Jerome himself, our doubts are not removed even by that supposition.  The same editor in the same preface tells us, “It is known to the learned that it was Jerome’s habit, in translating Greek, sometimes to insert some things of his own[59].”  Not that I for a moment conceive the passage under consideration to have come in its Latin dress from the pen of Jerome; for my conviction being that it is an interpolation of a much later date, I mention the circumstance to show, that even when Jerome, with his professed accuracy, is the translator, we can in no case feel sure that we are reading the exact and precise sentiments of Origen.

[Footnote 58:  The Latin word “notarius” (notary) does not come so near as our own English expression, “short-hand writer,” to the Greek word used by Eusebius,—­“tachygraphus,” “quick-writer.”  The report of Eusebius as to the homilies of Origen having been delivered extempore, and taken down by these “quick-writers,” is confirmed by Pamphilus the martyr, as quoted by Valesius, in the annotations on this passage of Eusebius.—­Apol.  Orig. lib. i.]

    [Footnote 59:  Cui in vertendis Graecis sciunt eruditi solemne
    esse nonnulla interdum de suo inserere.] {157}

Ruffinus, his celebrated contemporary, accused Jerome of many inaccuracies in his translations; and yet what were the principles of translation adopted by Ruffinus himself, as his own, we are not left to infer; for we learn it from his own pen.  His voluntary acknowledgment in the peroration which he added to Origen’s Comment on the Epistle of St. Paul to the Romans, strongly and painfully exhibits to us how little dependence can safely be placed on such translations whenever the original is lost; how utterly insufficient and unsatisfactory is any evidence drawn from them, as to the real genuine sentiments and expressions of the author.  Ruffinus informs us, that with regard to many of the various works of Origen, he changed the preacher’s extemporary addresses, as delivered in the Church, into a more explanatory form, “adding, supplying, filling up what he thought wanting[60].”

[Footnote 60:  Dum supplere cupimus ea quae ab Origene in auditorio Ecclesiae extempore (non tam explanationis quam aedificationis intentione) perorata sunt....  Si addere quod videar, et explere quae desunt.—­Orig. vol. iv. p. 688.]

Moreover, he proceeds so far as to tell us[61] that his false {158} friends had remonstrated with him for not publishing the works under his own name, instead of retaining Origen’s, his changes having been so great; a point, which he was far from unwilling to acknowledge.  This must appear to every one unsatisfactory in the extreme, and to shake one’s confidence in any evidence drawn from such a source.  Indeed, the Benedictine editor, with great cause and candour, laments this course of proceeding on the part of Ruffinus, as throwing a doubt and uncertainty, and suspicion, over all the works so tampered with.