The Men I Sent to Rome

You use somewhat the same argument against Pope Anastasius: that since you hold the letters of Bishop Siricius, it was impossible for him to write against you. I am afraid you suspect that some wrong has been done you. I cannot understand how a man of your sharpness and ability can stoop to such nonsense. You suppose that your readers are foolish, but you show that you are foolish yourself. Then, after this extraordinary reasoning, you add this little sentence: “Far be such conduct from these reverend persons. It is from your school that such actions come. You gave us every sign of peace at our departure, and then threw darts charged with venom at us from behind our backs.” In this clause, or rather this piece of declamation, you no doubt meant to show off your rhetorical skill. [a]

It is true that we gave you the signs of peace, but not so as to embrace heresy. We joined hands, we escorted you as you set out on your journey, on the understanding that you were catholic, not that we were heretics. But I want to learn what these poisoned darts are that you complain I threw from behind your back. I sent the presbyters Vincentius, Paulinian, Eusebius, and Rufinus. Of these, Vincentius went to Rome long before you; Paulinian and Eusebius set out a year after you had sailed; Rufinus two years after, for the cause of Claudius. All of them went either on private business or because another man’s life was in danger. Could I have known that when you entered Rome a nobleman had dreamed that a ship full of merchandise was coming in under full sail? Or that all questions about fate were being solved by a solution that should not itself be fatuous? Or that you were translating Eusebius’s book as if it were Pamphilus’s? Or that you were putting your own cover on Origen’s poisoned dish by lending your majestic eloquence to this translation of his notorious work On First Principles? This is a new way of slandering a man: we sent out the accusers before you had committed the crime. It was not, I repeat, it was not by our plan but by the providence of God that these men, sent out for another reason, came to fight against the rising heresy. Like Joseph, they were sent to relieve the coming famine by the fervor of their faith.