Apology against Jerome 1.1–1.15

I have read through the writings, my dearest son Apronianus, which a friend (Jerome) and good brother sent from the East to that most noble man Pammachius, and which you forwarded to me; and I remembered the prophet's word, which says: "The sons of men, their teeth are weapons and arrows, and their tongue a sharp sword." Against these wounds which the tongue inflicts among men there is scarcely any physician. And so I betook myself to Jesus, the heavenly physician, who gave me a most potent antidote, brought out from the medicine chest of his Gospel, to soothe the force of the pain with the hope of the just judgment to come before him. The draught which Jesus mixed consisted of these words: "Blessed are you," he says, "when they persecute you and say every evil against you falsely. Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven. For so they persecuted the prophets who were before you." And I, for my part, content with this medicine, had resolved to keep silence about the rest, saying to myself: "If they called the master of the house Beelzebub, how much more" (unworthy though we are) "those of his household?" And if it was said of him, "He is a deceiver and leads the crowds astray," why should I be indignant if I hear myself called a heretic, and for the slowness, or rather blindness, of my mind, called a mole? And since my Lord, or rather Christ the God of all, was called "a gluttonous man and a wine-drinker, a friend of tax collectors and sinners," why should I be indignant if I hear myself called a carnal man who lives in luxury?

But since a certain just necessity seems to be laid on me to answer, at least in part, because it is said that many are offended by what he has written unless the true state of the case is laid open, I am compelled against my wish and my resolve to reply, lest by keeping silent I seem to admit the charge. For though it is glorious for a Christian, after the Lord's example, to repel other charges by silence, yet in a matter of faith this, if done, produces the greatest scandal. Since, then, at the beginning of this invective of his he promises to leave persons aside and to answer only to matters and charges, both statements are false: for to what charge does he reply, which nobody alleges? And how does he leave persons aside, when through the whole text of his invective he ceaselessly accuses and tears at the translator of the books? We, laying aside all irony and the shuffling of pretence, which is abhorrent to God, will reply, though in unpolished words and artless speech, presuming, not without reason, that our readers will grant pardon to our lack of skill, since we are not accusing others but striving to clear ourselves of slanders. And therefore we take care that in us it is not the speech that shines so much as the truth.

But before I begin to clear myself, I confess that he has spoken truly above all in this, that he says he does not return reviling for reviling. That is true enough: for he returns insults and reviling not for reviling but for blessings and praises. Nor, as he says, does he turn the other cheek to one who strikes the right; rather, to one who strokes and soothes his cheek he drives home the bite of an unexpected tooth. For when we praised in him both eloquence and learning (only, indeed, in translating from the Greek), and never disparaged his faith, he condemns both in us. And therefore let him grant us pardon too, if perhaps we say something either rather harsh or rather unpolished: for he has provoked an unskilled man to reply, whom he knew to be unable, by great art of speaking and abundance of eloquence, to make the man he wished to wound and injure appear neither wounded nor injured. Let that kind of eloquence be looked for from him who, stirred by a light rumour, runs up like some censor to blame and to abuse. But he who wishes to rid himself of the stains laid upon him, having the necessity of reply imposed on him, has thought not how elegantly and ornately, but how truly, he may answer.

