" This is more than enough to justify our
remarks. I must, however, refer to the conduct of another editor and
translator of Origen, of a similar tendency. It unhappily shows the
disposition to sacrifice every thing to the received opinions of the
Church of Rome, rather than place the whole evidence of antiquity before
the world, and abide by the result. How many works this principle, in
worse hands, may have mutilated, or utterly buried in oblivion, and left
to perish, it is impossible to conjecture; that the principle is
unworthy the spirit of Christianity will not now be questioned. That
editor and translator, in his advertisement on the Commentary upon St.
John, thus professes the principles which he had adopted: "Know,
moreover, that I have found nothing in this book which {159} seemed to
be inconsistent with the decrees of holy Mother Church: for had I found
any, I would not have translated the book, or would have marked the
suspected place." [Quoted by the Benedictine, vol. iv. p. viii.] The
Benedictine proceeds to say, that the writer had not kept his word, but
had allowed many heterodox passages to escape, whilst he had
deliberately withdrawn others.
[Footnote 61: His words, as indicative of his principles of
translation, and bearing immediately on the question, as to the
degree of authority which should be assigned to the remains of
Origen, when the original is lost, deserve a place here: "I am
exposed to a new sort of charge at their hands; for thus they
address me,--In your writings, since very many parts in them
(plurima in eis) are considered to be of your own production,
give the title of your own name, and write, for example, The
Books of Explanations of Ruffinus on the Epistle to the
Romans,--but the whole of this they offer me, not from any love
of me, but from hatred to the author.
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