Apology for himself against the Books of Rufinus

¹¹ You state, with some prevarication, that you have translated from the Greek what I had before translated into Latin; but I do not clearly understand to what you are alluding, unless you are still bringing up against me the Commentary on the Ephesians, and hardening yourself in your effrontery, as if you had received no answer on this head. You stop your ears and will not hear the voice of the charmer. What I have done in that and other commentaries is to develop both my own opinion and that of others, stating clearly which are catholic and which heretical.

This is the common rule and custom of those who undertake to explain books in commentaries: They give at length in their exposition the various opinions, and explain what is thought by themselves and by others. This is done not only by those who expound the holy Scriptures but also by those who explain secular books whether in Greek or in Latin. You, however, cannot screen yourself in reference to the Περὶ ᾿Αρχῶν by this fact; for you will be convicted by your own Preface, in which you undertake that the evil parts and those which have been added by heretics have been cut off but that all that is best remains; so that all that you have written, whether good or bad, must be held to be the work, not of the author whom you are translating, but of yourself who have made the translation.

Perhaps, indeed, you ought to have corrected the errors of the heretics, and to have set forth publicly what is wrong in Origen. But on this point, (since you refer me to the document itself,) I have made you my answer before reading your letter.