33. In reference to Daniel my answer will be that I did not say
that he was not a prophet; on the contrary, I confessed in the very
beginning of the Preface that he was a prophet. But I wished to show
what was the opinion upheld by the Jews; and what were the arguments on
which they relied for its proof. I also told the reader that the
version read in the Christian churches was not that of the Septuagint
translators but that of Theodotion. It is true, I said that the
Septuagint version was in this book very 517different from the original,
and that it was condemned by the right judgment of the churches of
Christ; but the fault was not mine who only stated the fact, but that
of those who read the version. We have four versions to choose from:
those of Aquila, Symmachus, the Seventy, and Theodotion. The churches
choose to read Daniel in the version of Theodotion. What sin have I
committed in following the judgment of the churches? But when I repeat
what the Jews say against the Story of Susanna and the Hymn of the
Three Children, and the fables of Bel and the Dragon, which are not
contained in the Hebrew Bible, the man who makes this a charge against
me proves himself to be a fool and a slanderer; for I explained not
what I thought but what they commonly say against us. I did not reply
to their opinion in the Preface, because I was studying brevity, and
feared that I should seem to be writing not a Preface but a book. I
said therefore, “As to which this is not the time to enter into
discussion.” Otherwise from the fact that I stated that Porphyry
had said many things against this prophet, and called, as witnesses of
this, Methodius, Eusebius, and Apollinarius, who have replied to his
folly in many thousand lines, it will be in his power to accuse me for
not having written in my Preface against the books of Porphyry. If
there is any one who pays attention to silly things like this, I must
tell him loudly and freely that no one is compelled to read what he
does not want; that I wrote for those who asked me, not for those who
would scorn me, for the grateful not the carping, for the earnest not
the indifferent. Still, I wonder that a man should read the version of
Theodotion the heretic and judaizer, and should scorn that of a
Christian, simple and sinful though he may be.
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