Nevertheless, a Necessity, as it Were, is Laid Upon Me to Reply, as a Simple Matter of Justice: I Mean, Because Many, as I Hear, are Likely to be Upset by what He Has Written Unless the True State of the Case is Laid Before Them. I am Compelled, against My Resolution and Even My Vows, to Make Reply, Lest by Keeping Silence I Should Seem to Acknowledge the Accusation to be True. It Is, Indeed, in Most Cases, a Christian's Glory to Follow Our Lord's Example of Silence, and Thereby to Repel the Accusation; but to Follow this Course in Matters of Faith Causes Stumbling Blocks to Spring up in Vast Numbers. It is True That, in the Beginning of his Invective He Promises that He Will Avoid Personalities, and Reply Only About the Things in Question and the Charges Made against Him; but his Profession in Both Cases is False; for How Can He Answer a Charge when no Charge Has Been Made? and How Can a Man be Said to Avoid Personalities when He Never Ceases to Attack and Tear to Pieces the Translator of the Books in Question from the First Line to the Last of his Invective? I Shall Avoid all Pretence of Saying Less than I Mean, and Similar Subterfuges of Hypocrisy which are Hateful in God's Sight; And, Though My Words May be Uncouth and My Style Unadorned, I Will Make My Reply. I Trust, and I Shall not Trust in Vain, that My Readers Will Pardon My Lack of Skill, Since My Object is not to Amuse Others but to Endeavour to Clear Myself from the Reproaches Directed against Me. My Wish is that what May Shine Forth in Me May not be Style but Truth. C3. But, Before I Begin to Clear up These Points, There is one in which I Confess that He Has Spoken the Truth in an Eminent Degree; Namely, when He Says that He is not Rendering Evil Speaking for Evil Speaking. This, I Say, is Quite True; for it is not for Evil Speaking but for Speaking Well of Him and Praising Him that He Has Rendered Reproach and Evil Speaking. But it is not True, as He Says, that He Turns the Left Cheek to one who Smites Him on the Right. It is on one who is Stroking Him and Caressing Him on the Cheek that He Suddenly Turns and Bites Him. I Praised his Eloquence and his Industry in the Work of Translating from the Greek. I Said Nothing in Derogation of his Faith; but He Condemns Me on Both These Points. He must Therefore Pardon Me if I Say Some Things Rather Roughly and Rudely; for He Has Challenged to a Reply a Man who Has no Great Rhetorical Skill, and who Has Not, as He Knows, the Power to Make one whom He Wishes to Injure and to Wound Appear to have Received Neither Wounds nor Injuries. Those who Love this Kind of Eloquence must Seek it in a Man whom Every Light Report Stirs up to Fault-Finding and vituperation, and who Thinks Himself Bound, as if He were the Censor, to be Always Coming up to Set Things to Rights. A Man who Desires to Clear Himself from the Stains which have Been Cast Upon Him, Does not Trouble Himself, in the Answer which He is Compelled to Make, About the Elegance and Neat Turns of his Reply, but Only About Its Truth. C4. At the Very Beginning of his Work He Says, "As if they could not be Heretics by Themselves, Without Me. " I must First Show That, Whether with Him or Without Him, we are no Heretics: Then, when Our Status is Made Clear, we Shall be Safe from Having the Infamous Imputation Hurled at us from Other Men's Reports. I was Already Living in a Monastery, Where, as Both He and all Others Know, About 30 Years Ago, I was Made Regenerate by Baptism, and Received the Seal of the Faith at the Hands of those Saintly Men, Chromatius, Jovinus and Eusebius, all of them Now Bishops, Well-Tried and Highly Esteemed in the Church of God, one of whom was Then a Presbyter of the Church under Valerian of Blessed Memory, the Second was Archdeacon, the Third Deacon, and to Me a Spiritual Father, My Teacher in the Creed and the Articles of Belief. These Men So Taught Me, and So I Believe, Namely, that the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit are of one Godhead, of one Substance: a Trinity Coeternal, Inseparable, Incorporeal, Invisible, Incomprehensible, Known to Itself Alone as it Truly is in Its Perfection: for "No Man Knoweth the Son but the Father, Neither Knoweth any Man the Father but the Son": and the Holy Spirit is He who "Searcheth the Deep Things of God": that this Trinity, Therefore, is Without all Bodily visibility, but that it is with the Eye of the Understanding that the Son and the Holy Spirit See the Father Even as the Father Sees the Son and the Holy Spirit; and Further, that in this Trinity There is no Diversity Except that one is Father, Another Son and a Third Holy Spirit. There is a Trinity as Touching the Distinction of Persons, a Unity in the Reality of the Substance. We Received, Further, that the Only Begotten Son of God, through whom in the Beginning all Existing Things were Made, Whether visible or Invisible, in These Last Days Took Upon Him a Human Body and Soul, and was Made Man, and Suffered for Our Salvation; and the Third Day He Rose Again from the Dead in that Very Flesh which had Been Laid in the Sepulchre; and in that Very Same Flesh Made Glorious He Ascended into the Heavens, Whence we Look for his Coming to Judge the Quick and the Dead. But Further we Confess that He Gave us Hope that we Too Should Rise in a Similar Manner, So that we Believe that Our Resurrection Will be in the Same Manner and Process, and in the Same Form, as the Resurrection of Our Lord Himself from the Dead: that the Bodies which we Shall Receive Will not be Phantoms or Thin Vapours, as Some Slanderously Affirm that we Say, but These Very Bodies of Ours in which we Live and in which we Die. For How Can we Truly Believe in the Resurrection of the Flesh, Unless the Very Nature of Flesh Remains in it Truly and Substantially? it is Then Without any Equivocation, that we Confess the Resurrection of this Real and Substantial Flesh of Ours in which we Live. Bp. Of Aquileia at the Time of this Apology and Maintaining Friendly Relations with Both Jerome and Rufinus. (Ruf. Pref. To Eusebius in this Volume. Jer. Ep. vii, Lx. 19, Pref. To Bks. Of Solomon &C. &C. )