And since at the very beginning he says, "As if there could be no heretics without me," we must first show that we are heretics neither with him nor without him, so that once it is clear what we are, no ill repute may be turned back on us even from the sayings of others. I, as he himself and all know, about thirty years ago, being already in a monastery, was regenerated by the grace of baptism and received the seal of the faith through the holy men Chromatius, Jovinus and Eusebius, bishops of the highest repute and most approved in the church of God; of whom one was then a presbyter of Valerian of blessed memory, another archdeacon, the third deacon and at the same time my father and teacher in the Creed and the faith. They, then, handed it down to me thus, and thus I hold it: that the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit are of one Godhead, of one substance; a Trinity coeternal, inseparable, incorporeal, invisible, incomprehensible, and perfectly known, as it is, to itself alone; for "no one knows the Son except the Father, nor does anyone know the Father except the Son." And it is the Holy Spirit who "searches even the deep things of God." And therefore it is free of all bodily visibility; but by that intellectual eye of the Godhead the Son and the Holy Spirit see the Father just as the Father sees the Son and the Holy Spirit; nor is there any difference at all in the Trinity, except that the one is the Father, the other the Son, and the other the Holy Spirit: a Trinity in the distinction of persons, a unity in the reality of substance. And that the only-begotten Son of God, through whom from the beginning all things that are were made, whether visible or invisible, in the last days took flesh and a human soul, was made man, and suffered for our salvation; and on the third day, that very flesh which had been laid in the tomb being raised, he rose from the dead; and with that same flesh glorified he ascended to heaven, whence he is also awaited to come to judge the living and the dead. And in like manner he gave us also the hope of resurrection, so that we believe that we too shall rise in the same order, the same sequence, and the same form in which the Lord himself rose from the dead: not receiving clouds or thin air, as they slanderously say, but these very bodies of ours in which we now live and die. For how will it be true that we believe in the resurrection of the flesh unless the nature of the flesh is truly and wholly preserved in it? Without any trickery, then, we confess the resurrection of this true and entire flesh of ours, in which we now are.

But to make the matter more credible I add something further and, forced by the need created by slanderers, I disclose a special and distinctive mystery of our church. For whereas all the churches hand on the sacrament of the Creed in such a way that, after saying "the forgiveness of sins," they add "the resurrection of the flesh," the holy church of Aquileia, as though the Spirit of God foresaw the slanders that would come against us, where it hands on the resurrection of the flesh adds a pronoun of one syllable: and where the others say "the resurrection of the flesh," we say "the resurrection of this flesh." So, touching our forehead, as the custom is, with the sign at the end of the Creed, and with the mouth of this flesh, namely the flesh we touch, confessing its resurrection, we block every approach by which a poisoned tongue might slander us. Is anything fuller than this confession? Is anything more complete than this exposition? But, as I see, all this great precaution of the Holy Spirit has profited us nothing. Evil-speaking tongues still find room for slander. "Unless you name each limb," he says, "and specify more expressly the head with its hair, hands, feet, belly, and what lies below the belly, you have denied the resurrection of the flesh."

These are the inventions of this new sage, which escaped the blessed apostles when they handed down the faith to the church, and were revealed to none of the saints but to him alone, through the spirit of the flesh. And now he puts it indecently; but let him hear it put both more decently and more truly than he puts it. Christ is the firstfruits of those who sleep, who is also called the firstborn from the dead; as the Apostle also says of those who rise: "Christ is the beginning, then those who are Christ's." Having, then, in Christ the undoubted firstfruits of our resurrection, why do we doubt about the rest, when it is certain that with such limbs, such hair, such flesh and such bones as Christ rose, we too shall all rise? For this was why he offered himself after the resurrection to be touched by the disciples, so that no hesitation about his resurrection might remain. Since, then, Christ has given us so clear and, if I may say so, palpable an example of his resurrection, one to be handled by the hand, is anyone so mad as to think that he will rise otherwise than he rose who first opened the way to resurrection? This too confirms the truth of this confession: that the nature of the flesh which will rise is this very one and no other, yet it will rise cleansed of its faults, corruption laid aside, so that what the Apostle says may be true: "It is sown in corruption, it will rise in incorruption; it is sown in dishonour, it will rise in glory; it is sown a natural body, it will rise a spiritual body." As a spiritual, glorious, and incorruptible body, then, it will be adorned and made illustrious with its own members, not with members taken from elsewhere, according to that glory which the example of Christ set before us preserves; as the Apostle also says: "who will transform the body of our humiliation, conformed to the body of the glory of his Son."

