To Pammachius Against John of Jerusalem

¹¹ We were present (we know the whole case) when the bishop Epiphanius spoke against Origen in your church, and he was the ostensible, you the real object of attack. You and your crew grinned like dogs, drew in your nostrils, scratched your heads, nodded to one another, and talked of the “silly old man.” Did you not, in front of the Lord's tomb, send your archdeacon to tell him to cease discussing such matters? What bishop ever gave such a command to one of his own presbyters in the presence of the people?

When you were going from the Church of the Resurrection to the Church of the Holy Cross and a crowd of all ages, and both sexes, was flowing to meet him, presenting to him their little ones, kissing his feet, plucking the fringes of his garments, and when he could not stir a step forward, and could hardly stand against the waves of the surging crowd, were not you so tortured by envy as to exclaim against “the vainglorious old man”? And you were not ashamed to tell him to his face that his stopping was of set purpose and design.

Pray recall that day when the people who had been called together were kept waiting until the seventh hour by the mere hope of hearing Epiphanius, and the subject of the harangue you then delivered. You spoke, forsooth, with indignant rage against the Anthropomorphites, who, with rustic simplicity, think that God has actually the members of which we read in Scripture; and showed by your eyes, hands, and every gesture that you had the old man in view, and wished him to be suspected of that most foolish heresy.

When through sheer fatigue, with dry month, head thrown back, and quivering lips, to the satisfaction of the whole people, who had longed for the end, you at last wound up, how did the crazy and “silly old man” treat you? He rose to indicate that he would say a few words, and after saluting the assembly with voice and hand proceeded thus: “All that has been said by one who is my brother in the episcopate, but my son in point of years, against the heresy of the Anthropomorphites, has been well and faithfully spoken, and my voice, too, condemns that heresy.

But it is fair that, as we condemn this heresy so we should also condemn the perverse doctrines of Origen.” You cannot, I think, have forgotten what a burst of laughter, what shouts of applause ensued. This is what you call in your letter his speaking to the people anything he chose, no matter what it might be. He, forsooth, was mad because he contradicted you in your own kingdom. “Anything he chose, no matter what.” Either give him praise, or blame. Why, here as well as elsewhere, do you move with so uncertain a step?

If what he said was good, why not openly proclaim it? If evil, why not boldly censure it? And yet, let us note with what wisdom, modesty, and humility this pillar of truth and faith, who dares to say that so illustrious a man speaks to the people what he chooses, alludes to himself. “One day I was speaking in his presence; and, taking occasion from some words in the lesson for the day, I expressed, in his hearing and in that of the whole Church, such views respecting the faith and all the doctrines of the Church as by the grace of God I unceasingly teach in the Church, and in my catechetical lectures.”