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| Eusebius should not have accused you; but your charges against him will not stand.
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5. Let us understand what was
the wrong done by my friend3165
| 3165 Necessarius. This no doubt applies to Eusebius of Cremona or to
Paulinian, Jerome’s brother, (Jer. Ap. 1, 21, 28.) See Ruf. Ap.
i, 19, where a similar charge is made. | who, you say
‘falsified parts of your papers when they had not yet been
corrected nor carried to completion, and it was the more possible to
falsify them because very few if any as yet possessed them.’3166
| 3166 Quoted from Rufinus’ letter to Jerome, now lost. | I have already said, and I now repeat,
with protestations in the presence of God, that I did not approve his
accusing you, nor of any Christian accusing another Christian; for what
need is there that matters which can be corrected or set right in
private should be published abroad to the stumbling and fall of many?
But since each man lives for his own gullet, and a man does not by
becoming your friend become master of your will, while I blame the
accusing of a brother even when it is true, so also I cannot accept
against a man of saintly character this accusation of falsifying your
papers. How could a man who only knows Latin change anything in a
translation from the Greek? Or how could he take out or put in anything
in such books as the Περὶ
᾽Αρχῶν, in
which everything is so closely knit together that one part hangs upon
another, and anything that may be taken out or put in to suit your will
must at once show out like a patch on a garment? What you ask me to do,
it is for you to do yourself. Put on at least a small measure of
natural if not of Christian modesty in your assertions; do not despise
and trample upon your conscience, and imagine yourself justified by a
show of words, when the facts are against you. If Eusebius bought your
uncorrected papers for money in order to falsify them, produce the
genuine papers which have not been falsified: and if you can shew that
there is nothing heretical in them, he will become amenable to the
charge of forgery. But, however much you may alter or correct them, you
will not make them out to be catholic. If the error existed only in the
words or in some few statements, what is bad might be cut off and what
is good be substituted for it. But, when the whole discussion3167
| 3167 That is in Origen’s Περὶ
᾽Αρχῶν | proceeds on a single principle, namely,
the notion that the whole universe of reasonable creatures have fallen
by their own will, and will hereafter return to a condition of unity:
and that again from that starting point another fall will begin: what
is there that you can amend, unless you alter the whole book? But if
you were to think of doing this, you would no longer be translating
another man’s work but composing a work of your own.
However, I hardly see which way
your argument tends. I suppose you mean that the papers being
uncorrected and not having undergone a final revising were more easily
falsified by Eusebius. Perhaps I am stupid; but the argument appears to
me somewhat foolish and pointless. If the papers were uncorrected and
had not undergone their final revision, the errors in them must be
imputed not to Eusebius but to your sloth and delay in putting off
their correction; and all the blame that can be laid upon him is that
he circulated among the body of Christians writings which you had
intended in course of time to correct. But if, as you assert, Eusebius
falsified them, why do you put forward the allegation that they were
uncorrected, and that they had gone out before the public without their
final revision? For papers whether corrected or uncorrected are equally
susceptible of falsification. But, No one, you say possessed these
books, or very few. What contradictions this single sentence exhibits!
If no one had these books, how could they be in the hands of a few? If
a few possessed them, why do you state falsely that there were none?
Then, when you say that a few had them, and by your own confession the
statement that no one had them is overthrown, what becomes of your
complaint that your secretary was bribed with money? Tell us the
secretary’s name, the amount of the bribe, the place, the
intermediary, the recipient. Of course the traitor has been cast off
from you,
and one convicted of so great a crime has been separated from all
familiarity with you. Is it not more likely to be true that the copies
of the work which Eusebius obtained were given him by those few friends
whom you speak of, especially since these copies agree and coincide
with one another so completely that there is not the difference of a
single stroke. We might ask also whether it was quite wise to give a
copy to others which you had not yet corrected? The documents had not
received their last corrections, and yet other men possessed these
errors of yours which needed correction. Do you not see that your
falsehood will not hold together? Besides, what profit was there for
you, at that particular moment—how would it have helped you in
escaping from the condemnation of the bishops—that the book which
was the subject of discussion should be open to everyone, and that you
should thus be refuted by your own words? From all this it is clear,
according to the epigram of the famous orator, that you have a good
will for a lie, but not the art of framing it. E.C.F. INDEX & SEARCH
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