon his reputation grow thicker. Further, what sort of humility is this, that a man speaks of himself as approved for his divine faith and charity? The Apostles prayed, [3082] "Lord increase our faith," and received for answer: "If ye had faith as a grain of mustard seed;" and even to Peter it is said: [3083] "O thou of little faith, wherefore didst thou doubt?" Why should I speak of charity, which is greater than either faith or hope, and which Paul says he hopes for rather than assumes: without which even the blood shed in martyrdom and the body given up to the flames has no reward to crown it. Yet both of these our friend claims as his own: in such a way, however, that there still remain creatures who bark against him, and who will go on barking unless the illustrious Pontiff drives them away with his stick. But how absurd is this plea which he puts forward, of having returned to his parents after thirty years. Why, he has got neither father nor mother! He left them alive when he was a young man, and, now that he is old, he pines for them when they are dead. But perhaps, he means by "parents," what is meant in the talk of the soldiers and the common people, his kinsfolk and relations; well, he says he does not wish to be thought so harsh and inhuman as to desert them; and therefore he leaves his home [3084] and goes to live at Aquileia. That most approved faith of his is in great peril at Rome, and yet he lies on his back, being a bit tired after thirty years, and cannot make that very easy journey in a carriage along that Flaminian Way. He puts forward his lassitude after his long journey, as if he had done nothing but move about for thirty years, or as if, after resting at Aquileia for two years, he was still worn out with the labour of his past travels.
[3082] Luke xvii. 5, 6
[3083] Matt. xiv. 31
[3084] This old home was at Concordia. Jer. Ep. V, 2; comp. with title of Ep. X.
3. I will touch upon the other points, and set down the actual words of his letter:
"Although my faith was proved, at the time of the persecution by the heretics, when I was living in the holy church of Alexandria, by imprisonments and exiles, to which I was subjected because of the faith."
I only wonder that he did not add [3085] "The prisoner of Jesus Christ," or "I was delivered from the jaw of the lion," or "I fought with beasts at Alexandria," or "I have finished my course, I have kept the faith. Henceforth there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness." What exiles, what imprisonments are these which he describes? I blush for this open falsehood. As if imprisonment and exile would be inflicted without judicial sentences! I should like to have a list of these imprisonments and of the various provinces to which he tells us that he was forced into exile. Next there appear to have been numerous imprisonments and an infinite number of exiles; so that he might at least name one of them all. Let us have the acts of his confessorship produced, for hitherto we have been in ignorance of them; and so let us have the satisfaction of reciting his deeds with those of the other martyrs of Alexandria, and that he may be able to meet the people who bark against him with the words: [3086] "From henceforth let no man trouble me, for I bear in my body the marks of our Lord Jesus Christ."
[3085] Expressions of St. Paul in Eph. iii. 1; 2 Tim. iv. 17; 1 Cor. xv. 32; 2 Tim. iv. 7
[3086] Gal. vi. 17
4. He goes on:
"Still, since there may be some persons, who may wish to prove my faith, or to hear and learn what it is, I will declare that I thus think of the Trinity;"
and so on. At first you said that you entrusted your faith to the Bishop as a stick with which he might fortify himself on your behalf against those barking dogs. Now you speak a little less confidently, "There may be some persons who wish to prove my faith." You begin to hesitate when the barkings which reach your ears are so numerous. I will not stop to discuss the forms of diction which you use, for these you look down upon and condemn: I will answer according to the meaning alone. You are asked about one thing, and you give account for yourself upon another. As to the doctrines of Arius, you contended against them at Alexandria a long time ago, by imprisonment and exile, not with words but with blood. But the question now relates to the heresy of Origen, and the feeling aroused against you on the subject. I should be sorry that you should trouble yourself to cure wounds which are already healed. You confess a Trinity in one Godhead. The whole world now confesses this, and I think that even the devils confess that the Son of God was born of the Virgin Mary, and took upon him the flesh and the soul belonging to human nature. But I must beg you not to think me a contentious man if I examine you a little more strictly. You say that the Son of God took the flesh and soul belonging to human nature. Well then, I would ask you not to be vexed with me but to answer this question. That soul which Jesus took upon him, did it exist before it was born of Mary? Was it created together with the body in that original Virgin nature which was begotten by the Holy Spirit? or, when the body was already formed within the womb, was it made all at once, and sent down from heaven? I wish to know which one of these you choose as your opinion. If it existed before it was born from Mary, then it was not yet the soul of Jesus; and it was employed in some way, and, for a reward of its virtues, it was made his soul. If it arose by traduction, [3087] then human souls, which we believe to be eternal, are subject to the same condition as those of the brutes, which perish with the body. But if it is created and sent into the body after the body has been formed, tell us so simply, and free us from anxiety.