26. There is also an astonishing action of his in relation to Melania, which I must not pass by in silence because of the shame which those who hear it may feel. She was the granddaughter of the Consul Marcellinus; and in these very Chronicles²⁹⁸¹

2981 Chronicle. a.d. 377.

he had narrated how she was the first lady of the Roman nobility to visit Jerusalem; how she had left her son, then a little child, behind her at Rome, and how the name of Thecla was given her on account of her signal merit and virtue. But afterwards, when he found that some of his deeds were disapproved by this lady through the stricter discipline of her life, he erased her name from all the copies of his work.

It has been necessary for me to bring together the large number of passages which I have adduced from his works, so as to put to the test the truth of his statement,²⁹⁸²

2982 Letter lxxxiv. 2.

that it is only in two short prefaces that he has made mention of Origen with praise, and that not because of his faith but his talent; that he has praised in him the commentator not the doctrinal teacher. I have actually brought forward ten.

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