Apology for Himself Against the Books of Rufinus

37. But what defence can you make in reference to the Apology which you have written for the works of Origen, or rather in reference to the book of Eusebius, though you have altered much, and translated the work of a heretic under the title of a martyr, yet you have set down still more which is incompatible with the faith of the church. You as well as I turn Latin books into Greek; can you prohibit me from giving the works of a foreigner to my own people? If I had made my answer in the case of some other work of yours in which you had not attacked me, it might have been thought that, in translating what you had already translated, I was acting in hostility to you, and wishing to prove you inaccurate or untrustworthy. But this is a new kind of complaint, when you take it amiss that an answer is made you on a point on which you have accused me. All Rome was said to have been upset by your translation; every one was demanding of me a remedy for this; not that I was of any account, but that those who asked this thought me so. You say that you who had made the translation were my friend. But what would you have had me do? Ought we to obey God or man? To guard our master's property or to conceal the theft of a fellow-servant? Can I not be at peace with you unless I join with you in committing acts which bring reproach? If you had not mentioned my name, if you had not tricked me out in your flatteries, I might have had some way of escape, and have made many excuses for not translating what had already been translated. But you, my friend, have compelled me to waste a good many days on this work, and to bring out before the public eye what should have been engulfed in Charybdis; yet still, though I had been injured, I observed the laws of friendship, and as far as possible defended myself without accusing you. It is a too suspicious and complaining temper which you shew when you take home to yourself as a reproach what was spoken against the heretics. If it is impossible to be your friend unless I am the friend of heretics, I shall more easily put up with your enmity than with their friendship.

38. You imagine that I have contrived yet another piece of falsehood, namely, that I have composed a letter to you in my own name, pretending that it was written long ago, in which I make myself appear kindly and courteous; but which you never received. The truth can easily be ascertained. Many persons at Rome have had copies of this letter for the last three years; but they refused to send it to you knowing that you were throwing out insinuations against my reputation, and making up stories of the most shameful kind and unworthy of our Christian profession. I wrote in ignorance of all this, as to a friend; but they would not transmit the letter to an enemy, such as they knew you to be, thus sparing me the effects of my mistakes and you the reproaches of your conscience. You next bring arguments to shew that, if I had written such a letter, I had no right to write another containing many reproaches against you. But here is the error which pervades all that you say, and of which I have a right to complain; whatever I say against the heretics you imagine to be said against you. What! Am I refusing you bread because I give the heretics a stone to crush their brains? But, in order to justify your disbelief in my letter, you are obliged to make out that of pope Anastasius rests upon a similar fraud. On this point I have answered you before. If you really suspect that it is not his writing, you have the means of convicting me of the forgery. But if it is his writing, as his letters of the present year also written against you prove, you will in vain use your false reasonings to prove my letter false, since I can shew from his genuine letter that mine also is genuine.

