Your Apology for Origen

But what defense can you make about the Apology you wrote for the works of Origen, or rather about the book of Eusebius? Though you altered much, and translated the work of a heretic under the name of a martyr, you have still set down even more that does not agree with the faith of the church. You, as well as I, turn Latin books into Greek; can you forbid me to give the works of a foreigner to my own people? If I had made my answer about some other work of yours, in which you had not attacked me, it might have been thought that in translating what you had already translated I was acting in hostility to you, and wanted to prove you inaccurate or untrustworthy. But this is a new kind of complaint, when you take it ill that an answer is made to you on a point on which you have accused me. All Rome was said to have been thrown into confusion by your translation. Everyone was demanding a remedy for it from me; not that I was of any account, but those who asked this thought I was. You say that you, who made the translation, were my friend. But what would you have had me do? Ought we to obey God or man? To guard our master’s property, or to hide the theft of a fellow servant? Can I not be at peace with you unless I join you in doing things that bring disgrace? If you had not mentioned my name, if you had not decked me out in your flatteries, I might have had some way of escape, and might have made many excuses for not translating what had already been translated. But you, my friend, have forced me to spend a good many days on this work, and to bring before the public eye what should have been swallowed up in Charybdis. And yet, though I had been injured, I kept the laws of friendship, and as far as possible defended myself without accusing you. It is too suspicious and complaining a temper you show when you take to yourself as a reproach what was said against the heretics. If it is impossible to be your friend unless I am the friend of heretics, I will more easily put up with your enmity than with their friendship. [a]