Since, then, Christ is set before us in all respects as the pattern of our hope of resurrection, and he is himself the firstborn of those who rise, and is himself the head of all creation, as it is written, "who is the head of all, the firstborn from the dead, that in all things he may hold the first place," why do we stir up empty battles of words and contests of evil suspicions, when the church's faith stands in the confession I have set out above, and it is clear that what moves anyone to accuse is not a difference of faith but a perversity of mind? But since in this place, when he was arguing about the resurrection of the flesh, he mixed, as is his habit, jests and trifles with serious matters, saying: "Certain women of ours, holding their breasts, or fondling their smooth cheeks, and slapping thigh and belly, are accustomed to say, 'What use is the resurrection to us, if the body rises frail again? We shall be like the angels, and we shall have the nature of angels,'" let him see to it what little women he is accusing here, and whether they deserve to be torn. Or if he thinks that one who preaches does not do his part unless he bites back in retaliation, and now bites even without retaliation; or at any rate, if he bears it calmly that his own little women should be bitten in return with true and not invented charges, let him, I say, see to that himself. We meanwhile fulfil what he promised: we do not retaliate. But, as I see, if this man is displeased with a woman who denies that she will have a frail body in the resurrection, he is no doubt pleased that the body's frailty will remain. And where is what the Apostle says: "It is sown in weakness, it will rise in power; it is sown a natural body, it will rise a spiritual body"? What frailty do you want there to be in a spiritual body? And that which will rise in power, how will it be frail again? How will what is frail be in power? Do not the little women speak better than you, when they deny that frailty will any longer rule the body? Why do you mock those who follow the Apostle when he says: "This corruptible will put on incorruption, and this mortal will put on immortality"? The apostles did not teach that the body that rises from the dead will be frail; on the contrary, they say it will rise in power and in glory. Where do you now bring this from? Unless perhaps some Jews are now promulgating a new law to the church, so that we should learn these things too. For it is indeed the opinion of the Jews about the resurrection that they will rise, but in order to enjoy carnal delights and luxuries and the other pleasures of the body. And what else is the frailty of the body than the corruption of its members, the provocation of the appetite, and the incitements of lust?

But bear with me, I pray you, if you love Christ: that the body which rises from the dead may be in incorruption without these things; let it be permitted that these things should at some time cease. Let us believe that in the resurrection even lawful intercourse ceases, so that the unlawful may not creep in, so long as these are not forgotten. Why is the belly, and what lies below the belly, discussed and handled so anxiously, so curiously? And you call us carnal and lovers of luxury, when, as I see, you do not believe that these things are to cease even in the resurrection. For neither do we deny that the nature of this flesh in which we now live will rise, nor again do we wrap up the faults of the flesh along with it. But the flesh will rise, and not another in place of another, but this very flesh; nor will it lose its nature, but will lay aside its frailty and faults. Otherwise what has remained frail will not be immortal either. And therefore we are heretics neither with you nor without you. For the faith of the church, whose nurslings we are, walking in the middle between the two dangers, neither denies the reality of the nature of the flesh or body that will rise from the dead, nor, contrary to the Apostle's judgment, says that the incorruption of the future kingdom will be possessed by corruption. We do not say, then, that the flesh or body will rise with its members lost or, as you say, cut off, but that the whole and entire body will rise, laying aside only corruption, dishonour and frailty, and with all the faults of mortality likewise cut away, so that nothing at all of its own nature will be lacking to that spiritual body that rises from the dead, except that corruption.

I have answered this one heading, on the resurrection, at greater length than I had intended, fearing that through brevity we might again be exposed to slanders. And so we have made frequent mention not only of the body, about which they slander us, but also of the flesh; and not only of the flesh, but we added "this flesh"; and not only "this flesh," but we spoke of "the nature of this flesh"; nor were we content with that, but we said that not even the completeness of the members will be lacking to those who rise. Yet in such a way that, according to the Apostle's definition, the body that rises is believed to be incorruptible from corruptible, glorious from ignoble, immortal from frail, spiritual from natural, so that we may think the members of the spiritual body to be free of any suspicion of corruption or frailty. I have set out my faith on the Trinity; I have set it out on the incarnation, passion and resurrection, on the second coming in glory, and on the future judgment of our Lord and Saviour. I have set it out also on the resurrection of our flesh, and I have left nothing ambiguous, I think. What remains now? Nothing, I think, as far as faith is concerned.

