The Apology Falsely Given to Pamphilus

About the book of Pamphilus: what happened to me was not “comical,” as you call it, but perhaps ridiculous. After asserting that the book was by Eusebius and not by Pamphilus, I stated at the end of the discussion that for many years I had believed it was by Pamphilus, and that I had borrowed a copy of it from you. You may judge how little I fear your mockery from the fact that I make the same statement even now. I took it from your manuscript as a copy of a work of Pamphilus. I trusted you as a Christian and as a monk; I did not imagine that you would be guilty of so wicked a fraud. But after the question of Origen’s heresy had been stirred up all over the world by your translation of his work, I examined copies of the book more carefully. In the library of Caesarea I found the six volumes of Eusebius’s Apology for Origen. As soon as I had looked through them, I at once recognized the book on the Son and the Holy Spirit, which you alone have published under the martyr’s name, after changing most of its blasphemies into words of a better meaning. That this had been done, whether by Didymus, or by you, or by someone else (it is quite clear that you did it with On First Principles in view), I saw by one decisive proof: Eusebius tells us that Pamphilus published nothing of his own. It is for you, then, to say where you got your copy. And do not, to escape my accusation, say that it came from someone who is dead, or, because you have no one to point to, name someone who cannot answer for himself. If this little stream has its source in your own desk, the conclusion is plain enough without my drawing it. But suppose that some other lover of Origen changed the title of this book and the name of its author. What reason had you for turning it into Latin? Clearly this: that through the testimony of a martyr in his favor, everyone would trust Origen’s writings, since a witness of such authority had vouched for them in advance. But the Apology of this most learned man was not enough for you. You had to write a treatise of your own in his defense. And when these two documents had circulated widely, you felt safe to go on and translate On First Principles itself from the Greek. You commended it in a preface, in which you said that some things in it had been corrupted by the heretics, but that you had corrected them from a study of Origen’s other writings. [a]

Then come your praises of me, meant to keep any of my friends from speaking against you. You put me forward as Origen’s trumpeter; you praise my eloquence to the skies, so that you can drag the faith down into the mud. You call me colleague and brother, and profess yourself the imitator of my works. On the one hand you cry me up for having translated seventy homilies of Origen and some of his short treatises on the apostle, in which, you say, I smoothed things down so well that the Latin reader will find nothing in them at odds with the catholic faith. On the other hand you now brand these very books as heretical. Wiping out your former praise, you accuse the man you held up for admiration when you thought he would appear as your ally, because you find that he is the enemy of your faithlessness. Which of us two slanders the martyr? I, who say that he was no heretic and did not write the book everyone condemns? Or you, who have published a book written by a man who was an Arian, and changed its author’s name into the martyr’s? It is not enough for you that Greece has been scandalized; you must force the book on Latin ears and, as far as lies in you, dishonor an illustrious martyr by your translation.

No doubt your intention was not this. It was not to accuse me, but to make me serve in the defense of Origen’s writings. But let me tell you that the faith of Rome, which was praised by the voice of an apostle, does not recognize tricks of this kind. A faith guaranteed by the authority of an apostle cannot be changed, even if an angel should announce a gospel other than the one he preached. So, my brother, whether the forgery of the book comes from you, as many believe, or from someone else, as you will perhaps try to persuade us (in which case you are guilty only of rashness, in believing a heretic’s work to be a martyr’s), change the title, and rescue the innocent Romans from this great danger. It does you no good to be the means by which a most illustrious martyr is condemned as a heretic, and one who shed his blood for Christ is proved an enemy of the Christian faith. Take another course. Say, “I found a book which I believed was the work of a martyr.” Do not be afraid to be a penitent. I will not press you further. I will not ask where you got it; you can name some dead man if you like, or say you bought it from a stranger in the street. For I do not want to see you condemned, but converted. It is better that you should be shown to have erred than that the martyr should be shown a heretic. At any rate, by some means or other, pull your foot out of the trap it is caught in. Consider what answer you will give at the judgment to come to the complaints the martyrs will bring against you.