Tyrannius Rufinus

Tyrannius Rufinus or Rufinus of Aquileia ("Rufinus Aquileiensis") (between 340 and 345 – 410) was a monk, historian, and theologian. He is most known as a translator of Greek patristic material into Latin—especially the work of Origen.

Life

Rufinus was born in 344 or 345 in the roman city of Julia Concordia (now Concordia Sagittaria), near Aquileia (in modern-day Italy) at the head of the Adriatic Sea. It appears that both of his parents were Christians.

Around 370, he was living in a monastic community in Aquileia when he met Jerome. In about 372, Rufinus travelled to the eastern Mediterranean, where he studied in Alexandria under Didymus the Blind for some time. From there he moved to Jerusalem, where he founded a monastery.

He first settled in Egypt, hearing the lectures of Didymus, the Origenistic head of the catechetical school at Alexandria, and also cultivating friendly relations with Macanus the elder and other ascetics in the desert. In Egypt, if not even before leaving Italy, he had become intimately acquainted with Melania the Elder, a wealthy and devout Roman widow; and when she removed to Palestine, taking with her a number of clergy and monks on whom the persecutions of the Arian Valens had borne heavily, Rufinus (about 378) followed her.

While his patroness lived in a convent of her own in Jerusalem, Rufinus, at her expense, gathered together a number of monks in a monastery on the Mount of Olives, devoting himself at the same time to the study of Greek theology. This combination. of the contemplative life and the life of learning had already developed in the Egyptian monasteries. When Jerome came to Bethlehem in 386, the friendship formed at Aquileia was renewed. Another of the intimates of Rufinus was John, bishop of Jerusalem, and formerly a Nitrian monk, by whom he was ordained to the priesthood in 390.

In 394, in consequence of the attack upon the doctrines of Origen made by Epiphanius of Salamis during a visit to Jerusalem, a fierce quarrel broke out, which found Rufinus and Jerome on different sides; and, though three years afterwards a formal reconciliation was brought about between Jerome and John, the breach between Jerome and Rufinus remained unhealed.

In the autumn of 397 Rufinus embarked for Rome, where, finding that the theological controversies of the East were exciting much interest and curiosity, he published a Latin translation of the Apology of Pamphilus for Origen, and also (398-99) a somewhat free rendering of the "Περι Αρχων" (or "De Principiis") of that author himself. In the preface to the latter work he referred to Jerome as an admirer of Origen, and as having already translated some of his works with modifications of ambiguous doctrinal expressions. This allusion annoyed Jerome, who was exceedingly sensitive as to his reputation for orthodoxy, and the consequence was a bitter pamphlet war, very wonderful to the modern onlooker, who finds it difficult to see anything discreditable in the accusation against a biblical scholar that he had once thought well of Origen, or in the countercharge against a translator that he had avowedly exercised editorial functions as well.

At the instigation of Theophilus of Alexandria, Pope Anastasius I summoned Rufinus from Aquileia to Rome to vindicate his orthodoxy; but he excused himself from a personal attendance in a written "Apologia pro fide sua". The pope in his reply expressly condemned Origen, but left the question of Rufinus's orthodoxy to his own conscience. He was, however, regarded with suspicion in orthodox circles (cf. the "Decretum Gelasii", 20) in spite of his services to Christian literature.

In 408 we find Rufinus at the monastery of Pinetum (in the Campagna?); thence he was driven by the arrival of Alaric to Sicily, being accompanied by Melania in his flight. In Sicily he was engaged in translating the "Homilies" of Origen when he died in 410.

Works

Original Works

* "Commentarius in symbolum apostolorum": a commentary on the Apostles' Creed which gives evidence of its use and interpretation in 4th-century Italy. Many of his extant works are defenses of himself against attacks by Jerome.
*"De Adulteratione Librorum Origenis"--an appendix to his translation of the "Apology" of Pamphilus, and intended to show that many of the features in Origen's teaching which were then held to be objectionable arise from interpolations and falsifications of the genuine text
*"De Benedictionibus XII Patriarcharum Libri II"--an exposition of Gen. xlix.
*"Apologia s. Invectivarum in Hieronymum Libri II"
*"Apologia pro Fide Sua ad Anastasium Pontificem"
*"Historia Eremitica"--consisting of the lives of thirty-three monks of the Nitrian desert

Translations from Greek to Latin

Rufinus translated the "Historia Ecclesiastica" ("Church History") of Eusebius of Caesarea and continued the work from the reign of Constantine I to the death of Theodosius I (395). It was published in 402 or 403.

Origen's commentary on the New Testament Epistle to the Romans survives only in an abbreviated version by Rufinus; his "De principiis" ("On first principals") also survives only in Rufinus's translation. Jerome, earlier a friend of Rufinus, fell out with him and wrote at least three works opposing his opinions and condemning his translations as flawed. For instance, Jerome prepared a (now lost) translation of Origen's "De principiis" to replace Rufinus's translation, which Jerome said was too free.

The other translations of Rufinus are
#the "Instituta Monachorum" and some of the "Homilies" of Basil of Caesarea
#the "Apology" of Pamphilus, referred to above
#Origen's "Principia"
#Origen's "Homilies" (Gen. Kings, also Cant, and Rom.)
#"Opuscula" of Gregory of Nazianzus
#the "Sententiae" of Sixtus, an unknown Greek philosopher
#the "Sententiae" of Evagrius
#the "Clementine Recognitions" (the only form in which that work is now extant)
#the "Canon Paschalis" of Anatolius Alexandrinus.

Influence

We can hardly overestimate the influence which Rufinus exerted on Western theologians by thus putting the great Greek fathers into the Latin tongue. Dominic Vallarsi's uncompleted edition of "Rufous" (vol. i. fol. Verona, 1745) contains the "De Benedictionibus", the "Apologies", the "Expositlo Symboli", the "Historia Eremitica" and the two original books of the "Hist. Eccl". See also Migne, "Patrol." (vol. xxi. of the Latin series). For the translations, see the various editions of Origen, Eusebius, etc.

References

See WH Freemantle in "Dict. Chr. Biog." iv.555-560; A Ebert, "Allg. Gesch. d. Litt. d. Mittelalters im Abendlande", i.321-327 (Leipzig, 1889); G Kruger in Hauck-Herzog's "Realencyk. für prot. Theol.", where there is a full bibliography.
*1911

External links

* [http://www.documentacatholicaomnia.eu/20_40_0345-0410-_Rufinus_Aquileiensis.html Opera Omnia by Migne Patrologia Latina]