Epistola Anastasiii Romae Urbis Episcopi Ad Joannem Episcopum Jerosolymorum

Letter of Anastasius, Bishop of the City of Rome, to John, Bishop of Jerusalem Concerning the Name of Rufinus Having been consulted by John whether Rufinus, who translated Origen’s books from Greek into Latin, ought to be condemned, Anastasius replies that, setting aside all suspicion, it must be weighed with what intention he undertook this: and that he is indeed to be condemned if he translated with his own mind, praising and approving the author, but otherwise if he himself accused the author; but that he himself is not troubled by vain fear, but will take care that the Churches throughout the world are not corrupted from this source. It is indeed a mark of proven affection that you speak laudably of a priest concerning a priest. For so great a commendation, which you have most abundantly bestowed upon my merits, I thank your love, even as the favorable speech of our insignificance in some way follows the splendor of your sanctity and the virtues which you possess in the Lord. For you, most excellent of all men, shine with such a luster of your praises that speech cannot equal your merits. Moreover, I am so carried away by the incitement of your titles that, even what I cannot fulfill, I do not cease to dare. This itself is part of your praises, that you have praised me so much from the serenity of that heavenly mind. For the illustrious order of your episcopate, radiating throughout the diverse world, has brought the brightness of its splendor even to us. Indeed, you attribute everything to friendship itself, leaving nothing for examination. Or if you rightly praise me, are you not likewise to be praised in return?

I beg you, therefore, for both reasons, to cease praising me to myself. For a twofold cause constrains me, lest false praise bring grief to the mind of your fellow priest, or true praise kindle shame. But to return to the matter: Rufinus, concerning whom you have deigned to consult me, has the divine majesty as the arbiter of his own conscience; before which he himself will see, with the full office of devotion, how he ought to prove himself. Origen, however, whose compositions he has rendered into our language, both what he was before and into what words he proceeded, our purpose does not know. But what the inclination of my mind is, I shall briefly confer with your holiness on this matter. I have therefore conceived this in my mind, that the reading of the translated works of Origen, which has been opened to the peoples of our City, has cast, as it were, a cloud of blindness over pure minds, and that he wished to dissolve the faith of the Apostles, strengthened by the tradition of the elders, as if by devious windings.

Here I wish to learn what this translation accomplishes for the Latin tongue. I approve if it accuses the author and delivers him to the peoples as an object of execration, so that he may at last be held in just hatred, whom rumor had long since bound. But if the translator lends his consent to such great evils and delivers them to the peoples to be read, he has built nothing else by his own labor than to overturn, as if by the judgment of his own mind, those things which alone, which first, which among catholic Christians are held as true faith from the Apostles down to this time, under the title of an unexpected assertion. Far be it that this should be from the catholic discipline of the Roman Church. Never indeed will it happen that we admit by any reasoning those things which we justly and deservedly condemn. For this reason, the providence of Christ our God, spread throughout the whole world, will deign to approve that we cannot at all accept those things which stain the Church, overturn proven morals, wound the ears of bystanders, and arrange quarrels, angers, and dissensions. Moved by this, what letter our littleness sent to our brother and fellow bishop Venerius, written with more diligent care, you will be able to verify from what is subjoined. Whence, therefore, he who translated may keep that conscience with himself, and keep it for himself, I do not labor with superfluous fear, nor am I troubled by empty dread.

I certainly will not lack care in preserving the faith of the Gospel among my peoples, and in uniting the members of my body scattered across diverse regions of the earth, as far as I can, by letters, lest any source of profane interpretation creep in, which might attempt to shake devoted minds with its darkness. Nor could I keep silent about what I rejoice has happened: the responses of our most blessed Princes have flowed forth, by which each person serving God is recalled from reading Origen; and the sentence of the Princes condemns him whom reading has revealed as guilty of profanity. Thus far has the form of my judgment proceeded. As for the fact that the complaint of the people about Rufinus disturbs you, so that you pursue some with vague suspicions, I will restrain this opinion of yours by the example of divine reading, as it is written: Not so does man as God: for God sees in the heart, man sees in the face. Therefore, dearest brother, setting aside all suspicion, consider Rufinus in your own mind: if he translated Origen's sayings into Latin and approved them, he is not unlike a guilty man who gives assent to the vices of others. Yet I wish you to hold this: that he is considered so alien in our parts that we wish neither to know what he does nor where he is. Finally, let him see for himself where he can be absolved.