45. After this Apology had been written, one of the brethren who came to us from you at Rome and helped me in revising it, observed that one point in my defence had been passed over which he had heard adversely dwelt upon by my detractors there. The point turns upon a statement in my Preface, where I said of him who is now my persecutor and accuser that in the works of Origen which he translated there are found certain grounds of offence in the Greek, but that he has in his translation so cleared them away that the Latin reader will find nothing in them which is dissonant from our faith. On this sentence they remark: "You see how he has praised his method of translation and has borne his testimony that in the books he has translated no grounds of offence are to be found, and promised that he would himself follow the same method. Why then is not his own translation free from grounds of offence, as he bears witness is the case with the writings of the other?" c46. I suppose it is not to be wondered at that I am always blamed for the points in which I have praised him. It is quite right, no doubt. But to come to the matter itself. I said that when grounds of offence appeared in the Greek he had cleared them away in his Latin translation; and not wrongly; but he had done this just in the same sense as I have done it. For instance, in the Homilies on Isaiah, he explains the two Seraphim as meaning the Son and the Holy Ghost, and he adds this of his own: "Let no one think that there is a difference of nature in the Trinity when the offices of the Persons are distinguished"; and by this he thinks that he has been able to remedy the grounds of offence. I in a similar way occasionally removed, altered or added a few words, in the attempt to draw the meaning of the writer into better accordance with the straight path of the faith. What did I do in this which was different or contrary to our friend's system? what which was not identical with it? But the difference lies in this, that I was judging of his writings without ill-will or detraction, and therefore saw in them not what might lend itself to depreciation, but what the translator aimed at; whereas he is seeking for occasions for calumniating others, and therefore finds fault with those things in my writings which he himself has formerly written. And indeed he is right in blaming me, since I have pronounced what he has said to be right, whereas in his judgment it is reprehensible. This holds in reference to the doctrine he has expressed about the Trinity; namely, that the two Seraphim are the Son and the Holy Ghost, from which especially the charge of blasphemy is drawn, that is, if he is to be judged according to the system which he has adopted in dealing with me. But according to the system which I have adopted in judging of his writings, apart from the matter of calumny, he is not to be held guilty because of what he has added on his own account to explain the author's meaning. c47. As regards the resurrection of the flesh, I think that my translation contains the same doctrines which are preached in the churches. As to the other points which relate to the various orders of created beings, I have already said that they have nothing to do with our faith in the Deity. But if he appeals to these for the sake of calumniating others, though they have hitherto presented no ground of offence, I do not deny his right to do so, if he thinks well to revoke my judgment by which he might have been absolved, and to enforce his own, by which he ought to be condemned. It is not my judgment on him which is blameable, but his own, which takes others to task for doing what he approves in himself. But this is a new method of judgment according to which I am defending my own accuser, and he considers that he has at last gained the victory over me when he has brought himself in guilty. But suppose that a Synod of Bishops should accept the sentences you have pronounced, and should demand that all the books which contain the impugned doctrines, together with their authors, should be condemned; then these books must be condemned first as they stand in the Greek; and then what is condemned in Greek must undoubtedly be condemned in the Latin. Then will come the turn of your own books; they will be found to contain the same things, even according to your own judgment. And as it has been of no advantage to Origen that you have praised him, so it will be of no profit to you that I have pleaded in your behalf. I shall then be bound to follow the judgment of the Catholic Church whether it is given against the books of Origen or against yours. cJerome's Apology for Himself Against the Books of Rufinus.Addressed to Pammachius and Marcella from Bethlehem, a.d.402.