39. In order to parry the charge of falsehood, it is your humour to become quite exacting. You are not to be called to produce the six thousand books of Origen, of which you speak; but you expect me to be acquainted with all the records of Pythagoras. What truth is there in all the boastful language, which you blurted out from your inflated cheeks, declaring that you had corrected the Peri 'Archon by introducing words which you had read in other books of Origen, and thus had not put in other men's words but restored his own? Out of all this forest of his works you cannot produce a single bush or sucker. You accuse me of raising up smoke and mist. Here you have smoke and mist indeed. You know that I have dissipated and done away with them; but, though your neck is broken, you do not bow it down, but, with an impudence which exceeds even your ignorance, you say that I am denying what is quite evident, so as to excuse yourself, after promising mountains of gold, for not producing even a leatherlike farthing from your treasury. I acknowledge that your animosity against me rests on good grounds, and that your rage and passion is genuine; for, unless I made persistent demands for what does not exist, you would be thought to have what you have not. You ask me for the books of Pythagoras. But who has informed you that any books of his are extant? It is true that in my letter which you criticize these words occur: "Suppose that I erred in youth, and that, having been trained in profane literature, I at the beginning of my Christian course had no sufficient doctrinal knowledge, and that I attributed to the Apostles things which I had read in Pythagoras or Plato or Empedocles;" but I was speaking not of their books but of their tenets, with which I was able to acquaint myself through Cicero, Brutus, and Seneca. Read the short oration for [3202] Vatinius, and others in which mention is made of secret societies. Turn over Cicero's dialogues. Search through the coast of Italy which used to be called Magna Græcia, and you will find there various doctrines of Pythagoras inscribed on brass on their public monuments. Whose are those Golden Rules? They are Pythagoras's; and in these all his principles are contained in a summary form. Iamblicus [3203] wrote a commentary upon them, following in this, at least partly, Moderatus a man of great eloquence, and Archippus and Lysides who were disciples of Pythagoras. Of these, Archippus and Lysides held schools in Greece, that is, in Thebes; they retained so fully the precepts of their teacher, that they made use of their memory instead of books. One of these precepts is: "We must cast away by any contrivance, and cut out by fire and sword and contrivances of all kinds, disease from the body, ignorance from the soul, luxury from the belly, sedition from the state, discord from the family, excess from all things alike." [3204] There are other precepts of Pythagoras, such as these. "Friends have all things in common." "A friend is a second self." "Two moments are specially to be observed, morning and evening: that is, things which we are going to do, and things which we have done." "Next to God we must worship truth, for this alone makes men akin to God." There are also enigmas which Aristotle has collated with much diligence in his works: "Never go beyond the Stater," that is, "Do not transgress the rule of justice;" "Never stir the fire with the sword," that is, "Do not provoke a man when he is angry and excited with hard words." "We must not touch the crown," that is "We must maintain the laws of the state." "Do not eat out your heart," that is, "Cast away sorrow from your mind." "When you have started, do not return," that is, "After death do not regret this life." "Do not walk on the public road," that is, "Do not follow the errors of the multitude." "Never admit a swallow into the family," that is, "Do not admit chatterers and talkative persons under the same roof with you." "Put fresh burdens on the burdened; put none on those who lay them down;" that is, "When men are on the road to virtue, ply them with fresh precepts; when they abandon themselves to idleness, leave them alone." I said I had read the doctrines of the Pythagoreans. Let me tell you that Pythagoras was the first to discover the immortality of the soul and its transmigration from one body to another. To this view Virgil gives his adherence in the sixth book of the Æneid in these words: [3205]

These, when the wheel full thousand years has turned,

God calls, a long sad line, in Lethe's stream

To drown the past, and long once more to see

The skies above, and to the flesh return.

[3202] In the oration against Vatinius mention is made of his boasting himself to be a Pythagorean.

[3203] Neo-Platonist of Alexandria, 4th century.

[3204] This is given by Jerome both in Greek and Latin.

[3205] Virg. Æn. 748-51.

40. Pythagoras taught, accordingly, that he had himself been originally Euphorbus, and then Callides, thirdly Hermotimus, fourthly Pyrrhus, and lastly Pythagoras; and that those things which had existed, after certain revolutions of time, came into being again; so that nothing in the world should be thought of as new. He said that true philosophy was a meditation on death; that its daily struggle was to draw forth the soul from the prison of the body into liberty: that our learning was recollection, and many other things which Plato works out in his dialogues, especially in the Phædo and Timæus. For Plato, after having formed the Academy and gained innumerable disciples, felt that his philosophy was deficient on many points, and therefore went to Magna Græcia, and there learned the doctrines of Pythagoras from Archytas of Tarentum and Timæus of Locris: and this system he embodied in the elegant form and style which he had learned from Socrates. The whole of this, as we can prove, Origen carried over into his book Peri 'Archon, only changing the name. What mistake, then, was I making, when I said that in my youth I had imputed to the Apostles ideas which I had found in Pythagoras, Plato and Empedocles? I did not speak, as you calumniously pretend, of what I had read in the books of Pythagoras, Plato and Empedocles, but of what I had read as having existed in their writings, that is, what other men's writings shewed me to have existed in them. This mode of speaking is quite common. I might say, for instance "The opinions which I read in Socrates I believed to be true," meaning what I read as his opinions in Plato and others of the Socratic school, though Socrates himself wrote no books. So I might say, I wished to imitate the deeds which I had read of in Alexander and Scipio, [3206] not meaning that they described their own deeds, but that I had read in other men's works of the deeds which I admired as done by them. Therefore, though I may not be able to inform you of any records of Pythagoras himself as being extant, and proved by the attestation of his son or daughter or others of his disciples, yet you cannot hold me guilty of falsehood, because I said not that I had read his books, but his doctrines. You are quite mistaken if you thought to make this a screen for your falsehood, and to maintain that because I cannot produce any book written by Pythagoras, you have a right to assert that six thousand books of Origen have been lost.

