[Footnote 59: Cui in vertendis Græcis 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 quæ ab Origene in auditorio Ecclesiæ extempore (non tam explanationis quam ædificationis intentione) perorata sunt.... Si addere quod videar, et explere quæ 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. "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,