“This one thing (observes that honest editor) would the learned desire, that Ruffinus had spared himself the labour of filling up what he thought deficient.  For since the Greek text has perished, it can scarcely with certainty be distinguished, where Origen himself speaks, or where Ruffinus obtrudes his own merchandise upon us.”  This is more than enough to justify our remarks.  I must, however, refer to the conduct of another editor and translator of Origen, of a similar tendency.  It unhappily shows the disposition to sacrifice every thing to the received opinions of the Church of Rome, rather than place the whole evidence of antiquity before the world, and abide by the result.  How many works this principle, in worse hands, may have mutilated, or utterly buried in oblivion, and left to perish, it is impossible to conjecture; that the principle is unworthy the spirit of Christianity will not now be questioned.  That editor and translator, in his advertisement on the Commentary upon St. John, thus professes the principles which he had adopted:  “Know, moreover, that I have found nothing in this book which {159} seemed to be inconsistent with the decrees of holy Mother Church:  for had I found any, I would not have translated the book, or would have marked the suspected place.” [Quoted by the Benedictine, vol. iv. p. viii.] The Benedictine proceeds to say, that the writer had not kept his word, but had allowed many heterodox passages to escape, whilst he had deliberately withdrawn others.

[Footnote 61:  His words, as indicative of his principles of translation, and bearing immediately on the question, as to the degree of authority which should be assigned to the remains of Origen, when the original is lost, deserve a place here:  “I am exposed to a new sort of charge at their hands; for thus they address me,—­In your writings, since very many parts in them (plurima in eis) are considered to be of your own production, give the title of your own name, and write, for example, The Books of Explanations of Ruffinus on the Epistle to the Romans,—­but the whole of this they offer me, not from any love of me, but from hatred to the author.  But I, who consult my conscience more than my fame, even if I am seen to add some things, and to fill up what are wanting, or to shorten what are too long, yet I do not think it right to steal the title of him, who laid the foundations of the works, and supplied the materials for the buildings.  Yet, in truth, it may be at the option of the reader, when he shall have approved of the work, to ascribe the merits to whom he will.”]

Many works probably, of the earliest ages, have been wholly or in part lost to us from the working of the same principle in its excess.  Rather than perpetuate any sentiments at variance with the received doctrines of the Church, it was considered the duty of the faithful to let works, in themselves valuable, but containing such sentiments, altogether perish, or to exclude the objectionable passages.