Since you, not content that I have at present undertaken for us the work of the task-masters of God, also demand that, even in my absence, I devote much time to you and to what is due to you, I — turning aside from the labor, and guarding against the danger, coming from God, that besets those who give themselves over to writing about divine things — might plead in my own defense, from Scripture, excusing myself from making many books. For Solomon says in Ecclesiastes: 'My son, beware of making many books; there is no end, and much study is a weariness of the flesh.' For we, unless the passage before us has some hidden sense still obscure to us, have plainly transgressed the commandment by not guarding against making many books. [Then, having said that four volumes had been completed by him on a few sayings of the Gospel, he adds:]
For as far as the wording is concerned, two things are signified by 'My son, beware of making many books': one, that one ought not to possess many books; the other, that one ought not to compose many books. And if not the first, then certainly the second; but if the second, not necessarily the first. Nevertheless, from either reading we shall seem to learn that one ought not to make more books than necessary. Now, standing on what has now fallen to us, I could have written to you, offering the saying as a defense and, having constructed the argument from the fact that not even the saints devoted themselves to the composition of many books, ceased henceforth — in accordance with the agreements we made with one another — from dictating what is to be sent on to you; and perhaps you, struck by the saying, would have granted this to us for the future. But since Scripture must be examined with a good conscience, without rashly indulging oneself in the notion that one has understood it, having grasped only the bare wording, I cannot bear not to set forth the defense that appears to be on my own behalf, which you might use against me, should I act contrary to our agreements. And first of all — since the historical record seems to support this reading, as none of the saints has published numerous compositions or set forth his thought in many books — this point must be discussed. But he who blames me for coming to compose so many will say that so great a man as Moses left behind only five books. [And in the fifth book of his Commentaries on the Gospel according to John, the same author says these things concerning the apostles:]
But he who was made sufficient to become a minister of the new covenant, not of the letter but of the spirit -- Paul, who fulfilled the gospel from Jerusalem and round about as far as Illyricum -- did not write to all the churches which he taught; and even to those to which he wrote, he sent but a few lines. Peter, on whom the church of Christ is built, against which the gates of Hades shall not prevail, has left one acknowledged epistle; let it be granted that he left a second also, for it is disputed. What need is there to speak of him who leaned upon the breast of Jesus, John, who left one gospel, confessing that he could have written so many things that not even the world could contain them? He also wrote the Apocalypse, having been commanded to keep silence and not to write the voices of the seven thunders. He has also left an epistle of very few lines; let it be granted that he left a second and a third also, since not all say that these are genuine; only, the two together are not a hundred lines..... [Then, having enumerated the prophets and apostles, each of whom wrote little, or not even a little, he adds after this:]
Again after this a dizziness comes upon me as my head spins, lest perhaps in obeying you I have not obeyed God, nor imitated the saints. If then I am not mistaken in pleading my own case, because I love you exceedingly and wish to grieve you in nothing, I find such defenses as these for this matter. Above all we set forth the saying from Ecclesiastes: 'My son, beware of making many books.' To this I set over against it a saying from the Proverbs of the same Solomon, who says: 'By much speaking you will not escape sin, but if you spare your lips you will be prudent.' And I inquire whether saying much of whatever sort is 'much speaking,' even if one says many things that are holy and salutary. For if this is so, and he who sets forth many profitable things is guilty of much speaking, then Solomon himself has not escaped sin, having spoken three thousand parables and five thousand songs, and having discoursed concerning the trees from the cedar that is in Lebanon even to the hyssop that grows out of the wall; and moreover concerning the cattle and the birds and the creeping things and the fishes. For how can teaching accomplish anything apart from the multiplicity of words understood in the simpler sense -- and Wisdom herself says to those who are perishing: 'I stretched out my words and you did not attend'? And Paul appears to have continued teaching until midnight, at which time also Eutychus, sinking down into a deep sleep and falling, threw those who heard him into confusion, as one who was dead.
If then it is true that 'by much speaking you will not escape sin,' and it is also true that Solomon did not sin greatly in proclaiming the things aforementioned, nor Paul in extending his teaching until midnight, then we must inquire what 'much speaking' is, and from there proceed to see what the 'many books' are. Now the whole Word of God -- the Word who was in the beginning with God -- is not much-speaking; for it does not consist of [many] words: it is one Word composed of many contemplations, each contemplation being a part of the whole Word. But those things outside of this, which profess to contain a narrative and an account of whatever sort -- even if, as concerning truth, they are accounts -- and, to say something rather paradoxical, none of them is a single account, but each is many accounts. For nowhere in them is there unity, and nowhere concord and oneness; but because that one thing among them has been torn apart and set at variance, it has perished, and numbers have come to be -- and perhaps infinite numbers. So that on this reckoning we may say that he who utters whatever is alien to piety speaks much, but he who speaks the things of truth, even if he says all things so as to omit nothing, always speaks one account, and the saints do not speak much, holding fast to the one account according to the aim [of truth]. If then much-speaking is judged from the doctrines and not from the delivery of many words, see whether in this way we can say that all the holy [Scriptures] are one book, but that the things outside them are many.
