Apology against Jerome

Contents

Translation in progress.

Reading pages: 1.1–1.15 · 1.16–1.26 · 1.27–1.38 · 1.39–2.7 · 2.8–2.25 · 2.26–2.39 · 2.40–2.47

1. 1.1Rufinus tells Apronianus that he has read Jerome's attack sent to Pammachius and had meant to bear it in silence, as Christ bore insults.
2. 1.2Rufinus explains why he must answer after all, since silence on a matter of faith would cause scandal, and promises plain words rather than eloquence.
3. 1.3Rufinus says Jerome repays praise with insults and asks pardon for his own plain and perhaps sharp reply.
4. 1.4Rufinus recalls his baptism at Aquileia about thirty years earlier and sets out his faith in the Trinity, the incarnation, and the resurrection of this same flesh.
5. 1.5Rufinus appeals to the Creed of Aquileia, which confesses "the resurrection of this flesh," and complains that his accuser still demands every limb be named.
6. 1.6Christ's risen body, which the disciples could touch, is the pattern: we shall rise in this same flesh, freed from corruption and made spiritual.
7. 1.7Rufinus mocks Jerome's caricature of Origenist women who reject a frail resurrection body and argues from Paul that the risen body is not frail.
8. 1.8The risen flesh is this same flesh with all its members but without corruption, frailty, or sexual use; the church's faith walks between two errors.
9. 1.9Rufinus sums up his statement of faith, especially on the resurrection, as complete and unambiguous.
10. 1.10Rufinus quotes Jerome's charge that he translated Origen's teaching on universal restoration and pre-existent souls, and undertakes to explain why he translated On First Principles.
11. 1.11Rufinus tells how Macarius, guided by a dream, asked him to translate first Pamphilus's Apology for Origen and then On First Principles.
12. 1.12Rufinus says his prefaces declared his catholic faith and explained that he left out passages in Origen that contradicted Origen's own orthodox statements or had been interpolated.
13. 1.13Rufinus quotes his preface to Pamphilus's Apology, with its confession of the Trinity and of the resurrection of this flesh, as taught by Bishop John of Jerusalem.
14. 1.14Rufinus quotes his preface to On First Principles: he promised only to leave out what contradicted Origen himself, not everything contrary to the faith.
15. 1.15Rufinus continues quoting his preface to On First Principles: he left out or adjusted only what contradicted Origen's own orthodox statements, adding nothing of his own.
16. 1.16Rufinus insists he added nothing of his own, recalls his preface's solemn adjuration against altering his translation, and says his accusers falsified it anyway.
17. 1.17Rufinus introduces the passage of On First Principles about the invisibility of God that his accusers had falsified.
18. 1.18Rufinus explains Origen's preference for "knowing" over "seeing" in the Godhead as a defence against Valentinians and Anthropomorphites, and says it implies no inequality in the Trinity.
19. 1.19Rufinus charges Eusebius of Cremona with interpolating into his translation the claim that the Son does not see the Father nor the Spirit the Son, and anathematizes that claim.
20. 1.20Rufinus argues that the four books he translated consistently teach an undivided Trinity, and that an honest critic in Rome would simply have asked him about the passage.
21. 1.21Rufinus accuses Eusebius of spreading the charge behind his back, and Jerome of retranslating On First Principles to expose Origen's errors, contrary to Jerome's own earlier boast.
22. 1.22Rufinus mocks Jerome's claim to have repented of his former praise of Origen, saying true repentance weeps and keeps silent rather than accusing others.
23. 1.23Rufinus turns to Jerome's Commentary on Ephesians and quotes its statement that wives will be turned into men and bodies into souls.
24. 1.24Rufinus argues that Jerome's own words on the sexes and on bodies becoming souls are more open to suspicion than anything the women he mocks ever said.
25. 1.25Rufinus quotes Jerome's Commentary on Ephesians on "before the foundation of the world," in which Jerome explains katabolē and speaks of election before birth.
26. 1.26Rufinus quotes Jerome's Commentary on Ephesians, where "another" interpreter teaches that souls existed before the world and were cast down into bodies, and mocks Jerome with an imagined dialogue.
27. 1.27Rufinus argues that Jerome's own commentary teaches the pre-existence of souls, and that Jerome's device of attributing it to "another" traps him either way.
28. 1.28Rufinus quotes Jerome's Commentary on Ephesians on Eph 1:5–6, which sets out the view that differences at birth reflect souls' earlier merits.
29. 1.29Rufinus argues that when Jerome presents another's view at length without refuting it, the view is his own, and that Origen himself spoke more cautiously.
30. 1.30Rufinus presses the dilemma: whichever "other" is Jerome's own voice, Jerome either teaches the pre-existence of souls or condemns its denial as heretical.
