The Apology of Rufinus. Addressed to Apronianus,…
13. In the Preface to the Apology of Pamphilus, after a few other remarks, I said:
15. But let me add what comes after. My Preface continued as follows:
14. Take, again, the Preface to the Song of Songs:
16. Again, in the Preface to his book on the meaning of Hebrew names, he says, some way down:
17. Once more, in his letter to Marcella he says:
18. Lastly, take the following from another letter to Marcella:
22. In the Preface to his book on Hebrew Questions, after many other remarks, he says:
41. However, let him act in these matters as he himself thinks lawful or expedient. Let me recapitulate in the end of this book what I have said in a scattered way in my own defence. He had said of me that it seemed as if I could not be a heretic without him; I therefore set forth my belief and, in respect of the resurrection of the dead I proved that he rather than I was in error, since he spoke of the resurrection body as frail. I shewed also that he did away with the distinction of sex in the other world, saying that bodies would become souls women men. I next revealed the causes which had led to my translation—very proper causes in my opinion; I shewed that it was not because I was stimulated by contentiousness, nor because I was desirous of glory, but because I was incited by the fear of God, that I imported a store of old Greek material to be used in the new Latin construction, that I furbished up the old armour which had become enveloped in rust, not with a view to excite a civil war but to repel a hostile attack. I then introduced the chief matter on which they have laid their forgers’ hands, the adulterous blasphemy against the Son of God and the Holy Spirit, a thing quite alien from me, but brought in by these men in their wickedness as I shewed by quotations.