In the present chapter, for instance, it is no easy matter to unravel the Truth from out of these tangled threads of personal opinions. Some believe that the early Christians and the Fathers of the Church were reincarnationists; others say they were not; the texts, we are in possession of, contradict one another. Thus, whereas Saint Jerome brings against Origen the reproach of having in his book _De Principiis_ taught that, in certain cases, the transmigration of human souls into the bodies of animals, was possible--as, indeed, seems to be the case--certain writers deny that he ever said anything on the subject. These contradictory affirmations are easy to explain, once we know that Ruffinus, when translating into Latin the Greek text of _De Principiis_, omitted all that referred to this question, that the conspiracy of silence might be preserved on the matter of Origenian transmigration. At the close of his article "_Origen on Reincarnation_," in the _Theosophical Review_, February, 1906, G. R. S. Mead says: "It therefore follows that those who have claimed Origen as a believer in reincarnation--and many have done so, confounding reincarnation with pre-existence--have been mistaken. Origen himself answers in no uncertain tones, and stigmatises the belief as a false doctrine, utterly opposed to Scripture and the teaching of the Church." Others affirm that Saint Justin Martyr believed in rebirths and even in the transmigration of human souls into animal bodies. In his book _Against Heresies_, volume 2, chapter 33, the _Absurdity of the Doctrine of the Transmigration of Souls_ is dealt with; and in the following chapter, the pre-existence of the soul is denied! Is this another instance, like the one just mentioned, of tampering with the writings of this Father of the Church?[195] At times an author gives two contradictory opinions on the same subject. In Tertullian's _Apology for the Christians_, for instance, we find the following: