Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers: Series II/Volume III/Rufinus/Jerome's Apology/Book II/Chapter 3

3. I will touch upon the other points, and set down the actual words of his letter:

&#8220;Although my faith was proved, at the time of the persecution by the heretics, when I was living in the holy church of Alexandria, by imprisonments and exiles, to which I was subjected because of the faith.&#8221;

I only wonder that he did not add &#8220;The prisoner of Jesus Christ,&#8221; or &#8220;I was delivered from the jaw of the lion,&#8221; or &#8220;I fought with beasts at Alexandria,&#8221; or &#8220;I have finished my course, I have kept the faith. Henceforth there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness.&#8221; What exiles, what imprisonments are these which he describes? I blush for this open falsehood. As if imprisonment and exile would be inflicted without judicial sentences! I should like to have a list of these imprisonments and of the various provinces to which he tells us that he was forced into exile. Next there appear to have been numerous imprisonments and an infinite number of exiles; so that he might at least name one of them all. Let us have the acts of his confessorship produced, for hitherto we have been in ignorance of them; and so let us have the satisfaction of reciting his deeds with those of the other martyrs of Alexandria, and that he may be able to meet the people who bark against him with the words: &#8220;From henceforth let no man trouble me, for I bear in my body the marks of our Lord Jesus Christ.&#8221;