In the same Letter Anastasius mentions with great Joy a Decree of the Emperors, that is, of Arcadius and Honorius, forbidding the Works of Origen, and imposing severe Penalties on such as should for the future read or peruse them[[N44]].
[N44]. Ruffinus pretended this Letter to be supposititious, and to have been forged by St. Jerom, alleging, that he could not believe the Bishop of Rome capable of such a crying Piece of Injustice as to condemn an innocent Man, and condemn him in his Absence. He added, that if Anastasius had ever written such a Letter to John of Jerusalem, John, with whom he lived in great Intimacy, would have acquainted him with it, which he had not done. In Answer to this Charge, Jerom refers him to the Archives of the Roman Church[[1]]; and to Jerom I refer the Jesuit Halloix, supposing the Letter to have been feigned, tho’ not by St. Jerom, on account of the following Words, that seem to wound the pretended Supremacy. I have intirely separated myself from him, meaning Ruffinus: I will not even know where he is, or what he is doing: let him try, if he pleases, to be absolved elsewhere. So that Anastasius thought he might be absolved elsewhere, though condemned at Rome. This Halloix, more jealous of the Papal Supremacy than the Pope himself, will not allow, and therefore pretends the Letter to be supposititious. But, since the Time of Ruffinus, none besides him ever questioned its Authenticity.
[1]. Hier. in Ruff. l. 3. c. 5, & 6.
The Condemnation of
Origen owing chiefly
to the Bishop of
Alexandria.
Such is the Account the contemporary Writers, and Jerom himself, give us of the Condemnation of Origen, and his Interpreter Ruffinus, very different from that which we read in Baronius, introducing his High Pontiff Anastasius as acting the First Part on that Occasion; though Jerom tells us, in express Terms, that Anastasius followed the Example of Theophilus; that he condemned in the West, what had before been condemned in the East[[1365]]; and that Rome and all Italy owed their Deliverance to the Letters of Theophilus[[1366]]; meaning the circular Letter, which Theophilus writ to all the Catholic Bishops, acquainting them that he had condemned Origen, and prohibited his Books, and exhorting them to follow his Example[[1367]]. It was by this Letter that Anastasius was induced to condemn Origen: For what else could Jerom mean by saying, that Rome and Italy were, by the Letters of Theophilus, delivered from the Errors of Origen? Baronius could not but know, that the Letter of Theophilus was addressed to all the Catholic Bishops, since it is styled by Theophilus himself, in a Letter he writ to Epiphanius[[1368]], and by Epiphanius, in one of his Letters to Jerom[[1369]], A general Letter to all Catholics; and yet the Annalist speaks of it as directed to Anastasius alone, in order to impose by that means on his Readers, and persuade them, that the Bishop of Alexandria submitted the Sentence he had pronounced to the Judgment of Anastasius, being well apprised, that it could be of no Weight unless confirmed by the first See. Had he been well apprised of this, I cannot think he would have pronounced such a Sentence, as it is very certain he did, without the Authority, the Advice, or even the Knowlege, of the first See.
The Bishop of Aquileia communicates with Ruffinus, though excommunicated by Anastasius.
As to Ruffinus, Anastasius, it is true, separated himself from his Communion; but did not excommunicate him, that is, as the Word is now understood, did not cut him off from the Communion of the Catholic Church, as Baronius insinuates. The Power of excommunicating him in this Sense was by the Canons vested in his own Bishop; and it is manifest from Jerom, that Chromatius, then Bishop of Aquileia, continued to communicate with him after Anastasius had renounced his Communion; nay, after Chromatius himself had condemned Origen, and the Origenists[[1370]], that is, those who held the Errors of Origen. A plain Proof, that the Bishop of Aquileia did not acquiesce in the Judgment of Anastasius in ranking Ruffinus among them. And truly the only Charge brought against him by Anastasius, in his Letter to John of Jerusalem, was his having translated Origen into the Latin Tongue, without pointing out his Errors, or offering any Arguments to confute them. Thence he was by Jerom induced to conclude, that Ruffinus held the same Errors. |Ruffinus unjustly
condemned.| What could Ruffinus propose, says he in his Letter, by translating Origen into the Roman Language? Had he exposed the execrable Errors his Work contains, and raised in his Readers that Indignation which the Author deserves, I should rather have praised than blamed him. But he has in his Mind consented to those Errors, and in translating the Sentiments of Origen expressed his own[[1371]]. This Ruffinus denied; declaring, with the Words of Origen, in his Preface to the Periarchon[[1372]], that he embraced nothing as Truth, that any-ways differed from the received Doctrines of the Catholic Church: nay, he was so far from defending any of Origen’s Errors, which seemed to him repugnant to the Catholic Truths, that in the Apology he composed in Defence of that Writer, as well as in the Preface which he prefixed to his Translation, he undertook to prove, that those Errors were not his, but had been maliciously inserted into his Works, either by his Enemies to eclipse his Reputation, or by Heretics, who had fathered upon him their own Doctrines, with a View of recommending them to the World by the Authority of so great and so venerable a Name[[1373]]. He followed therein the Example of the most eminent Writers, and the greatest Lights of the Church, namely, of the Martyr Pamphylus[[1374]], of Athanasius[[1375]], Basil[[1376]], his Brother Gregory of Nyssa[[1377]], Gregory Nazianzen[[1378]], and many others, who, out of the great Regard they had for a Man of Origen’s Piety and Learning, either ascribed to others the Errors they found in his Works, or excused them, by putting on his Words the most charitable Construction they could bear. |Origen excused by
some of the Fathers,
and once by Jerom
himself.| Jerom himself had been formerly one of Origen’s greatest Admirers, had translated above Seventy of his Books, and thought he could not employ his Time better than in enriching the Latin Tongue with the Works of the best Writer and first Doctor of the Church after the Apostles[[1379]], as he then styled him. As Ruffinus, in his Translation of the Periarchon, endeavoured to excuse the Errors of Origen, so had Jerom done before him in translating his other Works, chusing rather to veil and excuse, than expose the Faults of one whom in other respects he so much admired[[1380]]. But this Admiration being afterwards changed into an open and avowed Enmity, the first Doctor of the Church after the Apostles became at once not only an heterodox, but an impious Writer; all who stood up in his Defence were arraigned of the same pestilential Doctrines; and what was found amiss in his Works was no longer veiled or excused, but set out in the worst Light[[N45]].