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| There is nothing to blame in my getting the help of a Jew in translating from the Hebrew. PREVIOUS SECTION - NEXT SECTION - HELP
13. I am told, further, that
you touch with some critical sharpness upon some points of my letter,
and, with the well-known wrinkles rising on your forehead and your
eyebrows knitted, make sport of me with a wit worthy of Plautus, for
having said that I had a Jew named Barabbas for my teacher. I do not
wonder at your writing Barabbas for Baranina, the letters of the names
being somewhat similar, when you allow yourself such a license in
changing the names themselves, as to turn Eusebius into Pamphilus, and
a heretic into a martyr. One must be cautious of such a man as you, and
give you a wide berth; otherwise I may find my own name turned in a
trice, and without my knowing it, from Jerome to Sardanapalus. Listen,
then, O pillar of wisdom, and type of Catonian severity. I never spoke
of him as my master; I merely wished to illustrate my method of
studying the Holy Scriptures by saying that I had read Origen just in
the same way as I had taken lessons from this Jew. Did I do you an
injury because I attended the lectures of Apollinarius and Didymus
rather than yours? Was there anything to prevent my naming in my letter
that most eloquent man Gregory?3025
3025 Nazianzen, to whose instructions Jerome attached himself at
Constantinople in 381. | Which of all
the Latins is his equal? I may well glory and exult in him. But I only
mentioned those who were subject to censure, so as to show that I only
read Origen as I had listened to them, that is, not on account of his
soundness in the faith but on account of the excellence of his
learning. Origen himself, and Clement and Eusebius, and many others, when they
are discussing scriptural points, and wish to have Jewish authority for
what they say, write: “A Hebrew stated this to me,” or
“I heard from a Hebrew,” or, “That is the opinion of
the Hebrews.” Origen certainly speaks of the Patriarch Huillus
who was his contemporary, and in the conclusion of his thirtieth Tome
on Isaiah (that in the end of which he explains the words3026 “Woe to Ariel which David took by
storm”) uses his exposition of the words, and confesses that he
had adopted through his teaching a truer opinion than that which he had
previously held. He also takes as written by Moses not only the
eighty-ninth Psalm3027 which is
entitled “A prayer of Moses the Man of God,” but also the
eleven following Psalms which have no title according to
Huillus’s opinion; and he makes no scruple of inserting in his
commentaries on the Hebrew Scriptures the views of the Hebrew
teachers.E.C.F. INDEX & SEARCH
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