"But I find fault with you in this," he says, "that you translated Origen, who says that there will be a restoration of all things, in which, he says, not only are all sinners to be absolved, but even the devil himself and his angels are at some time to be released from punishment, so that the restoration of all things may be understood consistently. And he says that souls were created before bodies, and brought down from heaven and put into bodies." I am now doing nothing on behalf of Origen, nor am I writing an apology for him. Whether he stands before God or has fallen, that is his affair: "to his own Lord he stands or falls." But I am forced to mention him in some matters, because while our rhetorician argues against him, he attacks me not obliquely but openly with drawn sword, and rushes against me with all his weight. And why do I say he attacks me? Rather, to rage against me he does not even spare his own teacher, since he thinks that from those books of his which I translated he can turn some slander back on me. For among the other things he blames in us he has spitefully added this too, saying that I chose to translate this work, which neither he himself nor any other of the older translators had chosen. First, then, I will set out, in as few and as true words as I can, the reason why I undertook this work in particular, since it is here that I am most bitten. Although with you, my dearest son (Apronianus), who know well how the matter happened, it may seem superfluous, yet it is right that those who do not know should learn; and also because not only he but his whole school boasts this about us, that though we promised in our prefaces to translate in one way, we did otherwise in the work; therefore we will answer not only them but also others whose minds are disturbed either by their own envy or by another's accusation.

Macarius, a man distinguished in faith, learning, nobility and life, had in hand some works against Fate, or astrology, and was composing them with useful and very necessary labour; but in some places, because the subject was very difficult, he was at a loss in discussing the dispensations of divine providence. He used to say that in his sleep something like this was shown him by the Lord: a ship was shown him coming from afar across the sea, which, when it had entered the harbour, would untie the knots of his perplexity. Rising up, and anxiously pondering the vision, he said that we had arrived just in time; and to us he at once disclosed his works, his difficulty, and the vision. He asks what Origen, whom he had heard to be most highly esteemed among the Greeks, thought about such things, and begs that his views on each point be briefly set out for him. I said first that the thing was hard to do; yet I said that the holy martyr Pamphilus had written something of this kind, in part, in his Apology. At once he asks me to translate it into Latin. I said that I had had no practice in work of this kind and had grown sluggish in the Latin tongue through almost thirty years' neglect. Yet he persisted, begging that, in whatever language, just the knowledge of the things he desired might be shown him. And when I had done this in such language as I could, he was fired with greater desire to know more fully those very writings from which the few things I had translated seemed to have been taken. When I excused myself, he began to press me more vehemently, and to adjure me before God not to refuse him the helps that could assist him toward a good work. And since he pressed vehemently, and I saw that his desire was according to God, I at length gave in and did translate.

Yet in the short prefaces of both works, and above all in the one to Pamphilus's book, which I had translated first, I set out first of all my faith, and protested that I believe as the catholic faith is; and that if anything were read or translated by me, I did it without prejudice to my faith. In these books On First Principles I also gave this notice: that since in those books some things about the faith were found written as catholically as the church preaches, while others were contrary to these, though spoken about one and the same subject, it seemed to me that these things should always be rendered according to that rule which he himself had brought forward in setting out the catholic view; and that whatever was found contrary to himself, or inserted by others (for the complaint of his letter bears witness to this), I should either reject or at any rate pass over as having nothing that builds up the faith. I think it will not seem superfluous to insert the very passages from my short prefaces, so that nothing we say may lack a witness. And so that there may be no mistake in reading the things we now insert from elsewhere into this writing: if they are mine, they have single marks against the headings; if my accuser's, double marks.

