Homilies on Psalms 36–38 — Praefatio (Rufinus's prologue, to Apronianus)
Latin source: Rufinus of Aquileia's own preface, to Apronianus, prefixed to his Latin translation of Origen's homilies on Psalms 36, 37, and 38 (c. 401), from J.-P. Migne (ed.), Patrologia Graeca 12 (Paris, 1862), col. 1319. This English translation is released into the public domain.On the exposition of the thirty-sixth, thirty-seventh, and thirty-eighth psalms.
Since the exposition of the thirty-sixth, thirty-seventh, and thirty-eighth psalms is wholly moral, setting forth certain instructions for a more amended life, and teaching now the path of conversion and repentance, now the path of purgation and of advances, therefore, Apronianus, dearest son, I have translated it into Latin for you, arranged into nine little discourses, which the Greeks call homilies, as into a single body, so that you might have collected within one volume a discourse which looks wholly to the amendment or the improvement of morals. This reading will indeed confer this benefit, that without labor on the reader's part its understanding is held in plain view — namely, that this very simplicity may be taught with a lucid sense and simple speech, whereby the prophecy may be able to reach not only men but also devout women, and to refine simple minds: lest perchance my devout daughter, your sister in Christ, be ungrateful for our work, if she were always to feel it laborious to her understanding on account of the harshness of the questions; for neither could the human body have consisted of sinews and bones alone, unless divine Providence had woven into them either the softness of flesh or the comforts of fat.