Pamphilus’s Apology Stirred All Rome

I had put into Latin, as my friend says to taunt me, seventy books of Origen and some parts of his Tomes, but no question was ever raised about my work, and no stir was felt over it in Rome. What need was there to hand over to Latin ears what Greece denounces and the whole world blames? I translated many of Origen’s works over many years and never caused a scandal. But you, who were unknown before, have become notorious by your first and only work for your rash conduct. Your preface tells us that you have also translated the work of Pamphilus the martyr in defense of Origen, and you strive with all your might to keep the church from condemning a man whose faith the martyr vouches for. The real fact is this. Eusebius, bishop of Caesarea, as I have already said, who in his day was the standard-bearer of the Arian party, wrote a large and elaborate work in six books in defense of Origen. In it he showed by many testimonies that Origen was a catholic in his sense of the word, that is, in our sense, an Arian. You translated the first of these six books and assigned it to the martyr. I must not be surprised, then, that you want to make me, a small man of no account, appear as an admirer of Origen, when you bring the same slander against the martyr. You change a few statements about the Son of God and the Holy Spirit, which you knew would offend the Romans, and let the rest stand unchanged from beginning to end. In fact, you did with this Apology of Pamphilus, as you call it, exactly what you did in translating Origen’s On First Principles. If that book is Pamphilus’s, which of the six books is Eusebius’s first? In the very volume you pretend is Pamphilus’s, the later books are mentioned. Also, in the second and following books Eusebius says that he had said such and such things in the first book, and excuses himself for repeating them. If the whole work is Pamphilus’s, why do you not translate the remaining books? If it is the other man’s work, why do you change the name? You cannot answer; but the facts answer for themselves. You thought people would believe the martyr, though they would have turned in horror from the chief of the Arians. [a]