[3206] Gesta quæ in Alexandro et Scipione legeram. The Latin construction will bear Jerome's meaning, but cannot be exactly or elegantly rendered in English.

41. I come now to your Epilogue, (that is to the revilings which you pour upon me,) in which you exhort me to repentance, and threaten me with destruction unless I am converted, that is, unless I keep silence under your accusations. And this scandal, you say, will recoil upon my own head, because it is I who by replying have provoked you to the madness of writing when you are a man of extreme gentleness and of a meekness worthy of Moses. You declare that you are aware of crimes which I confessed to you alone when you were my most intimate friend, and that you will bring these before the public; that I shall be painted in my own colours; and that I ought to remember that I am lying at your feet, otherwise you might cut off my head with the sword of your mouth. And, after many such things, in which you toss yourself about like a madman, you draw yourself up and say that you wish for peace, but still with the intimation that I am to keep quiet for the future, that is that I am not to write against the heretics, nor to answer any accusation made by you; if I do this, I shall be your good brother and colleague, and a most eloquent person, and your friend and companion; and, what is still more, you will pronounce all the translations I have made from Origen to be orthodox. But, if I utter a word or move a step, I shall at once be unsound and a heretic, and unworthy of all connexion with you. This is the way you trumpet forth my praises, this is the way you exhort me to peace. You do not grant me liberty for a groan or a tear in my grief.

42. It would be possible for me also to paint you in your own colours, and to meet your insanity with a similar rage; to say what I know and add what I do not know; and with a license like yours, or rather fury and madness, to keep up things false and true alike, till I was ashamed to speak and you to hear: and to upbraid you in such a way as would condemn either the accused or the accuser; to force myself on the reader by mere effrontery, make him believe that what I wrote unscrupulously I wrote truly. But far be it from the practice of Christians while offering up their lives to seek the life of others, and to become homicides not with the sword but the will. This may agree with your gentleness and innocence; for you can draw forth from the dung heap within your breast alike the odour of roses and the stench of corpses; and, contrary to the precept of the Prophet, call that bitter which once you had praised as sweet. But it is not necessary for us, in treating of Christian topics, to throw out accusations which ought to be brought before the law courts. You shall hear nothing more from me than the vulgar saying: "When you have said what you like, you shall bear what you do not like." Or if the coarse proverb seems to you too vulgar, and, being a man of culture, you prefer the words of philosophers or poets, take from me the words of Homer. [3207]

"What words thou speakest, thou the like shalt hear."

One thing I should like to learn from one of such eminent sanctity and fastidiousness, (whose holiness is such that in the presence of your very handkerchiefs and aprons the devils cry out); whom do you take for your model in your writings? Has any one of the catholic writers, in a controversy of opinions, imputed moral offences to the man with whom he is arguing? Have your masters taught you to do this? Is this the system in which you have been trained, that, when you cannot answer a man, you should take off his head? that when you cannot silence a man's tongue, you should cut it out? You have nothing much to boast of, for you are doing only what the scorpions and cantharides do. This is what Fulvia [3208] did to Cicero and Herodias to John. They could not bear to hear the truth, and therefore they pierced the tongue that spoke truth with the pin that parted their hair. The duty of dogs is to bark in their masters' service; why may I not bark in the service of Christ? Many have written against Marcion or Valentinus, Arius or Eunomius. By which of them was any accusation brought of immoral conduct? Did they not in each case bring their whole effort to bear upon the refutation of the heresy? It is the machination of the heretics, that is of your masters, when convicted of betrayal of the faith, to betake themselves to evil speaking. So Eustathius [3209] the Bishop of Antioch was made into a father unawares. So Athanasius Bishop of Alexandria cut off a third hand of Arsenius; for, when he appeared [3210] alive after having been supposed to be dead, he was found to have two. Such things also now are falsely charged against the Bishop of the same church, and the true faith is assailed by gold, which constitutes the power of yourself and your friends. But I need not speak of controversy with heretics, who, though they are really without, yet call themselves Christians. How many of our writers have contended with those most impious men, Celsus and Porphyry! but which of them has left the cause he was engaged in to busy himself with the imputation of crime to his adversary, such as ought to be set down not in church-writings but in the calendar of the judge? For what advantage have you gained if you establish a man's criminality but fail in your argument? It is quite unnecessary that in bringing an accusation you should risk your own head. If your object is revenge, you can hire an executioner, and satisfy your desire. You pretend to dread a scandal, and yet you are ready to kill a man who was once your brother, whom you now accuse, and whom you always treat as an enemy. Yet I wonder how a man like you, who knows what he is about, should be so blinded by madness as to wish to confer a benefit upon me by drawing forth my soul out of prison, [3211] and should not suffer it to remain with you in the darkness of this world.

