Jerome’s Earlier and Later View of Origen

Now suppose that while you were writing this, quickly and not carefully, as you tell us, by the poor glimmering light of a lantern, some prophet had stood beside you and cried out: [a]

“Writer, hold back those words, check your pen! For the time is coming, and is not far off, when you will make a schism and separate yourself from the church. And to find a plausible excuse for this schism, you will begin to slander these very books you now make out to be so admirable. “The man you call your own Man of Brass, whom you are just about to name the Man of Adamant for the merit of his praiseworthy labors, you will then say wrote not books to build up the soul but poisonous heresies. This man, whom you rightly describe as not condemned by Demetrius on account of his belief, and whom you say was not accused of bringing in strange teachings, you will then declare worthy of cursing because of his strange teachings. You write that mad dogs bring made-up charges against him; you will make up the same charges yourself. “And the senate of Rome, as you call it, which you complain is now stirred up against him, you will then stir up against him yourself, with your letters of warning, your vehement protests, and your agents flying in every direction. This is the return you will make to your admirable Man of Brass for all his labors. So be careful what you write now. For if you write as you are doing, and afterward act as I have said, you will be condemned by your own judgment with more justice than he is by the judgment of others.”

Would you have believed that prophet, do you think? Would you not have thought it more likely that he was mad than that you would ever come to such a pass? The fact is that in quarrels of this kind no one thinks of sparing a friend, so long as an enemy can be hurt. But you go even further than this: you do not spare yourself, in your attempt to ruin not your enemies but your friends.