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Book II.
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 eri rxwn, 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 eri rxwn.
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 eri rxwn 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 Caesarea 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,(1) 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.
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,(2) "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:(3) "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(4) 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 carnage 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.
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(5) "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:(6) "From henceforth let no man trouble me, for I bear in my body the marks of our Lord Jesus Christ."
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 barking 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,(7) 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.
5. None of these answers will you give us. You turn to other things, and by your tricks and shew of words prevent us from paying close attention to the question. What! you will say, was not the question about the resurrection of the flesh and the punishment of the devil? True; and therefore I ask for a brief and sincere answer. I raise no question as to your declaration that it is this very flesh in which we live which rises again, without the loss of a single member, and without any part of the body being cut off (for these are your own words). But I want to know whether you hold, what Origen denies, that the bodies rise with the same sex with which they died; and that Mary will still be Mary and John be John; or whether the sexes will be so mixed and confused that there will be neither man nor woman, but something which is both or neither; and also whether you hold that the bodies remain uncorrupt and immortal, and, as you acutely suggest after the Apostle, spiritual bodies forever; and not only the bodies, but the actual flesh, with blood infused into it, and passing by channels through the veins and bones,-such flesh as Thomas touched; or that little by little they are dissolved into nothing, and reduced into the four elements of which they were compounded. This you ought either to confess or deny, and not to say what Origen also says, but insincerely, as if he were playing upon the weakness of fools and children, "without the loss of a single member or the cutting off of any part of the body." Do you suppose that what we feared was that we might rise without noses and ears, that we should find that our genital organs would be cut off or maimed and that a city of eunuchs was built up in the new Jerusalem?
6. Of the devil he thus frames his opinion:
"We affirm also a judgment to come, in which judgment every man is to receive the due meed of his bodily life, according to that which be has done, whether good or evil. And, if in the case of men the reward is according to their works how much more will it be so in the case of the devil who is the universal cause of sin. Of the devil himself our belief is that which is written in the Gospel, namely that both he and all his angels will receive as their portion the eternal fire, and with him those who do his works, that is, who become the accusers of their brethren. If then any one denies that the devil is to be subjected to eternal fires, may he have his part with him in the eternal fire, so that he may know by experience the fact which he now denies."
I will repeat the words one by one. "We affirm also a judgment to come, in which judgment &c." I had determined to say nothing about verbal faults. But, since his disciples admire the eloquence of their master, I will make one or two strictures upon it. He had already said "a future judgment;" but, being a cautious man, he was afraid of saving simply "in which," and therefore wrote "in which judgment;" for fear that, if he had not said "judgment" a second time, we, forgetting what had gone before, might have supplied the word "ass." That which he brings in afterwards "those who become the accusers of their brethren will with him have their portion in the eternal fire," is in a style of equal beauty. Who ever heard of `possessing(8) the flames'? It would be like `enjoying tortures.' I suppose that, being now a Greek, he had tried to translate himself, and that for the word klhronomhsousin,(9) which can be rendered in Latin by the single word Haereditabunt, he said Haereditate potientur(10) supposing it to be something more elaborate and ornate. With suchtrifles and such improprieties of speech his whole discourse is teeming. But to return to the meaning of his words.
7. To proceed:
"This is a great spear with which the devil is pierced, he, `who is the universal cause of sin,' if he is to render account of his works, like a man, and `with his angels possess the inheritance of eternal fires.' This, no doubt, was what was lacking to him, that, having brought mankind into torment, he should himself `possess the eternal fires' which he had all the while been longing for."