[3207] Iliad. xx. 250.

[3208] Anthony's wife who had Cicero's head brought to her, and bored through the tongue with a golden bodkin.

[3209] Eustathius was deposed at the instigation of Eusebius the Arian bishop of Nicomedia, who brought charges both of Sabellianism and of immorality against him. Socrates, Eccl. Hist. i. 24.

[3210] At the Synod at Tyre in 335. See Socrates Eccl. Hist. i. 29.

[3211] This expression was used by the Origenists of death. This life was a prison house into which souls had fallen; Jerome imputes this opinion to Rufinus, and Rufinus to him. See Ruf, Apol. i. 26.

43. If you wish me to keep silence, cease from accusing me. Lay down your sword, and I will throw away my shield. To one thing only I cannot consent; that is, to spare the heretics, and not to vindicate my orthodoxy. If that is the cause of discord between us, I can submit to death, but not to silence. It would have been right to go through the whole of the Scriptures for answers to your ravings, and, like David playing on his harp, to take the divine words to calm your raging breast. But I will content myself with a few statements from a single book; I will oppose Wisdom to folly; for I hope if you despise the words of men you will not think lightly of the word of God. Listen, then, to that which Solomon the wise says about you and all who are addicted to evil speaking and contumely:

"Foolish men, while they desire injuries, become impious and hate wisdom. [3212] Devise not evil against thy friend. Be not angry with a man without a cause. The impious exalt contumely. [3213] Remove from thee the evil mouth, keep far from thee the wicked lips, the eyes of him that speaketh evil, the tongue of the unjust, the hands which shed the blood of the just, [3214] the heart that deviseth evil thoughts, and the feet which hasten to do evil. He that resteth upon falsehood feedeth the winds, and followeth the flying birds. For he hath left the ways of his own vineyard, and hath made the wheels of his tillage to err. He walketh through the dry and desert places, and with his hands he gathereth barrenness. [3215] The mouth of the froward is near to destruction, and [3216] he who uttereth evil words is the chief of fools. Every simple man is a soul that is blessed; but a violent man is dishonourable. [3217] By the fault of his lips the sinner falleth into a snare. [3218] All the ways of a fool are right in his own eyes. [3219] The fool showeth his anger on that very day. [3220] Lying lips are an abomination to the Lord. [3221] He that keepeth his lips guardeth his own soul; but he that is rash with his lips shall be a terror to himself. [3222] The evil man in his violence doeth evil things, and the fool spreadeth out his folly. [3223] Seek for wisdom among the evil and thou shalt not find it. [3224] The rash man shall eat of the fruit of his own ways. [3225] The wise man by taking heed avoideth the evil; but the fool is confident, and joins himself to it. [3226] A long-suffering man is strong in his wisdom; the man of little mind is very unwise. [3227] He who oppresseth the poor reproacheth his Maker. [3228] The tongue of the wise knoweth good things, but the mouth of fools speaketh evil. [3229] A quarrelsome man preferreth strife, and every one that lifteth up his heart is unclean before God. [3230] Though hand join with hand unjustly, they shall not be unpunished. [3231] He that loveth life must be sparing to his mouth. [3232] Insolence goeth before bruising, and evil thoughts before a fall. [3233] He who closeth his eyes speaketh perverse things, and provoketh all evil with his lips. [3234] The lips of a fool lead him into evil, and the foolhardy speech calleth down death. The man of evil counsel shall suffer much loss. [3235] Better is a poor man who is just than a rich man that speaketh lies. [3236] It is a glory to a man to turn away from evil words; but he that is foolish bindeth himself therewith. [3237] Love not detraction, lest thou be rooted out. [3238] The bread of lying is sweet to a man, but afterwards his mouth shall be filled with gravel. [3239] He that gaineth treasures with a lying tongue followeth vanity, and shall come into the snares of death. [3240] Say thou nought in the ear of a fool, lest haply the wise mock at thy words. [3241] The bludgeon and the sword and the arrow are hurtful things; [3242] so is the man who beareth false witness against his friend. [3243] As the birds and the sparrows fly away, so the curse shall be vain and shall not overtake him. [3244] Answer not an unwise man according to his lack of wisdom, lest thou become like unto him; but answer a fool according to his folly, lest he appear to himself to be wise. [3245] He who layeth wait for his friends when he is discovered saith, I did it in sport. [3246] A faggot for the coals, and wood for the fire, and a man of evil words for the tumult of strife. [3247] If thine enemy ask thee aught, sparingly but with a loud voice, [3248] consent thou not to him, for there are seven degrees of wickedness in his heart. [3249] The stone is heavy, and the sand hard to be borne; but the anger of a fool is heavier than either; indignation is cruel, anger is sharp, and envy is impatient. [3250] The impious man speaketh against the poor; and he that trusteth in the audacity of his heart is most foolish. [3251] The unwise man putteth forth all his anger, but the wise dealeth it out in parts. [3252] An evil son--his teeth are swords, and his grinders are as harrows, to consume the weak from off the earth, and the poor from among men."

