What Faith Does He Mean

These words are his own; he cannot deny them. The very elegance of the style, the labored manner of speech, and above all the Christian “simplicity” on display here, reveal who wrote them. But the matter has another side. Eusebius, it seems, has corrupted these books. And now my friend, who accuses Origen and is so careful of my reputation, declares that Eusebius and I went wrong together, and then that we held correct opinions together, and all in one and the same work. But he cannot now be my enemy and call me a heretic, when a moment before he said that his belief was in harmony with mine. Then I must ask him what he means by his balanced, doubtful way of speaking. “The Latin reader,” he says, “will find nothing here at odds with our faith.” What faith is this that he calls his? Is it the faith by which the Roman church is known? Or is it the faith contained in the works of Origen? If he answers, “the Roman,” then we are the catholics, since we have taken over none of Origen’s errors in our translations. But if Origen’s blasphemy is his faith, then, while he tries to pin the charge of inconsistency on me, he proves himself a heretic. If the man who praises me is orthodox, then by his own confession he counts me a sharer in his orthodoxy. If he is unorthodox, he shows that he praised me before I explained myself because he thought I shared his error. However, it will be time enough to answer these books of his, which whisper in corners and make their venomous attacks in secret, when they are published and come out of their dark places into the light, and when they have managed to reach me, either through the zeal of my friends or the carelessness of my opponents. We need not be much afraid of attacks that their author is afraid to publish and lets only his confederates read. Then, and not until then, I will either admit that his charges are just, or refute them, or turn the accusations he has made back on the accuser. And I will show that my silence has come not from a bad conscience but from forbearance. [a]