The Preface to On First Principles

I wrote these words beforehand as a statement of my faith, when none of these slanderers had yet appeared, so that no one could say it was only because of their warnings or their pressure that I said things I had not believed before. Moreover, I promised that whatever the demands of translation might be, I would keep the principles of my faith untouched while meeting them. How then can any room be left for evil, when the very first word of my confession preserves and defends me from the suspicion of holding any teaching inconsistent with it? Besides, as I have said above, I have learned from the words of the Lord that everyone will be acquitted or condemned by his own words, and not by those of others. [a] But I will show how, in the preface I put at the head of the books On First Principles, I declared what the governing rule of my translation was to be, and I will prove it, as before, by quoting the words themselves; for it is right to quote from this document too whatever bears on the matter at hand. I had made honorable mention of the man who now turns my praise of him into an accusation against me, for having led the way and translated a great many works of Origen before I had begun. I had praised both his eloquence as an interpreter and his diligence as a translator, and had said that I took him as my model in doing a similar work. And then, after a few more sentences, I went on like this: [b] ‘Him, therefore, we take as our model as far as we can: not, indeed, in the power of his eloquence, but in his method of doing his work, taking care not to reproduce things found in the books of Origen that are inconsistent with and contrary to his own true opinion.’ I beg the reader to notice what I have said, and not to let this sentence slip past because it is short. What I said was that ‘I would not reproduce the things found in the books of Origen that are inconsistent with and contrary to his own true opinion.’ I did not make a general promise that I would not reproduce what was contrary to the faith, or what was contrary to me or to someone else, but what was contrary to or inconsistent with Origen himself. My opponents must not be allowed to spread a false statement about me by snatching at part of this sentence and saying that I had promised not to reproduce anything contrary to or inconsistent with my own belief. If I had been capable of such conduct, I certainly would not have dared to make a public profession of it. If you find that this has been done in my work, you will know how to judge it. But if you find that it has not been done, you will not think me to blame, since I never gave you any pledge that would bind me to do it.