You seem to me here to speak a little too hardly of the devil, and to assail the accuser of all with false accusations. You say `he is the universal cause of sin;' and, while you make him the author of all crimes, you free men from fault, and take away the freedom of the will. Our Lord says that(11) `from our heart come forth evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false witnesses, railings,' and of Judas we read in the Gospel;(12) "After the sop Satan entered into him," that is, because he had before the sop sinned voluntarily, and had not been brought to repentance either by humbling himself or by the forbearance of the Saviour. So also the Apostle says;(13) "Such men I delivered to Satan, that they might be taught not to blaspheme." He delivered to Satan as to a torturer, with a view to their punishment, those who, before they had been delivered to him learned to blaspheme by their own will. David also draws the distinction in a few words between the faults due to his own will and the incentives of vice when he says(14) "Cleanse thou me from my secret faults, and keep back thy servant from alien sins." We read also in Ecclesiastes(15) "If the spirit of a ruler rise up against thee, leave not thy place;" from which we may clearly see that we commit sin if we give opportunity to the power which rises up, and if we fail to hurl down headlong the enemy who is scaling our walls. As to your threatening your brothers, that is, those who accuse you, with eternal fire in company with the devil, it seems to me that you do not so much drag your brethren down as raise the devil up, since he, according to you, is to be punished only with the same fires as Christian men. But you well know, I think, what eternal fires mean according to the ideas of Origen, namely, the sinners' conscience, and the remorse which galls their hearts within. These ideas he thinks are intended in the words of Isaiah:(16) "Their worm shall not die neither shall their fire be quenched." And in the words addressed to Babylon:(17) "Thou hast coals of fire, thou shalt sit upon them, these shall be thy help." So also in the Psalm it is said to the penitent;(18) "What shall be given to thee, or what shall be done more for thee against thee false tongue? Sharp arrows of the mighty, with desolating coals;" which means (according to him) that the arrows of God's precepts (concerning which the Prophet says in another place,(19) "I lived in misery while a thorn pierces me") should wound and strike through the crafty tongue, and make an end of sins in it. He also interprets the place where the Lord testifies saying:(20) "I came to send fire on the earth, and how I wish that it may burn" as meaning "I wish that all may repent, and burn out through the Holy spirit their vices and their sins; for I am he of whom it is written,(21) "Our God is a consuming fire;" it is no great thing then to say this of the devil, since it is prepared also for men." You ought rather to have said, if you wished to avoid the suspicion of believing in the salvation of the devil;(22) "Thou hast become perdition and shalt not be for ever;" and as the Lord speaks to Job concerning the devil,(23) "Behold his hope shall fail him and in the sight of all shall he be cast down. I will not arouse him as one that is cruel, for who can resist my countenance? Who has first given to me that I may return it to him? for all things beneath the heaven are mine. I will not spare him and his words that are powerful and fashioned to turn away wrath." Hence, these things may pass as the work of a plain man. Their bearing is evident enough to those who understand these matters; but to the unlearned they may wear the appearance of innocence.
8. But what follows about the condition of souls can by no means be excused. He says:
"I am next informed that some stir has been made on the question of the nature of the soul. Whether complaints on a matter of this kind ought to be entertained instead of being put aside, you must yourself decide. If, however, you desire to know my opinion upon this subject, I will state it frankly. I have read a great many writers on this question, and I find that they express divers opinions. Some of these whom I have read hold that the soul is infused together with the material body through the channel of the human seed, and of this they give such proofs as they can. I think that this was the opinion of Tertullian or Lactantius among the Latins, perhaps also of a few others. Others assert that God is every day making new souls and infusing them into the bodies which have been framed in the womb; while others again believe that the souls were all made long ago, when God made all things of nothing, and that all that he now does is to send out each soul to be born in its body as it seems good to him. This is the opinion of Origen, and of some others among the Greeks. For myself, I declare in the presence of God that, after reading each of these opinions, I am unable to hold any of them as certain and absolute: the determination of the truth in this question I leave to God and to any to whom it shall please him to reveal it. My profession on this point is, therefore, first, that these several opinions are those which I have found in books, but, secondly, that I as yet remain in ignorance on the subject, except so far as this, that the Church delivers it as an article of faith that God is the creator of souls as well as of bodies."
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