31. 1.31Rufinus offers Jerome a way out, supposing the second "other" is Jerome himself, and quotes the commentary's view that all, even the devil and his angels, will be subjected to Christ, some willingly and some by necessity.
32. 1.32Rufinus concludes that Jerome's second exposition promises lesser rewards even to the devil and his angels, a view harsher than the opinion Jerome condemns in Origen.
33. 1.33Rufinus sums up: Jerome's own chosen commentaries teach both the pre-existence of souls and a final reward even for the devil, the doctrines he condemns in Origen.
34. 1.34Rufinus quotes Jerome's comment on Eph 2:6–7 that the fallen angels and Lucifer will at the end be governed by the will of Christ and his saints, and argues that this implies their final blessedness.
35. 1.35Rufinus quotes Jerome's comment on Eph 1:21 that in the age to come beings will rise and fall from one rank to another.
36. 1.36Rufinus turns Jerome's own words against him and quotes the Ephesians commentary on the church as including angels and on knowledge of God as recollection from a former life.
37. 1.38Rufinus quotes further passages of Jerome's Ephesians commentary, on stars not being clean, the soul made before the body, and angels and souls as the sheep and the lost sheep.
38. 1.39Rufinus argues that Jerome's commentary makes souls and angels one nature to be reunited in one flock, the very view of the "little women" he ridicules, and mocks Jerome's claim that Paul only hinted at it.
39. 1.40Rufinus quotes Jerome's commentaries on Ephesians and Philemon describing the body as the soul's prison and the soul's return to Christ.
40. 1.41Rufinus quotes Jerome's own demand to be judged only by what he says in his own person, and then cites the Ephesians commentary, without any "other," on the restoration of all things to their original state.
41. 1.42Rufinus quotes Jerome's comment on Eph 4:16, which pictures the restoration of all rational creatures, the fugitive angel included, into one body like a dismembered body reassembled.
42. 1.43Rufinus parodies Jerome by putting into his mouth a speech that excuses every earlier teacher but condemns Origen alone for the doctrines Jerome's own commentary teaches.
43. 1.44Rufinus concludes Book 1: if Origen's repentance, reported in his letter to Fabian, did not earn him pardon, neither can Jerome's.
44. 2.1Rufinus begins Book 2 by denying Jerome's charge that Origenists are pledged to perjury by a teaching in Origen's Stromata, which he says he never possessed or read.
45. 2.2Rufinus quotes Jerome's comment on Eph 4:25, which itself restricts mysteries to the worthy, to show that Jerome holds what he condemns.
46. 2.3Rufinus declares that anyone who teaches that perjury is ever permitted is outside the faith of Christ and the catholic church.
47. 2.4Rufinus undertakes to show from Jerome's own writings that Jerome himself has committed perjury.
48. 2.5Rufinus recalls Jerome's letter to Eustochium on virginity, which pagans copied eagerly because it ridiculed virgins, widows, monks, and clergy.
49. 2.6Rufinus quotes Jerome's account of his dream, in which he was beaten before Christ's tribunal as a "Ciceronian" and swore never again to own or read secular books.
50. 2.7Rufinus charges Jerome with breaking his oath, since his writings are full of quotations from Cicero, Horace, Virgil, and Greek philosophers.
51. 2.8Rufinus gives witnesses that Jerome had Cicero's dialogues copied on the Mount of Olives and taught the classical poets to boys at Bethlehem.
52. 2.9Rufinus argues that the views Jerome condemns as pagan, the pre-existence of souls and a final end of punishment, are not impious if held to defend God's justice.
53. 2.10Rufinus attacks Jerome's phrase in the letter to Eustochium calling her mother "the mother-in-law of God," and blames it on Jerome's study of Porphyry.
54. 2.11Rufinus urges Jerome to repent of calling God's bride's mother his mother-in-law, a blasphemy graver than any error about creatures.
55. 2.12Rufinus contrasts Jerome's brief stay with Didymus with his own years among Alexandrian teachers and desert fathers, and mocks Jerome's Jewish teacher as "Barabbas" and his debt to Porphyry.
56. 2.13Rufinus begins to quote Jerome's own prefaces praising Origen, starting with the preface to the Homilies on Ezekiel, which calls him the second teacher of the churches after the apostles.
57. 2.14Rufinus quotes Jerome's preface to Origen's homilies on the Song of Songs, which praises Origen as surpassing himself.
58. 2.15Rufinus quotes Jerome's preface to his Commentary on Micah, in which he counts it praise to be said to borrow from Origen.
59. 2.16Rufinus quotes Jerome's preface to his Book of Hebrew Names, which calls Origen the teacher of the churches after the apostles.
60. 2.17Rufinus quotes Jerome's letter to Marcella praising Origen's tireless study as described by his patron Ambrose.
61. 2.18Rufinus quotes Jerome's letter to Marcella on Pamphilus's library of Origen's works at Caesarea.