Such are the lessons in which I have been trained and therefore I was unwilling to return bite for bite, and to attack you by way of retaliation; and I thought it better to exorcise the madness of one who was raving, and to pour in the antidote of a single book into his poisoned breast. But I fear I shall have no success, and that I shall be compelled to sing the song of David, and to take his words for my only consolation: [3253]

"The wicked are estranged from the womb, they go astray even from the belly. They have spoken lies. Their madness is like the madness of the serpent; like the deaf adder which stoppeth her ears, which will not hear the voice of the charmers, and of the magician wisely enchanting. God shall break their teeth in their mouth; the Lord shall break the great teeth of the lions. They shall come to nothing, like water that runneth away. He bendeth his bow until they be brought low. Like wax that melteth, they shall be carried away; the fire hath fallen upon them and they have not seen the sun."

And again: [3254]

"The righteous shall rejoice when he seeth the vengeance upon the impious; he shall wash his hands in the blood of the sinner. And man shall say, Verily, there is a reward for the righteous; verily, there is a God that judgeth those that are on the earth."

[3212] Prov. iii. 29, 30. These quotations are from the LXX. version.

[3213] iv. 24

[3214] vi. 18

[3215] x. 14

[3216] x. 18

[3217] xii. 13

[3218] xii. 15

[3219] xii. 16

[3220] xii. 22

[3221] xiii. 3

[3222] xiii. 16

[3223] xiv. 6

[3224] xiv. 14

[3225] xiv. 16

[3226] xiv. 29

[3227] xiv. 31

[3228] xv. 12

[3229] xv. 18

[3230] vi. 5

[3231] vi. 17

[3232] vi. 18

[3233] vi. 30

[3234] xviii. 6, 7

[3235] xix. 1

[3236] xx. 3

[3237] xx. 13

[3238] Prov. xx. 17

[3239] xxi. 6

[3240] xxiii. 9

[3241] xxv. 18

[3242] xxv. 18

[3243] xxvi. 2

[3244] xxvi. 4, 5

[3245] xxvi. 19

[3246] xxvii. 21

[3247] xxvii. 14

[3248] xxvi. 24, 25

[3249] xxvii. 3, 4

[3250] xxviii. 25, 26

[3251] xxix. 11

[3252] xxx. 14

[3253] Ps. lviii. 3-8

[3254] Ps. lviii. 10, 11

44. In the end of your letter you say: "I hope that you love peace." To this I will answer in a few words: If you desire peace, lay down your arms. I can be at peace with one who shews kindness; I do not fear one who threatens me. Let us be at one in faith, and peace will follow immediately.