Jesus' Words Only

Rufinus Admits He Corrected Works He Deemed Heretical

 

The Berlin pastor-scholar, Hermann Detering, explains that the Clementine Homolies were from the first century church but were re-written by Catholic authorities in the 300s to change Paul's name to Simon Magus in passages that would otherwise embarass Paul if left unchanged. Why do so?

The Catholic Church post-325 reversed centuries of Gentiles being advised to obey the Ten Commandments as Christians. See Early Church View of the Law.

 

The Catholic church made this change in reliance upon Paul -- the spiritual ally of Constantine's position against the Jewish law. How did Detering conclude this?

The transmitter in the 300s of the Clementine Homolies in Latin was Rufinus. Thus, Detering is referring to Rufinus - who admitted elsewhere that as a translator it was his duty to change anything that was unacceptable heresy in his era into something neutralized or altered even though an earlier orthodoxy had a different view.

 

Rufinus who died in 411 AD not only confessed this but also boasted of this in the introduction to his translation of Origen's works which Origen originally had written in the 200s. Rufinus said he found "stumbling blocks" in the original Greek of Origen, so in his translation to Latin (while destroying the Greek now 'heretical' originals), Rufinus explains he "smoothed and corrected them in translation, that a Latin reader would meet with nothing which could appear discordant with our belief." (Origen, de Principiis, "Prologue of Rufinus," Ante-Nicene Fathers (1905), vol. 4 at 237.)

What audacity! What a crime against truth! But it became the norm so as not to repeat 'heresy' even if against the apostolic church's original orthodoxy.

For more on Detering's analysis, see this link.

Rufinus' Drew A Line That Accepted An Inappropriate Line

 

Rufinus arrived at this terrible position during his response to the pressure from Jerome to do worse. Rufinus says Jerome endorsed blatant adding of words to a translation which were never spoken by Origen for strategic purposes of either discrediting Origen or insinuating one's own ideas in the mouth of Origen.

 

Rufinus refused Jerome's demands as a step too far. Unfortunately, Rufinus allowed himself to "correct" or "amend" (adding) or deleting unorthodox views, but he only insisted one cannot fabricate entire thoughts never imagined by the speaker only to destroy his reputation or add your own ideas. He explained (available at this link):

In many things we all stumble: if any stumbles not in word the same is a perfect man. Is it thought that some word is wrong? Then let it be corrected or amended, or, if expediency so require, let it be taken out. But to insert in what another man has written things he never wrote, to put in false words for no other purpose than to defame your brother, to corrupt his writings in order to attach a mark of infamy to the author, and to insinuate your ideas into the ears of the multitude so as to throw confusion into the minds of the simple; and all this with the object of staining a man's reputation among his fellows; I ask you whose work this can be except that of him who was a liar from the beginning, and who, from accusing the brethren, received the name of Diabolus, which means accuser. 

 

This was written as a Letter to Apronianus in Reply to Jerome's Letter to Pammachius. Hence, this indirectly tells us that Jerome -- who translated and hence edited many works of that era -- saw no problem adding the trinity or any other new orthodoxy necessary to make a text fit. If that would not work to "fix" an earlier author's now heretical ideas, Jerome found it expedient either to destroy the respectability of the original author by adding silliness and infamous positions, or inserting major speeches to support present orthodoxy.

Yet, while Rufinus balked at these last perversions of a text, he thought nothing wrong to correct or amend with words equally never uttered. And if changing words could not easily conform a respected earlier commentator to fit the present orthodoxy, Rufinus thought it expedient to delete the offending text.

 

In this manner, all of us have inherited an orthodoxy built upon suppressing the prior orthodoxy of the true apostolic church. This means we must reject the new doctrines of Roman Catholicism that to this day infect our consciousness, including the idolatrous version of the Trinity (see our article The Correct Christology), and the abrogation of the Law which Catholicism likewise maintains.