62. 2.19Rufinus explains why he quotes Jerome's praises of Origen: Jerome condemns in Rufinus what he excuses in himself.
63. 2.20Rufinus quotes Jerome's letter comparing Origen's output with Varro's, which says Origen was condemned at Alexandria and Rome not for heresy but from envy.
64. 2.21Rufinus imagines a prophet warning Jerome that he would one day condemn the Origen he then praised, and so condemn himself.
65. 2.22Rufinus quotes Jerome's preface to the Hebrew Questions praising Origen's learning and his preface to Origen's Homilies on Luke, which mocks Ambrose's commentary on Luke as a croaking raven.
66. 2.23Rufinus insists that Jerome's raven was Ambrose, and promises another preface showing Jerome's contempt for Ambrose and for Rome.
67. 2.24Rufinus quotes Jerome's preface to his translation of Didymus On the Holy Spirit, which calls Rome Babylon and disparages a Latin work on the Holy Spirit, understood to be Ambrose's.
68. 2.25Rufinus defends Ambrose against Jerome's sneers, points out that Jerome praises his own borrowing from Origen but calls Ambrose's borrowing theft, and notes how Jerome turns on everyone he once praised.
69. 2.26Rufinus says Jerome erased his praise of Melania from his Chronicle when he fell out with her, and notes that he has now cited ten of Jerome's praises of Origen.
70. 2.27Rufinus argues that Jerome's own translations of Origen's homilies omitted or softened passages on the Son, the soul, and the Trinity, which is exactly what Rufinus did.
71. 2.28Rufinus says none of his writings needs retracting, whereas Jerome's commentaries teach what he condemns; translating Origen was not forbidden when Rufinus did it.
72. 2.29Rufinus mocks Jerome's complaint that his translation showed Origen to be a heretic and Rufinus a catholic, asking which of the two Jerome actually wants him to say.
73. 2.30Rufinus rebukes Jerome for doubting that the Apology for Origen is by the martyr Pamphilus, and argues that it defends Origen from Origen's own words whoever wrote it.
74. 2.31Rufinus answers Jerome's question why no saint had translated On First Principles, and turns it against Jerome's own boldness.
75. 2.32Rufinus attacks Jerome's new Latin translation of the Old Testament from the Hebrew as a graver offence than translating Origen, since it alters the Scripture the apostles handed down.
76. 2.33Rufinus protests that Jerome's version drops Susanna and the Song of the Three Young Men and sets one man's work against the Septuagint and the books handed down by Peter at Rome.
77. 2.34Rufinus argues that if the church's Old Testament were false, Paul at least would have corrected it, and pictures the church begging the synagogue for true jewels after four hundred years.
78. 2.35Rufinus says Jerome's changes to Scripture expose the church to pagan ridicule and contradict Jerome's own rule against novelty, citing Susanna, the Song of the Three, and Jonah's gourd.
79. 2.36Rufinus answers Jerome's appeal to Origen's Hexapla: Origen only marked differences between the Jewish versions and the church's text, without translating from the Hebrew or changing the church's Scripture.
80. 2.37Rufinus blames Jerome's Jewish teachers for his attacks and reproaches him for exposing a brother's fault publicly instead of covering it as Noah's sons did.
81. 2.38Rufinus suggests how Jerome should have answered Pammachius, recalling that Pammachius had quietly returned Jerome's controversial books against Jovinian to him for correction.
82. 2.39Rufinus contrasts Jerome's chance to correct his own controversial books against Jovinian with his refusal to let Rufinus correct an unpublished draft, and says Jerome feared exposure of his debt to Origen.
83. 2.40Rufinus compares his free translation to reusing parts of an old house in a new one, and mocks word-for-word translation as carrying over even the privies.
84. 2.41Rufinus begins his summary: his faith, Jerome's errors on the resurrection, the reasons for his translation, and the forged passage.
85. 2.42Rufinus continues his summary: Jerome's own commentaries contain the Origenist views he condemns, he broke his oath against secular books, and he praised Origen in many prefaces.
86. 2.43Rufinus ends his summary with Jerome's attacks on clergy, monks, Ambrose, Didymus, and martyrs, and his alteration of the Scriptures.
87. 2.44Rufinus appeals to readers, and especially to Pammachius, to judge fairly, contrasting Pammachius's discreet handling of Jerome's books with his sending Rufinus's stolen drafts to Jerome.
88. 2.45Rufinus takes up a further objection reported from Rome: that his preface praised Jerome's translations of Origen as free of offence, so his own should have been too.
89. 2.46Rufinus replies that he praised Jerome for the same corrective method he himself used, citing Jerome's softening of Origen's seraphim passage on Isaiah.
90. 2.47Rufinus closes: if a synod condemns books containing Origen's views with their authors, Jerome's commentaries must fall too, and Rufinus will follow the judgment of the catholic church either way.