But since I need testimony from the divine Scripture -- if I can set this forth most forcefully -- having established that concerning Christ, according to us, it is not written in one single book, we who understand 'the books' in the more common sense. For it is written also in the Pentateuch; and it is spoken also in each of the prophets and in the Psalms; and, in short, as the Savior himself says, in all the Scriptures -- to which he sends us back when he says: 'Search the Scriptures, because you think that in them you have eternal life; and it is they that testify concerning me.' If then he sends us to the Scriptures as testifying concerning him, he does not send us to this one but not to that one, but to all that proclaim concerning him -- which in the Psalms he calls the 'heading' of a book, saying: 'In the heading of the book it is written concerning me.' For he who wishes simply to understand 'in the heading of the book' as referring to any single one of the books that contain the things concerning him, let him declare by what reasoning he prefers this book to another. For lest anyone suppose that we are referring the saying to the book of Psalms itself, one must say to him that it ought to have been said: 'In this book it is written concerning me.' But as it is, he says that all [Scripture] is one 'heading,' because the account concerning himself that has come to us is summed up into one. And what of the book seen by John, written on the front and on the back, and sealed, which no one was able to read and to loose its seals, except the Lion from the tribe of Judah, the Root of David, who has the key of David, and who opens and no one shall shut, and shuts and no one shall open? For it is the whole of Scripture that is signified by this book -- written 'on the front' on account of its plain, ready sense, and 'on the back' on account of its recondite and spiritual sense.
It must be observed in addition to these things whether it can be demonstrative of the point that the holy [writings] amount to a single book, while those of the opposite character amount to many, the fact that in the case of the living there is one book, from which those who have become unworthy of it are blotted out, as it is written: 'Let them be blotted out of the book of the living'; whereas in the case of those subject to judgment, books are brought forth -- for Daniel says: 'The judgment was set, and the books were opened.' And Moses too bears witness to the oneness of the divine book, saying: 'If indeed you forgive the people their sin, forgive it; but if not, blot me out of your book which you have written.' I also understand the passage in Isaiah in this way: for it is not peculiar to this prophecy alone that the words of the book are sealed, being read neither by the one who does not know letters, because he does not know letters, nor by the one who knows letters, because the book is sealed. But this also holds true of every Scripture, which needs the one who will close the word and the one who will open it: for 'this one will shut and no one shall open'; and when he opens, no one can any longer bring any difficulty against the clarity that comes from him; for this reason it is said that he will open and no one shall shut. I take in like manner also the book spoken of in Ezekiel, in which was written lamentation, and song, and woe. For every [true] book contains the 'woe' concerning those who are perishing, and the 'song' concerning those who are being saved, and the 'lamentation' concerning those in between. But also John, in eating the one 'heading,' in which was written the things behind and the things in front, has understood the whole of Scripture as one book -- sweetest at the beginnings, as one understands it, when someone chews upon it, but bitter to the perception of each one who comes to know, as it is disclosed concerning himself. I will add further, for the demonstration of this, an apostolic saying not understood by the followers of Marcion, who on this account reject the gospels: for since the apostle says 'according to my gospel in Christ Jesus,' and does not say 'gospels,' those men, fastening upon this, say that, there not being several gospels, the apostle spoke of 'the gospel' in the singular -- not understanding that, just as he whom the several [evangelists] proclaim is one, so too the gospel that has been recorded by the many is, in power, one; and the gospel that truly exists through the four is one gospel.
If then these things can persuade us as to what indeed the 'one book' is and what the 'many' are, I am now concerned rather -- not on account of the quantity of things written, but on account of the force of what is understood -- lest I ever fall into transgressing the commandment, if I should set forth anything contrary to the truth as though it were truth, even in one of the things I write; for in that case I shall have written 'many books.' And now, since under the pretext of knowledge the heterodox are rising up against the holy Church of Christ and bringing forward compositions of many books, professing a narration of the evangelical and apostolic words, if we keep silent and do not set the true and sound doctrines over against them, they will prevail over the greedy souls, which, for lack of saving food, rush toward the forbidden and truly unclean and abominable foods. For this reason it seems to me necessary that the one who is able to advocate on behalf of the ecclesiastical word without corruption, and to refute those who wield the falsely-named 'knowledge,' should take his stand against the fabrications of the heretics, setting over against them the height of the evangelical proclamation, filled with the harmony of doctrines common to what is called the Old [Covenant] and to what is named the New Covenant. You yourself indeed, for want of those advocating the better things, unable to bear an irrational and untutored faith, out of love for Jesus once gave yourself over to certain doctrines, from which afterward, rightly employing the understanding given to you, having judged them as they deserved, you departed. I say these things according to what seems to me, defending those who are able to speak and write; but defending myself, lest perhaps, not being of such a disposition as ought to belong to one made sufficient by God to be a minister of the new covenant, not of the letter but of the spirit, I give myself over rather too boldly to dictating.