Letters

It is the mark of proven affection that you, a bishop, speak in praise of a bishop. For so great a commendation, then, which you have poured out most lavishly upon my merits, I give thanks to your love; and, in turn, the favourable speech of our littleness follows after in some measure the splendour of your holiness and the virtues you have in the Lord. For you, most excellent of all men, shine so conspicuous in the brightness of your praises that speech cannot match your merits. Moreover, I am carried away by so great an incitement of your distinctions that I do not cease to dare even what I cannot achieve. This already belongs to your own praise, that you have praised me out of the serenity of that heavenly mind of yours alone. For the clear order of your episcopate, radiating as it were through the far parts of the world, has brought the brightness of its splendour even to us. Indeed, you yourself attribute the whole of friendship to me and leave nothing to scrutiny. Or if you rightly praise me, are you not likewise to be praised in return? I beg you therefore on both counts to cease now praising me to myself; for a double reason constrains me: lest false praise bring pain to the feelings of your fellow bishop, or true praise kindle his shame.

But to return to the matter: Rufinus, about whom you have deigned to consult me, has the divine majesty as the judge of his conscience; let him see for himself how he ought to prove himself before it with the whole duty of devotion.

As for Origen, whose writings he has rendered into our language, who he was formerly and to what words he went on, my purpose neither knew before nor seeks to know; but what the bent of my mind is, I will share briefly on this with your holiness. This, then, is the conviction I have formed: the reading of Origen in translation has made plain to the people of our city that, as though a cloud of blindness had been cast over pure minds, he wished to dissolve, as by devious windings, the faith of the apostles, made firm by the tradition of our forebears.

Here I would like to learn what this translation into the Roman tongue is meant to do. I approve if it accuses the author and exposes to the people a deed to be execrated, so that he whom repute has long since bound may at last be held in just hatred. But if the translator gives his consent to such great evils and publishes them for the people to read, the work of his labour has built nothing else than this: by the judgment, as it were, of his own mind, under the title of an unexpected assertion, to overturn those things which alone, which first, which among catholic Christians have been held by true faith from the apostles down to this time.

Far be this from the catholic discipline of the Roman church. It will certainly never happen that I admit on any account these things which we rightly and deservedly condemn. Therefore the providence of Christ our God, spread through the whole world, will deign to approve that we can in no way accept what stains the church, overturns approved morals, wounds the ears of those standing by, and sows quarrels, angers and dissensions. Moved by this matter, our littleness sent a letter, written with more careful attention, to our brother and fellow bishop Venerius; of what kind it was you will be able to verify from what follows: "How, then, the translator may hold this conscience with himself and keep it for himself, I do not labour with needless dread, nor am I troubled by empty fear. Care will certainly not be lacking to me to guard the faith of the Gospel among my peoples, and to address by letter, as far as I can, the parts of my body through the various regions of the earth, lest any beginning of profane interpretation creep in that would try to weaken devout minds by the darkness it brings. This too, which I rejoice has come about, I could not keep silent: the rescripts of our most blessed emperors have been issued, by which everyone who serves God is called back from reading Origen, and whoever the profane reading has shown to be guilty is condemned by the emperors' sentence." Thus far the form of my judgment has proceeded.

As for the people's complaint about Rufinus which troubles you, so that you pursue certain people with vague suspicions, I will restrain this opinion of yours by the example of divine reading, as it is written: "Man is not as God; for God sees in the heart, man sees in the face." Therefore, dearest brother, setting aside all suspicion, weigh Rufinus by your own mind, whether he translated Origen's sayings into Latin and approved them; for one who gives assent to another's vices is not unlike the guilty. But I want you to hold this: he is so regarded as alien to our side that we wish not to know what he is doing or where he is. Finally, let him see for himself where he can be absolved.

A shepherd is approved for having great care and watchfulness over his flock. Likewise a careful watchman on a high tower keeps watch day and night for the city's sake. A prudent master of a ship, in the hour of storm and danger, suffers great tossing of mind lest the ship be dashed upon the rocks by gales and the roughest waves. With like mind the holy and honourable man Theophilus, our brother and fellow bishop, does not cease to keep watch over what serves salvation, lest God's people in the various churches, by reading Origen, run into great blasphemies.

Addressed by the letter of the aforesaid, I address your holiness, that you act as we have done. Placed in the city of Rome, which the prince of the apostles, the glorious Peter, founded and confirmed by his faith, we have condemned these things, so that no one may read what we have mentioned against the precept; and we have asked with great prayers that there be no departure at all from the ordinances of the Gospels, which the authority of God and Christ taught from his own mouth, but that this be called to mind which the venerable apostle Paul foretold and warned: "If anyone preaches to you a gospel other than what has been preached to you, let him be anathema." Holding to this precept, therefore, we have declared that whatever was written by Origen in time past that is contrary to our faith is alien to us and condemned.

We have written this to your holiness through the presbyter Eusebius, who, bearing the warmth of faith and having love toward the Lord, presented certain chapters of blasphemy, which we not only shuddered at but also judged; and know that whatever else has been expounded by Origen of that kind is condemned by us together with its author. May the Lord keep you safe, lord brother, deservedly honoured.