Why Others Never Translated On First Principles

But I must come to that part of his charge against me which does the most harm and is the most full of ill will; no, not of ill will only, but of malice. He says: “Which of all the wise and holy men before us has dared to attempt a translation of these books that you have translated?” And he adds, “I myself, though many asked me to do it, have always refused.” But the fact is that the excuse for those holy men is easy enough to make. It by no means follows that because a man of Latin birth is holy and wise, he has an adequate knowledge of the Greek language. It is no slur on his holiness that he lacks the knowledge of a foreign tongue. Further, if he does know Greek, it does not follow that he wants to make translations. And even if he does want to, we are not to find fault with him for translating no more than a few works, or for translating some rather than others. Every man is free to do as he likes in such matters, by his own free will or at the wish of anyone who asks him to make the translation. [a]

But he brings forward the case of the saintly men Hilary and Victorinus. The first of these, though well known as a commentator, translated nothing from the Greek, I believe. The other tells us himself that he employed a learned presbyter named Heliodorus to draw what he needed from the Greek sources, while he himself merely put it into Latin, because he knew little or no Greek. So there is a very good reason why these men did not make this translation. That you should have done the same, I admit, is a cause for wonder. For what further daring, what greater rashness, would it have taken to translate those books of Origen, when you had already put almost their whole contents into your other works? Indeed, you had already published, in books bearing your own name, everything that is said in the very books you now declare deserve blame.