From the short preface to Pamphilus's Apology, after some other matter, we spoke thus: Let the tenor of this book teach how Origen thinks. "As to the things found in him which contradict each other, we will show the cause in a brief statement added at the end. But we hold, as it has been handed down to us by the holy prophets, that the holy Trinity is coeternal, and of one power and substance; and that the Son of God in the last time was made man and suffered for our sins, and rose from the dead in that very flesh in which he suffered, and for that reason also gave the hope of resurrection to the human race. And we speak of the resurrection of the flesh not by some sleight of words, as some slander us, but we believe that this very flesh in which we now live will rise, not another in place of another, nor do we speak of a body other than that of this flesh. Whether, then, we say that the body will rise, we speak according to the Apostle, for he used this word; or whether we say flesh, we confess according to the tradition of the Creed. For it is a foolish invention of slander to think that the human body is something other than flesh. Whether, then, we say flesh according to the common faith, or body according to the Apostle, that which will rise must be believed to rise as the Apostle defined: that what rises will rise in power and in glory, an incorruptible and spiritual body. Saving, then, the prerogatives of the future body or flesh, the resurrection of the flesh is to be believed whole and complete, so that both the same nature of the flesh is preserved and the state and glory of an incorruptible and spiritual body is not impaired. For so it is written: 'Corruption will not possess incorruption.' These are the things that are preached in Jerusalem in the church of God by its holy bishop John; these we say and hold with him. If anyone believes or teaches otherwise than this, or thinks that we believe otherwise than we have set out, let him be anathema." If anyone wishes to have a proof of our faith, let him have it from these words. And if we read, or assert, or translate anything, we do so without prejudice to this faith of ours, according to the Apostle: "Testing all things, holding fast what is good, abstaining from every form of evil." And as many as follow this rule, peace be upon them, and upon the Israel of God.

Since, then, I made this declaration of my faith before any of the slanderers arose, so that no one might perhaps say that I was now saying, warned or forced by them, what I had not held before; and since I promised that if the necessity of translating demanded anything, I would do it with the state of my faith intact, how is room still given to slanderers, when the very first word of my confession makes me safe and fortified against all suspicion of a contrary doctrine? For besides, as I said above, I have learned from the Lord's word that each one will be justified or condemned by his own words, not by another's. But let it be proved equally from my own words, in the short preface I prefixed to the books On First Principles themselves, how I said the faithfulness of our translation was to be observed. For it is fair to insert from it too what bears on the matter. For when, for honour's sake, we had mentioned this man who now brings the charge, because before us he had himself first translated a great many works of Origen, and had praised either his eloquence in exposition or his care in translating, and said that we should follow him in a similar work, after some other matter we added this too: "Him, then, we too follow, as far as we can, if not in force of eloquence, yet in the rules of the method, taking care not to bring forward those things in the books of Origen which are found to disagree with and contradict himself." Remember, reader, not to let this briefly spoken word slip past you, in which I said that I would not bring forward the things found in Origen's books that disagree with and contradict himself. For I did not promise in general that I would not bring forward what was contrary to the faith, but what was contrary to itself, or what disagrees with himself, not what disagrees with me or with someone else. Let not my enemies, then, steal this word and breed slanders from it, saying that I promised that if anything is contrary to or disagrees with our faith, I would not bring it forward. Even if I could have done this, I would not have dared to promise it. And if you find this done in my work, you may welcome it. But if it seems to you less than fulfilled in some point, you cannot blame me, because you do not hold me to such a bond in my profession.

But let us join on the rest as well. "The causes of this inconsistency," I said, "I have set out more fully for you in the Apology which Pamphilus wrote for the books of Origen himself, adding a very short treatise in which I showed, by clear proofs, as I think, that his books have been corrupted in very many places by heretics and ill-wishers, and especially these which you now require me to translate, that is, Peri Archon, which may be rendered either On First Principles or On Principalities; and they are in truth both very obscure and very difficult. For he discusses there matters in which philosophers, after spending their whole lives, could find out nothing. But this man of ours did what he could to turn to piety the faith in the Creator and the account of created things, which they had dragged into impiety." Here too look more carefully, so that it does not escape you that we said faith in the Creator, but the account of created things: knowing that what is said about God belongs to faith, while what we discuss about created things belongs to reasoning. But let us add what follows: "Wherever, then, we found in his books anything contrary to what he had piously laid down about the Trinity in other places, we either passed it over as corrupted and foreign, or rendered it according to the rule which we found him frequently affirming." Did we say anything incautious here either? Did I say that I rendered it according to the rule of our faith, which would certainly have gone wholly beyond the limit of a translator turning Greek into Latin? No: I said that I rendered it according to the rule which we found him frequently affirming. We also added this: "If, speaking as to the skilled and knowledgeable, he expressed something rather obscurely while wishing to pass over it briefly, we, to make the place clearer, added what we had read more plainly on the same subject in his other books, aiming at explanation. Yet we said nothing of our own, but gave back to him his own words, though spoken in other places."