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Book I.
Book I.
The following is an epitome of the argument:
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 eri rxwn.
11. What led to the translation.
12, 13. Pamphilus Apology for Origen.
14. Preface to the Translation of the eri rxwn.
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:(1) "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:(2) "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,(3) "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,(4) "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 called(5) "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 man(6) 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,(7) Jovinus(8) and Eusebius,(9) 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 man(10) knoweth the Son but the Father, neither knoweth any man the Father but the Son": and the Holy Spirit is he who "searcheth(11) 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;(12) he is also called(13) the first begotten from the dead; as also the Apostle says,(14) "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:(15) "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 natural(16) 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:(17) "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,(18) "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,(19) 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,(20) 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.
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