RUFINUS TURRANIUS. - Ecclesiastical writer, b. at Concordia in eastern Venetia ca. 345 from the Turannia family, of which local records survive; he studied at Rome, where he had St. Jerome (v.) as a companion, and moved to Aquileia when St. Valerian was bishop there (he was bishop before 371), where he was instructed by Chromatius, then a priest and later bishop of Aquileia (v.), and by the deacons Jovinus and Eusebius; there he was baptized and made profession of the monastic life. Here he renewed his friendship with Jerome, who had hastened there from Trier.
Around 373 a "subitus turbo," an "impia avulsio," as Jerome himself put it, broke up the group that had formed around them. R. then betook himself again to Rome and in 374 accompanied Melania the Elder (v.), the great Christian lady, to Egypt and remained among the monks, while Melania went on to Palestine. At Alexandria, R. listened to Didymus the Blind (v.), studied the works of Origen and of the Greek Fathers, made the acquaintance of John, the future bishop of Jerusalem, and of Theophilus, the future patriarch of Alexandria, and had to endure violence at the hands of the Arians. In 378-79, R. joined Melania at Jerusalem, took up residence in the monastery on the Mount of Olives and was ordained priest in 390. For Easter of 393 Epiphanius, bishop of Salamis, arrived at Jerusalem to combat Origenism there against bishop John, who was supported by R. and by Melania, and he found a hearing with Jerome, who was living at Bethlehem with Paula: hence the first rupture between him and R., which was nevertheless patched up in 397. In that year R. returned to the West, wholly intent on making the Eastern Fathers known there, and in Lent of 398 he published the translation of Origen's De principiis (Περὶ Ἀρχῶν), which did not fail to cause scandal. His having in the preface alluded to the admiration Jerome had once had for Origen provoked the second rupture between the two, which was the cause of an unpleasant controversy between them. In 398-99 R., on the occasion of his mother's death, returned to Aquileia and there met Paulinian, Jerome's brother, already ordained priest. Chromatius (bishop from 388) intervened to restore peace between R. and Jerome (Jerome, Contra Rufin., III, n. 2), without however succeeding, and urged R. to translate Eusebius of Caesarea's Ecclesiastical History. The upheavals caused by the barbarian invasions, particularly dangerous in eastern Venetia, induced R. to leave Aquileia and to rejoin Melania at Rome; with her and with other relatives of hers he moved around 408 to a villa on the Strait of Messina, and there he died in 411.
R.'s importance in Western Christian literature consists first of all in his versions from the Greek. He knows how to translate with exactness and scruple, yet many times he proceeds with great freedom, going so far as omissions, additions and modifications of the text. Of this freedom of method R. gives ample proof in his version of Eusebius' Ecclesiastical History, in which he reduced the author's ten books to nine, removing what seemed to him important from the tenth and joining it to the ninth; he then added two more books of his own to carry the narrative from 324 to 395 (the death of Theodosius). But certainly history was not R.'s strong point.
R.'s preferences go toward Origen, whose works he began to esteem during his stay at Alexandria and never afterward abandoned. In his short work De adulteratione librorum Origenis (PG 17, 615-32) he went so far as to maintain that the passages of Origen that conflicted with orthodoxy had been misinterpreted or corrupted by heretics; it is no wonder after this that, in translating the Περὶ Ἀρχῶν, R. was led to soften and modify Origen's text in many places (ibid., 11, 115-414, where the fragments of the original Greek text are interspersed). He added two prefaces, one to book I and the other to book III. Of his translations of Origen there are known 17 homilies on Genesis, 13 on Exodus, 16 on Leviticus, 28 on Numbers, 26 on Joshua, 9 on Judges (ibid., 12, 145-990); furthermore 5 homilies on Psalm 36, 2 on Psalm 37 and 2 on Psalm 38 (ibid., 1319-1410). He also translated the prologue to the Song of Songs, 3 books and part of the fourth (ibid., 13, 61-198); and also the 10 books of the commentary on the Epistle to the Romans (ibid., 14, 833-1294). His admiration for Origen led R. to translate the first of the 5 books of the Apology that the martyr Pamphilus had written about him (ibid., 17, 541-610), and this is all that has been preserved of that work. R. also considered as a work of Origen the De recta in Deum fidem (ibid., 11, 1715-1884) of Adamantius and hastened to translate it in order to demonstrate by it the orthodoxy of Origen. R. himself attests that he translated 10 orations of St. Basil and as many of St. Gregory Nazianzen. There remain 8 under the name of St. Basil (ibid., 31, 1723-95) on various subjects, but the seventh is not by St. Basil; nine of St. Gregory. Of Basil, R. also translated the two Partium monachorum, forming from them a kind of catechism in 203 questions and answers. Translations from Evagrius are also known, and that of the Sententiae survives (cf. A. Wilmart, in Rev. bénédict., 28 [1911], p. 143). R. also translated that religious romance which bears the title Recognitiones Clementinae, of which the original text is not extant (PG 1, 1205-1454); thus he translated the epistle of Peter to James that precedes the apocryphal homilies of Clement (ibid., 2, 31-56). It is now known that the collection Vitae Patrum (Historia eremitica, Historia monachorum: PL 21, 387-462) is also a translation from the Greek, a collection of lives of monks in which, taking occasion from a journey in Egypt, he makes known monastic persons and customs (cf. C. Butler, The Lausiac history of Palladius [Cambridge 1898, 1904], against A. Preuschen, Palladius und Rufinus [Giessen 1898], which publishes the Greek text). Quite doubtful is the attribution to R. of the version of Josephus' De bello Iudaico. His, on the other hand, is the translation of the Sentences of Sextus, the work of a Pythagorean philosopher, reworked by a Christian, comprising 451 proverbs; R. believed it written by Pope Sixtus II and was taken to task for this by St. Jerome.
R.'s original output is far more limited; besides the aforementioned De adulteratione and the two books of the History, it comprises the two books De benedictionibus Patriarcharum, a commentary on Jacob's blessings to his sons (Gen. 49, 11 ff.), written at the request of bishop Paolinus, in which he shows his predilection for Origenist exegesis (PL 21, 295-336). Of greater importance is the Commentarius in symbolum Apostolorum, written around 404 at the request of an unknown bishop Laurentius (ibid., 335-86), the first that has survived on this theme, in which the author sets out to explain the baptismal Symbol of Aquileia that he himself had professed at Baptism and that differed somewhat from that of Rome. He has as his source the catecheses of St. Cyril of Jerusalem. The Origenist controversies with St. Jerome are referred to in the Apologia ad Anastasiam Romanae urbis episcopum (ibid., 623-28, written in 400), in which he professes his orthodoxy regarding the rumors circulated against him over the translation of Origen's De principiis. Finally the Apologia in Hieronymum in two books dedicated to Apronianus (ibid., 541-624), in which he again explains his own doctrinal position, refuting the accusations against him and imputing to Jerome also his passion for the classics. Other works have been lost and others falsely attributed (cf. ibid., 633 ff.).
Bibliography11 works
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